Shutter Island(71)

They’d reached the main gate and the warden kept his grip on Teddy’s arm and turned in place until they were looking back at Cawley’s house and the sea beyond.

“Did you enjoy God’s latest gift?” the warden said.

Teddy looked at the man and sensed disease in those perfect eyes. “I’m sorry?”

“God’s gift,” the warden said, and his arm swept the torn grounds. “His violence. When I first came downstairs in my home and saw the tree in my living room, it reached toward me like a divine hand. Not literally, of course. But figuratively, it stretched. God loves violence. You understand that, don’t you?”

“No,” Teddy said, “I don’t.”

The warden walked a few steps forward and turned to face Teddy. “Why else would there be so much of it? It’s in us. It comes out of us. It is what we do more naturally than we breathe. We wage war. We burn sacrifices. We pillage and tear at the flesh of our brothers. We fill great fields with our stinking dead. And why? To show Him that we’ve learned from His example.”

Teddy watched the man’s hand stroking the binding of the small book he pressed to his abdomen.

He smiled and his teeth were yellow.

“God gives us earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes. He gives us mountains that spew fire onto our heads. Oceans that swallow ships. He gives us nature, and nature is a smiling killer. He gives us disease so that in our death we believe He gave us orifices only so that we could feel our life bleed out of them. He gave us lust and fury and greed and our filthy hearts. So that we could wage violence in His honor. There is no moral order as pure as this storm we’ve just seen. There is no moral order at all. There is only this—can my violence conquer yours?”

Teddy said, “I’m not sure I—”

“Can it?” The warden stepped in close, and Teddy could smell his stale breath.

“Can what?” Teddy asked.

“Can my violence conquer yours?”

“I’m not violent,” Teddy said.

The warden spit on the ground near their feet. “You’re as violent as they come. I know, because I’m as violent as they come. Don’t embarrass yourself by denying your own blood lust, son. Don’t embarrass me. If the constraints of society were removed, and I was all that stood between you and a meal, you’d crack my skull with a rock and eat my meaty parts.” He leaned in. “If my teeth sank into your eye right now, could you stop me before I blinded you?”

Teddy saw glee in his baby eyes. He pictured the man’s heart, black and beating, behind the wall of his chest.

“Give it a try,” he said.

“That’s the spirit,” the warden whispered.

Teddy set his feet, could feel the blood rushing through his arms.

“Yes, yes,” the warden whispered. “’My very chains and I grew friends.’”

“What?” Teddy found himself whispering, his body vibrating with a strange tingling.

“That’s Byron,” the warden said. “You’ll remember that line, won’t you?”

Teddy smiled as the man took a step back. “They really broke the mold with you, didn’t they, Warden?”

A thin smile to match Teddy’s own.

“He thinks it’s okay.”

“What’s okay?”

“You. Your little endgame. He thinks it’s relatively harmless. But I don’t.”

“No, huh?”

“No.” The warden dropped his arm and took a few steps forward. He crossed his hands behind his back so that his book was pressed against the base of his spine and then turned and set his feet apart in the military fashion and stared at Teddy. “You say you were out for a stroll, but I know better. I know you, son.”

“We just met,” Teddy said.

The warden shook his head. “Our kind have known each other for centuries. I know you to your core. And I think you’re sad. I really do.” He pursed his lips and considered his shoes. “Sad is fine. Pathetic in a man, but fine because it has no effect on me. But I also think you’re dangerous.”

“Every man has a right to his opinion,” Teddy said.

The warden’s face darkened. “No, he doesn’t. Men are foolish. They eat and drink and pass gas and fornicate and procreate, and this last is particularly unfortunate, because the world would be a much better place with far fewer of us in it. Retards and mud children and lunatics and people of low moral character—that’s what we produce. That’s what we spoil this earth with. In the South now, they’re trying to keep their niggers in line. But I’ll tell you something, I’ve spent time in the South, and they’re all niggers down there, son. White niggers, black niggers, women niggers. Got niggers everywhere and they’re no more use than two-legged dogs. Least the dog can still sniff out a scent from time to time. You’re a nigger, son. You’re of low fiber. I can smell it in you.”

His voice was surprisingly light, almost feminine.

“Well,” Teddy said, “you won’t have to worry about me after the morning, will you, Warden?”

The warden smiled. “No, I won’t, son.”

“I’ll be out of your hair and off your island.”

The warden took two steps toward him, his smile dissolving. He cocked his head at Teddy and held him in his fetal gaze.