Free All That Follows by Jim Crace

some hellfire to a church ’n’ cindered it? ’N’ I hate to be picky, but it wasn’t arson, it was firebombing! Y’all hear?” Then, in the closing paragraph, Leonard reads, “The armed group are thought to have been under police surveillance since entering the United Kingdom in early July, and although their purposes are unclear, it is not counted in security and intelligence circles as happenstance that their arrival coincides with the upcoming Reconciliation Summit.”
    Leonard would have preferred it if Maxie’s apparent “purposes” had been less commendable: unambiguously criminal, perhaps, with psychopathic tendencies, brutally expressed. That would better befit a man who, in Leonard’s opinion and experience, is “purposeless” and deserves little sympathy from liberals, a man who is more intent on turmoil for the sake of turmoil than on turmoil for the sake of change. But as ever, Maxie’s immoderation of action is validated by latching on to a rational and sympathetic cause. No one vaguely progressive, Leonard included, could wish the Reconciliation Summit well. So long as nobody gets injured, any boisterous and dramatic disruption to the week of meetings—even this armed and desperate hostage-taking in Alderbeech—might almost be welcome, might even be counted proportionate, given what one campaign group has already labeled passionately, if not pithily, “the vile offenses of the summit’s detestable guests.” But with Maxie, as Leonard knows too well, there are always injuries. The day is not complete without a bloody nose.
    There is, of course, Take to the Curb, a peaceful vigil Leonard can attend himself on Tuesday afternoon, if he’s so concerned, with protesters lining the forty-kilometer route between the airport and the summit venue. It’ll take more than eighty thousand people, standing shoulder to shoulder, if there are to be no gaps, or one third of that if they are prepared to stretch their arms and hang on by their fingertips. But no matter how hard he tries, Leonard cannot imagine himself in line these days. He means to play a part but rarely does. His shoulder isn’t up to it, of course. It’s shaming, actually, to be so disengaged. What will his contribution be, this fist-clenching man who only yesterday claimed he “hasn’t lost the fire,” when the summit and the demonstrations start? Not waving fists, for sure, except in private and at the telescreen. Not waving placards or leafleting. Not even standing silently in line. No, standing back, nursing his shoulder. He’ll be standing back and watching it on-screen, at home, watching all the politics on-screen.
    It’s far too easy, though, in Leonard’s current anxious and tormented mood—what will Lucy think of him?—to imagine Maxie at the demonstration, magically escaped from Alderbeech, just a couple of kilometers away from the route, and doing what he can to turn the vigil wild. Take to the Curb? It’s not enough, he says. Take Up the Curb and throw those stone blocks against those limousines. Shoulder to shoulder? Hand in hand? Too tame, he says. Too fucking British. No, leave the line and put your shoulders up against the horses and the police and sweep those enemies away. Pit yourselves against their flesh. Tear into their flesh. Wrap your fingers round those bastards’ throats. Then Maxie’s at the summit gates. If there’s a fracas, he is there, wielding the shaft of his placard like a truncheon. If only Maxie were less … no, commendable is not the word, Leonard thinks. Resolute is better. Wielding and unwavering. Now the pseudo-Texan leads the way into the summit grounds, into the summit hall, and stands with his handy placard shaft in the middle of the summit’s “detestable guests.” And sixteen gray-haired heads of state are knocked to the ground like scuttlepins, sixteen heads of state and one first lady of America. Blood is dripping from her nose onto the lapel of her pearl pantsuit. Leonard