Slow River

by Nicola Griffith

  Now the smiles were knowing. I could not help admiring the way Magyar manipulated her audience.

  “One more thing, people. From now until the program is back online, I’ll be checking readings personally, at random. Anyone who is more than five percent out will be fired on the spot. Now get back out there and do your job.”

  The workload, which had been hard and dirty, became almost unbearable. When we stripped and showered at the end of the shift, there was a lot of muttering about taking sick days. I just kept my head down and tried not to think about the fact that I seemed to be the only one there who really knew anything about the system.

  My dreams were bad that night. Long, tangled images of plastic sheets and blood, and lying on my stomach, face in a pillow, choking while whoever was on top of me humped up and down and breathed in my ear. I woke up drenched in sweat, tight and heavy with need.

  I knew if I tried to do something about that need it would fade away into mocking memories of Spanner holding up the vial of oily drug and laughing.

  I got to work a few minutes early. The computer was still down but there had been no emergencies during the afternoon.

  When we were dressing for the shift, Magyar and two new men came into the locker room. One was wizened and bowlegged but seemed spry enough. He flashed a grin at the shift. The other one was just a teenager, with jet black hair and brown eyes. Something about the way he held himself, a strange mix of ramrod back and careless limbs, bothered me.

  “This is Nathan Meisener”—the older man nodded—“and Paolo Cruz. I made Hepple pull his finger out on those vacancies. I thought you might appreciate the help.”

  There were one or two laughs but I wanted to yell at everyone: You think two extra people will make a difference if a fireball rips through here? Kinnis slapped Meisener on the back and Cel called out, “Hope you can swim,” as she pulled on her waders.

  “Right, people. Time to get to work.” They began to file past Magyar. For all her apparent joviality, I could tell by the flush in her cheeks and line of her jaw that she was angry about something. Magyar pulled aside Kinnis and then me before we could walk past. “Kinnis, you take Meisener here. He has some experience, but it was a while back.” She watched as Meisener followed Kinnis down the corridor. I could feel the other one, the teenager, looking at me. “Cruz, you’ll be following Bird around for a day or two. She knows a lot more about the way things work around here than you might think.”

  It was impossible to miss the bite behind those words. I did not like that. Was she suspicious enough yet to backcheck Bird’s records? As if I didn’t have enough to worry about.

  I shepherded the new man ahead of me and felt Magyar’s hard, bright eyes boring into my back all the way down the corridor. Paolo, though he must have noticed, said nothing.

  During the next couple of hours, as I showed him the ropes, pointed out that his back support had the over-shoulder cross straps for a reason, he hardly spoke at all. Something about him still bothered me. I watched him as he walked out into the trough, PD held at waist level.

  “Not the talkative type, is he?” Cel said from behind me.

  No.”

  “Not like that Meisener. Talking a mile a minute.” She lifted the PD she was holding. “How do you reset these things again?” I showed her. Cel clipped the PD to her belt, then nodded at Paolo, waist-deep in the water. “Let me know if you need me to take him off your hands for a while.”

  I was surprised at her friendliness. “Thanks. I might.”

  “New ones are always a pain.” She looked at me assessingly. “Usually, anyhow.” She waved, and moved off back to her own troughs. I returned my attention to Paolo.

  Water sloshed as he strode another couple of feet deeper. I had watched several people taking their readings by now, and the one thing they all had in common was the gingerly way they walked through the polluted wastes. I did it myself. It was not just the possibility of overbalancing; you never knew what you were about to step on, or through. It was hard not to imagine the floating feces or lumps of glutinous matter, the variety of things, organic and nonorganic, that people flushed down their toilets or that wriggled their own way through the municipal drains. It did not matter that your legs were protected by a double layer of polyurethane and plasthene; you could still feel the slimy things that bumped against you.

  Paolo waded to the edge of the trough, seemingly unconcerned by what he might be treading on. He held out the PD. I waved it away. “Just read them out, it’s quicker.”

  He did. Every fourth or fifth word, I caught an accent; not the softened consonants of Castilian, or the nasal vowels of Central American Spanish. Something else. Like the way he waded through the foul water unconcerned, it felt as though it should be familiar, and it bothered me. I shook my head at my own imagination.

  “You want me to stop?” He was looking at me. anxiously.

  “No. You’re doing fine.”

  When he finished with the readings, I held out my gloved hand to help haul him out of the trough. He pretended not to see it, and climbed out unaided. I could tell by the hunch of his shoulders that he was embarrassed about deliberately avoiding my hand, and wondered why. I did not ask.

  I watched Paolo on and off until the break, and it was when I was handing him the scrape, a short metal tool for unclogging the rake tines, that I realized he had not refused my help—he had refused my touch. Oh, he was very adept, graceful even, but he always made sure his hand never touched mine, or my foot his, when we were thigh-deep in the water, me holding back the bulrushes for him to clip the heads.

  While I finished up the rushes I sent him back into the trough to do the next reading, and this time, when he waded out to the edge, I made sure I held out the clipper handle for him to grab. He accepted without hesitation. His smile was warm and very young-looking, completely at odds with the message sent by his stiff, almost disdainful body language.

  That stiffness reminded me of something, but when I tried to remember, all I could conjure up was a vague memory of Katerine, years ago, grinning in triumph at something on the net. That was it. I went back to work.

  Magyar was waiting for us again in the breakroom. Kinnis. turned off the net without being asked.

  Magyar smiled, but it was not pleasant. “Some of you will be pleased to hear that, as of twenty hours today, all personnel on this shift who spend time in the water, which is to say all of you, will wear masks and full-body barrier protection at all times. As mandated by Health and Safety regulations. You never know when we could get an unexpected visit from an inspector.” She looked directly at me and it wasn’t hard to tell she was angry. I had a bad feeling I knew why.

  “Some of you, of course, will not be pleased at the cost, which will come out of your next salary credit, and all of you will no doubt be annoyed at the reduction in productivity and subsequent reduction in salary, But blame that on those that make the rules and regulations.” Her voice was husky with anger. She looked at me again, and I understood: she thought she was preempting me. She thought I was a Health and Safety inspector. She was implementing these changes, to save her job. No wonder she was angry. Productivity would go down, and soon Hepple would be on her back. And she blamed me. “Questions?”

  No one was about to ask her questions when she was in this kind of mood.

  “Well, then. I’ll expect you back on shift, with masks, in exactly-” She looked at her watch. “-forty-two minutes.”

  On her way out, she gave me a tight, matte-eyed nod. It was impossible to mistake the direct challenge. Cel noticed, and turned, puzzled. I managed to shrug and look surprised, but underneath my skinny I was slippery with sweat.

  “Why’s she got it in for you?” Kinnis asked, but he looked wary, as though wondering if talking to me was a mistake.

  “No idea.” My heart felt cold and dense and suddenly I wondered if my accent sounded right, if the quick, liquid syllables were thickening, if just by listening to me everyone would know
who I was. I felt dizzy and horribly exposed. At least Magyar hadn’t actually checked my records yet, or I wouldn’t still be here. But it was only a matter of time. I had to get Spanner to speed things up. I fumbled my way to my locker.and took out my food, trying to seem unconcerned. My hands were shaking. I needed to sit down.

  Paolo was already sitting near the fish screen. I sat next to him, but not too close. I said nothing for a moment, not trusting my voice. He sat quietly, watching the screen. He was not eating.

  “Here.” I held out half my food, then remembered and put it on the table next to him instead. “You can bring enough for two tomorrow.”

  “I thought…”

  “There is a cafeteria, but you have to scrub down and change before they’ll let you in. And the food takes a long time and costs a lot. And it’s full of executives and supervisors who’ll stare at you like you’re a bug.”

  “Thank you.” He bit into the sandwich hungrily. I made a mental note to bring food tomorrow, anyway. He looked as though he needed to eat as much as he could afford to buy.

  Kinnis and Meisener sat down opposite us. They must have decided it was safe to talk to me, after all. “So, Paolo, where’re you from?”

  “I’ve lived here since I was two years old.” The words themselves were neutral enough, but I could hear the tension behind them. He didn’t want to say any more.

  Kinnis opened his mouth to ask another question, but Meisener was already talking.

  “I was born here, but I’ve not spent much time in the city the last twenty years,” he said. “Been all over the world. Army for a while, then mechanic for EnSyTec. Went everywhere. Then I got fed up of traveling, wanted to settle down, have kids, Took a job in Sarajevo, working the sewage lines. Got married.”

  “You have any kids, then?” Kinnis asked, forgetting Paolo.

  “Two.” And then they were pulling out pictures, talking about their children.

  Paolo seemed to enjoy being included in their conversation without having to contribute. I was left to wonder how to deal with Magyar.

  When I got home that night the message light was blinking on my screen. I hit PLAY before I took my jacket off; maybe it was Ruth and Ellen, inviting me round.

  It was Spanner. “Hyn and Zimmer will be at the Polar Bear tomorrow night. Meet me there.”

  It turned itself off. I had not realized how much I’d been hoping for Ruth to call. I sat by the blank screen for a long time, listening to the deep, three-in-the-morning quiet.

  I woke several times during the night, my heart beating too fast, wondering whether I should call the regional Health and Safety Council about Hedon Road.

  * * *

  Lore followed Spanner down the dark stairwell and into the warm night. She kept her eyes down, fixed on Spanner’s feet, refusing to look at the emptiness of outside. The wet asphalt sparkled in the sodium streetlights. She managed to get to the bar across the road without sweating too much.

  The Polar Bear was dim and warm and no one looked up when they entered.

  Lore had never been in a place like it. The casual bars and open-air cafes of Europe, the restaurants of Australia and tea rooms of India had not prepared her for this fecund, dark place, rich with the fruity scents of beer and layered with muted conversation. The wooden floors and bar surface were highly polished; the bar itself bellied out in biscuit-colored porcelain molded with grapes and leaves and bottles.

  “It looks pregnant,” she said, fascinated, wanting to go up and touch it, but Spanner was walking toward a table in the corner, and she followed.

  An elderly couple were already seated. Spanner pulled out a chair. “This is Lore.”

  “I’m Hyn and he’s Zimmer, but don’t worry if you get us mixed up, a lot of people do.”

  Spanner went to the bar to get the drinks and Lore was left at the table with a man and a woman who looked like dried tobacco leaves with berries for eyes. Hyn and Zimmer. These were the people who knew something about locks.

  They seemed utterly at home in this setting, but Lore suspected they might blend as easily with the woods as this urban nightscape. She wondered if they were brother and sister, or whether they had just grown to resemble each other in the bizarre way of some couples. She searched for something to say. Her early training, the endless meetings with local and national dignitaries, took over. “It’s an unusual name, the Polar Bear.”

  “Legend has it that a polar bear escaped from the zoo three hundred years ago, and was shot on this site.” Zimmer sipped his dark brown beer. They seemed to find her amusing.

  “What do you do?”

  Zimmer laughed, a robust bouncing laugh that surprised Lore. “We’re fences, my dear. And very good ones. And you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t worry. Spanner will soon fix that.”

  Spanner will fix that… She looked at her tiny, faraway image in the mirror behind the bar and touched her red hair.

  Spanner came back with beer. “Make it last. After this we’re heading uptown. You’ll need a clear head. Time to start paying me back.”

  Lore discovered that they worked well as a team. One would smile and take a drink to a table near a small group. The other watched from the bar. The rich, confident people found in the bars Spanner chose could not resist a woman on her own, whether from bad intent or the best of motives.

  “Come sit with us,” one would say, if it was Lore’s turn to sit by them, and offer her a drink, which she always took. And she would talk, and then maybe get hysterical with laughter, or cry, whichever would get the most attention, and perhaps spin them a story about being down on her luck, which was easy to do, with her accent and her bearing, and then Spanner would slide up behind them while they were fussing with handkerchiefs or orders for more drinks, and take one slate, or two. Rich people, Spanner said—and it seemed to be true—always left their slates in their jacket pockets, jackets that they hung over the backs of their chairs as though no one would dare to steal anything of theirs. Which, probably, no one had before. After all, what good was a slate to someone else? And after a while Lore would recover, and thank them decorously, and leave. She and Spanner would leap on the nearest slide or, if it was after two or three in the morning, swing onto the carapace of a beetling freighter, clutching hold of the emergency door release with their right hands—keeping their left hands, their PIDAs, shielded from the antenna on the top, because if the tiny beetle brain of a freighter sensed a human aboard, it would stop dead in its tracks. Freighters could be dangerous, but Spanner—and soon Lore—knew all the routes, all the stops, all the timetables.

  Sometimes they would giggle uproariously, especially when it had been Spanner doing the poor-wee-thing-all-alone, because as they slid through the deserted city she would recount at the top of her lungs the outrageous stories she had spun for the rich and gullible victims.

  Sometimes, if it had been dangerous work, or the alarm had gone out just minutes after they had left the bar and they had had to run, leap from one freighter to another, they would open a bottle of champagne at home and watch the pale liquid fizz like their adrenaline-rushing blood, and they would laugh again, and drink, and tear off each other’s clothes and fuck like wild animals on a pile of slippery gray slates.

  It seemed to Lore on nights like this that she had had no other life before right now, here, every pore open to the wild night’s feel, every follicle attuned to changes in the air, every taste bud and nerve cell hot and fluttering. She knew that sometimes Spanner made money from other people’s suffering, but she did not have to see that, and she had suffered, too. Everyone suffered. It was just a question of making sure she was using them, and not the other way around. She would not be fooled again, not the way Oster had fooled her. Never again. And in the middle of sex she would look up at Spanner moving over her and wonder if those half-closed eyes were laying the newstank images of a naked, weeping Lore on top of the real Lore.

  On nights like that, too, when Lore slep
t she often dreamed of being back in the bar, only now when she cried for these strangers it was for good reason, and she would wake up sweating in the hollow of the brightly colored quilt, remembering Tok, or Crablegs; her mother; Stella screaming in the fountain; and she would wonder which parts of her life were real.

  Sometimes, Spanner still went out on her own. Lore pressed her face against the glass, watching until Spanner was out of sight, and wondered where she went. Although it was getting easier to go out with Spanner at night, she still did not have the courage to do it on her own. And when they were out, it was Spanner who dealt with the world. Lore hid behind her: not literally, of course, but behind a cloud of aloof silence. It had always worked when she was a child, a van de Oest. It never occurred to her that it might not work now, when no one knew or cared who she was. Spanner had snapped at her a couple of times to not stand up so bloody straight, she was drawing attention. So she learned how to move like Spanner, alert and upright, but withdrawn, ready and wary. She learned how to slide together the beginning and ending of her words, to cut out the crystal pronunciation of her childhood. She gradually learned to become someone else, someone who recognized the thin, hungry face in the mirror, the red hair and naked vulva. But she still never went out into the open on her own.

  There was nothing specific of which she was afraid, just… everything, as though the world were a gelatinous beast that would fall upon her and suffocate her. The open spaces, the feeling that her back was naked, that people could see through her clothes; that someone would recognize her as that heiress who was kidnapped three or four months ago. And her heart would kick under her ribs, and the muscles behind her jaw and in her throat would tighten as though someone had a thick, soft ribbon around her neck and was pulling very, very slowly.