The Testimony

by James Smythe

  I snuck out and went to the synagogue. It was so busy that I couldn’t actually get in for the service, so I had to join the queue to get into the next one along. Apparently they were going to start doing blessings on the lawns of Central Park, just to fit everybody in, as if it were some sort of rock festival, and the rabbis were playing guitars with their teeth.

  Isabella Dulli, nun, Vatican City

  Nobody missed me when I was down in the tomb, and it wasn’t until somebody came down to pray to St Peter that they realized I was there. The lights came on and woke me up. I was sleeping in the dirt on the floor, so close to Him, trying to get closer. Sister Dulli, are you okay? It was one of the Cardinals, one I didn’t really know, but he knew my name. He was Spanish, I think, and he spoke to me in creaky Italian that I had to strain to understand. Let me help you up. He was older than I was, and frailer; I think I remember that he had ill health, something to do with his breathing. He wheezed, certainly, all that dead air down in the tomb. He tried to let me use him to pull myself to my feet, but I did most of the work myself, truth be told. How long have you been down here? He seemed genuinely concerned. Not long, I said. He didn’t ask why I was there; when I was upright he leaned back against one of the guard railings that we put up to keep the tourists back. It’s amazing, isn’t it? To think that this is all validated now.

  What do you mean? I asked him, and he smiled. Well, you know. People say you’re insane for believing this. The last few years, you know how it’s been. Harder to follow Him, eh? The Cardinal must have seen my face then, whatever I looked like. It wasn’t harder for you, I understand. Faith is all subjective, eh? You didn’t believe? I asked. He shook his head. No, no, I did. Something is lost in the translation, I think. I believed, but there was always a worry, a wonder. A question, eh? He smiled, because he thought that this was normal, but I wanted to shake him, tell him that I never questioned it. And The Broadcast, it wasn’t validation, it was a lie. Evidence isn’t a voice in the darkness, I said, you can’t really believe that it is. No, he said, of course not, of course not. We both stood in and looked at the tomb, at the other graves that they unearthed over the years, until I couldn’t stand it any more. I need to get fresh air, I said. He nodded. It’s a wonderful day, he said. I didn’t reply.

  Outside, the light was so much brighter than I expected, and it took me a few seconds there, in the Basilica itself, to get accustomed. It was so busy, people crowding like they did in the queues outside, like they did when there was a mass or the Pope’s birthday, or even a new Pope’s address, when they spoke to the people for the first time and told them that they were God’s chosen one, His representative here, His heart, His voice. I couldn’t see for them for the first few seconds before they parted briefly, and the light from behind the Baldaccino was so bright. Everybody was singing hymns again, but it all dropped away. They listened for the voice, for that blunt reassurance; I saw the light of the Lord, and that was all I needed. I fell to my knees and wept; they crowded me, putting their arms around me. We know, they said, it’s a miracle, a miracle. You don’t know, I told them, don’t tell me what you think you know.

  Audrey Clave, linguistics postgraduate student, Marseilles

  France was in really good shape, actually. Before The Broadcast we were sort of a joke, I think, sitting in the middle of Europe, just bloated and holding all these other places together, like a hub. And as people, we have a reputation. But we only had a couple of days of looting and the suicides, no different to everywhere else, and then we recovered and settled down. We didn’t have the panic that the Americans had, shutting down all their transport links, shutting schools and malls; we just got on with it. Jacques and I decided that we should go on a date, because I couldn’t stop thinking about Patrice, thinking about if I could have stopped him. You need cheering up, Jacques said, we should go and get some dinner. He knew just the place, apparently, down in L’Estaque, past the port itself, right by the seafront. We got a table by the window – business was slow everywhere still, that much hadn’t recovered, so we got one of the best tables easily – and we watched some of the ships, the fishermen off as if this all never happened, and we ate mussels and fries and drank this strong pear cider that Jacques loved. We spoke about The Broadcast, because it was still so there, and so important. Jacques liked to debate about it, talk about the possibilities, what it could mean. We were totally hung up on the Americans attacking Iran that evening, the conversation being about America’s ownership – Jacques’ word – of The Broadcast. In many ways, he said, it’s like they’re actually saying that they own this version of God, you know? That’s typical of them, steam-rolling over everything.

  There was a man behind us having dinner with his wife, and they were both stinking drunk when we arrived, not even started eating yet. Halfway through the meal she stopped drinking but he carried on, and I had to watch them the whole time whilst I tried to eat, watch him as he gulped at his wine, as he slopped cream sauce over his shirt. Our dessert had just arrived when he leaned over toward us. His wife tried to stop him, shooing him off, Don’t say anything, that sort of thing, but he leant in as far as his chair would let him. Hey, he said, so Jacques turned to look at him. Hey, you think everybody here will get into heaven? I don’t know, Jacques said. We’ll have to wait and see. Hey, no, listen, the man said; What I mean is, you think even you niggers will get in? You think that God will have a vetting policy, maybe, stop you getting in before you fuck all our women up there as well? He was looking at me when he said that, and that made Jacques even angrier. Shut up, Jacques told him. He gave him a chance. Hey, I know, the fat drunk said, why not just end it all now, see if you get in, and then you can let all your other brothers know, yeah? So Jacques stood up and punched him first, threw his fist into the man’s face before the manager ran over with a waiter and they pulled them off each other, pushed them both onto the street. I went to watch but the fat drunk’s wife didn’t bother.

  I’d never seen an actual fight before. In the movies it’s all speed and repetition, thumping a face over and over, but in real life it’s much slower. After just two or three punches and some things that looked like kicks but didn’t connect both of them were slower, panting, but Jacques was clearly winning (if it could be called that). I wondered if I shouldn’t be cheering him on, you know? Eventually he just stopped, left the fat drunk on the floor. You’re not worth it, Jacques said, and he spat on the man, this big ball of blood. He had lost a tooth, and his mouth sounded mushy when he talked. No cabs stopped, probably because of the blood, so we waited for a bus back. We sat on the back seats and I put antibacterial gel on his cuts, kept them clean.

  When we got back to his place he took a shower, and I watched him through the open door with his head tilted back, mouth hanging open, the water running in and then dribbling out again, red from his gums. When he got out he told me how bad it was. I’ve lost some teeth, he said. How many? I don’t know, a few. Three or four. I’ll go and see the dentist tomorrow. On the television there was a drama about The Broadcast, the fastest that I had ever seen a programme made, about this man who was doubting God and then heard it and then turned his life around, stopped him from killing himself. It was awful, but it said Based On A True Story at the start, and I thought, Jesus, isn’t everything, almost? In bed, Jacques kissed me and I forgot about the holes in his mouth, and I suddenly got that metal taste on my tongue, so I told him that I was tired and that I had to go to sleep. I just lay there feeling sick, because all I could taste was his blood.

  Andrew Brubaker, White House Chief of Staff, Washington, DC

  I woke up to the news that we’d had another warning; that there was a school right here in DC with a bomb planted. We hadn’t closed schools, because they were off limits, as far as we were concerned. It wasn’t a game, exactly, but there were rules with this sort of thing.

  I mean, Jesus Christ. Who fucking blows up a school? Who thinks that’s fair?

  Samantha Neumark, primary sc
hool teacher, Washington, DC

  Only half the class was in, because the kids’ parents were so worried about possibilities, or they had the days off themselves. Lots of people couldn’t get to work when the trains stopped running, and I think they liked the excuse, so they kept their kids at home. I lived five minutes away, and that was walking, so I didn’t have any excuse, and a lot of the kids were just as local. We were concentrating on reading, working through a book together, all these fairy tales but updated to be about more modern concerns, so Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a bottle of water from the shop there, that kind of thing. We were reading that together, slowly, so we picked that up where we left off. I didn’t notice the extra car in the lot, because nobody would ever notice that sort of thing, even though afterward, the police insisted that I would have seen it as I walked in. I didn’t notice it, it was a car, parked with fifteen, twenty others. We were halfway through the class, and Jennifer Pritchard was reading, and I was about to pass the reading over to Jon Bayliss when the building shook. I remember that I went under my desk as fast as I could, because I grew up in California, and we were quake-trained. We knew, the room shakes, you get under a table or in the frame of a doorway, just do it. I didn’t even think. When I was under I shouted out to the kids to do the same, because by that point I couldn’t even stick my head up to see what was happening; the digi-board had fallen down on top of my desk, and I could hear windows smashing, and children screaming, and I couldn’t do anything. Even when the shaking stopped I could hear the screaming still, and everything got hot, and I knew that we were on fire somewhere, probably the hallway. Shout to me, I screamed, tell me if you’re hurt or alright, but all I got back was screaming.

  My classroom was the other end of the building to the lot, so we got off the best, or the least-bad, that’s a better way to put it. I managed to kick the board away after a few minutes, because I knew that if I didn’t I could die there, when the flames hit the desk. I didn’t stop to look at the bodies in my room. There weren’t as many as there had been kids, so I assumed that some of them made it out, but there were a few. I didn’t stop. Is that awful? I think that I knew they were dead already, and I wanted to get out. Is that awful?

  The exit was next to my classroom, out the back, onto the playground, and the rest of the kids from the school were there on the grass at the back, lying on their backs, some of them coughing, some of them completely still. I knew that I should go over and help them but I couldn’t; I sat on a bench at the side and coughed and cried until the paramedics asked if I was alright. I told them that I wasn’t, so they took me to their ambulance out the side, on the road, away from all those kids. Is that awful? I just couldn’t stand to be there with them.

  Andrew Brubaker, White House Chief of Staff, Washington, DC

  The official response was that a terror cell, fuelled by hatred, had decided to take out their anger on our country. We didn’t sell it as a retaliation for what we had done, because we had attacked their training camps, and we knew that there was a chance that those camps had kids in them, had mothers, whole families. They’re not civilian areas, they’re training camps; we didn’t bomb cities or villages or hospitals or schools. There’s always a chance that people will be in them that you wouldn’t want to kill, but they’re training camps, and you just have to live with that chance. But we didn’t do anything to their families and children on purpose, and they did. Stuff like that? It really helps you to reinforce that you know what side you’re on. We decided that we weren’t going to sit around and wait for it to come to us; we weren’t going to let them make another strike.

  It was like a new motto: We’re America, and you really shouldn’t fuck with us.

  Dominick Volker, drug dealer, Johannesburg

  One of the prats who works for me turned up at the house. He rang the doorbell, so I asked on the intercom who it was, he said, It’s Mick, so I let him in. He was a student, bit of a stropper, but better than some of the tsotsis I worked with from the rougher bits of the city. I knew he wouldn’t be there to cause me any grief, at least. What’s the problem? I asked him over the intercom. (I was only half-listening because of the news, with the kiddie school being bombed.) There’s a fucking riot, he said, over in Yeoville. Alright, I said, I’m coming, I’ll drive us. He looked a fucking state. I hadn’t seen him in weeks, and he was using, I could tell. He had to make a payment soon, and I knew as soon as I saw him he wasn’t going to make it, so I thought, what a fucking prat for coming to see me. We got into my car, because it was a trek to Yeoville, and we were in the seats when he suddenly pulled a gun out, stuck it in my belly. Right, he said, where do you keep your supply? Ha ha! I laughed at him. Nê? This is really how you want to play this? You want to have a stick-up, right? I mean, I could tell he wasn’t going to hold it on, because he was sweating, kept glancing over my shoulder. You can drive us there, he said, and I said, don’t be so fucking stupid. I said drive! he shouted, so I did. Alright, you’re the boss, I said. You’re the boss, boss.

  I drove around the block a few times, and he didn’t even seem to realize, then when we came to some robots I drove slowly until they went red, pulled up and waited. I grabbed his head, slammed it down onto the dashboard, punched him in the nose two or three times, until I saw blood, grabbed his gun, held it into his gut and pulled the trigger. It sounded like a car exhaust, you know? And there was never crime where we lived – as I said, it was a nice area. There, you motherfucker, I said, there’s your fucking stash. Hope you fucking rot. I opened his door and pushed him out, leaving him in the road. It was quiet, nobody saw me. When I got home I looked on the news to see if there really was something happening in Yeoville or not, but they didn’t say anything, and they didn’t mention that kont dealer, because nobody would have given even half a shit about him. My old lady asked what had happened, so I told her that he was just confused, wanted some advice on something. She didn’t care; she was just being polite, I reckon.

  Dhruv Rawat, doctor, Bankipore

  The girl from the reception desk ran to find me when they found Adele’s body in her bedroom, because her camera crew had come in again – I remember now, she was making a documentary on the railway, because they were putting new trains out, and that was something that we – our country – was famous for, the people hanging off the backs of trains, packed into the carriages, and the poverty of the trains, what it meant to be packed in like that, crushed up against yourself – and they couldn’t get her to open her bedroom door. It felt like an age since I had tried to get her to. I had even started telling myself that she had left Bankipore completely, because the girl on reception, when I had asked that morning, didn’t even think that she had been out of her room at all. So when they came to fetch me, I was surprised.

  There’s a woman and she needs a doctor, the porters shouted, you have to come and save her! I ran up the stairs behind them, before I even knew it was Adele, and they had already moved her from the floor where they found her – I knew this because of the vomit on the carpet, barely visible when I first went into the room because it was so pale – and then I realized that I was in her room, the room I had knocked on the door of so many times over the past couple of days. I checked her body, but she had been dead for hours. You can tell as soon as you see one, because of the eyes, the temperature of the body, the way it lies there – this is one of the first things that they teach you in medical school, because in Bangalore they show you a dead body on your first day so that you’re prepared for anything, so that you know what you will have to deal with – and I could tell that it was pointless trying with Adele. But, still, it’s what is expected of a doctor. The camera crew stood at the back of the room, lined up along the wall, and watched me as I went through the motions of feeling her wrist, looking at her eyes. She’s dead, I said; they left me to pull the bed-sheet away from the mattress, where it was tightly tucked in, and covered her body and face. You should call for an ambulance, I said to the porters. Can’t yo
u do it? one of them asked. They’ll listen to you.

  Fine, yes, I said, I’ll do it. I called them from the lobby, because I didn’t want to be near her, and then I went to the bar and drank juice. After a while the camera crew sat with me. Haven’t you got somewhere to be? I asked them, and they said that they didn’t, that their time had been paid for already. They ordered drinks as well and sat with me, and it felt like hours before any of us spoke.

  Mark Kirkman, unemployed, Boston

  Cable television kept me sane. Everybody else seemed to be getting on with their lives – these new lives, in the wake of their sudden exposure to whatever it was – and I was stuck with mine being exactly as it was. I couldn’t face going out to drink, so I got some from the shop and sat there with the TV flicking through repeats of old baseball game highlights, episodes of sitcoms, food channel shows, with the beers in my hand or in the freezer.

  Later that day, drunk, I found the chip I got given a year before, that I then ignored when I fell off the wagon again, and I wondered if I couldn’t find a meeting, try to pick up where I left off. I was looking for the nearest one, on the net, when I realized that it would be full of people talking about how The Broadcast reaffirmed their belief in what they were doing, so instead I forgot about it, and decided to just stay as I was.