Cataveiro: The Osiris Project (Osiris Project 2)

by E. J. Swift

  Word by word, Ramona can see the effect she is having on Xiomara, who cannot suppress the flush that spreads across her face and neck and the hastened breathing of her desire.

  Ramona leans across the table. She whispers, ‘To fly is to become a god.’

  Xiomara moistens her lips. Her chest rises and falls. ‘You spin a good yarn, Callejas. As good as any I’ve heard. But until I see the aeroplane, it’s only a yarn.’

  ‘I can be your pilot. I can take you places and show you secrets no one else will ever see. This is my offer. I know you have a cure for the jinn. Bring it to the House of the Nazca in the Brazilian quarter, tomorrow morning at six o’clock. That is my offer and I will not change it.’

  Ramona offers her hand. Xiomara hesitates, then takes it. As they shake, Ramona presses her fingertip against Xiomara’s inner wrist, as the chemist instructed. She feels a pop as the minute blister bursts. A sensation of oiliness. She smiles. Xiomara smiles.

  ‘Six o’clock,’ says Xiomara.

  When she leaves the club, Ramona has to fight her way through the embracing couples. The bodyguards are watching her every move, and she is grateful for the cover. Xiomara cannot see how her legs are shaking.

  That night she does what the beggars do. She climbs a ladder to the first level. She climbs another ladder to the second. She swings over the edge of a balcony and curls up silently in one corner. At the other end she senses another body, the faint hiss of its breathing. A smell of stale sweat. Neither Ramona nor the other make any attempt to communicate. They both know the rules.

  She wakes in the early hours of the morning, her heart pounding in terror. There was a whistling, in her dreams, or in the street below, she cannot tell. When she lived here before, there was a man who walked the streets, a murderer, the Whistler. He had a coat made of human skin and hair. He preyed on the street dwellers. She ran into him once. She felt that soft soft coat against her hands.

  The Whistler is long gone now. He must be gone. These are the remnants of her dreams. Old fears merging with new fears. The terror of entrapment. Before she found the skies, Ramona did not notice the crush of the city: the way it pummels and squeezes, the alien weight of its thousands of individuals with their furiously colliding demands. Now she knows she will never escape it. The story she told to Xiomara was not entirely spun. The woman who cried was Ramona, and she cried because she knew that her life would no longer be the same. Some part of her had crossed into a different country.

  Sometimes, in long hours of dread such as these, she has tried to imagine a different life, a life with Félix, ground-based and static. They would not live in Cataveiro, but they might take a house in a small town, no larger than Fuego, or more likely they would have their own farm, grow produce, buy a goat, make cheese. She conjures that scene now: the room, inviting and cosy; the nights, curled up together, the smell and drowsy warmth of him, the immutable feeling of security from each other’s presence. And Félix could – and she could …

  The picture ends. She can imagine too, and too well, the restlessness of the two of them. Him yearning for the sea, her for the air. Perhaps they could trade. He sails one month, she flies the next.

  We would hate one another. We would each be jailor to the other.

  It wouldn’t be enough.

  Dawn approaches. The other occupant of the balcony disappears over the rail, dropping silently into the street.

  Time to focus. The trap has been set. What the chemist gave her is seeping through Xiomara’s skin, wriggling its way into her blood. Four hours, he said, for the symptoms to show. All the classics, he said. The weeping rash. The sweating and shaking. In a matter of minutes, Xiomara will rise, look in the mirror and feel more frightened than she has ever felt in her life.

  14 ¦

  THE MAN HAD a house and the house was on a bend in the river. In the house was the last jaguar. People came for miles to see it. The jaguar was in a state of eternal fury at her captivity, pacing up and down, roaring and hissing at the spectators. It is said she killed no less than three who dared go too close. But after a time the jaguar stopped eating. Her fur grew dull. Her eyes lost their spark. One day, consumed with sadness and the terrible knowledge of being the last of her kind, she lay herself down and died. Not one to miss out on a financial opportunity, the man brought in a taxidermist, and had the jaguar displayed in a glass cabinet. And still people journeyed miles to see her. Some of them stayed. Some of them worshipped the last jaguar. Others gazed and gazed and gazed until they saw jaguars in their sleep, jaguars with their waking eyes, and they became prophets of the jaguar. Those people gave up worldly goods and lived in the open air. Some went wild and reverted to all fours. Around them the valley changed, and people saw that the jaguar’s house was built on good land, so they stayed and built houses of their own. The years passed and slowly they forgot all about the jaguar. They could not say why they had come at all, but were glad they had. When the man died, his house was bought, they say, by a family whose name you will know well, but this family did not take on the legend of the jaguar, as some might expect. This family already had a legend, an industrial legend. We refer, of course, to the salt woman.

  So a new age had come, and now, few remember that the jaguar’s name was the name of our city which today feeds over one hundred thousand souls and—

  An hour after midnight comes a knock at the door. The Alaskan shifts in her cloying, sweat-soaked sheets. She sweats more in this city than she ever did the other side of the belt. They have no temperature control here. When a heatwave comes, you stew in it.

  She peers through the rudimentary SpyEye. One of the kids is standing in the corridor. Dirty oversized tee and shorts. Hat in hand, hair clipped raggedly to the scalp. Mig. Mig’s a smart one.

  The Alaskan hauls herself to sitting and changes the radio station before buzzing him through. No need for Mig to know she’s been at the stories again.

  Mig brings a whiff of the streets into the two-room attic. They make a pair: the street stink and the odour of old mammal.

  ‘This is late,’ says the Alaskan.

  ‘I’ve got something for you.’

  Mig holds up a sheet of paper. It has a woman’s face on it, a scribbled likeness, not well done but not badly done either. No name. And a price. Not that high a price. A discreet price. A middleman price.

  ‘The pilot?’ she asks.

  ‘Yeah. All over the city, they’re putting these up. Some enforcers. Some … I don’t know who they are.’

  ‘Not all enforcers? You’re sure about that?’

  ‘I know an enforcer when I see one. These guys – I don’t know them. They don’t look poor.’

  ‘An undercover operation, I see.’

  The Alaskan takes the poster. She studies the photocopied shades of black and white. She turns the poster, squinting. Her sight is not what it was. Her eyes feel sore and tender, irritated by the heat. She longs for a cool, scented bath. A pool to swim in, water in which to immerse her riddled old body …

  Not in this country.

  ‘She has a strong face,’ she says. ‘A face tells you a lot about a person. Sometimes. Sometimes not, eh?’

  ‘Do you want to capture her?’ asks the boy.

  ‘What would be the point of that?’

  ‘For the reward. Or to put her in the book.’

  The boy is learning, thinks the Alaskan. She needs to keep an eye on this one.

  Mig picks at a scab on his arm. ‘Maybe I’ll capture her. That’s a lot of money. It will make me rich.’

  ‘I will make you richer,’ says the Alaskan. ‘Let’s have tea, Mig.’

  The boy does not want to, but she is not letting him go that easily. It is a delicate balance of power between them. She pays him good money, but not as much as she could. The day he realizes the extent of her reliance is the day he turns. She needs him to need her.

  She turns over the poster. On the back is a telegram contact.

  Mig puts the kettle on. She
hears him surreptitiously opening and closing cupboard doors.

  ‘Yes, help yourself. Maria has done the shopping, luckily for you. I may need a second Maria. There should always be a backup. You should look into that. Ask around. Find me another girl.’

  He takes something from the fridge and devours it. He never eats in front of her, but he is always hungry. The Alaskan has never been that hungry but that is thanks to her brain, rather than circumstances, which have certainly conspired against her. Such is the fate of the nirvana: good for everything until the truth comes out.

  The kettle boils. Mig makes the tea slowly and cautiously, returning with two steaming cups.

  ‘Mig, tomorrow morning I want you to send a telegram. Choose a public office. Not too big. A post office, something like that. I want you to say you have captured the pilot. And then I want you to watch and see who comes.’

  ‘All right. I’ll follow them.’

  ‘You’ll follow them. That’s right. Find out who they are. Find out who wants the pilot.’

  ‘Yes, señora,’ he says obediently.

  ‘And drink the tea. It is good for the stomach.’

  ‘Yes, señora.’

  He drinks the tea and sleeps, or pretends to, for a couple of hours in a corner of the other room. Around four o’clock when he thinks she is asleep, she hears him climb out of the window and run lightly down the fire escape. The street kids are like house cats. You try and train them, but they stay wild at heart, and at any moment, they may turn.

  15 ¦

  THE HOUSE OF the Nazca is quiet and dark across the pre-dawn street. The acolytes arrive first, opening up the doors, sweeping the step, going about their daily rituals. Next are Xiomara’s people. They squirrel themselves in and around the House, brushing past a protesting attendant, bundling them inside. Last to appear is Xiomara herself, fifteen minutes early and flanked by bodyguards holding heavy rifles across their bodies. Xiomara’s face is shined with sweat. She is panting. Ramona focuses her telescope closer on Xiomara and sees that beneath the white blouse, mottled red patches are blooming across her neck and chest. It is a disturbing sight.

  Ramona pushes away her reservations. She knows that it is not the real redfleur. The chemist is a corrupt, evil man, but he is not mad. If Xiomara could think straight, logic would tell her the same, but Xiomara’s mind is tying itself in knots. There are enough madmen in this country; Xiomara cannot gamble that the pilot is not one of them.

  ‘How are you feeling, Xiomara?’ she calls.

  The heads of the salt woman and her bodyguards jerk up, searching for the source of the voice. Their quarry is up on a balcony. But which one?

  ‘Come out, you bitch!’

  ‘I don’t think so. Where is the cure?’

  ‘What have you put in my blood?’

  ‘Something that will kill you slowly unless you take the antidote within twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Why should I believe you? You’re a charlatan, a witch, a witch!’

  ‘My cure for yours, Xiomara. I’ll tell you this much. It’s something new, from the north.’ She lets the word north linger. ‘Word on the street is it’s a new strain of redfleur.’

  Xiomara’s chest rises and falls. This is truly cruel, but Ramona needs Xiomara to be afraid.

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  Two of Xiomara’s people exit the House of the Nazca. They begin prowling the street, scanning the length of balconies on the residential block opposite. Ramona ducks lower. Her heart is pounding. She does not doubt that they are armed. She holds on tight to her gun.

  ‘No one you would know.’

  ‘I know everyone in the city.’

  Not everyone. You’ve never lived here like a rat, climbing from balcony to balcony, running from the Whistler with your heart beating so fast you think it will explode.

  ‘I got it outside the city,’ she says. ‘After all, you can go anywhere with a plane.’

  It is unwise to taunt Xiomara, but she wants to get out of here fast. One of Xiomara’s people is climbing a ladder, only a few blocks across from where Ramona is concealed. She has chosen a balcony inaccessible from below, but it’s only a matter of time until the man can shoot.

  ‘Your cure for mine, Xiomara!’ she shouts.

  The man’s head jerks up, listening. Xiomara hisses and doubles over. She gestures. One of the bodyguards lays down a package on the floor. Ramona watches as her street urchin scurries down from a different balcony, scoops up the package and shoots off down the street. Lying on her back, Ramona whispers into the radio.

  Well done. When you’re clear, open it.

  That man climbing is close to you. He’s got a gun.

  I know. Can he hit me?

  The kid’s voice comes in low, staccato bursts.

  No. You chose a good angle. But soon he’ll work it out. If he gets on the roof he can shoot you from there.

  ‘All right, you’ve got it, where’s mine?’ shouts Xiomara. ‘Where’s mine, you fucking bitch?’

  Have you opened it?

  Yes. A box of needles.

  Ramona feels a wave of relief. She tosses her own package down into the street. Xiomara does not wait. She swallows the contents right there. Then Xiomara begins laughing.

  ‘You’re stupid, Callejas. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I don’t have a cure for the jinn. There is no cure. And if there was, I would never give it to you!’

  She sits in the street, rocking and gasping. A bodyguard scoops her up like a sackful of laundry. Xiomara does not fight him. She is consumed with hysterics. As they bear her away, Ramona hears her shrieking.

  ‘My people will find you, Callejas! They’ll find you and they’ll take your precious aeroplane and then they will kill you slowly. I’ll import the finest northern diseases, just for you.’

  Ramona’s hands clench on the gun. No cure? Is Xiomara bluffing? What is in the syringes? How can she know, how can she trust if Xiomara is telling the truth?

  The boy, Mig, is right. Xiomara’s man has worked out how to get to her. He’s heading for the roof. From there he will aim his rifle at Ramona’s head and shoot to maim.

  Time to get out of here, Ramona. Your plan hasn’t worked. Now save your own skin.

  Thanks to the chemist she has one final weapon. She tosses the canister into the street. It releases a screening gas, which will hide her only for seconds, but seconds is all she needs. Ladders and fire escapes, one quick swing across a balcony and up. Her muscles don’t work as fast as they used to. Her thighs and shoulders ache with the exertion and her breath is short and tight. The gas vapours make her want to cough. She swallows it down.

  On the roof, the boy is already waiting with the box of useless syringes.

  ‘Get out of here,’ she says. ‘You did well. Don’t let them catch you.’

  He looks at her curiously.

  ‘What did you give her?’

  ‘It’s called measles. She’ll live.’

  The boy nods.

  Now get out. There’s nothing more to do.

  She says, ‘Do the kids still talk about the jaguar?’

  Mig stares at her in disbelief. He turns and runs, swift and agile over the rooftops. She goes the other way. Her flight is followed by the sound of the street waking up: shouts from her pursuers, angry residents flinging open their shutters.

  The sky is lightening steadily above her. Six storeys below, citizens emerge into the streets. A tram horn blares in the distance. The city is rising.

  Run, little street girl. Run.

  16 ¦

  WHITE NOISE. SPANISH chatter. There are new posters on the street. These ones are official, and they bear a name and a logo that carries weight: the salt woman’s name, the orca. The reward for the pilot has doubled and doubled again. Señorita Xiomara will make a rich man or woman of the one who brings the pilot to her alive.

  Turn the dial. Crackle. Another channel. This one says Xiomara is sick. She was targeted with a bio-attack. A new redfleur strain. The
re are army trucks outside the Xiomara house. The towns are sending every doctor they have, be they qualified professional or dubious quack. If it is redfleur, nothing can be done.

  Another channel says Xiomara is dead. The pilot killed her. Who will take the fortune of the desalination empire? And was it really redfleur? There hasn’t been a government warning, but everyone is wearing a mask and half the city did not turn up to work today. You can’t blame them, can you? Really, it’s a miracle we’re here at all – it’s all for you, listeners.

  No, no, the pilot is dead. Xiomara killed her. She was shot in the street.

  The Alaskan waits impatiently. She needs Mig for the truth. Her plan with the telegram is pointless now. Or is it? Either way, a bigger game is churning into play.

  Turn the dial. Crackle. This is a bad channel, longer range. Shipping news and weather reports. Fishermen nattering to one another. They talk about the sea as if it’s a live thing. If you want to learn anything, listen to the fishermen. The Alaskan listens more closely, twiddling the dial, feeling through the static, willing the grainy words into sentences. The harbour at Fuego Town is in lockdown. The fleet bound for the Exchange cannot leave, and no foreign ships are allowed in. No foreign ships. The Patagonians hate to acknowledge Antarctica; even their language whitewashes the south.

  Antarctica. The Alaskan rolls the word around her mouth. It has a saccharine taste.

  She shifts in her bed. White noise and words. White noise and words. Her legs do not work but her mind climbs about the continent, weaving and spinning.

  17 ¦

  ‘QUICK – OFF THE road.’

  Vikram grabs Taeo’s arm and pulls him into the cover of the trees. A moment later, Taeo hears the sound of tyres on the disused road for the third time since they have been travelling. They drop low to the ground. Lying on his belly beside him, Vikram is so quiet Taeo can scarcely hear him breathe. The Osirian’s face is taut and watchful. It strikes Taeo that the other man is far more used to this kind of activity than he is. He is not sure if the thought is cause for relief or alarm.