in some part of him a knowledge that he was ‘destined’ to do something or other. He felt this as pure and unsullied, but – more often and more deeply as he grew older – ‘impractical’. That he did know quite well what he was doing is shown by his tendency to laugh apologetically at certain moments, with the remark that ‘he had been unable to resist temptation.’ Yet these words on the face of it had little to do with the obvious and recognized mores of his society, which was why it was essential to laugh. The laugh paid homage to these modes and mores. He was being ridiculous, the laugh said … yet he was never without uneasiness about what he was doing, the choices he had made.
It was necessary for him to be at a certain place at a certain time, in order to play a role that was essential in our handling of the crisis that faced Shikasta. He was to aim for a position – not only in his own country’s legal system – but a leading one in the system of northern countries which unified, or attempted to, that part of the northern hemisphere which recently had conquered and despoiled a good part of the planet, and which had until very recently been continually at war among themselves. He was to become a reliable and honest person, in this sphere. At a time of corruption, personal and public, he was to become known as incorruptible, unbribable, disinterested, straight-speaking.
But he was only just out of the last of his educational establishments, an elite one, for the production of the administrative class, when he took a false turning. Instead of going into a junior position in the Councils of the aforesaid bloc of northern countries, which was the position planned for him by us (and by him, of course, as Taufiq), he took a job in a law firm which was known for the number of its members who went into politics.
World War II was just over – Shikastan terminology. [SeeHistory of Shikasta, VOLS. 2955-3015, The Century of Destruction.] He had fought in it, seen much ferocity, spoiling, suffering. His judgments had been affected: his whole being – just like everybody else. He saw himself in a crucial role – as indeed he should – but one of the strongest of the false ideas of that epoch, politics, had entered into him. It was not as simple as that he wanted crude power, crude authority: no, he visualized himself ‘influencing things for the good’. He was an idealist: a word describing people who described themselves as intending good, not self-interest at the expense of others.
And in parentheses I report here that this was true of a good many of our citizens – to borrow a Shikastan word – of that time. They turned into wrong and destructive paths believing that they were better than others whose belief in self-interest was open and expressed, better because they, and they alone, knew how the practical affairs of the planet should be conducted. An emotional reaction to the sufferings of Shikasta seemed to them a sufficient qualification for curing them.
The attitudes outlined in this paragraph define ‘polities’, ‘political parties’, ‘political programmes’. Nearly all political people were incapable of thinking in terms of interaction, of cross-influences, of the various sects and ‘parties’ forming together a whole, wholes – let alone of groups of nations making up a whole. No, in entering the state of mind where ‘politics’ was ruler, it was always to enter a crippling partiality, a condition of being blinded by the ‘correctness’ of a certain viewpoint. And when one of these sects or ‘parties’ got power, they nearly always behaved as if their viewpoint could be the only right one. The only good one: when John chose a sect, he was in his own mind motivated by the highest ideas and ideals. He saw himself as a saviour of some kind, dreamed of himself as leader of the nation. From the moment he joined this group of lawyers, he met with very few people who thought differently from him. On various occasions members of our staff attempted to influence him, tried to remind him, indirectly of course, but none of them succeeded: the ways of thinking and being that he had taken to the borders of Shikasta were now so buried in him that they surfaced only rarely, in dreams, or in moments of remorse and panic that he could not ascribe to their right cause.
He had temporarily been written off. If it happened – so the judgment went on Canopus – that by some at present unforeseen processes Taufiq would ‘come to himself' – many such revealing phrases were common on Shikasta – and very often people apparently quite lost to us, at least temporarily, did ‘come to themselves’, ‘see the light’, and so on, quite often due to some awful shock or trauma of the kind Shikasta was so prodigal with, then, and then only, could trouble be spent on him. We were all so pressed, so thinly spread, and the situation on the planet so desperate.
One of my tasks was to observe him, to assess his present state, and if possible, to administer a reminder.
He was in his early fifties: that is, he was well past the halfway mark in the pitifully brief life which was all that Shikastans could now expect. As it happened he was scheduled for a longer life than most: his final assignment called for him to be about seventy-five when he would represent the aged. A respected representative: though at the moment it was hard to see how this could be brought about.
He lived in a house in an affluent district of the city, in a style which he would have described as moderate, was not excessive contrasted with what was usual then in that geographical area, but according to how it was to be judged very soon after – by global standards – in a shameful, wasteful, and profligate way. He had two families. A first wife had four children by him, and lived in another part of the city. His present wife had two children. The children were all indulged, spoiled, unfitted for what lay ahead. The women’s lives were devoted to supporting him, his ambitions. Both felt for him emotions characteristic of anyone who had ever been close to him. He was a person who had always provoked people into extremes of liking and disliking. He influenced people. He changed lives – for good and bad. A powerful inner drive (something supremely valuable which had as it were slipped out of true) had caused his life – and again this was hardly unusual in those times – to resemble where a swathe of forest fire had passed: everything extreme: blackened earth, destroyed animals and vegetation, and then stronger brilliant growth to follow, a change in the genetic patternings, potential of all kinds.
In appearance he was ordinary: dark hair, dark eyes in which even now I liked to imagine I could see traces of those far-distant ancestors, the Giants. A pale skin which possibly came from the genetic freaks among the Giants. His sturdy energetic body reminded me of the Natives. But of course by now there were so many admixtures, from the Sirian experiments, the Shammat spies, and others.
Like all people in public life at that period, he had public and private personalities. This was governed by the fact that no such person could ever tell the truth to the people he was supposed to represent. Some sort of attack in the personality was essential equipment: persuasiveness, forcefulness, charm. And it was necessary to use methods that in other times, places, planets, would have been described as deceitful, lying, and in fact criminal. The qualities prized in ‘public servants’ on Shikasta were, almost invariably, the most superficial and irrelevant imaginable, and could only have been accepted in a time of near total debasement and falseness. This was true of all sects, groupings, ‘parties’: for what was remarkable about this particular time was how much they all resembled each other, while they spent most of their energies in describing and denigrating differences that they imagined existed between them.
John had become a national figure by the time he was forty. This was because he was in certain positions and places: not because he was more than ordinarily competent, or had more than the usual grasp of public affairs – seen from local viewpoints, of course. He was handicapped because of his self-division. His suppressed inner qualities made him disappointed with what he was. He knew he had greater qualities than any he was using but did not know what they were. This restlessness had caused him to drink too much, indulge in bouts of self-denigration and cynicism. He was not respected in ways that matter, and he knew it. He was only another among the hundreds, the thousands, of the politicians of the globe of whom nothing much was to be expected – certainly not by the people they were supposed to represent. These might work, fight, even commit crimes to get ‘their’ representatives into power, but after that they did not consider they
