The Bone Clocks

by David Mitchell

  Repeat the above three times at Checkpoints Two through Four and you find yourself inside the Emerald City—as the Green Zone has inevitably come to be known, a ten-square-kilometer fortress maintained by the U.S. Army and its contractors to keep out the reality of postinvasion Iraq and preserve the illusion of a kind of Tampa, Florida, in the Middle East. Barring the odd mortar round, the illusion is maintained, albeit it at a galactic cost to the U.S. taxpayer. Black GM Suburbans cruise at the thirty-five miles per hour speed limit on the smooth roads; electricity and gasoline flow 24/7; ice-cold Bud is served by bartenders from Mumbai who rename themselves Sam, Scooter, and Moe for the benefit of their clientele; the Filipino-run supermarket sells Mountain Dew, Skittles, and Cheetos.

  The spotless hop-on, hop-off circuit bus was waiting at the Assassin’s Gate stop. I hopped on, relishing the air-conned air, and the bus pulled off at the very second the timetable promised. The smooth ride down Haifa Street passes much of the best real estate in the nation and the Ziggurat celebrating Iraq’s bloody stalemate against Iran—one of the ugliest memorials on Earth—and several large areas of white Halliburton trailers. Most of the CPA’s staff live in these trailer parks, eat in the chow halls, shit in portable cubicles, never set foot outside the Green Zone, and count the days until they can go home and put down a deposit on a real house in a nice neighborhood.

  When I got off the bus at the Republican Palace, about twenty joggers came pounding down the sidewalk, all wearing wraparound sunglasses, holsters, and sweat-blotted T-shirts. Some of the T-shirts were emblazoned with the quip WHO’S YOUR BAGHDADDY NOW?; the remainder declared, BUSH-CHENEY 2004. To avoid a collision I had to jump out of their way. They sure as hell weren’t going to get out of mine.

  • • •

  I STEP ASIDE for a stream of flouncy-frocked girls who run giggling down the aisle of All Saints’ Church in Hove, Brighton’s genteel twin. “Half the florists in Brighton’ll be jetting off to the Seychelles on the back of this,” remarks Brendan. “Kew bloody Gardens, or what?”

  “A lot of work’s gone into it, for sure.” I gaze at the barricade of lilies, orchids, and sprays of purples and pinks.

  “A lot of dosh has gone into it, our Ed. I asked Dad how much all this set him back, but he says it’s all …” he nods across the aisle to the Webbers’ side of the church and mouths taken care of. Brendan checks his phone. “He can wait. Speaking of dosh, I meant to ask before you fly back to your war zone about your intentions regarding the elder of my sisters.”

  Did I hear that right? “You what?”

  Brendan grins. “Don’t worry, it’s a bit late to make an honorable woman out of our Hol now. Property, I’m talking. Her pad up in Stoke Newington’s cozy, like a cupboard under the stairs is cozy. You’ll have your sights set a bit higher up the property ladder, I trust?”

  As of right now, Holly’s sights are set on kicking me out on my arse. “Eventually, yes.”

  “Then see me first. London property’s dog-eat-dog right now, and two nasty words of the near future are ‘negative’ and ‘equity.’ ”

  “Will do, Brendan,” I tell him. “I appreciate it.”

  “It’s an order, not a favor.” Brendan winks, annoyingly. We shuffle along to a table where Pete-the-groom’s mother, Pauline Webber, gold and coiffured like Margaret Thatcher, is handing out carnations for the men’s buttonholes. “Brendan! Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after last night’s ‘entertainments,’ are we?”

  “Nothing a pint of espresso and a blood transfusion couldn’t fix,” says Brendan. “Pete’s not the worse for wear, I hope?”

  Pauline Webber’s smile is a nose-wrinkle. “I gather there was an afterparty party in a ‘club.’ ”

  “I heard rumors of that, yes. Some of Sharon’s and my Corkonian cousins were introducing Pete to the subtleties of Irish whisky. That’s a work of art you’re wearing, Mrs. Webber.”

  To me Pauline Webber’s hat looks like a crash-landed crow with turquoise blood, but she accepts the tribute. “I swear by a hatter in Bath. He’s won awards. And call me Pauline, Brendan—you sound like a tax inspector with bad news. Now, a buttonhole—white for the bride’s side, red for the groom’s.”

  “Very War of the Roses,” I offer.

  “No, no,” she frowns at me, “these are carnations. Roses would be too thorny. And you’d be?”

  “This is Ed,” says Ruth. “Ed Brubeck. Holly’s partner.”

  “Oh, the intrepid reporter! Delighted. Pauline Webber.” Her handshake is gloved and crushing. “I’ve heard so much about you from Sharon and Peter. Let me introduce you to Austin, who—” She turns to her missing husband. “Well, Austin’s dying to meet you too. We’re glad you got here in time. Delayed flights and bovva?”

  “Yes. Iraq’s not the easiest of places to depart from.”

  “No doubt. Sharon was saying you’ve been in that place, Fa—Faloofah? Falafel? Where they strung up the people on the bridge.”

  “Fallujah.”

  “Knew it began with ‘Fa.’ Appalling. Why are we meddling in these places?” She makes a face like she’s smelling possibly gone-off ham. “Beyond the ken of us mere mortals. Anyway.” She hands me a white carnation. “I met Holly and your daughter, yesterday—Aoife, isn’t it? I could eat her with a spoon! What—a—sweetie.”

  I think of the sulky goblin on the pier. “She has her moments.”

  “Pippa! Felix! There’s a live baby in that pushchair!” Mrs. Webber dashes off and we proceed up the aisle. Brendan has a lot of hello-ing, handshaking, and cheek-kissing to do—there’s a big contingent of Holly’s Irish relatives in attendance, including the legendary Great-aunt Eilísh, who cycled from Cork to Kathmandu in the late 1960s. I drift up to the front. By the vestry door, I spot Holly in a white dress, laughing at a red-carnation young male’s joke. Once upon a time I could make her laugh like that. The guy’s admiring her, and I want to snap his neck, but how can I blame him? She looks stunning. I stroll up. My new shirt is rubbing my neck, and my old suit is pinching the temporary bulge around my middle, which I’ll dispose of soon with a rigid regime of diet and exercise. “Hi,” I say. Holly basically ignores me.

  “Hi,” says the guy. “I’m Duncan. Duncan Priest. My aunt’s buttonholed you onto Sharon’s side, I see.”

  I shake his hand. “So you’re, um, Pauline’s nephew?”

  “Yep. Peter’s cousin. Have you met Holly, here?”

  “We bump into each other at weddings and funerals,” Holly says, deadpan. “These irksome family events that get in the way of one’s meteoric career.”

  “I’m Aoife’s father,” I tell Duncan Priest, who’s looking baffled.

  “The Ed? Ed Brubeck? Your”—he points to Holly—“other half? Such a pity you missed Pete’s stag do last night, though.”

  “I’ll learn to cope with the disappointment.”

  Duncan Priest senses my pissed-offness and makes an o-kay face. “Rightio. Well, I’ll go and check up on, um, stuff.”

  “You have to forgive Ed, Duncan,” says Holly. “His life is so full of adventure and purpose that he’s allowed to be rude to the rest of us lemmings, wage slaves, and sad office clones. By rights we ought to be grateful when he even notices we exist.”

  Duncan Priest smiles at her, like a fellow adult in the presence of a misbehaving child. “Well, nice meeting you, Holly. Enjoy the wedding, maybe see you at the banquet.” Off he walks. Tosser.

  I refuse to listen to the onboard traitor who says I’m the one being the tosser. “Well, that was nice,” I tell Holly. “Loyal too.”

  “I can’t hear you, Brubeck,” she says witheringly. “You’re not here. You’re in Baghdad.”

  FLANKED BY THE Stars and Stripes and the widely reviled new Iraqi flag, Brigadier General Mike Klimt gripped his lectern and addressed a press room as full and wired as I’d seen it since Envoy L. Paul Bremer III announced Saddam Hussein’s capture to loud cheers last December. We had hoped that Envoy Bremer would make an appearance
today, too, but the de facto Grand Vizier of Iraq has cultivated an imperial distance between himself and a media that daily grows ever more critical and ever less “post–9/11.” Klimt referred to his notes: “The barbarity we saw in Fallujah on March 31 runs counter to any civilized norms in peacetime or wartime. Our forces will not rest until the perpetrators have been brought to justice. Our enemies will come to learn that the Coalition’s resolve is strengthened, not weakened, by their depravity. And why? Because it proves the evildoers are desperate. They now know that Iraq has turned a corner. That the future belongs not to the Kalashnikov but to the ballot box. And this is why President Bush has pledged his ongoing full support to Envoy Bremer and our military commanders for Operation Valiant Resolve. Operation Valiant Resolve will prevent the dead-enders of history from terrorizing the vast majority of peace-loving Iraqis, and move this nation closer to the day when Iraqi mothers can let their children play outside with the same peace of mind as American mothers. Thank you.”

  “Clearly,” Big Mac muttered in my ear, “General Klimt’s never been a mother in Detroit.”

  Shouts broke out as Klimt agreed to take a few questions. Larry Dole, an Associated Press guy, won the verbal brawl for attention: “General Klimt, are you able to confirm or deny the figures from Fallujah Hospital, claiming that six hundred civilians have been killed in the last week, with over one thousand seriously wounded?”

  The question generated a buzz; the U.S. doesn’t, and probably couldn’t, keep a record of Iraqis killed in crossfire, so even to ask the question is an act of criticism. “The Coalition Provisional Authority,” Klimt lowered his head bullishly at Dole, “is not an office of statistics. We have a counterinsurgency to prosecute. But I say this: Whatever innocent blood has been spilled in Fallujah is on the insurgents’ hands. Not ours. When a mistake is made, compensation is paid. Thank you.”

  I did a piece about compensation for Spyglass: Blood money payments had fallen from $2,500 to $500 per life—less than a visit to an ATM for many Westerners—and the untranslated English legalese of the forms was as comprehensible as Martian to most Iraqis.

  “General Klimt,” said a German reporter, “do you have sufficient troops to maintain the occupation or will you ask Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to supply more battalions for these widespread revolts we are seeing all over Iraq?”

  The general swatted away a fly. “First, I dislike this ‘occupation’ word; we’re engaged in a ‘reconstruction.’ And these ‘widespread revolts’—have you actually seen them with your own eyes? Have you been to these places yourself?”

  “The highways are too dangerous, General,” answered the German. “When did you last tour the provinces by car?”

  “If I was a journalist,” Klimt smiled on one side of his face, “I’d be careful about confusing hearsay with reality. Security is returning to Iraq. One last question, before—”

  “I wanted to ask, General,” veteran Washington Post man Don Gross got in first, “whether the CPA now concedes that Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction were imaginary?”

  “Ah, this old chestnut.” Klimt drummed on the side of the lectern. “Listen, Saddam Hussein butchered tens of thousands of men, women, and children. If we hadn’t toppled this Arab Hitler, he would’ve slaughtered tens of thousands more. To my mind, it’s the pacifists who would have done nothing about this architect of genocide who have the case to answer. What stage had his program of building weapons of mass destruction reached? We may never know. But for the ordinary peace-loving Iraqis who want a better future for their families, it’s an irrelevance. Okay, we’ll wrap it up here …” More questions were called out, but Brigadier General Mike Klimt exited in a snowstorm of flashlights.

  “And the moral of the tale is,” I smelt hash browns and whisky on Big Mac’s breath, “if you’re after news, avoid the Green Zone.”

  I switched off my recorder and shut my notebook. “It’ll do.”

  Big Mac sniffed. “For an ‘Official Bullcrap Versus the Facts on the Ground’ piece? You still planning a little drive out west?”

  “Nasser’s got the hamper packed, ginger beer, the lot.”

  “Likely there’ll be fireworks to go with your picnic.”

  “Nasser knows a few back roads. And what else can I do? Recycle these pasteurized tidbits from the Good Soldier Klimt and hope they get mistaken for journalism? Try to get Spyglass back on the approved list so I can trundle around in a Humvee for six hours and wire Olive another identical marine’s-eye-view piece? ‘ “Incoming!” yelled a gunner as the RPG ricocheted off the armor cladding and all hell broke loose.’ ”

  “Hey, that’s my line. And, yes, I am joining our gallant warriors this afternoon. If you’re six foot four, a hundred and eighty pounds, and blue-eyed as Our Lord Jesus Christ, a Humvee’s the only way into Fallujah.”

  “First one back to the hotel buys the beers.”

  Big Mac clamped a shovel-sized hand on my shoulder. “Watch yourself, Brubeck. Tougher men than you get burned out there.”

  “Tasteless pun referring to Blackwater contractors intended?”

  Big Mac looked away, chewing gum. “Kinda.”

  “BEFORE SHARON AND Peter tie the knot, I’d like us all to consider for a moment what they’re getting themselves into …” The Reverend Audrey Withers has a puckish smile. “What is marriage, exactly, and how could we explain it to an alien anthropologist? It’s more than just a living arrangement. Is it an endeavor, a pledge, a symbol, or an affirmation? Is it a span of shared years and shared experiences? A vessel for intimacy? Or does the old joke nail it best? ‘If love is an enchanted dream, then marriage is an alarm clock.’ ” Mostly male laughter in the congregation is shushed. “Maybe marriage is difficult to define because of its array of shapes and sizes. Marriage differs between cultures, tribes, centuries, decades even, generations, and—our alien researcher might add—planets. Marriages can be dynastic, common-law, secret, shotgun, arranged, or, as is the case with Sharon and Peter”—she beams at the bride in her dress and the groom in his morning suit—“brought into being by love and respect. Any given marriage can—and will—go through rocky patches and calmer periods. Even within a single day, a marriage can be stormy in the morning, yet by evening turn calm and blue …”

  Aoife, in her pink bridesmaid’s finery, is sitting next to Holly by the font. She’s holding the velvet tray with the bride’s and groom’s wedding rings on. Look at them both. About two months after our Northumbrian sojourn, I called Holly from a phone kiosk in Charles de Gaulle airport, with actual francs. I was on my way back from the Congo, where I’d done a lengthy piece on the Lord’s Resistance Army’s child soldiers and sex slaves. Holly picked up the phone, I said, “Hi, it’s me,” and Holly said, “Why, hello, Daddy.”

  I said, “It’s not your dad, it’s me, Ed.”

  Holly said: “I know, you idiot. I’m pregnant.”

  I thought, I’m not ready for this, and said, “That’s fantastic.”

  “On marriage,” continues the Reverend Audrey Withers, “Jesus made only one direct remark: ‘What God has joined, let no man strike asunder.’ Theologians have debated what this means down the ages, but it profits us to consider Jesus’s actions as well as his words. Many of us know the story of the wedding at Cana, as it’s trotted out at most Christian wedding sermons you’ll ever hear, this one included. The banquet at Cana was down to its last drop of wine, so Mary asked Jesus to save the day and not even the Son of God could refuse a determined mother, so he told the servants to fill the wine jars with water. When the servants poured the jars, out came wine—and not your mediocre plonk, either. This was vintage. The master of the banquet told the bridegroom, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first, and then the cheaper stuff after the guests are legless, but you have saved the best until last.” How human of the Son of God—to make his debut as a miracle worker, not as raiser of the dead, a healer of leprosy, or a walker on the water, but as a good son and loyal friend.” Th
e Reverend Audrey gazes over our heads, as if watching a home video of Cana. “I believe that if God cared what size and shape and form human marriage should take, He would have given us clear instructions, via the Gospels. I believe, therefore, that God is willing to trust us with the small print.”

  Brendan’s next to me. His phone, set to silent, buzzes. His hand goes to his jacket, but a glare from Kath in front aborts the mission.

  “Sharon and Peter,” the vicar carries on, “have written their own wedding vows. I am a big fan of self-penned vows. To get the job done, they had to sit down, talk, and listen, both to what was said aloud and to what wasn’t, which is where the real truth so often hides. They had to compromise—a holy word, that, as well as a practical art. Now, a vicar isn’t a fortune-teller,” I see Aoife prick up her ears, “so I can’t tell Sharon and Peter what awaits them in the years ahead, but marriage can, should, and must evolve. Don’t be alarmed, and don’t resent it. Be patient and kind, unflaggingly. In the long run, it’s the unasked-for hot-water bottles on winter nights that matter more than the extravagant gestures. Express gratitude, especially for work that tends to get taken for granted. Identify problems as they arise, remembering that anger is flammable. When you’ve behaved like a donkey, Peter,” the groom smiles at his toes, “remember that a sincere apology never diminishes the apologizer. Wrong turns teach us the right way.”