by M G Vassanji
As the night fell, we lingered together outside, despite the growing chill, she stretched out on the lounge chair and I on the blanket on the ground beside her, the partly bare tree branches rustling overhead, the sky a clear black and the first stars in focus. Once more we soberly repeated the mantra, thanked our good fortune that we lived in the civilized part of the globe, the best in every way, and we wondered aloud why anyone from these parts would wish to visit those dangerous places, stopping short of saying, Serves those tourists right for their folly and arrogance. But then I was reminded of my own visit to Maskinia as a student. A lark in March was how it was billed, that carefree getaway under a warm sun by a beach, where we were spoilt by luxury and excess. And then the reverse side to the heavenly—the shock and guilt of seeing raw deprivation, humanity degraded. The resentment, contempt, envy we saw in the locals during our sojourn into a village.
—Friendly looks too? she asked, just to test me.
—I suppose. Yes. But we felt vulnerable and scared. Even when we stopped and treated the kids to colas—which were not supposed to be safe but we all had them too—and they rushed at us happily, hands outstretched…That was youthful indulgence, and a long time ago. But we grew up and cured ourselves of our guilt and confused sentimentality.
The ensuing silence drew us into our own thoughts. Mine drifted towards Presley and Joe Green. The Department demanded. What had I got myself into? I thought of Radha. Rather charming, and how she had squeezed my arm. Beware of them, Joe Green had warned. Beside me Joanie stirred, and I became aware that we were being watched. From the hedge out front came a steady chorus of the night insects; in the distance somewhere down the road a girl shouted at a guy—students most likely; someone was listening to orchestra music. A figure passed beyond the hedge in the dark, and soon after a car door opened, then closed, and the car drove away. Was that my stalker?
She turned to me.—Do we have a responsibility towards them? Those people there, on the other side?
She had now put on her sweater, for it had turned decidedly chilly. Rushed by a tender feeling, I reached out and caressed the curve of her hip, mathematically smooth. It deserved an equation with exponentials. She put her hand on mine. It felt cool.
—Yes, Joanie, I answered,—but from a distance. We must preserve our well-being now or we’ll destroy human life on the planet—and everywhere else. All the culture and civilization, the civic and social fabric of our existence—a wonderful, complex construct that actually functions. Think about it…we’ve come to it after centuries of experience, history…much of it violent…
My voice almost cracked at this, and she gave me a quick look. Where did that emotion come from? I believed what I’d just said but had never articulated it this way, and so strongly, as though—now I think about it—I sensed also the tip of a reservation and had to push it back. If we allow doubts about ourselves, then where are we?
We became silent and perhaps she was thinking about what I had just said. Then she observed,
—This complex construct surely includes charity; surely it includes our relationship with them; surely we’re a part of them as they are of us.
—Of course. But a diseased part, then. An incurable part.
—I don’t agree.
Later, inside the house, this intimacy extended into lovemaking, and as I lay back I marvelled at my willpowered performance—lowering myself from the lofty philosophical to the precarious male animal. Perhaps it was the tension of the last few days that was the aphrodisiac.
Why did my sexual performance so obsess me? Because it affirmed my new, rejuvenated life? My worth as her partner?
I was intrigued and unsettled by her line of questioning. I would never have imagined her capable of paying heed to, let alone showing compassion for, those out there who are commonly dismissed as the Barbarians. If she had expressed any serious thought before, I had not paid attention. The young to me were beautiful, selfish, and narcissistic. Perhaps I had got off on the wrong tack with her, seeing all along only her physical flawlessness and good nature to my repaired decrepitude and anxieties. I should have thought of her as a partner and equal in every way. Instead, I’d patronized and babied her all along. I was the narcissist, obsessed with myself.
But then why blame myself only? Shouldn’t she have imposed otherwise on me than she did? Did my age—my oldness—intimidate her? She had patronized me in return.
When she was asleep and beautifully sonorous, I gave her a peck on the tip of her nose and padded over to the study.
SIXTEEN
The Notebook
Holly Chu, you’ve been inside my skin as Presley has. I sit here and evoke you, why I cannot explain. Forgive me if I misrepresent you in this alternative reality that I create—speculate?—for you. And for me. I could not imagine you dead and eaten, that there was not some humanity in those people there jostling against the brutality. How can we believe only the worst of them when there are children also running around laughing and playing, and men and women do occasionally sing and love? You showed them to us. We didn’t see. I refused to see. Except here.
Joanie: Surely we are a part of them as they are of us…I should have listened to you, Joanie, and then perhaps I could have kept you away from the clutches of the Friend.
—
#48
The Journalist
Layela, the woman who had become her lover, took her outside and down the street, along which Holly had strolled innocently only the day before, in her Safari Apparel outfit, her little mike on her collar to collect all the sounds for her audience back home. The street was noisy and crowded as usual, a few small trucks were parked at the side. People looked at her but not more curiously than before—foreigners did strange things anyway. Making small talk as they walked, they went past a small mosque, a boxlike building, from which began a faint, half-hearted prayer call, and across a littered unbuilt lot on to the next street, which looked similar to the first but was quieter, and closed off halfway by a towering wooden gate some twenty feet high. Three young men stood guard, automatics slung casually round their shoulders. Making sly, suggestive comments, they opened a squeaky door within the gate to let the two women enter an enclosed settlement. The road they were on branched into two short streets that curved and met further ahead. The houses here were of faded white stone, as in Layela’s street, but better preserved if smaller. The two women took the rightmost and larger and busier of the roads and passed a few women sitting outside their houses, busy with domestic chores, children playing around them. There came sounds of television and music from the surroundings and, when she paid more attention, the vaporous aroma of cooked rice, and the very typical clamour of older kids at a school somewhere. A customer stood outside a supply shop, chatting with the stall owner; further up there appeared to be a garage, from which a jeep reversed and then turned and came in their direction and passed them. The two walking women merited barely a glance. If not for the sight of the occasional weapon on the men, the scene looked tranquil. Suddenly they were beside a long wall on their right, recently painted white, with a blue border at the bottom. Stark as the weapons on the street was the steel barbed wire that topped this wall. At its centre was an opening with a gate, through which the two women entered into a compound. It was paved smoothly with cement and partly covered with a mat, and furnished with assorted chairs and a low table. The walls were hung with brightly coloured cloth, gashes of yellow, brown, black, and green. In the middle of this compound, on an antique wooden chair with a high straight back, sat a distinguished-looking elder with a flowing white beard and long hair, wearing a black robe embroidered with a green thread. His skin was the colour of polished oak, his eyes were deep brown. His mouth had a thin half-smile upon it. His arms rested on the flat, wide armrests of his chair, his curved right forefinger steadily and very lightly beating on it. He wore brown beads around his neck.
Layela went forward, bowed to the elder, and kissed his hand. She turned to Holly a
nd said,—Greet Nkosi, our chief and protector.
Holly stepped forward to do as bid.
SEVENTEEN
—HI, SAID RADHA.—Fancy seeing you again.
—You mean you never expected to see me ever again?
She smiled.—It’s karma.
This time, failing to get one of the sofas, I’d found myself a high perch at the window of Lovelys, overlooking Yonge Street. It was windy outside, dust blowing, people in a hurry. A few wisps of her brown hair had run loose down the side of her face. She’d just walked in.
—May I, she said and took the next stool.
She quickly tidied up her hair and swept an imagined fleck of dust from one cheek. The red dot on her forehead was as bewitching as before.
I had returned to Lovelys hoping I’d find her here. Being silly, I told myself, but there’d been something attractive and positive about her last time that I found catching. I’d never met anyone so straightforward and forthcoming. Trusting. Happy. Sunny. Her thoughts about life intrigued me too, even though I didn’t believe any of them.
Perhaps she’d guessed that I’d returned only to see her, for she inched closer. And the sari, I noticed, was very clinging and sensual. She noticed my naughty stare.
—What a coincidence! Do you work nearby? What kind of work do you do, Frank?
—I’m a doctor…
—A doctor! What kind?
—Just an ordinary one.
What kind of doctor doesn’t like to say? My kind. Would she understand if I told her I gave people new memories so they could begin new lives? No. She didn’t believe in breaking the karmic cycle. Well, if it’s breakable, why not?
—And you? I asked.—What line of work are you in?
—I’m a people facilitator—a friend-maker. I help people make friends.
What did that mean, I wondered. A matchmaker of sorts? The attendant announced my drink and cheerfully placed it before me in a large mug. He shouted loudly enough for all to find out that here was a special coffee fortified to help the aged keep young. But I was not the only one there who’d ordered it.
—Be my friend, then.
—I am your friend.
—Oh. And I guess I’m yours.
—You must be certain. I know you are. Are you still assessing me?
And we stared at each other, our smiles not of seductive parrying but of friendly jousting.
I asked,—Do you come here every day, to protest? That’s hard work.
—Except weekends. I see you don’t think much of what we do.
—I don’t see the point, to be honest. Do you expect to change the world? Do you think people will give up their chance to live longer? It doesn’t seem to me that way. Progress proceeds one way—forward.
I pointed with a finger for emphasis. Mischievously, she grabbed it with one hand, then let it go.
—I see you’re going to be a hard case.
—You want to change the world.
—Yes. And today I’ll start with you. I’ll be honest with you too. I know what you do. Someone pointed you out to me once, on the street. You are a well-known doctor. A rejuvie doctor.
—It’s not that I operate a concentration camp.
She laughed delightedly.—Don’t be so serious. I didn’t mean it that way. But you see, you, most people, are under the illusion that natural life ends and must therefore be lengthened artificially. Well, I’ve got news for you. It doesn’t. The body ends. The soul returns in another body. And I’ve got more news for you. There is an eternal life which is even better than this one…
And thus she went on. I was tempted to tease her, Then what would be the point of your pamphlet with the blue child-god and the chanting and singing? How does that garish display accommodate the idea of eternal life and the soul? I knew she would have to resort to that cure-all of symbolism, but not wanting to spoil the mood, I kept quiet and just watched her. There was perhaps a silly smile on my face, such was her charm. Simply listening to her speak was enjoyable—the impassioned voice, the friendly manner not yielding even for a moment.
I was not unaware that it was her naïve beliefs that rendered the woman before me so deliriously happy; they left no room for irony and cold reason. The curse of so many of us. She was blessed. We spent more time together than her customary tea break, and I’d not enjoyed myself so much for a long time and felt as free of anxiety. When we got up, we agreed to meet again at the same place next week.
On the train back I allowed a feeling of guilt at my faithlessness. I had no excuse, not even that I was repaying Joanie in kind. I’d done what I was not expected to do, I’d acted out of character—and it had brought about a quiet sort of happiness in me, an understated exhilaration. Surely that was bad faith. Joanie did what she did, without stealth, without much joy either. I knew that. I was the anchor in her life, the support of our relationship. Did I have a right to be happy on my own? In secret? I was the cursed one.
—
Back at the clinic, I completed some reports and took a phone call from DNI, the Department of New Identities, regarding Sheila Walktall, and gave the bureaucrat my opinion on her application. He said would I reconsider? Her physician had strongly recommended she be allowed to go ahead with a transition. Her personal problems merited that. I agreed to see her again. It was a little later than usual when I left. On my way out, Lamar approached me, grinning, and explained to me the cause of the hubbub in the outer office some moments ago.
—Did you hear, Doc? Holly is alive!—that reporter who was eaten!
After making suitable exclamations, and having laughed at a joke about how Holly might have tasted, I hurried home, rather rattled. I could not quite rationalize to myself why I felt the way I did—not happy. On my way I thought I heard a cry or two of Holly’s alive! Someone said Traitor!—the significance of which I would only realize later.
—
What’s happened to you, Holly Chu? You’re alive, after all…and turned into one of them? You were better off dead, our girl hero. But who am I to say that.
Is someone playing a joke?
There was a brazen new image on her Profile. A thin smile on her face, wearing army fatigues, she was standing on a dirt road holding a red flag in one hand and a raised automatic weapon in the other. She hadn’t looked very strong before, that gun she was holding up could not be light. There was a young dark woman with her, slim and tall, standing behind and to a side. It was a posed photo, with a patchy green landscape and a blue sky in the background, both girls looking wide-eyed at the camera. Holly looked drained and pale, her hair was uncombed, but there was a definite glow on the other one’s face.
A boldfaced banner under the two women proclaimed: BRING THE BORDER DOWN! WE ARE NOT RATS! OWEO!—ONE WORLD FOR EVERY ONE!
No, this was no joke. She was alive, and that picture, as we know, would soon find itself on a radical poster. All those messages of sympathy, the heap of bouquets on her Profile, had been replaced by vicious invective. You bitch, you communist Asian cunt, you traitor…Heaps of shit. Overnight, Holly became the most hated creature this side of the Long Border.
Who was the real Holly Chu? The curious, good-natured, and well-meaning Toronto girl who loved to report from faraway places, or the revolutionary behind the Border? We’re a part of them as they are of us…
We who have violated personal history and personal relationships in our bid to become immortal, can we now really know for certain who we are?
EIGHTEEN
—OKAY, OKAY, I GRANT YOU THIS—Bill Goode, wearing an off-white collarless Indian jacket over a blue shirt to match his hair, was saying to his guest, both now seated on easy chairs behind a low, long table, Bill holding up a hand to surrender the point.—They don’t actually eat people—but they Chu’d this one up proper!
He turned his head to flash his wide smile at the audience, who broke out into predictable laughter. There were shouts of approval. A delayed guffaw was followed by more laughter.
; The guest was Ralph Bloom, a middle-aged academic in a grey suit and red tie.
Bill asked him,—And you call it what, the Finland syndrome?
—Stockholm. The Stockholm syndrome, Ralph responded patiently, knowing full well that the error was deliberate.
—In which the victim, one Holly Chu of XBN, spouts the cause of her victimizers. Actually demands ransom for the kidnapped tourists! Can you believe this! Come on, Ralph. Here’s one of our best and brightest, from a good and accomplished family and educated at one of our best universities at great expense—and known personally to me and liked and supported by all of us here at the station—what’s going on? We’ve been bazoonked!
—In the Stockholm syndrome, said Ralph,—for which there are numerous precedents, the victim is frightened and confused, and in that state, a part of her mind empathizes with her kidnappers’ cause—which in a simplistic way seems to make sense to her—to many of us, in fact. Subconsciously the victim at the same time believes that by pleasing her kidnappers she can win her freedom. She’s wrong, for her victimizers are terrorists and cowards.
—It doesn’t look like a part of her mind that’s doing the talking. Look, she’s holding up a gun and she’s the one making the demands. And let me tell you, she’s convincing and scary. It’s Dr Jekyll and Ms Hyde. She believes what she’s saying. Don’t tell me she doesn’t!
A shaky, blurry image of Holly Chu dropped down in front of Bill and Ralph, and spoke to the audience. It had been transmitted from Maskinia.
—I am Umoja wa Kwanza of the Freedom Warriors of Maskinia. We have taken nineteen of your overfed, ignorant citizens as hostages. Peeping Tom tourists such as these come to gawk while our people die of hunger, disease, and radiation…
