by Ann Massey
I tossed the postcard into the canvas hold-all I use for school. Right now I needed coffee ... oodles of it, one cup after another, lined up and ready to be gulped down. For my birthday I’d treated myself to a coffee machine, the kind that uses pods. The reservoir was still full from this morning, so I popped a pod in the top, placed my mug under the brew head and turned it on. Before I met Karim I drank lattes but now I drink coffee his way, strong, sharp and bitter, like my state of mind.
I carried the mug over to the table and fished Fanny’s postcard out of my bag. To say I was surprised that she and Emma were in Istanbul was an understatement. Only last week my sisters were backpacking through India. Fanny had phoned me from an ashram in the Punjab. I smiled when I read that she’d seen enough temples to last her a lifetime and felt the same about Turkey’s mosques. We’ve been told the Spanish know how to party, she wrote, and so we’re off to Barcelona. Mosques and cathedrals are Barcelona’s biggest tourist attractions. I smiled again. What I’d give to see their faces. Brought up on an isolated cattle station with no contact with other children, I’d forged an indestructible bond with Fanny and Emma.
It was different with Annie. She was born after I left Katoomba. Of course I went home during the breaks when I was at school and later university, but a lot less often at Hagadery. Added up, it wasn’t enough to make an impression on a toddler. As a consequence, the baby of the family grew up without ever getting to know her eldest sister. Now that Mum has passed away, I’m trying to make up for those years of neglect. I took a sip of coffee. It had gone cold. I pulled a face and returned to the kitchen for a refill.
The next two hours were intensely busy. But finally, I wrote the last comment, on the last essay. Though I was impressed by the A student’s industry, with another eighteen essays due in tomorrow, I prayed no one else would present me with twenty pages; single spaced and typed in a size 10 font!
It was still only seven-fifteen. I’d finished marking and my lesson preparation was up to date. Some like it Hot was showing at the Art House. A group of teachers from the English faculty were off to see it tonight and meeting up beforehand for drinks at Alexander’s. If I got a wriggle on, they’d still be there.
As I was changing into something more suitable for a night out with the girls than the tailored suit I wore to school I recalled the poetry unit my year-eight class was working on. I was introducing them to various poetic forms. This morning I’d read them Edward Lear’s Alphabet poem: A was once an apple pie etcetera. It’d crossed my mind that an A- Z of biological weapons was an interesting format for a blog post. Once the girls were working away on their poems, I made a start. By the time the bell announced the end of the lesson, I was up to S as in Sarin.
Sarin was the nerve gas that had been used in attacks on Turkish and Syrian towns as well as in the Tokyo Underground, way back in 1995. The agonizing deaths of the victims from asphyxiation had been the impetus that motivated Karim and I to sign up for work at an under-staffed field hospital in Suruç. I shuddered. But for the phone call from my father, I’d have been there when the hospital was bombed.
A black cloud descended, and so instead of changing for a night at the flicks, I pulled on my pjs, powered up my PC and waited — and waited some more. I was looking through the local service directory for a computer technician when the Google search page finally appeared. I typed biocide.com into the browser.
Eli’s reply to my earlier comment put a smile back on my face.
* * *
Eli Malouf June 3, at: 5.40 PM
Hi Elizabeth
Great post! Thanks for sending me the link. Can’t understand why we didn’t learn about this stuff in school. But hey, our politicians like to keep us in the dark. Not so easy now there’s the internet, is it? The government has Assange and Snowden down as traitors, but in my book they’re heroes.
It seems like we are interested in the same stuff. If you’d like to take a look at my blog this is the address: http://www.can’tletthispass.blogspot.com
Cheers,
Eli.
Reply
* * *
I immediately clicked the link. Eli’s blog looked professional and, unlike mine, included a photo of him. Physically I thought he looked a lot like Karim apart from the beard which gave Eli the look of a devil-may-care pirate. After reading through the blogger’s latest post, in which he defended Assange and Snowden I realised we had something in common. I too believed whistle-blowers should be praised rather than persecuted.
Nevertheless, I felt he was courting trouble. For though in the West we play lip service to freedom of speech, he was taking a risk espousing politically unacceptable sentiments online, particularly as his name and photo identified him as an Arab—probably a Muslim and therefore suspect. Not fair. In fact, Karim had often complained that when an Islamic committed an act of terrorism, not only the perpetrator, but everyone of Middle-Eastern extraction was held to account.
I admired Eli’s courage in speaking out. And I wasn’t alone. His post had generated hundreds of comments from readers. All were pro-Assange. No one had shown the least bit of interest in my blog. Why? Was it that boring?
I opened up biocide.com, read through my posts and then read through his. Mine were expressed formally, in the balanced academic way I’d learnt at Uni while he had a conversational style of writing, almost like a chat between friends. As for his controversial beliefs, they were expressed with passion. I felt just as strongly as Eli did about the ethics of germ warfare but no one would guess from my dispassionate posts.
According to the time display at the bottom of the screen it was 1:20AM. I had to be at school in six hours. Bed beckoned but I’d got to that over-tired stage where I couldn’t stop. I dashed off a reply to Eli, and then I clicked new post and began typing the anti-germ warfare poem I’d begun in class. At 2:55AM I clicked publish. I should have gone to sleep the moment my head hit the pillow but too much was going on in my mind.
What would Eli make of my zealous poem? Would he get back to me?
Seven
My day got off to a great start when I powered up my computer and the notification tool flashed. I grinned as I read the message. Bennet had provided me with a surefire way to identify her.
* * *
Elizabeth Bennet June 4 at: 2:58 AM
Hi Eli
I’m very impressed with your site, and the number of people that reply to your posts. I’ve got to admit that I’m finding it hard to get a dialogue going and would be very grateful for any advice on how to get people to comment on my blog posts.
I’ve published a new post: A is in arsenic and also in anthrax. My year 8 class is looking at different poetic forms and last lesson we looked at acrostics. I thought this form would be a novel way to present information about germ-warfare agents. What do you think?
Bye for now.
Elizabeth.
Reply
* * *
She’d asked me what I thought. If she’d been here I’d have asked her, how the hell a schoolteacher turned into a terrorist. I rubbed my eyes. They felt dry and itchy from staring at the computer screen for too long. I yawned and a rocket went off in my head. Bennet could be part of a worldwide network of educators recruiting Western students to join Islamic State. If she was, exposing her might blow the rotten organization wide open.
For the first time since I’d arrived I felt excited; not the buzz I’d experienced as a pilot when I’d flown combat missions to war zones in support of operations Slipper and Kruger. This was a different sort of buzz, but a buzz all the same. Truth be told, I’d like to find a way of fighting Islamic State that didn’t involve killing children.
I couldn’t get upstairs fast enough to tell the general we’d had a breakthrough. Somehow I contained myself long enough to dash off a reply to Bennet. And then I took off like Phar Lap[14].
* * *
Sergeant Kramer didn’t look up from his war game.
“Otis!”
He sighed. “Mmm?”
“I need to speak to General Lee. And before you ask ... it can’t wait.”
“Flight Lieutenant Jones is in reception,” Otis said into the phone. “Go through, Sir,” he added a moment later.
I paused at the door to the general’s office, “How’s about I drop round tonight and we hit the bars?”
He shook his head and with both hands mimed voluptuous curves. “I’ve got a date.”
“Half your luck,” I said, as I opened the door.
Kramer winked and went back to his game.
General Lee put down the document he was reading and shot me a hard-eyed glare. “I’ll give you five minutes,” he said grudgingly.
“Bennet’s made contact,” I said, and handed him the printout.
His eyebrows rose at the same point in the message as mine. “She has to be a first-timer.”
“I agree. A pro wouldn’t make such a careless mistake.”
“Now we know she’s a schoolteacher,” he said with obvious satisfaction,” she’ll be easy to find.”
“Easier.”
“Meaning?”
“Well what if she’s using a fake name.”
“You can’t avoid detection by using an alias. No one flies under our radar. We’ve got a web tool that traces a person through their social networking sites.”
There was no point in trying to sugar-coat my reply. “Tech support can’t find her on any social media site,” I blurted out, “not even on Facebook.”
“What about that blasted blog of hers?
“She uses a Gmail address.”
Lee groaned. I knew why. I’d learnt the reason from the geeks. Usually, it’s possible to find a user’s IP - the unique string of numbers separated by full stops that identifies each computer using the Internet Protocol to communicate over a network. Usually! There’s an exception. It’s impossible to identify an email sent from a Gmail address. Even for computer geeks.
“I don’t suppose she filled in a social profile on her blog either?”
I was shaking my head as he lifted the phone. “Sergeant, provide Flight Lieutenant Jones with a list of all teachers employed in Western Australian schools named Bennet.” He slammed the phone down, almost breaking it.
“Children are blank canvasses,” he continued. “Their attitude about the world is shaped by how events are represented to them. I don’t like the idea of someone like this Bennet character influencing impressionable kids. We can’t have al Qaeda using schools as recruitment centers. In fact, installing surveillance cameras in classrooms is one of the proposals currently being discussed right now by CRIMSPEAK.”
“Isn’t that a bit extreme, Sir?”
“The end justifies the means.” Lee’s authoritative voice was razor-sharp like his mind. “Censorship is a vital factor in the war on terror. Freedom of speech and freedom of thought must be curtailed ... not only on the net, but in the media and most importantly in schools. I hope you don’t have a problem with that? I’ll accept your resignation if you do.”
I felt like saying nothing would please me more. I opened my mouth and then shut it again. Two weeks ago, I’d have jumped at the chance of returning to my division. Now I was being offered an out. Rationally, I ought to have grabbed it. I was proud of my record as a fighter pilot. I knew exactly who I was and of what I was capable.
But irrationally, pride got the better of me. There’d been times before when I’d been tempted to give up, but always I dug my heels in. For example when Willie Hogg, a villainous arms dealer, pointed his gun at my kneecap and said he’d finish me off quick if I apologized, I told him to get fucked. I remember how good it felt when I got the better of him. I’d been not much more than a kid at the time, but nothing I’d done since had ever brought me such a sense of satisfaction, not even flying a million-dollar machine at the speed of sound, 30,000 feet in the air on an adrenaline-high.
“Well?” said Lee. “Are you in or out?”
“In.”
Any doubts, or reservations?”
“No Sir. I agree with you that mass surveillance is necessary to combat terrorism. National security is more important than privacy. The NSA can go through my computer any time they like. After all, if you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve nothing to fear.’
Lee gave me an approving look. “On your way out collect the inventory of suspects from Kramer. Everyone on it is to be placed on an individualized watch-list. Forget about time off, I want you on the job seven days a week. Rooting out Elizabeth Bennet is your top priority. Is that understood?”
I understood, but I didn’t have to like it.
Eight
“Guess what? I’m going to the opening of the Refugee Trauma Unit,” said Annie spraying burger crumbs in all directions. I opened my mouth to say don’t talk with your mouth full but closed it. It was important to remember that on weekends I wasn’t a schoolteacher. The two of us were pigging out on burgers and fries. Annie’s housemother had given me permission to take her out of school for the afternoon. I’d let her choose the restaurant and no surprise she’d picked the MacDonald’s across the road from the School. I’d frequently passed through its golden arches when I was a boarder.
Annie’s news came as no surprise. I’d been at assembly when the Headmistress made the announcement that St. Agnes’s was one of only seven schools invited to the opening of the Refugee Trauma Unit at the children’s hospital. At recess the Head had gone into more detail. The opening had been timed to coincide with the G20 conference in Perth on the economic impact of refugees on the leading industrialized economies. It was the only official G20 social function in Perth and the leaders and their wives had been invited. Other cities across Australia would host G20 ministerial meetings on other aspects of the refugee crisis in the lead up to the annual Leader’s Summit to be held in Canberra, the nation’s capital.
Only a small group from St. Agnes’s had been invited to the opening, each class’s captain, her deputy and one teacher, Bonnie Stevens, the discipline mistress. Rather her than me. Sitting through a load of speeches wasn’t my cup of tea. I wouldn’t have thought it was Annie’s either. I made a face. “Glad to see you are taking an interest in the global economy.”
Annie grinned, “Miss Clare said that Prince William and Kate will be there. Do you think they’ll bring George, Charlotte and Louis?”
I’d thought it odd when Miss Clare mentioned that the future King of England and his family were attending a forum that was strictly the province of finance ministers and central bank governors. But she’d gone on to explain that the young royals were in Perth on a private visit but had accepted an invitation to visit the Refugee Trauma Ward at the children’s hospital. Like his mother before him, the prince obviously believed that children from war-torn countries should have the same mental health opportunities as those living in developed economies.
“Beth, aren’t you listening to me? I asked you if Kate and William are bringing their kids.”
I dragged my mind back from thoughts of Hagadery where young girls fetching water or firewood from outside the camp were often raped. “I think it will be past their bedtime.”
“That’s what Jess said, but I thought she was in one of her huffs because she doesn’t get to go.
It wasn’t the right time to explain that doesn’t get to go wasn’t good English. I said, “It’s only natural that she’s jealous. I wouldn’t rub it in if I were you. No one likes a show-off.”
“Tell that to Megan Moore,” said Annie in a pained voice. “She gets to present a bouquet to the Duchess of Cambridge. You should have heard her bragging.” She helped herself to one of my French fries. “Have you had another postcard from the girls?” I pushed the half full bag towards her. “Not for a week or two. What about you?
“Same.” She looked glum.
I said, “It’s not that easy to keep in touch when you’re backpacking in out-of-the-way places. When I was at the camp in Kenya, I was lucky if I got a letter f
rom home three or four times a year.”
“But I turn ten next week ...” She broke off; her eyes dropped, and she looked unhappy and forlorn. Not at all like the feisty tyke I was used to. “This is the first time that Mum won’t be at my birthday.”
“But I’ll be there,” I said quickly, “and so will Dad. How about we take a bunch of flowers to her grave? Would you like to choose them?”
“I suppose.” She smiled a sad, unhappy little girl smile, and my heart gave a funny little twitch.
“The girls should arrive in Barcelona any day now where they’ll have access to phones and the internet. Cheer up, darling. Fanny and Emma won’t forget your birthday.”
“I suppose not.”
“Besides, they left your present with me.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. But it’s large and an interesting shape.”
“Not a book then?”
I shook my head.
She gave a sigh of relief. “What have you got me?”
“Nothing yet.” A big fat lie. I’d ordered The Railway Children from Amazon because it wasn’t available at the local bookstore. I’d loved the story as a child.
“I thought we might look at some sport shops after lunch. Are you ready?”
“Can I have another thick shake?”
“Yes, you may.” I handed her my debit card, “Get two ... I’ll have chocolate this time.”
Two hours later I left Annie at the school gate happier than when I’d collected her. She’d been dying for a trampoline and wasn’t put off when I pointed out that it would have to be kept at my place and she’d hardly ever use it.