White Teeth

there talking and I probably wouldn’t make head nor tail of it, you know, so…’

Archie lifted his arms until they were in line with the Doctor’s forehead, closed his eyes, and cocked the gun.

The Doctor’s voice jumped an octave. ‘A cigarette?’

And it was at that moment that it started to go wrong. Like it went wrong for Pande. He should have shot the bloke then and there. Probably. But instead he opened his eyes to see his victim struggling to pull out a battered cigarette packet and a box of matches from his top pocket like a human being.

‘Could I – please? Before…’

Archie let all the breath he had summoned up to kill a man come out through his nose. ‘Can’t say no to a last request,’ said Archie, because he’d seen the movies. ‘I’ve got a light, if you like.’

The Doctor nodded, Archie struck a match, and the Doctor leaned forward to light up.

‘Well, get on with it,’ said Archie, after a moment; he never could resist a pointless debate, ‘if you’ve got something to say, say it. I haven’t got all night.’

‘I can speak? We are to have a conversation?’

‘I didn’t say we were going to have a conversation,’ said Archie sharply. Because this was a tactic of Movie Nazis (and Archie should have known; he spent the first four years of the war watching flickering Movie Nazis at the Brighton Odeon), they try to talk their way out of stuff. ‘I said you were going to talk and then I was going to kill you.’

‘Oh yes, of course.’

The Doctor used his sleeve to wipe his face, and looked at the boy curiously, double-checking to see if he were serious. The boy looked serious.

‘Well, then… If I may say so…’ The Doctor’s mouth hung open, waiting for Archie to insert a name but none came. ‘Lieutenant… if I may say so, Lieutenant, it appears to me you are in something of a… a… moral quandary.’

Archie didn’t know what quandary meant. It reminded him of coal, metal and Wales, somewhere between quarry and foundry. At a loss, he said what he always said in these situations. ‘I should cocoa!’

‘Er… Yes, yes,’ said Dr Sick, gaining some confidence; he had not yet been shot and a whole minute had so far passed. ‘It seems to me you have a dilemma. On the one hand… I do not believe you wish to kill me-’

Archie squared his shoulders. ‘Now look, sunshine-’

‘And on the other, you have promised your overzealous friend that you will. But it is more than that.’

The Doctor’s shaking hands tapped his own cigarette inadvertently, and Archie watched the ash fall like grey snow on to his boots.

‘On the one hand, you have an obligation to – to – your country and to what you believe is right. On the other hand, I am a man. I am speaking to you. I breathe and I bleed as you do. And you do not know, for certain, what type of a man I am. You have only hearsay. So, I understand your difficulty.’

‘I don’t have a difficulty. You’re the one with the difficulty, sunshine.’

‘And yet, though I am not your friend, you have a duty to me, because I am a man. I think you are caught between duties. I think you find yourself in a very interesting situation.’

Archie stepped forward, and put the muzzle two inches from the Doctor’s forehead. ‘You finished?’

The Doctor tried to say yes but nothing came except a stutter.

‘Good.’

‘Wait! Please. Do you know Sartre?’

Archie sighed, exasperated. ‘No, no, no – we haven’t any friends in common – I know that, because I’ve only got one friend and he’s called Ick-Ball. Look, I’m going to kill you. I’m sorry about it but-’

‘Not a friend. Philosopher. Sartre. Monsieur J. P.’

‘Who?’ said Archie, agitated, suspicious. ‘Sounds French.’

‘He is French. A great Frenchman. I met him briefly in ’41, when he was imprisoned. But when I met him he posed a problem, which is similar, I think, to yours.’

‘Go on,’ said Archie slowly. The fact was he could do with some help.

‘The problem,’ continued Dr Sick, trying to control his hyperventilation, sweating so much there were two little pools in the hollows at the base of his neck, ‘is that of a young French student who ought to care for his sick mother in Paris but at the same time ought to go to England to help the Free French fight the National Socialists. Now, remembering that there are many kinds of ought – one ought to give to charity, for example, but one doesn’t always do so; it is ideal, but it is not required – remembering this, what should he do?’

Archie scoffed, ‘That’s a bloody stupid question. Think about it.’ He gesticulated with the gun, moving it from the Doctor’s face and tapping his own temple with it. ‘At the end of the day, he’ll do the one he cares about more. Either he loves his country or his old mum.’

‘But what if he cares about both options, equally? I mean, country and “old mum”. What if he is obligated to do both?’

Archie was unimpressed. ‘Well, he better just do one and get on with it.’

‘The Frenchman agrees with you,’ said the Doctor, attempting a smile. ‘If neither imperative can be overridden, then choose one, and as you say, get on with it. Man makes himself, after all. And he is responsible for what he makes.’

‘There you are, then. End of conversation.’

Archie placed his legs apart, spread his weight, ready to take the kick-back – and cocked the gun once more.

‘But – but – think – please, my friend – try to think – ’ The Doctor fell to his knees, sending up a cloud of dust that rose and fell like a sigh.

‘Get up,’ gulped Archie, horrified by the streams of eye-blood, the hand on his leg and then the mouth on his shoe. ‘Please – there’s no need for-’

But the Doctor grabbed the back of Archie’s knees. ‘Think – please – anything may happen… I may yet redeem myself in your eyes… or you may be mistaken – your decision may come back to you as Oedipus’s returned to him, horrible and mutilated! You cannot say for sure!’

Archie grabbed the Doctor by his skinny arm, hauled him upright and began yelling, ‘Look, mate. You’ve upset me now. I’m not a bloody fortune-teller. The world might end tomorrow for all I know. But I’ve got to do this now. Sam’s waiting for me. Please,’ said Archie, because his hand was shaking and his resolve was doing a runner, ‘please stop talking. I’m not a fortune-teller.’

But the Doctor collapsed once more, like a jack-in-the-box. ‘No… no… we are not fortune- tellers. I could never have predicted my life would end up in the hands of a child… Corinthians I, chapter thirteen, verse eight: Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. But when will it come? For myself, I became tired of waiting. It is such a terrible thing, to know only in part. A terrible thing not to have perfection, human perfection, when it is so readily available.’ The Doctor lifted himself up, and tried to reach out to Archie just as Archie backed away. ‘If only we were brave enough to make the decisions that must be made… between those worth saving and the rest… Is it a crime to want-’

‘Please, please,’ said Archie, ashamed to find himself crying, not red tears like the Doctor’s, but thick and translucent and salty. ‘Stay there. Please stop talking. Please.’

‘And then I think of the perverse German, Friedrich. Imagine the world with no beginning or