Shikasta

Next day a feeling of urgency was making itself felt, for the real meat of the agenda had still to be set before us, but no, the preliminaries were not yet over.

A military mode prevailed. Target identification obscured by empty rhetoric... automated invective... calibrated marksmanship on the sociological front... keeping enemy positions in the sights of social revolutionary acumen... target identification obscured by faulty weapons of analysis... vigilance on the ever-shifting frontiers of social change... booby traps in the social sector... invincible battalions of dialectic... depth-bombing of our intellectual bastions... fatally low-altitude penetration of theoretical bases... pointless camouflage of an already collapsed ideological position... demolition of... destruction of... spin-off from... checksights... height-finding... range-finding...

You think that this must be the end? Well, nearly, we had reached the mid-morning break, with only the rest of the day left for our real purposes.

But there were still a few mutterings from the dying storm... bourgeois communists... bourgeois socialists... bourgeois democrats... bourgeois technocrats... bourgeois pseudophilosophs... bourgeois pessimists... bourgeois opto-polymaths... bourgeois bureaucrats... and bourgeois racists and bourgeois sexists.

With an hour left to lunch and the hounds of time snapping at our ever-moving heels, we got down to it, and since by then we were all cemented into one soul, we passed without debate resolutions about unity, brotherhood, co-operation and so on. These being the principles which we all serve. And it was after lunch easily and quickly agreed that it was urgently necessary to establish subsidiary armies and camps and organisations for the i

A lot of subcommittees were set up in not very much more time than it is taking me to write this, on a large variety of on the whole useful tasks, such as crash courses into real national and regional differences (note that the tetchy obligations of the hostile rhetoricians were bypassed neatly in this one nonabrasive word - understood with small pleased smiles by everyone present) and on survival, and on the exchanging of sample groups from country to country. And so on.

The conference ended in a rush with the bands playing very fast, because we had run overtime, a vast number of national anthems, organisational songs, and martial music of every kind, type and style, but thank heavens, the delegates were already streaming out to catch their coaches, many in floods of tears at interrupted friendships and loves, making improbable plans to meet again, kissing, hugging, waving. Never has there been such a scene of - surely? - treason, for these enemies were entwined together like barley-sugar sticks on a rainy day, and they could hardly be dragged apart.

And so ended the Conference.

George was pleased. He was in very good spirits on the drive back, singing and playing games. The life and soul of the party one could say, and I do. I suppose he is not so bad, my sainted brother. But what was he doing there at all?

RACHEL SHERBAN'S JOURNAL

It is a long time since I wrote down anything. Eighteen months to be exact. We are in Tunis now. A modern block. Unfortunately. I say unfortunately. I felt perfectly at home in that mud rabbit warren. I loved living there. Benjamin was relieved to get out of it. As soon as he walked into this boring flat he was at home. You can see him positively expanding in every breath. Smiling and relieved. I have not heard from Shireen and Naseem. Fatima married Yusuf just after I left. They are in a room next to Shireen's and Naseem's rooms. Soon I suppose Fatima will have five children. Who will help Shireen with her babies then? I would help if I were there. I felt they were my family just as much as this family is. I love them. Here today and gone tomorrow. In this block of flats no sleeping on the roof. That was the best thing I ever knew.

Well, at least here we aren't called eccentric.

The reason I am making myself write this is that I don't know what to think about anything. Particularly about George. I hate all this youth movement thing. I think it is childish. I simply can't see how any of them takes it seriously. It is obvious to the meanest intelligence why the kids join it. It is because they wouldn't have any privileges otherwise. I think that is despicable. And George is in it up to his ears. Of course a lot of them have to join something. It is the law.

The last time I wrote things down I understood what was going on. So I am trying again.

It was Hasan who said I should last time.

Where is Hasan? He has completely vanished from our lives. And George left Morocco apparently without a pang. Apparently, but who knows what he feels? I don't think he has seen Hasan though and he saw him every day in Marrakesh. I asked if he missed Hasan, and he looked bothered, and then he sighed. Because of me, of course. I asked him again and he said, Rachel, you are making things much harder than they need be.

Since we have been here, George has made another visit to India. He has not talked about it. Olga and Simon haven't asked. So I didn't. Benjamin did. But in a sarcastic sort of way. When he is like that George doesn't answer. Anyway he was invited to go and he wouldn't. But George is spending time with Benjamin. Often in the evenings they go to cafes. I hardly ever go. I am working for my exams. I am taking geopolitics, geoeconomics, and geohistory.

I have seen something. I work for exams. Benjamin works for exams. George doesn't work for exams. What he does is this. Wherever we go he attends college or university or something. Or tutors come. Or he goes off on trips with Father and Mother to places, though hardly ever now, that was when he was younger. Now it is trips with someone like Hasan. But he doesn't take exams. He knows as much as we do, though. More, by far. What happens is, he is with a class or a tutor for a month or something like that, and then he knows that subject. Mother and father have never made him sit for exams. Yet we always have to. But they take a lot of trouble to make sure he learns all kinds of things. Mother is off in the South at the epidemic, so I shall ask Father.

I did. Obviously he had been expecting this question. What he said was, It was felt that George would not need exams. It was felt. I did not notice at once that he had said that. Then I said, Felt by whom? I was being cross and a bit sarcastic. (The way Benjamin is.) Father was quite patient, affectionate but definitely on his guard. Not cagey, though.

He said, You must have understood the situation, Rachel.

That checked me. Because of course I believe I do.

I said, Yes, I think I do. But what I want to know is, who said to you and Mother in the first place that George should be educated like this?

He said, The first time it was suggested, was in New York.

Miriam?

He said, Yes, that's it. And then there were the others.

I suddenly knew exactly how it was. It had been exactly like those moments when Hasan talked and I suddenly understood something, though apparently nothing very much had been said. I saw that it had been the same with Father and Mother. Obviously Miriam and then afterwards one of the tutors or someone had said quite casual simple things that rang in their minds, and then slowly they understood.