Chapter 4: The Arrest

 

Three months after Peter vanished, Arthur noticed that his hands had
stopped shaking.

He noticed it during the Two Minutes Hate, watching the woman three rows
ahead throw her shoe at the telescreen---the same shoe, the same scuff
mark, collected and redistributed. His hands gripped the bench in front
of him, and the grip was steady. His throat produced the required
scream, and the scream came easily, without the edge of genuine terror
that had sharpened it for months. The watching had become routine, a
small private ritual that no longer carried the weight of danger.

Peter's desk remained occupied by the young man who had replaced him.
Arthur did not learn the young man's name. Learning names invited
attachment, and attachment was what had destroyed him. Not destroyed.
Peter was simply gone, absorbed into the system, processed through
whatever machinery the Ministry of Love used to convert people into
non-people. Peter might still be alive---in a cell, in a labor camp, in
some gray zone between existence and non-existence. Or Peter might be
dead, his body disposed of, his memory already fading from the minds of
everyone who had known him.

Arthur did not know. He would never know. That was the point.

The photograph was hidden in his mattress, folded into a seam where the
lining had come loose. The dial remained in his pocket, transferred each
morning from his sleeping clothes to his overalls, a habit so ingrained
that he no longer thought about it. These were his secrets. These were
the things that could destroy him.

But no one came. The weeks passed, and no one knocked on his door, and
Arthur began to eat full meals again. He began to sleep through the
night. He walked to work without counting the Thought Police vans that
passed him on the street, without calculating escape routes, without
composing explanations for questions that never came.

He ate his meals in the canteen without tasting them. He walked home
through the gray streets without looking over his shoulder. He climbed
the seven flights to his flat, and for the first time in months, he
slept through the night without waking to the sound of footsteps that
existed only in his dreams.

#

The knock came at 3:00 in the morning.

Arthur was asleep---deeply asleep, the kind of sleep that had eluded him
for months after Peter vanished. He did not hear the footsteps in the
corridor, heavy and deliberate, stopping outside his door. He did not
hear the voices, low and professional, conferring in the hallway while
the telescreen hummed its indifferent surveillance.

He heard only the knock. Three sharp raps, evenly spaced, the sound
cutting through his dreams like a blade.

He was awake instantly. His body knew what the sound meant before his
mind could catch up---the surge of adrenaline, the pounding heart, the
cold sweat that broke out across his skin. His hands were shaking again.

The knock came again. Patient. Unhurried. The sound of people who had
all the time in the world.

Arthur got out of bed. His legs were unsteady beneath him. The floor was
cold against his bare feet---he had forgotten that, somehow, the cold of
the floor in the middle of the night. He walked to the door and opened
it, because there was nothing else to do. You did not refuse to answer
when the knock came. You did not pretend to be asleep. You opened the
door and faced what was on the other side.

Two men stood in the corridor. They wore the black uniforms of the
Thought Police---not the dramatic leather coats of the propaganda films,
but simple dark overalls, neat and functional, the fabric slightly worn
at the elbows from use. Their faces were ordinary. One of them had a
small scar above his left eyebrow, white against his skin. The other was
chewing something, his jaw moving in a slow, rhythmic motion, as though
this were any other night, any other door.

"Arthur Holt," the one with the scar said. It was not a question.

"Yes."

"You will come with us."

Arthur nodded. His voice had stopped working. His hands hung at his
sides, useless.

The man who was chewing stepped past him into the flat. Arthur heard him
moving around the small space---opening drawers, shifting furniture, the
creak of the bed frame as the mattress was lifted. Conducting the search
that always accompanied an arrest. The telescreen continued its low hum,
indifferent to what was happening beneath it, its faint glow
illuminating the destruction of Arthur's small life.

"Get dressed," the scarred man said. "You have two minutes."

Arthur dressed. His fingers fumbled with the buttons of his
overalls---the same overalls he had worn yesterday, laid across the
chair beside his bed. The fabric was rough against his skin, familiar
and strange at once. His hand went automatically to the pocket, feeling
for the dial.

It was there. The small weight of it, the familiar grooves.

He should leave it. He should drop it on the floor, kick it under the
bed, let them find it or not find it. The dial connected him to the
speakwrite, connected him to the Ministry, connected him to the days
when he had first begun to notice the cracks in the surface of things.

But his hand closed around it anyway, and the dial stayed in his pocket.

"Time," the scarred man said.

Arthur walked to the door. Behind him, the other man was still
searching---mattress pulled from the bed frame, floorboards examined,
the meager contents of his life spread across the floor like evidence of
a crime that had already been committed.

He heard the man make a small sound of satisfaction. Arthur did not turn
around. He did not need to see the photograph being extracted from the
mattress lining. He knew what they had found.

London, 1952. A clean street. Whole buildings. People smiling.

The evidence that would condemn him.

#

The van was waiting in the street below.

Arthur had seen these vans before---black, windowless, unremarkable.
They moved through London at all hours, carrying passengers who were
never seen again. You learned not to look at them. You learned to keep
your eyes on the pavement and your face neutral and your thoughts empty.

Now he was inside one. The back was dark except for a small light in the
ceiling, a single bulb behind a wire cage that cast harsh shadows on the
metal walls. The seats were hard benches bolted to the floor. The air
smelled of disinfectant and something else underneath it---sweat,
perhaps, or fear, the accumulated residue of everyone who had sat on
these benches before him. The smell of people being taken somewhere they
would not return from. There were no windows. There was no way to know
where they were going.

The two men sat across from him. The one with the scar had produced a
clipboard and was writing something in a small, precise hand. The other
had stopped chewing and was watching Arthur with the blank patience of a
man who had done this many times before, would do it many times again.

"The photograph," the scarred man said without looking up. "Where did
you obtain it?"

Arthur's mouth was dry. His tongue felt thick and useless. "I found
it."

"Where?"

"On the street. In the---in the prole sector. It was lying in the
gutter."

The man continued writing. His pen made a small scratching sound against
the paper. His expression did not change. "And the mechanical component
in your pocket. The dial. Where did you obtain that?"

Arthur's hand went to his pocket, a reflexive gesture. They had not
taken it. They had not searched him at all. But they knew.

"My speakwrite," he said. "The regulator failed. The dial came loose.
I---I was going to report it."

"When?"

"I was---"

"The dial has been in your possession for four months and three days,"
the man said. "According to your productivity records, your output
dropped by fourteen percent during this period. You did not file a
maintenance request. You did not report the malfunction to your
supervisor."

Arthur said nothing. There was nothing to say.

"You concealed Ministry property. You falsified your daily reports by
omitting the equipment failure. These are offenses under Section 7 of
the Work Discipline Code." The man looked up from his clipboard. His
eyes were gray and flat, like the London sky on a day when it neither
rained nor cleared. "They are not, however, why you are here."

The van made a turn. Arthur felt the motion in his stomach, the lurch of
acceleration and deceleration. The bench was cold through the thin
fabric of his overalls. The smell of disinfectant grew stronger, as
though they were moving deeper into some sterile place. They were
heading somewhere---the Ministry of Love, presumably. The place with no
windows. The place with no darkness.

"The photograph," the man continued. "The photograph is why you are
here. The photograph, and your association with Peter Harmon."

The name hit Arthur like a physical blow. He had not heard it spoken
aloud since Peter's disappearance. He had not allowed himself to think
it.

"I don't---"

"Peter Harmon was arrested four months ago on charges of thoughtcrime.
During his interrogation, he provided a list of associates. Your name
was on that list."

Arthur's hands were shaking. He pressed them against his thighs, trying
to still them.

"We have been watching you since then," the man said. "Your
movements. Your habits. Your conversations." A pause. "Your lack of
conversations. You are a careful man, Arthur Holt. You do not speak to
your neighbors. You do not form attachments. You go to work, you come
home, you sleep. A model citizen, apart from the small matter of the
concealed equipment and the forbidden photograph."

"I didn't---"

"But careful is not the same as innocent." The man set down his
clipboard. "Careful is what guilty people become when they know they
are being watched. Innocent people are not careful. Innocent people do
not notice that they are being observed. Innocent people do not hide
photographs in their mattresses."

The van slowed. Stopped. Arthur heard doors opening somewhere ahead of
them, the sound of machinery, voices giving orders. The air pressure
changed---they were entering an enclosed space, moving from the cold
night into something else.

"You will be processed," the man said. "You will be questioned. You
will tell us everything you know about Peter Harmon, about the
photograph, about any other associates or contraband materials you may
have encountered." He stood, his head nearly brushing the ceiling of
the van. "The Ministry of Love is very thorough. Everyone talks
eventually. The only question is how long it takes, and how much you
suffer before you do."

The rear doors opened. Light flooded in---harsh, white, the kind of
light that erased shadows and seemed to press against the eyes like a
physical weight.

Arthur blinked against it. He could see a loading bay, concrete walls
scrubbed to an unnatural cleanliness, figures in black uniforms moving
with quiet efficiency. The Ministry of Love. The place that existed
behind the rumors, behind the whispers, behind the fear that had kept
him awake for months.

"Out," the scarred man said.

Arthur climbed down from the van. His legs were weak, and he stumbled on
the last step, catching himself on the side of the vehicle. The metal
was cold against his palm. No one helped him. No one acknowledged his
distress.

He was not a person anymore. He was a problem to be processed.

#

The intake procedure was efficient and impersonal.

Arthur was led through a series of corridors---white walls, white
floors, white ceilings, the light coming from concealed sources so that
there were no shadows anywhere. The floors were polished to a mirror
shine, and his shoes squeaked against them with each step, the only
sound besides the distant hum of machinery that seemed to come from the
building's foundations. The air smelled of antiseptic, sharp and
chemical, the smell of a place that had been scrubbed of anything human.
He could not tell how far they walked. The corridors all looked the
same, turning at right angles, branching and merging, a maze designed to
disorient.

He was photographed, the flash leaving spots in his vision. He was
fingerprinted, his hands pressed onto cold metal plates. He was stripped
of his clothes and given a gray uniform that hung loose on his frame.
His possessions were catalogued: one pair of worn shoes, one set of blue
overalls, one mechanical dial of uncertain purpose.

The dial. They had taken it from his pocket during the strip search,
handled it with rubber gloves, placed it in a small plastic bag with a
label attached. Arthur watched it disappear into a filing cabinet, one
more piece of evidence in a case that was already decided.

He was weighed. He was measured. A doctor examined him with clinical
detachment, pressing cold instruments against his chest, shining a light
into his eyes, tapping his knees with a small rubber hammer, noting his
general health, his reflexes, his responses to simple questions. The
doctor did not speak to him directly---only to an assistant who recorded
everything in a ledger.

"Suitable for standard processing," the doctor said finally.

Arthur did not ask what that meant. He was not expected to ask
questions. He was expected to stand where he was placed and move where
he was directed and answer when he was addressed and otherwise maintain
the silence of the already-condemned.

They gave him a number: 6079. It was printed on a tag that was fastened
to his uniform, positioned over his heart where a name would have been.

"You will respond to your number," a guard told him. "You will not
respond to any other designation. Your name no longer exists. Do you
understand?"

"Yes," Arthur said.

"Yes what?"

"Yes---" He hesitated. "Understood."

The guard nodded, satisfied. Arthur was led down another corridor,
through another door, into a cell.

(Cont.)