by E. J. Swift
Who are you and what do you want with my mother?
There is little sign of human life. The position of the sun puts the time at midday. She decides the population must be sheltering inside.
Time for her to explore.
She fills one of her water bottles from the pitcher and exits the room, finding herself in a corridor with other rooms leading off it. She heads downstairs and out through the reception of the clinic. There is no one else about.
She walks down through the drowsy town. A cyclist passes her and she hears music drifting from the odd window, but all the shops are closed. Ramona is not in good shape. Her muscles ache and the brush of the white robes is sore against sunburned skin. Walking, she can feel the pain in her ribs. But she is determined to get to the docks.
Signs near the bay point to a desalination plant down the coast. The road leading away looks well maintained, like everything else: this is a prosperous place. Adjacent to the docks are several huge glass domes, the like of which she has never seen before. That’s Boreal, she thinks. The hairs rise on her arms despite the heat.
At the docks she finds a single man dozing in the shade of a large container. He is wearing the same loose white attire as she, tinged ochre in colour by the sands. When she says hello he starts visibly, his eyes glaring through the bronze of his sunshades.
He says something in Boreal English.
‘Español?’ she asks.
He switches easily.
‘It’s the midday. Who creeps about in the midday?’
‘I didn’t mean to disturb you,’ she says. ‘I was hoping you could help me.’
His eyebrows knit.
‘You’re not from Panama.’
‘No.’
‘A southerner.’
‘That’s right.’
‘What do you have?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re in Panama, so you must have something. That’s how it is here. I’m a truck driver. When the fleets come I drive containers from one ship to another. In my truck. What do you have?’
‘I was rescued from the desert. I didn’t come here to trade. I came looking for something.’
‘You were rescued?’ A new curiosity in his voice. ‘From the desert?’
‘Travellers brought me here. A woman looked after me.’
The truck driver offers her a grizzled smile. ‘Then you must have something, whether you know it or not. We would have let you die, otherwise.’
His voice is quite flat. She believes him.
‘Your town has harsh rules,’ she replies evenly.
He shrugs. ‘It’s a harsh world. This is Panama. This here bay was the entrance to a canal once, the greatest canal the world ever knew. Now the reservoirs are gone and there’s a desert. Times change. We’re not one thing and we’re not another. Everything has a price. You’ll find out yours soon enough, I’m sure.’
The truck driver tips his hat over his head and leans back against the crate, closing his eyes behind the shades.
‘That’s all very well, but can’t you help me, just a little? Seeing as I know nothing about the town or its ways? If this is the Exchange Point, then when is the Exchange? I haven’t missed it? Tell me that, at least.’
‘See for yourself – the Boreals are here. The Patagonian ships are late, but that’s Patagonians for you. They’ll be here. Eventually. If it’s the Exchange you’ve come for, you’re just in time.’
He glances at the sun’s position in the sky.
‘People’ll wake up in a couple of hours. Preparations are beginning. Make yourself useful, you might earn what you’re looking for. Or are you hoping to jump north?’
‘People do that?’
‘They might try.’
‘I’m looking for information.’
And medicine, she thinks, but she does not tell him that. She needs to activate the holoma and find the Antarcticans; Taeo promised they would find her medicine. Maybe they’ll even help her to find Inés, if Taeo’s message is that important.
She wants to ask the truck driver about the crates he takes from one ship to the next. What goes onto those ships? Are there people? Do you look? Do you know? Is this the first time or have there been others, before my mother? But it’s too early; she cannot risk drawing attention to herself so soon. She needs to use the chaos of the Exchange to cover her tracks.
‘Again, you’ve come to the right place. But prices are high and those who can buy are few. Think about what you can offer, lady. And leave me to my nap.’
She leaves the truck driver and walks a little way along the sea walls, surveying the Boreal ships. They are heavyweight steel vessels. The Alaskan ships are blocked in blue and red, those from Veerdeland are blue and gold, and the Sino-Siberian vessels have bright yellow and white stripes. Even from a distance, Ramona can tell that these ships are the product of wealth.
She does not see a single soul on deck. The silent presence of the ships gives her a peculiar feeling. The Boreal ships are a statement. This is the might of the north: look at it, admire and respect it. Do not question it.
She looks back at the strange, hushed town. Who lives here, in a place that is neither one thing nor another? Traders? Spies? Is the Antarctican agent in one of those houses? When and from where will the raiders appear?
The unbroken heat of the day, the hypnotic blue of the sea, are making her faint. She takes shelter in the shade, suddenly fighting for breath. When the worst of the heat has passed, she returns to Yamila’s clinic.
It is only then that she discovers the holoma is gone.
‘You did not think you would be looked after for nothing, did you?’ says Yamila. Her dark eyes regard Ramona calmly. She displays no sign of remorse.
‘You stole from me!’
The thought of someone going through her belongings disgusts her. It is the worst kind of betrayal. She imagines Yamila’s hands lifting each object, scrutinizing them, assigning values to the small things that make up Ramona’s life. It makes her sick to the core.
‘Where is it? What the fuck did you do with it?’
‘It has been sold,’ says Yamila. ‘It paid for your treatment, after you were brought here half-dead from the desert. It paid for your hospitality. It paid for your life, which you’d do well to remember. Panama is a market, and everything has—’
‘A value, yes, everything has a fucking value, you’ve said it a hundred times already. Guess what, that had a value to me. And in my country, stealing is a crime.’
Yamila shrugs. ‘In my country, not paying your dues is a crime.’
The complete lack of contrition only fuels Ramona’s rage. She clenches her fists at her sides. She is afraid she might hit the other woman, and she would, without regret, in any other circumstances. She grits her teeth to keep her voice down.
‘You have to get it back. I was entrusted with that thing. It’s not a toy. It is not something you can take from me. It’s not even mine.’
‘There is no way I can recover it,’ says Yamila.
‘What do you mean there’s no way? At least tell me where it’s gone, and give me the chance to get it back myself. Don’t you understand? Don’t you realize what you’ve done?’
Only then does she see a spark of warning in her host’s eyes.
‘My understanding is clear. It is you who do not comprehend our laws. I have saved your life and you have paid for it. There will be no further discussion on this subject.’
‘I can’t stay here. I’ll find somewhere else.’
‘Do what you like, although it would be foolish. Your hospitality is covered to the end of the Exchange. After that—’ Yamila shrugs ‘—it does not bother me what you do.’
‘Fuck you. I’m not staying in a place where my stuff is stolen.’
Ramona is trembling with fury as she walks out. She curses herself for trusting the other woman’s altruism. She’ll sleep on the streets, she doesn’t care. She’ll sleep by the docks and keep watch for the raiders, guarding her ow
n stuff while she’s at it. Fuck Yamila. Fuck Panama. Who knows what was in that holoma, the Antarctican who broke her plane was so cagey about it, and now it’s in the hands of who knows, the highest bidder no doubt, ripe for the north and exploitation by the Boreals.
She is humiliated. She has never lost a package. Never, in almost fourteen years of flying, and there have been enough people who have entrusted her with their goods, their children even. She has let Taeo down. Maybe he let her down first but maybe she was a fool to put her faith in the hands of an addict.
She is afraid now she will make another error, another misjudgement, when the stakes are so high. She has to focus. What’s lost is lost. It’s all about her mother now. But the Antarcticans could have helped her. Fuck.
By the time she has walked as far as the docks, her ribs are throbbing with pain from the weight of her pack. She knows she has massively overdone it. It is mid-afternoon and the town is slowly rising from its siesta. She finds a corner in a quiet bar overlooking the docks, where it is possible to eavesdrop on the conversations of the dock workers. She drinks a beer and listens, trying to ignore the pain in her chest.
Talk of the Patagonian fleet.
Late as usual.
Talk of the rota.
I’m sick of operating that fucking crane.
Talk of the Boreals.
If they’d dock now, we could get half the work done today.
There is no mention of stolen people.
But there wouldn’t be, would there.
That evening there is a storm. She watches the rain and asks the bartender to recommend a cheap place to stay overlooking the docks. He directs her down the street. She hurries the short distance, white Panama robes swishing at her ankles. The rain is already coming down heavily. The room available is not cheap but she takes it.
The owner of the hotel locks down the windows of her house and goes underground. She says that all the people of the town do the same. Their cellars are watertight, and in the event of flooding, a network of tunnels leads out into the desert.
Ramona elects to stay upstairs. She pries open a shutter and watches the storm thundering over the bay. Sheet lightning illuminates the Boreal ships rolling on huge, white-foamed waves. She can hear the rumbling clouds, the rain beating on the roof. She can see the waves surging against the sea walls.
Not one place and not another.
In what kind of place is Inés now?
Over breakfast, the hotelier asks if Ramona will stay for another night. Ramona says she will see. The hotelier warns her the town is filling up. A fresh wave of travellers and traders will arrive today and Ramona would do well to book now, before prices go up. That is how it is at the Exchange. Everything has a price.
As the hotelier speaks she is swiping through text and images in the flat weave of a square of cloth. Ramona leans over to look.
‘Is that Boreal?’
‘It’s mine, so it doesn’t matter if it was once Boreal or a product of the Solar Corporation.’
‘Is that another rule?’
The owner smiles secretively. Ramona thinks, I don’t trust their smiles. Any of them.
‘Is this place networked?’
‘That’s an old-fashioned word. We’re wired, if that’s what you mean.’ She looks at Ramona with open curiosity. ‘You southerners are funny. What brings you to Panama, if not the north?’
‘I’m looking for someone.’
‘And?’
‘That’s it.’
‘There’s always an and,’ says the hotelier. ‘People like to say they’re doing something for someone else, but the truth is, no action is altruistic. We understand this, in Panama. It’s what the new age has brought us. Everything is commerce. Ask yourself why you wish to go north.’
‘I don’t want to go north.’
The woman nods as though she has proved a point.
What is it with these people?
The woman’s words are like a spore, and having brushed against Ramona, it releases a miasma of doubts.
I won’t let you, I won’t let you make me believe I wanted this, I did not want this, I do not want to go north.
‘I’m here to find someone,’ she says firmly.
The hotelier is right. Over the next few days there is a steady trickle of travellers into the town. Some have travelled on foot, some with llamas, others with battered old trucks and motorcycles. Ramona spends as much time as the heat allows at the harbour, keeping the clothes from the clinic so she can blend in, and watching for any sign of the raiders. She asks questions and watches the faces of those she interrogates, hoping for clues. She looks for Aris’s party but does not see them, and she starts to worry. How many people are here, how can she possibly notice them all?
And still the Boreal ships wait quietly and imperious while the Patagonian ships do not come.
It is midday siesta when the shout goes up. She hears one voice, then another joins in, and another, until the town is ringing with the cry.
‘The Exchange! The Exchange is here!’
After days of protracted somnolence, the town is coming alive. People are leaning out of their windows and spilling into the streets. Bicycles and motorcycles stream ahead. Ramona does not hesitate; she joins the throng hurrying excitedly towards the seafront.
At the docks the tall heads of cranes rear into view, swinging elegantly above the ships. Some have already docked; others move ponderously into the bay. Lined up side by side, the Boreal fleet is a huge, imposing sight. The Patagonian ships are smaller, lighter, built for swift runs and dodging pirates. Already the harbour is swarming. Hulls open up, ramps are raised and lowered, crates are shunted down and the muscled arms of stevedores glisten with sweat as they lift and carry. It is as if she has been transported to an entirely different place.
Some containers, those of pre-arranged business contracts and regular exchanges, are driven directly from one ship to another. Deposits of Antarctican yttrium and dysprosium and the Patagonian poppy harvest are headed north. Shipments of Alaskan grain will travel to the south. Other merchandises are dragged to the nearest square, in minutes transformed to a bustling marketplace. The Exchange is more than business. It is a festivity. But Ramona’s initial excitement quickly fades. There are so many crates, so many ships. The sight is overwhelming. A transfer could be going on right under her nose, and she would never know it.
She is standing in the marketplace, feeling lost and disorientated, not knowing what will be her next step, when she hears a voice calling her name. A familiar voice.
‘Ramona! Hey, Ramona!’
It is Félix. Right there on the other side of the marketplace. His face caught between astonishment and laughter. Her heart leaps. They fight their way across the stalls towards one another. She collapses into his embrace; his arms wrap tight around her until she yelps.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Cracked ribs.’
‘It’s always something with you, isn’t it? What by all the Nazca are you doing in Panama?’
They walk along the docks to where they can climb the steps to the sea wall and talk in private. Félix points out the Aires. Ramona tells him most of her story. She tells him about the jinn, and the medicine, but not about the raiders. She cannot quite bear to tell him that. She knows Félix: he will either try and help or try to stop her. Either could be disastrous.
‘You look well,’ she says. He does look well. He has always had a good physique, muscular from the physical work of the ship, and his hair has grown out a little from its close shave. She likes it; she runs her fingers through it.
‘You do too,’ he says.
‘You’re lying. I look a state. I was almost dead when they found me in the desert. You can’t come back to life that soon.’
‘No, you do,’ he insists. ‘Maybe it’s this place.’ He squints at the sky. ‘There’s something about the light.’
‘It’s because we’re on the border. The very edge of the south.’
They sit watching the sun glinting on the waves. All the oceans of the world, swirling about the continents, meet at this line. The wind carries the chorus of the Exchange: traders and loaders, contracts legal and illegal.
‘What happened to the plane?’
‘It’s in the desert, somewhere.’
‘Can it be fixed?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe Raoul – maybe even I can. But I’d need to find it …’
‘You found it before.’
‘That was luck.’
‘You’re lucky.’
‘But luck runs out. Maybe someone else will find it and take it.’
‘This isn’t like you, to be so defeatist.’
She stares at him miserably. ‘Félix, the plane is my entire life. What do I do now? How can I travel?’ She would never have said she cared about her possessions before now, before they had been taken from her.
‘You will find it,’ he says. ‘And you’ll find medicine too. I’ll help. I’ll ask. We’ll get this cure for Inés.’
She leans over and kisses him. He responds, his hands on her back drawing her closer. The smell of him and the smell of salt. She feels that familiar surge of tenderness and desire. There is a helplessness in it, but a certainty too. She has known Félix almost all her life; he is the closest thing to a soulmate she will ever have. They pull apart. Félix is smiling. She thinks, life is easy for him, and it always will be. She does not begrudge him that. But she feels the gap between them.
‘Stay with me tonight?’ he asks.
‘On the ship?’
‘We can take a room in the town.’
‘Yes. Let’s do that. Somewhere overlooking the docks.’
She rests her head against his shoulder.
‘Why were you delayed, anyway?’
‘Fuego was in lockdown. It was strange, actually.’ He turns to face her. ‘Maybe you’ve heard something.’
‘About a lockdown? No, nothing. What happened? Not redfleur?’
‘No – although, did you hear about Cataveiro?’
‘Not the redfleur?’
He nods.
‘Shit.’
‘Yeah. They’re in quarantine.’ For a moment they sit in silence, knowing there is nothing to say, before Félix continues. ‘We’d already departed Fuego, but half the fleet was there when it all kicked off, and they got held up. A telegram came up the coast; we had to wait for them to catch up. Fuego wasn’t letting anyone in or out.’
