The champagne had been rationed.
"I welcome you all to the first, international, United Nations Beautification!"
Her voice, amplified by speakers, boomed even at the back of the grand hall, where Soro leaned against the right hand wall, watching for his moment. He hadn't had much time to spare, so he wore the scuffed blue jeans, black t-shirt and open red shirt that he wore most every other day. He'd had a little trouble with the security people, but when they'd got a good look at his face, they'd waved him right in. It's hard not to be admitted to a gathering when your face is displayed on the front of the building, in a prominent, nay massive poster. Someone had got a publicity shot of him posing in some desert, one foot on a rock, an outsized camera pressed to his face. He couldn't remember having it taken, but for an event such as this, he didn't believe he could have made a better choice.
"You do not know how long and how hard I have worked to realise this event," said Belle. "It has been my dream, my hope, the object of my fervent faith, ever since my sophomore year of college."
The audience allowed her to continue, although Soro noticed that more than half of them were engaged in private conversation, or relishing the last few morsels of dinner. They paid her the courtesy of keeping quiet, even if they were only listening with one ear.
He shook his head. They didn't know. He wondered if Belle would explain her entire plan right then, or if she would reveal it in drabs and driblets, allowing people to grow accustomed to her stealthy overthrow of their freedoms. He gritted his teeth, though the muscular tension reignited the pains in his head and face. These people had no idea what Belle had planned, or that she had arranged for them to come merely to legitimise her first strike on freedom. By following the forms, she would harness the power of the cult of celebrity. Once she had done that, she would be stronger, and harder to stop. He quivered with the urge to rush on stage and confront her, but he knew he had to wait. His plan had been shaken, but he could still prevent the worst, however he would have to wait for the right moment.
Belle was still talking. "...and if we look at our government buildings, our office towers, our factories and homes, and see only the sooty, dirty facade, don't we feel something shrivel inside? If we look out through grimy windows, and see our streets laden with trash, our people milling about in shapeless, colourless clothes, if we look at our parks and see them mutilated by building projects, overwhelmed with weeds, choked, poisoned and dying, don't we feel like falling down and weeping for long lost Eden?"
Soro blinked. In spite of his loathing for her plans, and in spite of the distaste he felt when he beheld her remarkable ugliness, he couldn't disagree with her words. She hadn't gained her position by mere evil luck; she had true political skill.
"...so we come here, having asked the masters of beauty, I do not say to create beauty, but to rediscover the beauty that lies around and within us. If we wish our civilisation to survive, we must nurture it, we must love it. And to love it, we must find what is lovable in it, and bring it out. We must celebrate it." She paused to wipe a tear from her eye, and Soro had to marvel. Either she was a skilled actor, or she was presenting, not her plan, but her creed. "So, without further hesitation, I give you...the Beautification."
She gave her words to the silent, now fascinated crowd, and silence gave way to applause. The sound of clapping hands rose to a roar that shook the walls.
Soro thought of Squiz, lying broken on a vet's surgical bench, his blood staining the white sheets red. He thought of Sam, locked away for a month or more. He thought of Arima, vanished, hunted, perhaps lost to him. He eyed Belle, his face white.
Belle raised her hands for silence. "We will have some minor announcements later, but for now, it's time to celebrate. Let's welcome the winners of our contest, and give them their reward. Now the person who deserves the greatest recognition, who has earned the highest reward of first prize in the Beautification, cannot be here tonight. You all know his name, and his work. I only wish he could accept your thanks and your applause in person. That could not be. On behalf of this person, one of his fellow contestants will receive first prize, the renowned 'Typhoon' Tigh Strugg. And the winner himself, as some of you may have guessed, is none other than Soro!"
The raucous applause made him jump. He'd always known, in a vague sort of way, that people had heard of him. He hadn't really thought about it, and to have a huge crowd of rich, famous 'elite' types clapping their hands and calling his name was a new, and shocking experience. He felt his face grow warm. He shook his head. No time for that now.
Typhoon stalked onto the stage. He wore a green leather jacket and trousers, over a red silk shirt. His shoes were white alligator leather, and he wore a black Malibu hat at a jaunty angle, over thick black sunglasses. The ensemble did a good job of hiding the scratches that Arima and Squizzle had left on his face, and Soro supposed the makeup department had finished the job.
"I'm very sorry that my good friend Soro couldn't be here tonight," said Typhoon.
Soro raced down the aisle, past a couple of surprised security guards near the stage, and leapt up beside Typhoon. When he got onto the stage, he whirled to face the audience, threw his arms out as if to hug the whole room, and flashed them a brilliant smile. "Ta-da!"
Belle choked, and Typhoon froze, paler than ever. The audience went crazy.
"Thank you, thank you," said Soro, snatching the mike from Typhoon's nerveless hands.
Typhoon found his voice. "You! I'm going to-"
"Yes?" said Soro, holding the microphone out towards him.
Typhoon froze again, his face drawn into an elegant mask of horror.
"Thought so," said Soro.
Belle began to edge away from the stage.
"And where do you think you're going, little miss?" he cried.
Belle stopped moving, except to twitch her fingers near her mouth. He guessed she could kill for a strawberry cream.
"You're the lady of the hour," he said. He turned to face the audience. "This is a special occasion. I don't normally talk about my work, but in this case, and because it's you, I'll make an exception. Who'd like to hear some trade secrets? I promise they'll be juicy."
The audience must have thought it was all part of the show. They settled into an attitude of expectant interest. Typhoon and Belle stood rooted to the spot, neither of them able to strike at him or to flee; to do either would have been to create a worse stink, but he knew how terrified they had to be, anticipating his revenge.
""First, let's take a look at some of the pictures Belle's team used to pick me as the winner." The podium on the left of the screen had a control panel. He used it to display the photos in the 'Soro' folder. The audience made appreciative noises when he showed them shots of little Australian children playing on Sydney's harbour bridge, a weather-beaten Athenian lady pouring a glass of water for her granddaughter, and a bunch of others. He liked them, in a way he was proud of them, but the audience didn't understand his smile. Neither did Belle or Typhoon. From the corner of his eye, he saw them exchange puzzled glances.
"I guess you like these pictures," he said. "I guess you might even decide they're worthy of first prize in this...incredible contest. But there's one thing you need to know. If you like these photos that much, then you've got the wrong face plastered on the front of this building."
He paused to let the audience digest that.
"You see, I didn't take these pictures."
"You're lying!" yelled Typhoon.
Soro chuckled. "Sorry folks," he said. "He's got a right to be rattled. Tell 'em why you think that, good fellow."
Typhoon swallowed, and turned his head to the audience and back. "They came from your camera."
"Bit louder for the little girl in the back," said Soro, thrusting the mike at him like a dagger.
"They came from your camera. They're your pictures, every one."
"Everyone get that? But soft, I never gave you my camera. How did you get them? Hmm?"
&n
bsp; Typhoon swallowed again, and refused to speak.
"He's shy, ladies and gentlemen. I'll speak for him. You, fine fellow Typhoon, put a bug in my camera on my first night onboard the New Dawn. I didn't get why the battery was draining so fast, not until I saw the receiving device in your stateroom."
Typhoon stood unnaturally still. He looked a lifeless skeleton, wrapped in clothes and held up with wires.
"Can't speak, eh? That's okay, I'm here for you." He emphasised those last words, and felt gratified to see Typhoon shiver. "But why? Why would you, a famous photographer in your own right, bother to steal my pictures?" He glanced at the audience. "That was a puzzler, ladies and gentlemen. Until I found your diary."
Typhoon shuddered as if an electrical current had passed through his body. He shoved past Belle, jumped off the stage, and ran towards the exit.
"Hold him!" said Soro.
The security guards, bemused at this turn, recognised guilt when they saw it. They tackled Typhoon, and piled on him.
"Looks guilty, doesn't he?" said Soro. "He should. Justice is long overdue. Here," he plugged a memory stick into the control panel, and flashed up a digital photo he'd taken of the diary. "I'll save you the bother of squinting at all those scrawly words. Typhoon earned his name by surviving a storm at sea. He was sailing with his then lover, Countess Maria Herdenhardt of Austria, and a celebrated amateur photographer. This was before he was famous, you understand. Tigh, as he was then, couldn't take being second rate, but he could take Maria's pictures...and her life."
A ripple of shock ran through the audience.
"He strangled the girl, scuttled their yacht, and swam to shore with a store of pictures, and a story to make him famous. But when Belle found him, he'd sold all of Maria's pictures, and his own attempts to succeed where abject failures. Belle persuaded him to act as her agent in this farcical contest, to steal the best photos, to help her realise her dream...by any means."
Belle emitted a strangled croak. She'd raised both hands to her face, and now clawed at the air, her cheeks now red, now mottled white. "You're ruining it," she whispered.
He had a sudden urge to grin at her in cruel triumph, but he bit it down, and pressed on. "Belle's plan was never to celebrate beauty. We don't need her help to recognise the beauty all around us. All we need is to look. But that wasn't enough for her. She wanted a world of obedience, of unquestioning subordination." He outlined her crazed plot, and noted the wide eyes, the drawn lips; no one now watched smiling. "And she would go to any lengths to foist this abysmal vision on you, even as far as the theft of my name. When my brother refused to serve, she locked him away, and conned me into believing she'd help rescue him. 'Rescue'! The only one he needed rescuing from was you," he glared at her. "And in case I woke up to her plot, in case I disobeyed, she set her murderous creature, Typhoon, to steal my pictures. But I caught him out. Do you wonder why I said they were not my pictures? I'll show you!"
He had them entranced, but it was a trance of horror. They stared in mute fascination as he brought the photos back on the screen. He chose the picture with the children playing on Sydney's 'Coat Hanger' bridge. He liked that one; he remembered the warmth of the sun, the salt smell of the harbour, the taste of blueberry smoothies, and the feel of Arima's hand in his as they walked and watched the glittering sea.
"It has my flair, I admit," he said, laughing at himself. "But what's this figure in the background? Let's zoom in." He enlarged the picture. It revealed a young man with dark, floppy hair, and a laughing expression. He held a camera in one hand, and a stuffed kangaroo in the other.
Belle stared up at the big screen, hatred marring her face. It was apparent she was torn between the desire to run, and painful fascination about her oncoming doom. "But that's..." her words trailed off in a whisper.
"Yes," he said, satisfied by the gasps from the audience. "That's me.
"Then who...?" She gazed at him, almost pleading.
He grinned. "A true lady. One you haven't caught, and will not."
She scowled at him, a last burst of defiance showing in the curl of her lip, the narrowing of her eyes. "This isn't over. She won't escape me. And neither will you."
He laughed. "You do know this is going out live, don't you?"
Her eyes grew very wide.
***
The tree stood in a patch of brown, dead grass, in a weed strewn park in a poor neighbourhood in north Manhattan. It stood alone, and there was something proud, if sad, in the way it rose over that dusty, ill-tended soil. Blossom, once vivid pink, now fading, littered the earth around the roots, through which, here and there, poked small green shoots of grass, out of place in that park. The blossom drifted from the tree, and settled on the earth. Soon the tree would have lost its strong, bright colours. But this tree was unusual, and not just because it seemed to have come overnight from a distant place. Small buds showed green against the wood, all over that tangle of branches and twigs, and one or two had begun to unfold, to reveal their colour.
Pink. Vivid pink.
The girl sat under the tree, toying with a camera. From time to time a fading blossom drifted down and brushed her braids and ribbons. She wore a frilly white dress, with black lace stockings, and a pair of soft yellow shoes.
The man marched towards the tree, and when he saw the girl underneath, his heart skipped a beat. He wanted to run into her arms, but instead he forced himself to stroll up to her.
"You're late," she said, not looking up.
"They moved the tree."
She shrugged. "I found it quickly enough."
"You have a magical talent for landing where you leap. I had to rely on my overtaxed brain."
She pouted. "You're still late."
"I have a present."
She cocked her head, and indicated he could sit.
He held out a hazelnut with a few irregular dents. "Squiz made it for you in the hospital. Sam taught him. It means 'I love you' in monkey language."
She took it, and considered it with a grave expression, although he thought he saw a flicker of laughter in those blue green opals.
"Well," he said. "I say he made it. Actually he..."
"Chewed it."
He looked down, and bit his lip. "I guess you could say that."
She grabbed his hand. "It's beautiful!"
He looked at her, and saw tears glimmer in her eyes. He started to speak, but she pressed her finger to his lips. They were past the time for words.
Under the branches of a strange and beautiful tree, in a secluded corner of the great city, all cares forgotten, all hurts forgiven, they embraced, and when the time came to leave, they walked an open road, and the sun lit their way, and a brighter sun lit their hearts.
***
Thank you for reading Panoptic.
About the author.
When he isn’t sailing through the skies on a majestic airship, Jacob Magnus lives with his wife in a beautiful Korean mountain valley.
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