by E. J. Swift
Shit. The mob has turned onto this street. They are at least twenty strong. Some of them hold blazing torches, others grip batons or cudgels.
The only way out is to go up. Now he sees the sense of the ladders; they’re not a convenience, they’re an escape. He reaches for the nearest rung and climbs. Hand over hand, feet slipping, toes curling in his shoes until he rolls over a balcony rail. He hears soft breathing and knows at once he is not the only one on the balcony, but the faceless shape at the other end does not move. He or she is also watching the scene below.
The mob advances. There are men and women among them. Young and old. They are driving before them a hunched, stumbling figure.
They are shouting as one.
Out! Out! Out!
The chant goes through Taeo like a series of shocks, turning his insides to fluids. The mob’s victim lurches down the street. Taeo realizes it is a woman. Her hair is grey. She doesn’t seem able to walk properly, or in a straight line, but falters a few paces at a time, occasionally prodded forwards by a jab from one of the jeering mob’s weapons. In the glow of the torches Taeo can see she is bleeding. There is blood on her face, and her arms and clothes, although Taeo cannot tell if it is from a beating, or if the woman is a victim of redfleur. His hands clench in fury. There is nothing he can do.
The voice from the other end of the balcony whispers softly, ‘That’s old Elena.’
‘Does she have redfleur?’
‘She didn’t before. Maybe now. She belongs to the jaguar now.’
Taeo is confused. ‘To who?’
Out! Out! Out!
The chant grows louder. As the mob passes beneath them, Taeo sees the face of the balcony’s other occupant in the light of the flames. It is a small boy, scarred by the pox, his skin still peeling. Taeo sees again the other child, the girl, rooting through boxes of pills. For a moment he is paralysed by the hellish vision of his own children transported into these Patagonian bodies. He looks at the boy and sees his son Sasha in the physical space before him. Sasha’s skin is peeling from his face and he stares at Taeo with mute, pleading eyes. The vision is so strong that Taeo reaches out a trembling hand. He has to wipe away the pox, or wipe Sasha from the other child, whichever it is, he can’t tell, but those eyes are staring at him, frightened now, begging for help or mercy …
The sound of screeching tyres pulls him back to the street. For a moment Taeo is drenched in sweat, not knowing where he is. An army truck rounds the corner and careers towards the mob, coming to a halt ten paces from the victim, only metres from where Taeo and the boy are frozen. The mob pauses, their torches wavering. Three soldiers in hazard suits leap from the truck. They throw a sheet over the old woman and scoop her up as if she is weightless. They throw her carelessly into the open back of the truck. Inside, Taeo glimpses several other sheeted, body-sized humps.
A soldier shouts at the mob to get back home. The mob jeers. The soldier waves a rifle threateningly. Several in the mob turn, seemingly ready to disperse and go their separate ways. But one does not. He stands his ground, staring defiantly at the soldiers. In a sudden swift motion he throws his torch into the back of the truck.
The reaction is instant. The soldiers open fire. Taeo ducks down and holds his head, his heart rate trebling in his chest. Through his hands and the cracks in the balcony he sees the mob scatter, screaming. Several drop in the street and don’t get up. The sheet over the old woman has caught fire and flames leap from the back of the truck. The soldiers let loose another round of bullets. They jump back up, swearing. As the truck races away, Taeo can see flailing figures, wreathed in flames, as the redfleur victims try to escape the burning sheets that constrict them. He hears agonized screams until they fade into the distance.
Moans drift up from the street. Taeo is shaking all over. His bowels feel loose, his stomach nauseous. A smell of burning lingers on the air.
‘Where do they take them?’ he whispers.
The boy sniffs and wipes his nose with his wrist. ‘No one knows. It happened before. They took them. Like this.’
‘When?’
‘Go now. You don’t belong here.’
The child’s eyes are on Taeo. He climbs over the balcony and descends slowly, wondering how many of these little ledges are occupied by other children, sleeping under the open skies, observing the acts of terror in the streets below.
He passes two bodies in the street. One is still alive.
‘Help … help me …’
A hand on the ground crawls towards him. Taeo cringes away, mute with horror. Would the mob have killed the old woman? Will she burn to death in the back of that truck? Did she really have redfleur, or was the attack just an excuse for someone’s personal vendetta?
His bladder is pressing on his abdomen and he feels so little control over his own body he has to stop and urinate in the street. He cannot shake the image of his children dropped into this lawless city. The army is in control for now, but their numbers are not large. Ivra always used to say that guerrilla groups were only waiting for an opportunity to raid Cataveiro.
What if there’s a coup? What if they really can’t get out? He can’t rely on the Alaskan now. For all he knows, the redfleur has got her too.
He is walking on autopilot, dazed and shaken. Avenue Lorado is just around the corner when he sees the glimmering light from below street level. A teenager in ragged clothing squats on the doorstep.
‘Croc? O?’
‘No, I—’
‘Dark night, señor. Dark things happening. Come in, señor, we’ll look after you, just step down here.’
‘No really, I don’t want—’
‘Are you sure, señor? You look troubled. Why not forget your troubles for a time …’
‘I’ll … yes, I …’
The teenager runs down the steps. The door opens. The kid beckons. Taeo stares at her helplessly. There is light down there. Light and people, people who unlike Vikram will not look at him as if he is a jailer, will not care who he is and what he has done. He finds himself walking down the short flight of steps. When he steps inside the scent of opium assaults him and he stands, quite stupefied, unable to move of his own will. It is a parlour, not unlike the one in Fuego where he first discovered opium, a little dingier, a little seedier. He doesn’t care. It could be anything. Someone takes his coat and steers him to a couch and lies him back. They bring the pipe. A narrow-faced woman says a price, not cheap, not cheap at all. He nods, already anticipating the hit. She wants cash first. Fine, fine, have it. Have whatever you want, just let me at the fucking pipe. He reaches for his wallet.
His pocket is empty. He checks the other side, panicking. Nothing. His wallet is gone.
‘Fuck!’
‘There is a problem?’ She speaks sharply; he spoke too loud.
‘My money … it was this kid, it must have been, he took my money … I’ll pay you after, I’ll come back tomorrow and pay you, I swear.’
She shakes her head.
‘No money, no pipe.’
Before he stepped inside Taeo might have been able to walk away. Now he is desperate. He can smell the opium, but he cannot quite inhale it. He can see the other addicts stretched out on their couches, already lost in states of private bliss, their worries drifting away with the smoke that cradles them, their bodies relaxed and replete. He has to have it. He has to get to where they are.
‘I swear I’ll pay you, please … I …’
The lines around the woman’s mouth tighten. She says payment is in advance. If he can’t pay, he has to leave.
He looks at the pipe, his pipe, laid out on the couch.
‘I have – I have information. I can give you a name – an address – there are people who would pay very well to know what I know—’
‘Get out.’
Two men appear out of nowhere, one at each of his arms.
‘No – no, listen!’
The smokers are oblivious to his shouts as he is manhandled from the den. They d
rag him up the steps and shove him roughly into the street. He lands awkwardly on hands and knees.
‘Shut up or we’ll make you shut up,’ says a voice. ‘This is no night for making a scene.’
He hears the door shut. The teenager’s soft voice.
‘That’s a shame, señor, another time, señor …’
Taeo is trembling all over. For a minute he stays as he is, on all fours, his eyes closed against the world, the strange, other world, the side of the city he has found a way into, now when it is too late. Slowly he gets to his feet. No street lamps. It is almost pitch black. There are no stars. He hears a rumble overhead. A light rain begins to fall, fine at first, but growing in strength, until it is lashing against his face and his scraped palms. He stands there, feeling the water soak through his clothes.
He promised he would protect Vikram. He even told himself he had made a friend. They have shared their weaknesses and shaken hands on a pact, and all it took was this one instance of temptation to prove that Taeo’s word is worthless. He almost betrayed Vikram. He was ready to give away everything.
A wave of self-loathing swamps him.
‘Move on, señor, you can’t stay here. Soldiers’ll be coming, every hour they are, every hour they come this way,’ whispers the teenager. The kid squats where she was, shielded from the rain by the lip of the balcony above, arms wrapped around her shins.
Taeo can sense the malice leaking from the place. How long has that den been there, waiting to be found, waiting until he was most vulnerable?
‘Señor,’ insists the teenager.
‘Yes, I – I’m going.’
Mig searches everywhere. He goes to all of Pilar’s usual haunts: Station Sabado, the garden of the city museum, the eastern House of the Nazca, the radio tower. She isn’t there. He tries the balcony where she sleeps if it’s raining, the one where the occupants sometimes leave out food for her. She isn’t there. The streets are bad; there are people out with torches, people who want to burn things. Sirens wail in the distance. He ends up back at the warehouse. He checks twice, three times before slipping through the gap in the corrugated metal. The mood in the warehouse is tense and quiet. Suddenly the warehouse does not seem like a safe place. The kids are curled up in their separate corners, trying to sleep. He feels the nervousness. What if the soldiers find us? What if the redfleur finds us? What if someone snitches?
He wants to reassure the little ones. He should be stopping to comfort them, like the older ones did for him, last time, but he can’t stop. He goes from sleeper to sleeper.
Pilar? Have you seen Pilar?
It’s the girl who knows. The girl who told the tale of the jaguar. Her round clown face is furrowed in half-sleep.
‘She’s singing. Downtown. Secret party, enclaves end. Ri scored some cash. They all went. Only me, I didn’t.’
‘Where?’
She tells him the address. She clutches his hand. Her eyes are huge.
‘You shouldn’t go. It’s bad out. The jaguar’s roaming.’
Mig says, ‘I don’t believe in the jaguar and neither should you.’
As he leaves the warehouse it is starting to rain.
A beetle makes its way around the edge of the wall. Taeo watches its slow progress, the hard, shiny carapace shell, the spindly, scurrying legs. The beetle is a nuisance here, but in Antarctica it is a small miracle. Does the tiny creature know where it is going? Or is it exposed in the open, blind and uncertain, making its best guess for cover? He has changed his clothes but he is shivering. He cradles the mug of hot coffee that Vikram made him, Vikram who is now sitting opposite him, a concerned expression occupying his features, Vikram who he made a pact with, Vikram who he came so close to betraying.
He is overwhelmed with the knowledge of his own mistakes. It is all he can think of: the lies he has told to Vikram. The inescapable lies.
Rain splatters on the shutters. On the roof, a bathtub overflows. He imagines the rivulets of water diverging and running every which way, like the strands of his life he has lost a hold of, every one. Now is the time for confession.
He takes a long, shaky breath. He cannot look Vikram in the face, so he looks at the dark swirling surface of the coffee with its faint oiliness.
‘I lied to you before. On the island. On Fuego.’
There is a pause. He stares at the coffee.
Vikram says, ‘I know you did.’
‘Then why did you come with me if—’
‘What else was I supposed to do? Everyone has an agenda. If it wasn’t you it would have been someone else. So I threw in my lot with you. I could tell you were smart. I guessed you would know things, useful things. If now’s the time for the truth, I’m ready for it.’
‘I barely know where to start.’
A creak as Vikram settles back in his chair.
‘Just tell me. There’s a storm out there and we’re barricaded into the city. We’re not going anywhere.’
He thinks of Antarctican maps. The Boreal States stretched around the edges of the northern hemisphere. The huge continent at the centre of the map, half covered in ice. The gulf of desert that girdles the earth.
‘There is a war that no one speaks of between south and north,’ he says. ‘No one can speak against it because it doesn’t exist. Not in words. But it’s there. It’s under the surface of everything. And where you come from is a part of it, whether you like that or not.’
Taeo hesitates, but he has come too far now.
‘Antarctica has been monitoring your city from afar ever since the Great Storm.’
A brief silence. Taeo’s nervousness increases.
‘What do you mean, monitoring?’
‘I mean, the Republic has always known about Osiris. When everyone else believed the city was destroyed, we knew the truth.’
Taeo can sense Vikram staring at him. He can feel the intensity of the other man’s gaze. He wraps his hands tightly around the mug, trying to control the shakiness in his hands. He has to finish.
‘We knew – the Republic knew – the city had gone into hiding, so—’
‘You knew.’ Vikram’s voice is sharp with accusation.
Taeo forces himself to look up. ‘Yes.’
‘You knew – for fifty years. My entire life, you’re saying Antarctica knew?’
‘The Republic had to keep the secret—’
Vikram’s punch catches him squarely in the face. Taeo is completely unprepared for the attack. A hot scald burns over one hand. He hears the coffee mug break. Then he is sprawled on the floor, an explosion of pain behind his right eye, blinking lights filling his vision. Vikram is on top of him, pummelling with his fists. The blows land erratically before Taeo manages to twist and throw a wild punch of his own. He catches Vikram below the ribs. Vikram falls to his side, caught off balance. Taeo scrambles away. He staggers to his feet just after Vikram. They circle one another warily. Taeo hears shouting and moments pass before he realizes it is he who is shouting, in Portuguese, with no will or control over what is coming out of his mouth.
‘Why did you have to show up here now? Why couldn’t you stay in your fucking sea city? You fucking idiot. Do you have any idea what will happen if the north finds out about you? What will happen to all of us? You think the Republic kept this secret for a laugh? Just to spite you? Fucking hell!’
The other man has a hold of his shoulders. He is shaking Taeo violently and screaming back. Taeo tastes blood in his mouth.
‘You left us there? You knew we were out there and you left half the city to starve and drown when your fucking country could have taken us in? You lying fuck, you’re no better than a skad. My friends died! They didn’t have to die. None of them had to die. Adelaide didn’t have to die!’
Taeo feels himself shoved violently away. He staggers back. When he puts out his hands to break his fall he feels another small pool of pain. He has cut himself on a shard of the broken coffee mug. He stays where he has fallen, exhausted, incapable of further defence, a t
rickle of blood working its way over his hand. Vikram is leaning with his forehead against the wall, eyes closed, breathing heavily. Taeo waits, numbly, for Vikram to relaunch his attack. The other man does not move and after a while Taeo asks, ‘What are you waiting for? You might as well finish it off.’
Vikram says, ‘I hope you die of redfleur.’
Taeo winces. His right eye throbs relentlessly. He can feel his face swelling up, closing off one half of his vision, liquid oozing from between the distorted flesh. His body is a sea of pain.
He thinks of the opium den, just a couple of streets away, its inhabitants drifting on the raft of the drug. He would do many things for a hit. Unconscionable things. He wants to weep.
The rain intrudes on the silence of the room. If he closes his eyes, Taeo can imagine it is Antarctican rain. If Vikram is about to kill him, there are worse things to have as a final memory.
But Shri is there too, standing in the rain, her arms folded, her hair wet. Are you going to give up this easily? she says. On me? On the children? Talk your way out of it.
Taeo gathers his last resources.
‘The decision was made a long time ago, before either of us was born,’ he says.
Vikram turns away from the wall. This is it, thinks Taeo. This is the end. He waits for the inevitable, but nothing happens. When he opens his one good eye Vikram has slumped to the floor where he was stood. A bruise is forming on his cheek and blood trickles from the corner of his mouth.
‘I’m sorry I lied,’ Taeo says. ‘But I’m Antarctican, and whatever they’ve done to me, I love my country. My family … I have to protect them. I don’t think you feel that – about Osiris.’
‘You’re right,’ says Vikram. ‘I don’t. And you told me you were exiled because you were working on some military programme you didn’t agree with. You said your colleague betrayed you. So it sounds like you’re not that interested in protecting your country after all. Or was that all lies too?’
‘No, some of it … There is a military programme. I spoke out against it. It was my decision. I went public. That’s why they sent me here. But you have to understand, that decision, I spent years … I didn’t know what to do or who to speak to … I was good at what I did. I was starting something new, something no one had done before. All my research, I had to hand it over. Even now, I don’t know if it was the right thing. And then you appeared. Like some kind of cosmic joke.’
