Canal Dreams

by Iain Banks

  The tube shook, hammered her shoulder, kicked against her neck and the side of her head. The noise was not a noise; it was the end of sound, an editing mark that cut her off from the world beyond her suddenly deadened ears.

  Flame burst around her. It swept, narrowed, funnelled, while she was still trying to cope with the image of herself the backwash of light had thrown before her, over the grey plastic of the Gemini's bows and the rippled lake beyond.

  The spark roared across the waters, dipping, swinging, spiralling.

  It met the bloom of flame on the pontoon and burst.

  The explosion seemed not to start; she thought she must have blinked, and missed the start. It was suddenly there; white, yellow; a jagged splayed froth of incandescence, already falling, collapsing, dimming through orange and red. The noise came through the ringing in her ears, and was followed by its echo, once sharply, then more muffled versions, fading and disappearing.

  'Jeje! she heard through the radio. Then Allá!

  The water jumped around the Gemini. The inflatable shuddered as she threw the SAM launcher away and saw the flickering light of gunfire over to her right. The Gemini shook again, and she heard a hissing noise. Sparks struck off the engine, and the dying, zinging noise of ricochets filled the air above as more white fountains leapt into the air in front of her. The Gemini bucked under her and the engine stopped suddenly. She had one hand on the side of the inflatable, and felt it go soft under her fingers. The flickering light went on; three or four ragged points of fire.

  She threw herself backwards out of the boat, into the water.

  11: Oneiric

  The water was strange and cloying, insinuating through the fabric of the fatigues, slicking the material against her skin. She took a deep breath, sounded, struggling through the black water away from the Gemini. The bullets hitting the water made deep thrumming noises, starting loud and violent, quickly fading. The high whine of the other inflatable's outboard drilled through the water under the percussive bullet beats.

  The boots were holding her back and dragging her down. She came up for air, twisting her head to look back at the inflatable; still dishearteningly close. She brought one foot then the other up, hauling the loose boots off. She hyperventilated as she watched; the other boat was hidden by the one she'd just jumped from, but the noise of the firing swarmed. through the air above her. Water burst whitely around the Gemini. She tore the remaining grenade from her breast and unbuckled the belt as she turned, took a last deep breath and dived again, heading away. Grenade and belt sank from her fingers into the dark lake.

  She swam under water until she thought her mouth was about to open of its own accord and the darkness in front of her eyes had turned to a dreamy; pulsing purple, then she came up, surfacing as quietly as she could. Still no sign of the other boat, but the firing was much louder, and the Gemini she'd been on was half-collapsed in the water, shaking and bouncing as shots tore into it; sparks flew from the outboard casing, and as she watched, fire burst from the inflatable; at the stern first as the outboard's fuel tank finally gave way, then along the length of the craft; the jerry can must have ruptured. She didn't know if the plastique would explode or not. She gulped air, sounded, and angled away, hearing and feeling a last few shots thump into the water. Then the firing stopped. The note of the outboard was deepening, slowing. She waited for the blast and shock of the explosion, but it didn't come then. Her lungs burned and she surfaced once again, carefully. She looked back.

  The second inflatable was silhouetted against the end-to-end flames of her Gemini; three or four men. The outboard revved, and the Gemini curved away from the burning inflatable, heading in the direction she'd swum at first. She went under, just as the ammunition on the burning Gemini started to detonate. It made a series of frenzied, booming bursts of noise, all but obliterating the sound of the outboard.

  She swam until she thought she was about to black out, heading almost at right angles to the direction she'd taken initially. The outboard, when she could hear it, sounded distant. The next time she looked the ammunition in the burning. boat had reached the finale; tracer erupted into the night sky like fireworks. There was no sign of the other Gemini. She took another deep breath. An explosion kicked her, and she thought the plastique had blown, but then another came, and another, and the outboard noise whined closer. She wriggled away, changing course, realising they were using grenades.

  When she had to come up, she tried not to make any noise.

  The Gemini was twenty metres away; lit by flames. Four men. One with what looked like a set of stubby; large-lensed binoculars. Another threw something ahead and to port; something splashed into the water ten or fifteen metres away from her. She wanted to dive then, but didn't. She watched the man with the nightscope swing round towards her.

  The grenade blew, pounding her, squeezing her. She heard herself gasp with the pain of it, though the noise was hidden in the roar of the water bursting and fluting out above the grenade. Just as the man scanning the waves came round to face her, she sounded, slipping under the surface. The out board grumbled and spat, this time close. Then it whined again, roared past her. Another grenade; close enough to hammer her ears but not as painful as the one before.

  When she next surfaced they were a hundred metres away. The light from the burning Gemini was waning; she heard the sound of the fire through the ringing that had reestablished itself in her ears like an old friend.

  After a few more grenades, the four men in the inflatable broke off and went to look at what was left of the Nadia's pontoon.

  They cruised up and down that part of the ship's hull, tiny voices calling, Jefe! Jefe! Señor Dandridge!

  She swam a little closer, wanting to see for herself. The Nadia's own lights and the dregs of the flames licking round the gutted Gemini shone upon the pontoon where Dandridge had been. A small fire burned there still, in the ripped fragments of the pontoon's wooden planks and empty oil drums. One of the men in the boat was scanning the water with the nightscope; another shone a torch. The Nadia's dark hull rose behind them like a cliff, glistening in the dying orange light of the foundering Gemini.

  They called Dandridge's name a few more times, then one of them pointed at the water and shouted. The outboard was silent, but the boat surged forward, white under the bow, then fell and slowed again. One of the men pulled something out of the water. They shone a torch on it. Whatever it was it wasn't very big, and none of them said anything. It splashed when they threw it back. The black Gemini creased white from the surface of the lake, curving round and taking them back to the pontoon; two of them picked their way across the wreckage and went up the steps. Hisako looked back at the burning Gemini. Lit by the flames on what was left of its own crumpled bows, it slipped stern-first into the waves.

  She trod water, moving a little all she time, letting the waves break over her, ducking her head under the water now and again. Torchlight swung haphazardly about the black Gemini waiting at the ruined pontoon.

  The men on the ship were gone some time.

  Once she sat in a train beneath the bottom of the sea.

  The line from Honshu to Hokkaido had long since been completed; the tunnel ran under the waters of the Tsugarukaikyo for thirty kilometres, beneath the autumn fogs and the winter storms, from one island to the other. She took the train rather than the ferry between late autumn and spring, and whenever the weather forecast was bad. One December day her train broke down, ten kilometres from land, under a raging sea.

  People talked nervously. They'd been told over the intercom a relief engine was on its way; there was no danger. The guard came down the carriages, reassuring people personally. Conversations started between strangers. Children played in the aisle, but she still sat looking out of the window, into the stony darkness. It had been black while they were moving; it was black now they'd stopped. She found you could ignore the reflections as long as nobody moved. The Strad occupied the seat next to her.

  She wasn't
afraid; she thought some people were, just because they were no longer moving, because something had gone wrong and things might continue to go wrong and it all might end in disaster, but she didn't think anything like that would happen; what would happen would be a long boring wait, then the journey resumed, some of the conversations maintained, some allowed to end. Finally everybody's own arrival, along the line, or in Sapporo; some met with smiles and helping hands, some walking quickly away, heads down, breath steaming from their mouths and noses, scattering for taxis, cars, buses and subway trains.

  Life was not exotic; even disasters were almost welcome, sometimes. She put her elbow on the table in front of her, her chin in her hand, and studied her own dark reflection in the glass.

  She was glad of the breakdown. Things could work too smoothly.

  This was like a time out; somehow, even when there was time to think, there was never time to think. All her life was taken care of, each month and week and day and hour ascribed a certain function, filled with duties and performances, or left precisely blank, for the pan of her existence that was not encased by music; for friends and relaxation and holidays. Holidays. Most of the people she knew hardly had any, but she took days and weeks off all the time, and could not understand how everybody else got by with so little. She was meant to enjoy her work more than most, but she kept trying to escape from it.

  Whatever; this interlude, stuck in a train in a tunnel, at night, beneath the sea bed, while the cold waves rolled and the spray filled the gale, seemed like a bonus, a siding. Now, unexpectedly, she could take a step back from her life, and think properly. She felt she needed to.

  Sanae Nantomi wanted to marry her.

  The water was warm; the fatigues trapped a layer at blood heat. She felt strong, and she knew she could tread water for hours; it was practically resting. The men on the ship came back to the rail; she could hear the shock and anger in their voices even over that distance, even without knowing the words. Muerto, she heard, over and again. She knew what that meant, could make that out all right. Muerto muerto muerto muerto muerto muerto muerto muerto.

  The small fire on the pontoon guttered and went out. The men rejoined the Gemini, and took the inflatable back to Le Cercle; she followed.

  It was a long swim.

  They'd met at a reception; his reception, arranged by the orchestra in honour of his return to Japan after ten almost unbroken years in Europe, first studying, then composing and conducting, then zooming to sudden fame as the glamorous new orchestral star; of Paris, Europe, the world. The cover of Newsweek; invitations everywhere; documentaries on television; a film made about his tour through the Soviet Union with the Halle, which had been surprisingly funny, pleased the critics enough to win prizes at Cannes, and made money on general release; dates with starlets and models; a series of TV commercials for expensive Parisian colognes. Plus a workload her conducting colleagues shook their heads over; young as he was, he'd burn out.

  She'd seen the Newsweek cover. San, as the gaijin had decided to call him, even looked like a film star. Jet-black hair, long and ringleted, inherited from his Eurasian mother, wild around a bright, pale, hawkish face, rarely photographed without a smile, a grin, a smirk. When there was no smile on his face he just looked broodingly romantic. He was still only thirty but he looked much less. Newsweek had made much of the number of pop idols ripped from teenage girls' bedroom walls to be replaced by San, grinning down, at once rakish and shy, head lowered, eyes half-hidden behind a tangled black fringe.

  She'd been appalled. The performances she'd heard of his were good; full of fire and drama without being brash; innovative without being contemptuous of previous interpretations. He could conduct, certainly, but why all the rest? Such wilful self-promotion seemed vulgar, egotistical. She'd already decided not to go to the reception even before the invitation arrived. Most of the others in the orchestra were excited at the thought of meeting him — only a few of the older men didn't seem too impressed with the idea — but she wouldn't go to his court, she wouldn't pay homage to the boy wonder. Thirty, she thought; the child. She suddenly remembered when thirty had seemed ancient. She was thirty-six and had never felt old before.

  Then she thought; she'd have gone anyway, if it was anybody else, and besides there was a music journalist, recently back from the States, she'd had her eye on for a while; this would be an ideal opportunity to get talking to him. She would go; she just wouldn't ask to be introduced to the Newsweek cover-boy. She went through about half her clothes before she decided on the right thing; not too dowdy, but not something that looked as though it was trying to catch the eye of the media star. A western-looking black suit, jacket cut high, like a male flamenco dancer's; slim skirt with a discreet slit, there more for mobility than excitement. White silk shirt and sheer black stockings; flat black shoes because the journalist wasn't tall.

  She went late, in case they had some sort of formal receiving line set up at the start. The journalist had a bad cold and left before she had time to do more than exchange pleasantries and check he wasn't there with anybody else. She almost went then, but didn't.

  She wandered a little, sampled the buffet, was talked to variously. She decided to go home and read a book as soon as the first bore even approached.

  Mr Okamoto bowed to her as she turned away from the buffet table holding a little paper plate. Sanae Naritomi stood at his side, beaming at her, dressed, she thought, rather in the style of a Mississippi gambler. He stuck one long, white hand out to her as Okamoto said, 'Naritomi-san asked to be introduced to you…

  She shifted the plate from one hand to the other. He shook her hand, bowed as well. 'Thank you, Mr Okamoto. Ms Onoda; I've wanted to meet you for years. I have all your recordings. He flashed white teeth, tossed his hair quite naturally and with a 'May I? took a roll of salmon from her plate and popped it in his mouth. Okamoto had gone; she hadn't noticed. 'Delicious, Naritomi said. 'Mmm. I hope we can work together; I'd count that a privilege.

  'Well, she said, unsettled, putting the plate down behind her on the table, then taking it back up again in case he thought she was being rude and had only done it to stop him taking any more food. She felt warm. 'Well, she said again, feeling foolish and tongue-tied, as he probably expected all women to be with him. 'I do play with the orchestra. As you're going to guest, we're bound to work together.

  'Ah, he snapped his fingers, shook his head quickly. 'I mean more closely than that. I'd be honoured to accompany you sometime; and I have some pieces… probably not very good, probably not much better than my barely competent piano playing- She'd heard his barely competent piano playing; he could probably have had a career as a concert pianist if he hadn't chosen conducting. - but I'd be just, he shook his head, clapped his hands together softly. She wondered if the scent she could smell was the same cologne he advertised, delighted if you'd play them. I've always loved the cello, and your playing especially. I'm serious; I really hope you'll do this for me. But hey, he slapped one hand gently off his forehead, mocking the theatricality of the gesture with a grin. 'I shouldn't be coming on like this, should I? What happened to small talk first, huh? I should soften you up with more embarrassing praise and tell you how much I love being back in Japan, and yes it was a good flight and yes I do wear the stuff I advertise on television and no the gaijin don't really — but now I'm rambling, yes? I'm just nervous. These salmon things taste really good you know; do you mind if I…?

  He stood smiling, eating.

  She realised she was smiling too, even more broadly; and wondered how long she'd looked like that. She nodded, bit down on her lips a little to help control herself. 'I'm sure we can arrange something, she said.

  They talked. Eventually he was dragged away to meet the Sony top brass who were sponsoring some of the concerts. 'Don't try to escape without saying goodbye! he called back to her. She nodded, throat dry; face hot, eyes wide, and looked for a cooling, calming drink.

  He begged her to stay an extra half-hour, to t
he end, when she tried to leave. There was a party in his suite in the New Otani; he insisted, pleaded.

  More talk at the party; then the last half-dozen of them went to a gaijin club in Roppongi in the small hours. San played lightning-fast backgammon with a one-armed Australian (yes, he had fished for shark; no, a car accident), exchanged jokes with a mountainous Yakuza gangster with tattooed eyelids, and then played piano in the bar; he borrowed a waitress's little leather bag and stuck it on his head to do an impression of Chico Marx, plinking the keyboard with one flicked, pistol-like finger.

  At dawn, he took the hired Mercedes down to the docks at Yokohama; in the back seat, the other two survivors — an early-balding television producer and a glamorous, long-legged advertising exec — had fallen asleep during the drive, and sat slumped on the brown leather, his shining head on her padded, sequined shoulder.

  San looked vaguely disappointed they'd given up the fight for fun. He shrugged. They got out. San breathed in the dawn, then stood looking at the sleeping couple in the back of the Merc with a great grin on his face. It was the smile people normally wore when gazing at tiny babies. 'Don't they look sweet? he said, then turned and walked down to the edge of the dock, and stood looking out over the misty lengths of ships and warehouses to where the dim red sun rose above the masts, cranes and derricks of the port. Horns sounded, the air was cool, and the breeze smelled of the ocean.

  He put his jacket over a bollard for her, and sat at her feet, legs dangling over the edge of the empty dock, looking down at the sluggish water, where half-waterlogged planks and wind-skittery grey lumps of polystyrene foam bobbed together on a film of oil.

  He took out a silver cigarette case. She hadn't seen him smoke. Then she smelled the hash. 'Do you? he asked, offering her the joint after a couple of tokes. She took it.

  He said, 'I've kept you up.

  'That's OK.