The Book of Strange New Things (29 page)

But on the other hand, you would think there must be lots of bakeries and dairies located south of the quake site. I mean, surely we’re not dependent on a truck coming down the M6 all the way from Birmingham to bring us a loaf of bread! I suspect what we’re seeing here is sheer inflexibility in the way supermarkets operate; I bet they just aren’t equipped to negotiate with a different bunch of suppliers at such short notice. If the market was allowed to respond more organically (no pun intended) to an event like this, I’m sure that bakeries and dairies in Southampton or wherever would be delighted to step into the breach.

Anyway, the Bedworth quake is not the full story, regardless of what the news says. Food supplies have been erratic for ages. And the weather just gets weirder and weirder. We’ve had sunshine and mild conditions here (the carpets have finally dried out, thank goodness) but there have been freak hailstorms in other places, so bad that a couple of people have been killed. Killed by hailstones!

It’s been a good week for the news networks, I must say. The footage of the quake, the hailstorms and – stand by, folks! – a spectacular riot in central London. It started as a peaceful protest against the military action in China, and ended with cars being set alight, mass brawling, baton charges, the whole shebang. Even the cleaning up afterwards made for good pictures: there was fake blood (red paint) dripping off the stone lions in Trafalgar Square and real blood splattered on the ground. The cameramen must have been peeing themselves with delight. Sorry to sound cynical but the media gets so energised by this sort of thing. Nobody ever seems sad about it, there’s no moral dimension, it’s just the latest action-packed event. And while these photogenic calamities are flashed past, ordinary people get on with their lives, just doing their best to come to terms with everyday unhappiness.

Anyway, I shouldn’t try so hard to understand the Big Picture. Only God understands that, and He’s in control. I have my life to lead, work to go to. It’s early morning here, beautiful light, chilly, with Joshua perched on top of the filing cabinet snoozing in a sunbeam. My shift doesn’t start till 2.30, so I’m going to do some chores and cook tonight’s dinner so that when I come home from work I can just tuck in, instead of eating peanut butter on toast like I usually do. I should eat some breakfast now to boost my energy but there’s nothing in the house I fancy. The plight of a cereal addict in withdrawal! I’m sipping stale jasmine tea (left over from when we had Ludmila staying with us) because normal tea without milk tastes wrong to me. Too much compromise!

OK, back again. (I just went to the front door to pick up the mail.) Nice postcard from some people in Hastings thanking us for our kindness – Can’t think what kindness they’re referring to, but they invite us to visit them. Could be difficult for you right now! Also a letter from Sheila Frame. Remember her? She’s the mother of Rachel and Billy, the kids who made our Noah’s Ark wall-hanging/collage. Rachel is 12 now and ‘doing OK’ says Sheila (whatever ‘OK’ means) and Billy is 14 and seriously depressed. That’s why Sheila is writing to us. Her letter doesn’t make much sense, she must have written it when she was stressed out. She keeps mentioning ‘the snow leopard’, assuming we must know all about ‘the snow leopard’. I’ve tried to phone but she’s at work, and by the time I get home tonight it’ll be 11.30 at least. I might try to phone from the ward during my meal break.

Enough about my routine & uneventful life without my dear husband. Please tell me what’s been happening with you. I wish I could see your face. I don’t understand why the technology that allows us to communicate with each other like this can’t stretch to sending a few pictures as well! But I suppose that’s being greedy. It’s miraculous enough that we can read each other’s words at such a mind-boggling distance. Assuming you can still read them, of course . . . Please write soon to let me know you’re all right.

I feel I ought to have more specific questions & comments about your mission, but to be frank you haven’t told me very much about it. You’re more of a speaker than a writer, I know that. There have been times I’ve sat in the congregation when you’ve preached, and I see you glancing down at your notes – the same notes I’ve seen you scribbling the night before – and I’m aware that on that little scrap of paper there’s just a few disjointed phrases, and yet this wonderful, eloquent, coherent speech comes out, a beautifully formed story that keeps everyone spellbound for an hour. I admire you so much at those times, my darling. I wish I could hear what you’re saying to your new flock. I don’t suppose you’re writing any of it down afterwards? Or keeping a record of what they’re saying to you? I don’t feel I KNOW these people at all; it’s frustrating. Are you learning a new language? I suppose you must be.

Love,

Bea

Peter rubbed his face, and the sweaty, oily dirt accumulated into dark, seed-like particles in the palms of his hands. Reading his wife’s letter had made him agitated and confused. He hadn’t felt that way until now. For the duration of his stay with the Oasans, he’d been calm and emotionally stable, just getting on with the job. If he’d been occasionally bewildered, it was a happy sort of bewilderment. Now he felt out of his depth. There was a tightness squeezing his chest.

He moved the Shoot’s cursor to the next capsule in chronological sequence, and opened a message that Beatrice had sent him a mere twenty hours after the last. It must have been the middle of her night.

I miss you, she wrote. Oh, how I miss you. I didn’t know it would feel like this. I thought the time would fly and you would be back. If I could just hold you once, just hug you tight for a few minutes, I could cope with your absence again. Even ten seconds would do it. Ten seconds with my arms around you. Then I could sleep.

And, next day:

Horrible, ghastly things in the news; I can’t bear to read, can’t bear to look. Almost took the day off work today. Sat weeping in the toilets at break time. You are so far away, so incredibly far away, further away than any man has ever been from his woman, the sheer distance makes me ill. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Forgive me for spilling my guts like this, I know it can’t be helping you do whatever you’re doing. Oh, how I wish you could be in touch now. Touching me. Holding me. Kissing me.

The words hit him hard. They were the sort of thing he’d wanted to receive from her but now that he’d received them, they caused him distress. A fortnight ago, he had missed her sexually and craved confirmation that she felt the same. She’d assured him that she missed him, that she wanted to hold him, sure, but the overall tone of her letters was sensible, preoccupied, as though his presence was a luxury rather than a necessity. She’d seemed so self-reliant, he’d wondered if he was indulging in testosterone-fuelled self-pity – or if that’s how she saw it.

Once he’d taken his place among the Oasans, this insecurity had evaporated. He didn’t have time for it. And, trusting in the easy mutuality that he and Bea had always enjoyed, he’d assumed – if he thought about it at all – that Bea was in the same state of mind, that she was simply getting on with the daily business of life, that her love for him was like the colour of her eyes: constantly there, but not in any way an impediment to useful activity.

Instead, while he’d been laying the stones of his church and dozing happy in his hammock, she was in pain.

His fingers hung suspended over the keyboard, poised to respond to her. But how could he, when she’d written nine more messages to him, in hours and days that were already gone from her, but of which he knew nothing?

He opened another capsule.

Dear Peter,

Please don’t worry about me. I’ve got a grip now. I don’t know why I went off the deep end like that. Too little sleep? The atmosphere has been oppressive these last few weeks. Yes, I know I said it was a beautiful weather here and that’s true, in the sense that it’s warm and sunny. But at nights it’s close and rather hard to breathe.

A large chunk of North Korea was wiped out a few days ago. Not by a nuclear strike, or even a nuclear accident, but by a cyclone called Toraji. It came off the Sea of Japan and swept inland ‘like a ceremonial sword’ (I didn’t make that simile up, obviously). Tens of thousands dead, probably more than a million homeless. The government denied the severity of the damage at first, so all we had were satellite pictures. It was surreal. Here’s this woman in a tailored yellow outfit, with immaculate hair and manicured nails, standing in front of this giant projected image, pointing at the various smudges and blobs, interpreting what they mean. You got the message that there were lots of wrecked houses and dead bodies in there somewhere, but all you could see was these beautifully buffed hands gesturing over what looked like an abstract painting.

Then the government let some South Korean and Chinese aid workers in, and the proper video footage started coming through. Peter, I’ve seen things I wish I hadn’t seen. Maybe that’s why I got so frantic about missing you. Of course I love you and miss you and need you. But I also needed to see these things WITH you, or else be spared from seeing them at all.

I saw a huge concrete enclosure, like a giant pig kennel, or whatever you call the enclosures where they farm pigs, the roof of it just peeping out of a huge lake of slimy water. A team of men were hacking at the roof with pick-axes, not achieving much. Then they blew a hole in it with explosives. A weird mixture of soupy stuff gurgled out of the hole. It was people. People and water. Half-blended, like . . . I don’t want to describe it. I will never forget it. Why do we get shown these things? Why, when we can’t help? Later I saw villagers using dead bodies as sandbags. Rescue workers with candles strapped to their heads, the candle-fat running down their cheeks. How can such things be possible in the 21
^st
century? I’m watching a high-resolution video clip that was recorded with a micro-camera hidden in somebody’s hat-brim or whatever, and yet the technology of life-saving is straight from the Stone Age!

I want to write more, even though I don’t want to remember. I wish I could send you the images, even though I also wish I could erase them from my mind. Is it the lowest form of selfishness to want to share the burden like this? And what IS my burden, exactly, sitting on my sofa in England, eating liquorice allsorts, watching foreign corpses swirling around in muddy whirlpools, foreign children queuing for a scrap of tarpaulin?

Someone at work said to me this morning, ‘Where is God in all this?’ I didn’t rise to the bait. I can never understand why people ask that question. The real question for the bystanders of tragedy is ‘Where are WE in all this?’ I’ve always tried to come up with answers to that challenge. I don’t know if I can at the moment. Pray for me.

Love,

Bea.

Peter clasped his hands. They were tacky with grime: new sweat on old sweat. He stood up and walked to the shower cubicle. His erection nodded comically with each step. He positioned himself under the metal nozzle and switched on the water, letting it douse his upturned face first. His scalp stung as the stream penetrated his matted hair, finding little scratches and scabs he hadn’t realised were there. Stone-cold at first, the water warmed up fast, dissolving the dirt off him, enfolding him in a cloud. He kept his eyes closed and let his face be bathed, almost scalded, under the pressurised spray. He cupped his testicles in his hands, and, with his wrists, pressed his penis hard against his belly until the semen came. Then he soaped himself up from head to toes, and washed thoroughly. The water that swilled around the plughole was grey for longer than he would have thought possible.

When he was clean, he continued to stand under the hot stream, and might have remained there for half an hour or more, if the water hadn’t suddenly sputtered to a trickle. An LED display inside the shower dial flashed 0:00. He hadn’t twigged the significance of the gauge until now. Of course! It made perfect sense that duration of water use should be limited by a built-in timer. It’s just that USIC were an American corporation and the idea of a frugal, resource-conscious American corporation almost defied belief.

As soon as the drain stopped gurgling, he was able to discern that a noise he’d been aware of for a while, which he’d attributed to the pipes, was in fact someone knocking at the door.

‘Hi,’ said Grainger when he opened it. Her eyes barely flickered at the sight of him standing there wet, clad only in a bath towel knotted around his waist. She had a dossier clutched to her bosom.

‘Sorry, I couldn’t hear you,’ he said.

‘I knocked real loud,’ she said.

‘I suppose I expected there to be a doorbell, or a buzzer or an intercom or something.’

‘USIC isn’t big on unnecessary technology.’

‘Yes, I’ve noticed that. It’s one of the unexpectedly admirable things about you.’

‘Gee, thanks,’ said Grainger. ‘You say the sweetest things.’

Behind him, the Shoot emitted a soft noise, like an electronic sigh: the sound it made when its screen went dark to conserve power. He remembered North Korea.

‘Have you heard about North Korea?’ he said.

‘It’s a country in . . . uh . . . Asia,’ she said.

‘There’s been a terrible cyclone there. Tens of thousands of people are dead.’

Grainger blinked hard; flinched, almost. But a moment later, she’d regained her composure. ‘That’s tragic,’ she said. ‘Nothing we can do about it, though.’ She held the dossier out to him. ‘Everything you always wanted to know about Arthur Severin but were afraid to ask.’

He took the file. ‘Thank you.’

‘The funeral is in three hours.’

‘Right. How long is that in . . . uh . . . ’ He gestured vaguely, hoping that a wave of his hand might convey the difference between time as he’d always known it and time here and now.

She smiled, patient with his stupidity. ‘Three hours,’ she repeated, and raised her wrist to display her watch. ‘Three hours means three hours.’

‘I wasn’t expecting quite so little notice,’ he said.

‘Relax. Nobody’s expecting you to write fifty pages of rhyming poetry in his honour. Just say a few words. Everyone understands you didn’t know him too well. That kind of helps.’