Remembrance Day. Brian Aldiss

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СКАЧАТЬ were docking in expensive marinas. Barbecues were sizzling in yards, evening soaps bubbling on TV screens. Day’s end was calm, but alert with promise all over the Sunshine State, even in the senior citizens’ condos: time for fun unobtainable in England: the sort of evening you feel you deserve, with the sun skiing through a sky containing only one decorative cloud, positioned so as to grow more golden as the hour slipped by. Happy Hour. Most of the delegates to the conference were already gathering in the pool area, where a quartet discreetly played Mozart and drinks were served by lynx-eyed Hispanic barmen.

      Palm trees, music, warmth, light-coloured clothes, Hilton service. No hassle.

      Embry was greeted on all sides. A lot of shaking hands and embracing went on. You couldn’t tell when people were not glad to see each other. Levine went along with Embry some way, moving into the heart of the crowd with a glass in his hand, exhilarated. Crazy to exchange all this for England! Here were people he knew, if only by reputation, creative people, alienists, scholars, fermenters of society, men and women, involved in one branch or another of stochastics and/or education.

      Hi there to Dale Marsh, plump and genial, wearing only a T-shirt above gaudy shorts, though most of the guests had adopted more formal attire. The legend on Marsh’s T-shirt said ‘Squint when you look at me lest you be blinded by my beauty’. Marsh was English, but had lived eight years in the States, teaching Urban Relationships in an Eastern seaboard university.

      Levine was not all that enthusiastic about meeting another Englishman, but stood to chat politely for a minute or two. With Marsh was a pretty blonde woman called something like Polly Ester – Levine did not catch the name and, unlike Americans, was afraid to ask for it to be repeated.

      ‘Funny Hen Embry should elect to spend a year in Norwich at AUN,’ he said.

      ‘Is that anywhere near London?’ Polly Ester asked.

      ‘Not really.’

      ‘A year out at pasture and he’ll come rushing back Stateside into a government post at zillions per month salary,’ said Marsh, in a lordly way. ‘That’s how it works. That’s how the system works.’

      ‘Besides,’ said Polly, lowering her voice and sliding a bare arm through Levine’s, ‘Hen’s got big trouble brewing here with the ASSA. It pays him to make himself scarce a while.’ In response to Levine’s surprised look, she whispered into his ear. ‘Cooking the books.’

      The phrase, he thought, was like some secret sexual signal, releasing a flush of testosterone through his arteries as he felt her warm aromatic breath in his ear. That sod Dale Marsh had always been known as ‘Lucky’ Marsh. He knew how to pick the birds.

      After the reception came dinner. They drove out, a dozen of them in hired cars, to a seafood restaurant someone had recommended up the coast in Boca Raton, where stone crabs were the juiciest.

      Embry was in good form throughout the meal, drinking heartily, expounding a blueprint for a better world.

      Levine, as a hard-pressed administrator at a university increasingly under financial pressure, did not believe in better worlds. He turned to Marsh, who happened to be sitting next to him, to express his cynicism, expecting Marsh as a fellow Englishman to respond similarly to Embry’s plans.

      ‘Things are different in the States, Levine,’ Marsh said, condescendingly. ‘In London, psychotics are guys who have discovered how life really is. Over here, that bit of luck goes to mountebanks. They can capitalize on their discoveries in ways valuable not only to themselves but to the public at large.’

      ‘Embry?’

      Marsh sucked on a crab claw. ‘You should read Embry’s book on transpsychic reality – and not just because it’s sold a million. Basically, what he says – I’m wedging his argument into a nutshell – is that the nature of self, and hence of our perceived world, is – or can be – up for grabs. He says everyone has visions, sees ghosts, or whatever. Parapsychic phenomena … Such things are dismissed as childish – which they may be – or disgraceful in our Western societies, and so are repressed or misinterpreted … well, something like that. But actually such so-called delusions are pleas from an inner self for change. Urgent communications. We must all change.’

      ‘Nothing very new there.’

      ‘OK. That’s no objection, is it? But Embry states that our early experiences can cause us to fix on a mental model of the world which we may need to junk. Like some disaster early in life can set us on disaster courses later. “Circumstance-chain” is his phrase. Pass along the pitcher, “old chap”.’ He put his mode of addressing Levine in humorous quotes, as if recalling a phase of life he had jettisoned.

      Marsh’s friend, Polly Ester, sitting on his far side, had hitherto contented herself with reading the legend on Marsh’s T-shirt over and over. She bestirred herself to lean forward and say smiling to Levine, ‘Dale’s forgotten the part of the argument I like best. It’s not just individuals whose memories of disaster can lead them to further disaster later in life. There’s a brilliant chapter on how the individual is a microcosm of the nation. Hen shows how certain countries are ruled by – ruined by – memories of disaster.’

      Several places away, engaged in argument, Hengist Embry nevertheless caught the mention of his own name and roared down the table, ‘Alpha for you, Polly. Examples include Georgia, Serbia, many Latin American countries, maybe China, and, of course, Ireland.’

      Marsh formed a circle of thumb and forefinger and made Embry a cheerful ‘spot-on’ sign as the latter plunged back into his own noisy conversation.

      ‘Whether all that’s true or not …’ Deciding against completing the sentence, Levine returned to his platter of crab.

      Rather to Levine’s surprise, Embry paid him renewed attention as the group left the restaurant. In the carpark, he took Levine’s arm in a friendly way and led him apart from the crowd, his mind evidently still full of his dinner conversation.

      ‘Remember that lovely “Veni, Redemptor”? Well, man has to be his own Redemptor, to my way of thinking – but fast.’

      ‘Most human plans for improvement come to grief.’

      ‘There opinions differ. Look what the US has become. This was all wilderness two centuries ago.’

      While Levine was feeling ashamed of his English remark, Embry deftly changed the subject. ‘As a successful man, I have my enemies here, Gordy,’ he said. ‘Some are not above spreading lies about me. You find the same kind of thing in every community. Now, let’s get to the crunch. I’m a visionary but I’m also a practical man. I was hoping you could maybe give me a few introductions back in England, to ease my path in the new post.’

      Levine said he did not entirely understand what line of work Embry was planning for the AUN.

      ‘Gordy, I will be more than happy to inform you. What I mainly require from you is a warm personal intro to Sir Alastair Stern, principal of AUN. He’s your uncle, right?’

      ‘Father-in-law, actually.’

      ‘How I relish that British “actually”. I didn’t know you were still using it.’

      ‘I’ve heard the word on American lips.’

      ‘Now, in a few sentences, I’ll explain the project I have up my sleeve. It’s a real beaut. I am eager to be working in Norwich. СКАЧАТЬ