Will Self - The Butt

I am an anthropologist — not an apologist, right.’ Amusement sparked around the table, but Von Sasser extinguished it with a foaming hiss of pipe smoke. ‘And I view human morality, in the final analysis, yeah, to be a purely instrumental attribute of social systems.’

To illustrate this contention, Von Sasser snapped open the scalpel case that sat beside his place, withdrew one and used it to sever a wispy tumour from the tobacco fug. ‘A man’s or a woman’s very best intentions count for nothing, yeah, when the result of his actions is harm inflicted on another, weaker person.’ He levelled the scalpel’s tang at Prentice, who quailed, then put it back down.

‘ “Goodwill”,’ Von Sasser spat, ‘there’s a bloody oxymoron for you!’ He laughed sardonically, and Prentice, misreading his tone, giggled sycophantically. ‘Mind you’ — the anthropologist looked in turn at the diplomat, the doctor and the charity worker — ‘ bad will is equally nonsensical.

‘The pols down south, running scared, bleat about winning hearts and minds — and they call this goodwill. Now, setting aside the truth — which is that they’d like to cut out black hearts and wash out black minds — let’s tell it like it is: their goodwill is really’ — he paused for a beat — ‘ God will, because all ideas of human free will amount to the same bloody old bullshit. We know, deep in our animal hearts, every last bloody ape of us, that everything we do, we do instinctively. From painting the Sistine-bloody-Chapel to taking a piss, right.

‘If you ask me who God is,’ Von Sasser declaimed, ‘then this is my answer: you see this moth?’ All eyes fixed on the moth that fluttered by the lamp. ‘Then see its shadow.’ The eyes slid to the wall, where the shadow agitated for a moment, then was engulfed by a larger darkness.

‘God is dead.’ The anthropologist rubbed moth dust on to the tabletop. ‘And all ideas of human free will die with him — or her, or it. I put it to you: cannot a man or woman be programmed to perform, like a robot, any action, no matter how contrary to their intentions? You know they can. We’re lab’ rats, without any Jehova, or Allah, or Yah-bloody-weh sporting the white coat. Only one thing is for deffo: if any given action doesn’t contribute to the good, then it is, by definition, a bad action; and that individual — whatever he believes’ — the anthropologist’s hollow eyes bored into Prentice — ‘is a bad person.’

A curious thing was happening: as Von Sasser’s statements grew more and more adamant, so his tone softened. The raucous vowels were quelled, the harsh consonants churned to Mittel-European slush, the rights and yeahs died a death as the meaningless interrogative swoop flatlined.

‘So,’ Von Sasser soothed, ‘you ask me the next logical question: what is this “good” of which I speak? I’ll tell you. The individual, the family, the group, the tribe, the national power bloc — each seeks its own benefit in the exploitation of another individual, family, etcetera, etcetera. . Who is to be the arbiter, now that the moth’s so dusty? A fascist dictator? Or, as in the white parts of this country and the homelands of our visitors, an elective dictatorship — albeit, one voted in by apathy?’

He relit his pipe and had a glass of schnapps. Peering into his own glass, Tom saw a rainbow whorl supported on the clear fluid. He tossed it back, and his eyes swirled with the spectrum. The buttery flames of the oil lamps smeared, then righted. Tom felt keenly the massive void of the desert surrounding them, a cloud chamber, thousands miles wide, across which trailed Von Sasser’s vaporous fancies.

‘Well, we — the people , that is’ — he smiled sharkishly — ‘have always desired a more perfect union, justice for ourselves, if not our blacker conspecifics. Domestic harmony, mutual defence, common welfare — the blessing of liberty — for now, and for posterity! These are ringing phrases, deffo, but smokescreens all the same.’ The scalpel came out again, and he operated on the smoky carcinoma that metastasized from moment to moment.

All but one of the waitresses had joined the women slumped against the wall. Apart from Tom and Prentice, the Anglos were drowsing. During the meal Tom had heard his lawyer’s deranged chattering orbiting the room. Swai-Phillips’s voice fell from the rafters, flew in through the windows, was even thrown up from beneath the floor: ‘He tells it like it is, yeah. He says what he knows, right. Time to lissen up, you bloody buggeraters! Time to foooo-cuss!’ But at last he had crept in and huddled together with the tribeswomen.

Von Sasser resumed. ‘The more tenderly ambitious the commonwealth in the domestic sphere, the more rapacious its foreign adventuring: the standard of Rome speared in the barbarian heart, Cromwell’s mailed fist punched through the Irish kidney, the Belgian neutralists who still run amok here. Who decides what shall be ordained “the good”? Why, those who have the power — we’ve always known that.

‘ “For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away, even that which he hath.” The colonized have been taught to turn cheek after cheek, while receiving slap after slap.’

Von Sasser stopped, and Tom wondered where all this was going. Could it be aimed at Prentice, who sat across the table, his face, even in the lamplight, as pale and flat as paper? If so, was it the preamble to even rougher justice than Tom himself had contemplated? The waitress poured him yet another shot, and he injected it into the carburettor of his mouth, where it exploded. Tom gagged, spluttered, headlights bore down on him — from inside his eyes.

Ignoring this, Von Sasser continued: ‘Of course, times change, and, rather than admit that he wants to rip off your bauxite, the white man’s burden has become the Coke can he made from it, which you’re too inconsiderately bloody poor to buy off him. And in their own despotisms of dull, the Anglos abuse their wrinklies, their sickies, their dole bludgers, with a conception of “the good” that reeks of formaldehyde and the morgue. Their utilitarianism — how I bloody despise it! The noble Athenian polis rebuilt — on the never-never — in a general medical ward. Socrates is denied his hemlock and put on a morphine pump — as if that were any kind of death!’

The dirndl rustled by Tom’s ear; the shot was poured. Before drinking it Tom had the temerity to interrupt the anthropologist: ‘Excuse me, uh, Herr Doktor, but what exactly is in this stuff? It tastes kinda funny.’

‘A drop of petrol,’ Von Sasser told him. ‘Only a drop, mind. The desert tribes sniff it, and drink it — it’s a bloody scourge. I insist on all my guests having a little themselves. As a medical man I can assure you that it’ll do you no harm.’

A medical man? Tom was preparing to probe Von Sasser on this, when the anthropologist changed tack: ‘When my father arrived here fifty years ago, he found these people’ — he gestured towards the bundled-up tribeswomen — ‘on the brink of extinction. Winthrop. . Gloria, Vishtar — they’ve heard this tale many times before. .’ And besides, Tom thought, they’re beyond hearing.

They were: the fastidious Consul had slumped forward on to the table, while both Gloria and Loman were tipped back in their chairs. Gloria’s didgeridoo snores were a droning accompaniment to her cousin’s continuing jibber: ‘He’s the man, yeah, the number-one big bloke. Hear him!’

‘. . but I think it’s important for newcomers to know the background to what we do here.

‘As I say, my father came here as a young anthropologist. He had studied with Mauss, with Lévi-Strauss — he was eager to get into the field and make a name for himself. In those days, well’ — Von Sasser dismissed a genie of smoke with a wave — ‘the authorities in Capital City had no more shame than they do now. He easily obtained a permit to work among the desert people. Then, when he arrived — in a convoy of bloody Land Rovers! All heavily laden with canvas tents, picks, shovels, all the gear and supplies he needed for six months in the wilderness! Y’know’ — he leaned forward, digging at Tom with his pipe stem — ‘anthropology itself has always been a kind of imperialism: the noble conquest of authenticity. . Yes, when he arrived, instead of a state-of-bloody-nature, he discovered that the Belgians had long since rounded up all the able-bodied men, women and even children they could find and put ’em to work in Eyre’s Pit. You’ve seen the pit, yeah?’