The Testimony

HOW IT FELT TO BE SPECIAL

Andrew Brubaker, White House Chief of Staff, Washington, DC

I kept asking Meany for updates on his theory about The Broadcast. If it’s a threat, we need to know. We’re doing research, he kept telling me, we’re working on it. Sometimes, that isn’t enough. We had all been awake for God-knows how many hours and we were all feeling it. POTUS had it worst: he was doing interviews, press ops, reassurances. And his reassurances had to sound real; the rest of us got to sit in the war room – we called it The Danger Room, POTUS’ special name for it, a joke, almost – and we got to say exactly how nervous we actually were. You factor in the stress, the tiredness gets that much worse. We had eye drops to help us function, and coffee. We even had a girl from the assistants’ pool do a run to the Starbucks.

There were whispers from sources – the same source that said it was a weapon, that the voice was some sort of weapon being used against us – that somebody was gearing up for another attack, as well. We didn’t have any more than that, other than that the rumour came from a source in Iran, so we moved the satellites to watch the countryside around there, covered Iraq, the Russian borders, China as best we could. If they see this, we’ll have hell to pay, one of the Joint Chiefs said, and I told them it was fine. I’d rather that than the alternative. We watched China move some of their troops along their borders; they had people stationed along the borders with Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and then – and these were the real worries – India and Pakistan. It was when you saw nuclear powers edging toward each other, that was when you started to worry. Somebody in the room asked why they were moving – What have they got to gain from that? he asked – and I said, They’re just nervous. They’re probably worried that it’s a weapon. Just like we are, he said. POTUS didn’t say anything.

I didn’t think it was an attack, and neither did he; and if it wasn’t, that left very few options. Something we did by accident. Aliens. God. It was insane to even be contemplating those last two options, but we were both pretty sure it wasn’t an attack.

Ed Meany, research and development scientist, Virginia

I spoke to the President for the first time that night – the first and the last time, if memory serves – because he wanted to know if I’d worked it out yet. It wasn’t enough that I was reporting to Andrew Brubaker every ten minutes with the zero updates we’d managed, but he wanted to check that I was working properly. I guess a phone call from the President is meant to scare you, make you leap to action. Truth be told, we weren’t any closer because it was the most pointless exercise we’d ever worked on. There was no signal measuring on any of our equipment when we could hear The Broadcast, and given that it had stopped, there wasn’t even anything for us to not be able to measure. He wanted me to be able to say, definitively, that it either was or wasn’t God. I couldn’t. What’s that philosophy quote? If God wasn’t real we would have had to invent him?

Dhruv Rawat, doctor, Bankipore

Adele had dinner with me again; she was so upset about The Broadcast, and I told her that it was fine. At home, she said, they’re saying that it has to be the voice of God – that or aliens. She smiled when she said that, because it was so preposterous. But God, she said – and this gave her an even bigger smile – I mean, can you imagine? We had been eating this dish local to the area, and to the hotel, I think; it was mostly spiced potato and rice, in this sauce with okra, beans, tomato, paneer, but it wasn’t spiced, not even slightly. I remember because I ate so much of it I felt ill, and sat back in my seat, patting my stomach. That made Adele laugh. There was a television on in the bar at the back, with the news showing the bombs in America. (It’s reactionaries, the barman was saying, they always act after something else has started a battle.) You have to remember, I said to Adele, all of your people think that our Gods are vastly different. She smiled, as if she – she wanted to tell me that she already knew that, I think. Oh yes, of course; but this – I mean, we don’t know what it is, but it could be the answer for all of us, couldn’t it? This could end war, it could solve all our problems, put everybody on a level playing field. This could be proof, Dhruv; aren’t you excited?

I said, I think there’s only reason to be excited for proof if you wanted proof in the first place. For me, I’ve always known God is with us, because of all of this. That’s the difference. But proof, she said, not belief or faith, actual evidence. They’re totally different things. I know, I understand, I replied, but this isn’t evidence of anything: it’s just a voice. It might help those starved of their own self-belief, but for us, we shouldn’t need it. Sure, there’s that mystery of what it was, but it wasn’t God. Besides, I said, as a joke, which of the Hindu Gods would it be without the others? We finished dinner and that seemed to have been that. When it was over, she thanked me for a nice evening, went to her hotel room, and left me sitting at the dinner table on my own. She had charged the whole bill to her hotel room before I could have a chance to pay.

Isabella Dulli, nun, Vatican City

I don’t know how long I stayed down there. It’s so quiet down there; there is only you and the smell of the stone. Some people say that it smells of death, but they don’t mean that so negatively. They mean, it smells like you’re closer to Him, to His kingdom. I don’t know how long I was there for – most of that day, because I was completely alone with Him, and I revelled in Him for that time. I was special. That was how it felt to be special. And I was waiting, more than that, in case He was not finished. My Children … It is such an invocation, and it sounded as if He was going to tell me something about the children. I was going to be party to something special.

I hadn’t decided if I was going to tell anybody else what had happened to me when I went back to the Basilica, and then the Basilica was empty. I went into the square, and that was empty too; it was only just getting dark, and all that I could hear was the sound of horns on the streets outside, where the taxis and buses were. At the gate, the police were waiting, keeping people out. What’s going on? I asked, and they told me to get back inside. The people at the gate looked so scared, frantic. Let us in, Sister! they shouted. You have to tell them to let us in! What’s happening? I asked the guard again, and he looked at me as if I was insane, pulling his whole head backwards. Are you mad? he said, and then he and his friend both laughed at me. You heard it, of course they’re going crazy outside. All the tourists have been told to leave the City, or they would tear the place apart! I knew straight away, of course, but I asked the policeman what everybody heard, and he laughed again. The voice of God, he said, you remember that happening, yeah? I walked away – the people behind the gates, in the street, were calling to me still: Sister, Sister, give us a blessing, help us to tell our Lord of our love!

I didn’t know where to go; I felt so sick, and I couldn’t bear to see anybody else who had been blessed – or who heard the voice – so I went back into the Basilica. Then I heard them, coming in through the far entrance, laughing and praising him, Hallelujah, Hallelujah. I went down to the tomb again, and for some reason the lights were off, the guide lights, so I was in the darkness completely. I knew the tomb so well that I didn’t need anything to show me where to go, and I found myself on the floor of the tomb, trying to breathe in through the closeness of the air. I asked Him why, because I needed to know, but there, when He could have answered me, His most devout, He chose silence, and I could only hear my voice echoing back at me for the longest time as the world celebrated how close they were to Him, finally.

Elijah Said, prisoner on Death Row, Chicago

We heard the guards talking at the end of the corridor, saying that there had been a problem in a block that we had never heard of. Neither Finkler nor I were old-timers. We’d been here less than six months, both of us, and the amount of talk about the rest of the prison flew by. You ignored it; no need to learn the ropes when that same rope would eventually hang you. The guards saw us listening and told us that it was time for our showers; it wasn’t close to that, but the noise of the water deafened all else. They switched them on, told us to strip, prodded us – myself, Finkler, a thug from New York who called himself Bronx, a man who smothered his wife and children while they slept, name of Thaddeus – into the shower room. The water ran hot always, and we were forced to stand inside it, directly under the faucets so that they soaked our faces. They couldn’t be sure we were washing properly, they said, and this was the only way: scalding our skin. Finkler turned thick pink, like a lobster; he complained about the heat. Thaddeus wept. Bronx kissed his teeth and turned, and called Thaddeus a whiny bitch, and laughed at him. Nobody spoke to me, or looked at me. These people were not dangerous; they fashioned themselves as threats, either by accident or intentionally, but they were nothing. We stood under the faucets and watched as the guards – two of them, Johannsen and another one I didn’t recognize – spoke in the corridor. I heard Bronx whisper something, out of his faucet, closer to me.

We can take ’em, he said, rush over, I’ll take one, you take the other. This panic, we could be out of this fucking place. Bronx was a rapper (though nobody could lay claim to having heard his music); he had shot three people from a moving car, caught by a traffic camera. Come on son, he said, we can get out of here. No, I said. He laughed, rocked backwards – he fashioned himself like some African chief, his laugh belly-deep, a false man to his very core – and grabbed my shoulder. No shit, he said, you like it here, eh? I washed myself. You fine with staying here, dying in this place? Shit, man, you crazier than Finkler. He nudged toward Thaddeus; I knew before they even whispered to each other that the family-killer would join in with the plan; he didn’t cry over his family, he cried over himself. There’s two types of pity in prison: self, and for what you did. You have self-pity, my father used to tell me, you can’t have any self-respect. Thaddeus was nothing but self-pity, a ball of it. Next thing I knew, he was running toward one guard, Bronx toward the other. They barrelled into them, slamming them against the wall. The guard I didn’t know the name of was quick; he shouted, reached down for his stick, but Bronx was faster, clubbed him across the face with his forearm. Come on, he shouted to me, you can get the fuck out of here. Solidarity in colour. I turned away, took a towel, dried myself and returned to my cell. What the fuck? Bronx shouted. You won’t make it, I said, but he didn’t listen, and the three of them ran down the corridor.

Only one who returned – ten minutes later, cowering, shakier than when he left – was Finkler, and he didn’t say what happened to Bronx and Thaddeus, and I didn’t care to ask.

Simon Dabnall, Member of Parliament, London

The Cabinet was called in that morning, dragged out of our beds at some unholy hour and forced to wearily make our way back to the city. I was Minister of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, which sounds exactly as dull as it was in reality. It was a position that I didn’t ask for, but when they offered me a place on the Cabinet I said Yes. I had been in the party for nearly twenty years; it made sense, I think, to them. I was the elder statesman, which is a ghastly thought, so I sat there and read the reports that my staffers had made for me, and I took extra pay for my troubles. I had, in a previous life, worked in the City. Apparently, this meant I should govern the finances of businesses the country over, I don’t know. Regardless, I was called in, and I obeyed the paymasters to a T. I don’t remember if we discussed the practicalities of giving everybody a day off, a religious holiday. I’m sure that it must have come up. My assistant only bothered to make it in because I promised her a rise if she did.

We were meeting in Downing Street, so I was told, and it wasn’t until after the gate checks that they said the meeting was in 12, not 10. Everybody was already in the room apart from the PM and the Deputy, and it was like a bloody mothers’ meeting in there, all talking at the same time, all doing whatever the heck they liked. Thomson, the pillock in charge of education, was even over by the window, cranked open, fag in hand. Smoking! In a Cabinet meeting! I asked where the PM was, and that seemed to be a point of contention. Nobody knew, exactly. I’ve heard a rumour, Thomson said, that he’s done a runner. After a few minutes the Deputy PM turned up, asked us to sit down, confirmed it. Somebody saw him in Brighton, he said, and we’ve found his suit and his wallet on a beach. Somebody saw a man of his rough description waddling into the sea earlier today, wading out, then not coming back. Is he mental? Thomson asked; Has he gone completely bloody barking? Barely blame him, I thought. Has the press got this yet? somebody asked, and the Deputy shook his head. I’ll be making a statement in a couple of hours. And you’ll be standing in for him, I’m assuming? That was Thomson who asked, because he always hated the Deputy PM. I will. Rabble rabble rabble, went the room, and then Thomson lit another fag, and walked out. Three or four more of the Cabinet followed him, either trying to calm him down or just, I don’t know, to get out of the room. I didn’t say a word. I rarely do, I confess, because people tend to tune out when I speak, even when it’s about something important. We abandoned the session before most people were even having their breakfast, saying we’d reconvene later that day. Strangest walk down Downing Street I’d ever had, leaving there.

I decided to get the train home. Some of them were running again, or trying to; the stations were hideously understaffed, the barriers open, the ticket booths empty, but some drivers had turned up. On the board at the front, where delays get noted, some wag had written The End Is Nigh!, and they had drawn a smiley face underneath. I have no idea why, but the platform was almost completely empty. It was eight o’clock in the morning on a Tuesday, and nobody was going to work. Madness. I stood on the platform for twenty minutes or so before a train popped up on the board, read through a copy of The Times that somebody had left there – little more than a pamphlet really, no interviews, cut and pasted from their website, but bless them for trying with everything that was going on. I got myself a Curly-Wurly from the machine, as I hadn’t had time for breakfast, and was sitting watching the rats when this man started talking to me. I hadn’t noticed him before; he was scruffy, but only as much as most people have the potential to be, I suppose: a few days of unshaven chin, some scuffed shoes, greasy, scraped-back hair. I wonder if the rats heard Him as well, he said, and I laughed. God only knows, I replied, expecting some sort of follow-up, but he went silent. Fine, I thought, you started the conversation; it’s your right to finish it. A minute passed, then he sat down. They’re acting just the same as always, he said, meaning the rats again, and I agreed. Maybe they’ve got it right and we’ve got it wrong, I said. We’re running around and panicking, they’re just getting on with it. He scowled at me. I’ll bet they don’t even understand what God means, he said.