The Magus - John Fowles [191]
is crowded out of one's mind. You must remember this. From this point on I acted without reason. Beyond reason. "I said, I have no choice. "He went to the end of one of the ranks of men in front of me. He took a submachine gun from a man's shoulder, appeared to make sure that it was correctly loaded, then came back with it and presented it to me with both hands. As if it was a prize I had won. The hostages cheered, crossed themselves. And then were silent. The colonel watched me. I had a wild idea that I might turn the gun on him. But of course the massacre of the entire village would then have been inevitable. "I walked towards the men wired to the iron gates. I knew why he had done this. It would be widely publicised by the Germancontrolled newspapers. The pressure on me would not be mentioned, and I would be presented as a Greek who cooperated in the German theory of order. A warning to other mayors. An example to other frightened Greeks everywhere. But those eighty men--how could I condemn them? "I came within about fifteen feet of the two guerrillas. So close, because I had not fired a gun since those far-off days of 1915. For some reason I had not looked them in the face till then. I had looked at the high wall with its tiled top, at a pair of vulgar ornamental urns on top of the pillars that flanked the gate, at the fronds of a pepper tree beyond. But then I had to look at them. The younger of the two might have been dead. His head had fallen forward. They had done something to his hands, I could not see what, but there was blood all over the fingers. He was not dead. I heard him groan. Mutter something. He was delirious. "And the other. His mouth had been struck or kicked. The lips were severely contused, reddened. As I stood there and raised the gun he drew back what remained of those lips. All his teeth had been smashed in. The inside of his mouth was like a blackened vulva. But I was too desperate to finish to realise the real cause. He too had had his fingers crushed, or his nails torn out, and I could see multiple burns on his body. But the Germans had made one terrible error. They had not gouged out his eyes. "I raised the gun blindly and pressed the trigger. Nothing happened. A click. I pressed it again. And again, an empty click. "I turned and looked round. Wimmel and my two guards were standing thirty feet or so away, watching. The hostages suddenly began to call. They thought I had lost the wifi to shoot. I turned back and tried once more. Again, nothing. I turned to the colonel, and gestured with the gun, to show that it would not fire. I felt faint in the heat. Nausea. Yet unable to faint. "He said, Is something wrong? "I answered, The gun will not fire. "It is a Schmeisser. An excellent weapon. "I have tried three times. "It will not fire because it is not loaded. It is strictly forbidden for the civilian population to possess loaded weapons. "I stared at him, then at the gun. Still not understanding. The hostages were silent again. "I said, very helplessly, How can I kill them? "He smiled, a smile as thin as a sabre slash. Then he said, Your imagination has... two minutes in which to act. "I understood then. I was to club them to death. I understood many things. His real self, his real position. And from that came the realisation that he was mad, and that he was therefore innocent, as all mad people, even the most cruel, are innocent. He was what life could do if it wanted--an extreme possibility made hideously mind and flesh. Perhaps that was why he could impose himself so strongly, like a black divinity. For there was something superhuman in the spell he cast. And therefore the real evil, the real monstrosity in the situation lay in the other Germans, those less than mad lieutenants and corporals and privates who stood silently there watching this exchange. "I walked towards him. The two guards thought I was going to attack him because they sharply raised their guns. But he said something to them and stood perfectly still. I stopped some six feet from him. We stared at each other. "I beg you in the