Cruelty Read online

  ‘Look, Mr Bohlen. With the sort of switchboard I’m rigging up, you’ll be able to write any sort of book you want.’

  And this was true, for within another couple of months, the genius of Adolph Knipe had not only adapted the machine for novel writing, but had constructed a marvellous new control system which enabled the author to pre-select literally any type of plot and any style of writing he desired. There were so many dials and levers on the thing, it looked like the instrument panel of some enormous aeroplane.

  First, by depressing one of a series of master buttons, the writer made his primary decision: historical, satirical, philosophical, political, romantic, erotic, humorous or straight. Then, from the second row (the basic buttons), he chose his theme: army life, pioneer days, civil war, world war, racial problem, wild west, country life, childhood memories, seafaring, the sea bottom and many, many more. The third row of buttons gave a choice of literary style: classical, whimsical, racy, Hemingway, Faulkner, Joyce, feminine, etc. The fourth row was for characters, the fifth for wordage – and so on and so on – ten long rows of pre-selector buttons.

  But that wasn’t all. Control had also to be exercised during the actual writing process (which took about fifteen minutes per novel), and to do this the author had to sit, as it were, in the driver’s seat, and pull (or push) a battery of labelled stops, as on an organ. By so doing, he was able continually to modulate or merge fifty different and variable qualities such as tension, surprise, humour, pathos and mystery. Numerous dials and gauges on the dashboard itself told him throughout exactly how far along he was with his work.

  Finally, there was the question of ‘passion’. From a careful study of the books at the top of the best-seller lists for the past year, Adolph Knipe had decided that this was the most important ingredient of all – a magical catalyst that somehow or other could transform the dullest novel into a howling success – at any rate financially. But Knipe also knew that passion was powerful, heady stuff, and must be prudently dispensed – the right proportions at the right moments; and to ensure this, he had devised an independent control consisting of two sensitive sliding adjustors operated by foot-pedals, similar to the throttle and brake in a car. One pedal governed the percentage of passion to be injected, the other regulated its intensity. There was no doubt, of course – and this was the only drawback – that the writing of a novel by the Knipe methods was going to be rather like flying a plane and driving a car and playing an organ all at the same time, but this did not trouble the inventor. When all was ready, he proudly escorted Mr Bohlen into the machine house and began to explain the operating procedure for the new wonder.

  ‘Good God, Knipe! I’ll never be able to do all that! Dammit, man, it’d be easier to write the thing by hand!’

  ‘You’ll soon get used to it, Mr Bohlen, I promise you. In a week or two, you’ll be doing it without hardly thinking. It’s just like learning to drive.’

  Well, it wasn’t quite as easy at that, but after many hours of practice, Mr Bohlen began to get the hang of it, and finally, late one evening, he told Knipe to make ready for running off the first novel. It was a tense moment, with the fat little man crouching nervously in the driver’s seat, and the tall toothy Knipe fussing excitedly around him.

  ‘I intend to write an important novel, Knipe.’

  ‘I’m sure you will, sir. I’m sure you will.’

  With one finger, Mr Bohlen carefully pressed the necessary pre-selector buttons:

  Master button – satirical

  Subject – racial problem

  Style – classical

  Characters – six men, four women, one infant

  Length – fifteen chapters

  At the same time he had his eye particularly upon three organ stops marked power, mystery, profundity.

  ‘Are you ready, sir?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m ready.’

  Knipe pulled the switch. The great engine hummed. There was a deep whirring sound from the oiled movement of fifty thousand cogs and rods and levers; then came the drumming of the rapid electrical typewriter, setting up a shrill, almost intolerable clatter. Out into the basket flew the typewritten pages – one every two seconds. But what with the noise and the excitement, and having to play upon the stops, and watch the chapter-counter and the pace-indicator and the passion-gauge, Mr Bohlen began to panic. He reacted in precisely the way a learner driver does in a car – by pressing both feet hard down on the pedals and keeping them there until the thing stopped.

  ‘Congratulations on your first novel,’ Knipe said, picking up the great bundle of typed pages from the basket.

  Little pearls of sweat were oozing out all over Mr Bohlen’s face. ‘It sure was hard work, my boy.’

  ‘But you got it done, sir. You got it done.’

  ‘Let me see it, Knipe. How does it read?’

  He started to go through the first chapter, passing each finished page to the younger man.

  ‘Good heavens, Knipe! What’s this!’ Mr Bohlen’s thin purple fish-lip was moving slightly as it mouthed the words, his cheeks were beginning slowly to inflate.

  ‘But look here, Knipe! This is outrageous!’

  ‘I must say it’s a bit fruity, sir.’

  ‘Fruity! It’s perfectly revolting! I can’t possibly put my name to this!’

  ‘Quite right, sir. Quite right.’

  ‘Knipe! Is this some nasty trick you’ve been playing on me?’

  ‘Oh no, sir! No!’

  ‘It certainly looks like it.’

  ‘You don’t think, Mr Bohlen, that you mightn’t have been pressing a little hard on the passion-control pedals, do you?’

  ‘My dear boy, how should I know.’

  ‘Why don’t you try another?’

  So Mr Bohlen ran off a second novel, and this time it went according to plan.

  Within a week, the manuscript had been read and accepted by an enthusiastic publisher. Knipe followed with one in his own name, then made a dozen more for good measure. In no time at all, Adolph Knipe’s Literary Agency had become famous for its large stable of promising young novelists. And once again the money started rolling in.

  It was at this stage that young Knipe began to display a real talent for big business.

  ‘See here, Mr Bohlen,’ he said. ‘We still got too much competition. Why don’t we just absorb all the other writers in the country?’

  Mr Bohlen, who now sported a bottle-green velvet jacket and allowed his hair to cover two-thirds of his ears, was quite content with things the way they were. ‘Don’t know what you mean, my boy. You can’t just absorb writers.’

  ‘Of course you can, sir. Exactly like Rockefeller did with his oil companies. Simply buy ’em out, and if they won’t sell, squeeze ’em out. It’s easy!’

  ‘Careful now, Knipe. Be careful.’

  ‘I’ve got a list here, sir, of fifty of the most successful writers in the country, and what I intend to do is offer each one of them a lifetime contract with pay. All they have to do is undertake never to write another word; and, of course, to let us use their names on our own stuff. How about that.’

  ‘They’ll never agree.’

  ‘You don’t know writers, Mr Bohlen. You watch and see.’

  ‘What about the creative urge, Knipe?’

  ‘It’s bunk! All they’re really interested in is the money – just like everybody else.’

  In the end, Mr Bohlen reluctantly agreed to give it a try, and Knipe, with his list of writers in his pocket, went off in a large chauffeur-driven Cadillac to make his calls.

  He journeyed first to the man at the top of the list, a very great and wonderful writer, and he had no trouble getting into the house. He told his story and produced a suitcase full of sample novels, and a contract for the man to sign which guaranteed him so much a year for life. The man listened politely, decided he was dealing with a lunatic, gave him a drink, then firmly showed him to the door.

  The second writer on the list, when he saw Knipe wa