Burridge Unbound

by Alan Cumyn

  “Meaning just that we are all feeling our way here. I know that you and the other commissioners won’t do anything rash, that you won’t dwell on allegations that are unfounded or unproven, for example. It’s hardly worth mentioning.”

  And that seems to be all she will say about it, so I pursue another topic. “I was surprised,” I tell her, “at Hoyaitnut, how well you got along with Justice Sin. You told me before you fought to keep him off the commission. And yet you seem to be friends.”

  “I have developed a great respect for Justice Sin,” Suli says carefully, and suddenly it occurs to me that the two are meeting regularly. Of course. Suli would not want to give up control. Just the appearance of it. “In the same way,” she continues, “that I have developed a great respect for you. I always knew you were the right man for this commission.”

  “I haven’t contributed much,” I say.

  She gives me a long, unwavering, intense look, as if there are things she means to say but can’t.

  “You have given much more than you know,” she says simply. Then suddenly: “Perhaps when there is a break in your work we could go to my village in the mountains. I’d like so much to take you there. It’s so different from the city – titles and positions fall away. Here it’s so easy to forget who we are inside.”

  “Yes,” I say, trying to understand what she means.

  “Forgive me. My life is not my own these days, there is so little time. I’m sorry, I have to go, I have such a crushing schedule.” She stands, and I follow her lead, then she steps too close, looks at me again with such intensity, such apparent longing, I’d swear she wants me to embrace her.

  But – “I’m sorry to have to rush off,” she says then, and turns away. “My men will take you back. Please be patient about the funds.”

  “And you keep your head down,” I tell her. She steps away quickly, deep in thought, turns back once with the same look.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” I call out when I get back to the suite at the Merioka. “I had a sudden meeting with Suli Nylioko about the funds. Listen, though, Luki is pregnant, did you know that?” I expect Joanne to tell me that she knew this weeks ago, where have I been? But instead it’s quiet. The bed has been made, my things arranged. I walk to Joanne’s door, which is ajar, knock on it quietly then walk in. No one. Not only that, no one’s things – her bag is gone, I’m certain of it, even before I look in her closet, fling open her drawers.

  I run back to the main suite, turn around, look in the bathroom, race back to Joanne’s room. Empty. I pick up the phone, try to ask the front desk when she left, but can’t make anybody understand me. I try calling the airport, but the woman at the hotel switchboard can’t understand. What’s the word for airport? I pull out the telephone book, but of course if I don’t know what the word is then what the fuck good is any of this going to be?

  Damn! I hurl the phone book into the bathroom, my breath ragged, head suddenly burning with pain. I don’t believe she’d do this, just leave without a word. Then I notice the note on my bed and my body starts to tremble. My first instinct is to back away from it, the residue of this abandonment. Joanne has traded herself for this sheet of paper. I’ve been such an idiot. Take it back, I think. Rewind the tape. Say nothing. Just sit on that rock and keep your bloody mouth shut and then this paper wouldn’t be on the bed, her bags wouldn’t be gone, she’d be here still. This whole week she’s been so quiet, so distant.

  I don’t want to touch it. Silly, I know, but somehow if I pick up the letter then I’ll be accepting this reality and there’ll be no other choice.

  There is no other choice.

  I read the goddamn letter.

  Dear Bill,

  In a rush. Just got a message at the hotel about my mother. I called my Dad – the cancer is metastasizing and they need to operate right away. There’s a plane in an hour and I have to be on it, otherwise I lose two whole days.

  So – I’m sorry to flee. You have your medicines, I’ve left my logbook, but you know the drill by now. You have enough to last another month, and by then I should be back or I can send more if you find you don’t need me. You’re doing so much better – you know that anyway.

  Don’t go off your meds, though. Bad scene if you do. Remember to continue with the anti-malarials for three more weeks.

  Racing out the door. I’ll call you.

  One other thing–

  I love you too.

  Don’t really know what I think about that.

  Yours,

  J.

  Down the elevator, out the doors, into the first taxi. The driver smiles and I scream at him, “Airport! Airport!” When he doesn’t seem to understand I try louder, then spread my arms and make buzzing noises till he gets the idea.

  It’s after sunset: why is there still so much traffic? The sorialos are blocking up Cardinal Avenue, everything else is that much more congested. The police don’t dare move them and I’m not in a white van any more, am I? So I have to sit here, inching forward. Stewing.

  I love you too.

  Don’t really know what I think about that.

  What I think. God, what do I think?

  “Katti-katti!” I say, suddenly remembering the word for “fast.” The driver looks back, mutters something in disgust, leans on his horn, which starts everybody else blaring as well. Hopeless. But he does manage to wedge between a tractor and a tritos, then change lanes behind a motorbike and scoot up an alley that leads to another street where traffic is actually moving. When it stalls again, inevitably, he doubles back across four lanes and up another alley to God-knows-where. But at least we’re moving.

  I love you too.

  Much more complicated that way. Harder to breathe, think straight, be normal and lonely.

  I love you too.

  At the entrance to the airport highway we stop at a military checkpoint. The driver discusses things with the guard, then turns to me and says something I don’t immediately understand.

  “Porbasso!” the driver says, pantomiming something with his hands, opening and closing.

  “Porbasso?”

  More Kuantij. The guard shines his flashlight in my eyes.

  “Porbasso!”

  My passport. I don’t have my passport. “Jut porbasso!” I say. “Jut condo porbasso!” Of course I didn’t bring it. I haven’t any money on me either. Because Joanne carried all the money. So I can’t bribe this stupid guard. I can’t even pay my taxi fare.

  Now they’re both talking at me.

  “Jut condo porbasso! Yiu-yiu ripunta! I’m sorry!”

  The light leaves my face, but the passbar doesn’t rise. Instead the soldier motions to others to join him. They want us out of the car.

  “No,” I tell the driver. “Don’t get out of the car!” I know what they do if you get out of the car. “Just take me back to the hotel!” I scream it at the driver, but it’s no fucking use. Soldiers swarm us now, they’re everywhere, sub-machine-guns pointed, flashlights scrambling me. The door opens and too many hands start pulling at me. How did I get into this? Joanne! My leg kicks out. I don’t mean it, but a hand goes crack across my jaw and I freeze, just like that, freeze on the seat of the taxi, don’t breathe, don’t move, face jammed into the vinyl, still as stone.

  “Boo-reej! Boo-reej!”

  Of course they know my name. They’ve been through this before. Any second now the tire iron is going to come smashing through the window. Hands will pull me out, shove me in the trunk. Don’t look! That’s always my mistake. When I look the glass sprays in my face. Then the hood and shackles, the cigarettes and the black box, the needle when I’m truly damned.

  Breathe all you want. Close your eyes or open them. Kick out, shit yourself, stay quiet, scream, doesn’t matter. Realer than real. They’re attaching the wires, leaning in with their cigarettes. Make your heart like a scared rabbit, can’t take it, poor little cardboard and tinfoil heart, not made for this again, once was enough! I love you too she wrote right on pap
er realer than real Don’t really know what I think about that.

  Grapple with this reality, I think. Boo-reej this, Boo-reej that, they’re saying. Commisi vertigas. They know me. It isn’t the Kartouf coming out of hiding. It’s soldiers. Why so many? Are the Kartouf really soldiers?

  Joanne in the doorway turning her eyes on me. My life preserver. I choose what to cling to.

  This reality. I’m not going to the airport. I’m not being shoved in the trunk with the extra gasoline and the shovel. I’m sitting in a military Jeep, surrounded by soldiers who return me to the Merioka. Up the front stairs, through the lobby, the staff staring, officers looking like they’re going to shoot someone. Into the elevator, back to my room. When the door closes I know they keep standing outside because it’s still a trap, just velvet-lined, with a huge bed and television and an ocean view, a hot tub and a piano and a note, one-page, to somebody else, whose life I sometimes step into.

  21

  Morning. It isn’t a hangover, but has something of that feel: the skin of reality is still wet, too delicate to jostle. A full headache is one bad thought away – a bright light, harsh noise, one wrong food for breakfast. My hair hurts, skin feels grated from the inside, eyes cut by sand.

  No Joanne. This is the emptiest cavern without her. I wander bereft, still dazed, aching from this abandonment. I wasn’t going to be here without her. That was one of the guiding principles. I would never have come without her, don’t want to stay now that she’s gone.

  But how long will she be gone?

  There’s no message on my phone. She should have called by now. She would have changed flights somewhere, in Seoul or Hong Kong or Tokyo. But no word. I try to call Derrick, but the line is busy, for fifteen bloody minutes it’s busy.

  I find the cash that Joanne has left, take my meds, gingerly shower, shave, and dress myself. There’s my passport in my drawer, right where it’s supposed to be. I stick it in my back pocket with my wallet, then take it out – too easy for pickpockets. Into my shirt pocket, the one with the button flaps. Everything in slow motion. I try Derrick again, but this time the line just rings and rings. Either he hasn’t left the machine on or there’s a bad connection somewhere in the thousands of miles that separate us.

  I don’t want to stay here without Joanne. I have no heart for it. I wish I was on the plane with her.

  Nito is waiting for me outside the door. It’s time to go to breakfast. “Did you see Joanne?” I ask him. When he doesn’t quite understand, I just repeat, “Joanne!” until he nods his head. In a minute of gesticulated Kuantij he helps me understand that he took Joanne to the airport yesterday afternoon, while I was meeting with Suli. He pretends to write something on his hand and I nod yes, I got the note.

  But I don’t want the note. I want Joanne.

  Eventually, we ride down in the elevator in silence and I step quietly into the Happy Mouth Lounge while Nito inspects the lobby, part of his security routine. I sit at a table, pick up a plasticized menu. Then I realize I left it to Joanne to do all the ordering for us, I haven’t learned the words. Except kofi, which I don’t want. I stare at the choices. I just want toast. Some juice. They’re simple words. I did know them. But my brain isn’t working so well.

  “Merika,” I say, pointing to the selection where I see the word. The waiter asks me something detailed and I nod yes, okay. Agreeing is easy. The American breakfast. It’ll be too much food but at least there’ll be some toast and juice.

  The waiter brings The Islander. The rest of the tables are empty; three staff stand by the cash register in a strange trance, not talking, not looking, not doing anything in particular. A small piece on page twelve catches my eye.

  TRUTH COMMISSIONER FLEEING COUNTRY?

  19 November 1998

  Dorut Kul

  Truth Commission member Bill Burridge was spotted last night headed for Minitzh Freedom and Prosperity International Airport, according to sources close to the Interior Ministry. Burridge, the Canadian who was appointed last month by President Suli Nylioko to the Truth Commission, was apparently trying to leave the country, but turned back after failing to produce his passport at the Trilaka checkpoint.

  The Interior Ministry source declined to comment further and would not agree to be cited by name. IS spokesman Kajob Telinde stated that the IS continued to wholeheartedly support the work of the Truth Commission and does not wish Mr. Burridge to leave. Burridge could not be contacted for this story. A source connected to the Merioka hotel, where Burridge is staying, said that soldiers returned the Canadian Truth Commissioner to the hotel last night. “Burridge looked sutu i kondapa,” the source said.

  I can’t go now, I think, staring at the stupid report. It’s clear: anyone reading between the lines will jump to the conclusion that I’m fleeing the IS.

  “Sutu i kondapa?” I say to nobody. The three motionless staff remain in their trances. Beautiful. Burridge tries to flee country. Burridge is sutu i kondapa, whatever that means. Going out of his mind?

  I force myself to stay for breakfast, which arrives finally, after a wait of decades. At least I guessed right: the American breakfast is three fried eggs, bacon, ham, sausage, a small steak, hashbrowns, toast, a pancake, syrup, coffee, and a bowl of sliced fruit. Enough to feed a small village. But no juice. Doesn’t matter. The toast is as usual white, light, thin, tastes even more than usual like … Styrofoam? Is that possible? I try the local version of butter – it spreads fine but tastes sour.

  Sutu i kondapa? Not complimentary, whatever it means.

  I love you too.

  She wrote that to me. Don’t really know what I think about that. Yours, J.

  Yours.

  Not Love. She already said that. Yours.

  But she’s probably still sitting in a plane over the Pacific Ocean. The cancer is metastasizing. She knew we both shouldn’t have come.

  I have all these calls to make, but it suddenly seems overwhelming, I can’t bring myself to return to my room. I have money, my passport. A hundred thousand e-mails are waiting on my computer. A hundred thousand reasons not to check in.

  I sign the bill, walk through the lobby – cavernous, deserted except for a half-dozen staff standing in the same trance as the breakfast crew. I step into the heat of the day, not really knowing what I mean to do. Return to the Justico kampi, I suppose. I’ll have to tell Sin Vello and Mrs. Grakala, probably even Suli herself. Tjodja will have to set up the airline ticket. No, forget that, it’ll take months. Derrick can arrange it. We must have some credit left.

  Nito reappears by my side. Normally he gets the taxi but this time a black car is waiting for me. Luki steps out, carefully, like a young woman who’s carrying a baby inside her.

  “I’m supposed to pick you up,” she says. Then her eyes really see me, but the worry that registers there doesn’t form into words. She looks to Nito then back to me and asks if Joanne is coming.

  “Joanne has gone back to Canada,” I say, my voice sounding strange, as if I’m lying. “Her mother is ill. She left suddenly yesterday.”

  Evidently Luki hasn’t read today’s Islander. She takes my words at face value. Why shouldn’t she? They’re true, although somehow they don’t feel as true as the Islander report. A published report. It must be true. Surely I was trying to flee the country.

  We get in the back of the black car, a Mercedes, which pulls away powerfully, the way you’d expect a German car to pull away. The traffic is unusually thin, which suits this black German car, not meant to go slowly, to be interrupted. The driver is wearing a chauffeur’s uniform. In Santa Irene? Nito sits silently beside him.

  I’m thinking of the details. It’s just a matter of explaining that I can’t carry on, my health is at risk without my personal assistant. But I suppose I can last a few days without her.

  “Luki, what does sutu i kondapa mean?”

  She looks at me strangely, seems at a loss for a moment. Then she says, “Walking on his eyeballs.”

  “On his eyeb
alls?”

  “Yes.” She turns her gaze out the window, the mouldy, sloppy buildings of Santa Irene whizzing by at uncommon speed.

  “What does it mean?”

  “It’s used for drug addicts.”

  Wonderful. Burridge on drugs.

  Much later, it occurs to me that we aren’t on our way to the Justico kampi at all, and I ask Luki where we’re going.

  “Justice Sin has received a tip about a secret IS detention centre. He is already on his way there and we will meet him to demand an inspection. It’s in the mandate, we have every right to be given entrance. The neighbourhood is called Aaden.”

  If Joanne were here I’d tell her to stay behind at the Merioka. Long minutes riding behind tinted glass, the Truth Commissioner, sutu i kondapa, walking on his eyeballs. It’s true in a sense – I’ve been here for weeks but am isolated, don’t really know what’s going on. We ride past dozens of makeshift dwellings, people apparently camping out on the sidewalks. What’s that about? Children playing in rubbish, groups of men sitting on old tires, women hanging clothing out to dry on twine stretched between parking meters. I ask Luki and again she looks at me for an odd pause before replying.

  “They are manglop, blind vagrants,” she says.

  “Are there more of them than usual?”

  “They’re flooding in from the countryside because of kontra qitaos.”

  “Kontra qitaos?”

  “The economic disaster. They cannot afford basic food and supplies, so have come to the capital to look for work.”

  “And these are different from the sorialos?”

  “Sometimes the same, sometimes different. You know the loros lost 200 per cent this week?”

  “Yes. Of course,” I say.

  Small, tidy houses with whitewashed security walls topped by broken glass, the gates lined with bars, dogs and children in the street, an old man sitting on a tiny stool, a boy in tattered pants leaning on a telephone pole. Bright pink flowers sprouting out of the side of one wall, a cactus pushing through the pavement near the sidewalk. We stop at the house labelled 24. Justice Sin is already there with three aides, a similar black sedan parked nearby. At the gate Sin leans on his silver cane and talks to someone on the other side. When I get closer I see it’s a tall, unhappy man in a brown suit. The holster of his pistol is visible behind his jacket. Luki hurries to Sin but doesn’t talk to him, she simply listens, then turns back to me to explain.