Walking across those dunes through shifting sands, a figure rippled in the light. In the distance behind him was a huge blackened ruin of a tower. A hot wind blew in his face. He stopped to shake some of the gritty sand from his shirt sleeves and look back. The burnt-out edge of the tower was ratcheted like the edge of a film strip, black with tiny transparent rectangles where the light came through. Even now he felt as if he were still running to escape from that oven, the soles of his feet parched.
He trudged on through the heat. The land flattened out into a dusty rock-strewn wilderness with patches of grass. This was Rojava. He was heading for the town of Qamishli to look for his friend Ardil. There were unfinished conversations between them that had started many years earlier. What had become of Ardil? He was curious to know.
As he came closer to the town something on the ground caught his eye. A white asphodel plant poked out from the shelter of a few rocks. Amazed that a plant could survive in such surroundings he bent to look at it. A clump of delicate white flowers branched out from silvery-grey spiky foliage. Each flower had six starry white petals. On impulse he stooped to pick it. The thick-stemmed plant resisted his efforts with surprising tenacity. He remembered learning at school about the asphodel meadows – an area of the underworld reserved for the souls of ordinary people who had done nothing special in their lives, nothing particularly good or bad. He twisted and tugged. It would not come away. Finally, regretting that he had bent the stem, he gave up and left the flower drooping.
On the outskirts of the city he made his way through dried mud streets and squat houses made of clay with straw roofs. Dogs barked as he walked along. Towards the centre of town the clay hovels were replaced by cinderblock and brick houses and then by tall white blocks of flats with balconies in well-laid out dusty streets. He stopped and studied a sign that said Qamislo. So the name had been changed from Qamishli to the Kurdish version. What does that mean? he wondered.
He found Ardil in a meeting. The meeting was taking place in a large, high-ceilinged room above a bakery. He slipped in and stood at the back. The smell of flat breads baking drifted up from below mingled with the aroma of his favourite pastries filled with feta cheese. Through open windows could be heard the harsh shouts of market traders in the street outside. Forty or so men and women were seated, crammed together on what looked like school benches arranged in circles.
Ardil was immediately recognisable even after all those years. He was wearing a black t-shirt and jeans and still had his beloved camera slung round his neck. He looked older and more confident. His eyes held that familiar humorous glint and his moustache bristled with energy as he leaned forward to emphasise the points he was making. He brandished a handmade booklet to which he referred, sometimes reading passages from it to illustrate what he was saying or to look for guidance. It seemed that the French owners of one of the local cement factories had disappeared as a result of the war and there was a debate about how to occupy, requisition and manage the factory. At that moment a fierce argument broke out in the room. A stout woman with an ocean of wavy brown hair stood up to complain that her husband would not have enough time to be involved because he had to run their leather shop and take the children to school. The matter was resolved amidst laughter and she sat down again.
No-one took any notice of the traveller who had appeared from the desert and who was leaning against the back wall. As he listened, he recognised that Ardil was now putting into practice some of the ideas that they had discussed many years before. In those days he used to argue with Ardil all night in cafes, drinking tea, smoking endless cigarettes and still talking as they made their way to university in the morning. He had considered himself the pragmatist. Ardil, he thought, was too idealistic. Ardil had stayed behind in Syria with his Kurdish community whereas he had escaped and gone to England to study computer engineering with the hope of ending up one day in Silicon Valley.
In the meeting room people were smiling. The community seemed to have been transformed since he was last there although he had only visited a few times before when he stayed with Ardil’s family. Now the energised townsfolk were doing things differently. There was talk of collectivising land, occupying abandoned workplaces, re-populating empty villages. The discussions took place in a carefree atmosphere, as if it were the easiest and most sensible thing in the world to achieve such things even in the middle of a war zone and surrounded by destruction. He twisted his head round until he could read the title printed on the front of Ardil’s booklet. It said: The Dream of Ocalan and in smaller letters underneath Notes from the Sea of Marmara. Some people were fanning themselves with their copies.
The meeting was breaking up. A team had been appointed to organise the cement factory. Another group had been formed to deal with some problems involving the disposal of street garbage. Just then a short man wearing his military cap and fatigues arrived and with a sense of urgency pushed his way through the group to show Ardil something on his mobile phone. Ardil jumped to his feet with an expression of dismay. People gathered around. The atmosphere changed. After a brief discussion it was decided that everyone must report to their local militia group. The U.S. troops were withdrawing as they spoke. There were already reports of Turkish troops gathering on the border. Ardil grabbed his leather shoulder bag and headed for the door. For a moment he glanced up towards the back of the room but either he did not see or did not recognise his old acquaintance.
He watched Ardil disappear. The room emptied. He went over to one of the benches and picked up a discarded booklet. It was written in Kurdish and English. He stuffed it in his pocket. Clearly it would be impossible to find Ardil again in these circumstances. But somehow his curiosity had been satisfied. He decided to return home. For a moment he stood in the doorway and felt confused as to where his real home lay.
He headed back out of town retracing the way he had come, clutching his sandals in his hand. They had been chafing his feet and he preferred to travel barefoot. On the outskirts of town he rested for a while on the stone trough where animals came to drink. There he examined his blisters and decided to risk putting his sandals on again. Two military Toyota vehicles sped past him on their way out of the city. He continued on his journey, thinking about what he had just seen: the defiant woman arguing her case; the atmosphere of camaraderie amongst ordinary people; the decision to occupy the factory. All these things he considered as he walked. After a mile or so he came once more upon the small pile of rocks that held the asphodel plant. It was still there, its starry blooms upright again, no longer drooping. He paused. The vitality and resilience of the flower attracted him. He plucked one small blossom from the spray and folded it between the leaves of the booklet before putting it back in his pocket.
It was getting late. A great crimson balloon-sun rested lightly above the horizon, burning through the dust. He looked ahead seeking the tower in order to find his bearings. The place where he thought the tower had once been was now enveloped in a black cloud. All the same he headed in that direction occasionally feeling in his pocket for the booklet. The Dream of Ocalan. Notes from the Sea of Marmara. The name itself sounded like the murmur of waves in the dryness of the desert. Soothing and refreshing. He had read some of it as he walked. Reading it exhilarated him. It was a political tract but in straightforward language and it opened out the top of his head into a galaxy of new ideas blown there by a solar wind. He wished he could take Ardil by the arm and that they could go for a drink of handmade wine in one of the Tel Tamer bars they had secretly frequented as students and where they could continue their long conversations. He would tell Ardil that he understood better what he was trying to do and that he admired him for it.
He looked up from the booklet. A huge wide pillar of black dust the size of half a city was making its way towards him. Even at a distance the sand and grit were beginning to whip up and sting his face. To his left was an outcrop of grey rocks. He recognised it as one of the stable landmarks from which the few nomads in the re
gion took their bearings. Earlier he had seen one of them, standing some distance away, alone in the desert with his goat. The man had waved at him. There was nothing he could do but try to shelter beneath the spur of rocks. He pulled his cotton scarf over his head and held it up to protect his eyes and mouth but soon he was choking on a whirlwind of dust, sightless and sand-blind. Tank after tank roared past. Minutes later he heard the whine of F16 bombers overhead. He felt a sudden chill of fear for the citizens of Qamislo.
When everything grew quiet again he pushed on. And who knows whether it took a short time or a long time but eventually the tower towards which he had been heading rose up in front of him, a tall blackened honeycomb of charred flats. An image came back to him, a memory of black smoke that contained a spiky dancing thistle of crimson flame. And a memory of falling. A long fall. It should have been more of a surprise to him than it was to find himself back in London, in West London at one end of Lancaster Road, to be precise. It had been a long walk. Now the harsh metallic energy of the city assaulted him. The blaring noise of traffic hurt his ears. People were shouting. There seemed to be some sort of demonstration around him in the street. Hardly able to keep up as they marched was a severely disabled man with a twisted jerky gait. He walked on the balls of his feet, leaning backwards at an angle and encouraging the protesters as they slowly made their way forward.
The traveller decided to keep moving. In an attempt to avoid the confusion he stepped down into the gutter and edged his way past the crowd. He made his way to a small park which contained a children’s playground. The playground was closed for the evening and all was quiet. He jumped over the railings and climbed up the ladder of the children’s slide to where he could get a better view from the tiny landing at the top. Below, on the other side of the railings, the disabled man was bending down to pick up something from the pavement. It was his copy of The Dream of Ocalan which must have fallen from his pocket. He put his hand there to check. Yes. The booklet had gone. He watched the man flick through the pages and then become absorbed in the content, letting the dried asphodel flower float zig-zagging to the pavement. And then it seemed as though the whole playground below him was a meadow of asphodel plants. The silvery-grey plants with white starry flowers had spread not only over the playground but over some of the adjacent street as well. And standing there not fifty yards away was Ardil, up to his knees in the meadow flowers. Puzzled, he patted himself down to see if his clothes and the cotton scarf around his neck were still full of desert sand from the journey. It was then that he realised that he himself was made of nothing more than rubble and grit and wind.
ANNA KARENINA AND MADAME BOVARY DISCUSS THEIR SUICIDES
Of the many invisible cities described by Calvino there is one remarkable city that is missing. If you approach this city by road you can see the main station on the outskirts. A handful of people loiter on the platform. It is only when you enter the missing city that you understand it consists of nothing but waiting spaces: private waiting rooms, public waiting rooms, foyers, lobbies, ante-rooms, precincts set aside for queuing, courtyards designed for hanging about. The entire city is constructed for the sole purpose of waiting.
The waiting rooms are of different historical periods and serve different purposes. Some are rooms where ambassadors and dignitaries wait before being called in to be presented to the emperor or caliph or president. These high-ceilinged rooms have wallcoverings, usually crimson and mainly of silk, as well as elaborately embossed carpets. Liveried servants wait to usher in the chosen elite into the hallowed presence but, of course, that moment never arrives. Then there are dentists’ and doctors’ waiting rooms where patients flick through magazines and no-one is ever called in to see the consultant. Other groups assemble in the dank, badly lit waiting rooms of railway stations with old benches and dated posters where, naturally, no train puts in an appearance. People mingle in theatre foyers for drinks before a show which they will never see. Students gather together and talk a little as they wait outside the examination room. Through the window they can see the invigilator laying out exam papers meticulously, one on each desk, for an exam they will never sit. And, of course, two actors, costumed as tramps, wait endlessly in the wings ready to step onto a brightly lit stage whose set is nothing more than a country road and one tree.
Rooms on different floors are linked by moving escalators where people wait to progress from one level to another, slowly rising or descending until they can resume waiting elsewhere. From a distance the city appears to be full of people moving around meaningfully occupied, but this is not the case.
Some people believe that the city is really an enormous art installation where people wander from one period of history and from one experience to another but in reality, the experience is always the same, the experience of waiting. All the same, there are no signs of serious discontent in the population. Hope keeps people quiescent. Expectancy is all.
The meeting between the two women took place in a spacious room on the second floor of a large four-storey house. They were seated, engrossed in conversation, on a high-backed oak settle which also served as a storage chest. Anna Karenina was in a light-hearted frame of mind. Over her blue dress she wore a pale cashmere shawl embroidered with thin wool in a floral pattern round the edges. Her face was animated, her grey eyes alight with surprise and curiosity as she turned to Emma Bovary.
‘Do you mean that your husband never suspected anything?’
Emma Bovary was the shorter of the two with a sturdy body suggesting peasant stock. Her shiny black hair was styled a la Chinoise, parted in the middle with a neat knot on top. She wore a cream cotton dress that fitted tightly over her plump breasts, and smart black boots that showed off her ankles to advantage. Mistaking Anna’s curiosity for admiration, Emma cocked her head to one side and gave a small smile of satisfaction.
‘Charles never had any idea. Not a clue.’
Anna managed to suppress a hint of disapproval. ‘How did you manage that?’
‘Well, in some ways I always thought Charles was an imbecile. He had absolutely no ambition. I would have liked our name to be famous. He was just content to bumble about as a country doctor. I was furious once when he botched an operation that could have made our names. Anyway, my beloved Charles never noticed a thing. I even used to slip out of bed early in the mornings to meet my lover, Rodolphe, in the arbour at the end of the garden and Charles never knew.’ Emma giggled. ‘Oh yes. And he never knew about Leon either. Heaven knows why he didn’t spot what was going on. Didn’t your husband ever suspect anything?’
Anna raised a disdainful eyebrow as she recalled the early days of her affair with Vronsky and her husband’s reaction.
‘Oh Karenin – he sniffed something from the first moment. He didn’t exactly suspect anything himself but he noticed that people were talking about me and Vronsky and he didn’t like that. It was all a matter of appearances for him. I think he just refused to believe it was possible that I should do such a thing. But anyway, in the end I told him.’
Emma looked appalled. ‘You told him?’
Anna nodded and smiled. ‘I really don’t like living with that sort of deceit. And Vronsky hated being involved in lies. He was too honourable. He couldn’t have tolerated it for long.’
Emma looked directly at Anna and the freshness, openness and self-possession she saw in that lovely face made her feel inferior and a little cheap. Perhaps Anna was not capable of being sly or duplicitous? And what was all this about honour? If confessing the truth to one’s husband was the price of honour, she could do without it. But perhaps this was how the aristocracy always behaved, Emma wondered. How odd. She had been thrilled to find that her new friend was a member of the Russian nobility and listened enthralled as Anna talked about Prince This and Princess That and casually referred to footmen and servants. ‘Oh, was your Vronsky a count?’ Emma had exclaimed, her eyes widening in awe. And Anna had shrugged and laughed as if it were nothing.
Feeli
ng that she had not been completely straightforward about her confession to Karenin, Anna hastened to explain: ‘Well actually, I was pregnant with Vronsky’s child. I had to tell him.’
‘Oh how awful. Thank heavens that never happened to me. One child was bad enough.’ Emma lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Did you find that once you had fallen for someone else you suddenly couldn’t stand your child? I remember shoving my daughter away and thinking she was an ugly little so and so. But then, I was obsessed with Rodolphe.’
Anna was a little taken aback.
‘Oh no. I still loved my son with Karenin . . . at least I think I did. In fact I once risked everything to visit him secretly on his birthday. But I know what you mean. When things were going well with Vronsky I never gave my son a second thought. And I do remember coming home at one point after I’d been with Vronsky and thinking what a disappointment my son was. He just seemed so tedious and unexceptional. Vronsky occupied my thoughts entirely.’
Emma nodded in sympathy.
‘Children get in the way, don’t they? When Rodolphe and I were planning to run away together he asked what we should do about my daughter. Without thinking I just said, “We’ll take her with us”.’ Emma shook her head in exasperation. ‘That was my big mistake. It must have put him off. I should have said I’d leave her behind.’ Emma straightened the long skirts of her dress and pushed her lips out in a defiant pout. ‘Anyway, my husband ate slowly. That’s enough to drive anyone mad.’
‘Oh, my husband was maddeningly stubborn and aloof. You can’t imagine.’ A shadow crossed Anna’s face and she twisted her hands together as she blurted out, ‘To be honest, when my daughter was born, Vronsky’s child, that is, I just didn’t take to her. I felt bad about it but I never really liked her. Not even when she was ill. I think I was scared because I knew Vronsky had always disliked family life and here I was trapping him into domesticity. Worse still, according to Russian law I was still married to Karenin and so the child had to take the name Karenin unless my husband agreed to give me a divorce so that I could re-marry. The name business disturbed Vronsky no end. Besides, after the birth I nearly died. Vronsky was so distraught he tried to shoot himself.
The Master of Chaos Page 8
