Approaching Zero

by R. T Broughton

  They made their way into the car-parking chamber, which was far duller and cooler than the main airport, and Suri was almost completely out of breath by the time they had marched to the car but still her spirits remained intact as Kathy pressed the button on her key and her car lights flashed.

  “Oooo! A Mini!” Suri beamed. “A good little car. One of my favorites.”

  This finally got Kathy’s attention and she couldn’t stop herself laughing. “You like my car?”

  “I do,” smiled Suri. “It’s very good car. Like The Italian Job,” Suri said as she deposited herself in the passenger seat. “You are only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.”

  This made Kathy laugh even harder, but she composed herself quickly and started the car. As she reversed out of the space, the Corrs began to play again, but she quickly flicked the tape out of the player and said, “So how old are you, Suri?”

  “I am sixteen,” Suri answered proudly. There was still nothing but joy in the young girl’s voice.

  “And where have you come from?”

  “I am not supposed give many details, Mrs. Smith. I am from Malaysia. I am from small fishing village near Kuala Lumpa. I am very happy to be in your country.”

  “I bet you are,” said Kathy and didn’t really understand why she couldn’t bring herself to extend any kind of warmth toward her new arrival.

  “I have not been in England before. But I have dreamed it many times. Will we see Big Ben and Buckingham Palace?”

  “Erm, wrong city I’m afraid, but I could drive round in circles for hours then show you a homeless person—make it feel like London.”

  “Okay!”

  “I was joking, Suri.”

  “Oh.” Suri was quiet for a few minutes after this, perhaps finally picking up on Kathy’s vibe, but she was unstoppable once again when they were on the motorway and they passed a Volkswagen Beetle. “Ha!” she erupted. “It is Herbie.”

  “Never mind that,” Kathy began and then seemed to change her mind. “Actually, how do you know about that film? It’s older than you are.”

  “It is a wonderful film. I have seen many times.”

  “But how do you see films.”

  Suri thought for a moment then said, “With my eyes.”

  “No, I meant –”

  “I know. I make joke, too. I have video and go to cinema sometimes, but it is far away. I have seen Internet, too. Do you like film, Mrs. Smith?”

  “It’s Kathy, and I don’t really have time for films. I have important work to complete. We have important work to complete, Suri. You know why you’re here, right?”

  Without changing expression, Suri nodded and said, “To help you with list.”

  “And what is my list?” Kathy opened both windows as they sat waiting for the traffic to creep forward. The evening was draping shadows over the cars, but it was still warm. It was an evening for beer gardens and BBQs, not sitting on the motorway in a queue that was showing little sign of movement.

  “Your list is bad mans,” Suri replied, absently moving her face to the open window with her eyes closed. “I can help you get ridden of bad mans and keep children of England safe.”

  So light and airy was the answer that Kathy turned to look at her new companion to find any trace of the magnitude of the task ahead of them. She was smiling into the fresh air without a care in the world.

  “So you know that this is serious, Suri. We—well, you—are going to kill these men with your powers.”

  “This I know, Kathy. I have been thinking about it. Like a film. We are good guys, no? We have… erm… opportunity?”

  Kathy nodded.

  “We have opportunity to make better.” Suri shook her head as if she couldn’t quite find the right words.

  “We’ll be saving lives,” Kathy told her seriously, and Suri beamed a glowing grin at her. As if the smile was constructed of something magical, at that exact moment, the cars in front of them began to creep forward before gathering momentum and they were soon cruising along at speed. The open window now forced a gust into Suri’s face, which made her giggle uncontrollably as she moved her head in and out of the breeze. Kathy snatched glances at her ward and couldn’t find it within her to smile at the innocent fun that she was experiencing. There was no joy in what they were going to do together and she couldn’t dispense with this thought long enough to concern herself with the fact that a window breeze may be pleasurable. As long as there were paedophiles in the world there was nothing to smile about. As long as there were nine children missing, presumed dead, no one should be allowed to smile. Brixton O’Neal would never smile again, so why should she?

  Chapter 12

  Aisyah was eight months pregnant and enormous, but there was work to be done. There was always work to be done and Mustapha wouldn’t be able to do it without her. If they didn’t work, they wouldn’t eat that day; that was how their world worked and how would they feed their two-year-old daughter, Suri? She loved her food and didn’t mind at all that it mostly consisted of fish and rice. Their situation would improve when she grew a little and her tiny fingers could be put to use, but for now she could be nothing more than a passenger, even though she seemed delighted by the sight of the fish coming in on the nets attached to their little boat. In fact, a happier child in the world just didn’t exist. Suri could be cold, hungry, wet, and ailing and she would manage a smile. On this day she was sitting in her usual spot at the back of the narrow, long sampan, giggling to herself at the glowing patterns the world was painting on the water surface on a day that was far too hot to work, while her parents labored over the nets. The boat was a simple, sparse, bamboo affair, the construction of which, along with the equipment, had changed their lives, following years of backbreaking labor in the rice fields. They were essentially self-sufficient and when the fishing was good they could make a considerable profit or trade their bounty for other essential items. When it was not so good, as it had been for the last few weeks, they prayed for a miracle and worked ten times harder than they ever had to in the fields. But even as the punishing sun beamed down onto their task, adding weight to every manoeuvre, Aisyah and Mustapha laughed and chatted in their native Malay. By the middle of the day, however, when the sun was at its cruelest peak, Aisyah sat down suddenly, breathing heavily and holding her enormous bump. Even with the strain of the dire heat and the sudden pain, Aisyah was a beautiful, youthful woman with flowing black hair and a kind face that Mustapha had fallen in love with the moment he saw it. He had always said that Aisyah was too good for him—his queen—but he was as handsome as she was pretty, with his deep, brown eyes that made women melt to honey.

  “Aisyah, what is it?”

  “It is nothing, Mustapha. I just need to sit for a while. Carry on and I will be able to help again in a few minutes.”

  “But you do not look at all well, my love.” Mustapha tenderly dropped his arm around his beloved wife and lowered himself beside her. Her flesh was burning against his, yet she was trembling at the same time. As he comforted her, her body contorted with pain and she gripped her belly tighter. “Is it the baby?”

  Aisyah couldn’t answer for a few moments. “I don’t know. It feels different to Suri.”

  They both turned to look at their tiny child, still amusing herself at the back of the boat without a care in the world.

  “How different?”

  “I do not know. It is just…” Her body shuddered again.

  “Just hold on,” Mustapha told her urgently and almost tripped over himself as he shifted along the boat and began to work the bamboo oars, digging them deep into the river in the direction of their stilt home.

  Not more than an hour later, Aisyah’s screams could be heard around the whole village. Sprawled out on the bed, bleeding and scared, she was attended by a baffled-looking man who was wearing far too many layers for the heat and was wet through with sweat. This nonsensical display—the fact that he was probably making himself ill by wrapping up in this weathe
r—made Mustapha seriously question his abilities as a doctor and the fact that he seemed more scared by the noise his wife was making than capable of helping her made him lose whatever confidence he may have had, but this doctor was all that they had.

  The heat had failed to subside and every face in the room glistened with sweat, including two-year-old Suri, who was watching the scene with an adult expression that caught the eye of her father for the calm and wisdom it seemed to radiate and the simple fact that it was such a departure from the euphoria that the child ordinarily displayed.

  “Try to breathe,” Mustapha told his wife softly as he mopped her brow to keep her cool.

  “It is just…” Aisyah tried to say, struggling for breath. “It just hurts so much.”

  “I know, but you have to keep breathing.”

  “I am trying. It is just… It is just… Ahhhh!” But then the scream was overtaken by something far more frightening as Aisyah lost control of her body and began to convulse. Her body was hit with a thousand volts from nowhere and then she lost consciousness with yellow goo oozing from her mouth.

  “What is happening, Doctor?”

  The bespectacled physician circled the end of the bed, scratching his head before conceding that they really needed to get her to the hospital.

  “But that is eighty miles away,” Mustapha screamed back. “Do something, Doctor! Please!”

  “It looks like eclampsia, Mustapha. If I am right, I am really sorry, but there is absolutely nothing I can do unless we can get her to a hospital.” The doctor had now moved to the head of the bed and was urgently checking for a pulse and repositioning Aisyah to prevent her from chocking on her vomit or tongue. “Even then her chances are slim.”

  “Just do something!” Mustapha was now crying the words with his wife in his arms, as lifeless as the fish that had the misfortune to swim into his net. “Do something!” He couldn’t stop the tears now as he held his wife to his chest. “Can’t you take the baby from her? She would want you to try and save the baby!”

  “I cannot, Mustapha. It would kill her.”

  “She is already dead. What kind of doctor are you?”

  “One that cures coughs and colds, Mustapha. I am sorry, truly I am.”

  “This is useless. The whole world has gone mad. Why are you doing this?” he screamed into the air and then his eyes fell onto his tiny daughter in the corner of the room. “Suri? Suri! It is okay, Suri. Doctor, what is happening to her?”

  Suri’s body had bolted upright, locked in rigidity and all colour had drained from her face. She was sitting with her legs crossed like a guru or goddess and both hands clutched her heart. She had never sat in this position before and yet it looked practised and intentional as if she had spent many years apprenticed to a hermit deep in the Himalayas, learning this posture and the secrets that it protected; as if she had ceased to be a two-old-girl who barely managed to manoeuvre on her hands and knees, had transcended the restraints of her age and was in a timeless place of mystery. And then her eyes rolled back in her head so that only the whites were showing as a low hum droned out of her.

  “What is happening to her, Doctor? Please, do something.”

  “This is most irregular.”

  “I cannot lose both of them, Doctor. Do something!”

  “I don’t know what–”

  But before he could utter any more words in his incompetent sentence there was a sudden surge in the bed as Aisyah’s body exploded back into life, reanimated from the brink of total darkness. Her lungs desperately dragged the oxygen in around her as if she had been under water for the last few minutes and they had all but shrivelled up. And then the colour began to return to her. She panted ragged breaths until the air was circulating once again and said, “What happened?” But Mustapha was too consumed with the task of holding and hugging her to respond. He was only moved to leave her side when she released another almighty scream. There was still the small matter of the baby to deliver.

  “Ahhhh!”

  “You are doing brilliantly, Aisyah. Now push!” said the doctor, back in the comfort zone of a regular birth. “That is it! Push as hard as you can.”

  “Ahhhh!” Aisyah’s face had now surpassed its honey tone and was reddening fast as she bore down, grinding her teeth, the lines gathering fast on her forehead and cheeks, the room filling once again with her cries of pain.

  “That is it, my love,” Mustapha encouraged, the bones in his hand breaking in her grip. “You can do it,” and as his second child—his first son—was delivered into the arms of the doctor, his eyes were drawn to his oldest child in the corner in the room. Suri was no longer sitting upright, a statue of ancient mystique; she was on her knees, bouncing her dolly in front of her and babbling the nonsense words that made her parents laugh so much. Her colour had also returned and her eyes were now full of the joy that made her so exceptional.

  “Come here, Suri,” he said as the doctor gathered the baby into a cloth and handed him to his mother. “Come and sit with us.”

  Suri jumped up onto the bamboo bed beside her mother who, despite her pain, welcomed her with a warm hug.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Mustapha offered and held his hand out for the physician to shake. All thoughts of the ineptitude of the man had disappeared now that he was sitting on the bed with his whole family.

  “We will want to take them both to the hospital, Mustapha, but I would say that you have been incredibly lucky.”

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Mustapha repeated and watched as he left the room.

  “Lucky?” Aisyah beamed as her devoted husband wiped away the sodden hair clinging to her forehead and kissed the space beneath. “I think we were a bit more than lucky,” she continued and looked down at Suri who was pointing her finger at her little brother’s nose, still babbling to herself in made up words.

  Mustapha looked to her too, understanding exactly what his wife was talking about, then said, “We should call him Keajaiban—Miracle.”

  Aisyah slowly leaned towards the baby in her arms and softly kissed the top of his head. “Baby Keajaiban,” she beamed and then kissed Suri’s head and couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

  “Baby Keajaiban,” Mustapha repeated and they stayed together on the bed until the day began to close in around them and the transport arrived to take mother and baby to the hospital.

  ***

  It was less than a week later, when Aisyah and baby Keajaiban were safely back home and doing well that the family was awoken in the middle of the night by a pounding on the door. Their home consisted of a single room so the impact of the late-night visitor was immediately felt.

  Mustapha dragged himself from his bed and wrapped himself in cloth. It was still too hot to do anything quickly, even at this time of night, but he was driven by a rising fury at being disturbed while he slept.

  “This had better be good!” he yelled loud enough for the intruder to hear the venom in his voice and then he pulled the door open. The cool midnight air was actually a relief from the stuffy innards of his home, but the sight awaiting him was not. An old woman, drowning in sweat, would clearly have collapsed with exhaustion had she not been carrying a child in her arms.

  “Please,” she sobbed, offering the small child in Mustapha’s direction. “Help us.”

  Mustapha instinctively took the child from the elderly woman, who looked older than his own grandma had when she died, and her life spanned some ninety years. Her face was a roadmap of angst, with lines and ridges as clearly defined as her eyes and mouth. The strength of this woman, however, could not be judged on her appearance as she had clearly carried the child for miles and would have kept walking for as long as it took, in her bare feet and flimsy robe, but as Mustapha carried the child inside he had no idea what would bring her to his door. He placed the child on the bed, who was not much older than Suri, and could now see the source of the old woman’s concern. She was feverish and delirious, her head flopping from side to side as she mumbled words
that in past times would be said to belong to the devil.

  Mustapha felt the heat on her forehead and cheeks and shrugged helplessly as Aisyah shuffled to the bottom of the bed and said, “But I do not know how we can help. We are not doctors.” She too touched the young girl’s head and felt the pain that all mothers feel at the sight of a sick child.

  “I have walked almost twenty miles to find healing. With your permission, we seek an audience with Suri.”

  “Suri?” they both echoed and turned their heads to face their two-year-old daughter. They expected to see her taking full advantage of the disruption, playing with her dolls as if it were daylight already, such was the energy of their oldest. What they saw made their jaws drop to their chests.

  “That is what she was doing when you were in labor,” said Mustapha. “You know? When you nearly died?”

  “Yes, I have some recollection of it, Mu,” Aisyah said sarcastically and watched as her daughter’s rigid body turned to stone, flushed white and her eyes revolved back into her skull. She moved suddenly to stop this from happening—whatever this was—but Mustapha grabbed her by the arm.

  “Just watch,” he said softly and the lack of panic he showed seemed to sooth her a little. Nothing happened for a painful minute and then the low, rumbling hum tumbled out of Suri’s pursed lips. Again nothing seemed to happen as they watched the tiny child in the corner, but suddenly the other child in the room, who had been thrashing on the bed, was struck still, as if she had been switched off. Aisyah and Mustapha looked to each other with confused faces then down at the child between them. For the first time since her arrival, she was showing signs of calm and stillness, breathing easily and as Mustapha reached out to touch her forehead, he saw that her temperature was coming down. She was still hot and clearly extremely unwell, but they would all be able to sleep knowing that she would survive the night.