Rendition

On making the world

The first sentence was, “A government is a criminal enterprise.”

The last sentence was, “In future years, of course, men and women, in cubicles, wearing headphones, will be listening to secret tapes of the administration’s crimes while others study electronic records on computer screens and still others look at salvaged videotapes of caged men being subjected to severe physical pain and finally others, still others, behind closed doors, ask pointed questions of flesh-and-blood individuals.”

What lay between these sentences was a study of the word rendition, with references to Middle English, Old French, Vulgar Latin and other sources and origins. Early on, Elster cited one of the meanings of rendering — a coat of plaster applied to a masonry surface. From this he asked the reader to consider a walled enclosure in an unnamed country and a method of questioning, using what he called enhanced interrogation techniques, that was meant to induce a surrender (one of the meanings of rendition — a giving up or giving back) in the person being interrogated.” — Don DeLillo’s Point Omega.

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I. Judgment
In the shale‑dark assize the clerk dips a quill to render judgment. A purse changes hands but nothing else moves. The room tilts toward permanence and law is stone which seals parchment.

II. Capitulation
A white flag above the gate and sovereignty exhales, telling the articles to call that they have made rendition: keys and cannon and captain delivered. The air tastes of iron and the soldiers know death has had his way with their friends and that a new lord rarely changes this.

III. Plaster
A mason slicks lime over brick. The slurry obeys and a surface is rendered by occlusion. His fingers are skin and plaster indistinguishable and he smiles to think that it will be the same tomorrow. Passersby are happy to be unaware of the underlying cracks, but the wall’s quiet surrender to appearance must come from somewhere.

IV. Canvas
In Paris a painter studies cloud‑light through turpentine fumes. Her rendition of tempered atmosphere of bruised lilac and impossible gold, which viewers will later praise for its emotion. The elemental bargain goes unnoticed, though, since her actual horizon must be surrendered if the piece is to be finished on time and up to spec.

V. Pipeline
Servers hum and churn to parse reality. Gravity and light and the social dynamics of showing up a bit late to dinner are digitally reconstituted. The world is reduced to computation and emerges as clean rendering but the chaos we all know and love becomes tidy and something essential is quietly surrendered as it all gets flattened into vectors and machines write poetry like a ninth-grader.

VI. Cell
Look close at these concrete walls to see blisters in the paint but you can never get away from the fluorescent hum. In the chair you hear the term “extraordinary rendition” but it makes no associations in your mind other than with pain. Under this kind of pressure the truth will emerge distorted even before it has to be interpreted. It will become another’s version of events. Later, a different another will ask what there is to do with this information.

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The room absorbs layers of custody and interpretation and continues to harden around us, as good masonry tends to last a while.