The Book of Strange New Things (10 page)

The woman was dressed in a white smock, thin white cotton slacks and a taupe headscarf that hung loose over her chest. Her face was bare of makeup, and she had a puckered scar on her forehead, just under the hairline. Her hair, a lustreless brown, was very short and she might have passed for a young male soldier were it not for her soft dark eyebrows, tiny ears and pretty mouth.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Peter. ‘I’ve forgotten your name. I was very tired . . . ’

‘Grainger,’ she said.

‘Grainger,’ he said.

‘Christian names aren’t a big thing among USIC employees, in case you haven’t noticed.’

‘I’ve noticed.’

‘It’s a bit like the army. Except we don’t harm people.’

‘I should hope not.’

She revved the engine and steered the car back towards the airport complex. As she drove, she leaned forward, frowning in concentration, and even though the inside of the cabin was poorly lit, he spotted the tell-tale edges of contact lenses on her eyeballs. Beatrice was a contact lens wearer: that’s how he knew.

‘Did you come out specially to fetch me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you watching my every move? Keeping tabs on my every half-muffin?’

The allusion was lost on her. ‘I just dropped by the mess hall, and one of the guys said you’d gone out walking.’

‘Does that worry you?’ He kept his tone light and amiable.

‘You’ve just arrived,’ she said, not taking her eyes off the wind-screen. ‘We wouldn’t want you to come to harm on your first foray out of doors.’

‘What about the disclaimer I signed? The one that emphasises in twelve different ways that USIC accepts no responsibility for anything that might happen to me?’

She seemed nettled by this. ‘That was a legalistic document written by paranoid lawyers who’ve never even been here. I’m a nice person and I’m here and I welcomed you off that ship and I said I would keep an eye out for you. So that’s what I’m doing.’

‘I appreciate that,’ he said.

‘I take an interest in people,’ she said. ‘Gets me in trouble sometimes.’

‘I’ll try not to get you in trouble,’ he said. The eerily lit cafeteria seemed to be moving towards them in the dark, as if it was another vehicle threatening a head-on collision. He wished he hadn’t been fetched back so soon. ‘I hope you understand that I didn’t come here to sit and read magazines in a cafeteria. I want to go and find the people of Oasis, wherever they are. I’ll probably live among them, if they’ll let me. So it may not be feasible for you to . . . uh . . . keep an eye out for me.’

She manoeuvred the vehicle into a garage; they’d arrived.

‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’

‘I’m hoping to cross it pretty soon,’ he said, still maintaining a light tone. ‘As soon as possible. I don’t mean to be pushy, but . . . I’m going to be pushy. When are you available to drive me out of here?’

She switched off the engine, removed her small feet from the pedals. ‘Give me an hour to get things ready.’

‘Things?’

‘Food, mainly. You’ll have noticed that the mess hall isn’t serving right now.’

He nodded, and a ticklish trickle of sweat ran down his face. ‘I can’t really figure out how the day/night routine is supposed to work, if it’s dark for three days straight. I mean, right now, it’s officially night, yes?’

‘Yes, it’s night.’ She rubbed her eyes, but gingerly, so as not to dislodge the lenses.

‘So do you just let the clock decide when the days begin and end?’

‘Sure. It’s not much different than living in the Arctic Circle, I guess. You adjust your sleep pattern so that you’re awake when everybody else is.’

‘What about those guys in the mess hall right now?’

She shrugged. ‘Stanko’s scheduled to be there because he’s on night duty. The other guys . . . well, people get insomnia sometimes. Or they get all slept out.’

‘What about the people of Oasis – the . . . uh . . . natives? Are they asleep right now? I mean, should we wait until the sun comes up?’

She faced him with an unblinking, defensive stare. ‘I have no idea when they sleep. Or even
if
they sleep. To be straight with you, I know almost nothing about them, even though I probably know more than anyone here. They’re . . . kind of hard to get to know. I’m not sure they
want
to be known.’

He grinned. ‘Nevertheless . . . I’m here to know them.’

‘OK,’ she sighed. ‘It’s your call. But you look tired. Are you sure you’ve had enough rest?’

‘I’m fine. What about you?’

‘Fine also. Like I said, give me an hour. If, in that time, you change your mind and want to sleep some more, let me know.’

‘How would I do that?’

‘The Shoot. There’s a scroll-down menu behind the USIC icon. I’m on it.’

‘Glad to hear there’s one menu that’s got something on it.’ He meant it as a rueful comment on the mess hall, but as soon as the words left his mouth, he worried she might take them the wrong way.

She opened her door, he did the same on his side, and they stepped out into the moist swirling dark.

‘Any other advice?’ he called over the top of the vehicle.

‘Yes,’ she shot back. ‘Forget the denim jacket.’

The power of suggestion? She’d told him he looked tired and he hadn’t felt tired when she said it, but he felt tired now. Befuddled, too. As though the excessive humidity had seeped into his brain and fogged his thoughts. He hoped Grainger would escort him all the way back to his quarters, but she didn’t. She led him into the building through a different door from the one he’d used as an exit, and, within half a minute, was bidding him au revoir at a T-junction in the corridors.

He walked off in the opposite direction from her, as she clearly expected him to, but he had no clear idea where he was going. The passage was empty and silent and he couldn’t recall having seen it before. The walls were painted a cheerful blue (turned somewhat darker by the subdued lighting) but were otherwise nondescript, with no signs or pointers. Not that there was any reason to expect a sign pointing to his quarters. USIC had made it clear, during one of the interviews, that he would not ‘in any way, shape or form’ be the official pastor of the base and shouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t much call for his services. His true responsibility was to the indigenous inhabitants. Indeed, that was his job description in the contract:
Minister (Christian) to Indigenous Population
.

‘But you do have a minister for the USIC personnel’s needs, surely?’ he’d asked.

‘Actually, at the moment, no,’ the interviewer had replied.

‘Does that mean the colony is officially atheist?’ Bea had asked.

‘It’s not a colony,’ another of the USIC interviewers said, with an edge to her voice. ‘It’s a community. We do not use the word colony. And we do not promote any faith or lack of faith. We’re looking for the best people, that’s all.’

‘A pastor specifically for the USIC staff is a fine idea, in principle,’ the first interviewer reassured them. ‘Especially if he – or she – had other useful skills. We’ve included such individuals in the team at various times in the past. Right now, it’s not a priority.’

‘But my mission
is
a priority?’ Peter had said, still scarcely able to believe it.

‘We would classify it “urgent”,’ the interviewer said. ‘So urgent, in fact, that I must ask you . . . ’ He leaned forward, looked straight into Peter’s eyes. ‘How soon can you leave?’

Now there was a light glowing around the next bend in the corridor, and a faint harmonious noise which he identified, after a moment, as piped music. He had walked too far, failed to spot his own room, and ended up back at the mess hall.

When he re-entered, he found that there had been a few changes. The ghostly croon of Patsy Cline had vanished from the airwaves, replaced by cocktail jazz so bland that it barely existed. The two black guys had left. The Chinese guy had woken up and was leafing through a magazine. A petite middle-aged woman, maybe Korean or Vietnamese, with a dyed streak of orange through her black hair, was staring meditatively at a cup in her lap. The Slavic-looking guy behind the counter was still on duty. He appeared not to notice Peter walking in, mesmerised as he was by a game he was playing with two squeezable plastic bottles – ketchup and mustard. He was trying to balance them against each other, tipped at an angle so that only their nozzles touched. His long fingers hovered above the fragile arrangement, ready to enfold the bottles when they fell.

Peter paused in the doorway, suddenly cold in his sweat-soaked denims and bedraggled hair. How ridiculous he must look! For just a few seconds, the sheer alienness of these people, and his irrelevance to them, threatened to flood his spirit with fear, the paralysis of shyness, the terror that a child feels when faced with a new school filled with strangers. But then God calmed him with an infusion of courage and he stepped forward.

‘Hello everybody,’ he said.

5

Just as he recognised them for what they were

In the eyes of God, all men and women are naked. Clothes are nothing more than a fig leaf. And the bodies beneath are just another layer of clothing, an outfit of flesh with an impractically thin leather exterior, in various shades of pink, yellow and brown. The souls alone are real. Seen in this way, there can never be any such thing as social unease or shyness or embarrassment. All you need do is greet your fellow soul.

At Peter’s greeting, Stanko set the bottles to rights, looked up and grinned. The Chinese guy gave a thumbs-up salute. And the woman, who’d been dozing with her eyes open, unfortunately got a fright and jerked her legs, spilling coffee into her lap.

‘Oh my . . . !’ cried Peter, and rushed over to her. ‘I’m so sorry!’

She was wide awake now. She had on a loose smock and pants, much like Grainger’s but beige. The spilled liquid added a large brown blotch.

‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t that hot.’

An object flew past Peter’s face, landing on the woman’s knee. It was a tea towel, tossed by Stanko. Calmly she began to swab and dab. She lifted the hem of her dress, revealing two damp patches on her gauzy cotton slacks.

‘Can I help?’ said Peter.

She laughed. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘My wife uses vinegar on coffee stains,’ he said, keeping his eyes on her face so that she wouldn’t think he was ogling her thighs.

‘This isn’t real coffee,’ the woman said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ She balled up the tea towel and placed it on the table, in an unhurried, methodical motion. Then she settled back into her chair, apparently in no rush to change. The jazz muzak lapsed into silence for a moment, then the cymbals and snare drum were tickled by a pair of brushes, the saxophone exhaled, and the noodling began once more. Stanko busied himself with something tactfully noisy, and the Chinese guy studied his magazine. Bless them, they were trying to give him space.

‘Have I blown my chance to introduce myself?’ he said. ‘I’m Peter.’

‘Moro. Pleased to meet you.’ The woman extended her right hand. He hesitated before shaking it, having noticed that one of her fingers ended at a knuckle stub and her pinky was missing altogether. He took hold and she squeezed, confidently.

‘You know, that’s very unusual,’ he said, sitting down next to her.

‘Factory accident,’ she said. ‘Happens every day.’

‘No, I meant the way you offered me that hand. I’ve met lots of people with fingers missing from their right hand. They always offer the left one for a handshake. Because they don’t want to make the other person feel uncomfortable.’

She seemed mildly surprised. ‘Is that a fact?’ Then she smiled and shook her head, as if to say,
Some people sure are weird
. Her gaze was direct and yet guarded, examining him for identifiers that could be logged in the as-yet empty file labelled Missionary From England.

‘I just went out for a walk,’ he said, gesturing at the darkness outside. ‘My first time.’

‘Not much to see,’ she said.

‘Well, it is night,’ he said.

‘Even in daylight, there’s not much to see. But we’re working on that.’ She didn’t sound proud or off-hand, just descriptive.

‘What’s your job here?’

‘Engineering technologist.’

He allowed himself to look bemused, signalling:
Please explain
. She parried with a look that signalled:
It’s late and I’m tired
.

‘Also,’ she said, ‘I do some work in the kitchens, cooking and baking, every ninety-six hours.’ She raked her fingers through her hair. There were grey roots under the glossy black and orange. ‘That’s kinda fun, I look forward to that.’

‘Volunteer work?’

‘No, it’s all part of my schedule. You’ll find a lot of us have more than one function here.’ She stood up. It wasn’t until she extended her hand again that Peter realised their encounter was over.

‘I’d better get cleaned up,’ she explained.

‘Nice to have met you, Moro,’ he said.

‘Likewise,’ she said, and walked out.

‘Makes good dim sum parcels,’ said the Chinese man when she’d gone.

‘Excuse me?’ said Peter.

‘Dim sum pastry is a difficult thing,’ said the Chinese man. ‘It’s fragile. The dough. But it’s gotta be thin or it’s not dim sum. Tricky. But she’s good at it. We can always tell when she’s been on kitchen duty.’

Peter moved to a vacant chair next to the Chinese man.

‘I’m Peter,’ he said.

‘Werner,’ said the Chinese man. His hand was five-fingered and pudgy, and exerted a carefully measured firmness in the handshake. ‘So, you’ve been exploring.’

‘Not much yet. I’m still very tired. Just got here.’

‘Takes a while to adjust. Those molecules in you gotta calm down. When’s your first shift?’

‘Uh . . . I don’t really . . . I’m here as a pastor. I suppose I expect to be on duty all the time.’

Werner nodded, but there was a hint of bemusement on his face, as though Peter had just confessed to signing a shonky contract without proper legal advice.

‘Doing God’s work is a privilege and a joy,’ said Peter. ‘I don’t need any breaks from it.’