valuable time, some nonexistent industry producing nonexistent goods. Yes, we have the sole agency for these goods, if those peasants and refugees there can ever be made to produce them. But when will that be? If I know those people, not in my lifetime.”
She had, of course, put her finger unerringly on the basic weakness of the whole arrangement. I was to be reminded of that phrase about “nonexistent industry producing nonexistent goods” all too often during the months that followed. At the time all I could do was sit there and pretend to an unshaken calm that I certainly did not feel.
“Are there any questions?”
“Yes.” It was my sister Euridice. “What is the alternative to this agreement?”
“The alternative that Mama proposes. We do nothing. In my opinion this means that eventually we will have to cut our losses in Syria, write them off. The best we could hope for, I imagine, would be a counter-revolution there which would restore the status quo. I don’t see it happening myself, but ...” I shrugged.
“But you could be wrong!” Giulio the dentist was back in action, with bulging eyes and one forefinger tapping the side of his forehead - presumably to inform me that the question came from his brain and not his stomach.
“Yes, I could be wrong, Giulio. What I meant was that the sort of counterrevolution in which the radical right overthrows the radical left doesn’t usually restore a former status quo.”
“But surely action and reaction are always equal and opposite.” This was René the physicist. He had a maddening habit of quoting scientific laws in non-scientific contexts. Entanglement in one of his false analogies was a thing to be avoided at all costs.
“In the laboratory, yes.”
“And in life, Michael, and in life.”
“I am sure you’re right, René. However, the political future of Syria is not something that we can divine in this board room. I think that there has been enough discussion and that we should put the motion to a vote. You first, Giulio.”
At that point, I think, I had pretty well made up my mind to go against the agreement myself. The instant enthusiasm expressed by Giulio and René had engendered misgivings which my mother’s shrewd disparagement had deepened considerably. By abstaining from voting on the ground that, as the author of the agreement I was parti pris, I could have backed away from the issue without too much loss of face. If Giulio had chosen to repeat his idiotic dithyramb in praise of my sagacity, that, I think, is what I would have done.
Unfortunately, he decided to change his mind. ‘’My considered opinion is,” he said weightily, “that time is on our side. No agreement, however ably negotiated, can in the end serve our interests if the regime with which the agreement is made is essentially unstable. If time is on our side, and we may hope it is, then I say let time work for us.”
“You are against the motion, Giulio?”
“With deep regret, Michael, yes.”
René had a few words to say about game theory mathematics and the possibility of applying them to the solution of meta-political problems. Then he, too, voted against.
I looked at my mother. She would now decide the matter, whatever I wanted; my sisters would follow her lead.
I said: “I think, Mama, that even the silliest generalization, even one made in a little red book by the British War Office, may once in a while have its moment of truth. I believe that this is just such a moment and that to do now what you and Giulio and René want to do - that is, nothing - would be to do something definitely wrong.”
For a moment her lips twitched and she almost smiled, but not quite. Instead, she threw up her hands. “Very well,” she said. “Have your agreement. But I warn you. You are making a lot of trouble for yourself - trouble of all kinds.”
In that, of course, she was absolutely right.
The trouble was of all kinds, and I had no one to blame for it but
She had, of course, put her finger unerringly on the basic weakness of the whole arrangement. I was to be reminded of that phrase about “nonexistent industry producing nonexistent goods” all too often during the months that followed. At the time all I could do was sit there and pretend to an unshaken calm that I certainly did not feel.
“Are there any questions?”
“Yes.” It was my sister Euridice. “What is the alternative to this agreement?”
“The alternative that Mama proposes. We do nothing. In my opinion this means that eventually we will have to cut our losses in Syria, write them off. The best we could hope for, I imagine, would be a counter-revolution there which would restore the status quo. I don’t see it happening myself, but ...” I shrugged.
“But you could be wrong!” Giulio the dentist was back in action, with bulging eyes and one forefinger tapping the side of his forehead - presumably to inform me that the question came from his brain and not his stomach.
“Yes, I could be wrong, Giulio. What I meant was that the sort of counterrevolution in which the radical right overthrows the radical left doesn’t usually restore a former status quo.”
“But surely action and reaction are always equal and opposite.” This was René the physicist. He had a maddening habit of quoting scientific laws in non-scientific contexts. Entanglement in one of his false analogies was a thing to be avoided at all costs.
“In the laboratory, yes.”
“And in life, Michael, and in life.”
“I am sure you’re right, René. However, the political future of Syria is not something that we can divine in this board room. I think that there has been enough discussion and that we should put the motion to a vote. You first, Giulio.”
At that point, I think, I had pretty well made up my mind to go against the agreement myself. The instant enthusiasm expressed by Giulio and René had engendered misgivings which my mother’s shrewd disparagement had deepened considerably. By abstaining from voting on the ground that, as the author of the agreement I was parti pris, I could have backed away from the issue without too much loss of face. If Giulio had chosen to repeat his idiotic dithyramb in praise of my sagacity, that, I think, is what I would have done.
Unfortunately, he decided to change his mind. ‘’My considered opinion is,” he said weightily, “that time is on our side. No agreement, however ably negotiated, can in the end serve our interests if the regime with which the agreement is made is essentially unstable. If time is on our side, and we may hope it is, then I say let time work for us.”
“You are against the motion, Giulio?”
“With deep regret, Michael, yes.”
René had a few words to say about game theory mathematics and the possibility of applying them to the solution of meta-political problems. Then he, too, voted against.
I looked at my mother. She would now decide the matter, whatever I wanted; my sisters would follow her lead.
I said: “I think, Mama, that even the silliest generalization, even one made in a little red book by the British War Office, may once in a while have its moment of truth. I believe that this is just such a moment and that to do now what you and Giulio and René want to do - that is, nothing - would be to do something definitely wrong.”
For a moment her lips twitched and she almost smiled, but not quite. Instead, she threw up her hands. “Very well,” she said. “Have your agreement. But I warn you. You are making a lot of trouble for yourself - trouble of all kinds.”
In that, of course, she was absolutely right.
The trouble was of all kinds, and I had no one to blame for it but
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