Again, Seri spoke persuasively in patois, and gave the man some money. After a delay we were brought a simple meal of bacon and beans, served in rice.
I said, while we were eating: 'I must give you some money.'
'Why? I can get all this back from the Lotterie.'
Under the table our knees were touching, hers slightly gripping mine. I said: 'Do I have to give you back to the Lotterie?'
She shook her head. 'I'm thinking of quitting the job. It's time I changed islands.'
'Why?'
'I've been on Muriseay long enough. I want to find somewhere quieter.'
'Is that the only reason?'
'Part of it. I don't get on too well with the manager in the office. And the job's not quite what I expected.'
'What do you mean?'
'It doesn't matter. I'll tell you sometime.'
We did not want to return to the room immediately, so we walked up and down the village street, our arms around each other. It was getting cool.
We stopped by the souvenir shop and looked in at the lighted window display. It was full of petrified objects, bizarre and rnundane at once.
Walking again, I said: 'Tell me why you want to quit the job.'
'I thought I did.'
'You said it wasn't what you expected.'
Seri said nothing at first. We crossed the wide lawn by the river, and stood on the bridge. We could hear the myrtaceous trees moving in the breeze.
At last Seri said: 'I can't make up my mind about the prize. I'm full of contradictions about it. In the job I've got to help people, and encourage them to go on to the clinic and receive the treatment.'
'Do many of them need encouragement?' I said, thinking of course of my own doubts.
'No. A few are worried in case it's dangerous. They just need someone to tell them it isn't. But you see, everything I do is based on the assumption that the Lotterie is a good thing. I'm just not sure any more that it is.'
'Why?'
'Well, for one thing, you're the youngest winner I've ever seen.
Everyone else is at least forty or fifty, and some of them are extremely old.
What it seems to mean is that the majority of people who buy the tickets are the same age. If you think about it, that means the Lotterie is just exploiting people's fear of dying.'
'That's understandable,' I said. 'And surely athanasia itself was developed because of the same fear?'
'Yes . . . but the lottery system seems so indiscriminate. When I first started the job I thought the treatment should only go to people who are ill.
Then I saw some of the mail we get. Every day, the office receives hundreds of letters from people in hospital, pleading for the treatment. The clinic simply couldn't cope with even a fraction of them.'
'What do you do about the letters?'
'You'll hate the answer.'
'Go on.'
'We send them a form letter, and a complimentary ticket for the next draw. And we only send a ticket if they write from a hospital for incurable diseases.'
'That must bring them comfort,' I said.
'I don't like it any more than you do. No one at the office likes it.
Eventually, I began to understand why it was necessary. Suppose we gave the treatment to anyone with cancer. Why is someone deserving of athanasia just because they're ill? Thieves and swindlers and rapists get cancer just like anyone else.'
'But it would be humanitarian,' I said, thinking that thieves and rapists can also win lotteries.
'It's unworkable, Peter. There's a booklet in the office. I'll let you read it if you want to. It's the Lotterie's argument against treating the sick. There are thousands, perhaps millions, of people suffering from cancer.
The clinic can't treat them all. The treatment's too expensive, and it's too slow. So they would have to he selective. They would have to go through case histories, look for people they consider deserving, narrow it down to a few hundred a year. And _who_ sits in judgement? Who can decide that one person deserves to live while another deserves to die? It might conceivably work for a short time . . . but then there would be someone denied the treatment, someone in power or someone in the media. Perhaps they'd be given the treatment to keep them quiet, and at once the system is corrupted.'
I felt the skin on Seri's arm as she pressed a hand on mine. She was cold, like me, so we started walking back towards the house. The mountains loomed black around us; everything was silent.
'You've talked me out of going to the clinic,' I said. 'I don't want anything more to do with this.'
'I think you should.'
