The Abrupt Physics of Dying

by Paul E. Hardisty

  ‘It’s old,’ said Clay. A couple of inches to the left and it would never have had the chance to get old. He had never understood it, this randomness.

  The old man washed Clay’s torso with the wet towel. He was very gentle and careful and Clay felt very grateful to this old man. Then the old man brought a bottle of water and a glass, some flat bread, Yemeni-style scrambled eggs. ‘Drink,’ he said. ‘You must drink and eat.’

  ‘Shukran,’ Clay managed.

  ‘God bless you,’ the old man replied, handing him a bottle of painkillers.

  Clay ate and drank a litre of water.

  Hussein handed him a clean thaub, some thin cotton trousers and a black-and-white Palestinian keffiyeh. ‘Do you need help?’ he asked.

  Clay shook his head no and walked to the bathroom and closed the door. A stranger looked out at him from the mirror, naked, underweight, hands propped on the edge of the basin, the glass cuts along his jaw just showing through a five-day beard, lower lip cut and swollen, swathes of blue under his eyes, deep black bruises along his ribcage. He stood in the tub and turned the tap and with the shower nozzle washed the caked excrement from his lower body. Then he dressed in the clean clothes and wrapped the keffiyeh around his head to cover the bandages. He could almost pass for a Yemeni.

  Soon they were back in the big, new, white Pajero, heading East. Clay dozed, hanging in the shoulder harness, floating on a cushion of deadened pain. He was vaguely aware of the kilometres passing, slowing for a checkpoint, rolling through as Hussein flashed his ID, the soldiers standing aside, some saluting, the hiss of the road again. By the time he woke, they were well past Bir Ali and the sun was setting behind the mountains. Hussein looked over and reached into his jacket and handed him an envelope.

  Inside was an Australian passport issued to a Declan W. Greene of Perth, Western Australia, W for Wyndham. Clay looked at the photograph, taken in Nicosia a year ago for his first Yemeni visa, his hair longer then, his face fuller. He flipped through the pages, examined a scattering of stamps from Australia, Indonesia, Canada, several Yemeni visas covering a span of three years, an entrance stamp to Oman dated two days ago, and a new valid entrance visa for Yemen. On the inside back cover someone had scribbled a series of numbers in pencil, ten in all, of varying length, and the word dovetail. A scrap of paper was folded into the back of the passport, details typed with a fading ribbon: mother Mary Charlotte Greene, née Blanchard, deceased; father Dominic Curtis Greene, deceased. Only child. No living relatives. In the pouch there was also a Visa bank card, a valid Western Australian driver’s licence, an airline ticket from Muscat to Cairo departing in a month’s time on Egypt Airlines issued to D. Greene, and a Yemen government pass card, issued to the same name, folded in a black wallet. Clay looked over at Hussein.

  ‘Your new passport.’

  A military transport truck flashed past in the opposite direction.

  ‘Declan Wyndham Greene?’

  ‘You, or who you used to be, have just been listed by the PSO and the CIA as an Ansar Al-Sharia operative, my friend.’

  Clay swallowed hard. What had Rania said about the PSO and Al Qaeda working together? He had dismissed it as rubbish at the time, another Press inaccuracy.

  ‘So you are Declan W. Greene now. How does it feel?’ Hussein grinned and lit a smoke, steering wheel in one hand, lighter in the other.

  Clay forced a laugh, looked out at the sea. Still heading East. After a while he turned and faced Hussein, studied the man’s face, the eyes drawn and crimped, shadowed. ‘Hussein,’ he said.

  Hussein turned his head.

  ‘Enough bullshit.’

  A resigned sigh, eyes back on the road.

  ‘I want to know who the hell you are, where we are going, and what the fuck is going on. Pull over now, or it’s going to hurt.’

  ‘What is?’

  Clay braced his right foot against the door, pulled back his right fist. ‘When I break your jaw.’

  Hussein looked disappointed. He slowed the car, pulled over to the shoulder and turned off the engine. Clay opened the door and stepped out onto the sand. They were very close to the sea, the beach just beyond a set of low dunes. He could hear the crash of the waves, the hiss of the water running up the beach.

  Hussein walked to the back of the car, opened the tailgate and pulled aside a tarpaulin spread across the back cargo area. ‘Have a look,’ he said. ‘Everything you need should be there.’

  Five heavy-duty aluminium cases were wedged into the rear of the vehicle. Clay unclasped the nearest, flipped open the lid. In the dim interior light he could see the instruments peering out from their foam cradles. A pH-EC meter, factory new, with all the calibration fluids, the instruction manual still in its sealed plastic sheath. He opened each case in turn. It was a portable laboratory, complete with sampling equipment, a variety of sample containers, gloves, and surprisingly, a scintillometer, the best you could get. Over thirty thousand dollars’ worth of equipment, he estimated.

  Hussein handed him a camera – a brand new Olympus SLR. ‘We are going back to Al Urush,’ said Hussein. ‘And we are going to find out what is killing those children.’

  ‘That’s what Al Shams wants.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘What about my driver? Do you know if he was released?’

  ‘That,’ said Hussein, tossing his cigarette to the ground, ‘I couldn’t tell you. Now, can we get going?’

  Clay took a step back and stood looking at the aluminium cases. How could anyone have conjured up this much equipment, of this quality, here, now? It was too good to be true. And yet here were the means to determine the truth, set out in these cases.

  ‘OK, Hussein,’ said Clay, slamming the tailgate closed. ‘For them.’

  Hussein reached into his pocket. ‘I almost forgot,’ he said, ‘I did manage to retrieve this. It might be helpful at some point.’

  Clay caught the yellow fieldbook with both hands. The cover was battered and stained. He pulled off the rubber band and flipped through the pages of notes, the data scrawled in his Hittite hand, sketches, descriptions, thoughts, the twisted fragments of dehydrated dreams. His UK passport was tucked into the back cover.

  ‘And the most important thing.’ Hussein sent Clay’s hipflask spinning through the air.

  Clay caught it and looked up at Hussein, decided not to ask.

  Hussein lit another cigarette and exhaled a thick stream of smoke, leaned back against the side of the car. ‘Oh and there’s one more thing, Clay. The sheikh, the one you bribed, was found dead five days ago in Um’a’Lat. Shot in the head. You are wanted for his murder.’

  Prophets of Chaos

  It was dusk by the time they reached Al Mukalla. They checked into a small local hotel and were directed to a second-floor suite overlooking the sea. Dressed as a Yemeni, bearded, Clay didn’t draw a glance from the hotel staff.

  Hussein checked the windows, searched the bedrooms, and then placed a bottle of whisky, J&B, and a black Beretta 92 on the kitchen table.

  ‘Don’t leave the room. I’m going to the mosque to pray.’

  Clay raised his brows, surprised.

  ‘I won’t be back ’til after dark.’

  Clay jutted his chin towards the pistol. ‘And that?’

  Hussein looked at Clay through a wreath of cigarette smoke. ‘Inshallah, you won’t need it.’

  ‘And if I do?’

  Hussein smiled. ‘Then God help you.’ He stepped into the hall, closed the door behind him.

  Clay stood on the balcony and watched the sun set over the Indian Ocean. Haze cloaked the ragged seafront. Grey fingers rose up from the town as if from the grave, wood smoke from cooking fires, toxic vapours from heaps of burning garbage scattered along the roadside and smouldering in vacant lots. Low clouds scuttled in from the sea. A solitary minaret pierced the brume like a lighthouse on a dangerous shore. Its upper turret gleamed in the last of the sun, and he could see the loudspeaker from which the muezzin would soon
broadcast to the faithful, Hussein apparently among them.

  Clay walked into the kitchen and poured himself a whisky. The gun, ugly and mean, was there on the table where Hussein had left it. His hand shook as he poured and some of the alcohol splashed onto the table. He walked out to the balcony, leaned against the railing and drank, watching the sun disappear into the sea. After a while he went back inside and sat at the table and poured himself another drink and sat staring at the gun for a long time.

  There was a knock at the door. The call to prayer had not gone out yet. Even if he had returned early, Hussein had taken a key. Clay got to his feet and slid the fingers of his right hand over the Braille of the Beretta’s grip and pushed the weapon into the waistband of his trousers at the small of his back. He padded to the door and stood against the wall, tried to control his breathing. He would wait until whoever was there went away.

  More banging, harder this time. Clay reached back and touched the grip. It was damp with sweat.

  Jesus, he thought, just go away.

  Again, banging at the door, this time with what sounded like an open palm, louder than before, more insistent. His heart hammered like a piston but he stayed where he was, the Beretta now drawn, safety off.

  Then a voice from the other side of the door, in English: ‘Open up for God’s sake.’ A woman’s voice, a boy’s.

  Clay unlocked the door, pulled it open. A woman stood in the doorway, covered head to foot in a black burqa; even her eyes were shrouded. She inclined her head, nodded in the direction of the gun still hanging from Clay’s hand.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Clay, pushing the pistol back into his trouser band.

  She set down her bag, unfastened the cover-all and let the shroud float to the floor. Then she removed the veil. Rania. She smiled and threw her arms around his neck. ‘Al hamdilluluah,’ she whispered. ‘Thank God you are safe. I was so worried.’

  He held her tight, closed his eyes. Something hard pressed into his hip bone. He stood back, looked down. ‘What’s that?’

  Rania looked down at the protrusion, barely noticeable. ‘It is nothing.’

  Clay reached down to touch it but she stepped back. She looked deliberately into his eyes for a long time, never wavering her gaze. But it wasn’t the stare-down look he expected, it was something altogether different, as if she were trying to unpeel his retina and look into whatever lay behind, nerve endings, ocular fluids. He did not look away.

  She reached into a fold of her dress and withdrew a pistol. Clay recognised it – French, a PA-15, rare enough. An SAAF Mirage pilot he had met once in South-west Africa had had one, let him try it, said he got it from one of the French pilots who came down to train them on the Mirage. She held it there for an instant and then replaced it.

  ‘Standard AFP issue?’ he said, shocked, not sure why.

  ‘Certainly not. Please do not tell anyone, Claymore. It makes me feel safe. I know it is silly. I have never even fired it.’

  ‘I’ll teach you.’

  She smiled, just a flash. Beautiful. ‘They said you had disappeared, vanished.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘Petro-Tex. They held a press conference in Sana’a.’

  Clay held her at arm’s length, looked her up and down. She looked tired. Dust covered her face. Her hair was a hive of tangled wire.

  ‘How did you find me, Rania?’ He had a pretty good idea.

  She reached up, touched the sutures on his lip, ran her fingertips over the bruises under his eyes. Her touch sent neurons firing.

  ‘What happened to you, Clay?’

  ‘I made some new enemies.’ He told her some of what had happened since he’d seen her last. ‘And now I’m a terrorist, apparently, and a murderer.’

  ‘What about the children, the people of the village?’ she asked.

  ‘Tomorrow you can see for yourself,’ he said. ‘I assume that’s why you are here.’

  She nodded yes.

  ‘Did you get the story published, Rania? About Al Urush?’

  She frowned. ‘Yes, in the Yemen Times.’

  ‘When, Rania? When did it appear?’

  Rania looked down at the ground. ‘I am sorry, Clay,’ was all she said.

  Clay’s heart lurched, tumbled. ‘When?’

  ‘I wrote it the night you called. I went to Dhamar with the editor to meet you, as we had agreed. But because you missed our rendezvous, he did not want to publish the piece. It took me three days to convince him.’

  Clay dropped his hands to his sides, let the implications of this surge over him like a barrage. ‘Three days?’

  Rania stepped back. ‘The editor insisted on checking the data with contacts in the Health department. In the end he agreed to publish a warning about suspected water contamination, advising people to look for alternative sources in the affected area. He would not add a statement about ongoing investigations, and he declined to name Petro-Tex as the possible source. I tried with AFP, too, Clay, but they turned it down, as I knew they would. I am sorry. I did my best.’

  Clay nodded. ‘Then Abdulkader is dead.’

  ‘You do not know that.’

  Abdulkader’s severed hand was there at his feet, the fingers reaching up to him, signalling him come closer. The moon had waned away; his friend’s time had run and he’d been unable to stop its course. ‘Some things you know,’ he said.

  They stood for a while, close but not touching, looking at each other, saying nothing. There was nothing to say. After what felt like a long time she frowned and looked away. ‘I feel so dirty,’ she said, reaching for her bag. ‘I am going to take a shower.’

  Clay pointed to the far end of the suite. ‘Over there.’

  Hussein returned while Rania was in the shower. ‘I need a drink,’ he said, slumping onto the couch. He was red-eyed and jumpy from qat. A burning cigarette hung from his mouth. It looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Clay went to the kitchen and returned with the whisky and a pair of glasses. He set the glasses on the table and poured two measures.

  ‘The South will announce secession tomorrow morning,’ Hussein said, crushing out the cigarette in a stone ashtray. ‘Troops are mobilising on both sides. Tomorrow Yemen will be at war with itself. Again.’ Hussein leaned forward and picked up the glass, examining its contents intently. ‘Cheers,’ he said, and knocked back the whisky.

  The last major civil war, between the royalists, led by Crown Prince Muhammad Al-badr and supported by the Saudis and Great Britain, and the rebels, led by Nasserite army officers backed by the Egyptians and the Russians, had lasted eight years. By the time it ended in 1970, five percent of Yemen’s population lay dead and the country was near economic collapse.

  The call to prayer filled the air, echoed through the open room, overlapping pleas from a half-dozen minarets: God is great, Muhammad is his prophet, there is no other God but God; and from the bathroom the sound of falling water.

  Hussein glanced towards the bathroom, pulled a softpack of Marlboros from his jacket pocket and cantilevered out a cigarette.

  Clay declined, palm over his heart, reached for his whisky. ‘Remember what I told you about those, broer.’

  Hussein edged a smile. ‘Every day, one step closer.’ He tapped the cigarette on the back of his hand, closed his lips around the filter, flicked a cheap plastic lighter and lit the tobacco. ‘So,’ he said, exhaling a stream of smoke towards the ceiling., ‘She’s arrived, then.’

  Clay hung on this, the then arcing up towards him like ground fire, the tracer past before you’d even registered it, like a memory, an afterthought. ‘You knew she was coming?’

  Hussein drew on the cigarette, squinted, nodded through the smoke.

  ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I didn’t expect her until later.’

  ‘That’s not an answer.’

  ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’

  ‘Fuck you, Hussein.’ Clay pulled the pistol from his waistband and put it on the table. ‘And you forgot t
his,’ he said.

  Hussein reached into his pocket and placed two fresh magazines on the table, pushed them towards Clay. ‘Keep it.’

  Clay stared down at the pistol and the magazines. ‘How did you find me at that prison, or whatever it was?’

  ‘Pour me some more of that whisky.’ Hussein drank. ‘Your detention was not legal, not even registered. The Oil Ministry acted outside its jurisdiction. There is a lot of that going on.’

  ‘You didn’t answer my question.’ He was getting used to it.

  Hussein looked into his glass, drew the last breath of smoke from his dying cigarette, filter viced between thumb and forefinger. ‘I am with the government, like I said. I have connections.’

  ‘The same government that wants Al Shams dead, that massacres its own people, that colludes with terrorists? That one?’

  ‘The situation is complex.’

  ‘I didn’t expect you to tell me anyway.’ He pulled out D.W. Greene’s passport, flipped to the inside of the back cover. ‘Tell me this then. What are these numbers?’

  Hussein smiled. ‘That is for later, when this is finished. Not now.’

  Just like the Battalion. No one tells you a goddamned thing.

  Hussein leaned forward and pressed his hand around Clay’s forearm. ‘Please, Clay. Be patient. As soon as we are done, I will explain. It is safer for you this way.’

  ‘I don’t need looking after.’

  Hussein ignored this, finished his smoke, lit another. It was about then that Rania emerged from the bathroom. She’d put her hair up in some sort of chignon, wisps coiling like black lichen around her ears, feathering her jaw. Her dress breezed around her legs, her bare arms, the thin cotton the colours of an oasis: water and cloud and frond. She sat next to Clay and ran her finger across his lower lip. For a moment he thought she was about to kiss him, but she turned away and exchanged glances with Hussein.

  ‘I am sorry, Clay,’ she said.

  He swallowed hard, fifteen years of death and disappointment in one brutal pill. ‘It’s not your fault, Rania,’ he said. ‘You tried.’ Abdulkader was dead. And in the dulled, washed-out, bruised prison of his psyche, something flared – a flame of sadness perhaps, of guilt, or regret, burned for a moment, and was gone before he could grasp it.