A Taste of Cockroach

by Allan Baillie

  Doesn’t matter, she thought. It is enough to smell it. When you go back home you can tell Mum that the baker has found some more bags of wheat.

  She kept sniffing the air as she strode around the corner. The noise hit her in the face, women yammering to each other, small children yelling as they clung to their mother’s burqas, men calling out and pushing each other. But it was all right. They were only gathering at the baker’s and there was even a vague idea of a queue.

  A boy with a wild mop of hair grinned at Nerida from the top of the queue and she grinned back. That wasn’t outlawed yet. She moved to the fringe of the crowd.

  The baker had used an old tarpaulin for a roof and he had had to rebuild one of the ovens after a rocket hit the place, but now he was working. Three men were sliding the flat dough into the glowing ovens on their long shovels, and pulling out the steaming brown loaves. The flat loaves were stacked against the wall.

  A woman came away from the baker’s with a loaf in her hands, shifting her fingers on the hot bread. The boy ripped a piece of it and happily munched the crisp crust as they moved towards Nerida.

  Nerida stepped out of the way, staring at the woman’s steaming loaf.

  The woman looked at Nerida. ‘Hey, you’ll have to hurry. They’re running out.’

  Nerida shrugged and smiled. ‘No money.’

  ‘Then why are you here?’

  Nerida caught the annoyance in the woman’s voice. ‘No, no, I’m not here. I’m not after a loaf. I’m going … somewhere else.’

  ‘Somewhere else?’ The woman looked through her yellow veil and studied Nerida’s face.

  ‘Yes, somewhere else.’

  The woman nodded slowly. ‘Ah, I understand.’ She glanced at her loaf, pulled part of the crust from it and pushed it into Nerida’s free hand. ‘One day.’

  Nerida smiled at her. ‘One day.’ And bit into the brittle crust.

  The boy frowned at his mother for a moment and then he nodded. An old man pushed past the woman and Nerida glimpsed red toenail polish under her burqa.

  Suddenly a haggard man in black burst from the crowd and swung a long light stick at the woman’s feet beneath her burqa. ‘Tramp!’

  The woman gasped in pain and tried to dance away from the man’s stick.

  ‘Painted tart!’ The man lurched after the woman, his long beard swirling before him, the stick scything at her legs.

  The woman stumbled into Nerida, and Nerida threw up her hands to keep her balance.

  The man moved after the woman, swinging the stick back to increase the impact, then he suddenly stopped. He stared down at his right foot, his heavy eyebrows dipping.

  Nerida’s eyes followed the man’s stare and felt her body shiver. Her right hand had been jerked from the safety of her shallow pocket.

  The man shifted his eyes to her face and swooped down to the dust like a hunting eagle. He thrust his gnarled fingers before her nose. ‘This is yours?’

  He was holding the pencil.

  Nerida looked at the man’s curling lips, his broken and stained teeth, his long black beard that spread tangled across his ragged black robe, and at his glittering eyes. She locked into those eyes.

  ‘I …’ She tried to say something, but it petered out.

  He is looking at me like I’m a cockroach, she thought. Forget being a person, you’re not even worth a donkey.

  ‘It is yours,’ he snarled. ‘Why do you have it?’

  Nerida could hear the tip of his long stick scraping in the dirt.

  Any moment he will swing that stick hard at your legs, so hard it will bring the blood, she thought. Again, and again. There is nothing you can say to stop it.

  ‘Well?’ he said.

  Nerida saw her hands and swallowed. You’re shaking. Like a leaf. ‘It’s only a pencil …’

  ‘Not for you, girl! You want to go to the Stadium? Hey? With your sisters!’ And the man began to swing the stick.

  But in that instant, triggered by the man’s words, the boy leaped towards the man. He snatched the pencil from him and tried to smile. ‘It is mine.’

  The man blinked at his empty hand, and looked at the boy in disappointment. ‘Yours?’

  ‘I must’ve dropped it. Thanks for picking it up.’

  The man stared at the pencil, at the boy, at Nerida and his trailing stick. He wanted to swing the stick at both the girl and the boy, but they knew that he couldn’t.

  The boy had changed everything. Because he was a boy.

  The man grunted.

  The woman called the boy from the other side of the crowd, away from the stick’s reach. ‘Come on, we have to go.’

  The boy hesitated for a moment, then without a flicker at Nerida’s face he brushed past her. The man pursed his lips as he gave Nerida one last stare, but he finally turned and walked away, wobbling his stick.

  Nerida swallowed and closed her eyes for a moment. A deep shiver ran down her spine.

  So bad, she thought. He said – he wanted you in the stadium …

  She flicked her eyes wide and ran from the street. She hurtled into a lane, stumbled over some baskets, and careered into another street where she almost knocked down an old man.

  No, no, you’ve got to stop, she thought. You’ve got away; he’s gone, forget what he said. But there are others, all the time. Are they watching you right now?

  Nerida shifted her eyes around.

  The pencil. It’s gone.

  She sagged against a mud wall.

  It’s only a pencil, she thought. But it wasn’t. It was part of Dad and there was so little that was left. Now it was gone, forever. That boy, he had stolen it. You should have grabbed it from him and told the Beard …

  She shook her head.

  No. It wouldn’t have worked. That boy saved you. You have lost the pencil, and that’s it.

  Nerida peeled away from the wall and walked jerkily down the street.

  You want to go home. Tell Mum how it was, with the Beard hissing his bad breath at you. She would understand.

  She stopped, actually looking for the way home. But then she remembered the bolt by the shelf. The bolt from the Russian tank.

  No. You have to do this. Like this was Dad’s fight.

  Nerida strode down the street, turned left at a corner cigarette shop, and went up a dark lane and stopped before a faded yellow door …

  What are you doing?

  She walked past the yellow door, to the end of the lane, slowed down and listened for footsteps around her. She came out of the lane and watched people moving around her.

  Finally she slipped back into the lane, and reached the yellow door again. She knocked very quietly and waited. After long seconds there were two soft taps from the other side of the door. Nerida answered that with one knock. Like a silly kids’ game, but it wasn’t.

  The door creaked open slightly. She saw a single eye through the crack between the door and frame and almost whispered: ‘It’s me, Saman …’

  The door opened some more and Nerida slipped past into a dim room. There were several girls sitting on the floor.

  Saman brushed a wisp of grey hair from her face and a thin gold bracelet slipped from the sleeve of her burqa. She would never wear the bracelet in the street, but here she was showing a touch of defiance. ‘You’re late.’ She swirled to the other girls.

  ‘Sorry, one of them almost caught me,’ Nerida said.

  Saman jerked her head around. ‘Were you followed?’

  All the girls were staring at her, and their eyes showed alarm.

  ‘Oh, no. He didn’t follow me. Nobody followed me. But …’

  ‘Yes?’ Saman stared at her.

  ‘He said that I could be taken to the Stadium.’

  The girls in the room became still and Saman’s eyes shimmered in the silence.

  The Stadium had been the heart of the country’s soccer, but now it was the place for public execution.

  ‘No.’ Saman shook her head violently. ‘He was frightening y
ou. Not even the Beards would execute a young girl. They wouldn’t even do it to me! Well, I don’t think so … But you are quite sure that you weren’t followed?’

  ‘Yes, definitely. I walked around to make sure.’

  ‘Because we can’t afford to be caught like this.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘All right. Sit down.’

  Nerida hesitated.

  ‘What?’ Saman looked at her.

  ‘I’ve lost my pencil. Dad’s pencil.’

  Saman nodded. ‘I’m sorry. We will get pencils and books sometime.’ She walked to a dark cloth draped over a chair, picked up a piece of charcoal nearby and pitched it towards Nerida. ‘That’ll do for now.’

  Nerida settled among the girls and picked up a broken roof tile with a piece of toilet paper wrapped around it.

  Saman lifted the dark cloth, revealing a chipped blackboard and chunk of chalk. ‘Now we work.’ She wrote some old Arabic figures on the board. ‘Well, what do we have here? Just thirty-five and eleven? Anyone?’

  Nerida stared at the figures, her lips groping, and then she shot an arm up. But there was something jabbing into her right leg.

  Saman smiled. ‘Yes, Nerida?’

  But she didn’t answer. She shoved her hand into her small pocket and found the thing that had pricked her.

  ‘Nerida?’

  Nerida looked up in grinning confusion, ‘I forgot.’

  Saman sighed and found another girl who had worked out forty-six.

  Nerida placed the charcoal on the floor, away from her. But during the long day she and the other girls scrawled the illicit secrets that the Beards – the Taliban – had desperately tried to keep from them. Things like arithmetic, writing, geography, Afghan history and Persian literature. Nerida wrote it all with her pencil.

  At the end of the day Saman led the girls in a small prayer and spoke words of quiet hope – giving the little class a dream and an aim.

  When Nerida said those words she held up the pencil and thought about the woman with the steaming loaf and her son. The boy was telling her something as he pushed her pencil back into her pocket, as if the boy had become the people of Kabul. They were saying: We know what you are doing, keep on going!

  Nerida, the girls and the teacher said the words: ‘One day.’

  In March 26, 2002 in Kabul – and throughout Afghanistan – girls walked back to school, ending the six-year ban on education for all women by the outlawed Taliban.

  THE OUTCAST

  Couples have had to battle against race, religion, custom and sex in the past. But in the future there will be a new problem – and this may be harder to solve.

  From a distance they looked odd. When they stood still they were a stick and a ball, fork and pudding, spaghetti and meatball. When they moved, the long one was a shadow, gliding effortlessly across the desert, the plump one was a misshapen ball, bouncing beside the shadow with bright tenacity. Different animals, but they were together.

  Down on the stony flat Alice bounced sideways and fell. Weyen ghosted to her side, caught her thick gloves and slowly pulled her to her feet. She rocked in her immense boots, then steadied.

  ‘You all right?’ Weyen said into his mouthpiece.

  Alice kicked at a scarred black rock and said nothing.

  Weyen tapped gently on her helmet. ‘Anyone there?’

  ‘All right already.’ Alice pushed at him clumsily. ‘The Whoops-a-Daisy girl strikes again. How many times has it been now?’

  ‘I would never count.’ Weyen tried to smile around his mouthpiece. ‘With Lumps we expect it.’

  Alice did not smile back. She could see her image in Weyen’s dark goggles – a huge white sugar-baby, a fat balloon with gloved arms, booted legs, domed helmet, radio, air supply, all sticking out like engineer’s mistakes.

  You could not tell whether this mess was man, woman or monkey, but with Weyen it was different. No helmet, for a start. Oh, there were the goggles and the mouthpiece and the air tank – so small – on his back, but the rest of it, the shimmering gold suit, the gloves and the boots, were part of him, a second skin. You could see his long muscles moving. The kid dresses up in style. It was so unfair …

  ‘Have you tried to wear a spacesuit, Weyen?’

  The smile disappeared. ‘No. Never had to. I’m sorry, it must be hard to put up with.’

  Alice laughed, briefly and bitterly. ‘It’s like wading through porridge. You don’t really touch anything, not even when you fall.’

  ‘Maybe we should have come out on the scooters.’

  Alice waved her glove and sighed. ‘No, forget it. I wanted to walk, and I will walk. And fall. Let’s go.’ She strode out, waiting for her boot to pound into the red dust before she swung her other boot forward.

  Weyen slid beside her. ‘Sorry I called you a Lump.’

  Alice wafted a glove out, caught his hand and squeezed it. ‘That’s all right. You weren’t calling me a Lump. You – all of you – are calling all of us Lumps.’

  ‘Yeh, well … Maybe we ought to stop it.’

  She shook her head and then realised he couldn’t see her in the helmet. ‘No. Not until we stop calling you Spiders.’

  ‘Spiders?’ He hadn’t heard that one. He laughed lightly. ‘Nice. Spiders?’

  ‘Oh yes, pet Spiders.’

  ‘I don’t mind being a pet Spider.’

  ‘Of course, not all Spiders are pets.’

  ‘Of course. Ah … am I a pet Spider?’

  Alice stopped and turned to face him. ‘More than that …’ Alarm swept across her face. ‘Can they hear us?’

  ‘No worries.’ Weyen touched his mouthpiece. ‘We’re on local.’

  ‘All right, okay.’ But Alice let Weyen’s glove go. ‘You are never alone, are you? Never get to be alone.’ She rolled in silence towards a high, wind-carved bluff. ‘I don’t think it looks like a cathedral.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know. Grandad called it that. I call it The Bear.’

  ‘The Bear?’

  ‘From a book I read.’

  ‘Big bear.’

  ‘Everything is big here.’

  When they reached the scarred bluff Weyen supported Alice at an angle so they could see the top. Strange figures standing on pillars, in hollows, all carved by the wind.

  ‘One of them is looking at me,’ Alice said.

  ‘Don’t worry, it likes you.’

  Weyen led her around the Cathedral’s base until they reached the purple canyon behind it. The high walls toppled across the sky towards each other, but never quite touching. The canyon was nothing but rock and dust, but it seethed with movement, almost alive. Trapped dust clouds heaved against overhangs, shadows shimmered over the twisted ground, a restless wind whimpered past dark caves.

  ‘How’s that, then?’ Weyen said proudly.

  ‘It’s great. A little frightening, but great. A bit like the Grand Canyon.’

  Weyen frowned briefly. ‘This one is small. But we have a canyon that would run all the way across America. And a volcano that makes Everest look like a foothill.’

  ‘All right, all right, Weyen. It’s a lovely planet you’ve got here. I’ve always said that.’

  ‘Yeah, but you keep on comparing it with Earth. Like “It’s nice, but it hasn’t got our seas, our forests, our snow.” You can’t take the planet for itself, like a gem, the only planet like it in the universe.’

  ‘I can’t help it, Weyen. I’m from Earth, I have to compare everything with what I am used to.’

  ‘And we have to look like a pile of rocks compared with your perfect blue jewel, hey?’

  ‘It’s not perfect, but it’s got life.’

  Weyen rocked his head back, as if Alice had slapped him. He stepped ahead, keeping his face from Alice.

  Alice sucked her lip. ‘Weyen, I didn’t mean —’

  Weyen shook his head, almost violently. But when he turned to Alice he was wearing a smile, as if it were a mask. ‘Course, we got Martians.’

 
Alice relaxed. ‘Sure. With canals all over the place.’

  ‘No, really.’ He sounded serious.

  ‘What, you found some sort of bacteria? Martian Flu?’

  ‘No, nothing tiny like that. It’s funny you weren’t told about it.’

  ‘All right, where are these Martians?’

  Weyen pointed into the canyon. ‘You can see them in there. You want to take the risk?’

  ‘All right Weyen, you show me your Martian monsters. Go on.’

  ‘Well, you did ask …’

  Weyen slid into the canyon, weaving through a forest of rock pinnacles and tall willy-willys dancing in the sun. He stopped briefly before the whisper of a path along the canyon wall.

  ‘We have to climb.’ He clipped a line from Alice’s suit to his then moved slowly up the path.

  Alice shuffled behind him with growing uneasiness as they rose above the pinnacles, the willy-willys, through the brown fog of a trapped dust cloud. She was shuffling sideways when the cloud drifted apart, giving her a sudden glimpse of the yawning drop below them. The pinnacles were now no more than splinters in the sand.

  This was no longer a joke. They had gone too far, too high. She was on an ancient planet, where rivers once flowed, where rain once fell, where air had once been warm enough to breathe. Where Martians could have lived, where they could be living now.

  ‘We’re nearly there,’ Weyen panted into his mouthpiece.

  Alice did not want to go on, but the line at her waist tugged at her.

  Ten minutes later they stepped onto a broad ledge that fronted into a black tunnel.

  ‘In there?’ whispered Alice.

  ‘Through there. You can see the other side.’

  Alice saw the circle of light in the darkness. Yes, it wasn’t too far away, not too far into the darkness.

  ‘Okay?’

  She nodded.

  He stepped into the tunnel and she followed. The darkness swept over them like a blanket. The circle of light disappeared and she could hear only her panting breath and his slower sighing. That was Weyen’s breath, wasn’t it?

  Wait, wait. She was in a spacesuit wasn’t she? Wouldn’t that have a light in the helmet? Turn it on with one of the touch buttons here and …