Burridge Unbound

by Alan Cumyn

  “Yes, that’s right. Because of what was done to me, you see. I’m still caught in cycles of violence.”

  Pens scribbling, tape recorders turning, eyes watching, questioning, but not understanding. They could never understand. I see it now clearly. Whatever they write from this, whatever story gets reported and read around the world as if the closest to truth we can get – garbage. Clever phrasing. It can’t approach the darkness of that house. The utter darkness.

  After the session I rise and walk to the elevator, encased in the same weariness I felt getting off the plane in the wheelchair, home from the Kartouf. It’s as if it all hits me again, the strangeness of this journey, the withering knowledge once more of what we can do to one another.

  Back upstairs, there’s a call waiting on my phone. I retrieve the message and feel of flood of relief to hear Joanne’s voice. “Bill!” she says. “I’m calling from somewhere over the Rockies – I was hung up in Sydney, it’s a long story. I can’t tell you how frustrated I feel, not being home yet. But I saw your picture in the paper this morning. My God, I nearly spilled breakfast all over myself. Are you all right? I wish I could talk to you. I’m so sorry to leave like this. I’ll try to call Derrick when I get in, but you can get me at my parents’ home in Toronto.” She’s left the number; I scramble for a free piece of paper, the back of someone’s testimony, and scribble it down. “Look, I’ll call you when I know more. My mother’s hanging in there, but it doesn’t look good.” There’s a series of crackles on the recording and she says, “Turbulence or something. Talk to you later!”

  I try to call Joanne’s parents’ home in Toronto, but the international circuits are busy. I try Derrick’s number too, but can’t get through there either. Sometimes the phones just don’t work here.

  Nothing to do but wait. This is the problem. Stuck in now, waiting for later, through the aching stretch of darkness. Last night I sat for hours by the window wide-eyed, peering into the black, trying to keep the images from my mind: that rat in the kitchen, the black box, the look of triumph on Dorut Kul’s face. The kids waiting in the rain by the fence, peering through the gates of hell.

  Those IS men vomiting as if they didn’t know.

  The door of the fridge. My hand on the grubby handle, pulling it open.

  I have to replace them all one by one. Joanne in her T-shirt, her long legs, her eyes. Joanne leaning over the menu at the Happy Mouth Lounge. Joanne cradling me in this stupidly luxurious bed after my collapse that time. Her feel, her smell. It’s insanity otherwise. The filth in that kitchen. The stench that I can’t seem to wash off my skin.

  There’s a mountain of things to read, but I shouldn’t do that tonight. I need to keep a clear head, safe thoughts.

  I need to go home.

  I try the phones again and again through the night, finally doze restlessly near dawn. Luki tells me later at the Justico kampi that sometimes the telephone grid malfunctions on windy days – the wires can’t handle the vibrations. But it’s not particularly windy here. Perhaps somewhere else.

  “We just wait,” she says, “until the system is working again.”

  I’m distracted in the hearing room, have a hard time following the testimony of a colonel who apparently had no idea what anybody under his command was doing most of the time. Sin Vello gets him to admit that his parents bought his commission for him, and that he spent much of the year at the family villa at Bolo Beach. Dorut Kul seems particularly interested in the testimony. He takes copious notes from the tiny visitors’ gallery, several times makes eye contact with me.

  My mind is stuck on the thought that I shouldn’t be here. Joanne won’t be returning soon, I’m sure of it. But I should actually talk to her before I make my announcement. I’m bone-tired listening to the colonel, but the idea of returning home is so compelling I’m almost ready to tell Sin Vello.

  In the afternoon an IS commander scheduled to testify fails to appear. During the wait I try to call Joanne’s parents from Minister Tjodja’s office, but the phones still aren’t working. I tell Tjodja that I’m strongly considering returning to Canada because of Joanne’s departure.

  “But I can provide you with any number of personal assistants, Mr. Burridge!” he exclaims.

  “It wouldn’t be the same,” I tell him. Then when he gets really anxious I relent a little, say that my mind is not completely made up. “I have to talk to her, that’s all,” I say. “Before I can really know what’s going on. But my health is precarious, as you know.”

  “We will do everything in our power to help you, Mr. Burridge.”

  I think of telling him he could start by paying me, but I shy away – he might get the idea I’m leaving over money. It would take a whole other conversation to extricate myself from the room; I’m too tired to deal with it now. Instead I thank him, return to the hearing room filled with the certainty that this is the right decision. I gather my papers, wait, ready to approach Sin Vello and Mrs. Grakala with the news. But Sin Vello has been called away on something urgent; Mrs. Grakala has already left. The afternoon’s session is postponed.

  On the Justico kampi steps, as Nito is getting our taxi, Dorut Kul approaches me in some agitation. “We need to talk, Mr. Burridge,” he says quickly, under his breath, without quite looking at me.

  “About what?” I ask.

  He thrusts a padded envelope under my arm. I’m already burdened with too many papers.

  “Not now,” he says and walks away. In my surprise I drop the package, bend over awkwardly to retrieve it. So much for secrecy, I think. If that’s what he wanted.

  I return to my hotel room tired, distracted, suddenly weighed down by details. If I’m to leave I’ll need to buy an airline ticket. Perhaps Luki can help me out. What about money? Do I have enough credit left to purchase the ticket? If I go home now I may never be paid for the work I have done. I’ll need to talk to Derrick. But the phones are still out. Must be a hell of a windstorm. I could start packing. What will I do with all these documents? I’ll have to talk to Tjodja about them.

  Stymied, I turn to Dorut Kul’s bulky envelope. No explanatory note, no return address, just a videotape and several sheets of what looks like a transcript typed entirely in Kuantij. Fortunately the luxury suite comes with a television and VCR, so I plug in the tape, though it takes several minutes to hit the right combination of buttons to get the two machines to work together.

  Blurry picture, at first entirely out of focus. It sharpens slowly, looks like a long-distance shot through leaves and some sort of screening. Zoom, zoom, not much clearer. Finally a small woman and somebody huge – Sin Vello? It’s hard to think of anybody else that big – standing on what looks like a verandah, surrounded by green. A country place? Somewhere in the jungle? The two are talking and there’s a lot of background noise – rain, I guess, coming down pretty hard. I turn up the volume and at maximum I can just barely detect voices. Sin Vello and some small woman, speaking in Kuantij. I look at the transcript and see Suli’s name up and down the pages. Suli and Sin Vello.

  What does it mean, a tape of Suli and Sin Vello talking on a verandah? If it is them in the first place. Nothing’s very clear; it could easily be a fake. Where did it come from? When was it made? Will Dorut Kul testify as to where he got it?

  In front of Sin Vello?

  Too many questions. I don’t like the look of this. Why did Dorut Kul give me the tape? He knows I don’t understand Kuantij. He could easily have done his own translation. And published it himself.

  Dorut Kul said we needed to talk. Perhaps I should just wait for him to contact me again. Maybe tomorrow. This might be nothing, I think. Dorut Kul and his half-baked reporting. He thought I was trying to leave the country. That cry of triumph when he saw the heads in the refrigerator. Bloody journalists.

  Maybe he wants me to take it out of the country.

  I eject the tape from the machine, put it back in its case, then return the letter and case to the original envelope, which I hide in the s
leeve of my suit jacket hanging in the closet. Nothing to do until tomorrow, but it’s so hard to get this out of my head. Suli and Sin Vello. What are they saying to each other?

  The afternoon drains away. I pace, make a stab at reviewing testimony, try the phone again and again. I go down to the Happy Mouth Lounge to order dinner, then have it delivered upstairs so I can avoid the reporters who need more news. Back in my room I eat the local version of flatcakes – slightly sour-tasting, with various vegetable- and meat-paste dips, some mild and palatable, others too spicy for me to digest. The sun sets quickly, sinks like a ship. No lingering sunsets here.

  When the phone rings I nearly jump out of my skin.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Mr. Burridge? I’m sorry to disturb you in your rest.”

  “That’s quite all right, Luki,” I say.

  “Justice Sin has asked me to call you. We have just received word that Captain Velios has been found.”

  “Are you sure? Captain Velios?”

  “Unfortunately he is dead. Justice Sin is hoping you will go with him to examine the body.”

  My heart plunges at the thought of more bodies. Why did I have the feeling this Captain Velios would never survive to talk to us?

  “Yes, of course. Does he mean tonight?”

  “We will send a car shortly.”

  I’m halfway out the door before it occurs to me the phones are working again. I go back, try Joanne’s parents’ number – it’s the middle of the night in Canada but this is an emergency. The ring sounds strange, though. I don’t think I’ve gotten all the way through to Toronto. Finally a busy signal cuts in – another bad connection somewhere.

  No time now. I leave it reluctantly, pick up Nito on my way out. Luki arrives in the same black German sedan as the day before. Are these windows bulletproof? I ask Luki to tell Nito exactly what’s going on. I want him alert and effective. The night is blacker now than ever, streetlight after streetlight either barely flickering or completely out, shadowy forms on the sidewalk beyond the tinted glass.

  “Where did they find him?” I ask Luki.

  “In Welanto. He was left in a hotel.”

  “Tortured?”

  “I do not know.”

  I stop myself from asking if his head is still attached. What was I thinking? Of course bodies are going to turn up. This is the underside, full of maggots and slugs and wet black earth nourished by blood.

  If I can just hang on for a day or two, I think, I’ll be out of this, on my way home.

  “Luki, how long till your baby is due?” I blurt, conscious that after all this time I don’t know much about her.

  She smiles suddenly at the unexpected question. “The twenty-seventh of February.”

  “First child?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does your husband do?”

  “He works as a travel agent. At least he did.”

  “Has he changed his work?”

  “His company does not exist any more. There is not much travelling these days.”

  “Kontra qitaos?” I say, remembering the phrase.

  “Kontra qitaos.”

  “Does that mean you’re the breadwinner these days?”

  “The pay would be fine if the loros was not evaporating. And if the pay would actually arrive.”

  “You’re not getting paid?” I ask.

  “Not yet. There are delays processing the cheques. No one else has been paid yet either, so it’s not so bad.”

  Not so bad? Recipe for disaster, I think. So I’m not the only one. “Does this happen often?” I ask. “People not getting paid?”

  “Just in the government,” she says. Then she smiles again. “It’s all right, we have faith in Suli. She is bringing great changes.”

  I ask some more questions and she tells me about her father, a postal clerk, and her mother, who sold flatcakes in the market for years to raise money to send Luki to a school where English was taught. She studied evenings and weekends, glued to foreign broadcasts to improve her accent. Her husband is Kaylun Wel, from a fishing family that moved to the capital twenty years ago.

  “And Nito? I don’t know anything about him really. What’s his background? Could you ask him for me?”

  “He trained with the militia and received his class-one marksman’s certificate, but he did not serve with the regular army. He was personal bodyguard instead for Naloya Bintillo, a plantation owner in the north. His brother was taken and killed by the IS, that’s why he would not serve in the regular forces.”

  “Tell him I’m sorry,” I say.

  Nito nods gravely, explains further.

  “He says we all lost someone in the bitter years.” Rinda gutra, I recognize the phrase. “He will not let anything happen to you. You are making things better.”

  I thank him, and he keeps talking, now that I have asked.

  “He has three daughters, all of them getting married this year. The youngest is marrying his best friend, Binte. They trained together, and Binte’s wife died four years ago of dysentery. The eldest is marrying a Malaysian businessman, going to be very rich, and the middle daughter is marrying a boy from her high-school class.” Nito shakes his head, smiling through a false grimace. “He will be in debt for many years,” Luki says, “trying to pay for all these weddings. But this is the way on our island. Nito hopes you will come to all three!”

  “I will if I can,” I tell him, and extend my hand, which he grasps with feeling.

  Then I ask Luki if Nito is getting paid for his services, actually receiving his money. It turns out he has a family connection on his wife’s side to Minister Tjodja, and is being well paid for his work.

  We speed through the night, no traffic now, just strange shapes in the shadows. Bodies? Live ones. Most bodies are alive, I think.

  “How many translators does the commission have?” I ask Luki.

  “Five of us.”

  “You must be working tremendously hard to keep up with all the documents.”

  “The others are envious,” she says, smiling again, “because they are back in the office while I have the opportunity to go with you to the field.”

  A strange term – of all the things it is, Welanto is not a field. Sometime in the ride it occurs to me that we’re surrounded by grubby little desperate dwellings made of tin sheets, cardboard, plywood, car parts, plastic sheeting, each shack webbed to the others with electrical wires balanced daintily on jury-rigged poles, lighting naked bulbs and dully flickering television sets. Through the tinting of my window and the cathode glow I see unshaven men sitting in undershirts and women in saftoris, with children on the floor or in the doorways, watching. A young woman looks up from a neighbourhood pump and a dog barks at us. A rooster tethered to the side of a shack, young men squatting around a game, women cooking over an outside fire. The car barely reaching walking speed now. It seems to take forever. I don’t particularly want to find this body, but I do want to have it over with.

  Blocked now. People in the road, which isn’t a road any more, so narrow it’s more like a path between dwellings. The driver honks his horn and we sit, idling, while swarms try to peer in. Are all the doors locked? More honks. He revs the engine, moves forward slightly, but people either ignore the car or slam their hands down on the hood and make rude gestures.

  “How close are we? Do you think we should get out?”

  Luki asks the driver for me. Then Nito, Luki, and the driver talk at length.

  “It is not too far,” Luki says finally. “I will go with our driver and you stay here.”

  “I can walk.”

  “It might not be safe.”

  “It’ll be safer for all of us if we go together.”

  More discussion. Finally we push open the doors. Faces in the glass, hands reaching to feel the inside of the car. Somehow we get out and close the doors before anyone can get in; the driver locks them with his remote. Now what? Luki, the driver, and Nito start talking to everyone around us, and soon
I hear the words “Commisi vertigas” and “Boo-reej! Boo-reej!” People give way, a path of sorts opens up. We walk among the stares, some sullen, most just curious, with the odd hand reaching out to touch my shoulder, finger my hair. I follow the others, try to keep track of the twists, the little landmarks – that one shack lit up in neon, is that the corner store? A sign on another shows a beautifully painted set of teeth and bears the inscription Ligi-ligi, which I gather means “dentist.” Soon I’m lost and irritated – I don’t like being so imperial any more, so dependent.

  Strange, circuitous route. Finally we enter one of the larger buildings, a two-storey concoction of odd planks, rickety stairs, panels taken from old billboards. Half of a huge Marlboro man peers at us: one eye looking away, a blond moustache, smoke trailing from a giant cigarette tip, the top of a cowboy hat sloping into view. The air feels thin and hot, reeks of too much humanity and … something else. This is the right place. People milling all the way up, but fewer in the actual room. The body is on the floor, wrapped and taped in green garbage bags. The stench in the room almost as bad as at the IS detention centre. I fight the dizziness. We’re the first officials to arrive. Where’s Sin Vello?

  “How did it get here?” I ask, looking around, anywhere but at the body. I’d send Luki out of the room but I can’t talk to people without her. “Who owns this place? Luki, can you find out?”

  She turns to a wizened, baldheaded man next to the door who looks like he knows what’s going on. He shakes his head and points to a young woman leaning on the bed. At first glance she seems undisturbed, but her hands, though clasped tightly, are shaking. Luki questions her then turns to me.

  “This was not the man staying here. He disappeared two days ago owing money. When she looked in his room she found the body.”

  “Wrapped like this?”

  Luki asks the question. “Nothing has been touched,” comes the reply.

  “Then how do we know it’s Captain Velios?”

  The woman hands over a clear plastic bag. Inside are a wallet and a plasticized ID card with a blurry picture of a bearded, sad-eyed young man, VELIOS printed underneath it, and a stylized insignia in the corner – an eagle grasping crossed sub-machine-guns in its talons.