Howard Goldblatt (Editor) - Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused – Fiction From Today

This was also the first time the stranger had thought back to the humid night when he had received the mysterious telegram.

For days, his mind had circled around the moment in which March 5, 1965, had emerged in his mind. Now his focus shifted. He began to ponder several other dates, other memories that had continued to disturb him even as they lay abandoned at the back of his mind. These memories were January 9,1958, December 1,1967, August 7, i960, and September 20, 1971, respectively. And with this realization, the stranger began to understand why he was unable to move toward March 5, 1965. The telegram's message might have been just as relevant to these four dates as to March 5, 1965. Indeed, it was precisely these memories that had blocked his way to March 5, 1965. And each of these four events represented roads that ran in entirely different directions without ever intersecting with the other. So even if the stranger abandoned his search for March 5, 1965, he would be unable to find either January 9, 1958, or any one of the other three remaining dates.

This realization took place at dusk, when the stranger, thrown into a quandary by his procedural error, began to ponder how to escape his predicament. That was also when he began to devote his attention to the enigma represented by the punishment expert. He began to sense that the old man was a kind of elusive link to his past. This is why he had come to feel that their meeting had been arranged in advance.

As the sky darkened, the punishment specialist's intense excitement did not detract from a sense that he was in control of himself and of the flow of events around him. The stranger unsuspectingly yielded to some kind of preordination and followed the punishment specialist into the gray apartment building.

The living room walls were painted black. Here the stranger sat down without a word. The punishment expert switched on a little white electric lamp. The stranger began to search his mind for a link between the mysterious telegram and the room that surrounded him. He found something entirely different. He found that the path he had followed on his way to Mist had been crooked.

Almost as soon as the stranger and the punishment expert had sat down to talk, a remarkable affinity grew up between them. It was as if they had spent their lives huddled together in deep conversation, as if they were as familiar to each other as they were to the palms of their own hands.

The first topic of conversation, unsurprisingly, was broached by the stranger's host. He said, "Actually, we always live in the past. The past is forever. The present and the future are just little tricks the past plays on us."

The stranger acknowledged the force of the punishment expert's argument, but it was his own present that remained uppermost in his mind. "But sometimes you can be cut off from the past. Right now, something is tearing me away from my past." The stranger, rethinking his failure to approach March 5, 1965, was beginning to wonder if perhaps some other force besides that of the other four dates might be responsible.

But the punishment expert said, "You're not cut off from your past. Quite the contrary."

It wasn't simply that the stranger had failed to move in the direction of March 5, 1965. Instead, March 5,1965, and the other four dates were receding farther and farther into the distance.

The punishment expert continued, "The fact is that you've always been deeply immersed in your past; You may feel cut off from the past from time to time, but that's merely an illusion, a superficial phenomenon, a phenomenon that at a deeper level indicates that you're really that much closer."

"I still can't help thinking that there's some force cutting me off from my past."

The punishment expert smiled helplessly, for he had sensed the difficulty of trying to overcome the stranger with language.

The stranger continued to move along his train of thought-at the very moment that he had left his past far behind him, the punishment expert had appeared before him with a strange smile and the cryptic assurance that "I've been waiting for you for a long time."

The stranger concluded, "You are that force."

The punishment expert was unwilling to accept the substance of the stranger's accusation. Although he obviously found it tiresome, he patiently attempted to explain the situation to the stranger once again: "I haven't cut you off from your past. On the contrary, I have brought you into intimate conjunction with it. In other words I am your past."

As the punishment expert spat out this last sentence, the tone of his voice made the stranger feel that the conversation might not continue very much longer. He nonetheless continued, "I find it hard to explain the fact that you were waiting for me."

"It would help if you could set aside the notion of necessity," the punishment expert continued, "and realize that I was waiting for a coincidence."

"That makes more sense," the stranger agreed.

The punishment expert, content, continued, "I'm very happy we are of one mind concerning this question. I'm sure we both understand just how very dull necessity really is. Necessity plods blindly and inexorably ahead on its accustomed track. But chance is altogether different. Chance is powerful. Wherever coincidences occur, brand-new histories are born."

The stranger, while concurring with the thrust of the punishment expert's theory, was preoccupied with an entirely different sort of question: "Why were you waiting for me?"

The punishment expert smiled. "I knew that question would come up sooner or later. I may as well explain now. I need someone to help me, someone endowed with the necessary spirit of self-sacrifice. I believe that you are just that sort of person."

"What kind of help?"

"You'll learn everything tomorrow. For now, I'll be happy to discuss my work with you. My calling is to compile a summation of all human wisdom. And the essence of human wisdom is the art of punishment. This is what I'd like to discuss with you."

The punishment expert clearly had an excellent grasp of his field. He was well versed in each and every one of the various punishments employed by mankind throughout its history. He provided the stranger with a simple and straightforward explanation of each punishment. His accounts of the bodily consequences of ach punishment, once it had been carried out, were, however, stirring narratives in and of themselves.

Upon the conclusion of the punishment expert's lengthy and vivid discourse, the stranger realized with a shock that the punishment expert had neglected to touch on one rather important punishment: death by hanging. A dark, complex, and mercurial reverie had descended upon him just as the punishment expert had begun his lecture. He had somehow been anticipating the appearance of that particular punishment all along. As the punishment expert spoke, the blurred contours of March 5, 1965, had once again begun to clear. Given the circumstances, the hypothesis that someone intimately connected with the stranger's past had died by hanging on March 5, 1965, began to seem not entirely far-fetched.

The stranger, in an effort to escape from the dark grip of these memories, decided to point out the punishment expert's mistake. In doing so, he hoped to elicit another stirring discourse on this particular punishment and thus escape its grip.

His question served only to throw the punishment expert into a rage. It was not that he had overlooked a punishment, he shouted. He had just been ashamed to mention it at all. The dignity of that particular punishment, he proclaimed, had been trampled on by its indiscriminate and vulgar use by suicidal miscreants. He bellowed, "They were unworthy of such a punishment."

The punishment expert's unexpected rage released the stranger from the memories by which he had been besieged a moment before. After a taking a long breath, he directed another question to the punishment expert, who sat livid across the room: "Have you tried performing any of the punishments yourself?"