The set-up

Fermo has been captured by the Kashmir separatists, in Srinagar. From Tamil Nadu’s Nilgiri Hills, he was meant to take a train to Madras. However, he relied on the directions of a beggar, and took a train to New Delhi instead. At the New Delhi railway station, in a state of stupor for having reached the wrong destination, he was oblivious to a terrorist attack which would, eventually, involve him directly as one of the hostages. Owing to his red hair, the terrorists thought he was an American, or a Briton. As an Italian, he is not of much use as a hostage. Eventually, he is condemned to a slow and dreadful death.

The cell in which he is confined is a houseboat on lake Dal, in Kashmir. It is now winter, and snowfalls are not infrequent. By looking out his barred window, Fermo notices that after every snowfall, the roofs of all houseboats are swept clear of snow. All houseboats, that is, except his. The accumulated weight of the snow on the roof will eventually sink his cell, and drown him.

The following are some of the thoughts that go through his peculiar, "post-atomic" mind whilst in that predicament. A certain psychological process, that of "introjection", has been plaguing him since the beginning of his captivity. I have previously explained to the reader that "to introject" means "to incorporate characteristics of a person or an object into one’s own psyche unconsciously". Such a person is Fermo’s German girlfriend, Bavaria.

The Excerpt from Heroes Abroad, Chapter Nineteen

But these memories, these fancies, were so non post-atomic! Perhaps the victim of a disease, Fermo was subject to impulses or even fits of a decidedly pre-atomic nature. At first sporadically, but then ever more frequently. And, as the snow kept falling, his hopes to see spring again were decreasing drastically.

The chief peculiarity of this "introjection" consisted of strengthening his conviction that a human being can save himself. Indeed, quite an odd idea. Something alien and intellectually rudimental was worming its way into him. Vaguely at first, and harmlessly—his early childhood recollections. But eventually assuming both form and intent. This dubious hypothesis of man being free to use his hands—what was that all about? Merely because man could walk on two limbs rather than four? On no account had the captive believed to be free, other than in a way oscillating between a delusional and a somehow inebriating state of mind. Freedom, rather than being a word preceded by the symbol "†" in any post-atomic dictionary, was being restored to its original meaning. And that is, a situation in which the individual can act without constraint or impediment, for he has the capacity to decide according to an independent choice of his objectives, and of the means needed to achieve them.

But man is the freest of all animals, the "introjection" would intrude. Why, he can make use of his hands, unlike most animals, whose limbs are mainly employed for locomotion, offense and defense. Thanks to his hands, man can make things, and thus outdo and outclass all other species.

"But are hands really emancipating?" Fermo would wonder. "Do we truly gain freedom from them?" To dispose of one’s hands so freely, wasn’t that an irresistible compulsion to make use of them? And the same applied to the brain, which directs the actions of one’s hands.

Was man freed or enslaved by his "superior" brain? After all, to dispose of brain and hands alike compelled one to put them to use. Yet, as time went by and as Fermo’s unconscious historical regression deepened, even the most sensible post-atomic argumentations were subdued. The "introjection" became alarmingly personal, trespassing at last into empathy. Having risen to the status of an axiom, a dogma, freedom was no longer to be confuted. And freedom itself was ordering him: escape, find a way out, away from death, the certain and horrific death inherent to his floating cell.

HEROES ABROAD

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