Six Degrees of Freedom

by Nicolas Dickner

  There’s a hint of reproach in her voice. How many weeks has it been since Lisa last called her mother? She’s lost count.

  “You’re busy?”

  “I’m driving.”

  “Busy in general?”

  “Oh, yes. Yes. Pretty much, yeah.”

  Lisa takes a passing look at the odometer: ninety-five kilometres an hour. Her mind struggles passively to wriggle out of this conversation.

  “I was in Montreal yesterday afternoon. I went by HardKo. Your boss said you quit your job during the winter.”

  “New job.”

  “Oh? Where are you working now?”

  “I’m going to get a new job. Soon. I want to finish my term first.”

  A studied micro-silence—Josée takes a sip of something. She decides to get to the point of the call.

  “Are you coming to IKEA with me this Sunday?”

  Lisa suppresses a sigh. Her mother is afflicted with an ironclad karma: her new boyfriend isn’t fond of IKEA, like the previous boyfriend, and the one before that, and Robert back in the day. At this rate, no matter how many partners she has, Josée Savoie is likely to solicit Lisa for Sunday visits to IKEA for the rest of her life.

  Incidentally, which piece of furniture does she want to replace this time?

  “My coffee table.”

  “Your coffee table.”

  “The top is all scratched.”

  “We bought it together, when was it…two years ago?”

  “I know.”

  “I’m driving right now. Is there anything else you wanted to tell me?”

  “I’ll come pick you up Sunday morning.”

  “I have to go.”

  “Okay. See you Sunday. You’ll have supper with us after?”

  “I didn’t say yes.”

  “Nine thirty.”

  “I didn’t say yes!”

  —

  Surplus Industrials Peter is exactly how Lisa pictured it: a vast empty lot in the sub-suburbs of Montreal, strewn with obsolete farm machinery, M35 Canadian army trucks and reinforced concrete pipes. Nothing is new. Everything containing ferrous metal is slowly taking on an orangeish hue, and the company’s office is housed in a trailer in the same tones.

  Piotr speaks English with an accent only a Slavophile linguist would be able to pinpoint on a map of Europe. He leads Lisa to the far end of the yard, where the obscure object of desire lies between an old snow blower from the Saint-Lambert municipality and a batch of PVC cisterns. It’s a large white container bearing the seven-pointed star of Maersk and speckled with rust. Lisa inspects the refrigeration unit with excessive care. Piotr bangs the steel with his fist.

  “Mint condition!”

  He opens the doors as if this were a precious coach. Lisa turns on her flashlight and climbs inside.

  “Mint condition! Only one former owner. Need CSC certification? I can arrange.”

  Lisa listens with half an ear. Under her feet, the plastic embossing is as abraded as a dance floor. Lisa pictures millions of pallets of grapefruit and bok choy waltzing back and forth on this floor. She sniffs the air and thinks she detects a faint scent of strawberries. The walls are clean, no trace of mould. A few minor dents. She trains her flashlight on the ventilation grilles. No rust.

  Outside, Piotr stands around, takes a phone call, converses in Croatian or Bulgarian, lights a cigarette, interrupts his conversation to mention something to Lisa about the paint, the hinges, the rivets. She nods.

  It starts to rain. Piotr flicks away his still-smoking cigarette and takes shelter inside the container. The smell of wet tobacco overlays that of the strawberries.

  The negotiations are fierce and trilingual. The phone rings, Piotr ignores it. Lisa offers twenty-five hundred. Piotr pretends to rip his heart out and throw it on the floor—the refrigeration unit alone is worth thirty-five hundred! Give me a break, Lisa’s smile replies, this wreck is almost as old as I am…The phone rings again. Slavic swear words. Different amounts are uttered. Pouts and grimaces. They agree on thirty-one hundred, to be paid on the spot.

  Outside, the cigarette butt persists in smoking despite the rain.

  They shut the container and dash toward the trailer to finalize the payment and sign the documents. Even here, in the small intestine of the industrialized world, there are forms to fill out, stamp and initial. Paperwork rules the world. Lisa shivers in the rain. Fucking paperwork.

  —

  The rain gives way to aggressive sunshine, and the interior of Autocars Mondiaux is stifling in spite of the wide-open door. Time for a drink. A FedEx truck drove by ten minutes ago; since then, nothing.

  Lisa downs her second litre of mineral water sitting cross-legged on the doorstep of the garage. She looks at the containers parked across the street. A guy perched on the edge of a loading dock is having a cigarette. Lisa wonders what exactly goes on in that anonymous beige warehouse. The containers are nameless. They could hold electronics, winter boots, hashish or Romanian nationals. There’s no way of knowing. Opacity is the cornerstone of modern capitalism.

  The sun is relentless, and Lisa feels she is about to fall asleep when, suddenly, the starred white container—her starred white container—comes into view down the street. It looks enormous, twice as long as it did at Surplus Peter, and tall beyond reason. The big rig nearly drives right by, slows down all the same and parks in the street. The truck driver looks like an appliance repairman: blue uniform and matching cap, ballpoint pen in his shirt pocket, magnificent moustache. He looks at the document on his clipboard.

  “Rokov Export?”

  “That’s me.”

  Lisa feels herself blushing slightly. She can’t bring herself to take the name seriously. Éric was the one who suggested using Rokov & Co. Global Import Export Inc. For some mysterious reason, he found it amusing. Corporate humour, no doubt; she didn’t make an issue of it. Since then, whenever she has used the name—to rent the garage, open an account with Hydro-Québec or have the container delivered—she felt as if she were asking for a bank loan wearing a clown costume and holding a bunch of balloons.

  The driver points to the Autocars Mondiaux sign with his clipboard. “That’s misleading.”

  “We’re going to change it soon.”

  They shake hands. Then the driver pushes up the visor of his cap and eyes the garage door. “Do I back it inside?”

  “Will it fit?”

  Without saying a word, he climbs back behind the wheel and starts the manoeuvre. The trailer describes a flawless curve and rolls through the doorway on the first try, while Lisa looks on in amazement. The driver brings the trailer to a stop in the exact centre of the garage. A perfect fit, with just enough room left to open the container doors and work unimpeded. Lisa suppresses a surge of claustrophobia.

  The driver cranks away at the handle and lowers the trailer’s landing gear, disconnects the compressed air tube and electrical cable connector, and releases the fifth wheel. No wasted moves, no hint of effort or hesitation. The demeanour of someone who has done this millions of times. Just before leaving, he holds out the clipboard with the inevitable forms to sign.

  “Here and here, and your initials here.”

  He leaves Lisa the yellow copy and wishes her good day.

  The tractor disappears at the corner of the street and the garage is again plunged into silence. Lisa contemplates the container, doing her best to realize it is really and truly there in front of her. Just as she closes the garage door, Lisa remembers Éric’s special request: a picture of the whole beast, “not a close-up.”

  Right from their initial discussions in February, Éric made known his intention to document every single stage of the project. He wanted it all: CAD files and sketches on napkins, every version of the plans, the technical remarks, the inventory of parts and tools used. When Lisa announced the work was officially getting under way, he made her swear she would photograph everything. Lisa takes a few steps back, points her telephone at the garage and captures the
big box for posterity in both portrait and landscape formats. She looks at the results and frowns. This old Nokia never did take terrific pictures.

  She sprints over to the Dodge, opens the glove compartment and grabs Mrs. Le Blanc’s camera. She hasn’t checked to see if it still works, but if it does, Éric will appreciate the nod. Walking back to the garage, she inserts two AA batteries taken from a flashlight. The suspense is short-lived. The PowerShot does not respond. As dead as a brick.

  Lisa removes the memory card and slips it into her pocket. Then she lobs the camera into the garbage drum, which resonates for a long time, like a gong in a Buddhist monastery.

  She rubs her hands together: there’s work to be done. She punches the huge red button, and the garage door comes down over the scene amid the jangle of pulleys and poorly oiled steel.

  JAY GOES BACK UP TO the seventh floor, still half dazed. She waves her access card and walks through the glass doors. She has the feeling everyone can readily decode the thoughts imprinted on her face. She cuts across to the washroom and examines herself in the mirror. She splashes some water on her face, rubs her eyes. Good enough.

  It’s dead calm in the Enclave. Mahesh is finishing off the box of Whippets with the glassy gaze of a heroin addict. Laura is sipping some herbal tea. Sergeant Gamache’s office lacks Sergeant Gamache. Jay stumbles on the short pile carpet, recovers with a little pas de deux that takes her to the coffee machine and, while she’s there, pours herself a cup. Then, cup in hand, she sidles up to Laura, trying to act as casual as possible.

  “So tell me, you wouldn’t, by any chance, have a dossier on stowaways?”

  Laura shoots her a peeved look over the top of her glasses. “No, I don’t, by any chance, have a dossier on stowaways.”

  Still sitting in her office chair, she propels herself with a skilful kick over to the grey filing cabinet, of which she is wholly and exclusively in charge. She takes the key hanging from her neck and unlocks a drawer, which opens with a panzer-like rumble. Squeezed neatly inside are some thirty bulky files.

  “What is it you want exactly?”

  “I don’t know. How are things classified?”

  “Location, vehicle and year.”

  “Vehicle?”

  “Ship, truck, wagon, landing gear…”

  “Container?”

  “I have that.”

  She extracts a thick binder and hands it to Jay. It contains hundreds, possibly thousands, of articles, mostly in English, arranged in chronological order. The oldest ones were taken from microfilms dating back to the sixties; the resolution is muddy, there are words and lines missing. The quality gradually improves, with the most recent articles printed directly from the databases. Laura gestures somewhat apologetically.

  “The last five years are missing. It’s not worth printing them, since I’m going to digitize everything when I find the time. And then”—she gives the file cabinet a little kick—”I’m getting rid of this fossil.”

  Jay hefts the binder. “There are only articles here?”

  “I appended some photos, and some documents that are more technical. Reports from the government, the RCMP, FBI, Homeland Security.”

  “Can I borrow it?”

  “For as long as you want. It makes pretty interesting bedtime reading. Ever hear of Amir Farid Rizk?”

  “No.”

  “October 2001. It’s worth a peek.”

  A WEEK HAS ELAPSED SINCE Lisa closed the garage door, and she won’t be opening it again.

  The young woman is suffering from structural paranoia. After the cash, the fake IDs and bogus company names, after the intricate logistical schemes and the VPN encrypted messages, she has now deliberately shut herself in. Éric insisted on compartmentalizing? Well, Lisa is compartmentalizing. It’s out of the question to open the garage door again. She hasn’t even washed the windowpanes. Security through grime.

  She keeps at it fifteen hours a day in what feels like a poorly ventilated sauna—a most peculiar sauna, actually, where the radio plays very softly and the smell is a blend of coffee and tin solder. She has just spent a week modifying the container’s refrigeration unit.

  As soon as she unscrewed the panels, she could see the machine hadn’t been cleaned in years. The circuits were plastered with tropical grunge—bits of leaves, dust, flies and even a huge yellow and black spider, shrivelled up in a corner. The creature ended up in an old pill bottle; Lisa couldn’t bring herself to throw it in the trash. It was a stowaway, a colleague, really, and therefore deserved a minimum of deference.

  When he saw the picture of the creature, Éric’s jaw dropped. He wasn’t likely to stumble on anything like that sitting at his keyboard. He had never seen this sort of spider—by the way, what sort of spider was it? He would do some research, if he found the time.

  Having cleaned everything out using compressed air and then a vacuum cleaner, Lisa got down to the real work. First, she had to make sense of the jumble of coils, accumulators, ventilators and bundles of wires. The wiring diagram glued to the inside of the panel was oily and partly illegible. Lisa had to make do with a user’s manual found on the Web; it was pixelated and fuzzy, but better than nothing.

  In any case, her aim was to dismantle as few parts as possible—a short-circuit or a Freon leak can happen in the blink of an eye. Theoretically, just one or two wires needed to be disconnected for the machine to stop producing cold and confine itself to providing electricity and ventilation. A hatch also had to be fashioned behind one of the control panels so she could enter the container after locking the doors.

  Ten litres of strong coffee and two sleepless nights later, Lisa can see the light at the end of the tunnel. She’s completed the modifications, and the time has come to plug in the golem.

  She unseals a package that arrived from Hong Kong two days ago, containing a fantastically specialized electrical cord designed to connect a nautical refrigeration unit to a 220-volt outlet. Lisa wonders how many people in the world would need a cord like this. At the bottom of the box, she discovers a legal notice in English and Chinese, which she skims over distractedly. Responsibility limited to manufacturing defects bla-bla-bla manufacturer cannot be held liable for bla-bla-bla in the event of electrocution, explosion, fire or any other material damage or physical injury due to incorrect use.

  Lisa crumples the paper and tosses it over her shoulder.

  Holding the adapter cord, she steps up to the refrigeration unit. A few centimetres from the outlet, Lisa hesitates. She recalls the Sunday morning her father got a 220-volt shock: the odour of burnt hair, his arm numb for ten minutes. Many years on, he still has a pinkish scar running across his hand. “Always respect electricity, Lisa,” he would often repeat, and as Lisa plugs in the container, she tells herself that right now a chemical extinguisher would be an excellent sign of respect. She’ll try to keep that in mind next time. If there is a next time.

  She turns on the switch and the ventilator starts up, generating as much noise as a Cessna. Lisa looks at the control panel. The thermometer will have to be tampered with to permanently display three degrees Celsius.

  She straps on her headlamp and climbs into the container. A light puff of air brushes across her forearms. The beam from her lamp shines on the newly installed electrical distribution panel, bristling with wires neatly coiled and tied, like a spiderweb waiting to unfurl.

  Lisa opens the panel door and, clenching her teeth, throws the main switch. No sparks or crackling sound. She flips the breaker switch of circuit number three, and a light bulb at the end of one of the electrical wires comes on at her feet.

  The beast is alive.

  HAVING DITCHED THE RECYCLING BIN in an alley, driven the car back to the rental agency and gone cross-town by bus, Jay comes home to a real-estate marathon in full swing. Alex Onassis has decided he is going to sell the damned duplex tonight or never. Jay doesn’t care—she’s hungry.

  Owing to the events of the past few weeks, domestic affairs have been somewh
at neglected; there’s nothing left but five and a half partly sprouted potatoes, two cans of beer, a bottle of habanero sauce and some cat kibble.

  Speaking of which, how long has it been since she last saw Erwin?

  She scans through the menus on the fridge. Everything looks repulsive. She sets about cooking the potatoes in the last clean pot. Alex Onassis comes and goes, reciting his sales pitch: great exposure, five-minute walk to the metro, elementary school. Roofing redone ten years ago. Electric heating on every floor, two balconies, new asking price. Any questions?

  Jay conspicuously ignores this farcical parade. Seated on the sofa like a queen with her potful of mashed potatoes and a cold beer, she turns her attention to the binder on stowaways. The dossier is both exhaustive and stripped-down: no table of contents, no index, no page numbering. Zero ornamentation. Just raw information, recto and verso. Laura Wissenberg, through and through.

  The oldest articles date back to the late fifties—the dawn of containerization—and the rate of publication steadily increases over the subsequent decades. Jay assumes at first that this curve follows the rising number of stowaway cases, but she soon notices that the articles grow more and more detailed over the years. The specialized vocabulary becomes commonplace, various concepts become implicit. Containers become grist for the media from the moment they crystallize in the collective imagination.

  After all, how can a story be narrated when it unfolds in a place no one can conceptualize?

  Jay knits her brow. Is a container a place? No, not really. But neither is it an ordinary box, or a vehicle, or the transcontinental equivalent of an elevator. It functions at once as object and infrastructure, corrugated steel and database; it falls within culture and the law. For centuries, human beings have been familiar with geography, with concepts such as road, territory, border; but the container eludes geography. It operates on the periphery of the collective consciousness. Thousands of Romanians and Cubans and Chinese enter, or try to enter, North America and Western Europe crammed inside boxes, and no encyclopedia mentions this historic migration.