Restoration

by J. F. Krause

  Finally, Lydia and Marco are getting married in April. We don’t have state sanctioned weddings. If you announce you’re married, and you sign the proper form, then you’re married, at least here in SLO it does. Being married doesn’t mean you have had a wedding though. People usually do something public to sort of cement the deal, and that sometimes involves having a church ceremony that we refer to as a wedding. But not always. Jason Kryschtoff and Mia jumped a broom! They did it in front of city hall, or what passes for city hall. We were there with lots of their customers and friends. I suppose that means that since Kevin and I both refer to each other as husbands, we’re just a signature away from being married, too, maybe? However, thinking we’re married, and acting married doesn’t stop people asking when we are going to actually get married.

  March 4

  I have to leave again. Avery and Marc Remy who is from Paris and also one of the European Representatives, will be accompanying me. Over the last few month there have been a few new communities joining the Coalition, but even more interesting is that several newly organized survivor communities are forming up and not joining us, particularly in Africa and Central Asia. The most intriguing part of all of this is that quite a few of the newly organized survivor groups aren’t joining any of the other existing survivor groupings, either. Rather, some of them are creating brand new community alliances more in keeping with their own ideas.

  Currently, the existing faction that is growing the fastest, even faster than we are, is the Sunni Homeland. They’re still quite a bit smaller than we are, but I think they’re larger than the Caliphate now, and that’s creating a lot of friction between the two largest Sunni groups at the moment. Of course, toss the Shiites into the mix and things are getting more and more complex. Actually, it’s a microcosm of what was going on before The Sickness. Tunis was a very westernized city before The Sickness, and joined the Coalition almost immediately. They continue to gather up survivors from the area who find its relatively laidback attitude and community organization attractive. While they are cut off by land from the other Coalition communities, they have a regular supply line to Malta, and several other Mediterranean communities. They also have a permanent Coalition Navy base and a very well trained community militia.

  Without pre-sickness borders and citizenship rules to contend with, many communities, especially those outside the Coalition have become pretty homogeneous. They have official religions, or languages, or ethnicities and sometimes all three. That can’t be said of Coalition Communities. Coalition Communities are usually fairly diverse. As a matter of fact, the non Coalition settlements probably owe much of their homogeneity to the fact that marginalized residents in their vicinity can just pack up and join us.

  Qatar and Kuwait had huge noncitizen resident populations before The Sickness so their survivors reflect that previous reality. In addition, most of the noncitizen survivors in the surrounding communities used both cities as their jumping off points when they sought to return to their original homelands. But not all of them left once they arrived in Qatar or Kuwait. As these communities got organized, quite a large percentage of their surviving non native residents ultimately decided to stay put, or at least in the area, and both communities joined the Coalition. They don’t advertise like the Kurdish areas do, but they’re still getting migrants from other areas, particularly foreign nationals from the area. They also seem to be picking up a lot of fellow Arabs, secular Arabs in particular. Both communities remain nominally and culturally Muslim, but with a significant admixture of Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, and secular community members. There are even a few animists. In the end though, Coalition Communities are made up of people who are very ‘live and let live’ when it comes to differences, including religion. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have come or stayed.

  That casual acceptance of disparate religions, ethnicities, and cultures is one of the distinctive qualities that separates the Coalition from almost all the other governing groups that are either formed or forming around the world. Two examples of newly formed alliances are New China, and the newly forming Organization of African Cities, both of which are based in part on either a particular ethnic, racial, or cultural identity, but not particularly religion, although the OAC allows local communities to establish a preferred religion if they choose. New India is probably the most like the Coalition overall, except, of course, for their establishment of the Hindu religion as a pillar of their government. All in all, there’s a reason why not everyone wants to be a part of the Coalition of Communities.

  The Coalition is in the process of strengthening military presences in both Kuwait and Qatar, at their request. And to give credit where credit is due, April prepared much of the information for this report. She didn’t come, but she didn’t want me to be clueless when I got to Erbil for the meetings with the local Coalition leaders. She was right on the money, too.

  March 18

  The first leg of our journey was to Paris where I met with the regional leaders, not just from the French communities, but from pretty much the whole of Europe. Not every community was represented, but, at least as far as I could tell, every country with a Coalition community had a member present. This is something most of the regions do; they get together to work on their plan for better cooperation amongst their communities. They don’t govern each other, but they do get together and discuss things in depth. We’re all still learning and this seemed like a good way to communicate between communities.

  I only got to spend two nights in Paris, but during that time I got to see several of their amazing landmarks. Even though Paris has over 3,000 people now, everything was virtually empty. Notre Dame is so beautiful and, except for a caretaker and a couple of worshippers, it was completely vacant as Avery showed me around and gave me a running description of what I was seeing. We also spent an hour at the Eiffel Tower looking down at the city that was almost devoid of traffic. Of course, I insisted on visiting the Louvre, but this time there was a docent provided by the museum. Avery works closely with the staff there, and, while I was being escorted by my own personal tour guide, he took advantage of his time without me distracting him to consult with the museum staff.

  I also managed to get myself taken to Versailles for a whirlwind side trip. Since it was just one of the curators for the palace and me, I was able to do it in record time. It helped that there were very few people in any of the places I went. It may be centuries before we have crowds of people anywhere.

  The Parisians have made it a major project to clear the city of cars and the bodies of the victims. I don’t know what they did with the cars, but I know they cremated the dead. Most of the Coalition Communities have done that, at least around their current residential areas, but few have done it as amazingly as here in Paris. We’ve all taken on the task of clearing bodies from every place we can, but most of us haven’t done such a complete job with the unneeded automobiles. Almost everywhere, the task of sanitation has been simply overwhelming. SLO is an exception to that, but we are a relatively large community in a formerly much smaller city. Paris was a city with millions of people, and they have done wonders.

  We had two state dinners while I was in Paris. One was with the group that represented almost every country in the European region, and the other was with just a few of the Parisian leadership team. Frankly, I was so tired during both meals that I’m afraid I didn’t actually appreciate what were probably two of the best meals of my life. I was grateful I had taken the time to learn proper dining etiquette from Avery, though. I wasn’t perfect, but I was a great deal more proficient than I would have been without his tutoring sessions. I’ll never get used to eating with my left hand. Thankfully, I didn’t have any political complications to consider. This was a long flight and I don’t just walk off a plane and do my best thinking. But thinking wasn’t really on the agenda here. The Europeans are very organized and very civilized. To my way of thinking, every single one of them looked like they must have been aristocrats
in their former lives. That decidedly wasn’t true I was to discover.

  Marc had been a policeman. Like most everyone else, he was attracted to a gathering of his fellow survivors because a teenager started a siren. From the moment he arrived at Notre Dame Cathedral, the city center of Paris, he became the ‘go to’ man. The teenager, Yves Germand, was one of Todd’s fellow tech savvy survival buddies. Over dinner, I got to talk with the young man who started the siren in front of Notre Dame, Paris. He seemed in awe of me at first and stumbled with his English as he told me about being so relieved when he came across Todd on the Internet. The first thing he did was go to the city center and start a siren. Almost immediately Marc showed up on his motorcycle. Yves was scared to death thinking maybe he’d done something illegal, but Marc listened to him and together with others who arrived over the next few hours, they put up searchlights, started siren patrols, and checked schools, hospitals, and got the Paris survivors organized. Inevitably, Yves wanted to talk about his upcoming Gap Year. He still talked with Todd I learned, and they were actually going to be in the same cohort starting May 1.

  From Paris we flew to Tunis, a city that has to be one of the most breathtakingly beautiful cities I’ve seen. The small hotel where we stayed was almost pure white with blue tile everywhere but the walls. The Mediterranean Sea below us was strikingly blue as well, and the sunlight was amazingly clear and almost electric. The city looked as if it were posed for a portrait. Tunis has attracted a diverse mix of residents, but everyone looked as if they were born to be part of all the crisp detail that forced one to look deeply in every direction. People of all colors and ages have make Tunis their home, and they are creating a beautiful, tolerant society.

  Avery had warned me that if I ate everything on my plate I would first grow sluggish and then sleepy and, when all was said and done, fat. He suggested I taste everything once. If something were particularly appealing, I could have two bites, but that was all. He assured me that no matter how little I ate of each offering, by the end of the evening I would be satisfied and grateful I hadn’t eaten everything I was offered. He was right. When I’m at home, we eat very simply and overeating isn’t a problem, but when I travel, all the dinners, at least for me, are events.

  One awkward problem I have to work around is that I don’t drink alcohol. I was raised by a tee-totaler, and I missed out on learning how to drink sensibly. So, for the most part, I put a glass of wine to my lips and let just the smallest drop touch my tongue. Then, I put the glass down. The same is true of beer, and I don’t even pretend to drink anything stronger. I’m not too keen on most desserts either. A bite and I’m done. I also detest Brussels sprouts, or at least I did until I tried them sautéed with spices and olive oil. Mom always just boiled them, I think. I don’t remember since I never ate them if I could avoid it. But, thanks to Avery’s ‘taste everything’ rule, I rediscovered Brussels sprouts as well as a host of other dishes. There were no servings of Brussels sprouts in Tunis this trip, but they have their share of delicious foods that I enjoyed and moved on to something just as flavorful. The thing about being a visiting big wig is that every place I visit wants to serve their very best to me, and I really can’t refuse, but if I’m not careful, I’ll descend into lethargy, and I won’t be any good to anyone. I wonder if that has always been a problem for politicians and statesmen.

  Bright and early the next morning, Marc, Avery and I left Tunis for Erbil to meet first with the local leadership around Erbil, and then the regional coalition leaders and finally with the visiting leaders from the Shiite Framework and the Sunni Homeland. The Caliphate declined the invitation to join the discussion. Just as well I suppose since we are probably going to spend much of our time talking about them. This will be a first for us. Always before my conversations have been with either Coalition leaders or with leaders from communities that wanted to join the Coalition.

  Erbil is a major community in a group of likeminded communities in a landlocked Coalition island largely made up of formerly Kurdish populated territory that spreads from southeastern Turkey and across eastern Syria and northwestern Iran into northern Iraq. After The Sickness, there wasn’t a single surviving government anywhere, but we still use the boundaries from before in order to avoid even more confusion. There is still some resistance by a few to the idea that areas that were once part of an existing country can choose to go a separate way from neighboring communities that still see themselves as the descendants of the earlier governments. Regardless of how anyone feels about it, there is no way now for anyone to force anyone else to adhere to pre-existing laws let alone pre-existing borders. Since the Kurds had been occupied by and subjugated by other countries and ethnic groups for many hundreds of years, as soon as they could they got organized. They were in far better shape to do that than most of their neighbors since they had had a modern, somewhat democratic, quasi-state government before The Sickness.

  Having learned from their history that hesitation is dangerous, they quickly formed a working alliance between groups and communities that were establishing themselves in the areas surrounding Diyarbakir in Turkey, Erbil and its satellite communities, and Kirkuk and its nearby communities. Ethnic Kurdistan was much larger in territory and population than most people knew. Shortly after organizing, they petitioned for membership in the already established Coalition and were accepted. Diyarbakir is very Kurdish, but the more southerly communities in the Kurdish region, especially Kirkuk and Erbil are much more ethnically mixed and include Muslims, Christians, Yazidis, and secularists. Their closest Coalition neighbors are Kuwait and Qatar, so, early on, they all became very supportive of each other. Because they are relatively very moderate and progressive, at least compared to the rest of the region, they are still attracting new survivors from the area, often from the much more conservative Caliphate. It’s relatively easy to emotionally pull up stakes and move when you have no family or friends to hold you back. Arab progressives tend to head for Kuwait and Qatar while non Arabs, whether westernized, progressive or traditional, tended to show up in Kirkuk and Erbil. Since all Coalition Communities were open to Muslims and non Muslims alike, our Coalition Communities are fairly large after all the resettlements took place. Of course, relatively large for us is a community in excess of 1,500 residents, and all five of these communities, Diyarbakir, Erbil, Kirkuk, Kuwait, and Qatar were at or over that number, and that wasn’t including the several smaller satellite communities each had.

  Again, I can thank April for much of the non-historical information. I don’t think too much information is ever a bad thing in diplomacy and especially in any form of negotiations. I’ve been working extensively with not just April, but Carl and Dr Rouhani to get a grip on the region’s history, culture, and government. Of course. I’ve also been working with Avery and now Marc Remy who actually had some pre-sickness diplomatic experience with the French government representing his union.

  The first meetings we had were with the Kurdish majority communities. In addition to their Coalition membership which they already held, they wanted a permanent Coalition military presence to supplement their own well-trained militias. I took notes and asked and answered questions. They also wanted assistance in restarting the American University in Duhok. They’ve already started schools in all their major communities, but they want the English language one since it will open up the possibility of a more diverse curriculum, especially in view of the numerous non Kurdish residents in their communities.

  I can’t make commitments for the Coalition, so I can’t go ahead and say ‘yes’, but I can make recommendations and without committing to anything, whether verbally or in writing, I knew I was willing to support them on both of those requests. We were to meet for two days there in Erbil sharing information and making suggestions, but as we were concluding our first day of talks, we heard some explosions. Of course, Marc, Avery and I had no idea what was taking place, but since the other local leaders didn’t seem agitated, we decided it wasn’t a concern.
However, I still had to ask what it was we heard.

  Hamdi Shikak, their primary leader smiled sadly and told us it was most likely a suicide bomb being detonated.

  “Our borders are very porous, and terrorists, perhaps from the Caliphate but most likely just leftovers from before, have taken to dropping off children wearing explosives near one of our communities. Usually, we are able to disarm the bombs before they go off.”

  “That was a child dying just now?” I was appalled.

  “Oh, no. I apologize for not making myself clear. Earlier today we were able to extract two little girls from suicide vests without incident. What you just heard was us blowing the vests up in a field near the stadium. We have enough weaponry and certainly don’t need suicide bombs. We blow them up in the field to gage their explosive power. We’ve been getting assistance from the German communities on dealing with explosives. None of our survivors had any personal knowledge of them from before The Sickness aside from knowing of their existence. Before, the terrorists have only sent one child at a time. Today, they sent two. It has only happened over the last couple of months, but it’s happened five times now. We think two or three terrorist combatants found each other and decided to continue their genocidal agenda. We also think they stumbled across some survivors and set up a camp near here to cause damage and fear.