Sufferance

by Thomas King

  Roman slides into the high finish of “My Funny Valentine.”

  “They fucked the entire reserve and what happens to them? Not one damn thing. Whereas I cut off power to five people and get nine months in jail? Should have shut down the entire town.”

  Roman moves on to “Stardust,” gets most of the way through the long introduction, and stops.

  “My daughter’s coming home.” Roman puts the horn down. “You know, I went out to Winnipeg a couple of years back to see if Emma and me could get back together. You ever been married? Got any kids squirrelled away?”

  Roman settles on the bench again, closes his eyes, and takes up “Stardust” where he left off, as though he’s found a bookmark in a book.

  “Don’t even have a picture of my little girl.”

  I leave Roman where he is. The spray continues to swing around. Either he’ll move or he won’t.

  THE GRAVEYARD is in slanted light. The long shadows of the trees drape over the crosses and settle on the stones. There are still two good hours left in the day, and as I walk through the dead, back to the school, I find myself unexpectedly drawn to the work at hand. A sudden flush of enthusiasm. A surge of energy that I hadn’t anticipated.

  The wagon is parked at the side of the building, along with the tools. It would only be a matter of moments to slip inside, change into my work clothes, head down to the riverbed.

  “Forecaster.”

  Oliver Flood. Black slacks, black shirt. Camel sports coat. He’s out of place on my porch. And unwelcome.

  “You have an invitation,” he says in his flat voice. “Tomorrow. A car will be here first thing in the morning.”

  Ash Locken.

  “I accepted on your behalf.”

  Spot and Rover stand by the black SUV, their hands folded in front of them, as though they’re waiting for me to ask them a question they can answer.

  “Pack for an extended stay,” says Flood, amusement colouring his voice, as he walks to the car and gets in the back. “Think of it as a paid vacation.”

  I turn back to the graveyard. The shadows are longer and deeper now, the late light brightening the crosses with nature’s grace. I imagine that I can hear Roman’s horn off in the distance.

  An illusion, of course. It’s just the crows, singing out to each other as they come across the river to settle in the trees for the evening.

  14

  Spot and Rover and the Tesla arrive promptly the next morning. Rover is driving. Spot is the designated tour guide.

  “Mr. Flood won’t be joining us,” says Spot. “He has other duties. He’s asked us to see to your needs.”

  I have few needs. The main one is to be left alone.

  Spot holds the door open for me. “Mr. Flood says to do your job, in and out, don’t be an ass.”

  Then he shuts the door, and we’re off.

  I had expected that we would head for the highway, but instead, we drive to a field at the edge of the town. A flat field gone to weeds and short, rough bushes that hug the ground. The Tesla rolls across these, crushing them, and comes to a stop next to nothing.

  And we wait. With no explanation.

  But now I know what to expect, so when the helicopter arrives, I’m not surprised. A mid-sized Sikorsky in black and tan. It was foolish of me to think that we were going to brave the two-hour drive through lumbering herds of transport trucks and scuttling packs of family sedans.

  Spot lets me out, and I walk the short distance to the helicopter with its whirling rotors. I can see that the pilot is a woman in a dark green jumpsuit.

  A small surprise.

  Gender equality is not common in the allocation of large toys.

  The side door of the Sikorsky opens and a young man steps out, his hand pressed against his head to keep his hair from flying away.

  “Mr. Camp,” he shouts over the roar of the helicopter. “This way.”

  The way is apparent. There is only one field and one helicopter.

  “Welcome to the Locken Group,” says the young man. “May I have your cellphone?”

  I wait.

  “You’ll get it back.”

  He’s surprised and unhappy that I don’t have a phone. This could be his natural state, or it could be the situation.

  “We’re expected for lunch.”

  The interior of the helicopter is appointed for executive travel. Soft, tan leather recliners on swivels. An upright, tall-backed chair at a desk by one of the windows. Three monitors. One for the stock market. One for a talk show on business. One for sports.

  “George Dobbins,” says the young man. “At your service. Coffee?”

  Dobbins tells me how much he’s looked forward to meeting me. How my reputation is well known. How he has admired my skills.

  “They call you Forecaster,” he says, “is that correct?”

  I pass on the coffee. If it’s not espresso, it’s not worth drinking. I pass on the magazines and the newspapers, pass on watching a sports team in orange shirts and black shorts chase another team in magenta and silver around a field.

  “If there is anything I can do for you,” says Dobbins, “just ask.”

  This is rhetorical, and we both know it. I sink into the swaddled interior, close my eyes, and go to sleep.

  I WAKE UP AS we begin our descent. At altitude, the city looks reduced, benign, vaguely artistic.

  Michael Chesko’s balsa wood renderings.

  Meschac Gaba’s sugar creations.

  Edward Burtynsky’s panoramic photographs.

  And because everything is in miniature, there is a moment, before you drop into the cluster of towers and tight grouping of buildings, when you feel important and indominable, a moment when you might imagine that you see what only god can see.

  If such a creature ever existed.

  The helicopter rolls gently out of the sky and runs out along the lakeshore to where the newer towers are being built.

  Sugar Beach.

  A euphemism. Not a beach at all. A parking lot for the Jarvis Street slip until the city trucked in a triangular pile of sand to mask the industrial reality of the surrounding area. Pink umbrellas, white Muskoka chairs, an inflatable movie screen mounted on a barge to complete the illusion.

  We’re not going to the beach. Which is just as well. If I wanted to spend a day in sand, I’d go to Tofino and walk along Chesterman, or drop down the coast to Oregon and roam Ecola State Park.

  My minder is up and moving. Dobbins points out the window as we make our final approach to a glass tower all aglow in the late-morning sun.

  “The Lighthouse.” Dobbins’s voice softens in benediction. “Magnificent. If you had a cellphone, you could take a photograph.”

  The pilot makes a slow pass at the tower’s helipad and then sets the Sikorsky down elegantly on the numbers. Dobbins is out the door the minute the wheels touch.

  “Shall we?” he asks, as though this is a question.

  The building proper is capped by a clear-glass circular dome that contains two high-speed elevators. A long corridor, also clear glass, runs from the dome to the edge of the helipad. This is the brainchild of a security savant, a way to isolate hostile visitors in a trap, a defensive time delay that allows for interventions in case of aggression.

  “We call it the Igloo.” Dobbins takes a fob from his pocket and points it at the outer door. “Polymer-infused plastic. It’ll stop anything.”

  Dobbins is mistaken. Polymer-infused plastic is merely bullet resistant. A .454 Casull handgun would punch its way through the Igloo with impunity. Though I’m not sure such knowledge would change his life in any significant way.

  The outer doors slide shut behind us. Dobbins walks to the elevator, stands in front of the control panel, and says his name. Then he looks into the black glass and waits for the computer to scan his iris.

  I stand back and watch him perform the ritual.

  “Your turn, Mr. Camp.”

  I stay where I am.

  “You have to s
ay your name,” he says, “and look into the scanner.”

  That’s not going to happen. Having decided not to talk to people, I’m certainly not going to talk to a machine. Dobbins doesn’t have this behaviour variant in his playbook, and he’s not sure what to do.

  “Is there a problem?” His voice has lost some of its calm. The joy of being in charge is slipping away.

  The Sikorsky is still on the pad, its rotors spinning.

  “We can’t get in unless you speak your name and allow us to scan you.”

  I turn and start back to the helicopter. I’ve only taken two steps when I hear the elevator doors hiss open behind me.

  WE DROP WITH little sensation. Dobbins is no longer talkative. He is angry and reduced. I have little sympathy, so I don’t pretend that I do. When the doors open, he stays behind in the elevator.

  “Someone will take you from here.”

  Dobbins would hurt me if he could. I have broken the rules, and in his world, people who break the rules are punished. In his world, no one can be allowed to do this. But I no longer believe in rules or in the people who make them. This needs to be clear to everyone from the start.

  The someone is a woman. Middle-aged, business suit. She is neither nervous nor impressed.

  “Mr. Camp.” The accent is Eastern. Prague, Budapest, Kiev. “If you would follow me.”

  This is a reasonable request.

  “Do you have any food allergies?”

  The floor we are on is not the top floor. It is somewhere in the middle. High enough to be defended. Low enough to be reached by rescue teams in case of a disaster. A compromise between status and safety.

  We pass through a set of double doors into a space that has been purposed as a living room. The woman walks me to a long table, shows me a chair that faces the windows. So I can look out and enjoy the view.

  “May I bring you anything to drink?”

  I take the chair on the opposite side of the table. This doesn’t faze her, as it would have Dobbins.

  “I understand you enjoy espresso. A macchiato to be precise?”

  I don’t mind sitting with my back to the windows. I’ve seen the view before. If I don’t see the city, I can pretend that it isn’t there.

  The woman passes behind me. I hear a door open and close. And now, for the moment, I am alone.

  But of course, I’m not alone at all. I’m being watched. Cameras, microphones. My every move is being analyzed by technicians versed in psychological behaviour. Heart rate, blood pressure, eye movement, level of alertness, physical tells that can be crafted into a profile. Closing my eyes tells them something. Crossing my legs tells them something else.

  I’m tempted to go to the middle of the room, squat into utkata konasana, and begin performing a haka, confident that the shadow watchers will dutifully record it, will spend the next week trying to make sense of what has just happened, dismissing the possibility of boredom for something more peculiar and clinical.

  The psy-ops playbook, in a situation such as this, calls for a delay of at least half an hour. Five minutes in, I hear a door open followed by footsteps.

  “I’m sure this is not your first choice of ways to spend a day.” Ash Locken is dressed in a simple business suit with a cream blouse. “I appreciate your taking the time.”

  The tone of Locken’s voice, like her attire, is soft, understated, and could be mistaken for sympathy.

  “Do you know why we enjoy living in towers?”

  It’s a rhetorical question. We enjoy living in towers because we enjoy living in towers. Technically, the answer is a tautology.

  “Because we like to imagine ourselves to be wizards.”

  The door at the far end of the room opens. Two women bring in a coffee service with fresh fruit, pastries, and a macchiato complete with a chocolate biscotti.

  “I’d like you to stay with us, Forecaster.”

  This is not a question that is open for debate.

  “A short stay. Give us a chance to have a proper conversation.”

  I try the macchiato. It’s excellent.

  “My father was a complicated man.” Locken helps herself to a strawberry. “Though I expect you can say that about a great many people. Still, when you have the kind of money and power that my family has, you can pursue any whim, any passion.”

  I take some of the grapes. They’re firm and cold.

  “I have a friend whose passion is fashion. The newest style in clothing. The latest sports car. Another is keen on the environment, spends a good deal of her fortune on the conundrum of global warming. Still another lives for the arts, music, painting, literature.”

  And sweet. These grapes didn’t sit on a boat, and they haven’t been locked up in cold storage.

  “For my father, it was longevity.” Locken takes another strawberry. “No, that’s not exactly correct. His passion was immortality.”

  I help myself to more grapes and the cheese.

  “Death, the great leveller. The great destroyer. The one thing that the rich and the poor have in common. Everything you have become, everything you know, everything you’ve accomplished, gone. Lost forever. The same end. Sinners and saints alike.”

  Locken puts the stem of the strawberry on the edge of the plate.

  “But my father didn’t see death as part of some divine plan. He decided early on that ‘gods in the universe’ was a fairy tale, a story whose function was to give purpose and hope to misery.”

  The lighter cheese is fruity and sweet. The heavier one is a barnyard medley.

  “But I’m sure you know all this already. I’m sure my father would have shared these feelings with his Forecaster.”

  He had. Thomas Locken saw death as a matter of biology and logic. If we could imagine immortality, he told me on more than one occasion, we should be able to achieve it.

  “What I don’t know is why my father had you create the list.” Locken pauses, as though she has run too far too fast. “Or why people on that list are dying.”

  WE TAKE OUR TIME with the food, retreat into the safety of small talk. The weather. Life in the city. New restaurants. Political gossip. Locken walks me through the facility.

  “This floor is essentially a guest house,” she tells me. “Where our visitors can live and work.”

  Locken enumerates the points of interest.

  “In addition to the living room, there’s a bedroom, a bathroom, a small kitchen, as well as a sound-proof workspace with high-speed internet access. Along with a gym, if you can manage the tedium of exercise. I hope you’ll think of it as home.”

  I wouldn’t know. I don’t have a home. I’ve never had a home.

  “But enough for today. Let’s get some rest, so we can start fresh tomorrow.” Locken turns to go. “If you want anything, all you have to do is ask.”

  The space is well appointed, no expense spared. Full-length windows with a view of the lake, thick carpets, bespoke furnishings, locks on every door. Luxury living at its best.

  And given different circumstances, it would easily double as a prison.

  15

  I don’t sleep.

  I try watching television, but it hasn’t improved since I gave it up. Reality shows, a plague of farce and nonsense, have taken over, with the news channels close behind. Tonight, on Fox, a guy who was put up for adoption as an infant tries to find his biological father in a group of twenty-five strangers, while on CNN, a panel of four is debating whether or not the hot dog is a sandwich.

  Is that really a question?

  I turn the sound off and discover that the programs, sine voce, are less annoying, with no appreciable loss in comprehension.

  There’s a small library with a generous sampling of fiction and non-fiction, but I don’t plan to stay here long enough to finish a book. I try meditation. I sit on the floor, relax, clear my mind. It’s less insulting than watching television, but equally boring.

  A little after midnight, I give up on entertainment and go to work.

>   Three women, nine men. All billionaires. All heads of major families who take their money and their privacy seriously. Names that do not appear on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index or Forbes’s roster of über-rich.

  No one on the list has signed the Giving Pledge. No one on the list knows what it is.

  Twelve names.

  A combined net worth of over $600 billion.

  I stare at the monitor for a while, and then I begin to arrange the individuals, their companies, and their subsidiaries into loose groups.

  Similarities. Convergences.

  Just for fun, I organize them by ethnicity, by language, by religion. Where they went to school. Who have yachts, who have planes. Which ones have charitable foundations, which ones don’t.

  Houses. Country club memberships. Wines, jewellery, cars.

  Two monitors and a keyboard. Every key stroke watched by a Locken technician somewhere in the building. Every search engine scrutinized, every site I visit noted and analyzed.

  At three-thirty, I run out of categories and call it a night. I curl up on the bed and don’t wake until the alarm goes off at 8:00.

  BREAKFAST IS WAITING for me in front of the panoramic windows. The sun is out, and it lights up the lake.

  Ash Locken appears a little after nine. She helps herself to the coffee and a piece of toast, sits silently while I finish a cheese and onion omelette.

  “I suppose you think you’re funny,” she says at last. “Grouping the names by their pets?”

  The orange juice carafe has been chilled and the sides shimmer with condensation. Locken pours herself a glass.

  “Do you really think that we haven’t looked at all the commonalities, at every parallel, at each point of connection?” Locken doesn’t sound as though she’s gotten much sleep either. “When you’re done stuffing your face, maybe we can get on with the real work.”

  THE REAL WORK BEGINS on the fifth floor, in a windowless room with reduced lighting.

  “It simulates the quiet and peace of early evening,” Locken tells me. “Supposed to be relaxing.”

  In the centre of the room is a large, oblong table. Most of the chairs are already taken with IQs over 135.