Walter Tevis - Mockingbird

For several days Mary Lou and I had been coming back, over and over, to the book of poems. We would read them aloud to one another, only barely understanding them. One poem we kept coming back to is called “The Hollow Men.” Early one afternoon I was reading it aloud while sitting on the floor next to Mary Lou. I believe I can write the words down:

And that was as far as I got. The door opened and Dean Spofforth walked in. He stood over us hugely, folded his arms, and stared down. It was shocking to see him in my room like this. Mary Lou had never seen him before, and she was staring up at bun with her eyes very wide.

There was something odd about his appearance and it took me a moment to tell what it was. And then I realized it; Spofforth was wearing a broad black armband with the white face of Privacy printed on it. I recognized it from a school lesson somewhere long ago; it was the armband of a Dectector.

Mary Lou was the first to speak. “What do you want?” she said. She did not sound frightened.

“You are both under arrest,” Spofforth said. And then, “I want you both to stand.”

We stood up. I was still holding the book. “Well?” Mary Lou said.

Spofforth looked her steadily in the face. “I am a Detector, and you have been detected.”

I could tell that she was shocked and trying not to show it. I wanted to put my arm around her, to protect her somehow. But I just stood there.

Spofforth was much taller than either of us, and his dignity and force were overwhelming. I had always been afraid of him and now his saying that he was a Detector had me speechless.

“Detected doing what?” Mary Lou said. There was a slight trembling in her voice.

Spofforth stared at her, unblinking. “Detected in cohabitation. Detected in the teaching of reading and detected in the act of reading itself.”

“But, Dean Spofforth,” I broke in, “you already knew I could…”

“Yes,” he said, “and I told you clearly that reading would not be taught at this university. The teaching of reading is a crime.”

Something sank deep inside me. I felt the strength and excitement that had been so much of my life for recent days all go away and I was standing in front of this massive robot like a little child. “A crime ?” I said.

“Yes, Bentley,” he said. “Your hearing will be tomorrow. You are to remain in your room until I return in the morning.”

Then he took Mary Lou by the arm and said, “You will come with me.”

She tried to pull away from him and then, finding she could not break his grip, she said, “Bug off, robot. Bug off, for Christ’s sake.”

He looked at her and seemed to laugh. “That won’t work,” he said. But his voice softened and he added, “No harm will come to you.”

And as he went out the door he turned and looked at me. “Don’t be too unhappy, Bentley. This may all be for the best.”

She went with him without a struggle, and he pulled the door shut behind himself.

No harm? What worse harm could there be than this separation? Where is she? Where is Mary Lou?

I am crying as I write. I cannot finish now. I will take sopors and sleep.

There is more to tell than I can say in the time that I have. But I will try.

Spofforth himself took me to court. I was handcuffed and he brought me on a black thought bus to a place in Central Park called Justice House. It was a two-story plastic building with dirty windows.

The courtroom was large. There were many pictures of strange-looking men on the walls. Some of them were wearing the suits and ties that I had seen in ancient films. One man stood in front of a bookcase, much like Douglas Fairbanks. And under his picture there was writing. It said: “ Sydney Fairfax, Chief Justice .” And under this, in smaller print, were the numbers 1997-2014. I believe those numbers were what are called “dates.”

There was a black-robed robot judge sitting in an armchair at the far end of the courtroom, facing the entranceway. I started when I saw him; I had seen his face before. It was the face of the Make Seven headmaster at the dormitory in Ohio where I had been educated. An Upper-Management Robot. I remembered hearing once, “All Make Sevens look alike.” And I, being just a child, had said, “Why?” and the child I was talking to had said, “Don’t ask; relax.”

The judge was dormant when we came in. That is, his power had been turned off. Next to him was sitting, also dormant, and in a lower, simpler chair, a Make Four clerk robot.

When we got closer I could see that there was yellowish dust, like that in the sealed-off part of the library, all over each of them. The intelligent-looking creases on the judge’s face were filled with yellow dust. His hands were folded in his lap, and from his right forearm to his chin a spider had built a web, some time ago. There were holes in the web, and dust on it. A few tiny bodies of insects, like dried snot, hung on the remains of the web. There was no spider visible.

Behind the judge was the Great Seal of North America, just like the one in Piety House at the Thinker Dormitory. It too was covered with dust, which had settled thickly on the relief images of dove and heart; and the plasticasts of the twin Holy Goddesses of Individualism and Privacy, which flanked the Great Seal, were also covered with dust.

Spofforth placed me in the defendant’s chair, which was made of something called wood and was uncomfortable. Then he removed my handcuffs, with a surprisingly gentle touch, and had me place my right hand in the Truth Hole that sat directly in front of me. He said quietly, “For each lie you tell, a ringer will be severed. Answer the judge with care.”

I had, of course, learned of Truth Holes, and of courts, in my Minimal Civics classes. But I had never seen these things before and I found myself trembling with fright. Perhaps the fright was made worse by the resemblance so many things bore to the dormitories, and to the time I was punished for Privacy Imposition as a child. I shifted my weight in the hard seat, tried to make myself comfortable, and waited.

Spofforth looked around the room as though he were studying the holes in the plaster, or the pictures of ancient men, or the empty wood benches. Then he walked over to the judge and ran a finger down the side of the robot’s cheek and then looked at the little pile of dust on his finger. “Inexcusable,” he said.

He turned to the clerk and said, in an authoritative voice, “Activate yourself, Clerk of the Court.”

The clerk did not move except for his mouth. He said, “Who commands the court?”

“I am a Robot Rational. Make Nine. I command you to awaken.”

Immediately the clerk stood. Some debris fell from his lap onto the floor. “Yes, your honor. I am awake and active.”

“I want you to summon a cleaning crew and have the judge cleaned. Immediately.” Then Spofforth looked at the bits of yellow dust and debris that were clinging to the clerk’s lap and said, “Have yourself cleaned up too.”

The clerk spoke respectfully. “The court servos and cleaning crew are no longer operable, your honor.”

“Why not?”

“Dead batteries and general malfunction, your honor.”

“Why haven’t they been repaired?”

“There have been no repair crews in Central Park for sixty yellows, your honor.”

“All right,” Spofforth said. “Then get cleaning materials yourself and clean the two of you up.”