H.A. Bari


IN LIEU OF A CONFESSION

What is left to say? You’ve brought me here yourselves. I would expect you to know it all already. I do not mean the facts, of course, no, I mean you know all that you presume. Yes, yes, you’ve brought me here so I might validate your presumptions. You surmise I have done it, or I have orchestrated it, or this or that, and so you’ve fettered me here before you. If you’re so adamant, do away with these formalities! Jail me, or better yet, kill me, only save me from this useless talk. I haven’t anything to say.
               Though, in truth, there is something I feel it necessary to make clear. Not of your presumptions, of course, yet perhaps it is related. No, it is related, and it quite bothers me. You’ve brought me here, yes, in fetters, and you say I am from the militia. Is that right? A militia, that is what you said? Yes?
               No. No militia. What makes you think we are a militia? We’re hardly even a social circle. We meet at times and we discuss… what is it we discuss? Literature, yes, and history, and the like. Or rather, we met. There is no longer any social circle, and naturally no militia. Militia, really. What made you think such a thing?
               Was it the weapons? You ought to know, those are — rather, those were — always rare amongst our numbers. You deem me an officer, as if we were organized in a manner befitting of such titles, when really I was only something of a respected member. Was, yes. And what do you think earned me that role? Only the fact I had such a thing, that damned pistol, in my possession. To think, it would do nothing but earn me scorn not so long after! So few of us, I should make clear. We are, were, no militia.
               And perhaps the leaflets were made, yes. Only some sheaves, some folded scraps, but have you read them? What violence did you see? Any advocation of it? No? You think we are a militia, yet… Really, you have never even seen what they spoke of. I’ll tell you. Oh, of passivity, of pacifism, of protest. Such things, and you think—!
               I should tell you, yes, about that day in —————, only yesterday, before I came here in these fetters, and why your presumptions are so incorrect. Armed men, you said, insurgents. Insurgents! They did nothing but stand on the street before the hall, only guarding the horses. With pistols! Not rifles! Hardly two, three shots in the end might have been fired. For this, they are insurgents? For this, you think us a militia?
               I would ask you this. You think I, and those men with the pistols, were not only of a militia, but that we were also of the circle? The circle the militia? No, I tell you, for that circle no longer exists. Why do you suppose that is? It is because I left, and those men, too. Do you understand how they were? Your presumptions don’t pain me only because you dare implicate me, but also because you think they are worthy to be seen as accomplices. What were they? Pretentious. Craven. A man is dead, and you think they, who seek nothing more than to sit and talk and write and do nothing, have any part in it?
               I should say, it is not that I have any part in it either, no, but to think they might is nothing short of insulting. Why do you suppose it is I left? They sit and they squabble. Their hands are too busy on pens — ones lifted to refute their own, I might add — to even consider a trigger. If a man sought to do anything of this caliber, that which you accuse me of, he could hardly dream of it while bogged down by their vapidity. That is why I left, you see.
               Do not confuse that for a confession, no. I did not do what you presume, I only left them. Isn’t it absurd? Duke ————— is dead, and not only do you implicate me, but you concoct this, this conspiracy of militia. How do you suppose that? Your father dies, say, do you go and presume some forces, some shadows came together and conspired, organized in whispers, to kill him? When truly he only reached too high an age, or caught some flux, or this or that?
               I will admit, yes, perhaps it is foolish to compare the two. The duke died of a bullet, or some handful, yes. Not of any flux. But must there be a conspiracy for those to fire? Such rounds fly day and night on the ————— Front. Don’t you suppose you ought to look for your conspirators there, too? What difference does it make, if lead lodges itself in the head of a footsoldier or of a duke? You might think there’s a difference, as those bumbling fools of the circle likely think so, and perhaps even I, at a point not so long ago as a day, might have thought so. But here we are!
               Do you know what was so funny about those men, those self-proclaimed thinkers? Maybe you’ll laugh. They talked often about this thing, change. Change to them could only be made radically, they said. You likely think so yourselves, or it could be that you don’t. It doesn’t matter. I must concede, I thought so too. But what is this “radical,” do you know? Is the duke’s death radical? Perhaps. So, you would think that if those men were so inclined to toil for this abstract concept, this change, this reformation, they would welcome only those ideas that were radical. Isn’t that their vehicle?
               Not so! For, you see, that was what I thought, and just imagine what shock awaited me to find my brothers did not agree. No, they were much too occupied with their philosophies, with their ideologies, with their literature to spare even a passing regard for such a notion. Craven! Do you think it is in speech and writing that things are set in motion? Show me when it has. No, it has never been the case. And if it has, it is only because it was borne by some more subtle radicalism. So, naturally, such that growth only comes from resistance, change would only come from stark, even cataclysmic, opposition. They are fools, and you are fools, to think otherwise.
               Yet I must confess that we are all fools. Even I! All that I have just said was but the treatise of yesterday. What happened yesterday? You know, and I know, and that is why I am here, in these fetters. Duke ————— died. By my hand, or by some other hand; presume all you like, it makes no difference. What matters is that something should have changed.
               But what has? What will? All that has changed is that one day I was a free man, and the next I am in fetters. And, of course, the duchy will change, but only so far as changing hands. The truth of it is that things would not change if a hundred dukes were killed. Line all of them up, the duke and his replacement and his replacement’s replacement, and so on and so forth, and give each a bullet until you run out. Come back the next day and see what is different. You know what will happen? Nothing! If you are fortunate, one might bring with them a war, or the collapse of some institution, and you sit content for a day or a year or a century, only to find that the next duke has only changed his face and his title and still nothing has changed.
               I can see it in your expressions. You think I am deluded, or deranged, or maybe only pretentious. It might be the case. Who am I to say it isn’t? But I think it is just that I am disillusioned.
               You know, while I was in that cell, before you brought me here, I had so much time to think. To reconcile, even. You know what it is I thought? I thought that perhaps that circle might not have been so foolish, after all. If actions and posturing bring about the same, but of the two only one clasps fetters around your wrist, I should not think twice about which I would choose.
               But can I go and tell that to the me of yesterday?
               So, anyhow, I ask that you go on as you would. I will not give you the confession you seek, but I don’t see that it might make any difference. Do with me what you please. Throw me in the cell, or hang me from the gallows, or slap me on my wrist and send me off. Will either bring about anything different?
               My only request is that you don’t give me that look.



H.A. Bari is a student currently living in Chicago. There is not much else worth knowing about him.

 
 

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