refused to carry out these mutilations. He concluded that viciousness had rarely been more inventive or systematic or widespread. Miri was right, it really was a republic of fear. Henry read Makiyaâs famous book too. It seemed clear, Saddamâs organising principle was terror.
Perowne knows that when a powerful imperium â Assyrian, Roman, American â makes war and claims just cause, history will not be impressed. He also worries that the invasion or the occupation will be a mess. The marchers could be right. And he acknowledges the accidental nature of opinions; if he hadnât met and admired the professor, he might have thought differently, less ambivalently, about the coming war. Opinions are a roll of the dice; by definition, none of the people now milling around Warren Street tube station happens to have been tortured by the regime, or knows and loves people who have, or even knows much about the place at all. Itâs likely most of them barely registered the massacres in Kurdish Iraq, or in the Shiâite south, and now they find they care with a passion for Iraqi lives. They have good reasons for their views, among which are concerns for their own safety. Al-Qaeda, itâs said, which loathes both godless Saddam and the Shiâite opposition, will be provoked by an attack on Iraq into revenge on the soft cities of the West. Self-interest is a decent enough cause, but Perowne canât feel, as the marchers themselves probably can, that they have an exclusive hold on moral discernment.
The sandwich bars along the street are closed up for the weekend. Only the flute shop and newsagent are open. Outside the Rive Gauche traiteur , the owner is using a zinc bucket to sluice down the pavement, Parisian-style. Coming towards Perowne, his back to the crowds, is a pink-faced man of about his own age, in a baseball cap and yellow Day-Glo jacket, with a handcart, sweeping the gutter forthe council. He seems oddly intent on making a good job, jabbing the corner of his broom hard into the angles of the kerb, chasing out the scraps. His vigour and thoroughness are uncomfortable to watch, a quiet indictment on a Saturday morning. What could be more futile than this underpaid urban scale housework when behind him, at the far end of the street, cartons and paper cups are spreading thickly under the feet of demonstrators gathered outside McDonaldâs on the corner. And beyond them, across the metropolis, a daily blizzard of litter. As the two men pass, their eyes meet briefly, neutrally. The whites of the sweeperâs eyes are fringed with egg-yellow shading to red along the lids. For a vertiginous moment Henry feels himself bound to the other man, as though on a seesaw with him, pinned to an axis that could tip them into each otherâs life.
Perowne looks away and slows before turning into the mews where his car is garaged. How restful it must once have been, in another age, to be prosperous and believe that an all-knowing supernatural force had allotted people to their stations in life. And not see how the belief served your own prosperity â a form of anosognosia, a useful psychiatric term for a lack of awareness of oneâs own condition. Now we think we do see, how do things stand? After the ruinous experiments of the lately deceased century, after so much vile behaviour, so many deaths, a queasy agnosticism has settled around these matters of justice and redistributed wealth. No more big ideas. The world must improve, if at all, by tiny steps. People mostly take an existential view â having to sweep the streets for a living looks like simple bad luck. Itâs not a visionary age. The streets need to be clean. Let the unlucky enlist.
He walks down a faint incline of greasy cobbles to where the owners of houses like his own once kept their horses. Now, those who can afford it cosset their cars here with off-street parking. Attached to his key ring is an infrared button which he
Perowne knows that when a powerful imperium â Assyrian, Roman, American â makes war and claims just cause, history will not be impressed. He also worries that the invasion or the occupation will be a mess. The marchers could be right. And he acknowledges the accidental nature of opinions; if he hadnât met and admired the professor, he might have thought differently, less ambivalently, about the coming war. Opinions are a roll of the dice; by definition, none of the people now milling around Warren Street tube station happens to have been tortured by the regime, or knows and loves people who have, or even knows much about the place at all. Itâs likely most of them barely registered the massacres in Kurdish Iraq, or in the Shiâite south, and now they find they care with a passion for Iraqi lives. They have good reasons for their views, among which are concerns for their own safety. Al-Qaeda, itâs said, which loathes both godless Saddam and the Shiâite opposition, will be provoked by an attack on Iraq into revenge on the soft cities of the West. Self-interest is a decent enough cause, but Perowne canât feel, as the marchers themselves probably can, that they have an exclusive hold on moral discernment.
The sandwich bars along the street are closed up for the weekend. Only the flute shop and newsagent are open. Outside the Rive Gauche traiteur , the owner is using a zinc bucket to sluice down the pavement, Parisian-style. Coming towards Perowne, his back to the crowds, is a pink-faced man of about his own age, in a baseball cap and yellow Day-Glo jacket, with a handcart, sweeping the gutter forthe council. He seems oddly intent on making a good job, jabbing the corner of his broom hard into the angles of the kerb, chasing out the scraps. His vigour and thoroughness are uncomfortable to watch, a quiet indictment on a Saturday morning. What could be more futile than this underpaid urban scale housework when behind him, at the far end of the street, cartons and paper cups are spreading thickly under the feet of demonstrators gathered outside McDonaldâs on the corner. And beyond them, across the metropolis, a daily blizzard of litter. As the two men pass, their eyes meet briefly, neutrally. The whites of the sweeperâs eyes are fringed with egg-yellow shading to red along the lids. For a vertiginous moment Henry feels himself bound to the other man, as though on a seesaw with him, pinned to an axis that could tip them into each otherâs life.
Perowne looks away and slows before turning into the mews where his car is garaged. How restful it must once have been, in another age, to be prosperous and believe that an all-knowing supernatural force had allotted people to their stations in life. And not see how the belief served your own prosperity â a form of anosognosia, a useful psychiatric term for a lack of awareness of oneâs own condition. Now we think we do see, how do things stand? After the ruinous experiments of the lately deceased century, after so much vile behaviour, so many deaths, a queasy agnosticism has settled around these matters of justice and redistributed wealth. No more big ideas. The world must improve, if at all, by tiny steps. People mostly take an existential view â having to sweep the streets for a living looks like simple bad luck. Itâs not a visionary age. The streets need to be clean. Let the unlucky enlist.
He walks down a faint incline of greasy cobbles to where the owners of houses like his own once kept their horses. Now, those who can afford it cosset their cars here with off-street parking. Attached to his key ring is an infrared button which he
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