Out of Time by Ruth Boswell

you, pretending to be friendly and now this.’
    He tried to bite the imprisoning arms and kicked backwards with enough force to bring Randolph to his knees but Meredith was on his feet, landing punches on chest and shoulders. Joe staggered sideways and fell.
    ‘Leave him!’
    The sharp command came from Otto who had risen from his seat and towered over them, suddenly an impressively powerful figure, unlike the Otto Joe was used to, puny and weak. Perhaps it was a trick of the light or a measure of his panic but Meredith and Randolph too were cowed and returned to their places. Suddenly deflated, Joe sat down. The questioning resumed.
    ‘How did you know which direction to take?’
    ‘I followed the stream.’
    ‘Who are you working for?’
    ‘Fuck off!’ he shouted.
    *
    Helmuth sits high on a dais above the court. He is presiding over yet another trial, now nearing its conclusion. These have become routine for they follow a course long ago laid down by him. All prisoners are either condemned or put to hard labour. He could dispense with these kangaroo courts but it does not suit him. They serve to create the illusion that some kind of justice prevails. Helmuth knows about justice. He used to dispense it a long, long time ago.
    The prisoners, Susie, her mother, her father, face him. He looks at them wearily, surprised that once again these insignificant people have the strength to defy him. But not for long. He will crush them as he has crushed all opposition. He is aware that danger lurks in the most unexpected places, plots threatening his position are hatched by even the most cowed citizens.
    He begins the routine questioning.
    ‘From whom did you receive instruction?’
    ‘I have received no instruction,’ Susie’s father replies.
    ‘You and your wife acted on your own initiative?’
    ‘Yes. No one else was involved.’
    Susie can hear her parents but she cannot see them. Her head is covered with a grey cowl, no slits for eyes, only a sliver of light seeping past the edges of the muffling cloth. Susie is used to the dark. She has rarely been out in daylight, though this morning, in a moment to be savoured, she was led out of her cell into intoxicating breathfuls of fresh air.
    ‘We know that there is,’ Helmuth thunders.
    ‘There are no other conspirators.’
    ‘There is a boy.’
    ‘I know no boy.’
    ‘You were seen with him in the park. He took instructions from you and left.’
    ‘ I have given no instructions. I know no boy.’
    But Susie did. Susie knew whom they meant. Susie had seen Joe. She had told no one but she had written it in her diary.
    ‘You and your conspirators knew you were acting against the law.’
    ‘There are no other conspirators and yes, my wife and I, we knew.’
    ‘It is strictly forbidden to keep children. They have to be handed to the Council.’
    ‘We wanted to keep our own child.’
    ‘You will be punished, your daughter put into the service of the town and the boy captured and executed. We will find him.’
    *
    Joe felt the community’s hostility like a dark beating host. How could he ever have thought he could live with them as a friend, that they would provide shelter and comfort? He cursed himself for his naivety. All these young people were and probably always had been his enemies, feigning friendship or at least tolerance but, it seemed clear to him now, they were allied to the townspeople, in an outpost strategically situated to capture those who had evaded the nets. He was trapped, imprisoned.
    Otto was asking him a question. Joe tried to focus on what was being said but, yet again, the words made no sense.
    ‘Were you selected?’.
    ‘Selected?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
    *
    ‘You are aware of the selection process in the town?’
    ‘Yes, we are aware.’
    ‘You deliberately flouted our most important law.’
    ‘We were doing what we thought best for our child.’
    ‘It’s not for you to think. It’s for you to