by E. J. Swift
‘Heh, that is no surprise. I dare say you’ll be good at it, if you can find someone to take you on.’
The sewing recommenced. Ramona watched the needle’s delicate swoops in and out of the material covering Inés’s thigh. There was a tightness in her throat that she had not felt since they buried her siblings, and she knew she was going to cry.
‘I didn’t think you’d want me to go.’
Inés sighed sharply. ‘I didn’t say I wanted you to go. Do not give me my words. I said you should go. And it’s true. You can’t conceal yourself forever. Not out here. In the city, maybe.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Ramona, you are not a child any more. Do you want what happened to me to happen to you? You want to be raped, beaten by those vagrants, those animals? Your things taken from you, your food stolen? No? Then get out. Go somewhere else. Go somewhere you can fight, if that’s what you want.’
And almost under her breath, she muttered, ‘Try and fix things, if you will.’
Later that night, Ramona came down the stairs to get a drink of water from the tank. Inés was sitting in her chair, her hands clenched together, her shoulders hunched. She might have been crying. Ramona could have gone to her mother, but instinct, a prevailing sense of what must be, prevented her, and she crept back up the stairs.
It was an evening late in the summer when Ramona returned home to find the shack empty. In her mother’s bedroom, the bed was neatly made. Her few clothes were folded in the cupboard where they always were. There was a lingering smell in the room like cut grass. In the front room, utensils and a pan were upturned on the draining board. When she touched the pan it was still hot, as though it had sat in the glare of the sun for a long time.
Ramona checked underground, around the back of the shack and by the dried-up stream bed. There was no evidence of tracks.
She sat out on the veranda in Inés’s rocking chair and waited for her mother to return. Dusk fell, a soft dusk, quiet and keeping its counsel. When it grew too dark to see the ground, Ramona retreated inside. She ran the past week through her head, listening again to her few conversations with Inés, trying to find in the remembered expressions of her mother’s face any clues that might explain this strange behaviour.
Inés did not return that night, or the next. Félix went to everyone in the sliding city. No one had seen her leave.
Ramona waited for a week. Then she went to speak to Félix’s mother, Carla.
‘If my ma returns, I’ll be in the city.’
‘I’ll tell her where you are,’ Carla promised. ‘Don’t worry, Ro. She’ll be back. I’ve seen this before, with others. She’s not the first.’
The next day Ramona packed her bag, closed up the doors and the shutters of the shack and wrote a note. She left it on the table folded around the medallion, for luck, and that day she set out with Félix for Cataveiro.
20 ¦
THE SHACK IS empty. Inés’s chair sits outside on the patch of earth – the veranda – unoccupied; the chair creaks gently, the wood hot to touch. The door to the shack is closed, and when Ramona opens it, everything is neatly in its place, the floor swept, no dust on the surfaces. The plain brown curtains hang neatly in the windows and bright light filters through the cracks in the storm shutters. In the back room she finds the bed made with the sheets tucked tight around the mattress. There is no evidence of violence. There is no evidence of raiders or strange burning fires, but from the moment she enters the shack, Ramona has a feeling of portentous dread.
She wants to believe this is one of her mother’s wanderings. That it is only a matter of waiting until Inés returns, be that days or months. She wants to believe it. She comes out to the veranda and sits in the rocking chair. The day’s heat pulses down on her bare head and the mountain shimmers. Still she has the feeling, the feeling that something happened here, something very bad. But she tells herself:
She went away. It’s the fugue. She does this.
She notices weeds are coming up through the cracks in the pebbles. This is no good for her mother to come home to. She pulls a few of them out and tosses them aside. It makes no visible difference. She begins the task in earnest, yanking out the weeds, eradicating every illicit stem until the veranda is littered with the thin dusty earth shaken from the roots. It is all over her arms and face. Her vision is blurred with tears. When she sits back on her heels she is crying freely, unable to stop.
Someone is coming up the mountain. She recognizes the slow, laboured walk. It is Carla, Félix’s mother. She wipes a hand across her eyes.
It’s the fugue that’s taken her. Nothing more. Carla will tell you.
The older woman calls out as she approaches.
‘Ramona, is that you? I saw the plane. It’s not like you, to land so high.’
‘What happened? Did she die? Or did she go away to die? That would be like her. Not to give anyone a chance to say goodbye. Take herself to some secret place we’ll never find. That’s what happened, isn’t it? She went away. She must have gone away …’
Against her white shirt, Carla’s face is darkened and creased by exposure to the sun. An anxious face. A frightened face. The sight of it fills Ramona with terror. Carla raises one hand, as if in supplication.
‘I’m sorry, Ramona. It’s worse than that.’
‘No.’ She shakes her head. ‘No, it can’t be worse, what can be worse? It’s the fugue, isn’t it? It’s the fugue that’s got her. I mean it’s hardly a surprise, not with the jinn as well. How could she cope …’
Carla gets awkwardly to the ground, kneeling amid the remnants of the torn-up weeds. She takes Ramona’s hand, as if she is a child again. Ramona squeezes it tightly.
‘We should start looking for her now, Carla.’
‘Ramona, this is something different. You already know, don’t you? I can see it in your face.’
‘No.’ The plea is helpless this time. ‘Please, no.’
‘Your mother was taken,’ says Carla. ‘Five days ago, by raiders. My little niece, Gabi, she saw it all.’
‘Taken?’
‘By raiders.’
‘But raiders don’t take people.’
‘I know. I know. We don’t understand why. We thought maybe you would have heard … Ramona?’
Ramona is on her feet.
‘Which way did they go?’
‘We looked, Ro – we looked everywhere.’
‘Which way?’
‘What are you going to do?’
She looks at Carla, the fear in her old friend’s face that this could happen, that this has happened. She imagines Félix’s people living with that fear from day to day, convinced that at any moment the raiders might return. She imagines raiders putting their hands on her mother and dragging her away, a frail, jinn-ridden woman, tearing her from the only home she has ever known, the place where she buried her children. The rage that builds inside her is a force so great it is suffocating.
She helps Carla up and looks her clear in the eyes.
‘I’m going to hunt them down, and when I find them, I’m going to rip them to pieces.’
21 ¦
THE ALASKAN HAS that musky, slightly syrupy smell of a person who has reached old age. Or maybe it is all the sugar she consumes: fat, greedy spoonfuls in her tea, trays of sticky nougat, delivered from an artisan in the enclaves with a personal note. Then there are the jars of fruits that line the kitchen shelves, suspended in caramelized liquids. The fruits are creepy. They look like shrivelled body parts. Mig never watches when she eats them.
The Alaskan is unmistakably old. She is more decrepit than anyone Mig has seen, valleys and crinkles of flesh wrapped around the bones that she complains ache, oh how they ache, how deep they ache, her fucking bones. Occasionally the Alaskan will reminisce, saying something such as when I was a young woman – oh those days – yes I was beautiful then, and a particular look will possess her face, a flirtatious yet crafty look that Mig has seen on girls like Pilar. It m
akes him uneasy when the Alaskan wears it; he wants to slap her and wobble her jowls, remind her that her time on earth is limited. Can’t she hear the ticking down of the clock, tock tock tock, inviting her soul to depart?
Other days, she seems unassailable. He does not really believe the Alaskan has ever been young; in his mind she has always been this collection of soft draping folds, a jellyfish human, loose and undulating, with a sting in its wake.
He does not know how long she has been in Cataveiro, but he knows it is a long time. Certainly from before he was born. The Alaskan is dangerous. She is dangerous because, like a denizen of the streets, she knows things, but she chooses who will be the beneficiary of her knowledge, seemingly on a whim.
She is a good employer. She pays well. She is content for Mig to run his own ring of street boys and girls. Under his direction, they weave about the city watching, listening, filtering information back to Mig, who in turn reports to the Alaskan.
A street boy sees the things that others don’t. A street boy sees the acolyte of the Nazca House who vomits in the sanctuary and cleans it up furtively. A street boy knows when the vendors have stuffed their tamales with something new, something they call goat but which is not from any Patagonian goat or a goat that anyone ever saw. A street boy hears the rumours before they hit the radio waves and could tell you which is true and which is fabrication, if you cared to ask. If you cared to pay. A street boy knows that the mandolin player who sits on the corner of Plaza Grajeda looking like a halfwit and a tramp is neither, but an enforcer of the city, who rubs street-stink into his face every morning and cleans it off later using hot water, Mig doesn’t doubt.
Mig has learned to sniff out need. Desperation is better. That is how the pilot smelled when she found him: desperate. She was direct but cautious; she told him the job would be dangerous. Mig does not care about danger. Danger is for pussies, and he tried to say so, but the pilot seemed anxious to enforce the danger, even to warn him, to give him the option to refuse the job.
This is not good business sense to Mig. Say the job, say the price. If the price is right, the job doesn’t matter. On this level, he and the Alaskan understand one another.
Mig is not sure if she knows she is not his sole employer. This week, for example, he has been employed by the Alaskan, by the pilot who escaped and now has a price on her head, and by the enforcers of Señorita Xiomara. It has been a profitable week. His small stash of peso, concealed in a secret place known only to him, has grown. One day he will have enough to leave the city, and for Pilar, his one true love, to come too.
Pilar does not yet know this plan. So far their exchanges can be counted on one hand; Mig is not even sure she knows his name. But he is hopeful.
‘Tell me, Mig,’ says the Alaskan, and then stops. She is in a meandering mood tonight. Mig suspects she’s been at the opium again. It’s her only weakness, the conniving witch.
He waits. After a time she says, ‘What have you heard on the radio?’
‘Not much. Nothing new.’
‘Not anything regarding Fuego Town?’
‘Oh, that. That was a pirate attack. El Tiburón.’
‘I didn’t think El Tiburón’s influence was so extensive he could ban Antarctican ships from Fuego. Think about it. There’s something going on down there.’
‘Something to do with the war?’ She is always on about the war. Nobody else seems to know there is a war on, but the Alaskan talks about it as though it’s a teaching of the Nazca.
‘Yes, something to do with the war,’ she says. ‘Something important. Could the Antarcticans be going on the offensive? Surely not. The ripples would have reached me.’
Mig says nothing and curses Maria in his head. She should be here by now. She’s late. She’s left him stranded. She needs to get her arse over here.
‘Describe the major events of the anthropocene, Mig.’
He reels them off. ‘The industrial revolution. The Neon Age. The Migration Wars and the race to the pole. The Blackout. The Recovery.’
‘Correct,’ says the Alaskan. ‘You even sound like you know what those things are.’
‘The Blackout was like redfleur.’
‘They are hardly alike at all. Redfleur infects the body and then passes the blood–brain barrier. The Blackout virus targeted the brain directly through scapular implants. You know this, Mig. I have told you these things a hundred times.’
He avoids her eyes.
‘Yes, señora.’
‘You should pay more attention, Mig. You need to think about what you wish to do with your life. You need a plan.’
The Alaskan reaches for her sling and shifts her weight in the bed. He can sense her staring at him until the magnetic pull of her gaze becomes so great he is forced to look up. She has frightening, mesmerizing eyes. Red-rimmed, the irises such a cold, hard black.
‘Think about it,’ she continues. ‘What are your options in this place? You could continue living like a rat, I suppose, although given how much I pay you I don’t see why you couldn’t get a room of your own. Or how about hard labour on the poppy farms, with the threat of a machete through your head if you’re ever tempted to steal? You could go into service on an Exchange ship or worse, a pirate vessel – El Tiburón has consorts who would like a smart young thing like you. I hear he’s fond of boys too. Then again, they might chain you to a computer – ah, now, now he reacts. Is that a shudder I see? A little shiver up your spine? I can’t say these sound like appealing options to me. But then again, I’m not Patagonian, so what would I know …’
Evil old bitch, he thinks. How does she always guess what he is thinking?
‘Maybe I’ll go to Alaska,’ he says boldly.
The Alaskan gives no sign that this small hit has even dented her. She stares at him without blinking. Like a snake, he thinks, although he has never seen a snake. He has never been outside the city. He was born here, he was dumped here. The Alaskan knows that too.
‘If you plan on going to Alaska, you had better learn your history,’ she says. Always, these lectures, delivered in her pious instructional tone, as though she actually cares about him, when all she wants to do is show off how much she knows. Mig and Maria are her sole audience. What does Mig care about the Blackout? It was centuries ago, in another world, and not even his world, a world belonging to people like the Alaskan. Mig’s concerns are straightforward: food and a place to sleep each night. He and his crew. Pilar.
Pilar, who is singing in the pit tonight. Pilar, who barely knows he exists.
Shift it, Maria. He can’t be late.
‘Well I remembered it, didn’t I?’ he says. ‘I remembered the wars and the Neons and all that old stuff.’
‘Remembering is not the same as knowing. If you went north of here, Mig, you would see things. Ruins. What remains of the great cities of the twenty-second century.’
A key turns in the door. Maria, about time! She shuffles in. A shy, stunted girl, Maria is terrified of the Alaskan. She is hampered with bags of groceries, her puny arms straining with the weight.
‘You’re late,’ he tells her on the way out. Maria’s eyes widen in fear. Mig regrets the words instantly, but he is desperate to escape the Alaskan’s lascivious laments for the dead past and there is no time to take it back. As he closes the door he hears the Alaskan crooning.
‘Is that my Maria? Come in, girl, come in here. I’ve been wondering where you’ve been.’
Another hot, restless evening in the city. But he’s out. Away from the cloying cosiness of the Alaskan’s rooms and down into the belly of the city.
Down where thieves tell the stories of the parrot and the condor to unsuspecting pedestrians, where workers await the slow shudder of the tram to take them home, the carriages packed full of humdrum faces glazed from another day on the outskirts, where their hands and eyes have worked like cogs in a watch. Not for him, the factories. Not such an afterlife.
Over the grey gleaming river where small punting boats pass. Wil
ting passengers sniff at a river breeze, and on the banks the city’s jugglers ply their trade.
Past a shop where they sell personal radios with headphones, shiny lustrous things. He presses his nose to the glass, wanting. He has enough cash, but no, he needs to save; these peso in his pocket are his ticket out of here. Walk away.
Past the shops, past a school where they corral the kids who are counted into lessons.
Under the bridge where there was a stabbing last week. The dead girl oozed blood for twenty minutes without dying and no one touched her because someone said the word redfleur. Like magic, like a charm is the word redfleur. She died alone, which makes Mig uneasy when he walks past that wall now, as though her alone-so-alone spirit is still there pressed into the wall, like someone pinned a shadow there.
Down where the street kids flip and spin their scalps in the dirt and shoot words in their epic, warring, never-won never-finished battles. Who will find glory among the lowlings this week?
Mig is no wordsmith, but he knows people. That’s his power: to listen. To translate the city into the Alaskan’s greedy ear. For this power, Mig has respect among the children of the streets.
The old warehouse, the only place he has ever known as home, squats in a row of dilapidated buildings. It’s a filthy-looking place, boarded up, bits of the structure crumbling, the paint long since peeled and grasses growing out the brickwork. To get in you have to squeeze behind the rotting graffitied boards and climb through a window on the ground floor. Inside is a high, echoey space that drips incessantly when it rains and heats to sweltering through the summer months. The warehouse is split over two levels. The kids live on the upper level, so if there’s a raid they can get out over the roof.
The floor is covered in droppings from the birds that chitter in the rafters above. In daytime the place is full of the sound of their flapping wings, darting in and out of broken windows. If you want to piss, you go out into the street, but you can still smell the ammonia. The people inside smell, their blankets and solar wraps and sleeping bags smell, but Mig no longer notices it, if he ever did. He only remembers when the Alaskan screws up her nose in a put-on show of disgust – nothing truly disgusts her. She’s undisgustable.
