Burridge Unbound

by Alan Cumyn

  “The winter was the worst thing about Canada. When we arrived it was about this time of the year, not too bad, we said we’d be all right. Then it got cooler and we said it wasn’t so bad as we’d heard. Then the snow came and the ice and it never stopped. It just kept building up. My wife would look out the window and say, ‘I won’t go out today. It’ll get better tomorrow.’ Then tomorrow it would be worse and we’d say, ‘How does anybody live here?’ We still say that. This winter, I swear, if I can make some money, we’re going to Florida. That’s it!”

  If I can make some money. It’s a nice line and Joanne tips him almost as much as the cost of the ride.

  “Thank you,” I say to her at the door of my building.

  “Not at all,” she says, waving goodbye to Husayn.

  “No, I mean it. I’d be lost without you. I’m sure you know it. I’d be in my grave.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “No. Maybe I’d be an unmarked body without a grave. Put to death by my relatives. A mercy killing.”

  “I won’t be here forever,” she says carefully, and just like that the night turns cold, I can feel winter slipping under our guard.

  “Are you telling me something, Joanne?”

  “I’m not the kind of nurse who waits around on cancer wards while people wilt and die,” she says. “I’ll treat people at their worst, fix ’em up, then ship ’em out. You know? Vaccinate the kids. Give them a week of steady food, water to wash with, a roof over their heads. It’s amazing to see them bloom. That’s what I live for. The big hit. Some die, it’s inevitable, but if there’s no hope then I don’t want any part of it.”

  “So I’m hopeless, is that it? You want out?”

  “Some things are beyond my control,” she says. “I don’t want you thinking that I’m going to dedicate the rest of my life to–”

  “What things? What’s beyond your control?”

  “I have a life, Bill. I have a family, I have elderly parents, my mother is ill. She has throat cancer. Right now I’m doing the very best I can for you. I just hope I’m not working so hard you figure you don’t have to do anything.”

  Ah. The point is made. This is a buck-up speech. I’d best buck up. Ultimately it’s up to me. No one else can do it. I have to decide I want to get better. Moreover, I should be further along. It’s been two years. Lots of water under the bridge. Bad things happen, but people get on with their lives. Think of the Canadian POWs starved by the Japanese in World War Two. Some of them came back. They lived their lives. There are rapes, beatings, attacks, mutilations happening every moment of every day. I was lucky, I escaped. No limbs lost. Faculties intact. It could’ve been worse. I have medical treatment. My condition is manageable. People look up to me.

  This speech rattles fully formed in my mind. I’ve been over every part of it endlessly before. Joanne says one or two sentences and the self-flagellation begins. It’ll go on for days if I don’t stop it.

  “You’re right,” I tell her. “I have to help myself.” And I do. I help myself up to my own apartment. I help my computer back onto the desk and then I help it off again to see whether it rolls any farther if I push it harder. It’s a scientific experiment. Gravity pulls on us all, but does it pull harder if we’re kicked or if we’re pushed? How hard does it pull if the desk itself is kicked or pushed? What does gravity do to other household items if they’re liberated from their positions of rest? Which way do dishes bounce if flung against a wall? How much plaster is liberated if struck by the edge of a plate? The flat of a bowl? Why do glasses shatter most easily against hard surfaces as opposed to soft?

  Here’s a helpful experiment. Fill your bathtub with household appliances and then turn on the water. Do microwave ovens float? How long will a toaster bob before settling on the bottom? What if the Yangtze River overflowed your bathroom right now? Where would the water go? Down the hallway? Into the bedroom? How wet will the carpet get before the water gets bored and must flow elsewhere? Down, down to the point of least resistance. Study the properties of water, how smooth, gentle, flexible it is. Abuse it all you want. Boil the hell out of it, it comes back in fine rain. Freeze it all to hell, it scars and cracks and breaks, then melts and flows again good as new. Beat it with your hands again and again. No harm; it becomes a game. Child’s play. Poison it and you’ll poison yourself the next time you drink, and then when you pass urine the water will be okay again, back to normal, right as rain.

  First comes rain, then thunder. Regular as the pounding on a door. “It’s okay!” I call. They want to come in but I tell them it’s okay. I just had a little flood. I’ve turned the water off.

  Okay.

  I say the word again and again. Through the door. Okay. Okay. No, you don’t have to come in. It’s all under control. It’s okay.

  They say they’re going to call Joanne. Yes, okay. Joanne is okay. Everybody, we’re all okay.

  I find a spot by the windows, near where the desk used to be. It’s not too wet. There’s just enough room to do some animals. A man has to be able to defend himself. Dragon. Lunge for the neck, pull on the arm, attack the neck again. Both sides. You might get attacked on the other side. Back straight, bum and chin tucked in, rounded shoulders, elbows out. A cat stance. Why does the dragon use a cat stance? A question for Wu. Lunge and pull, lunge again. Now lun. Intercept the blow. Break the arm and pull down. Choke the neck as he falls towards you.

  Pang, mandarin, snake, and ape. All my animals. I do them again and again, my feet going squish-squish on the carpet. There’s going to be hell to pay.

  Dragon, lun, pang, mandarin, snake, and ape. Both sides. Again and again and again. It beats thinking. It brings the night along. Slowly. Squish after squish. The time is liquid but it’s flowing. Slowly at first, then quicker, like sweat. Elbows out, turn the hips, don’t lean too much on the knee. Dragon, lun, pang, mandarin, snake, and ape. Intercept the punch and break the arm. Thrust and jerk. One side and another. Eyes on the horizon. See everything at once but not in detail. The devil’s in the details.

  At four in the morning I drink long from the tap, gingerly step around the shards of kitchen casualties. Breathing and breathing. When you do the animals for a long time a warmth takes over your body. It’s almost as if Wu is standing next to me. This is the first time I’ve felt this on my own. I find my squishy spot again and fall into more practice. The less thinking I do the better off I seem to be. Dragon, lun, pang, mandarin, snake, and ape. Break the arm and strike the neck. Stay relaxed. If there is danger most of all. Your body can interpret the energy coming at you, will know in the moment exactly what to do. But only if you stay relaxed.

  At five in the morning I start picking up pieces of glass. I unhook the trash bucket from inside the kitchen cupboard and traverse the apartment on my hands and knees. When the bucket is full I find a box and when the box is full I use a double-strength brown paper bag. Then I drain the tub and mop the remaining water from the bathroom, leaving the appliances to drip dry. Joanne will be so happy to see what I’ve done. I’ve been making so much progress!

  When she comes in I’ve nearly got everything back in order. There’s a terrible shortage of dishes, of course, and the baseboards betray a recent flood mark, and the place smells awful. And I haven’t righted the desk yet.

  “What happened here?” she asks, quite restrained, I think, considering.

  “I’m going to need a new computer,” I say. “This one just can’t fly.”

  “You’re right there,” she says, surveying the trash bucket, box, and bag, the dripping appliances, the sorry computer. “I thought Hurricane Bonnie was heading for the Carolinas.”

  I get to my feet. “Cato, attack!” I command.

  “You must be joking.”

  “No, I’m serious. I’ve been practising most of the night. Attack me. Anything you want to do.”

  “I am not Cato. I’m your nurse!” She comes at me anyway, a big sick grin on her face. I take my cat stance. Relax, relax …


  In an instant she whirls a wet cushion off the sofa and launches it at my head. I have no defence except to duck quickly, by which time she’s launched the second cushion straight into my midsection. I fall in a heap, coughing, sputtering.

  “Oh, Jesus!” she says, kneeling beside me. “Are you all right?”

  I cough some more, slowly get to my feet. “I haven’t learned the wet-cushion defence yet,” I say. “It must be one of the six missing animals.”

  “Must be,” she says.

  I go back to poking the computer. She looks through the kitchen for a while, then steps back out. “So, I take it breakfast will be out this morning?” she says.

  “Just punch me slowly,” I say. “With your left hand.”

  “My left hand?”

  “Just do it.”

  The fist comes at me slowly. I intercept, bend it against itself, clamp my fingers around her neck as she falls towards me.

  “How’s this for better?” I ask. “I’m getting better, right?”

  “Write to your wife,” she says when I’ve let her go.

  5

  TINTO DECLARES MARTIAL LAW

  23 August 1998

  Islander staff

  Former Interior Minister Tinto Delapango, cousin of deceased President General Linga Minitzh, has seized power and declared martial law. In a brief statement Tinto also announced that Vice-President Barios was no longer in the country and that key elements of the armed forces have sworn allegiance to his rule. “Stability is now at hand and all are required to give their full co-operation as I bring the situation under control.”

  Tinto’s statement comes among increasing rumours that the armed forces is split, with President General Minitzh’s elite Third Battalion backing Armed Forces Chief Mende Kul, while the vice-president’s naval units are said to favour the flamboyant Tinto.

  Opposition leader Suli Nylioko stated that if either Tinto or Kul seize power “there will be a bloodbath to make Minitzh look like a saint.”

  “We have had enough dictatorship. We have had enough killing and looting and government corruption. How can the rest of the world have faith in us if we do this again to ourselves?”

  Under the terms of Tinto’s martial law, which according to the statement comes into effect immediately, police and armed forces personnel have the right to shoot looters or suspicious figures on sight, to detain suspects without trial or access to a magistrate for up to 48 weeks, and to search homes and businesses without warrants or notice. A curfew is also in effect from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. in the capital. Anyone breaking the curfew could be shot on sight.

  Tinto was not on hand to deliver his proclamation but rather announced it through simultaneous fax transmission to national news offices.

  The photograph of Tinto shows up narrow and blurred on screen, a wiry man with a downturned mouth, his eyes hidden behind dark shades.

  WELANTO ABLAZE

  23 August 1998

  Hulinga Kaliotu

  For the third straight day fires raged through the shantytown of Welanto. Volunteer firemen were again turned away by gangs armed with bottles, sticks, and toragu blades. In all 76 people have been killed and some 600 injured in Welanto in the crisis since the assassination of President General Linga Minitzh.

  According to eyewitness reports, packs of police again entered homes and raped mothers and daughters. Several bodies could be seen lying in the backstreets. Rain last night dampened many of the fires but did not put them out. Street gangs reset the fires this morning, and so far police have done nothing to stop them.

  Local residents have started calling the police “Tinto’s cocks” and confronting them with homemade weapons. One man, who could not be identified, said he had fought a policeman off his wife’s back by hitting him across the shoulders with a bamboo pole.

  “He drew his pistol out. I don’t know why he didn’t shoot me.”

  So far the announcement of Tinto’s martial law has done nothing to stop the rioting in Welanto. “We need the army,” one local resident said. “We need someone to stop the killing.”

  CNN has no coverage – it’s economic chaos in Russia and falling markets worldwide, and a special segment on the coming anniversary of the death of Diana. I flip open my e-mail.

  Dear Bill Burridge,

  I am writing to you now to thank you. I was in interrogation for three hours when word arrived that I was to be let go. I pressed them – let go because of my innocence? No answer. But my lawyer Mr. I.K. Singh told me that there was high-level foreign intervention, and for that I thank you.

  Three hours with the Punjab police is plenty enough. I know that you know what pleasantries they engage in, so there is no need to reiterate them here. That Sikhs can do this to other Sikhs sorrows my heart immeasurably. But I must remind myself they are not true Sikhs. True Sikhs do not fight on the side of injustice.

  I thank you and my family thanks you.

  In peace, Jaswant Kashmir Singh

  A victory! I let the moment shine, then flip through other disasters: a Catholic priest has disappeared in Guangzhou, probably detained for running an underground church; there’s a new outbreak of riots against ethnic Chinese in central Java; in Kosovo, Albanians are disappearing at the hands of Serb police while Serbs, Roma, and Albanians are being abducted by the Kosovo Liberation Army.

  Derrick calls then from somewhere in Algonquin Park. “Did you read The Islander today?” he asks.

  “Derrick, you’re on holiday.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Did you read it?”

  “Of course I read it.”

  “But just now–”

  “Are you in a canoe or something Derrick?”

  “I’m on dry land. Don’t worry about me. Just read the news.”

  I flip over to the Islander site.

  SULI HOLDS MASSIVE RALLY BETWEEN TWO ARMIES

  23 August 1998

  Dorut Kul

  Freedom Party leader Suli Nylioko is holding a massive rally this morning on Kalindas Boulevard. Joined by tens of thousands of supporters and ordinary citizens, she is standing between troops loyal to former President Minitzh’s cousin Tinto and those following the command of Armed Forces Chief Mende Kul.

  The tense standoff began early this morning when a rumour spread through the capital that Kul had ordered troops to prepare for an attack on the presidential compound, where Tinto has made his headquarters. Freedom Party supporters immediately mobilized over a hundred tritos which sped throughout the city, horns blaring, the drivers shouting at citizens to come out on the streets. It is not clear how the party was able to convince so many independent tritos drivers to participate so quickly, but the effect has been one of a mass movement. Adults and children poured out of their apartments and greeted the dawn between two armies stalled for now across a barrier of innocent lives.

  One startling characteristic of the Kalindas demonstration is its silence. There are no loudspeakers, Suli is broadcasting no speeches, the tanks that are pointed across the civilians are still. A light rain greeted the dawn but then was replaced by brilliant sunshine, and the civilians are now kneeling and sitting in silent prayer. Suli is in the middle dressed in a simple but brilliant blue saftori traditional to the Upong tribe of central Santa Irene.

  Neither Tinto nor General Kul have issued any statements on the situation, which is ongoing.

  Derrick calls back. “Nobody’s covering it,” he says. “CNN, BBC, nobody’s there.”

  “The airport’s closed,” I say.

  “And the stock market is imploding.”

  “How are you getting all this stuff in the bush? You’re supposed to be paddling around.”

  “And I am,” he says. “But I bought a few toys. Don’t worry, the budget can handle it.”

  I don’t ask Derrick about money and he doesn’t tell me. It’s better that way. Dollars come to him naturally – he waves my name around and money arrives. If he wants a few toys it’s all right with me.

  “Derrick
,” I say, “you’re brilliant but sick. Turn it all off. The world will still be here when you get back.”

  “Yes, yes. I can turn it off whenever I want.”

  I try calling a contact at the State Department, but just get his voice mail. So I wait by the screen, watching for an update. Newswatch isn’t covering it, AP isn’t there, no word from Reuters. A strangely invisible event. I call the reporter from the BBC who phoned me before – not at his desk. Same with the CBC reporter who was interested before.

  Late afternoon turns into evening. No new report. Joanne has tried to get me out for a walk but I won’t budge. It’s already tomorrow in Santa Irene. The event has happened, whatever it was. The event has happened but I haven’t heard the shouting.

  “You didn’t visit your son,” Joanne says, and for a moment I don’t know what she’s talking about.

  “He’d be home by now,” I say finally.

  “You should call him.”

  “Yes,” I say without conviction. I feel like I could call the prime minister of India but not my son. “My brother Graham was constantly getting concussions,” I say. “He rode his bike like a kamikaze. Eventually he fell off a building. He was all right.”

  “The voice of compassion!” Joanne says. “The conscience of the nation!”

  I click on the screen. Los Angeles Times – nothing. Christian Science Monitor – nothing. The Independent – nothing.

  Joanne is right of course. I need to get out of this chair. I should do some animals. Take a walk. Call my son. Write a letter to my wife. Dear Maryse. Dear Maryse. Words and words and words together. Down the page. One thought after another. My dear Maryse. I have loved you so much and so badly. My dear. Dear Maryse. Dear wife. Dear. My wife. I have meant to write. I have meant to start. So many times I’ve started this letter. Dear Maryse. Do you know when I started writing this letter? I wrote this letter in the molecules in the air when I was stuck in the lower regions of hell. I had a way out and it was through this letter. My dear Maryse. For so long the sound of your name was my mantra. Ages upon lifetimes. Maryse. My dear Maryse. The sound of your name was sweet nourishment in the very worst moments of my life. Maryse. The very worst? Who could predict? The worst would fall away as I stepped off the plateau and headed for the abyss. And still falling. Maryse. My dear wife. I wish to God I could let you go and know that somewhere, at least, far above in the bright blue sky, someone is flying. My dear. Dear Maryse.