CZM Book Club: "The House of Surrender" by Laurie Penny

long it was, but book Club is back. I'm your USB, Margaret Kilroy, and with me is Sharen Hi.

you can you can listen to listener. Y's the advantage of podcasting as a format. This week, I have a story I'm really excited about. This is a story that has been on my mind since it was written probably about five years ago or so.

was first published by a German magazine. Actually in German was published in translation before I was published in English by dear Freytag, which I don't know anything about. I don't even know what that means.

on that island is a house unlike any other. It has many names, but the people of Sanctuary have forgotten them. They call it the House of Surrender. To get to the House of Surrender, you must cross the gray River, although there are few boat captains brave enough to make the crossing, not for all the gold and silver in your purse. The river is full of hidden currents and sudden whirlpools that appear to suck down on seasoned swimmers and sailors to an icy grave in the grimy water.

And besides, nobody has to used money in Sanctuary for a century and more the people of this town take what they need and give what they can, and answer to no ruler but the common good. So there is no law to compel any sailor to take you to the island in the river where no trees grow. If one of them takes pity, you may pay your passage with a promise, a gift, or a secret, although those who travel to the House of Surrender have too many

of those, and precious few worth sharing. Pull yourself up to the jetty and climb the steps into the cliffs. Walk half a mile over the rocks, and you'll find the house. Its walls are thick stone. Whether that's to protect those inside from the outside world or whether it might be the other way round is a question nobody here cares to answer. The heavy doors are not locked.

Walk the halls. Nobody's going to stop you. Here you will find the worst and the weirdest of men and women, strange and dangerous creatures who cannot live among their fellow humans, or else their fellow humans will not have them. This one is a rapist. That one poisoned her husband and infants in a fit of madness after the twins were born. This one beat his wife until the heith flew from her head. That one cheated as neighbors of all their harvest,

until the children sickened and starved. Had they stayed in the sanctuary, these people would have had to face their neighbor's justice. Instead, they come to the house of surrender, where nobody will harm them, and they can reflect on their transgressions and all the safety stone walls can offer, which is less than you'd think, as most of them

bring the terror with them across the Gray River. In my two score years as warden of this place, I have known them all, the wicked and the warped, the tortured and the repentitant, and those too far beyond the sphere of decency to contemplate redemption. But none were as strange as Robert Schmidt. And you know what else is strange, Charen.

turning him down when he begged passage. The coins he offered her, which he also tried to press upon me, were as strange as he was, different shapes and shades of corrosive metal, all emblazoned with the faces of stern men, great buildings and motifs of war and conquest that were chilling to look at, though I did not look away. I took one as a gift, a silver that he said was called a quarter. Although its shape was perfectly round. He was a thin, frayed string of a man, this Schmidt.

His skin pale as boiled fish, so much that anyone who saw him knew that he had come from far away. That was all we knew at first, as he would not speak to us beyond demanding to be released, and no records could be found of his birth or previous life, only of the report we had received from the assembly of the village that sent him here. We took him to Room fourteen, where he yelled for three hours. First he yelled to be released, Then he yelled in his

strange foreign accent for his mother. Then he just yelled. I could hear the screaming from down the corridor as I went over the morning's reports. I gritted my teeth at the dumb beast noise and decided to do something about it. The corridors of the main asylum were light and airy, even on a cold winter morning, with the sun floundering in an ash gray sky below the wide wooden walkways. Some of the other wardens were setting out bowls and spoons in the muno area, ready for breakfast.

The murderer in Room thirteen put his head up to the grill of his cell as I passed, Can you ask him to stop? He whispered. I'll try, I promised. Do you want music? The murderer, who had strangled his own brother in a rage twenty years ago, nodded hard, Yes, he did want music. I fingered my tablet. A few seconds later, a gentle rhythmic tune started spooling from the speaker in the corner of his cell. He smiled and closed his eyes and started to rock gently back and

forth on his sleeping pallet. I took a deep breath in front of the door to Room fourteen. Then I pounded on the grill. That's enough, I yelled. You're upsetting your block mates. If you don't control yourself, there will be consequences. The screaming stopped, two blissful seconds of quiet, heavy breathing. Let me the fuck out of here, Schmidt said,

You people have no idea the mistake you're made. I'm sure there's been no mistake, I said, but if you've got an issue to raise, why don't you talk to me or one of the other wardens about it instead of screaming. I heard a shuffling noise as Schmidt dragged himself up to the speaking hatch. Then his face appeared. I stepped back, alarm fisting through my guts. I had forgotten quite how strange looking this Schmidt truly was, with

his wild beard and ice blue eyes. I don't know why I'm being kept here, he said, in his languid, long ago accent. But when someone works out who I am, you're going to be in a world of trouble. So I suggest you open this door right now. If you value your job, I can't open the door I said, on whose authority am I kept here? It was truly confused. Where did this man come from to ask such a thing? And nobody's authority? I said, nobody has the authority to

keep you here against your will. You chose to come here for your own safety and others. Then why am I locked in? You aren't locked in. I can't open the door because it locks from the inside. If you want to get out, you have to unlock it yourself. You're lying. There's a bolt underneath the door and another one up top. They're a little stiff sometimes, but I

promise you you're free to leave. I must warn you, though, I said a little louder, that if you try to harm me or anyone else in this building, I'm going to have to use my shock stick on you, and I don't want to do that. Silence. Then the slow, resentful funk of two bolts drawing back. Can I come in? I said, Silence. My name is Gorman Rain, I said, I'd like to come in and talk with you, but I need to know you're not going to attack me,

because I don't want to have to hurt you. It has been a pleasant morning so far, and I don't want to end it with your vital fluids on my shoes. Come in if you want. I came in and sucked in a breath through my teeth. The man in the room fourteen had overturned all his furniture and thrown his food tray across the room. There were dabs of blood on the wall where he'd been pounding. He sat, curled like a question mark in one bare corner. Is there any way I can help? I asked. I need you

to tell them. He said that I haven't done anything wrong. If there's been a misunderstanding, I'm sure you can explain yourself, I said, but there's rarely misunderstanding in cases like yours. What reason, after all, would the girl have had to lie? I could see that Schmidt was going to be difficult to reach. Do you even know who I am? Only what you told us and what you told the people of the village you came from. Your name is Robert Schmidt.

You say you are a scientist, but there are no records of where you practiced or where you were born. I'm from here, Schmidt said, I'm from here three hundred and thirty years ago. I took a deep breath so how did you come to be here now, I asked in a time machine. I am a scientist, well, a researcher. It's one of the first multi century journeys. My lab is made, and I need to be allowed back to the place I came through why, so I can tell

them it worked. I asked a junior warden to keep a subtle eye on Schmidt for the next few days, to check that he wasn't hurting himself. Inside, I was cursing my own foolishness. I clearly made a mistake in my initial diagnosis. I had assumed that Schmidt was merely uneducated and lacking an empathy. He appeared instead to be quite mad. I wanted to help him, this young man. I wanted to know the ghosts that haunted him, so that together we might banish them and find him some

measure of peace. I am old, and in forty years I attended to so many lost creatures on this substemious rock, and most I have been able to stretch out a hand to. Though not all come here hoping for peace. MY place is not to judge them, but to help them, to protect them whatever harm they have done in the

lives they left behind. This is my work, has been the work of my life, since I came here on my own rickety midnight boat so long ago, to reach the unreached with soft words and offer them a bridge back to the world. I felt certain that, however, Schmidt had transgressed, however mangled his mind by suffering. I could not guess at I could help him. Perhaps I was arrogant, I see that now, But there was more. What I did not could not admit to myself was that Schmidt

frightened me. And the most frightening prospect was the idea remote but impossible not to consider when you looked at that strange white face, heard that odd high voice, that he might be telling the truth. The next day I returned to speak to Schmidt. I brought fresh rolls and coffee,

and we took breakfast together. He had restored order to his room during the night, and perhaps it was in repentance for his previous rudeness that he answered almost immediately when I asked if he was feeling better, I'm not crazy, he said. You must see that it's not my place to pass judgment on how you see the world. I said, which was quite true. I'm merely anxious that you caused no further harm to yourself, for or any other citizen. I'm not like the lunatics in here, he said. I

didn't even hurt that girl. It was a misunderstanding. They say you violated her autonomy. I said, they sent a report. It wasn't like that, he said. He was looking away from me and eviscerating his role with his hands. Besides, it seems so primitive here, I assumed. I don't know what I assumed. He started in on a second roll. I suppose I was excited to be in a new place. That night, I reread the report that had arrived as Schmidt on the solar tablet I reserved for official communications.

It was long enough that the village assembly had clearly thought it important to inform the house of the full facts. He came to us in the last week of May. It ran. He appeared at the door of a farmstead, badly bleeding and disoriented. The people of the house, after they tended his wounds, brought him to the town square, where he explained that he was a traveler from another time. We have heard news of such things happening, but we would not have given them credit if it were not

for the strangeness of his behavior. Schmidt was from the start rude and unsocial, which was put down at first to his evident foreignness. He insisted on being brought to the head of our community, and it took some time to explain to him that no such position exists. He thinks in an extremely hierarchical manner, and though he claims to be a scientist, he cannot seem to credit the evidence of his own senses. For this reason, many of our young people remained convinced that he was playing a

practical joke on us. Schmidt spent a great deal of time in the tavern, and also in the library as his strength returned, taking notes on parchment, which he used freely from the central stocks, apparently unaware of its great expense. He was from the start dismissive and unsocial towards the female and non binary among us, seemingly unable to hold true conversation with them. One of our young men offered to have intercourse with him, at which point he became

angry and violent. The young man was injured and Schmidt had to be restrained. One young woman in our research team took an interest in Schmid's work, gifting him freely with her time and attention to help further his studies. She reported to us that he woke to find a drunken Schmidt attempting to have intercourse with her. She communicated clearly that she did not want to be part of intercourse with him, but he did not appear to understand.

In his culture, signal of interest by a woman permits the man to use her body to relieve himself of his need at any time thereafter, and this is what Schmidt proceeded to do, using his strength to force her submission. Thereafter, I clicked the tablet shut. I had read enough. Schmidt had clearly fooled this rural assembly into accepting his wild story of time travel to avoid taking responsibility for his

own empathetic defects. He would not fool me. I would reach him, even if I was determined not to be reached. After reading that, I don't really want to make a snarky ad pivot, so I'll make a regular ad pivot and we're back. It was autumn and high harvest, the time when everyone with the strength and skill to farm lends themselves to the almond groves. A fresh breeze trembled from the plantations, and I longed to be among them, to drink hot cider and taste roasted almonds at the

evening celebrations after the gathering inn. But I have not joined the harvest. Since I came here to work at the House of Surrender. No one could compel me to stay away, just as no one could force people of the town to bring in the fruit before it rots on the trees. There is an awkwardness, though, among those who know my duties. Sanctuary is not a large community, and after a while, everyone's business is the subject of common gossip. Instead, I walked about the grounds of Schmidt,

sometimes talking, more often in silence. We had come to an agreement for the time being. He would stop demanding to be released and complaining that he did not belong here, and in return I would behave as if I believed his time travel story. In truth, I was not sure whether he believed it himself. Still, I allowed him to question me, as if you were truly from a long ago world with laws and customs ailing to our own,

Why do you do this? He asked me once, Why do you work here if you don't have to work at all. Most people work if they can, I said. We do the work we feel we're best suited to. There can't be a lot of applications for this place, said Schmidt, Not too many, I admitted. It takes a certain mindset. Most people worry about being around antisocial, violent

individuals all day, don't you. I closed my eyes looked down at my broad, blunt hands, so much like my father's, though I have kept myself from using them to hurt another human being, of course, I said, But even more, I believe that those who can't live with others need a place to go. Rehabilitation if it's possible, asylum if it isn't. What about justice? What about it for the

real monsters here? Not like me? The murderers. They're victims, and their families won't They want to see them punished, perhaps, but would that bring their loved ones back? That's not the point, then, What is the point? Sometimes the families will demand men. Sometimes, when the inmates return to their communities, they work the lands of those they have wronged, or find some other way to prove themselves reformed. And if they don't, then they lead very lonely lives, or they

come back here and you think that's acceptable. Most people think being shut out of the community is punishment enough. Otherwise, we're no better than me, I held as eyes. Then the world you're from, yes, Schmidt was certainly from another world, if only in spirit. You think you're better than me, No, I said, I think you can be better than you are. What if I don't want to be? Visitors, especially official ones,

are an unusual event on the island. So when a science history councilor from Sanctuary itself arrived by a barge along with not one but two assistants, I knew that the matter was of the utmost importance. I'm here about Schmidt,

said the councilor, whose name was Sophia. She wore well cut overalls and could not have been more than thirty five, but she wore her hair in the half shaved style traditionally adopted by those who have already rotated through their senior levels of the science councils and have the authority of learning. Thank you for coming all this way, I said, pouring coffee for us both not at all. Robert Schmidt is of great interest to the Science Council. I have

been hoping to make a personal visit. Is he settling in Well, we had some problems at first, I said. He claims that he is no foreigner, but is in fact from here many centuries ago. He does not seem delusional, merely troubled. It's perfectly true, said the councilor. It's been happening more and more, these people arriving from the first era of time jump technology, back when there were no guidelines.

I felt a bubble of excitement expanding beneath my rib cage and buried my face and my coffee mug to contain it. Schmidt is the first from his time to appear on the West coast. However, said Sophia. We were dismayed to learn that he has been obliged to surrender. Sophia continued, dismayed, but not surprised. The time from which he comes, well, there was a great deal of savagery. It does not seem like a savage man, I said. After he learned he was free to leave, I found

him courteous, if a little strange. Have you begun his therapy? Yes, I said, He's very receptive, although still in deep denial of why I had to come here. That's to be expected, said Sophia. The moral codes of his culture were very different from ours. She pursed her lips over the coffee cup. As a young man, I might have desired her greatly, a woman of such wit and elegance. I reprimanded myself for thinking such coarse thoughts about someone who was, however

briefly my superior a decade in society. She went on, her bright black eyes, holding my own a violent, authoritarian world of class, racial and sex hierarchies, a culture that drove itself to destruction and pursuit of profit for the very few. We can't just understand it through the lens of our own society. I nodded. Now that I had been given permission to believe Schmidt, it all made sense that, in fact, is the substance of our visit, said Sophia.

Schmidt could help us a great deal in understanding the culture and technology of his time. But for his safety, we feel, the Council feels that would be better for all concerned if Schmidt were to remain here in the House of Sprender on a permanent basis. Are you saying

that Schmidt is in danger? I'm saying that Schmidt is dangerous, and there are people who would, if it came to it, judge him too dangerous to live as part of this society because of what he did, because of what he is, said Sophia, Through no fault of his own, he happens to come from the most frightening place imaginable. What place is that? The past? I was silent. You must insure, she said, that Schmidt does not come to any harm. Break the news to him gently. Can he not be

returned to his time? I asked. Impossible, said Sophia. We cannot return a time traveler to a culture without any sense of the common good. His leader set the future on fire before the first leap engine was even in use. Who's to say he wouldn't do the same. He needs to be kept somewhere out of the way, or who knows what he'll do, or I thought what he might do to himself. When I told Schmidt that he would not be allowed to return to his own time, he said nothing. He did not rage or argue as I

would have expected. Instead, he locked his door and did not emerge for three days. Eventually I had the guards break down the door. There was blood everywhere. He had tried to open his wrists with a broken spoon and failed. He cannot bring himself to end his life, not alone. I understand now he kept saying. That was all he said, poor soul. There could never be peace for him here. I wrote to the Science History Council, but received no reply.

So I have made my decision. To night, I will go to Room fourteen and bring Schmidt his supper in person. We will eat together and talk together. In the course of our conversation, I will mention casually the small cove hidden between the rocks on the north side of the Bear Island, where I keep my own boat, the boat that took me here forty years ago, when I came to this place to surrender, after I woke in the night to find my hands, the thick, blunt hands I

had for my father, closing around my lover's neck. I had planned to return one day when I could be sure that I was old and frail enough to be of no more danger to any one I cherished. Now I know that I will never leave this place. Schmidt, though,

will choose what he will choose. Perhaps he will go down to the cove and take the boat out of the Gray River and cast out on its treacherous waters, all alone towards the land, and perhaps the currents will not pull him down, and perhaps the people of Sanctuary will spare him. Or perhaps they will give him when he could not give himself, not forgiveness, redemption. They will know, of course, and they will want to come for me,

But what can they do. I will take my bunch of keys and find a door to lock behind me. There are always more rooms in the House of Surrender. That's the story. It's done now.

advocating this. It's just a really interesting concept of, like, well, what do you do with people who people very justly want to hurt if they choose to, they can choose to be safe and away from those people who want to hurt them, you know, in this like sort of exile place. Yeah.

like rehabilitation versus like being ostracized, and like what hope do we have if like people are unable to be rehabilitated back into society or if they're even Like it's just like there's so many questions when it comes to the proper way to execute whatever the hell justice is. But no, I'm glad it was like an actual literal way of it was like I thought that the prison of your mind, it's actually just like it's an actual, no, totally prison with locks on the inside.

is completely normalized. And so here's someone who's doing something that like he's not from a time where that's what he did was wrong.

Louri wrote. The novella is published by tour dot Com, the same publisher who put out my novella that The Beginning a Book Club opened with, and it's called Everything Belongs to the Future, and it's another like anarchist sci fi novella that But one of the things that Laurie does that like really impresses me but sometimes also like drives me crazy as a reader is that they like

protagonizing real problematic people. You know, like the protagonist of this story is a murderer, and the main character that they're talking about is a rapist, you know, and it's like I'm too nervous of a writer to like touch that shit as like, I mean, I'll write about characters who act like that, but it's like it's it's impressive to write from those perspectives, and especially to do it in ways that don't just do it in like shitty edge lord ways where it's like ha ha haa, my

hero is a bad guy, you know.

and if maybe that never happens. So yeah, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I feel like there are lines that are more egregious than others, at least in my mind. Like for whatever reason, I like, I like, a murder is more digestible than like like hurting a child or something, you know what I mean. So I wonder the degrees of like what someone can accept a character to be for something like this, or just like in general, when

you have a protagonist that's like really complicated. Yeahah, I don't know, so something to think about.

prison system because the concept of the penitentiary. Penitentiary is a place to go be penitent, a place to go like go be by yourself and learn what you did is wrong. And so in a way, this is like recreating that. But it is a fundamental difference when you're saying which side of the door of the lock is on matters so much.

know if that makes sense. I just think it's like, uh, how much of it is like self condemnation versus just kind of accepting yourself from being like on the outskirts of society. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know if that makes sense. I'm gonna be thinking about it for a long time. I will, I will, I will say that fair enough, But I think I think time travel is dangerous. Is a takeaway? Don't do it, folks,

Yeah we should, we should advance to that point. I think we should step away when we come to a time machine.

happen when I'm not here. It must be I don't know, Like centuries ago, no one would have guessed where we are now, Like they probably couldn't even dream up of this world. So I'm sure it's something like that where you can't even dream it up.