Burridge Unbound

by Alan Cumyn

  I know that we had a life and then the inches of metal betrayed us and yet now in the ongoing chaos, the writhing and thrashing about after the fall, I find I can think the first unblistered thoughts about that life again. I have no right to hope, I know – I shut you both out and can blame only myself if the door now is closed on both sides.

  But perhaps we can begin with something simple, a lunch maybe. I have a nice spot on Victoria Island. On a good day there’s sun and shade and pretty water, wilderness to look at and civilization too. Maybe before winter there will be room for one warm hour. Call me?

  Love, Bill

  I spend long hours working and reworking the letter, polishing little phrases, cutting and adding and cutting again. Printing out and rereading, changing and rereading. They feel like the first and only words of hope I’ve ever uttered in my sorry life, and they fill me with dread and wonder. I sign and fold the paper, slip it in an envelope, then take it out and read it again, changing words, going back to the computer. On the screen the words are liquid, unimportant in a way – I can try them out like trying on different clothes. It’s been forever since I’ve uttered such words. Of course, I can’t send it. She’d turn in rage, fling the flimsy paper back in my face, file for divorce before I could take another breath. Where was I on Patrick’s birthday? His first day of school? Could I bother to take him to the museum some Saturday – any Saturday in the last year? Where was I in soccer practice, or when he cried at night because I couldn’t even answer a simple e-mail? Where was I when Maryse was mounting her show and needed help in the kitchen, someone to do a load of laundry, to pass a towel over a dish or two?

  Words of love and hope. Flimsy, self-serving, pitiful words. Words of weakness and need, of ache and worry and problems down the road. Another wounded man looking for a nurse. Words of waste and reopened wounds.

  Reopened envelopes. I read it again, fiddle, reprint, sign, and think. Of course, I can’t send it. I’ve used up every chance. An honourable man would protect those he loved from further harm. I tear it up and then reread the words on the screen and print out the letter again, sign it, seal and address the envelope. One last chance. An honourable man would have to take it. Because I do have something to give now. Maybe?

  It’s just a lunch. It’s just hope and love. It’s just …

  I put on my thick jacket and ride the overheated elevator down to the street, the real world, and gasp at the cold wind. What kind of wonderland have I been living in? I walk to the mailbox and then past, knowing I can’t send such a letter. Just when they’re healing and getting on with their own lives. Self-serving and pitiful words. Stupid. Broken eggs and spilled milk. Get on with it, man!

  Past the mailbox and back, my hands cold in the raw wind. A picnic! Too late. Too little. Winter rattling at the gate.

  Past the mailbox and I think, why am I here if I’m not going to mail this? I pull back the door and throw it in, am pulsed with immediate, burning regret. I almost reach in to try to retrieve it.

  Long, muttering walk by the canal, the waves choppy from the wind even in this backwater. It will only bring more pain. Why couldn’t I wait? Obviously I’m still unstable, will be the rest of my life. People never really recover from torture. They don’t. They mutter to themselves and wet their beds until their brains have shrivelled and died.

  When I get back to my apartment I’m cold through to the core. Joanne, who has let herself in, asks, “Where have you been?” but there’s no time to answer. The phone rings and I freeze with fear – how did she get my letter that quickly? I snatch up the receiver before Joanne can get to it. I don’t want her to know what a fool I am. (Who am I kidding? Of course she knows!)

  “Mr. Burridge?” says a female voice, and for a moment I’m confused. Why would Maryse call me Mr. Burridge and speak with an accent? I fail to reply and so she must repeat my name.

  “Yes?”

  It’s not Maryse. It’s the Santa Irenian ambassador’s secretary, calling to agree to a meeting I’d requested ages ago. Tomorrow morning, she says, nine o’clock. The ambassador is eager to discuss the situation in the mountains.

  I reach Derrick later and ask him why the ambassador is suddenly so interested. It must be the new government, we decide. The ambassador, Waylu, is old-guard, but he’s realizing that if he doesn’t appear to change soon he’ll be turfed out.

  “Bring all your materials,” I tell Derrick. “We’ll slam him with documents!”

  9

  Waylu Tariola’s office is dominated by a huge map of the tiny island of Santa Irene: a teardrop in the South China Sea, the capital weighing it down, green around the edges with spiny brown mountains in the middle. The ambassador is a wiry man with a sharp, angled faced and small hands. His eyelids are heavy and on the right one is a large black mole that makes it look as if blinking would be painful. But he does, often, anyway, and shifts his head in sudden excited movements, his lips and eyebrows gesturing, sometimes in anger and distrust, but this morning, apparently, in overwhelming welcome, as if this is all he has lived for, this very moment here with me.

  “Mr. Burridge! It is such a pleasure at last that our schedules allow us to meet. I have been hoping for so long to have this opportunity,” he says, offering his hand. It’s such a barefaced lie I hardly know what to do – but I take his hand out of politeness and look away. For months we’ve been petitioning him to meet with us, and he has ignored us outright, while carrying on a campaign in the press to downplay, deny, or discredit any reports of human-rights problems in his country. I have in my briefcase a file of these clippings – AMBASSADOR DENIES KILLINGS; SANTA IRENE: GARDEN PARADISE; RIGHTS VIOLATIONS FABRICATED SAYS DIPLOMAT. I’d draw them out right now to confront him but he won’t let go of my hand, has taken it with both of his own.

  “I have read your gripping account, sir, and I must tell you what a thrill and an honour it is to finally meet with you. You are a prize of humanity, sir. I tell you this with an open and admiring heart.”

  A prize of humanity? I look questioningly at him, but he seems content with his odd phrase. I pull my hand away finally, as he is bowing. His three nervous assistants, all in ill-fitting suits, bow as well.

  “I’m sorry,” Waylu continues. “I have forgotten my manners. There is tea here and coffee, and all sorts of biscuits and sticky buns, fruit if you would care for it, juices of many varieties. Mr. Viranto, what choice of juices do we have? Guava, rambutan, lychee, mango, pineapple, we have fresh durian. Do you eat durian? It is – what do we call it? – an acquired taste. Please, you must have something, I am so anxious to speak with you.”

  “Nothing for me. Thanks.” Derrick follows my lead and we take our seats around a low table.

  “Please. Mr. Burridge, I implore you, you must have something. We have oranges, we have fresh bananas, real bananas, Mr. Burridge. I know you must have had them when you were in Santa Irene, not the pulpy things that pass for bananas in stores here. I have them delivered by diplomatic pouch. It’s my one vice. All right, perhaps not my only vice. Please, a sticky bun?”

  I take a small banana, just to get him to shut up, and Derrick tries the spiny durian, which fills the room with a fetid stink. His face contorts for a moment, then he smacks his lips and says he likes it, but puts it down.

  “Excuse me,” Waylu says – having nothing himself, I note – “but I must ask you, out of awe and admiration, and please forgive me if I am treading on old ground or repeating what everyone asks …” He pauses for a moment, to untangle himself from his sentence. “But how in the world did you ever survive?”

  I look at him blankly, dumbfounded.

  “I am sorry! This is not an appropriate question. Clearly! I am so sorry. It’s just that I am not alone in believing that you have achieved one of the greatest feats of human survival, and are a living testimony to the power of the human–”

  “It was an accident, I think,” I say. “All the way around. I wasn’t supposed to be kidnapped and I wasn’t suppose
d to survive and I wasn’t supposed to make much of myself afterwards. But here I am, Mr. Ambassador, and regrettably I have many pointed things to say about your government’s fundamental disregard for human life and the spirit you seem to prize so much. With respect, sir.”

  Down with the last of my banana. I nod to Derrick and he unloads the documents: the reports of the United Nations special rapporteur, and of the working groups on torture, on extrajudicial executions and arbitrary detention, on enforced or involuntary disappearances. The annual reports of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the State Department. A special report issued by Federation internationale des ligues des droits de l’homme. The summary report we brought to the United Nations. Our seven pages of recommendations. Copies for everyone. Waylu and his assistants take their seats, flip through the pages with apparent interest.

  “Of course, of course!” Waylu says. “Let’s not waste time with formalities. But please, Mr. Burridge, you must accept my apologies for asking about what must be a sensitive matter. I cannot convey the true horror that all of us at the embassy felt during your ordeal. You must have heard how closely we worked with our Canadian counterparts to keep your family informed, and to spur on our Intelligence Service in its efforts to locate and free you finally.”

  I cannot bring myself to comment, but stare at him stonily, fighting to keep down the bitterness. My family wasted months dealing with an embassy that had no information whatsoever to provide. At last Waylu looks away in embarrassment.

  I glance at my notes. “I thank you for seeing us this morning, finally,” I say. “As for the your Intelligence Service – you will note in many of our handouts the abominable record of abuse associated with IS officers. But not to skip ahead. My assistant, Derrick Langford, will make the main presentation. Derrick?”

  “Santa Irene,” he says, “like many countries emerging from the shadow of oppressive and dictatorial rule, has a long legacy of human-rights violations that must be dealt with.” His hands gesture in small, definite strokes. He looks concerned, emotionally involved, but speaks in restrained language. “The new government in Santa Irene must work to develop a climate of transparency and accountability. The state must work collaboratively with the United Nations and the human-rights and development community, both domestic and international, to put in place those institutions and practices that ensure a civil, democratic society in which fundamental human rights are not only safeguarded in law but in everyday practice.”

  The ambassador nods as if considering, weighing every word. He’s a diplomat, of course. We can sit around this table politely discussing mass murder and it is all civil, understood. No matter what comes up there will be no display of bad manners. Or if there is, it will be a show, not personal, not real. It’s a sickening game I used to have patience for, used to think I understood, but that was another lifetime.

  “Accountability is the key,” Derrick says. “For decades the police and the military have literally gotten away with murder. No one has been held accountable. Human-rights groups have documented over seven thousand cases of extrajudicial executions, estimate there are up to twelve thousand disappearances in the last two decades. Yet there have been no convictions of police or military personnel …”

  Yes, yes, Waylu nods gravely. As if considering these things for the first time. He railed against the State Department report when it first came out, was quoted in the New York Times as saying that these figures had been concocted by Kartouf operatives and naively accepted by governments and non-governmental organizations. I have a letter from him from last year complaining about unverified statistics – the same month his government denied Amnesty International the right to visit the island and investigate allegations of atrocities. And now he has the gall to nod sympathetically when these same numbers are put before him!

  “We are also recommending the establishment of a full-powered board of inquiry to investigate past human-rights violations,” Derrick says, “in particular the campaign in the mountain regions to raze villages and persecute alleged Kartouf sympathizers. This board–”

  He’s still nodding and agreeing. Waylu Tariola!

  “–would have the power and authority to investigate abuses of both the security forces and the rebel groups. It would be headed by a committee of independent observers prominent in the struggle for justice and peace–”

  “Yes,” Waylu says. He turns his gaze excitedly to me, then back to Derrick.

  “The board members should in no way be implicated in the abuses of the former regime. They should have stature and authority and the trust of the people–”

  “Precisely,” says Waylu.

  “It should not be a witch hunt,” I add. “It should be fair but exhaustive.”

  “–in order to allow for healing, for justice, and the establishment of democratic institutions to bring the country beyond the rule and whim of individuals.”

  “No more demagogues,” says Waylu, boring his gaze into my skull. “We have been too long under the thrall of particular personalities. You are absolutely right! Our institutions have suffered, our level of civil liberties has been – well, what can one say? – deplorable.”

  Derrick and I exchange glances. Waylu’s aides are reading the reports as if they’ll be tested on them later in the day.

  “I have to admit, Mr. Ambassador,” I say carefully, “nothing in your record to date has led us to expect this sort of reception. In the past you have taken exception to every–”

  “The past is very much in the past, Mr. Burridge. These are new times. We have a fresh spirit in the country. As you know! Our new president is intent on sweeping out the horrors of Minitzh and his cronies. It is a new land! And this is very much the time for setting things right. This is why I have called you in today. Not to disagree with your reports, but to embrace them, as we must if we are to move on.”

  “Then I trust, Mr. Ambassador, that you will unhesitatingly bring these reports and recommendations to the attention of your government.”

  “Already done, sir!” he exclaims. His face is alarming in its exultation. “More than that. More than that!” he says. “Will you sit on the Commisi vertigas?”

  “Sorry?”

  “The Truth Commission! There is going to be one! Will you sit on it?”

  I’m speechless. My leg snaps out and jolts the heavy table. The pain shoots through my shin.

  “We need you to sit on this Truth Commission. To investigate the past abuses.”

  That heavy black mole drooping his lid, the rest of his face so twisted in a perverse look of victory. My God.

  “I couldn’t possibly,” I say in a small voice.

  “But you have said it yourself,” he says, opening his hands. “We need a board of inquiry. If we are ever to heal from the barbarism of Minitzh. We need men of stature and fair hearts, who are not cowards. Who will stand up for justice and who the people will trust.” Such hypocrisy! Throwing our words back at us. As if there was no blood on his own coddled hands.

  “But you can’t ask Mr. Burridge,” Derrick says. He too is off-balance. This isn’t what we expected.

  “Who would be better than Mr. Bill Burridge?” Waylu asks, not moving his eyes from me. “He was taken by the Kartouf and yet he stands up and speaks for their protection in the United Nations. He has suffered the very worst and has dedicated his life to safeguarding the fundamental rights of common citizens. He is a giant in stature! And I say this sincerely, please, you must believe–”

  “You are well aware of Mr. Burridge’s precarious health,” Derrick says. “His heart–”

  “We would pay you, of course, in accordance with the rates for very senior U.N. posts–”

  “I can’t fucking do it!” I say, standing up suddenly, shuddering the table again. Jesus!

  “I’m sorry!” he says immediately, rising, Waylu’s face a mask of concern. He holds out his hand but I walk past it. Derrick rises and follows me. Which way out?

  “Pleas
e, Mr. Burridge, please!” Waylu says, his hand on my shoulder. His advisers surround me as if they won’t let me leave. Just try it! Raise your hand! I’ll split your arm.

  “What?” I say, whirling. “How can you even ask such a thing?”

  Outside, in the taxi, I’m fuming. “Can you believe that shit?” I say. “Can you believe him suddenly pretending to accept our recommendations and then turning the knife to make it look like I’m the one standing in the way of justice and human rights?”

  “Careful,” Derrick says.

  “I have never seen such blatant hypocrisy!” I rage. “He’s a bloody murderer. He supported and protected Minitzh as much as anyone. And now to turn around and pretend to be on the side of human rights and democracy!”

  “Calm down,” Derrick says softly, patting me. What am I, a dog?

  “I will not calm down. I am livid. This is my anger and I’m entitled to it!”

  “Well, just be calmly angry,” he says, then smiles nervously. He thinks I’m going to blow a heart valve right in the taxi. He might be right.

  I stop flaring my nostrils, unclamp my jaw. He’s right. Diplomats. They make their living slithering on the ground. I should know! It would be just like Waylu to try to give me a heart attack with this kind of invitation. Free trip back to the pit of hell. I can’t even make it through the night without the fear of the Kartouf terrorizing my brain. How could they ask me to go back there?

  “He’s got me sweating at the palms,” I say. “Look!”

  “Don’t think about it,” Derrick says, patting me again. Where’s Joanne when I need her? That’s it, no more diplomatic meetings without Joanne.

  “How can I not think about it?” I ask. “He wants me to go back there!”

  “Just let it go,” he says, eyes wide. He’s scared. He doesn’t think I’m going to make it through this cab ride.