by CK Collins
Ephraim and I tried watching a First Class match last night, but even that wasn’t as fun as usual. There’s this supposedly ace spinner for Jaya Cricket Club and I’m sorry but he just sucks. They got reeded for about a million boundaries by PKCA, who I’m starting to hate almost as much as Sagaro CA. I tried getting Ephraim in on the irrational animosity for people we don’t know, but he seemed distracted the whole time.
This money from Caida is part of my problem too, just hanging over my head. Whenever I think about calling, I just feel paranoid. There’s a pay phone three blocks from the hotel, and for some reason that just feels better. I buy a phone card and dial the number, sweating like a heifer.
I’m so afraid of getting laughed at. Numbered Swiss bank accounts, those only exist in movies. But I don’t even talk to a person, straight to a robot. I enter the code, which is about a hundred digits long, and the robot, which has a very silky English accent, tells me that my account contains eighty-five thousand dollars US.
I hang on the line while the robot tells me what buttons I can press to do things with my eighty-five thousand dollars US. It asks if I want to repeat the menu. I hang up. I feel excited. And dirty. Whatever, I’ve got to focus on what to do.
I can pay for my own delivery, this means. And find another place to live if it comes to that. Support myself until I can go back to work. And if I need to bribe somebody to help Ephraim, I can do that too.
There’s still thirteen pounds twenty on the card. I’m wired. I call Dad. We talk for few minutes and then I tell him to write down some numbers for me. (Silly man, he keeps expecting my calls to get less weird.) He asks if I’m in trouble. I promise that this is a good thing.
He’s given up on telling me to come home. I can’t fly this late in the pregnancy anyway. Hearing his voice feels good — I don’t want to hang up. I tell him about the weather and about cricket. I tell him I’d pay cash money for a cool breeze. I want to invite him to come here, but I need to think and figure out the how of that. I tell him I’m going to buy a cell phone soon. And that it’s time for him to buy one too. And that I’m eating well. And that I love him.
The guy waiting for the phone booth looks like he can’t understand how I fit inside. Me neither — maybe that’s why I feel so damn hot. I’m not ready for the hotel yet. I walk down to the seawall and pull my whale self up.
It’s a beautiful place, Jaya, it really is. But it’s not my place. Never going to be my place. But, you know, what place ever will be?
What am I going to do if Rika walks through the door? The Colonel’s a prick, but he was right — I don’t know his son. The gaping emptiness I used to feel, it’s all been so filled-in by the baby. I want him to be safe. I want him to be home and be a father and all that. We have a bond, we’ll always have a bond. But can I say I love him?
I climb off the seawall. Brush the grit off my butt. Wipe my forehead. Six more weeks, little one, we just need to hold on for six more weeks. You need to stay inside till you’re ready, and I need to survive this heat. And seeing as how ain’t nobody going to throw me a shower — so unfair, after all the bassinets and Diaper Genies I’ve pitched in for — I need to go into nesting mode. Little one, you’re going to need jammies and a crib and a developmentally appropriate mobile and so much else.
I hurry back. Ephraim always worries when I’m late.
19 April
* * *
Jaya, Masalay
Behind me he comes — I have no time for reaching my weapon — his fingers like a gun to the back of my head.
———Pow.
He laughs and spins me round. Even in the dark I right away know his face. I am called by the name I had before. And pulled into the darker shadows.
———What’s that you’ve got in your pocket?
I tell him it is a knife. My voice is wanting to call him sir. He says to see it. He examines the blade. For cutting apples it is fine, but it is no weapon for a man. I say I know. He gives it back.
———Don’t sweat it. Tough situation, this. And you’re doing good with what you’ve got, you are.
I should not do it, Ashma, but I say to him thanks.
———Didn’t know you had it in you, honestly. Just this little runt, is what I remember. But look at you now. Playing the Liashists’ redemption game like a fucking Champions League fucker. My man.
He steps back and looks me up and down.
———Put on some weight too, looks like. Remember that time you got the red runs? MDF PKMs blasting at your ass and you all stooped over. Moaning. Remember?
I say yes. He asks do I remember him leaving me there. I say he did not leave me.
———Fuck right I didn’t. Not my way. Picked you up, remember that? MDF on you and I smoked that faggot in the head. Shit all over you and I carried you? She do that for you ever? The white lady, she ever clean your shit?
I tell him that Callie is a good person. He laughs at me for being in love.
———No I’m just fucking with you. No, I bet it’s true. Good person. What’s it you had of supper tonight, you and her?
I am not wanting to talk about Callie. I say to him it was different things. He asks do I know what he had of supper.
———Me tonight, I had rice. Know how I remember? Because that’s what I have every damn day. Why don’t you run in there and bring out some of your different things for me? Big plate, fill it up.
He waits a second and then laughs at me. He is just fucking with me. On the street is a car, and our bodies we press into the shadows. He’s quiet many seconds.
———So, she know about the shit you done?
I say that she knows of some things. About that he thinks. He asks me do I know what happened to him.
———Got caught up. Same as you, same as you. Wasn’t MDF, though. Wasn’t Liashists. No I got saved for real. Hilm Hivaa, my brother. Got me clean. Clean and educated about the truth of this world. This Liashe shit, I know you just playing at that shit. But Hilm Hivaa, that salvation is for real, my brother.
At Callie’s window, he looks.
———She’s some kind of special lady, huh? That’s the word. Gotta keep her safe, me and you. Right yeah?
I tell him that I want Callie safe. Soon, he says to me, people will be coming here. And then some serious shit is going to happen. He asks me do I remember the signals I was taught. I say to him I do.
———That’s good, that’s good. Me and you, gonna protect that lady. And then you and me, we are gonna have us some talks. Some of that shit we did, you know, that shit was not right. The world is that way, though, you know, it’s fucked up. Well, Hilm Hivaa is the answer to all that. All that. Gonna introduce you to some real teachers — show you some serious truth. Salvation for real, my brother.
5 May
* * *
Central Karsk, Masalay
Rika’s third day dawns wet. He’s roused early and shuttled into the truck. Still muddy from yesterday’s travel, sore from bouncing on ruts and sleeping — or attempting to sleep — on hard floors. Spooning cold cogis from a tin cup as their caravan lurches through the heavy bush.
With Rika’s picture at every police barracks and roadblock on the island, Sidaarik is taking no chances. Sending them straight through the maw of the Central Karsk, where the MDF don’t tread. The jungle Karskans, scattered and primitive, ignore anything that doesn’t concern them. The only real risk, apart from bugs and dysentery, is from Brigade elements guarding their smuggling routes.
Past noon, they transfer to a new truck, and he’s left twenty minutes under a tree that provides naught shelter. Invisible insects wriggle under his soaked clothes.
Suspicious movement in the trees. The gunners swivel their machine guns and viyka take positions around Rika.
Elephants.
A good omen and the viyka bow.
No one but Rika notices the little boy who is watching from where the elephants came.
* * *
They driv
e an hour past nightfall. The rain has stopped. A meeting point. They climb out. It feels good to stretch.
A pass of the canteen and they set out on foot, following electric torches along a slender path. Hungry, feet sodden, slapping constantly at mosquitoes, Rika wishes he could rest, wishes he could sleep. If they’re overtaken, here or anywhere, what instructions has Sidaarik given about him? They’ll not let him be taken. Surely. It will be a bullet to the head.
It will be a release.
A declivity, a break in the trees, and they are at the Niconammek. Immense and majestic in the moonlight.
Rika sits on a log near the water’s edge as they wait for the boat that will take him into South Masalay. And for the first time he can remember, he feels at ease. The air is cool, and even the viyka appear overcome by the calm.
Darting matchbugs form constellations over the water.
Insects chitter and birds squawk as the Niconammek shushes over the thick medusa roots of sitaalo trees.
A boat motors out of the darkness. Lights signal.
The viyka help to secure the boat, exchange a few words with the men onboard, then recede into the trees. His new escorts take him aboard and he’s given a towel for cleaning himself. The extraordinary pleasure of dry clothes. His cabin is minuscule, but he can extend flat on a mattress ensconced in mosquito netting.
Supper is brought, an ample curry. His appetite has gone, but he compels himself to eat.
Cleaning away the mud has set his bites to itching.
A rumble, a shudder, and they set off from the bank.
There’s a small oval window opposite the door. He goes to it hoping for cool, but the air is ripe with the odour of mud and river rot. The diesel engine churns. A searchlight scans the water and opposite bank. Occasionally it catches a naked boy running through the trees.
Sleep, he needs sleep.
The mosquito netting has holes. They get in, the flying things, and collect on him. They congregate on his skin. Sniffing him. Whispering.
Ikidris has found her.
6 May
* * *
Liashe, Masalay
Tchori has arrived from the mending room shaken and not ready to talk about it. At Carodai’s insistence, she takes a seat while he prepares the tea.
“Here then,” he says, setting it down.
Would be better with a dash of whiskey in, but the warmth is comforting. “Thank you.”
“Not at all, child. Take your time.”
But they haven’t got time for her to wallow — Sule will be calling and they need to decide what this means.
“Alright, so. I’ve gone to the mending room. You recall I said that the odour has been changing. Monday last I’ve had to visit the chemist for a menthol balm — spread it under my nose to mask the smell. I opened the door this morning and straight away I knew.”
“You’ve seen what first?”
“Didn’t see anything — felt. Before I even got the lights open, I felt something under my foot. I thought perhaps something had fallen, some bits of paper. But it felt harder than that, a kind of crunch. I press the light switch and look down: There’s a flower on the floor. And the pod is cracked — I don’t know how I knew, but right away I did — it was eaten through. They were cocoons, Brother.”
He shuts his eyes, a solemn wince. “Yes. I should have guessed.”
“There have been times — I thought it was my imagination — when I was in there and I heard a kind of scratching.”
“So, you’ve found that pod. What then?”
“I see the cocoon, I see the caterpillar. Then I look up — and they’ve all broken. All of them. The specimens that I’d kept from water, they were the ones with caterpillars wriggling out. Black, this horrid twitching. All the rest had turned to butterflies. Some still wriggling out of their cocoons. Red and yellow wings, lovely curves, such brilliant markings. They were beautiful.”
“Did they get out of the window, child?”
“No. No. I’ve closed the window my last time there — these monkeys hanging on the bars, screeching, I couldn’t stand it. Brother, those butterflies were so desperate to be out. Flying at the sunlight and hitting the glass. Smacking it, smacking it. And a smell, sweeter than honey and stronger than the rot ever was. I’ll say it again, too: those colours, those curves, they were beautiful. To have seen a million of them rising out of that field, filling the sky over Rith Idiiye, I can’t imagine.
“I should have stopped it somehow, but I just froze. The sound of them hitting that windowpane. Smearing it. Falling broken on the sill.”
* * *
The ring is expected, but it makes Tchori jump.
Brother, so adroit now, engages the speaker. “Sule, I’m here with Tchori.”
“Something urgent, Brother?”
It’s Carodai who does the work of describing the scene in the mending room. “Have I related it properly, dear?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“Sule, we must assume this is connected somehow to Ikidris. As Tchori has pointed out, we might have had a million of them swarming now from Rith Idiiye. There may have been similar blooms elsewhere, though, we can’t know. Whatever triggered it, I feel we must take it as a signal to act. The moment is now.”
“I agree,” says Sule.
“What do you recommend?”
“The lad. I’m going to make contact.”
Tchori interrupts, “I thought you said he’s had contact with Hilm Hivaa.”
“The one time.”
“Seems risky.”
“I believe I understand him.”
“We must trust you on that,” says Carodai. “Assuming the plan works, how soon until Callie is safely out of Jaya?”
“From now? Thirty-six hours.”
Carodai, emotional, exhales sharply. “Sule, you must do whatever is necessary.”
“I will do.”
“The doing must be yours,” he says in flushed voice, “but the moral wage of any violence must be upon me, Sule. Upon my soul.”
“I will do what I must. Not more and not less.”
“———Sule, it’s Tchori.”
“Hello Tchori.”
She’s interjected with no forethought of what to say. “May you dwell in God, Sule.”
“And you as well, Tchori. Goodbye.”
Afternoon
Jaya, Masalay
Callie is many times wanting to practice her Masalayan.
———Tarim saraalish, pal.
To the kitchen she is walking with her book. Even though it is not all the way right, I answer her back tarim saraalish and she is smiles.
———Kaar itha, itha
Her finger she holds up of wanting me to wait.
———No, wait. Itha divaafim kaar itha, Ephraim, kaar surn aliskaad ani.
Ashma, I am afraid of that. But I am not knowing the meaning of aliskaad that way, and I ask her does she mean a different word. Through pages of her book she looks.
———Ay gask, im, uh
I am of waiting and trying not to show worry. The right page she finds.
———Right, duh. Apiishtim. Kaar sur aphiishtim, ay migask sil. Ani?
Now I am fear. My voice I make calm and say to her dist dinai.
When she has for her bedroom left, I go to the garden. Ashma, it is as Callie said — in the dirt are footprints, small and naked. I am so hard staring, I do not see her come out. Her head she tilts and her Masalayan she forgets.
———Strange, huh? Maybe one of those kids from across the street.
The baby has today been of painful kicking. On her belly she puts her hands and is a deep breath and skyward eyes.
———What do you think, pal, we finally gonna have us some rain?
Evening
Jaya, Masalay
I am removing the rubbish. For signals I look. For footprints I look. There is falling a light rain. Of this hour, the car is black and eastward parked.
Around the west side I go
for checking Callie’s window. It is locked. But open is the back gate, and I am at face with the neighbour.
———Might do to get a better lock.
His words are Talidic but he does not look to me a Talid.
