LAW AND ORDER
CAN WE LIVE WITHOUT POLICE?
WITHOUT GENDARMES?
THE BATTLE OF THAT GREAT DAY
OF GOD ALMIGHTY (REV. 16:14)
WHICH MEANS THE DISSOLUTION
OF VALUES?
IN THE LAST DAYS PERILOUS TIMES
SHALL COME (2 TIM. 3:1)
PAUL ZWICKAU
With her Michelin maps under her arm, holding on to Peter with the opposite hand, Julie crossed the street and went through a doorway just beneath the poster. In a little anteroom with a tiled floor country people wearing hats were talking in hushed tones. Beyond them was a conference hall. A sparse audience was seated on benches. Old people and children were in the majority. A guy on a stage was talking in front of a trompe l’oeil rendering of red-and-gold curtains. As Julie went to sit down, the guy gestured towards the wings.
“Paul Zwickau!” he announced in a high-pitched voice.
A young man came running from the wings. He wore a black suit and a tan polo-neck shirt. He had glasses and a part in his hair.
“Would you like to live,” he cried, “under a system that freed humanity from crime, violence, injustice, and poverty?”
The audience did not seem opposed. Zwickau began striding up and down the stage. He frequently tossed his head back in a violent manner. It was not hard to fear for his neck.
“Law and order reign in the Universe!” he exclaimed. “When we contemplate the vault of the heavens, so much is obvious. Even though the deepest meaning of the movements of the heavenly bodies may escape us, we must respect the views of the greatest scholars, astronomers, and nuclear physicists, who tell us how, night after night, season after season, year after year, and century after century the stars hew fast to their course in space and follow their orbits in so regular a fashion that it is possible to predict eclipses centuries in advance!”
The orator cleared his throat.
“My brothers, my sisters, listen! Our Eternal God has established a harmonious order in the Universe. Do you really believe that He is incapable of imposing that order and harmony on our planet, on this wretched little lump of dirt whirling through interstitial space?”
“I have seen His name!” shouted a fat woman in black.
Zwickau ignored the interruption.
“What do we see?” he cried.
“I have seen His name!” said the fat woman again.
A muscular steward grabbed her arm and whispered something in her ear. She immediately took on a guilty air.
“What do we see?” Zwickau insisted with a derisive smile. “Has man himself been able to institute law and order, an end to violence, injustice, and poverty? No! Would you like to know what happens in a big city when there are no more police? That is what occurred in Montreal on October 7, 1969. The police were on strike. Did citizens respect the law once they knew the police were no longer there to make arrests? Not at all! Right away Montreal became the scene of rioting, arson, looting, and fighting among taxi drivers. The rioters armed themselves with clubs and rocks and engaged in an orgy of senseless destruction. They smashed the windows of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel and stole merchandise. They vandalized the fine IBM Building. They plundered the Windsor and Mount Royal hotels. Without police, respect for law and order completely vanished. According to government spokesmen, the city was ‘on the verge of anarchy’!”
Zwickau stood for a moment on tiptoe, arm raised, to underscore the horror of it all.
“What do these events mean?” he went on. “Why this riotousness? And above all, what is to be done about it? Man has striven mightily and in all sincerity. He has tried every kind of regime. But he has never turned towards his Creator! His Creator who knows man’s problems better than anyone, because He has been observing everything that happens since the beginning of time.”
“Yes!” cried many voices.
“Hallelujah!”
“Hallelujah! Schmallelujah!” cried Julie.
“Be quiet, my sister,” said the muscular steward.
“I’m not your sister,” retorted Julie. But she was quiet.
“He is the Creator!” Zwickau continued. “It is our God who will bring order here below by instituting the state that we need. It is written that ‘the God of heaven shall set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all those kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.’ Daniel two, forty-four.”
Julie stood up.
“Pig! Disgusting pig!” she shouted.
Zwickau leapt down from the stage.
“Listen to me!”
Julie grabbed Peter and hoisted him onto her shoulders. The preacher pursued them out into the street. The girl raced towards the station. Zwickau gave up the chase. Julie was in the station. She had to get rid of all these bastards who were out to destroy her. This was no time to lose her head. She would have loved to open fire with a machine gun and create a bloodbath.
“Answer me, for heaven’s sake!” complained Peter. “What are we doing? Where are we going?”
“We’re running away. We’re going to Hartog’s place. His magnificent house over the horizon.”
Julie consulted the departures board, and with help from her road maps she eventually figured out where she was: sixty-odd kilometers west of Lyon. It was another sixty kilometers or so to the canton of Olliergues and the magnificent house. A local train drew in. Julie bought two tickets for Saint-Étienne. The train bore the fugitives away. It was hot. Julie was sweating under her formless raincoat. Peter was silent, remarkably well-behaved, gazing at Julie with eyes wide, green, and suspicious. Julie began looking at her maps again.
“We’re going to be traveling in the mountains,” she told Peter. “In the mountains no one can catch us. We’ll go into the mountains and we’ll find the magnificent house.”
“You already told me that.”
They got off at Montbrison. It was half past one in the afternoon. This surprised Julie. It should have been earlier. She and Peter crossed the sweltering esplanade fronting the station and had lunch in a sort of brasserie.
“When are we leaving?” asked Peter.
“We’re not in a hurry.”
“Yes, we are. We are hunted animals,” observed the boy.
“Do you wish we were there already?”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you happy just to be with me?”
“Oh yes, I am.”
“Would you like me to buy you some toys?”
“I don’t know. If you like. What kind of toys?”
“I don’t know. Whatever you like.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Listen, Peter,” said Julie, “we could stop in the mountains and live as a mother and her son. No one would ever find us.”
“The police always find criminals.”