Fire in the Unnameable Country (44 page)

In the Collections Subdivision, she is one of many employees one recognizes by face, but whose name is unknown. Surely there exists a dossier with all the painful details of her life, including descriptions of her voice, her cough, the angle of her neck when she leans forward to work the dial of her shortwave, her eating habits, her casual acquaintances, and, in all likelihood, one could probably locate her name there as well.

Through headphones, my grandmother hears tangles surfs of thoughts break crest in a pillow mind TRAVEL CARD TOMORROW, she hears loud and clear a man's dreaming plans to apply for the page that will unite two companions in the same unnameable country beyond thirsty light on congested road and car to car, nose to tail of cars in series. Permits for the same country, she learns.

She adjusts her headphones to catch the thoughts of a wandering thirsty caravan following tales of water floating flower petals poured directly from vase to beseeching hands. She learns that they're in a compound belonging to the heaving giant, twice a man's height, a people-eater with fart nostrils and all, called Murray who oversees the ungovernable region of the unnameable country. She hears a child Karim's disbelief as his home fills with dividing fences, megaphones, barking dogs, uniformed officials barking orders and directions from his nursery bedroom to the kitchen for a midnight raid of the pistachio jar. Where in hell's name have I arrived, she rubs her temples, removes her headphones.

Gradually, she adjusts, accustoms herself to the macabre connotations of her job by comparing its relative ease against the horrors of her previous life of indenture, though she remarks silently at the barking end of each day while gazing up at the sky as the mastiffs sniff her and the building guards rummage through her purse for tapereels that this is
the final sky and she has consigned herself to this sky and none other. It fills her bones with dust.

But then this morning is like any other day, she thinks one morning, and orange in colour, she decides for no reason, not all days bear a colour, some are marked by a smell or tintinnabulation or some other sound, and today is orange. But look, she adjusts her headset and twists the dial resolutely: there is that man again.

Early on in his work, Zachariah Ben Jaloun was not supervising so much as questioning his employees on the particulars of tuning in to a mind. He would spend hours after his shift learning to manipulate the dial and discover the internecine transmissions. Eventually, he realized it was as much a trick of listening as it was of finding the right frequency, because an average radio drama could contain hidden minds chattering away. How many important facts he had edited out, he thought suddenly. Collectors were much more astute. They contained assembly as part of their job description. He learned slowly. And in other fields too he faltered.

His verses were finally complete, but since he could not read, he could not proofread them. Not wanting to submit an unedited draft to the publishing house, what he really wanted was for the professor to have a look at the lines, but the thought of the academic's pointed finger on a cipher and the question, here, Zachariah, what do you mean, drove a blade against that idea.

But lest we dig again into deep tenebrous soil, and since we have been waiting long enough, let us no longer delay the inevitable meeting of Zachariah Ben Jaloun and Grey Eyes, the revelation of her name especially, now that you realize the author was only designing another hoop-and-fire game for you to play, to jump through for his entertainment.

A cinematic forecast flight of a string orchestra: words are spoken in rain or fine weather: can you love an illiterate man, an illiterate writer.

Her unexpectedly husky laugh as the girl asks, what do you mean. I mean simply that I have, in the course of the last several months, lost the ability to read.

That is a moment of surely high consequence if it ever occurs. And another, held within the cabbage-folds of a single cello prelude, though no, that one must be retained from even the slightest description. Order and logic prevail, sadly, and we must continue to exercise patience. If in fact these are the real developments between Zachariah Ben Jaloun and Grey Eyes there must be causal agents. Proximity is the first, of course; as you are aware, the two now work in the same subdivision of the same department. Yet it still takes three shrews of fate twenty-two long weeks to orchestrate a possible meeting.

The girl takes her usual spot under the large clock near one of the exits, its hands frozen supplicant together on six-thirty. She unpacks her cooked meal and that man again, sitting only two tables away, she notices. A shiver. Though on no occasion, she thinks, do his movements appear calculated. It may be that he simply happens to be in her vicinity, repetitions of sociality do occur, and friendships do arise among employees. On the other hand, supervisory staff never fraternize with collectors, and the nature of this job, and of this whole country, in fact, inspires fear in her. Not for the first time does she regret discovering that strange map, of closing her eyes and letting her fingers stop wherever they will. If he has taken interest in her then she is being surveilled even more closely than others. Why, fear gives way to anger, and she passes the stranger a glare while tightening her jaws.

At that moment, Zachariah Ben Jaloun happens to look up from his meal and notices her for the first time in weeks. He seals up his roundmetal container and departs at the earliest opportunity. He suffers for the rest of the day from a debilitating stomach wound, and wonders if a mere glance can do all that. He hopes he will never have to speak to or to look again at that unkind face.

Eight days later, on her way out, the girl notices the same man sitting in a cubicle near the exit, turning the dial and listening carefully to a shortwave, as if unaware of the time of day. He doesn't seem interested in anything but his work, she realizes, and probably, like most male employees in Collections, is a lonely bachelor with a mother who lives two cities away whose death would not inspire in him the slightest feeling. She has read books about such men, and she is sure the Ministry of Radio and Communications produces scores of them. She does not think of him again.

Ben Janoun, the deputy chief of the subdivision looks down at his shivering frame from a great height. Papers flutter. Since their last meeting the deputy chief has grown a great deal taller and fatter. He takes up half the room now, or perhaps it is only that Zachariah has shrunk. A low wind picks up and moves papers off the desk and around the room.

Zachariah, he speaks very slowly, breathing gasping deeply between words. You know I am no longer your direct head of staff, he blows all the papers pens notebooks and rattles the typewriter keys. Nevertheless, the deputy chief informs, he takes an interest in those who have been demoted-promoted to Collections, and is happy to announce that the subdivision is satisfied with Zachariah's progress thus far, and has chosen that he should undertake a deep survey of the collectors, and then to assemble an oral presentation on their strategies of locating mental frequencies for the purposes of increasing departmental efficiency.

This message takes over an hour to transfer, during which time the room becomes soiled with the deputy chief's perspiration and spittle, though the expenditure of all that energy returns him to a somewhat regular size. The positive nature of the message reassures Zachariah, the wind dies, and by the time he departs, the deputy chief is almost the height of a regular man, though not exactly. Out in the hallway, a loose
tile gives way and Zachariah's left foot slips painfully all the way to the thigh. He struggles to restore it to the surface. Wincing, hopping on one foot, he wonders what the hell. Then through the opening he catches sight and dizzies him, of not the floor below but an infinite well.

The verses are coming along. He has the secretary recite them back and make corrections on the page. It is a slow and expensive process since the woman charges by the hour, but since she is patient and since Zachariah Ben Jaloun's costs have expanded only slightly in his new job, which is not at all new anymore, he doesn't mind. He has invested deeply in rhythm, but is worried he is sacrificing the narrative thread for the sake of sound.

The story is about a man who discovers his shadow moving about one evening on its own accord. The change is subtle at first, but eventually the shadow achieves a voice and declares independence from the protagonist's body. A struggle ensues. To keep the identity of the doppelgänger shadow hidden, the hero assumes the motions of his other the shadow, which extends into murder, among other evils. Eventually, he is tried for his crimes, and the story is told again, but in differing versions, by other characters, some of whom plead his innocence and advocate for his release. But the subtleties, Zachariah worries, and the others who provoke or assist or act as foils, are not yet clear.

Facsimile
, he ran the word along his tongue, facsimile; it provided him an explanation of things, of what he didn't know: signification without signifier, conclusion without premise, though he knew it was right. Meanwhile, the minds he encounters on the shortwave multiply into identical similitude, many petals on the same bough. Not to say that as surveyor Zachariah Ben Janoun does not discover distinguishing characteristics of the minds he encounters. In the more recently employed, he notices a sharpness and desire for experimentation that older employees lose as they accustom themselves to common practices and set ways of functioning. He gathers admissions: they do not
always know of the accuracy of their findings and rely on assemblers to edit their discoveries into stories. They are all self-enclosed and lonely, many of them frightened of speaking to him as they are to all supervisors, let alone so candidly about the functionality of their minds. He wanders from one to the next, there are thousands of cubicles branching into identical others and he will never finish. Thousands of names minds nuances locations he must how can he remember them all. He does not care where is she.

Fifty weeks pass this way in idle repetition. In Europe, the British have proclaimed victory over the fascist scourge, and the news leaks into the streets of the unnameable country, which is far away and where it means less, as half-hearted hurrahs, weak bursts of firecracker and Roman candle. The Governor, as they have begun calling Anwar, the man with the single name, has not yet launched his ultimately cannibalistic self-consuming revolution. The Black Organs are almost born. Then one day Zachariah Ben Janoun is shaken back into Ben Jaloun as he enters a cubicle and a pair of tired grey eyes stare back. He stifles a desire to weep and to be alone while eating a large onion, but gathers his senses and repeats what he has said to all the others, routine questions.

Be honest, he adds, believe me the way you handle the dial is beyond my capacity, and we—he assumes the form of the Department— are very interested in your.

How do you know my knowledge of the instrument is superior, she is incredulous, suspicious.

Ben Janoun retains his air of modest authority and assures her whatever he is doing is beyond my control, comes from higher offices of power, he is saying.

She nods, this much she understands, and takes a breath before telling him: Usually, I focus on the quieter sections between suchandsuch a hertz and allow errant, more powerful thoughts to emerge as
interferences in the static; these provide clues and I home in closer with the dial before the shapes begin to emerge.

Shapes.

Yes, shapes, she says, though more like colourshapes and patterns, she twists in her chair, very uncomfortable to continue, which is to say I see more than I hear.

What do you mean, Ben Janoun is puzzled. He has never received such an answer.

I mean I see the conversations people have with themselves, and sometimes I can catch glimpses of the contour of whole minds.

But do you hear what they are saying.

In fact, it is hearing, she insists.

Please forgive me, Zachariah is stunned, but I don't process.

She shrugs. I can't explain; it's simply the way I do my job.

For two long moments no words pass and they do not look at each other.

Can I have your name, please, Zachariah Ben Janoun says finally, I will have to report this.

Am I to be reprimanded, is this not the correct manner of proceeding, please understand I cannot lose this job.

Believe me, as far as I can help it you will not lose your job over what appears as an elegant and unique manner of collecting information on the minds of potential terror subjects.

She is visibly relieved. My name is Gita, she tells.

Ah, Gita. At last we discover. Gita or Geeta like geet any song or the song of arjunandkrishna.

I don't recall ever noticing your face, Gita says, were you recently hired or transferred.

The latter, yes, from Assembly, but not so recently, several years ago.

I see.

And yourself.

I work in Collections, I have been in the same cubicle for nearly five years.

They more or less know these preliminaries, they are not the most important questions, but necessary. He wanted to reveal they had encountered each other several times, and that one occasion she had inflicted him with a wounded stomach, that now he was delighted they were speaking, but what is the point of speaking on such things, and he asked instead: If you do not mind, just because of your accent, you are not from our country.

No, I'm originally from Cox's Bazaar.

And where is that.

The coast of the Bay of Bengal.

Ah.

And since in such situations all premeditated questions flee the scene for politeness, Zachariah Ben Jaloun stalls, and wonders whether Gita has anything else to add. Then unexpectedly she laughs, and the sound is bolder than he would have expected, and wrapped in a slight husk absent from her speaking voice. He does not join her but is content to enjoy the sound.

FIRE IN THE ENDLESS
MOVIE STUDIO