Shikasta

He stood back two steps, and waited.

The old white man in his chair then spoke up. His voice was weaker than George Sherban's, though clear, and the silence was absolute. It seems to me that this was a silence of more than hatred or contempt, for even Agent Tsi Kwang commented that he made "a figure you had to think about." For one thing, I believe that most of the youth do not see an old or elderly person from one year's end - or decade's end even - to the next, except as ancient creatures hurrying away from them in fear, or as clothed skeletons lying on the streets waiting for the Death Squads, or perhaps in glimpses of them forgotten in institutions waiting to die of neglect and famine. The youth do not see the old. They are not programmed to see the old, who are cancelled, negated, wiped out, "removed from the honourable record of history," as Tsi Kwang so happily puts it. She was unable, she said, to take her eyes off the "old criminal element." The sight of him filled her with "a correct and concrete loathing." She felt he should be wiped off the face of the earth "like a beetle." And similar remarks quite reasonable in the circumstances. You will have observed that I quote this agent as often as I do - and intend to throughout this account - because of what might perhaps be described as the classic correctness of her viewpoint. She can be relied upon always to supply the apt comment. The other agents, none of them up to her level, have been useful to me in my attempt to present a picture of appropriate light and shade.

What the old ghost said was that he represented the white races - and at that point there was no reaction of boos or jeers, only silence - and he had been appointed to do this by... and here there was no long list of organisations from every part of the globe, but only "The Combined Co-ordinating Committee of the Youth Armies."

He remained silent in his chair, while George Sherban stood forward again and called up loudly and clearly the following words, pausing between phrases, and looking around the tiers.

"I open this Trial with an indictment. This is the indictment. That it is the white races of this world that have destroyed it, corrupted it, made possible the wars that have ruined it, have laid the basis for the war that we all fear, have poisoned the seas, and the waters, and the air, have stolen everything for themselves, have laid waste the goodness of the earth from the North to the South, and from East to West, have behaved always with arrogance, and contempt, and barbarity towards others, and have been above all guilty of the supreme crime of stupidity - and must now accept the burden of culpability, as murderers, thieves and destroyers, for the dreadful situation we now all find ourselves in."

Throughout this there was not a sound, but as he ended and stood back, the great crowd let out a hissing groan, and "it was more frightening than if we had cursed the villains or hurled insults at them." This is the comment of another of our agents, not Tsi Kwang, who confined herself to: "No stone was left unturned to shame the criminals standing at the bar of history." Another comment was from a letter written by Benjamin Sherban, intercepted by us. "Farce has ever been my meat and drink, but I tell you that if I hadn't eaten too long and too full of sheer bloody lunacy so that I can't react any longer, I would have dropped dead from fright at that hissing." I quote this as contrast to our ever admirable and to-be-relied-on Tsi Kwang. (You will remember that Benjamin Sherban was standing immediately behind the Defendant.)

It is clear that the white contingent stood their ground with difficulty, looking straight in front of them, and not at the furious brown, black, and golden faces confronting them, and holding their positions only with an effort of will. There was a long and intense silence. The old white did not move. The two children on either side of his chair deliberately raised their heads and stared up and around the tiers of faces. It seems that Benjamin Sherban maintained a characteristic lounging and almost casual posture.

The sun was already going, the shadow had engulfed George Sherban's contingent, and the evening had arrived: a warm, gritty, uncomfortable evening.

"I am now going to call my first witness," shouted George Sherban - and these were the last words he was to say for many days. He was never absent from the "Trial" while it was in progress, but he kept himself inconspicuous among the group on the Prosecution side.

The first witness was brilliantly chosen. (From a certain point of view.) She was a delegate from Shansi Province. A girl of about twenty. She was, of course, well fed and neatly dressed and looked healthy and at once the atmosphere lost tension. We are not popular. This is the penalty we have to pay for our superiority! (I rely on our old understanding of the subtle, and necessary, and often ironic shifts and changes of events.) It is not that our Chinese Youth behave incorrectly. On the contrary, they are at all times enjoined to correct behaviour, wherever they may find themselves. But the fact is that they do enjoy certain advantages from the very nature of our Beneficent Rule, and - in short - it was not easy for the underprivileged Europeans, and the representatives of the Emergent Nations, to identify with her. Our Agent Tsi Kwang commented that she was pleased that the first witness was Chinese, and then "disturbed," for she felt it was "impertinent in a way she couldn't grasp without further analysis." The comment by the unfortunate Benjamin Sherban was: "What a thing a crowd is! A conglomeration of unstable elements, would you say? If the Devil may quote scripture..."

This witness recited, for no more than fifteen minutes, slowly and clearly - as was the style imposed on everyone - the crimes committed by the white races on China, and ended (this was to prove the conclusion or summing up of nearly every witness) "... and were always guilty of insulting and inhuman contempt, and of stupidity, and of ignorance of the Chinese people and our glorious history."

It was by now nearly seven, and the arena was a well of dusk. The tiers were in semi-darkness. Our delegate, having finished, returned to stand with the others in the shadows, as the tiers called applause and clapped. But it was not the tumultuous applause that might have been expected for the first of the "witnesses," and that would have been forthcoming (I say this in a spirit of dispassionate comment) if the first witness had been an American Indian - for instance. No, the emotional temperature had dropped, and this is a conclusion quite inescapable after study of the various agents' reports. And besides, I am writing as the - I hope not altogether unskilled - organiser of a thousand public events.

The torches were then lit. It was done like this: from four different aisles through the tiers were seen descending great flaring lit torches, and under them shadowy figures that turned out to be of different colours, gold, brown, black, and white. They ran with these torches across the arena, inevitably evoking associations of the Olympic games, and similar emotional international occasions from the past, and handed the torches to the children who stood waiting to take them. The children were dressed in the various uniforms of their organisations. They reached up on tiptoe - this detail was mentioned by all the agents, so it clearly made an impression - to put fire to the bundles of reeds that stood out from the arena walls. One after another torches flared up, and illuminated the arena. This little ceremony was watched with great attentiveness. There was a murmur of appreciation. What this murmur meant was interpreted differently by the agents.

The lighting ceremony took some time. Being the first, there were snags. One torch fell from its place, the two children retreated, an older girl leaped down from the tier just above and took charge, inserting the torch again in its sconce, and helping the children to light it, skillfully - and dangerously - using the remains of a torch that had been carried down through the tiers: all this was obviously unpremediated and unorganised, and in tune with the informal atmosphere. Another torch had burned up too bright, and was sending up tongues and wings of flame too close to the people in the rank above, and it had to be brought down, put out, and another put in its place. By the time all this was done, the atmosphere was loose and relaxed, the delegates were chatting to each other, and it was quite dark. It was a hot and dusty dark, and the stars were not strong enough to relieve it. Below, the two opposing groups faced each other. And strong in the wavering and flaring light, was the old white man, sitting quite still, with his two children, white and black, on either side.