The Birth of People's Republic of Antartica, стр. 85
“What was the princess’s name?” I asked.
Germanicus laughed, clapping his sides over and over, saying, “It be a sealer’s tale, Grim. I tell ye to show ye what to take from them sealers. On the ice, a man sees things. He thinks uncommon. That tale of that volcano, Satan’s Seat, it be a sealer passin’ time.”
“But the black ice,” I said, “if there is a volcanic range, if it is melting the ice, that might explain the ice pack pushing out this far.”
“Black ice, black plague, no bait to me. It be black hearts that wreck us. Them, they won’t stop being feared of what happens. We must. Samson died, it happened. We lost the Falklands, it happened. The ice came, it happened. There be what the Almighty does. There be what we can do as men. We can no more know the Almighty’s ways than figure them. What we can do be to know men’s ways, and figure them, and keep them right.”
“You mean the Volunteers?”
“All angry men—Brackenbury, the Hospidar, Christian Rose, and that Lazarus. Like in Dad’s tale of Antarctica. Them act disgusted with themselves for what has happened. The parson, he tells ’em the Almighty be punishing us for quitting the Falklands. He says the ice is a judgment. I don’t swallow it. Too much like a sealer’s tale. The ice happened. Not that I know what might be comin’. It be wearin’ on Dad. The Hospidar be a rough one.”
“Lazarus says when we finish the constitution, no single man can threaten our welfare. South Georgia will be a republic.”
“So Lazarus says. Janey talks like his echo. That great number for that great good, with charity for all wee folk. True?”
“It’s his foster-mother’s mind,” I explained. “He says her memory demands his effort. Lazarus is ashamed of what he has done. He killed a priest, I told you, and he regrets it. He says he wants to take the knife from the assassin, and the best way to do that is to make everyone become at the same time both the assassin and the assassinated. It’s a complicated business, about Sweden and America.”
“Rich lands and warm ways,” said Germanicus. “This republic Lazarus promises, it’ll last as long as a man in that water, if ten bad men, aye, one weak man, takes charge. My dad be what’s between what meanness we got and killin’. Lazarus has learning, I say, learning for rich lands, not here. One God, one land, one man, one way.”
“I respect what you say,” I said.
“The Bible’s way,” said Germanicus.
“Abbie hates that. She says her father twists things.”
“She has cause,” said Germanicus. “My brother was a good man. He would’ve been a great one. She loved part of him. She loves part of ye. I don’t mark her for it.”
I started to protest the confusion between me and Samson. “Ye’re yerrself. Ye’re stronger than you let on, and good, and hard. I saw ye when ye wanted yerr folk and when ye wanted revenge. I see ye now when my folk want ye to lead them through this trouble. Dad needs Grim Fiddle. He won’t say it. I say it, he needs ye.”
“What can I do?” I did not say I was a figurehead; it would have been an insult to Germanicus, who loved me as a brother.
“Trust my dad,” said Germanicus. “Bide yerr time.”
“I don’t like the size of what you’re saying. My father’s friend, Israel, he told me stories too. In America there was a soldier named Nixon. He was a good man, from California, born poor, who struggled his way to university. He came back from the Second World War with high dreams, wanting to serve his people. Do you know Nixon? It doesn’t matter. He was elected to the American assembly, and then, because he was young and bold, was chosen by a great American general to be president of the assembly and second-in-command of the American Republic. Nixon trusted the general and bided his time. When he tried for the general’s job years later, he was defeated, but just barely, by another soldier from the other side of the country. Nixon was bitter for his loss. He was also angry about things in America—a war in Asia, discrimination against the Negroes, their beasties, and other matters about money. Nixon said America was losing its greatness. The Americans laughed at him, told him he was old and tired. For reasons I don’t understand, Nixon waited many more years and was then elected president of America. By then he really was old and tired, and didn’t believe in anything but himself. He tried to make America into what he had wanted it to be when he was young. He ignored the laws of the Republic and degraded the politics of democracy, like majority rule. He wrecked the young people who wanted to serve America with their high dreams in their time in their way. Nixon chased men like my father and Israel into exile. Nixon was hard, and full of vengeance. It made him weak. If he had trusted his own people, and trusted the laws of the Republic, I might not be here right now.”
“Ye don’t trust my dad?” said Germanicus, who did not evidence to me that he cared much for my story of Nixon the tyrant. Telling it had made me sad, thinking of Israel.
I sighed. “I owe your dad everything. It’s not trust. Lazarus says I am the people’s servant, not their master, and neither is your father.”
“And what are ye if we ask ye to be our master?”
“That would be more for you than me, Germanicus.”
“Nay, nay, I have my ways. Out there, on the sea, that’s for me. You have the learning, and the strength, and they love ye.”
I was not turned by his charm. I teased