The Green Gene Read online

  The dreams of chloroform are menacing in their very ordinariness and solidity. A vault of whitewashed brick, a single bare electric bulb, two yellower sources of faint light at the limit of his upper vision; a dank smell; a bruised body with a special soreness round the mouth, as though he had shaved too closely and then daubed on an astringent lotion; fear.

  After a long while he knew that all these, especially the fear, were too enduring to be dream stuff. Without moving anything except his eye muscles he explored the mysterious prison. The whitewashed vault at either end became a dark arch framing the ghost of his own nose. Beyond his feet the wall was divided into deep brick compartments about a yard square. Above his head the two brass knobs of the bedstead split the light into yellow rays. He stared at the right-hand knob. When he was twelve his mother had bought him a bed like this, ready for his wedding night; that radiant knob, and the fear, and the weakness of the drug (or drugs) combined to unlace the adult carapace and leave a soft child lying on the mattress, yearning with a child’s fierce and hopeless rage for dark-skinned crowds and food with honourable spices reeking from it and the background odours of sun-cleansed dirt.

  “Pravi,” he whispered several times, but then changed the word to “Pete”, using the Saxon syllable as a sort of mantra, repeated and repeated, to summon his soul back to here and now, to being a Saxon lying in a Gaelic prison on a brass bedstead with a pillow so soft that it seemed to have persisted out of dreams. The knob had been recently polished. Straining his eyes against the rays he was able to see, distorted by its roundness, the whole of the room reflected. He was alone. Only the two dark arches could hold menace. Very cautiously he moved his head to the right.

  TWANG!

  His muscles locked rigid, then melted slowly into tremblings when not a footstep answered the alarm; but the very relaxation must have altered the focus of his weight upon the bed-springs.

  TWANG!

  An inch of movement in any direction, with any limb, woke these tuneless harpings. The devils, he thought, the green devils. They have left me alone on this twanging bed so that they will know at once when I wake, and then they will come and beat me up and say I was trying to escape and put me against a wall and shoot me. But I will outwit them. I will outwait them. I will lie perfectly still until they come to see if I am dead, and then I will reason with them, in a dignified and fatalistic manner.

  So he lay perfectly still for several hours. He did not feel like mathematics—his processes were not sufficiently coherent. Instead he became Pravandragasharatipili Humayan, a speck of being, who summoned into that speck the vast peacefulness of the universe. Occasionally on the fringe of his consciousness he was aware of the ghost of a man called Pete who would remark in a superficial touristy way that there were undeniable advantages in being an Indian, with hereditary resources and techniques available that were unknown to Western races. At first the appearances of the Pete-ghost were few and ethereal, a wisp of mist in the slow whirlpool of non-matter. But after many ages the mist began to draw itself into solidity, until at last it strutted into the sphere of peace and remarked loudly that Indians could be jolly interesting chaps if you were the kind of chap who was interested in that sort of thing, but they were hopelessly impractical about drains and that sort of thing, and for instance this chap with the impossible name was going to wet the mattress of his marriage-bed jolly soon if he didn’t pull himself together and find somewhere to urinate.

  Perhaps if he had practised more seriously at his hereditary techniques he might have been able to control and master both attacks, the dread in the mind and the piercing sweet ache in the genitals; but with a cry of despair Humayan flung back the blankets and leaped from the bed. The springs answered this convulsion with one colossal chord and twangled into silence. Nothing stirred under either arch.

  Action, plus the altered position of his body, seemed to give his bladder fresh strength, which in turn gave his mind time to plan. The green devils could not know that he was not a sleep-walker, so … He raised both arms horizontal before his face and stalked staring into the darkness under the left-hand arch. At once his nose told him he had come to the right place. When he stopped and looked about him he could see by the light behind that there was no enemy under this vault either—only a couple of buckets on the floor and another arch beyond leading into deeper darkness.

  The bucket he chose was resonant enamel. The released water clattered on to the side like hail on a tin roof. It was a tocsin. Pleasure froze but still the stream slashed forth. The whole vault blazed with sudden light, and still Humayan stood there, trapped by the inexorable process, cringing for the blow.

  Beside him loomed a purplish shape. He dared not look. A second tocsin rang on a slightly different note. In his peripheral vision he could see a parallel stream to his own clattering into the other bucket. Only when he was easing his zip up did Humayan allow his glance to flick sideways for a shy instant; still he did not dare look at the face, but the hands were enough, paler than veal and veined with blue. Furthermore the man had been circumcised. Humayan turned trembling from the buckets and waited for the man to finish, studying out of the corner of his eye the broad back and the ancient purple dressing-gown.

  The man swung round.

  “Hi,” he said, “and welcome to gaol. My name’s Zachariah Zass.”

  “P. P. Humayan,” said Humayan, holding out his hand. Mr. Zass shook his head.

  “We won’t shake, I guess,” he said. “I haven’t washed for three days. Pickles are nice guys, but they have no notion of hygiene.”

  “Of course, of course,” said Humayan, who was finicky about such matters himself.

  “Had enough sleep?”

  “I think so. What is the time?”

  “No time down here, sir. Come in. I have a table and chairs my side, and we can talk.”

  He groped beyond the arch and found a switch, then turned off the light in the chamber with the buckets. This new vault was slightly larger than the others, and instead of having two dark arches in facing walls it had them at right-angles to each other. The bed was similar to Humayan’s, the table and chairs very plain and battered. Humayan, relaxing into physical and mental relief, noticed now how coldly the slabs of stone which floored the place were striking through his socks. He went and fetched his shoes from beside his bed, turning off his own light as he left. When he returned he found Mr. Zass already sitting at the table, wrapped in an extra blanket from the bed. Humayan sat opposite him and they studied each other without embarrassment, that being the natural thing to do.

  Mr. Zass had not shaved for several days, but under the stubble his skin had a tended look, as did his hands and fingernails. He was pudgy but strong-shouldered. His tan did not look natural, and in any case was acquiring a greyish tinge, from beneath. His eyes were small, dark and bright, his hair sparse and dose-cropped. There was a weight, a solidity about his personality that reminded Humayan of Mr. Mann. To judge by his voice he was an American.

  “Yeah,” he said suddenly, “we’ll just have to get along with each other best we can. My friends call me Zack.”

  “Pete,” said Humayan.

  “Glad to know you, Pete.”

  “The gladness is mutual. Where are we?”

  “I can’t figure the geographical where, but I reckon this is the wine cellars of one of the lovely great houses they have in this island, which Mrs. Zass was looking forward to visiting. In the sticks somewhere, too. I’ve seen mud and bits of grass on their shoes.”

  “Who are they? What do they do? What happens?”

  Humayan could not keep the note of fret and fear out of his voice, but Mr. Zass appeared not to notice.

  “The pickles?” he said. “One of the guerrilla movements, I guess, but don’t ask me which. They treat us right, give us regular meals, though it’s not what Mrs. Zass would like to see me eating. They’ll be along soon. You don�
�t have to worry, Pete, provided you play the game their way. No fancy footwork. No do or die. Just keep them happy and try to play it so it’s in their interest to look after you. What did they collar you for?”

  “I do not know. I am a medical statistician. I am working on the hereditability of the green gene, but my work is purely theoretical. It is true that a newspaper printed a rather sensational account of my work, but …”

  “You don’t know pickles like I do,” interrupted Mr. Zass. “That’s how they are. They see your name in the papers, something to do with genetics, and they’re damned touchy about that, so they pick you up. Don’t think what they’re going to do with you, of course. Just the same with me.”

  “What happened to you, Zack?” said Humayan, asking for politeness the question in whose answer he had no interest at all. What was going to happen to him, that was what mattered. In his self-absorption it took him some seconds to notice that Mr. Zass had not answered him. He looked up, and saw on the heavy face a look of outrage, which slowly faded into pique, and from that into not-quite-genuine amusement.

  “I happen to be the United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James,” said Mr. Zass.

  A maniac! The green devils had shut him in this horrible place with a maniac! Humayan jerked his chair six inches, realised that there was nowhere to flee to, gulped.

  “I am honoured,” he gabbled. “Very honoured indeed.”

  “Shucks,” said Mr. Zass. “Perhaps it wasn’t in your papers. They’ve got this censorship thing pretty tightly sown up over here. OK, I’ll tell you. I wanted Paris, and Mrs. Zass wanted Rome, but the President said to me, ‘Zack, I’m asking you to take London, because you know the pickles, and what’s more they know you know them.’ I didn’t like it, but I took it because I knew what he meant. He meant he wasn’t having his Southern strategy diverted by having to keep the East Coast pickles happy, more than he had to. ‘Mr. President,’ I said, ‘how will the London Government take that?’ ‘Screw them,’ he said—he’s a fine man, Pete, when you get to know him—‘Screw them. They’ve been on hot bricks that I was going to send them a pickle as ambassador. They’ll lick your boots.’ So what happens? I’m at my tailor in Savile Row, having a fitting for my ambassador’s uniform, cutaway jacket, knee-breeches, gold lace, cocked hat, when the fire alarm rings and we all run into the street, and there’s half a dozen pickle gunmen and I’m sandbagged, and next thing I know we’re here. So much for the vote of the East Coast pickles. So much for world opinion. Where are you from, Pete?”

  “Bombay, India.”

  “Same thing. Indian opinion is world opinion too, so they hijack a distinguished Indian scientist. They don’t stop to ask which side world opinion will take, or what good it will do them, because they’re pickles. We’ll have a Russian in here next.”

  Humayan began to relax. Mr. Zass’s mania didn’t sound dangerous—perhaps it had been induced by loneliness …

  “Do we see much of our gaolers?” he asked.

  “Sure,” said Mr. Zass. “There’s a guard in here most times, and when they leave us they pull the fuse, because there’s not much you can try in the dark. I got ’em to leave the lights on last time, so you’d not go crazy when you woke up. You see, with pickles when they’re reasonable they’re just as reasonable as you or me. It’s only when they aren’t they aren’t. That’s …”

  Beyond the further arch metal and wood jarred. A chain rattled. The darkness there blinked light. “Yoohoo, Excellency,” called a voice.

  “Here,” drawled Mr. Zass. “And Pete’s here too. He’s awake.”

  “Let’s listen to the lilt of his tongue, then,” said the voice.

  “Yes, I’m here,” croaked Humayan.

  There was silence and stillness under the claustrophobic vaulting, and then a man sprang into view and posed crouching, well back from the arch, with a submachine-gun jutting beside his hip. He wore a kilt and sporran and tartan stockings from the top of which a dirk projected beside his green knee. The ectoplasmic features of his stocking mask were topped by a jaunty green bonnet. Leap and pose, the mask that did not mask the passionate aggression of the stance—they were those of a devil in a dance, a devil from a Tamil ballet, a green devil. The gun’s black muzzle swung from prisoner to prisoner.

  “Ay, mon,” he said. “Baith there, a’ douce and sonsy.”

  “Come off it,” said the first voice. “Megan, darling!”

  A far snarl, female, answered. Another man sauntered into sight and through the arch. He held a large pistol loosely in his right hand and leaned against the brickwork. He wore a mackintosh, cloth cap and knitted green mask, that covered his whole head.

  “Good morning, Excellency,” he said. “Good morning, mister.”

  “Glad to know the time of day,” said Mr. Zass.

  “Yes, it is morning,” said the man, “and all dewy with the tears of the cherubim and the air as soft as bog-paper. Or perhaps it is night, with the skies all orange from the glow of neon where earth’s sinful cities anticipate hell. Will you turn that gun aside now, Ian, man? I do not wish to see our Megan injured in the backside. We Welsh have a fastidious notion of honour.”

  He was answered by a sniff, but not from the man in the kilt. A dumpy little woman came into sight carrying a tray which was laden with crockery and shrouded objects. She stumped forward under the arch for a few paces, then halted. Though her features were indecipherable under an elaborately crocheted mesh her whole pose spoke outrage. She swung aside, still clutching the tray, and darted across to the Welshman.

  “You were not telling me it would be a black man,” she said in a whisper loud enough for the echo of it to come whispering back from under the furthest arches.

  “Ah, come on, Megan, honey,” said Mr. Zass. “Pete’s a good guy and a famous scientist too.”

  “Oho!” said the Welshman. “And from which twig of the many-branching tree of knowledge does the little bugger dangle?”

  “I am a medical statistician,” said Humayan.

  “There, Megan,” said the Welshman. “The house is honoured. A man whose profession is the enumeration of bunions is a man we are proud to have under our roof.”

  “But will he be cleanly in his habits?” whispered the woman.

  “Hygienic beyond dreaming,” said the Welshman. “He brushes his teeth between mouthfuls, and his religious code is such that …”

  “Hold it,” said Mr. Zass. “Let’s leave religion out of this.”

  “Oh, I am not superstitious,” said Humayan, nervously eager to placate. “If you could read my horoscope you would see it says I am not superstitious.”

  The Welshman chuckled.

  “This voter is a humorist,” he said. “You will be needing your dyspepsia tablets, Ian.”

  The Scot grunted. Megan carried the tray to the table and laid out with great precision a number of little paper doilies on to which she placed the plates and saucers. There were more doilies to protect the cups from contact with the saucers, and the plates from the food, which was wrapped in individual portions inside paper napkins. Finally in the exact centre of the table she placed a white jug from which steam arose, then put her palms together in front of her veiled mouth and spoke.

  “Lord who decreed

  Leaf, fruit and seed,

  Watch that we feed

  Only our need.

  Save us from greed.”

  “Amen,” intoned Mr. Zass, slavering slightly. As Megan turned away with another sniff he rapidly undid the little packages in front of him. Humayan followed suit. Knife, fork, spoon and teaspoon were separately wrapped; there was even a mysterious parcel that seemed to contain nothing, until he realised that it was a paper napkin wrapped in another paper napkin. Where the parcels contained food it usually had an inner wrapping provided by the manufacturer—sugar cubes in individual packaging, tiny rectangles
of butter in foil, sliced meat loaf in plastic, a polythene bag of rolls. Mr. Brown put his tea-bag into his cup and poured hot water over it from the jug.

  “Meg’s not yet invented a way of wrapping water,” said the Welshman. “But you’re working on it, aren’t you, sweetheart?”

  “I will not have them thinking that because we are a poor people we are not cleanly,” said Megan, polishing with such fury at the already gleaming knobs on Mr. Zass’s bed that all the springs stirred and tinkled. The food was almost savourless and the water too tepid to drag anything but a little colour out of the tea-bags. Mr. Zass ate rapidly and carelessly, and when Megan had finished with the beds and came stumping back to dear away she paused and sniffed.

  “An ambassador ought not to be making so many crumbs,” she said. “What would the Queen be thinking, if you were sitting by her, strewing your food about in such a manner? ‘Mr. Ambassador,’ she would say, ‘you will be bringing the mice into my palace.’ And she would mean it, though she might smile, for she is too well-bred to speak to you of the sinful waste of it, and the boorish behaviour.”

  There was no hint of teasing in her voice. Either the green devils had deluded her also, or Mr. Zass really was an ambassador.

  “Pete’s a tidy eater,” he now said, defensively.

  “One millionth of a starving million,” explained the Welshman. “That’s how he was brought up—not to go tossing his crumbs about in case he needed them tomorrow.”

  Curiously, Humayan sensed that when Megan came to collect his share of the crockery she was not appeased by his neatness, was indeed disappointed to find no debris at his end of the table, though she rubbed with vigour at invisible spillages. The Welshman escorted her and her tray out under the arch. As soon as the metal of the far door rattled and snapped the Scot lowered his gun point, scrabbled with his free hand in his sporran and withdrew a twisted cigarette which he stuck through a ladder in the stocking and lit one-handed. His relaxation was only marginal; there was still something poised and wary about his hold on the dangling gun. The Welshman returned, carried a chair from the table and stood on it to reach down from the highest compartment one bottle, two mugs and a packet of drinking straws. Mr. Zass fetched from a lower compartment a water pitcher and two tumblers.