The Abrupt Physics of Dying

by Paul E. Hardisty

  Soon the men were helping themselves from a steaming platter of rice and goat meat. Hussein leaned towards Clay and said: ‘They know you are from the company. He asks why you do nothing while their children and old people become sick. He says you gave money to the mashayikh. Is this true?’

  Clay tried to push down the bile rising in his chest.

  ‘He says the mashayikh should not have taken your unclean money.’

  Clay said nothing.

  ‘We must be careful,’ said Hussein.

  The meal finished, the tribesmen stood and left. Clay followed Hussein back to the car. Any vestige of control he might have had was slipping away.

  They arrived in the hamlet just before noon, rolled into the clearing and stopped by the cistern. Dust thrown up by the tyres enveloped the vehicles. For a moment they sat blind as the dust settled. Then the picture was revealed: crops bent withered and brown in the fields, ancient trees hanging lifeless, stripped of green. By the side of the road a donkey lay dead and bloated beneath a writhing blanket of flies. The churning smell of death filled the air.

  The little hut in the shadow of the big rock was unchanged: the wooden footstool tilted up against the wall, the varnish on the door long since peeled away, the wood cracked and grey, the bit of frayed cord knotted to a stake in the trampled ground in front of the window, once the dumb circular prison of a dog perhaps, or a donkey. He rapped on the door. It was then that he saw the boy’s bicycle wheel lying in the dust at the base of a dead palm, propped up against a small mound of soil.

  The door of the hut was ajar. They pushed it open and penetrated the gloom. Clay called out in Arabic: ‘Merhaba, salaam aleikum.’ Hello.

  A foul sulphurous odour overwhelmed him and he had to swallow back the urge to gag. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness he could see the makeshift kitchen with the gas burner, the dirt floor and the little chair, the steel-framed bed on the far wall. The woman stood before him speaking rapidly in high-pitched Arabic that he couldn’t even begin to follow.

  ‘Whayn el walid?’ he asked. Where is the boy? He pointed to the empty bed.

  The woman’s eyes widened and then crumpled shut. She wrapped her arms around herself and started to rock violently back and forth, wailing some prayer or invocation, tears streaming down her withered face.

  After a while the woman looked up, stared at Hussein, and then jumped forward and clasped his hands in hers and pulled him inside. Hussein kicked the door closed with his heel and wrenched himself free. The woman was shrieking at him, waving her arms above her head, hysterical. He held her by the shoulders, looked her straight in the eyes and spoke to her in a slow baritone. Something he said had an almost immediate effect. The woman stopped screaming and crumpled into a heap on the floor. She sobbed quietly in the dirt.

  ‘Her son Mohamed died two days ago,’ Hussein said.

  Clay stood unmoving, transported back to another time, to another dead boy he had been powerless to save, life looping back on him, iterating, the tribesman’s question now an explanatory proposition: why you do nothing. You do nothing because you are scared, because you are wilfully ignorant, because in the end you have less to lose by standing by and letting it happen. Or in Clay’s case, helping it happen.

  They left the woman curled there in the dirt and walked back to the vehicle. Hussein sat in the Pajero’s driver’s seat, the door open, lit a cigarette.

  Clay stood in the dust of the square and tried to catch his breath. After a while he said: ‘Are there others?’

  ‘Many.’

  Clay looked up into the monotonous depths of the sky. ‘Why are you doing this?’

  Hussein reached behind his back and withdrew a black automatic pistol, a nine-millimetre Beretta. He weighed it in his hand, examined it carefully as if looking for defects, and placed it on the dashboard. It gleamed in the sun. ‘Let’s just say I am interested in the truth.’

  Clay looked back at the mound of earth under the dead palm, the harp.

  ‘Is it the water?’ said Hussein. ‘Can the things on those laboratory reports do this?’

  Clay looked at the gun and around the ruined village. ‘It will kill crops and trees, but people, no. Not directly anyway. It’s undrinkable.’

  ‘Is it the facility?’

  Clay stepped back, putting the Land Cruiser’s open door between him and Hussein.

  Hussein tossed his unfinished cigarette to the ground, picked up the handgun, got out of the vehicle, closed the door. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Clay took a step towards Hussein. ‘Look, maybe. The chemical signature suggests deep brine, a leak perhaps up at the facility. But it could be a lot of things, saline intrusion from the ocean.’

  ‘Best guess.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you are a murderer.’ Hussein stood looking down at his feet, the handgun hanging loose in one hand, as if he was unsure whether he wanted it or not.

  Clay tensed, ready to fight. Hussein was only two hard steps away. ‘Murderer?’ he said. ‘I’m trying to get someone to do something about it, for Christ’s sake. But no one seems to gives a shit.’

  ‘Is that so? Since when, Straker, this newfound caring?’

  Clay looked at the ground, did not answer. Hussein was right. Every step he’d taken over the last year, every bribe, every twisted interpretation, every carefully crafted report, had dragged him deeper. This newfound caring: it could be Al Shams talking. He choked back the urge to gag.

  Hussein lit another cigarette, blinked the smoke from his eyes. Then he raised the handgun and tucked it into his waistband. ‘Get in the car.’

  Cathinone Sprint

  During the five-hour drive back to Aden they chewed steadily from a large sheaf of qat that lay on the seat between them. Leaf by leaf, Clay built a tumour of green mash that stretched the skin of his cheek tight. Neither man spoke, Hussein hunched over the steering wheel of the Land Cruiser as the desert distances unravelled.

  Surely here, where Allah was the sole arbiter of fate, cause and effect were now evident. And as the longshore dunes and the blue of the ocean flashed past and disappeared along the black ribbon of asphalt in the rear-view mirror, he was sure that Hussein was calling upon God to exact retribution. The instrument of justice was there, its square black butt wedged between Hussein’s back and the seat cushion. All that was required was an agent to wield it. Out here, a body dumped face down in a scraped roadside hole would remain unknown to all except God.

  And if justice was inherent, if it was real, if its existence were somehow twinned with a sentient, all-seeing deity capable of perfect knowledge and judgement, then surely he was guilty, and if anyone deserved to die it was him. How many times over the last ten years had he visualised his own end, put a gun to his head in the solitary depths of a black sleepless morning, determined to redress the balance, do what God had failed to do? But each time he’d desisted, stopped short of pulling the trigger, dragged himself out of the pit. And each time he’d wondered why.

  By the time they drove through the gates and pulled into the office compound in Aden it was late, past eleven o’clock, and the cathinone was in control of his nervous system. His heart hammered at his ribs. Sweat poured from the backs of his knees and the top of his scalp and from every pore until his body was covered in a film of slime.

  The nightguard waved them in. Only a couple of big Toyota Land Cruisers and a Mercedes diesel remained in the parking bays. The lights were still on in Karila’s office. Hussein pulled the vehicle up at the front steps. ‘Don’t leave Aden,’ he said.

  Clay jumped out, ran up the big marble staircase three steps at a time to the first floor, and pushed on the door to Karila’s office. It was locked. He rapped hard on the wood planking. Nothing. He tried again, shouting out the Finn’s name, pummelling the door with his fist. There was no one. He spun away and lurched down the corridor towards the accounting offices. He searched the floor, but the lights were off, office doors closed and locked.
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  Parnell’s office was at the top of the stairway, beyond the bureaucratic defences of the secretarial station, occupying the view corner of the building. Moon shadow cut the floor and walls into wedges of silver and black. The door was bathed in grey light from the secretary’s computer screen. He pushed down on the handle. It was locked. He turned and looked back to the landing and the stairway and stood very still and listened, but all he could hear was the throbbing of his heart. The fluorescent dial of his watch showed 23:27. He pulled his knife from its pouch, flipped open the long probing blade and threaded it into the keyhole with a trembling hand. It didn’t take long to tumble the bevel on the crude, locally made lock. The handle clicked and the door swung open.

  All the trappings of authority were here: the nameplate announcing position, the oversized mahogany desk and leather armchair, the expansive meeting table, the charts and maps plastering the walls, and outside the big bank of windows, Aden’s harbour shot across with the slimmest scar of moonlight. Almost out of time. He crossed the threshold and closed the door behind him. Reports and papers covered the desk: a geotechnical investigation for the expansion area, completion details for the new Haya-4 well, reserve estimates for the Haya field, an order for drilling in the new Block 57 exploration leases, stacks of bills and invoices.

  Then something caught his eye. A plain manila folder set dead centre on the desk. A handwritten tab said: Production Data. Clay picked up the file, stepped into the moonlight, flipped open the cover. Inside was a stapled sheaf of A4 papers. He turned the file on end, squinted in the semi-darkness. The top sheet was a graph – a broad cross, like the blades on a pair of shears; a solid line showing steadily declining oil production over the past year, and, starting in October of last year, a dashed line indicating a rapid increase in water production. He integrated under the curve, mentally tallying the slices. Just over 21 million barrels of formation water – the ancient brine locked away with the oil deep in the reservoir – had been pumped out of the ground in just the last few months. It was a hell of a lot of water. And oil production was way down. It must be costing them a fortune. No wonder they were pushing this expansion so hard. It was a losing game: the more formation water they pulled out, the more reservoir pressure declined, and the less oil they produced.

  Voices from outside shattered his concentration. He replaced the file, crouched down and stole across to the window, pulse racing. One of the guards was standing next to the Land Cruiser, talking to Hussein. Clay looked at his watch. He had been inside too long. He walked to the door and stepped back out over the threshold, jumpy from the qat and a dawning realisation that he had just crossed another barrier. He was about to close the door, when something he had seen made him stop.

  He stepped back inside, strode quickly back to the desk and scanned the piles of documents. The corner of a staple-bound sheaf of paper hung from midway down one of the stacks. It was dated 22 April. He peeled off the top two inches of the pile and peered down at the document. It was a laboratory report. He picked it up and angled it towards the moonlight. He scanned the columns of chemical compound names and concentrations, memorised each figure. Everything he had specified. It was the original sample he had taken at Al Urush, the one the lab technician had said he’d spilled. He felt his stomach hollow out.

  Twenty minutes later Clay was back at the guesthouse. He went straight to the communications room, punched Rania’s number into the sat phone. After ten rings, the line went dead. He tried again, let the phone ring. He’d let it ring all night if he had to. Finally, minutes later, a desk clerk answered, clearly annoyed. Clay asked for Rania’s room, waited as the line gurgled and hissed like antique plumbing.

  ‘Allo, oui?’ Her dream-interrupted voice, faint, a thousand miles away.

  ‘It’s Clay.’

  Silence. And then: ‘Claymore, mon dieu. It is the middle of the night.’

  ‘Couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘What do you want, Clay?’

  ‘I need to talk to you.’ There was so much he wanted to say. An avalanche.

  ‘I am listening.’

  ‘Not over the phone. When can I see you?’

  She sighed, was quiet a moment. ‘It was a mistake, Clay.’

  Clay stood staring down at the digital glow of the sat phone console, said nothing.

  ‘Clay, are you there?’

  ‘I’m here.’

  ‘I am sorry, Clay. It was my fault. It was wicked of me. I should never have …’ she trailed off.

  ‘I know mistakes, Rania. And that wasn’t one. Not by a long way.’

  ‘I am not blaming you.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Rania. There’s no blame here.’

  ‘I am defiled.’ Guilt dripped from her voice.

  ‘You can’t mean that, Rania.’

  ‘I do not expect you to understand.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ He fought to control the anger welling up inside him.

  She was crying now, sniffling. ‘Please, Clay. It is over. It never began. I need you to respect my wishes.’

  ‘Rania, please,’ he began, trying to soften his voice. ‘I promise you …’

  She didn’t let him finish. ‘Go to bed, Claymore.’ The line went dead.

  He dialled the number again. It rang twice, connected, and went dead. He tried three more times. Same result. He walked to his room, jittery, hands trembling, stripped off his clothes and threw himself onto the bed. His heart raged in an amphetamine-fuelled sprint. Could a heart rip itself apart? He closed his eyes, breathed deeply, tried to calm himself and push away a growing sense of dread. Then the boy was there – Mohamed – staring out at him from the deep black sockets of a misshapen skull. The skin was white, covered in dust. The boy’s mouth opened and closed, as if he were trying to speak. But there was no sound save the pounding in his head. He forced his eyes open. The harbour lights trembled across the walls. He swung his feet to the floor and pushed himself up. He stumbled to the armoire and fumbled in the dark for the bottle, collapsed back onto the bed and propped himself up against the wooden headboard. The vodka was warm but it went down like water until it was gone and soon oblivion overcame him.

  Liberal Shit

  A searing red light tore him awake. Pain engulfed him, shooting from deep within his skull out through burning eyes. He looked at his watch: 10:30. Morning. Jesus. He pushed himself up from the bed and tried to stand, but a wave of nausea buckled his legs and he slipped on the tile. His jaw met the floor with a sickening crunch. He lay where he had fallen and waited for the room to stop spinning.

  The side of his face was bathed in a cold slick. He opened his mouth and licked his lips. The acid taste of vomit and the smell of it turned his stomach inside out and jerked him awake. He pushed himself up onto all fours but a stab of pain tore through his palm – a shard of glass had driven deep into the meat of his thumb’s abductor muscle. The floor was flecked with the shattered remains of the vodka bottle. He didn’t remember having dropped it, but he was pretty sure that it must have been empty when it hit the floor. Blood dripped from his face and his hand, swirling red and fractal in the puke. For a long time he watched it, fascinated by the mingling of the two semi-miscible liquids. It was almost beautiful.

  A loud knock at the door broke him free. He sat up, leaned against the side of the bed. ‘It’s open,’ he croaked.

  Atef stood in the doorway looking down at him. ‘Mister Clay …’ He closed the door, helped Clay up, sat him on the edge of the bed.

  Clay pulled the shard of glass from his thumb. Blood welled thick and red from the wound. He leaned forward, jammed the wound down hard against his chest, let the chemicals spin through him.

  ‘I will call the doctor,’ said Atef.

  ‘No. It’s nothing. Thanks, Atef.’ Clay pushed himself to his feet, walked to the bathroom, turned on the shower, stood under the steaming water. The tub ran thin red. He could hear Atef scurrying around in the room, the plop of a mop in a bucket, and then the door closing.<
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  When Clay emerged from the bathroom, the mess had disappeared, the room sparkled. A steaming mug of coffee stood on the bedside table, a plate of freshly buttered whole-wheat toast. On the bed was a roll of gauze, a bottle of iodine, a large manila envelope. Clay dressed, sat on the bed, sipped the coffee, bound his hand, and opened the envelope. Inside were two dot-matrix printouts of accounts payable, covering the period from 3rd November to 30th December. Clay looked at the first printout, scanned the figures, awake now, lucid. Catering services, vehicle repair, parts, lubricants, office supplies, customs duties on imported pipe, workovers, everything you would expect from a company operating an oilfield. He ran his finger down the rows, found 30th November. He moved ahead in time. On 5th December, a round number: a hundred thousand US dollars. The string of zeroes ballooned out at him, glowed among a litany of sevens and forty-twos and thirty-eights. One hundred grand even, paid to Mansour for Import, Aden. He had never heard of them. He checked against the second printout. Same date. Ninety thousand paid to a numbered account in Cyprus. Ten to Mansour. Clay scanned up the list. There it was again. Another hundred grand. On the parallel list, again, ninety thousand to the same Cyprus account, the difference to Mansour. There were two other identical payments to Mansour, on 24th and 28th November, mirrored by corresponding payments to Cyprus the same day. Clay looked up, took a deep breath. Mansour was providing fake invoices, at a price. And someone was making a lot of money.

  Clay pulled the Petro-Tex payroll records from the envelope, flipped through the papers, scanned the names, some familiar, some not: Karila, surprisingly underpaid, Dunkley, Parnell on a big package, most of it offshore, Z. Todorov, start date 14th November. Clay folded the printouts back into the envelope, stood on uncertain legs. They’re on to you, Jim had said.