August

by Bernard Beckett

  Tristan finished, pleased to find the fog clearing from his tired brain. Again the rector smiled.

  ‘Thank you. You have brought us quickly to the point that troubles me most. For, yes, you and I do appear to be morally responsible creatures. You and I do appear to make choices. In our behaviour we are neither random, like a speck of dust buffeted in its cloud, nor predictable, like the ball atop its ramp. Our actions then need further explanation. We are driven by something more: an apparent capacity to pilot our own vessel. Some call it the soul. Only…’ he brought his fingers to his chin and leaned forward, as if drawing the words up from some deep dark well, ‘only, we are beginning to discover things that, well, they challenge me.

  ‘Tristan, what will follow will not always be pleasant. But knowledge is never easy; it is the fruit of battle and if our lives are to mean anything we must be prepared for the fight.

  ‘I could say more, but now is not the time. I will let you rest and consider the things we have discussed. You will live here now. The less you know, the more I can be sure our results will not be tainted. This morning has been a promising start. Thank you.’

  A short man dressed in a technician’s white coat entered the room.

  ‘Tristan, this is Simon. He will show you to your room.’

  Tristan felt cheated. Where was the fight he longed to have, even if defeat was certain?

  ‘And if I refuse to comply?’ he asked.

  ‘You should have thought of that before you chose to betray us,’ the rector replied.

  Tristan considered standing his ground, but with every second the gesture became more childish. He banked his remaining dignity and turned.

  At first glance his room was most agreeable. It too was painted white. There was a small comfortable bed, more luxurious than anything Tristan had experienced in the dormitories, a chair and, in an adjoining room, a toilet and sink with clear running water. Tristan was exhausted and fell easily into sleep. Only on waking did he discover himself a prisoner.

  The room’s steady light appeared to glow from the walls. There were no windows and Tristan could find no other source, or detect any shadows. The only door, leading back out into what he remembered as a short dark corridor, was locked. He knocked loudly and waited, but there was no response.

  In the steady, white light there was no means of measuring the passing time. One moment Tristan was sure only minutes had elapsed since waking; the next a creeping paranoia convinced him whole days were slipping by unnoticed. From there, it was a small step to imagine he had been left to die. He had been naïve to think a boy who had dared question the wisdom of the Holy Council would be treated in any other way. His hunger grew, fed by the imagined hours. He sat in the chair and counted his pulse as a way of marking time. He studied the tap, the drains and the toilet, seeking a weakness in the room’s defences: some crack of natural light or the hint of a draught. He found nothing. He knocked again. He cried. He composed his protests, imagined improbable escapes and tried to ignore his thirst, so that the end would be less protracted.

  When Simon finally returned he told Tristan that two days had passed. Tristan could think of no reason to trust him.

  Simon led him back to the interrogation room. There was no sign of the bust or the ramp. Only the rector was present, smiling his greeting as if Tristan had been gone only a matter of minutes.

  ‘What are you doing to me?’ Tristan demanded.

  ‘It was unpleasant, I imagine,’ the rector replied. ‘If it is any consolation, it was designed to be that way.’

  ‘How could that be a consolation?’ Tristan felt his fury returning. Simon left, closing the door behind him. It was just the two of them again, set in opposition, afloat in the whiteness. The rector spoke quietly, his eyes soft with concern, his voice smooth and reasonable.

  ‘I suppose I meant that if I was to suffer in such a way I would not wish to think my pain was without purpose. You can return to being fed, with a clock in the room and the lights switched off during the hours of darkness, as soon as you like. You have only to ask.’

  ‘I did ask,’ Tristan protested. ‘I knocked but nobody came. I shouted. I cried out.’

  ‘Yes, unfortunately we needed to acclimatise you first. But now that you see clearly the shape of your suffering, you may ask to end it. Would you like it to end?’

  But with the rector nothing was simple.

  ‘Of course I would like it to end.’

  ‘Good.’ The rector smiled. ‘I would be the same, I am sure. Put out your hands, please.’

  Tristan did as he was asked. The rector stooped to pick up a small box that until then had been hidden by his legs. From the box he lifted a kitten. Its soft fur was as white as the room, giving unnatural depth to its wide pleading eyes. The rector passed the trembling creature to Tristan. He felt its puny heart beating out terror’s accelerated time.

  ‘All you need to do,’ the rector said, ‘is break the kitten’s neck. Do that and your fast will be broken, your confinement relieved.’

  Tristan had killed animals before. It was one of the tasks in the kitchen and no boy, no matter how delicate, was spared the duty. But never a kitten. And never like this. The creature sat powerless in his hands as Tristan stood powerless before the rector, a line of empathy that, irrational though it may have been, could not be denied. It was the twitching nervousness of the face, the expanse of its eyes. And for what? Some tired philosophical abstraction? The rector’s amusement?

  ‘I can’t,’ Tristan said, and the sound of the words echoing in the room made him feel strong and certain. ‘It is cruel and pointless and I won’t be part of it.’

  ‘Then you will be returned to your room,’ the rector said, ‘and the conditions will not be altered. Are you sure?’

  ‘I am sure,’ Tristan replied, steadfast and proud. ‘If that is my punishment, then I shall bear it.’

  ‘Very well, pass me the animal. Thank you. Now look inside the box. There is an envelope. Take it back to your room with you. Do not read the note inside until you are there. We will talk again.’

  ‘When?’ Tristan asked. ‘How long will you leave me this time?’

  ‘Time is complicated, Tristan,’ the rector replied.

  His cell was as he had left it. Still without food, Tristan’s stomach was beginning to cramp. He lay on the bed, resolving to sleep as much as possible in an attempt to conserve his energy. But first there was the note.

  Tristan will be offered release on the condition that he kill the kitten. He will choose not to kill it and so will be returned to the room. He will come to regret his decision.

  No time ticked, no shadows moved, no noise penetrated Tristan’s empty cell. He felt himself shrinking.

  Grace gave a dismissive grunt, jolting Tristan from his story.

  ‘That’s the problem with you St Augustine’s boys,’ she said. ‘You’re all so smart it’s made you stupid.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s a simple trick,’ she sighed. ‘No street child would have fallen for it.’

  ‘It was no trick.’

  ‘He puts one envelope in the box. If you refuse to kill the kitten he gives it to you. If you’d killed it, he would have produced another envelope, perhaps from his pocket, containing the opposite prediction, just as accurate, just as frightening.’

  Tristan had reached the same conclusion as soon as the shock had passed. He had not included it in his story for a simple reason. It was wrong.

  ‘I know things you don’t know,’ he said, regretting at once all that must follow.

  ‘I doubt that,’ Grace replied with a calm confidence that recalled the rector.

  ‘You do not know my story,’ he said.

  ‘So tell me.’

  ‘You interrupted.’

  ‘Do you think we will die?’ she asked.

  ‘We all die eventually.’

  ‘It’s the timing that concerns me.’

  ‘It concerned the rector too,’ Tris
tan replied, pulling her back to his tale. He didn’t feel strong enough yet to invite death into the conversation.

  Two more days passed. Tristan spent the time drifting between sleep and stupor. His hunger became muted and his sense of panic less severe. In his lucid moments he thought of the young woman. He imagined her back at the chapel, the candlelight on her face dancing in time to the choir’s singing, and he conjured grand dreams of meeting her again. He remembered the body he had sketched for the rector, and it became her body. Such sweet thoughts took the place of sustenance and he rolled easily into sleepy hallucinations.

  The next time he stood before the rector, Tristan was determined to give nothing away. Four days without food had weakened his body but strengthened his resolve. Tristan swayed, trying to find his balance. The light bled at the edges of his vision, causing the rector to come into and out of focus.

  ‘You must be hungry,’ the rector said.

  ‘There are worse things to be.’

  ‘I always imagined that was the sort of thing people with full stomachs said.’

  ‘I’d rather be hungry than helpless,’ Tristan replied.

  ‘The note must have come as a surprise.’

  ‘I am not impressed by a note,’ Tristan told him. ‘I assume there were others.’

  The rector held Tristan’s stare and reached into the folds of his gown. He produced another envelope.

  ‘Take this now, Tristan, lest there be any further misunderstanding. I’ll not have accusations of trickery. In a moment you may open it. But first I have a question for you.’

  Tristan held the envelope in his fingertips, the future in his hands.

  ‘What is your question?’

  ‘The night we caught you coming back through the tunnel after witnessing the passing, who was it you spoke to outside the chapel?’

  The rector smiled as Tristan lurched before him.

  ‘Nobody, I talked to nobody.’

  ‘There was a convent girl there,’ the rector continued, as if the words had not registered, ‘comforting the mothers. Her name is Grace. She is two years older than you. Is there anything you would like to know about her?’

  As if the rector could read his very thoughts. Tristan shook the possibility from his head. Someone had followed him, that was all.

  ‘What can I tell you about her, Tristan?’ the rector repeated.

  Where should he start? Tristan wanted to know what made her laugh, and cry. He wanted to know the smells of her childhood and the rhythm of her breath when she slept. He wanted to know of the dreams she had never shared and from whom she’d learnt her graceful way of moving. He wanted to know if she had promised herself to God, and, if she had, how Tristan might challenge his maker to a duel. But he asked none of these questions. She did not belong in that barren room. Tristan stared at his feet.

  ‘Very well then, perhaps my question needs refining. Perhaps what you say is true. Perhaps you didn’t talk to her. But she talked to you. Repeat her words to me. I am sure you’ve not forgotten them. Do that and your reward will be food, control of the lighting in your room, the freedom to roam. Think carefully how you answer, for your response is already written. You hold it in your hand. Try not to let this fact unsettle you.’

  The rector did nothing to hide his joy, delighting in the guessing game as a child might. Tristan’s hunger tightened, but so did his desire to win.

  What are you? Three simple words he would never forget, although he did not understand them. Tristan stared at the envelope, as if with sufficient concentration he could see through the paper to the message within. It was simple, surely. The rector would guess at his loyalty to her, and bet on him refusing to answer, just as he had refused to kill the kitten. To beat him, then, meant betraying her. The twin urges collided, unmaking his tired mind.

  Tristan looked again at the rector and held his stare, hoping to read some clue there, but the rector’s eyes only crinkled with pleasure. Yes, they mocked, but have I already anticipated your calculation? Suddenly a third possibility presented itself. Tristan dismissed the first option and let a coin tumble inside his head.

  Tails. It was decided.

  ‘All right then,’ Tristan said. ‘You win. She said, “You don’t belong here.” That was all. She fled before I could say anything in return.’

  He delivered the lie without stumbling, holding the rector’s unblinking eye.

  ‘That is all I will tell you. You will not get another detail from me. Now where is my food?’

  ‘I will ask for nothing more,’ the rector assured him. ‘I am not the cheating type. Open the envelope.’

  Tristan will be asked what the girl said to him. He will answer, but his answer will be a lie.

  Tristan dropped the paper to the floor and bent forward, hands on knees, breathing deeply. The world swam. A droplet of sweat grew too heavy for his forehead and dripped to the floor.

  ‘Don’t worry, Tristan, you will be fed. This part of the experiment is over. I will see you when you have eaten.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to betray you. I thought I could outwit him, but I was a child beating my fists against a giant. I thought then I would never be a match for him.’

  Telling it now, the shaking returned, the great echoing emptiness reverberating across the years.

  Tristan felt Grace’s impatient wriggling.

  ‘Another simple trick,’ she spat.

  ‘I know what you are going to say.’

  He wished she wouldn’t do this: struggle as he had struggled. He wanted her to be still and listen, that her pain might not be made worse. But she would not, could not. Such was her trajectory.

  ‘How many possibilities are there?’ Grace demanded. ‘You tell the truth, you lie, you refuse to answer. So only three envelopes are needed. He didn’t say how you would lie. He didn’t know the details. You have no way of knowing there weren’t other boys in other rooms, subject to the same experiments. Perhaps there were six of you, enough to guarantee a hit. How do you know there weren’t? How do you know chance is not the author of your story?’

  ‘Do you think I would be telling you this, if it was all I had?’

  ‘You sounded impressed,’ she said.

  ‘I was impressed.’

  ‘By a cheap trick.’

  ‘By what followed the trick,’ he countered.

  ‘But you didn’t know what was to follow. You were stupid from the start.’

  A great shiver took possession of Tristan’s head, a pain like that caused by an intense burst of coldness, compressing to a point deep beneath his temple. He gagged, but his throat was dry. Again the world was moving in on him. How long was it since he had known anything, since knowing could be relied upon?

  ‘I wish you were right,’ he said.

  She moved and he felt her cheek rise to his. They lay quietly for a moment, the boy from the experiment and the girl from the chapel. Something like happiness washed over him. The wind had eased and the rain now beat a constant rhythm on the car floor above them. Tristan felt water pooling at his elbow.

  ‘Will you tell me what happened next,’ Grace murmured, ‘if I promise to keep quiet?’

  ‘Just promise to do your best,’ he said. ‘The rest is beyond us.’

  Tristan was given food as promised, along with a clock and control of the lights. Simon delivered the meal and sat beside him while he ate, offering inconsequential conversation. The next morning when Tristan was called back before the rector he felt heavier, more solid in the world, and with this weight came ambition. The envelopes were nothing more than a series of tricks, a test devised by the rector, which Tristan would learn to master. It was expected of him. He expected it of himself.

  A desk had been moved into the white room and the rector sat at it, hands clasped behind his neck, stomach denting where it met the polished wood. There was one other chair, and the rector nodded for Tristan to sit.

  Between them on the desk sat a finely finished pewter binary cradle. It rocked sl
owly to one side and then the other, each oscillation taking the better part of a minute. The grace of the gradual tilting mesmerised Tristan. He had seen a diagram of such a piece in the library, but had not been aware the college owned a working model. When the tilt reached a critical angle a hundred tiny ball bearings rolled out of their holding rut and poured through a delicate confusion of branching passages. The running balls made a sound like the rainstorms Tristan remembered on the tin roof of his childhood home. He observed the way each potential pathway forked and rejoined, like the braids of a river. The balls jostled and rolled their way along the possibilities, like children rushing to play. The paths resolved into seven chutes where the balls collected. A finely set spring then collapsed the chutes, delivering the balls to another holding rut, ready for the next iteration. The rector said nothing as they watched the perpetual stream of crafted chance unfold. Tristan bided his time, knowing the silence would not last.

  ‘Observe any ball, Tristan.’ The rector spoke slowly, his voice carefully modulated, his eyes fixed on the boy. ‘There is no way of knowing which of the many paths it will take. You can guess, but your guess will be wrong far more often than it is right. And yet, if we view the hundred ball bearings not individually but as a whole unit, we find a curious thing. The more balls we bring into play, the less difficult it becomes to predict their behaviour. For any oscillation the largest number of balls will end up in the centre chute and as we move out towards the extremes we will find fewer and fewer balls. And I can be even more accurate than that. I can predict the ratio of balls in the centre to balls at the ends of any of the other paths. My guesses will not be perfect, but they will be close. They will fall within what you might like to think of as a margin of error. And as we aggregate my guesses over more and more trials, that margin will become smaller and smaller. The future turns scrutable. Look closely.’

  The rector reached for the cradle and for a moment stilled its rocking so that the balls paused, ready for release. He traced a path with his finger. ‘Imagine a ball set free at the centre. At the first fork it might go left, and at the second fork, left again, and then left at the third. But to go left at each of the six branches requires a degree of unlikelihood we can easily calculate. One half to the power of six, or one chance in sixty-four. So one in sixty-four balls will end up here, on average. On a run of a hundred balls you will see one ball here, or sometimes two, other times none. You will not see nine or ten. That is the law of averages. But while there is only one way of making it to the outside, there are many, many ways to end up in the centre. A left followed by a right perhaps, then another left. Or perhaps two lefts, followed by a right. Chance begins to cancel itself out. Watch, now they run, and see the way this happens: many paths converging into a few. From the chaos emerges pattern.