I looked out the kitchen window and thought I saw a stranger talking to Hans. It was my turn to babysit, though Hans was seven and 'baby' seemed not quite right. I went out to the porch. There was Hans, no other stranger in sight. Hans didn't laugh as much, after that, as he had before. His eyes seemed to focus somewhere behind my head when I spoke to him. When he was ten, he disappeared for two days and we were frantic. When he was fifteen, he said he was leaving home. We had to lock him up for a while, just to make a point. When he was eighteen he enlisted.
He comes back sometimes, his perfect black uniform, the double-S of his silver rank. He looks somewhere behind my head. Then he leaves again.
In the dutiful republic we practice our smiles on our uncomplaining mirrors, hold our hands tight over our minds, say only the wrong right things. We concentrate, now, on being public beings, view that which infests us. Which simulation are we, today? Know not how to think,
(contrasting views of responsible spokespersons
{who are however subject to the same illusions as those
whose views do not contrast}
are welcome)
but what. I pelvis to the Leader's television'd motions, pretend his tongue is moist and tight inside my ear. In the light we are dutiful; but at night we gather quietly in the home of one or another, cover windows with dark cloth, power-up the peering-machine, watch the Leader address his people. We rub in rhythm against the cold tube. We Tivo it over and over until we can time our brutal movements to the cadence of anointed speech with exquisite and exhausting precision.
There is no pounding at the door tonight because doors are now forbidden.
The mirrors—the mirrors have stopped reflecting us.
"Hold your arms just so," he said. "Hands relaxed, fingers just a little apart. That's it, almost. Study the diagrams in the text; practice. Tomorrow's lesson is at 10. Are we bringing these miracles about, or is it all just coincidence? I have another student now; I can't take time to answer questions. No, you'll have to ask one of the wise men. I studied praxis, not theory. Opinions vary. There are different schools of thought. Myself, I think it's better not to ask: we wave our arms at the specified times; the miracles occur."
"In the Dutiful Republic" was previously published in Polluto.