Howard Jacobson: Pussy

So saying, the Grand Duke fell back on to his pillows. Probrius feared the worse, but in fact His Highness was only sleeping.

It was with a great sense of purpose, to say nothing of a consciousness of history and honour, and therefore in a high state of nervous agitation, that Professor Probrius made his way to the ninetieth floor. He did not know who he was going to encounter in the Council Chamber, whether it would be the Prime Mover of All the Republics himself, or some of his most senior ministers, but the urgency with which the Grand Duke had prepared him, clearly pointed to the imminence of a decisive political act – surely not a resignation in the Prince’s favour, but why not a cabinet position.

He texted Dr Cobalt. Highest shoes , he wrote. And Quick .

In fact she was already in the Chamber when he arrived, and deep in conversation with a person whose relaxed style of dress and free and easy demeanour declared him to be anyone but the Prime Mover.

‘I might as well do the introductions, since I’m here,’ Dr Cobalt said. ‘Professor Probrius meet Lance Folder, Head of Celebrity for Ubs-Ludus Television.’

Whether Prince Fracassus’s distinguished television career could be said to grace the annals of politics or light entertainment was to remain a matter of controversy long after the Prince became what he became. It depended, to a degree, on the point of view of the disputants, and of course on how the Prince’s rise to power, the reasons for it, and the resultant plusses or minuses of his ‘reign’, were viewed in toto .

Despite good will and alacrity on all sides, it took a fortuitous slip and then a fortuitous correction to get Fracassus on to the screen. Months were squandered, as the Grand Duke lay dying, debtating such basic questions as what exactly it was that Fracassus could do, what his interests were, who would be his target audience, whether he was the stuff of day-time or night-time television, whether he should be scripted or spontaneous, and who, in the final analysis, would have creative control. That Fracassus had no interests, Professor Probrius and Dr Cobalt could have told the producers, but the latter had their own way of drawing the talent out and liked to make their own decisions as to watchability. In the end they reached, in this as in other matters, the same conclusions Dr Cobalt had come to years before. The Prince had no words and no interests and therein lay both his originality and – as could be attested to by the successes he had enjoyed on his travels – his popular appeal. What form to give this most rare of talents remained the stumbling block. Fracassus himself cited Spravchik as a model but Urbs-Ludus wasn’t Cholm. Reality television was of necessity cruel, but there were guidelines, and handing your wife over to the secret police for stealing a flower from someone’s garden breached all of them. The Prince’s other idea was to make a contemporary reality version of The Life and Loves of the Emperor Nero , with himself taking the role of a latter-day Emperor, and volunteers, of which there would surely be no shortage, playing Christians (or Muslims, Hindus or Jews – Fracassus was without prejudice). In the original, Nero dipped the Christians or whoever else in burning oil and then employed them as human candles to light his pool parties. The production team was quick to reject this suggestion, but on the grounds of cost rather than morality.

It sometimes happens that a title precedes a programme, indeed can be the inspiration for a programme, and so it proved to be in this case. In the months following his return to Urbs-Ludus, there gathered around the Prince – that is to say around the Prince’s name – a sizeable representation of the Republic’s youth who discovered in his utterances much that found an echo in their own breasts and, even where his thoughts were unfamiliar to them, much with which they sought to make common cause. In their ebullience, they formed a cheer squad – Fracassites, they called themselves – wherever and on whatever subject the Prince spoke, threatening any members of the audience who showed the slightest inclination to disagree, or who even, by their lights, did not agree emphatically enough. At first they threatened violence without actually doing any. But imperceptibly, the mood of the meetings changed. Impressionable himself, Fracassus found an echo in his breast of the echo of him the Fracassites had found in theirs, and truth to say took pleasure in encouraging them. ‘Chuck ’em out,’ he’d shout, whenever the Fracassites lit upon dissenters, and in the mayhem that ensued – for no sooner did he shout ‘Chuck ’em out’ than everyone was shouting ‘Chuck ’em out’ – the odd bone was broken and a little blood was shed. The Grand Prince ordered Fracassus into his presence.

‘This is not the way we do things,’ he told his son. ‘Put an end to it.’

Fracassus was disappointed. He’d seen professional wrestlers break more bones on breakfast television. But he couldn’t countermand his dying father. ‘What can I do?’ he asked.

‘It’s not for me to tell you,’ his father said. ‘Have some human decency. And if you don’t have any of your own, steal some.’

Fracassus thought hard and then addressed the Fracassites in a video link. ‘Stop it,’ he said, pointing a finger. He also put up posters in railways stations and at bus stops showing him mouthing the same words. ‘Stop it.’

The phrase gained a sort of currency and finally reached the ears of the television production team. There it was, the thing they’d been looking for all these months. Stop It! Nobody else could deliver those words as Fracassus did. Nobody else could lay hold of so little in the way of moral indignation that what was intended as a reprimand came out sounding like an invitation. ‘Stop it,’ young men sidled up to women and whispered in their ears. And as often as not the stopping it went on through the night.

The moment the programme had a title it had a form. Fracassus would invite wrong-doers – wife-beaters, drug-takers, rapists, alcoholics, pickpockets, body snatchers, arsonists, forgers, cat burlars, paedophiles – to own up to their criminality, and then he’d tick them off for it. Stoppit! No outrage. No holier than thou condescension. No off-putting moralizing. No warning or threats. And no bleeding-heart liberal connivance in the criminality either. Just Stoppit!

The advantage to Fracassus himself was obvious. He had only to say two words, and if he forgot those there was always auto-cue.

The show was an immediate success. It laid bare the immorality at the heart of society, sought neither to extenuate nor forgive, and then shrugged. Pinioned between moralists and apologists all their lives, the people tumbled on to their sofas, heaved sighs of relief that could be heard all over the Republic, and allowed Fracassus to disembarrass them of the ancient burdens of blame and absolution.

He was on their screens once a week, and then twice. If they watched repeats they could see him every other day. There were women to whom Fracassus’s features were more familiar than their husbands’. Men thought of him as their friend. Children trusted him and would have leapt willingly into his black limousine had he pulled up to them in the street and offered them chocolate. Stoppit!

The day the Grand Duke died the papers carried the story that the father of Fracassus, the television personality, had Stopped It .

Professor Probrius and Dr Cobalt met in one of their old salad bar haunts by the Wall and discussed what had transpired. They rarely saw the Prince now but he had retained their services out of some queer affection which they felt guilty about being unable to reciprocate. Occasionally he texted them regarding a word, but then either found another or changed his mode of expression. ‘He’s keeping us in reserve,’ Professor Probrius said.