ADAM HALL - Quiller Salamander

When the captain could stand up I pushed him across the room and turned him round to face me. 'Do you remember,' I asked him, 'what happens when you make me tell you twice to do something?'

He was trying to watch me but his eyes couldn't quite focus.

'Yes.'

Breakthrough.

'Kneel.'

I don't think he went down onto his knees with any conscious intent; it was just that he was aching a lot and felt like letting his body collapse.

'That's good,' I said, and ripped the linen name tag off his battledress and gave it to him. 'Eat that.'

I waited, listening to the cricket singing.

'Is that your name?' I asked him.

'Yes.'

'I want you to eat it, and if I have to ask you a second time you know what's going to happen.'

His eyes still couldn't focus very well: he'd hit his head when we went through the aikido roll, and it had affected the occipital area. He looked at the name tab, then at me.

'Eat?'

'Yes.'

He put it into his mouth.

'Just chew it a bit, then swallow. Don't choke.'

Faint light swept the open doorway as something went past on the road. The heat of the day had been trapped in here, and sweat had started running on the man in front of me, this now temporary man, the captain.

Then he spat the name tab into my face and I drove one finger into the trigeminal nerve between the neck and the point of the jawbone and he screamed because pain in that area is instant and agonizing.

I wiped my face and picked up the name tab and held it out for him. 'Take it,' I said.

Tears streamed on his face, and for the first time I had to think of the girl with one leg, who was sore under her arms because she still wasn't used to her new crutches.

'I don't want to tell you what to do,' I said, 'more than once.'

Two seconds, three seconds, four, five, then he put the name tab into his mouth. He wasn't watching me any more, was looking down.

'Don't waste my time,' I told him, two seconds, three, then he swallowed.

'Was that your name?'

'Yes.'

'What did you do with your name?'

He looked up at me now, head a little on one side.

'What?' he asked me.

'Can you hear me all right?'

It took time. 'This side.'

'All right. Keep your head turned like that.' Perhaps he'd burst an eardrum somewhere along the line, and I didn't want to make any punitive strikes if he hadn't heard the command; it wouldn't get us anywhere.

'I'm going to ask you again,' I said, 'because you might not have heard me the first time. What did you do with your name?'

'Swallow it.'

The left hemisphere a little dulled, I'd have to be careful: I didn't want to impair his memory, because that was what I was here to listen to when the time came. The time wasn't now: he wasn't ready yet, would clam up, whatever I did to him, finito.

I looked at my watch. We'd been working for thirty-four minutes. Outside the building, dark was down: I could see it through the doorway. The flashlight was still bright but I didn't know how long the battery would last: we'd only just started, and it would be another two hours, perhaps three, before I could ask the first question, and even then I would have to do it with extreme care.

'You swallowed your name?'

'Bat.'

'In French. Stick to French. You swallowed your name?'

'Yes.'

'You ate it?'

'Yes.'

'Who are you, then? Give me your rank and name.'

'I am Captain Saloth.'

The same as Pol Pot's real name: perhaps this man had adopted it, was full of borrowed pride.

'No,' I said, 'you're nothing now. You have eaten your rank and your name, so now you are nothing. What are you?'

'I am Captain — '

'You're not listening. When I tell you something, it's always right. If you contradict me, you know what will happen to you. Now, what are you?'

'I am Captain — '

Screamed again because I worked on the same nerve.

I waited, listening to the cricket's song. The nothing was silent now, its eyes shut and the tears dripping from its face, its knees folding at last as I knew they would.

'Don't do that. Kneel upright. Knees straight. Can you hear me?'

The nothing said nothing. I had to think of the former Captain Saloth in that way now to create the reality. What was real in my mind must be made real in his.

'Can you hear me?'

'Yes.'

'Then straighten your knees.' Waited. 'Good. Now, I've told you what you are, remember? You are nothing. Listen carefully to the question. What are you?'

The song of the cricket had stopped.

The nothing was swaying slightly from side to side. The agony of the last strike would still be burning through the nerves; it would last for some time, perhaps for days, would be tender for weeks, months. I know this: it was a month before I could even shave there after I came out of the underground cell in Zagreb.

'Are you going to make me ask you the same question twice?'

It flinched. 'No.'

'Do you remember the question?'

Its face looked at me, the eyes flickering with pain, the head held slightly to one side, the tears drying on the blotchy skin. I thought of the other girl, the one in the photograph on the wall of the mine-clearing office, smiling, radiant, used to her crutches by now, no problem, held in a bear hug by the two grinning men.

It said something in Khmer.

'French. Always speak French.'

'What question?'

'Listen,' I said, 'you're not paying enough attention. I'm going to tell you what you are, and then you're going to answer my question. Now listen carefully. This is what you are: you are nothing.' I waited, watching it to see if it understood. I thought it did: there was still intelligence in the eyes and the swaying had stopped. 'So here comes the question. What are you?'

It was silent. It didn't move. It looked like the remains of a wood carving half destroyed by time, the head angled on the neck, the eyes splintered, the mouth half open and askew. But I could hear it breathing, and in the sound of its breathing there was a faint musical note, a kind of mewing that loudened suddenly into speech.

'Nothing.'

I look at my watch, the last chance I shall get because the battery of the flashlight is running low.

The time is 21:39.

We have been here for two and a half hours, something like that.

It seems longer, much longer.

I watch its face as the light grows dim. It's still alive, and still conscious. There wasn't very much more to do since it recognized itself as nothing: that was the breakthrough. But we needed more time between the questions and the answers, because sometimes it remembered its pride and did silly things, and there is now a gash on my face and I can feel the blood caked there, itching as it dries, a trophy won by inattention, but then I'm tired too, and I feel some of its pain. All men are brothers, however divided by their lunatic ideologies.

The cricket is singing again, and in the rectangle of the doorway there is moonlight.

'Who are you?'

'Nobody. Nothing.'

'You are my prisoner. What are you?'

'I am your prisoner.'

'Your life is in my hands. Do you want to live?'

'My life is — '

'Listen to the question. Do you want to live?'

'Pain. Want end of pain.'

The light is very dim now, just a glow.

It is still kneeling, immediately in front of me. I can smell its sweat. It reeks. It can smell mine. I reek. I can smell its blood. It can smell mine. All men are pigs.

The light goes out.

'Your pain will end, if you're very careful.'

I think it is swaying, in the pale light from the doorway, from the moon. I think I am swaying too. It's getting late. I didn't sleep last night. I slept for a few hours today but this has been tiring for the psyche, which is exhausted by the endless need to withhold compassion even from this thing, this child-crippler, this hero of the holocaust to come.