In a certain peculiar country, there lived a company of sailors who had just won a race to discover an island. For months they had crossed seas of rhetoric, unrolled thick charts crammed with accusations, and rowed boats of argument against the current of suspicion. These sailors were not, strictly speaking, people who knew where a ship ought to be steered. But they possessed one talent rare among seafarers: the ability to cheer before the announcement had been read out in full.
And so, when the judges climbed onto the platform and declared, "Your objection is dismissed. You have still won the race," the quayside erupted. They leapt about in delight, beat their drums, hoisted their banners, and some even threw themselves down in prayers of thanksgiving, foreheads pressed to planks still smelling of brine and not yet dry from the tide. Some wept, some embraced, and a few hurried to photograph themselves in prostration so that, in years to come, they might display the picture as proof that the victory had truly taken place.
Yet the judges had read out one further sentence, tucked away at the very end like change that a customer never stops to count: "Nevertheless, the island you claimed as the destination of your voyage has still not been found."
Curiously, the sailors paid it very little mind. They treated that sentence as one treats a platform announcement in a crowded station: perfectly audible, yet addressed to nobody in particular. Their ears had been selectively trained. The word "won" was caught from ten miles away, while the words "not been found" were left to sink along with the anchor. They went home bearing the trophy and bawling, "We won! We won!" They repeated it so often and so loudly that one might have supposed repetition to be the cheapest way of turning an empty shoreline into an island.
On the beach, an old man who happened to be mending his nets watched the procession with a furrowed brow. Then he asked, with the politeness of one who has seen this sort of thing far too often, "Wasn't the aim of the race to prove that the island exists?"
The sailors replied, "Yes."
"And the island has not been found?"
"Yes."
"Then why are you celebrating?"
They stared at him in astonishment, as though he had asked why the sea is salty on a perfectly sunny day. Then one of them, wearing the most earnest expression ever worn by a human face, answered, "Because we won."
The old man nodded slowly. He did not argue, for he knew there are conversations which, if pursued, leave the questioner feeling that he is the one in the wrong. He returned to his nets, reflecting that this was perhaps the only country on earth where people could win the question yet lose the answer. They had obtained a ruling, but failed to obtain a proof. They had won the match, yet the ball had never gone into the net, and, funnier still, the referee had blown the final whistle while pointing quite plainly at the empty goal.
And perhaps that is why their thanksgiving looked so profound. It was not gratitude that the truth had been proved. It was gratitude that a defeat had been dressed up so skilfully that it passed for a victory, complete with powder, perfume and rhythmic applause. The make-up artists of defeat in that country were remarkably accomplished. They knew that a defeat tied with a gold ribbon would sell far more easily than a defeat honestly admitted, particularly when the buyers were already in debt to their own loyalty.
It was rather like a merchant cheering because he had passed his audit, though his warehouse remained empty. He holds his certificate aloft before the customers while, in the back, the mice have already begun to move out because there is nothing left to nibble. Or like a man who wins a lawsuit over the existence of an elephant, while the paddock said to house the beast stays stubbornly vacant. The judge has brought down the gavel, the supporters have raised their cheers, and the gardener has been told to arrange flowers for the party. But the elephant never arrives, and the straw in the paddock lies untouched by any trunk.
He wins in the courtroom. But he loses in the paddock.
And amid the applause of the faithful, while the drums were still beating and the trophy was still being paraded round the village, there came a whisper, the quietest and sharpest satire of all, whether from the old man on the beach or from the sea breeze that had watched that country for far too long:
"Sometimes, people do not need a victory. They merely need something that can be called one."
