Nostalgia (6 page)

OVER THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED
, chaotic Maskinia continued to grab the headlines. Holly Chu's abduction was shown constantly on the tube, the background roll to any discussion of Over There and Over Here. The now standard depiction of the gruesome scene had been cut in such a way that the dark space into which the girl was pulled while walking on that slum street was projected starkly in front of you, a pitch-blackness in your room inside which gleaming eyeballs and grinning white teeth flitted and floated about. It could have been comical, but for that short, chilling scream, the meaning of which you were only too aware. You were warned, of course, of the scene's disturbing content, which was why many of us returned to watch it in the first place. To be shocked and to wonder, yet once again:
Can this truly happen? And there she is, our Holly, snatched away before our own eyes, what are we going to do about it? Who are those people who do this kind of thing? Who are these cannibals?

Of course Holly Chu was also now entertainment, tonic for media ratings, bait for pundits to come and dissimulate. Consider this:

As I sit watching, the scene before me fades out and the brightly lit set of
The Daily Goode
appears. And there stands the mauveine-haired Bill Goode with doughy white face and trademark strip of a grin. He's wearing a green blazer over a red golf shirt; on his lapel is pinned a small yellow ribbon under a white flower. The background music is as always cheerfully suspenseful, following the rise and fall of the applause. As the sound subsides, the host announces,

—Folks. Today's subject is simple:
Why?
Now don't ask me—

He turns on his mischievous grin, and the audience—those shown in the mock studio, at least—cracks up. We're all encouraged to join in.

—Consider this—he begins,—and don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating…

As we know he has a way with his hands—he holds them down at the sides, palms out; he points a finger at you; he joins both palms together in front of him; he pulls them back over his shoulders in a mock gesture of something and then turns and performs a golf swing.

—I'm dead serious. We want to understand why this kind of incident—the one you just saw to remind you—has
to happen—how it can happen in this day and age—and we have a guest today to help us understand. Folks, let's welcome Peter Crawford, psychologist!

The audience applauds as Bill steps forward, extending a handshake, then with a warm gesture guides the guest to the chair next to the host table.

Peter Crawford is the author of the recent book
Between Here and There: Are We Still on the Road?
Short and thickset, sporting tinted retro glasses, he too wears a yellow ribbon on his lapel and there's a twinkling smile on his smooth, flushed face.

—Thank you, Bill, he says in a somewhat high-pitched voice and looks around.—It's really nice to be here. Thank you for having me.

Bill replies graciously,—It's nice to have
you
here to share your insights with us, Pete. Thank you for coming. Now, shall I begin by asking—

—Please do.

—You've seen that tableau we just showed, I dare say.

—Yes, I have—half a dozen times at least!

—Yes—lest we forget! Consider this, Peter Crawford. Over
There
, in Barbaria, if I may so call that foul region, they
eat
people. Here we fear proximity—no, wait a minute, don't we go about shielded by clouds of protective vapour, and creams and sheaths and gloves…we don't actually even
touch
each other. Is this the price or gain of civilization? We shoot from far, clinically, they hack at each other until the blood spurts out and hits them in the eye…ugh.

Peter Crawford, smiling knowledgeably, replies,—There's something to be said for civilization and order, and a sense of privacy and decorum. Surely we are happy not to be going around leaving foul fumes in our wake.

There is laughter, and Bill Goode takes a comical sniff at both his jacket sleeves before holding up his hand to silence the audience.—Okay, right—no foul fumes in our wake, but is there a danger we lose our perspective—our moral bearing if we don't—

—See the blood squirting out.

Laughter. It appears that Peter, a veteran of such shows, has stolen the thunder from Bill, who waits with a smile before continuing.

—Yes. Very droll, Pete—and I thought I was the comedian! But my point is this, Peter: we have moved away, as we agree, yet we are still so intimately connected to that savage disorder that rules over a good portion of the habitable earth. Explain that connection.

Bill Goode stands back and waits in the manner of having thrown out a challenge. Peter Crawford takes it on.

—Well, simply put, it is the yang to our yin. The id to our ego. The dark side of the same moon.

—It is the source of our raw materials, you mean; and even though we can replicate climatic conditions at will almost, we still feel the need to visit there for the real experience, though at considerable risk. And we let a few of the Barbarians leak in through the Border every year, because we have to replenish our populations and gene balances and
immune systems. And we need their organs. Is that what you mean by yin and yang, Peter?

Peter smiles broadly.—That's a mouthful, Bill. But yes, that's what I mean if you allow for the fact that we also
give.
We send assistance there, tons of; and to those who come here we give a better life, longevity—immortality, or the possibility of. They need us as much as we need them.

—And so we are stuck with this uneasy relationship.

—I'm afraid so. Some of us may wish to emigrate into exclusive space suburbs. But those of us who stay on this earth, and that's most of us, can't live in isolation from other populations. We can look away and smile in the sunshine, but they are there, Maskinia exists and festers, and once in a while an incident like this one happens.

And so one more discussion recedes into the white noise of background chatter. The anchors and their experts must be aware that by going on so much about an issue, squeezing every novelty out of it, they leave it dead to the public's sympathies. It's just another horror, far away, about which most of us can do nothing, though governments will try. But Holly Chu's fate somehow had done the trick on me; that scene playing out was not just another horror. It was
the
horror.

Long ago as a college student I did make my little visit there, behind the Border—to a corner of that region that's not even a continuous stretch. (Why do we even call it the Long Border? Someone from Homeland with a topological
mind thought it up, perhaps, seeing connections that escape the rest of us.) It was trendy to visit there, to complete your education, become aware of the less fortunate places of the world and at the same time be with friends on a holiday. It was spring break, and we had opted to miss March Madness that year and gone instead for fun at a tropical beach resort. The scenery was idyllic—the sea blue and the beach unspoilt, the flora unbelievably wild and proliferant, the sun wondrously harsh. We were of course inside a protected tourist colony, our food and drinks were flown in, and as precaution we had to wear radiation counters on our wrists, though they always indicated that we were “safe.” There were guided walking tours of the area and cultural programs in the evening in which we gamely participated with the locals, notwithstanding that our wits were often dulled by alcohol and drugs and our sensitivities by the immaturity of the young and privileged.

It's impossible to point out unsafe areas to youth and not expect them to head precisely there. We were aware even before we arrived—some of us had been told—that there were other, differently disposed people besides our smiling and always polite locals who were all employees, and there were other, not so pleasant areas that our risk-free safaris carefully skirted.

Accordingly one hot morning when it seemed we were not watched we ventured out along the beach in precisely the direction deemed unsafe by the management. A large black and white warning sign on the way confirmed our resolve;
the skull and bones painted on it only increased our thrill. We had learned from a member of the staff that straight ahead was a settlement. Nothing seemed amiss at first, the tide was receding and the beach squelchy, the verge to our left was a glorious light green as though painted; we proceeded as a troupe of young people would, a few people collected shells, others got up to roughhousing, a boy and girl argued. Suddenly a monstrous sight appeared, so violently at odds with the rest of the scene that we simply stopped and stared. It was a mountain of metal—rusting car frames and ancient electronics and cables. It began some hundred yards from the beach and went perhaps a quarter of a mile inland—how did such a prodigious volume of stuff end up here? It had rendered all of us silent and shameful of our recent childishness. As we walked on, our enthusiasm and defiance now reined in, a smell of rot came riding on the vigorous breeze, and soon enough we came upon a refuse dump, a crater full of building debris and junk, topped by recent garbage, unbearably ugly and filthy. We were drawn on as though by some invisible force—we dared not become cowards now and turn tail—until finally we came upon the end of an unpaved village street where the dwellings were as in the myriads of images we'd seen, of mud or unpainted crude bricks. People seemed to be up to nothing but hanging about, a number of them young men with buff bodies. We got stared at a lot and didn't feel safe. Putting on brave faces and speaking in boisterous tones to match, we stopped at a shack to have soft drinks. This was hardly advisable, considering
the many warnings we had received, but seemed the right thing to do. A few little boys came around and stared longingly at us as we gulped our drinks, and so we had them join us; more came over and soon the shop ran out.

I remember feeling very low afterwards back at the hotel. The tour doctor gave me some mood lifters, and after a night of partying I had recovered.

I was young and idealistic then, and back home I genuinely despaired: how could we be blind to such disparities in our world? How could we shut them off? We needed a change in the world order. A revolutionary change. One day these wretched of the earth will rise and demand to be counted. They'll make war on us. Like those living dead from the horror films who get up from their graves and start walking, killing and mutilating every human in sight. It takes time to grow up to realize that all the world's problems will never be solved, poverty and violence will never be eradicated; hence we need the Border to protect ourselves.

That bizarre experience behind the Border is a thing of the past, a memory of a youthful adventure. A fictional memory nevertheless; and yet it's so clear and complete in my mind that I'm convinced it's also real, something that I brought with me. Now I let the likes of Holly Chu take me there, walk me through all the varieties of human degradation. There she was again on the show on the background roll, chattering away as she walked cheerfully up a street in Maskinia, wearing her signature tropical suit with many pockets and the safari boots and hat, panning on a
desperate-looking woman with child here, a quick look at a doped gang member with a weapon there, then showing her cheerful face to the camera…as she's done before, until this time she came to the dark doorway with only a pair of white eyeballs visible and the shadow of a figure. She turned sideways to look at us—and suddenly she disappeared and there came a short scream.

On her Profile she looked young and earnest, less glamorous, devoid of her media persona even when she was pictured as a journalist. The eyes wide and challenging, the hair always short but straight and black. The university photos showed a mere girl, of course, in all kinds of fun situations, including her birthday party and a holiday trip to a beach. The graduation photo with her family: on one side her father with neatly parted hair; on the other her mother, more glamorous with loose hair and a fitting Oriental-style green dress—the musician. On either side the precocious siblings, on the point of breaking away from the pose.

Messages expressing sympathy, sorrow, rage had continued to pile up on the Profile. A few hateful ones—you can't avoid those in any circumstance. My heart skipped a beat when I saw this one:

Thanks, Holly, for taking me to places I would never go to! Keep up the spirit, we'll get you out of there!—Pres.

Slowly I wrote,

—Pres, fancy meeting you here—how are you? How about a meeting?—FS.

How did I know for certain that it was Presley who wrote the message and not some Preston or Prescott? I didn't. And to hell with Dauda and DIS if they were watching. And to hell with Tom, too.

The Notebook

#45

The Journalist

Holly sat on a wooden bench at the far end of the room, her eyes now adjusted to the shade. Outside the wide doorway, the world was bathed in blinding sunlight. The world from which she had been snatched. People drifting by, the sound of chatter, a shout, a vehicle. Shifting her gaze inside, fascinated, she watched her backpack being ransacked by the two women who had captured her, a pair of hands digging and scraping inside, randomly pulling out something, then the pack quickly exchanging hands. A tampon flung away towards a corner, fought for by the children, who mistook
it for a thing to eat or play with. She half raised a hand, opened her mouth to protest, then stopped. It didn't matter. A pack of condoms came out, the women smirked. A cotton pantie she'd already worn, recyclable. She'd thought she would find a suitable place to dump it. A force of habit, even when there was so much garbage littered about and stinking in the streets. The women held it to their waists, each in turn, the big one and the tall younger one, then put it aside along with the fresh one, for future use. Comb, toothbrush, toothpaste came out; jeans, shirt; medicines. A packet of biscuits, a couple of which were pulled out and nibbled by the women, the remaining lobbed carelessly in the direction of the grateful children; two packets of gum, a chocolate bar, an apple, and a can of sardines; batteries, penknife, spoon. She watched them put away some of her things, then stuff everything else into the backpack and shove it aside.

She was hungry and uncomfortable and faintly stinking, having wet herself in that terrifying moment when two pairs of hands sprang out from the dark hole in the wall and grabbed her and pulled her in. Her sensible eyeglasses, all-purpose pocket knife, and phone were snatched from her first, and she saw them now lying not far from her on the bench, gleaming faintly. She dared not reach for them. She rubbed her arm where the younger woman had bitten her, not hard but tenderly, as though to feel her flesh. The teeth had grazed her skin, the tongue had licked the dirt off her skin. She knew the women of this neighbourhood, though not these two, and had bantered with the children, who had followed her around and took gum from her. They must all
know her. What would they do to her? She did not fear the women; it was the militia who frightened her. Everything about them was menace. Their open stares, their rippling strength and cocked weapons, their swaggering. She had believed herself to be immune from them, a journalist from
there
, under one of the watchful eyes in the sky, who could be rescued if necessary. What an illusion that was.

Some men of the militia came over a little later and roughly questioned the two women, and after what seemed like a bout of bargaining took away the pack, phone, and knife and half the chocolate, which had been stowed away. One of the boys went with them. The men barely cast a glance at her. She was like a captive chicken or goat, awaiting slaughter in her dark corner.

#46

The Gentle Warrior

And you, Presley, where will you hide, you who are
theirs
, though you don't know it yet? Where will you go, you who have no family or friends? Surrender to them, their Frankenstein, let them stitch you up and render you harmless. Live. Live? Live as who?

I cannot imagine you, Presley.

I dare not imagine you, Presley.

Still, you've got under my skin…

Who
were
you, Presley, who's that lurking under
your
skin?

Stepping out of the Sunflower Centre, having dismissed his consultant, suddenly he no longer felt certain of himself. Should he go back and say to the doc, I've changed my mind, Doc, I need help? He meant well, the doc, he wanted to help. It was cool and cloudy, a brisk wind blew. Dry fall leaves were scattered about on the pathway and the grass. A passenger plane roared overhead, flying quite low. He glanced upward, read the tail logo. Pan American, recognized, vaguely. He hesitated a step, then kept walking towards the street.

It's midnight, and the lion is out stalking.

Damn it. But he smiled, and instantly began to hum a song, to resist the intrusion. This was one of the defences he had developed. The song was by Aboubakar Touré. Marhaba, marhaba, marhaba…, he sang. He pulled a bike off a rack and rode it to the transit station. The effort and concentration calmed him. At the station he parked and caught a transit to Miller Street; reaching there he walked to the Brewery Tower and announced himself at the security office. He proceeded to the lockers where he changed into his uniform and then walked out to take up his duties, relieving with an apology the guard who had been waiting for him at the check-in desk on the main floor.

A message on his phone startled him. He was to report immediately to a clinic called Abdo about an urgent personal matter. Would this have anything to do with his recurring thoughts? Who else besides the clinic knew about
them?…He had had a faint notion as he left the centre that he was being watched. He had dismissed it as silly. Now he felt vulnerable. Sitting behind his high desk, watching through the monitor the multitudes passing to and fro, he himself felt exposed. Even the man he had relieved, he suspected, had looked at him askance. But why? What had he done? He looked up Abdo Clinic. He thought he should hide.