Shikasta

Simon came back today with his Peripatetic Hospital. He has been working twenty hours a day for weeks. He and Olga sit in the living room like two ghosts. They hardly talk. I see they don't need to. I see that our family often sit in the living room for hours and say practically nothing, George too. George has been spending hours sitting with Olga and Simon saying not a word. Being with them. Benjamin came marching in and asked about Simon's trip. By then Simon had recovered a bit. He said this and that, and then Thank God they were Chinese. Meaning the Overlords. (People's Representatives.) Where he had been travelling. I have seen that Simon and Olga often say Thank heavens he or she or they were Chinese. But what I am suddenly asking myself is, Why the Chinese? I mean, why is it that absolutely everywhere you go there are Chinese. Ever so efficient and useful of course. Never put a foot wrong. Tact personified. Simon and Olga say, common sense personified. Last month when Olga went to the famine, she actually grabbed a Chinese from some office or other and took her too because they are worth their weight in gold. In common sense. There are six Chinese doctors in Simon's Peripatetic Hospital.

This afternoon has been peculiar. George came back from college at three. He lectures there on Systems of the Law. Because he says it is a good thing that people are reminded that such a thing as Law is possible. There were people waiting for him. I had given them mint tea and cake. Then I saw they were all hungry so I gave them what we had ready for supper. They were two Germans, three Russians, one Frenchwoman, a Chinese, and one Britisher. When George came in and greeted them and sat down, at once there was something different. An atmosphere. Usually what happens is that there is some small talk, and news about what is going on, and then George begins to talk in his way. Sometimes you can catch when he begins, and sometimes it is all happening before you have seen it. People who know him watch for it. But those who don't, blunder about spoiling it all. Until they catch on. This afternoon I could see at once these were people who had been with him before, somewhere on his trips. There was the attentive atmosphere. But there was something wrong too. It was someone there who was wrong. I wondered who? Someone there was dangerous. I saw it was the Britisher, Raymond Watts. Once I had seen it I couldn't understand why it had taken me so long. It was obvious that he was a spy. I saw that the others who had arrived with him had not seen this but they knew something was wrong. Slowly one after another they got it. It was very nasty. Soon everyone was sitting looking at Raymond Watts. Who was uneasy and false. He was scared. He had good reason to be. I was waiting for George to say something. Or do something. But he sat smiling as usual. Then the others, the Russians first, got up and said they were going. I could see it was all dreadful. The others went out after the Russians. Not Raymond Watts. George looked at me. I stayed. He went out into the lobby with the others, and he was there some time. I tried to talk with Raymond Watts but he was shaking and sweating. The voices from the lobby were loud and angry. I knew they were wanting to kill Raymond Watts and George was saying no. Then they went off and George came back and nodded at me and I went. Later I said to George, Are they going to kill him? George said, No. I told them that Raymond would change. I thought a bit, seeing quite a few things. I said, Oh, it has happened before. George began to grin. I saw that it had. Often? George said, There are as many spies as not, these days. He was looking at me. I knew perfectly well what was coming, more about me toughening up. George said, First of all, people have to eat. And then, for many people, being a spy or something of the kind is the obvious thing. They have not been given an alternative. Don't you see? No, I said, I don't see. At which point, he said, Rachel, you really must try to be stronger. You have had a sheltered life in many ways. That made me angry. I said to him, What has been sheltered about it? He said, First of all, you have never been tempted to do something you shouldn't because someone you loved was hungry or because you were hungry. And secondly, you have been all your life with advantaged people.

I said to him, Like Naseem and Shireen, for instance. Advantaged?

Yes. They were brought up to be decent. They were good people. But most people now are not brought up to be decent, but the opposite and it is not their fault.

It took me some time to hear what he had said. I said to George, Are they dead then? George said, Naseem died a month ago, of an infection. He got chilled. I said, You mean, he died of not having enough to eat. That's right, he said. And Shireen died in the hospital in childbirth.

So what has happened to the children?

He said that two of them have died of dysentery, and the baby Shireen died of is being looked after by Fatima. The other three have been taken into a Children's Camp.

By then I was crying, though I had decided not to cry.

George said, Rachel, if you can't face all this, then you'll have to come back and do it all over again. Think about it.

I have been trying to think about it.

I wish I was dead with Naseem and Shireen.

I have to write down that George is not beautiful the way he was only two years ago. He is actually ugly sometimes with being tired.

I have seen that Simon will not live long. He is like Olga, a long way from us. George sits with them, every minute he can. I go in too, then I leave because I want to cry, and they are certainly not crying, but very serene.

George has said that he wants me to help Benjamin with his work in the Children's Camps. I couldn't believe it. He said, Yes, Rachel, that is what you have to do. I said, Oh no, no, no. He said, Oh yes, yes.

Benjamin came in, great sunburned oaf, and I couldn't. George wasn't there. I knew quite well George had made sure I was alone with Benjamin. Benjamin kept saying, Where is George, where is Mother, where is Father. Simon had gone off to work at the hospital, and Olga was lying down. I saw that Benjamin was feeling left out. At last I made myself ask him if I could come and help him at the Children's Camps. His face, well! I was glad I had asked. I see that when Benjamin comes in here he needs very much to be liked. Now I am going to actually have to face doing it, I don't think I can. George isn't here, he has gone on a trip to a Youth Army in Egypt.

I went with Benjamin to his Camps. He uses a light army truck. He stopped at the Peace Cafe' to offer lifts. We took seventeen people, all for the Camps. Benjamin's Camps are fifteen miles out. Benjamin says this is far enough out to prevent them coming in to tear the place to pieces in the evenings. He said that about the little kids, and it was exactly the same as old people and ordinary people saying about the Youth "tearing everything to pieces." The place of the Camps isn't very pretty. It is flat and dusty with some low hills around. Suddenly we came to a barbed-wire fence. It is electrified. Benjamin said there has to be a fence. To stop people getting in as much as to stop the kids getting out. Quote unquote. There are five thousand boys in the one Benjamin lives in. There are breeze-block sheds, fifty boys to a shed, five sheds to a group, twenty of these groups. There is a standpipe for each group of five sheds, and a block of showers and lavatories. There are central offices and buildings. The Camp is built like a wheel, with the sheds as spokes, two groups of sheds on each spoke.