‘Forcing you to do the job of a court judge, it’s so unreasonable.’
‘That doesn’t worry me. In this city there is little difference between the prison and the asylum.’ He captures the tip of a carrot in the bowl of his spoon.
‘Then what is it?’
‘Is he the slave, or the master, of his imagination? He swore to make Belgium disappear by teatime.’
‘Is Belgium another prisoner?’
Polonski chews. ‘Belgium.’
‘A new cheese?’
‘Belgium. The country. Between France and Holland. Belgium.’
Mrs Polonski shakes her head doubtfully.
Her husband smiles to hide his annoyance. ‘Bel-gi-um.’
‘Is this a joke, dear?’
‘You know I never joke about my patients.’
‘“Belgium.” A shire or village of Luxembourg, perhaps?’
‘Bring me my atlas!’ The doctor turns to the general map of Europe and his face stiffens. Between France and Holland is a feature called the Walloon Lagoon. Polonski gazes, thunderstruck. ‘This cannot be. This cannot be. This cannot be.’
‘I refuse to believe,’ insists my father, ‘that any son of mine could be capable of murder. His temper must have flared when he met you – your imagination is rewriting what he says and means.’
‘I am a lawyer,’ replies Akiko Kato. ‘I am not paid to imagine.’
‘If I could only meet my son, and explain—’
‘How many times must I say it, Minister? He will kill you.’
‘And so I have to rubber-stamp his death?’
‘Do you love your real family?’
‘What kind of a question is that?’
‘Then the steps you must take to protect them are obvious.’
My father shakes his head. ‘This is sheer insanity!’ He combs his hair with his fingers. ‘May I ask a direct question?’
‘You are the boss,’ says Akiko Kato in the tone of the boss.
‘Is our privacy retention agreement a factor in your calculations?’
Akiko Kato’s offence is razor-sharp. ‘I resent that insinuation.’
‘You must admit—’
‘I resent that insinuation so much that the price of my silence is doubled.’
My father nearly shouts. ‘Remember who I am, Ms Kato!’
‘I do remember who you are, Minister. A man with a kingdom to lose.’
The time has come. I stand up two rows behind my father and the snakewoman who manipulates his life. ‘Excuse me.’ They turn around – guilty, surprised, alert. ‘What?’ hisses Akiko Kato. I look from her, to my father, to her, to my father. Neither of them recognizes me. ‘Well? What the hell do you want?’ I swallow. ‘It is a simple matter. I know your name, and you knew mine, once upon a time: Eiji Miyake. Yes, that Eiji Miyake. True. It has been many years . . .’
Icicles fang the window of Voorman’s cell. Voorman’s eyelids open very, very slowly. Bombers drone across nearby airspace. ‘Good morning, Doctor. Will Belgium figure in your session notes today?’ The guard with the cattle prod slams the door shut. Polonski pretends to ignore this. His eyes are dark and baggy.
‘Sleep badly last night, Doctor?’
Polonski opens his bag with practised calm.
‘Wicked thoughts!’ Voorman licks his lips. ‘Is that your medical opinion, Doctor? I am not a lunatic, not a malingerer, but a demon? Am I to be exorcised?’
Polonski looks at the prisoner sharply. ‘Do you believe you should be?’
Voorman shrugs. ‘Demons are merely humans with demonic enough imaginations.’
The doctor sits down. The chair scrapes. ‘Just supposing you do possess . . . powers—’
Voorman smiles. ‘Say it, Doctor, say it.’
‘What is God doing straitjacketed in this prison?’
Voorman yawns in a well-fed way. ‘What would you do if you were God? Spend your days playing golf on Hawaii? I think not. Golf is so tedious when holes-in-one are dead certs. Existence drags so . . . non-existently.’
Polonski is not taking notes now. ‘So what do you do with your time?’
‘I seek amusement in you. Take this war. Slapstick comedy.’
‘I am not a religious man, Mr Voorman—’
‘That is why I chose you.’
‘—but what kind of a god finds wars amusing?’
‘A bored one. Yes. Humans are equipped with imaginations so you can dream up new ways to entertain me.’
‘Which you choose to observe from the luxury of your cell?’
Gunfire crackles in a neighbouring precinct. ‘Luxury, poverty, who cares when you are immortal? I am rather fond of prisons. I see them as open-cast irony mines. And the prisoners are more fun than well-fed congregations. You also amuse me, good doctor. Your remit is to prove me either a faker or a lunatic, and yet you end up proving my omnipotent divinity.’
‘Nothing of the sort has been proven.’
‘True, Dr Diehard, true. But fear not, I bear glad tidings. We’re going to change places. You can juggle time, gravity, waves and