with all the trimmings in a fashionable part of Paris?’
Datt nodded. ‘Or a fashionable part of Buenos Aires, or Tokyo, or Washington, or London.’
‘I don’t think you are a true Marxist at all,’ I said. ‘You merely relish the downfall of the West. A Marxist at least comforts himself with the idea of the proletariat joining hands across national frontiers, but you Chinese Communists relish aggressive nationalism just at a time when the world was becoming mature enough to reject it.’
‘I relish nothing. I just record,’ said Datt. ‘But it could be said that the things of Western Europe that you are most anxious to preserve are better served by supporting the real, uncompromising power of Chinese communism than by allowing the West to splinter into internecine warrior states. France, for example, is travelling very nicely down that path; what will she preserve in the West if her atom bombs are launched? We will conquer, we will preserve. Only we can create a truly world order based upon seven hundred million true believers.’
‘That’s really 1984,’ I said. ‘Your whole set-up is Orwellian.’
‘Orwell,’ said Datt, ‘was a naïve simpleton. A middle-class weakling terrified by the realities of social revolution. He was a man of little talent and would have remained unknown had the reactionary press not seen in him a powerful weapon of propaganda. They made him a guru, a pundit, a seer. But their efforts will rebound upon them, for Orwell in the long run will be the greatest ally the Communist movement ever had. He warned the bourgeoisie to watch for militancy, organization, fanaticism and thought-planning, while all the time the seeds of their destruction are being sown by their own inadequacy, apathy, aimless violence and trivial titillation. Their destruction is in good hands: their own. The rebuilding will be ours. My own writings will be the basis of our control of Europe and America. Our control will rest upon the satisfaction of their own basest appetites. Eventually a new sort of European man will evolve.’
‘History,’ I said. ‘That’s always the alibi.’
‘Progress is only possible if we learn from history.’
‘Don’t believe it. Progress is man’s indifference to the lessons of history.’
‘You are cynical as well as ignorant,’ said Datt as though making a discovery. ‘Get to know yourself, that’s my advice. Get to know yourself.’
‘I know enough awful people already,’ I said.
‘You feel sorry for the people who came to my clinic. That’s because you really feel sorry for yourself. But these people do not deserve your sympathy. Rationalization is their destruction. Rationalization is the aspirin of mental health and, as with aspirin, an overdose can be fatal.
‘They enslave themselves by dipping deeper and deeper into the tube of taboos. And yet each stage of their journey is described as greater freedom.’ He laughed grimly. ‘Permissiveness is slavery. But so has history always been. Your jaded, overfed section of the world is comparable to the ancient city states of the Middle East. Outside the gates the hard nomads waited their chance to plunder the rich, decadent city-dwellers. And in their turn the nomads would conquer, settle into the newly-conquered city and grow soft, and new hard eyes watched from the barren stony desert until their time was ripe. So the hard, strong, ambitious, idealistic peoples of China see the over-ripe conditions of Europe and the USA. They sniff the air and upon it floats the aroma of garbage cans overfilled, idle hands and warped minds seeking diversions bizarre and perverted, they smell violence, stemming not from hunger, but from boredom, they smell the corruption of government and the acrid flash of fascism. They sniff, my friend: you!’
I said nothing, and waited while Datt sipped at his coffee and brandy. He looked up. ‘Take off your coat.’
‘I’m not staying.’
‘Not staying?’ He chuckled. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Back to Ostend,’ I said. ‘And you are going with me.’
‘More violence?’ He raised his hands in mock surrender.
I shook my head. ‘You know you’ve got to go back,’ I said. ‘Or are you going to leave all your dossiers back there on the quayside less than four miles away?’
‘You’ll give them to me?’
‘I’m promising nothing,’ I told him, ‘but I know that you have to go back there. There is no alternative.’ I poured myself more coffee and gestured to him with the pot. ‘Yes,’ he said absent-mindedly. ‘More.’
‘You are not the sort of man that leaves a part of himself behind. I know you, Monsieur Datt. You could bear to have your documents on the way to China and yourself in the hands of Loiseau, but the converse you cannot bear.’
‘You expect me to go back there and give myself up to Loiseau?’
‘I know you will,’ I said. ‘Or live the rest of your life regretting it. You will recall all your work and records and you will relive this moment a million times. Of course you must return with me. Loiseau is a human being and human activities are your speciality. You have friends in high places, it will be hard to convict you of any crime on the statute book …’
‘That is very little protection in France.’
‘Ostend is in Belgium,’ I said. ‘Belgium doesn’t recognize Peking, Loiseau operates there only on sufferance. Loiseau too will be amenable to any debating skill you can muster. Loiseau fears a political scandal that would involve taking a man forcibly from a foreign country …’
‘You are glib. Too glib,’ said Datt. ‘The risk remains too great.’
‘Just as you wish,’ I said. I drank the rest of my coffee and turned away from him.
‘I’d be a fool to go back for the documents. Loiseau can’t touch me here.’ He walked across to the barometer and tapped it. ‘It’s going up.’ I said nothing.
He said, ‘It was my idea to make my control centre a pirate radio boat. We are not open to inspection nor even under the jurisdiction of any government in the world. We are, in effect, a nation unto ourselves on this boat, just as all the other pirate radio ships are.’
‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘You’re safe here.’ I stood up. ‘I should have said nothing,’ I said. ‘It is not my concern. My job is done.’ I buttoned my coat tight and blessed the man from Ostend for providing the thick extra sweater.
‘You despise me?’ said Datt. There was an angry note in his voice.
I stepped towards him and took his hand in mine. ‘I don’t,’ I said anxiously. ‘Your judgement is as valid as mine. Better, for only you are in a position to evaluate your work and your freedom.’ I gripped his hand tight in a stereotyped gesture of reassurance.
He said, ‘My work is of immense value. A breakthrough you might almost say. Some of the studies seemed to have …’ Now he was anxious to convince me of the importance of his work.
But I released his hand carefully. I nodded, smiled and turned away. ‘I must go. I have brought Kuang here, my job is done. Perhaps one of your sailors would take me back to Ostend.’
Datt nodded. I turned away, tired of my game and wondering whether I really wanted to take this
