Story: Sympathy for the Torturer (conclusion)

 

 

 

 

Sympathy for the Torturer

(part six)

 

 

As soon as Anton sank into an upper-tier seat, close to the steps, he was joined by a uniformed officer. So it had…his badge, traveling on his person, signaled his violation.

“If I don’t get off. If I only ride, and come back to ANE.”

“No, no. We’ll take a walk, and we’ll come back in a car. You told the guards your grandmother lived in D-Sector. It was a lie and you shouldn’t lie. Mrs. Leonhardt says her mother was dead before you were born. You were a reporter, weren’t you, for that woman Palma?”

This, Anton would rather not deny, if the officer believed it.

“All those delusions are in your file. Healthier for you to see D for yourself.”

Lulled by the ride, resigned to his arrest, Anton still disliked the way the officer peered at him every time he came to a blank between thoughts. Another night I won’t come home, and this time she won’t wonder.

He had just said it to himself.

“That’s right,” the officer said.

And why should I feel bad? I don’t. Maybe the other Anton could keep himself out of trouble. But how does she play herself this trick?

“Don’t worry about it.”

“My mother?”

“Exactly.”

“You say exactly, you agree with me, Mrs. Leonhardt is a sane person. Practical-minded, you’d think. You do think.”

“Careful, Anton…”

“It makes no sense. Do you agree there, too? I’m delusional.”

He went on speaking aloud—if the officer was going to sit there knowing things, why not? “I believe I lived with my grandmother until I was sent away to school. I believe if I find my old apartment house, I’ll know. Mrs. Leonhardt gave me a picture and said it was me, and I don’t believe it. Mrs. Leonhardt disallows what’s inconvenient to her today. But…”

“That’s an easy problem to solve.”

“No, what I’m saying…”

The officer pointed to the television at the front of the bus. The clip was of a man dragged backwards from a staircase, holding someone’s hands. And forced to, letting go. The hands were Palma’s. A second later she appeared, disheveled, narrow-eyed, jaw set.

They had been playing the surrender of the resistance leaders all day; they would go on playing it for days to come. Anton’s jealousy of Frederick became intolerable. He had to interrupt himself. “Why? Why does it solve my problem?”

 

 

6

 

 

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“I’d better not tell you. Work it out, it’ll do you good.”

“You’re wrong if you think Palma matters. There are others.”

The officer grinned. “Oh, you know that? Wasn’t Herward trying to teach you something?”

“Others who…”

…to be deluded over. Whom. Anton said, with enunciation, “I do not have to justify where I go or what I do. You have every second of it.”

No answer.

“Do you know if they’ll kill them?”

“No. I don’t know that.”

If he could do the officer’s trick, he would hear good if they do. Anton had seen himself healing and making his way back to Palma, working at this every day, his assignment. He had never known the people she surrounded herself with.

“Just watch out for accidents,” the officer said.

The bus slowed to the curb, and through his window Anton caught sight of a corduroy jacket he knew. Passengers inched forward, each lighting on the pavement adding delay.

He wanted to point out—he would, when he could look his companion in the eye—that Mrs. Leonhardt would shed all pretense if her own son returned. Here was a test of will she couldn’t pass.

Then, what made sense for the sane, reality their bequest from society? They could sell it, claim they kept it boxed in the attic, all burdens of dispute falling on their opponents, the not-sane…

What is your name? They told you to with police, and Anton framed the asking of this in his mind.

They were on the street now, the officer backing him to a wall. “I haven’t got one. Not for you, Anton. But you know me.”

He pocketed his mirrored glasses. “Uno, my buddy.”

The jacket, also a pair of loose jeans, and hair as short as his own, crossed the street to hook an arm around Anton’s waist.

“You’re nabbed,” she said. And it was Jovie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7

 

 

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Sympathy

Sympathy for the Torturer (part one)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2016, Stephanie Foster)