White Teeth (60 page)

“Right,” said Crispin hesitantly, unsure where the Crispin-role-of-glory would fit into freeing one mouse. “But surely the mouse in this case is a symbol, i.e., this guy's got a lot more of them in his lab—so we have to deal with the bigger picture. We need someone to bust in there—”

“Well, basically
. . . basically,
I think that's the mistake that OHNO make for example. Because they take the animal itself as simply a symbol . . . and to me that's absolutely the opposite of what FATE is about. If this were a man trapped in a little glass box for six years, he wouldn't be a symbol, you know? And I don't know about you, but there's no difference between mice and men, you know, in my opinion.”

The gathered members of FATE murmured their assent, because this was the kind of sentiment to which they routinely murmured assent.

Crispin was miffed. “Right, well, obviously I didn't mean that, Paddy. I just meant there is a bigger picture here, just like choosing between one man's life and many men's lives, right?”

“Point of order!” said Josh, putting his hand in the air for a chance to make Crispin look stupid. Crispin glared.

“Yes, Joshi,” said Joely sweetly. “Go on.”

“It's just there aren't any more mice. I mean, yeah, there are lots of mice, but he hasn't got any exactly like this one. It's an incredibly expensive process. He couldn't afford loads. Plus, the press goaded him that if the FutureMouse died while on display he could just secretly replace it with another—so he got cocky. He wants to prove that his calculations are correct in front of the world. He's only going to do one and barcode it. There are no others.”

Joely beamed and reached down to massage Josh's shoulders.

“Right, yes, well, I guess that makes sense. So Paddy, I see what you're saying—it is a question of whether we're going to devote our attentions to Marcus Chalfen or to releasing the actual mouse from its captivity in front of the world's press.”

“Point of order!”

“Yes, Josh, what?”

“Well, Crispin, this isn't like the other animals you bust out. It won't make any difference. The damage is done. The mouse carries around its own torture in its genes. Like a time bomb. If you release it, it'll just die in terrible pain somewhere else.”

“Point of order!”

“Yes, Paddy, go on.”

“Well, basically . . . would you not help a political prisoner to escape from jail just because he had a terminal disease?”

The multiple heads of FATE nodded vigorously.

“Yes, Paddy, yes, that's right. I think Joshua's wrong there and I think Paddy has presented to us the choice we have to make. It's one we've come up against many times before and we've made different choices in different circumstances. We have, in the past, as you know, gone for the perpetrators. Lists have been made and punishments dealt out. Now, I know in recent years we have been moving away from some of our previous tactics, but I think even Joely would agree this is really our biggest, most fundamental test of that. We are dealing with seriously disturbed individuals. Now, on the other side of things, we have also staged large-scale peaceful protests and supervised the release of thousands of animals held captive by this state. In this case, we just won't have the time or opportunity to employ both strategies. It's a very public place and—well, we've been over that. As Paddy said, I think the choice we have on the thirty-first is quite simple. It's between the mouse and the man. Has anyone got any problem with taking a vote on that? Joshua?”

Joshua sat on his hands to lift himself up and give Joely better purchase on his upper-back massage. “No problem at all,” he said.

On the twentieth of December at precisely 0000 hours, the phone rang in the Jones house. Irie shuffled downstairs in her nightdress and picked up the receiver.

“
Erhummmm.
I would like you yourself to make a mental note of both the
date
and the
time
when I have chosen to ring you.”

“What? Er . . . what? Is that Ryan? Look, Ryan, I don't mean to be rude, but it's midnight, yeah? Is there something you wanted or—”

“Irie? Pickney? You dere?”

“You granmuvver is on the telephone extension. She wished to talk to you also.”

“Irie,” said Hortense excitably. “You gwan have to speak up, me kyan hear nuttin'—”

“Irie, I repeat: have you noted the
date
and the
time
of our call?”

“What? Look, I can't . . . I'm really tired . . . could this wait until . . .”

“The twentieth, Irie. At O hundred hours. Twos and zeros . . .”

“You lissnin', pickney? Mr. Topps tryin' to explain someting very impar-tent.”

“Gran, you're going to have to talk one at a time . . . you just hauled me out of bed . . . I'm, like, totally
knackered.
”

“Twos and zeros, Miss Jones. Signifying the year 2000. And do you know the month of my call?”

“Ryan, it's December. Is this really—”

“The
twelfth
month, Irie. Corresponding to the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. Of which each woz sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Judah woz sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben woz sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad—”

“Ryan, Ryan . . . I get the picture.”

“There are certain days when the Lord wishes us to act—certain prewarning days, designated days—”

“Where we mus' be savin' de souls of de lost. Warnin' dem ahead of time.”

“We are warning
you,
Irie.”

Hortense began softly weeping. “We only tryin' to warn you, darlin'.”

“OK. Great. I stand warned. Good night, all.”

“That is not the end of our warning,” said Ryan solemnly. “That is simply the first warning. There are more.”

“Don't tell me—eleven more.”

“Oh!” cried Hortense, dropping the phone but still distantly audible. “She have been visited by de Lord! She know before she be tol'!”

“Look. Ryan. Could you somehow
condense
the other eleven warnings into one—or at least, tell me the most important one? Otherwise, I'm afraid I'm going to have to go back to bed.”

There was a silence for a minute. Then: “
Erhuuummm.
Very well. Do not get involved with this man.”

“Oh, Irie! Please lissen to Mr. Topps! Please lissen to 'im!”

“With
what
man?”

“Oh, Miss Jones. Please do not pretend you 'ave no knowledge of your great sin. Open your soul. Let the Lord let myself reach out for yourself, and wash you free of—”

“Look, I'm really fucking tired.
What
man?”

“The scientist, Chalfen. The man you call ‘friend' when in truth he is an enemy of all humanity.”

“Marcus? I'm not involved with him. I just answer his phone and do his paperwork.”

“And thus are you made the secretary of the devil,” said Ryan, prompting Hortense into more and louder tears, “thus is you yourself laid low.”

“Ryan, listen to me. I haven't got
time
for this. Marcus Chalfen is simply trying to come up with some answers to shit like—shit like
—cancer.
OK? I don't know where you've been getting your information, but I can assure you he ain't the devil incarnate.”

“Only one of 'im minions!” protested Hortense. “Only one of 'im frontline troops!”

“Calm yourself, Mrs. B. I am afraid your granddaughter is too far gone for us. As I expected, since leaving us, she 'as joined the dark side.”

“Fuck you, Ryan, I'm not Darth Vader.
Gran . . .
”

“Don't tark to me, pickney, don't tark to me. I and I is bitterly disappointed.”

“It appears we will be seein' you on the thirty-first, then, Miss Jones.”

“Stop calling me Miss Jones, Ryan. The . . . what?”

“The thirty-first. The event will provide a platform for the Witness message. The world's press will be there. And so will we. We intend—”

“We gwan warn all a dem!” broke in Hortense. “And we gat it all plan out nice, see? We gwan sing hymns with Mrs. Dobson on de accordion, 'cos you kyan shif a piano all de way dere. An' we gwan hunger strike until dat hevil man stop messin' wid de Lord's beauteous creation an'—”

“Hunger strike? Gran, when you go without elevenses you get
nauseous.
You've never gone without food for more than three hours in your life. You're eighty-five.”

“You forget,” said Hortense with chilling curtness, “I was born in strife. Me a survivor. A little no-food don' frighten me.”

“And you're going to let her do that, are you, Ryan? She's eighty-five, Ryan.
Eighty-five.
She can't go on a hunger strike.”

“I'm tellin' you, Irie,” said Hortense, speaking loudly and clearly into the mouthpiece, “I
want
to do dis. I'm nat boddered by a little lack of food. De Lord giveth wid 'im right hand and taketh away wid 'im left.”

Irie listened to Ryan drop the phone, walk to Hortense's room, and slowly ease the receiver from her, persuading her to go to bed. Irie could hear her grandmother singing as she was led down the hallway, repeating the phrase to no one in particular and setting it to no recognizable tune:
De Lord giveth wid 'im right hand and taketh away wid 'im left!

But most of the time,
thought Irie,
he's simply a thief in the night.
He just taketh away. He just taketh the fuck away.

Magid was proud to say he witnessed every stage. He witnessed the custom design of the genes. He witnessed the germ injection. He witnessed the artificial insemination. And he witnessed the birth, so different from his own. One mouse only. No battle down the birth canal, no first and second, no saved and unsaved. No potluck. No random factors. No
you have your father's snout and your mother's love of cheese.
No mysteries lying in wait. No doubt as to when death will arrive. No hiding from illness, no running from pain. No question about who was pulling the strings. No doubtful omnipotence. No shaky fate. No question of a journey, no question of greener grass, for wherever this mouse went, its life would be precisely the same. It would not travel through time (and Time's a bitch, Magid knew
that
much now. Time is
the
bitch), because its future was equal to its present, which was equal to its past. A Chinese box of a mouse. No other roads, no missed opportunities, no parallel possibilities. No second-guessing, no what-ifs, no might-have-beens. Just certainty. Just certainty in its purest form. And what more, thought Magid—once the witnessing was over, once the mask and gloves were removed, once the white coat was returned to its hook—what more is God than
that
?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Final Space

Thursday, December 31, 1992

So said the banner on the top of the newspaper. So proclaimed the revelers who danced through early evening streets with their shrill silver whistles and Union Jacks, trying to whip up the feeling that goes with the date; trying to bring on the darkness (it was only five o'clock) so that England might have its once-a-year party; get fucked up, throw up, snog, grope, and impale; stand in the doorways of trains holding them open for friends; argue with the sudden inflationary tactics of Somalian minicab drivers, jump in water or play with fire, and all by the dim, disguising light of the streetlamps. It was the night when England stops saying
pleasethankyoupleasesorrypleasedidI?
And starts saying
pleasefuckmefuckyoumotherfucker
(and we
never
say that; the accent is wrong; we sound silly). The night England gets down to the fundamentals. It was New Year's Eve. But Joshua was having a hard time believing it. Where had the time gone? It had seeped between the crack in Joely's legs, run into the secret pockets of her ears, hidden itself in the warm, matted hair of her armpits. And the consequences of what he was about to do, on this the biggest day of his life, a critical situation that three months ago he would have dissected, compartmentalized, weighed up, and analyzed with Chalfenist vigor—that too had escaped him into her crevices. He had made no real decisions this New Year's Eve, no resolutions. He felt as thoughtless as the young men tumbling out of pubs, looking for trouble; he felt as light as the child sitting astride his father's shoulders heading for a family party. Yet he was not with them, out there in the streets, having fun—he was here, in here, careening into the center of town, making a direct line for the Perret Institute like a heat-seeking missile. He was here, cramped in a bright red minibus with ten jumpy members of FATE, hurtling out of Willesden toward Trafalgar Square, half listening to Kenny read his father's name out loud for the benefit of Crispin, who was up front, driving.

“ ‘When Dr. Marcus Chalfen puts his FutureMouse on public display this evening he begins a new chapter in our genetic future.' ”

Crispin threw his head back for a loud “Ha!”

“Yeah, right, exactly,” continued Kenny, trying unsuccessfully to scoff and read simultaneously, “like, thanks for the objective reporting. Umm, where was I . . . all right: ‘More significantly, he opens up this traditionally secretive, rarefied, and complex branch of science to an unprecedented audience. As the Perret Institute prepares to open its doors around the clock for seven years, Dr. Chalfen promises a national event that will be “crucially unlike the Festival of Britain in 1951 or the 1924 British Empire Exhibition because it has no political agenda.” ' ”

“Ha!” snorted Crispin once more, this time turning right around in his seat so the FATE minibus (which wasn't officially the FATE minibus; it still had kensal rise family services unit in ten-inch yellow letters on either side; a loan from a social worker with furry animal sympathies) only narrowly missed a gaggle of pissed-up high-heeled girls who were tottering across the road. “No political agenda? Is he taking the fucking
piss
?”

“Keep your eyes on the road, darling,” said Joely, blowing him a kiss. “We want to at least
try
to get there in one piece. Umm, left here . . . down the Edgware Road.”

“Fucker,” said Crispin, glowering at Joshua and then turning back. “What a
fucker
he is.”

“ ‘By 1999,' ” read Kenny, following the arrow from the front to page five, “ ‘the year experts predict recombinant DNA procedure will come into its own—approximately fifteen
million
people will have seen the FutureMouse exhibition, and many more worldwide will have followed the progress of the FutureMouse in the international press. By then, Dr. Chalfen will have succeeded in his aim of educating a nation, and throwing the ethical ball into the people's court.' ”

“Pass. Me. The. Fuck. Ing. Buck. Et,” said Crispin, as if the very words were vomit. “What do the other papers say?”

Paddy held up Middle England's Bible so Crispin could see it in the rear-view. Headline: mousemania.

“It comes with a free FutureMouse sticker,” said Paddy, shrugging his shoulders and slapping the sticker on his beret. “Pretty cute, actually.”

“The tabloids are a surprise winner, though,” said Minnie. Minnie was a brand-new convert: a seventeen-year-old Crusty, with matted blond dreads and pierced nipples, whom Joshua had briefly considered becoming obsessed with. He tried for a while, but found he just couldn't do it; he just couldn't leave his miserable little psychotic world-of-Joely and go out seeking life on a new planet. Minnie, to her credit, had spotted this straight off and gravitated toward Crispin. She wore as little as the winter weather would allow and took every opportunity to thrust her perky pierced nipples into Crispin's personal space, as she did now, reaching over to the driver's cab to show him the front page of the daily rag in question. At one and the same time Crispin tried unsuccessfully to take the Marble Arch traffic circle, avoid elbowing Minnie in the tits, and look at the paper.

“I can't see it properly. What is it?”

“It's Chalfen's head with mouse ears, attached to a goat's torso, which is attached to a pig's arse. And he's eating from a trough that says ‘Genetic Engineering' at one end and ‘Public Money' at the other. Headline: chalfen chows down.”

“Nice. Every little helps.”

Crispin went round the traffic circle again, and this time got the turning he required. Minnie reached over him and propped the paper on the dashboard.

“God, he looks more fucking Chalfenist than ever!”

Joshua bitterly regretted telling Crispin about this little idiosyncrasy of his family, their habit of referring to themselves as verbs, nouns, and adjectives. It had seemed a good idea at the time; give everybody a laugh; confirm, if there was any doubt, whose side he was on. But he never felt that he'd betrayed his father—the weight of what he was doing never really hit him—until he heard Chalfenism ridiculed out of Crispin's mouth.

“Look at him Chalfening around in that trough. Exploit everything and everybody, that's the Chalfen way, eh Josh?”

Joshua grunted and turned his back on Crispin, in favor of the window and a view of the frost over Hyde Park.

“That's a classic photo, there, see? The one they've used for the head. I remember it; that was the day he gave evidence in the California trial. That look of
total
fucking
superiority.
Very Chalfenesque!”

Joshua bit his tongue. don't rise to it. if you don't rise to it, you gain her sympathy.

“
Don't,
Crisp,” said Joely firmly, touching Joshua's hair. “Just try to remember what we're about to do. He doesn't
need
that tonight.”

BINGO.

“Yeah, well . . .”

Crispin put his foot down on the accelerator. “Minnie, have you and Paddy checked that everyone's got everything they need? Balaclavas and that?”

“Yeah, all done. It's cool.”

“Good.” Crispin pulled out a small silver box filled with all the necessaries to roll a fat joint and threw it in Joely's direction, catching Joshua painfully on the shin.

“Make us one, love.”

CUNT.

Joely retrieved the box from the floor. She worked crouching, the rolling papers resting on Joshua's knee, her long neck exposed, her breasts falling forward until they were practically in his hands.

“Are you nervous?” she asked him, flicking her head back once the joint was rolled.

“How d'you mean, nervous?”

“About tonight. I mean, talk about conflict of loyalties.”

“Conflict?” murmured Josh hazily, wishing he were out there with the happy people, the conflict-free people, the New Year people.

“God, I really
admire
you. I mean, FATE are dedicated to extreme action . . . And you know, even now, I find some of the stuff we do
. . . difficult.
And we're talking about the most firmly held principle in my life, you know? I mean, Crispin and FATE . . . that's my whole life.”

OH GREAT, thought Joshua, OH FANTASTIC.

“And I'm still
shit scared
about tonight.”

Joely sparked the joint and inhaled. She passed it straight to Joshua, as the minibus took a right past Parliament. “It's like that quote: ‘If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.' The choice between a duty or a principle, you know? You see, I don't feel torn like that. I don't know if I could do what I do if I did. I mean, if it was my
father.
My first commitment is to animals and that's Crispin's first commitment too, so there's no conflict. It's kind of easy for us. But you, Joshi,
you've
made the most extreme decision out of us all . . . and you just seem so
calm.
I mean, it's admirable . . . and I think you've
really
impressed Crispin, because you know, he was a little unsure about whether . . .”

Joely kept on talking, and Josh kept on nodding in the necessary places, but the hardcore Thai weed he was smoking had lassoed one word of hers
—calm—
and reined it in as a question.
Why so calm, Joshi?
You're about to get into some pretty serious shit
—why so calm?

Because he imagined he
seemed
calm from the outside, preternaturally calm, his adrenaline enjoying an inverse relationship with the rising New Year sap, with the jittery nerves of the FATE posse; and the effect of the skunk on top of it all . . . it was like walking under water, deep under water, while children played above. But it wasn't calm so much as inertia. And he couldn't work out, as the van progressed down Whitehall, whether this was the right reaction—to let the world wash over him, to let events take their course—or whether he should be more like
those
people, those people out there, whooping, dancing, fighting, fucking . . . whether he should be more—what was that horrible late-twentieth-century tautology?
Proactive.
More proactive in the face of the future.

But he took another deep hit on the joint and it sent him back to twelve, being twelve; a precocious kid, waking up each morning fully expecting a
twelve hours until nuclear apocalypse
announcement, that old, cheesy, end-of-the-world scenario. Round that time he had thought a lot about extreme decisions, about the future and its deadlines. Even then it had struck him that he was unlikely to spend those last twelve hours fucking Alice the fifteen-year-old baby-sitter next door, telling people that he loved them, converting to orthodox Judaism, or doing all the things he wanted and all the things he never dared. It always seemed more likely to him, much more likely, that he would just return to his room and calmly finish constructing Lego Medieval Castle. What else could you do? What other choice could you be certain about? Because choices need time, the
fullness of time,
time being the horizontal axis of morality—you make a decision and then you wait and see, wait and see. And it's a lovely fantasy, this fantasy of no time (TWELVE HOURS LEFT TWELVE HOURS LEFT), the point at which consequences disappear and any action is allowable (“I'm
mad—
I'm fucking
mad for it
!” came the cry from the street). But twelve-year-old Josh was too neurotic, too anal, too
Chalfenist
to enjoy it, even the thought of it. Instead he was there thinking:
but what if the world
doesn't
end and what if I fucked Alice Rodwell and she became
pregnant
and what if—

It was the same now. Always the fear of consequences. Always this terrible inertia. What he was about to do to his father was so huge, so
colossal,
that the consequences were inconceivable—he couldn't imagine a moment occurring after that act. Only blankness. Nothingness. Something like the end of the world. And facing the end of the world, or even just the end of the year, had always given Josh a strangely detached feeling.

Every New Year's Eve is impending apocalypse in miniature. You fuck where you want, you puke when you want, you punch who you want to punch—the huge gatherings in the street; the television roundups of the goodies and baddies of time past; the frantic final kisses; the 10! 9! 8!

Joshua glared up and down Whitehall, at the happy people going about their dress rehearsal. They were all confident that it wouldn't happen or certain they could deal with it if it did. But the world happens to you, thought Joshua, you don't happen to the world. There's nothing you can do. For the first time in his life, he truly believed that. And Marcus Chalfen believed the direct opposite. And there in a nutshell, he realized, is how I got here, turning out of Westminster, watching Big Ben approach the hour when I shall topple my father's house. That is how we all got here. Between rocks and hard places. The frying pan and the fire.

 

 

Thursday, December 31st, 1992, New Year's Eve

Signaling problems at Baker Street

No Southbound Jubilee Line Trains from Baker Street

 

 

Customers are advised to change on to the Metropolitan Line at Finchley Road

Or change at Baker Street on to the Bakerloo

There is no alternative bus service

Last train 0200 hours

All London Underground staff wish you a safe and happy New Year!

Willesden Green Station Manager, Richard Daley

Brothers Millat, Hifan, Tyrone, Mo Hussein-Ishmael, Shiva, Abdul-Colin, and Abdul-Jimmy stood stock-still like maypoles in the middle of the station while the dance of the New Year went on around them.