Rubik

by Elizabeth Tan

  ‘Did anything happen today at school?’ his mother asks.

  Peter drags his spoon through his rice. His parents are full of exhausting questions like this. How can he possibly explain what happened at school today? ‘It was the same,’ Peter says, barely able to suppress the quaver in his voice. He hears, again, the snap of Jem’s bone.

  ‘Really?’ she says, with a Play School presenter’s surprise. ‘The same as any other day?’

  And Peter tries—he really, really tries. He upends his day and spreads it out in his mind, looking for something to tell his mother, but all the components relate to Quentin, to Jem. To Miss Amar’s disappearance. His quest for something. Closure, Jem said—but Peter is sure there’s a better word.

  ‘Peter?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he says, on the edge of tears. ‘There’s nothing.’

  ‘Okay.’ His mother purses her lips. She could go anywhere from here. She could go down the you know you can tell me anything path, or the indignant why won’t you tell me anything path, but she picks the silent path. She guides the last grains of rice onto her spoon. A new track begins on the CD.

  ‘Would it be alright if I used the phone later? To call Jem?’ Peter asks.

  He is not sure whether it is hurt or relief swimming in her eyes. She beams despite everything. ‘Of course, honey.’

  It takes seven rings before Mrs. Lavignac picks up the phone. Her voice is mellow, but Peter can still hear it echo throughout the cavernous Lavignac house.

  ‘Hello, Mrs. Lavignac. This is Peter Pushkin.’

  ‘Oh, Peter!’ She hitches up the end of his name, like pulling up a sagging sock. ‘You’ll want to talk to Jem, is that right? I’m sorry, but he’s staying at the hospital. Don’t worry, darling, everything is fine. The doctors have fixed him up, given him a sling and all that. We’re worried about—well, we’re worried about how he’s going to play the piano, of course, but this will just set him back a couple of months. We’ll see.’

  We’ll see.

  Peter can taste those lonely lunchtimes again.

  ‘Will Jem be able to come to school on Monday, Mrs. Lavignac?’

  ‘Oh, darling. I’m not sure. It doesn’t look very likely. I’ll tell him you called, though. Thank you for thinking of him.’

  ‘Okay. Thank you, Mrs. Lavignac.’ He doesn’t know how to ask Mrs. Lavignac to tell Jem about the Recall Notice for Seeds of Time, so he doesn’t.

  That night, Miss Amar appears for the first time in Peter’s dream. Peter is startled that he still remembers her face, everything from the gentle holes in her skin to the loose hair curving out from her tenuous bun. He is playing a G major scale in contrary motion and she is sitting in the chair beside him, with her right hand folded over her left.

  ‘Very good, Peter,’ she says. ‘You will grow old so beautifully.’

  Peter looks up from the keys. There are faces reflected in the veneered wood of the piano. He turns around: an entire wall of the lesson room is missing, and in its place is a congregation of chairs. Jem sits in the front row, his left arm replaced by a wooden prosthetic. The author of Seeds of Time is there too, but since Peter doesn’t know what H.R. Kwai looks like, or whether the author is a man or a woman, he/she is just a black fog with the letters KWAI floating in a vortex. He/she says:

  Normally that would be the end of it, for nothing curtails a mystery-solving adventure quite like confiscating all the clues, and nothing sends a message quite like a broken bone. But our Peter Pushkin is a strange boy, maybe even a special one, possessing all the dormant intelligence of a seed. There is a quiet resilience about him; he has the potential to transform. He contains all the information necessary to begin.

  Jem’s wooden limb makes whirring noises, like an approving wind-up toy. There is a cat in his lap, with a red collar, who at first appears to be sleeping. But it opens its cloudy eyes. ‘What you have said is incorrect.’

  H.R. Kwai says:

  Oh?

  The cat with the red collar says, ‘There is still one clue left.’

  Peter turns back to Miss Amar, who is no longer Miss Amar but Miss Jung.

  ‘Where is Miss Amar?’ Peter asks her, but Miss Jung simply points. The piano has disappeared, replaced now by an open cellar door. Miss Amar stands above it, considers her path from the top of the flight of stairs. Green water seeps up from the floor, but she makes her decision. She descends. The hem of her dress darkens.

  ‘Miss Amar!’ Peter calls, but the water is rising, tipping over chairs, sloshing into Peter’s shoes. Jem strokes the cat with the red collar; his arm makes the glitching movements of a stop-motion animation. Indifferent to the ankle-deep water, Miss Jung talks earnestly with the H.R. Kwai fog. Their conversation is too low for Peter to hear, but it is heavy with secret wisdom. Miss Jung, the last clue.

  The cellar door closes but the water keeps rising, swollen with all of Peter’s fears, all the things he can’t explain. He slides off the piano stool and into the swirling green sea. The paper walls of the lesson room begin to crumple into pulp. He goes under. For a heart-stopping second Peter becomes omniscient—the powerless sort—and the room becomes small like a diorama, one of many dioramas, and his room is just one cubicle in a shoebox out of many shoeboxes, and his life is just one version of many illustrations of the same sad facts of the world, and his tragedy is just one tragedy out of the infinite tragedies of the universe.

  Peter Pushkin, too young to feel so brittle, stands in front of his school on Monday morning in his freshly laundered uniform, eyelids thick with sleep, while his mother’s car arcs out of the school driveway and slips back into traffic. There is too much feeling in his fingertips, in his cheekbones and chest; they reverberate as if a sustained soprano note is ringing throughout his small glass body. There are five minutes to go before his lesson with Mrs. Yorke, but Peter can feel the whole weight of the Yamaha on his shoulders, heavier than a coffin with all his loved ones inside. There was a story Peter read once about children whose sins became corporeal, giant boulders strapped to their backs, and in some similar way the piano is the manifestation of all the things that have dogged Peter throughout his short existence. Something more advanced and sinister than a boulder, a machine with too many parts that engulfs him with unknowability.

  Peter has never skipped a lesson before. He has never failed to be in a place where he is expected to be. But he discovers today that it is surprisingly easy to walk where he shouldn’t walk, to miss his turn into the gymnasium. In another corner of the school there is a choir singing—the upper primary choir, Peter supposes. He follows the sound of their voices, which are sweeter and purer than what Peter heard in the junior primary choir session from last Tuesday. Even the piano accompaniment is sweeter, and Peter can hardly imagine Miss Jung playing so softly.

  He finds the door and slings off his bag. He is close enough now to hear what the students are singing, a warm-up exercise: Miss Terry missed a mystery in the midst of many ministries...

  Peter takes out Seeds of Time. The pink Recall Notice pokes out from between the pages. He slides down the wall outside the classroom and sits hugging his knees and the book. He wonders if Jem really will stay home from school today like Mrs. Lavignac suggested, and that simple dreadful thought increases the weight on his spine, and he renews his grip on Seeds of Time, listening earnestly to Miss Jung’s piano accompaniment. He is saying something to himself which sounds like nonsense at first, but then he realizes it’s: Please... please... please...

  He huddles there until the school swells with children and the last note of the last song dissipates into the rafters. He hears Mrs. Diamond compliment the students before dismissing them, and the door next to him bangs open. Peter waits until all the students have passed, each more sure-footed than Peter will ever be, tall and straight with certainty. He slips inside the classroom. One of the Year Seven girls is packing up the overhead projector and Mrs. Diamond is organizing a stack of sheet music on the piano. Peter clutches Seeds o
f Time to his chest. Has Miss Jung left already?

  ‘Oh hello, dear,’ Mrs. Diamond says. ‘Can I help you?’ She briskly straightens the papers.

  ‘I’m looking for Miss Jung,’ Peter says.

  ‘Oh, my dear—Miss Jung isn’t in today, and I don’t think she’ll be in for a while.’ Mrs. Diamond slips the sheet music into a plastic folder.

  ‘Why not?’ Peter asks.

  Mrs. Diamond looks down at him, as if newly aware of the height difference between them. ‘Oh, my dear. I don’t know if I can really tell you that. You see—’

  ‘Please,’ Peter says, sounding, to his surprise, old. Impatient, perhaps. Hurting so badly for the plain, unsugared facts. ‘Please, can you tell me.’

  He is no Jem Lavignac; he is talentless, unpersuasive, unwise to the rules. But, nevertheless, Mrs. Diamond seems to sigh with something like sympathy. She smooths the cover of her plastic folder. ‘Well,’ she says. ‘Well. Miss Jung’s gone for an operation, you see—she has been waiting for new eyes for a number of years, and some donor corneas finally became available last night. She’s in surgery now. So her vision will be much better soon, but she will need some time to recover.’

  For a moment Peter feels the air change properties—become viscous, green as the sad stale water of his dreams. Seeds of Time slips a little bit from his fingers.

  Mrs. Diamond smiles. A smile which lands with a clueless thud, like a book sliding through a library return slot.

  Never to be seen again.

  ‘But is there anything I could help you with, my dear?’

  Congratulations You May Have Already Won

  From: lkjv@ouvert.net

  Date: Sat 21 July 2012

  To: undisclosed recipients

  Hello:

  Sales of electronic products facing the world. Absolute originality, value for money. On this month, the product feature is Seed. Seed.fon Seed.tab Seed.nb Seed.foto. Availability, astonishing prices.

  CLICK NOW FOR EXCITING GIVEAWAYS!!!!!!!

  Bring ideas to life

  It all starts with Seed

  Beautiful day

  l k j v

  From: penderghastd@gmail.com

  Date: Sun 22 July 2012

  To: lkjv@ouvert.net

  Dear lkjv,

  Greetings! I must say that I am intrigued by your vague and enticing offers. It just so happens that the relentless efforts of Seed.corp have thoroughly won me over, and, like Robbie struggling to hide his aching boner for Cecilia in Atonement, I am trembling with desire to purchase a Seed product. Any of the breathless array of Seed goods you have mentioned would satiate me; I just really want one now. But I am writing specifically to you, Mr. lkjv, because your optimistic vigor, your sincere interest in my wellbeing and your startling way with words have convinced me to choose you as my trusted salesperson to guide me in consummating this purchase. I shake virtual hands with you, my new friend!

  Now, as we embark on an honest business relationship, I would be tremendously grateful if you could indulge me on a few queries. My first question is in regards to the Seed.fon. (Isn’t that sooo trendy? Spelling ‘phone’ as ‘fon’. It is such a youthful touch which penetrates the shell of apathy that encases my wayward self-centered generation and conveys with celestial benevolence: I am here. I understand. I, too, am barely literate.) Anyway, my question: I was really dazzled by the Seed.fon ad where that girl jumps off that thing and it’s really cinematic and awesome. Will the camera on my Seed. fon be capable of capturing reality in such a poignant manner? Is there a filter for that?

  Secondly, I would like to turn my attention to the Seed.nb. I will preface my question by saying that I do really love the faux wooden casing of all the Seed devices and especially the Seed.nb; it truly is an avant garde design that melds hi-tech with antique craftsmanship. Perhaps you do not know the answer to this question (I note that you are not a representative of Seed.corp per se but a wholesaler perhaps, a middleman). But nevertheless: has Seed.corp considered the multifunctional potential of the Seed.nb? The lacquered wooden finish might make the Seed.nb suitable for other uses, like a kitchen cutting board, say. Wouldn’t that be spectacular? You could be checking Facebook in the kitchen and feel like some locally-grown organic free-range celery sticks for a snack—close the laptop lid—and presto! A cutting board! Really, lkjv, I think Seed should consider dishwasher safe laptops. Would you pass on this suggestion?

  I hope that you will answer my queries so I may face the world with absolute confidence in my originality and value for money. I believe that with you, my dear lkjv, I have, indeed, already won.

  Yours,

  D

  From: lkjv@ouvert.net

  Date: Sun 22 July 2012

  To: undisclosed recipients

  Hello:

  Sales of electronic products facing the world. Absolute originality, value for money. On this month the product feature is Seed. Seed.fon Seed.tab Seed.nb Seed.foto. Availability, astonishing prices.

  CLICK NOW FOR EXCITING GIVEAWAYS!!!!!!!

  Bring ideas to life

  It all starts with Seed

  Beautiful day

  l k j v

  From: penderghastd@gmail.com

  Date: Sun 22 July 2012

  To: lkjv@ouvert.net

  Dear lkjv,

  I must say I am quite surprised and (oh, I’ll admit it) rather hurt by your response. Could it be that I misinterpreted your first communication? Could it be that you were not genuinely interested in bringing me absolute originality and value for money in a personal, mutually beneficial relationship, but like a moonlighting whore you were canvassing your wares to the entire street, spreadeagled at the window, flashing your goods to one and all? I must say I thought you had more dignity than that, lkjv. I thought you had class. I thought you were a contender. I therefore rescind my extended handshake. You have doused my flames of desire for Seed and all its smug suffixes of cutting-edge technology. I shall curl up instead with my rickety Asus and play Chip’s Challenge.

  Good day,

  D

  From: penderghastd@gmail.com

  Date: Sun 22 July 2012

  To: lkjv@ouvert.net

  Dear lkjv,

  I believe I may have been too hasty in sending that last communication. Upon scrutinising your puzzling return email, still sulking over our relationship’s demise, I realized that your message was not completely identical to your first. In your first message the words ‘the product feature is Seed’ were preceded by a comma, but in your second message, the comma was absent. Could it be that you cannot communicate your feelings directly to me? Could it be that this is some coded message of agreement? Are we... are we being watched? Or could it be that you have received multiple offers from other consumers desperate for Seed products, and your enigmatic reply email is a cunning filtering process, and only the smartest will be granted the sweet reward?

  Although I am still tingling with hurt, I must say I am also intrigued. If any of my suppositions are correct, please write back to me.

  Tingling with hurt AND intrigue,

  D

  From: lkjv@ouvert.net

  Date: Mon 23 July 2012

  To: undisclosed recipients

  Hello:

  Will you glance at these electronic products? Seed.fon Seed. tab Seed.nb Seed.foto. A convenient life is arrived for you. Phone, tablet, laptop, camera. All the electronics, all your needs.

  CLICK NOW FOR EXCITING GIVEAWAYS!!!!!!!

  Most up-to-date technologies and very accurate information.

  Keep up the great job

  Bring ideas to Seed

  l k j v

  From: penderghastd@gmail.com

  Date: Mon 23 July 2012

  To: lkjv@ouvert.net

  Dear lkjv,

  So, the mind games continue. I’ll let you in on a little secret, lkjv. Whatever your dubious motives, you are by far the most dedicated correspondent I have had in recent memory. Certainly, you are the only one wishing
me a beautiful day and to keep up the great job (I write this as I sit at work, actually, so that particular remark was quite salient, lkjv).

  But I must also let you in on another secret: mind games are something of a speciality of mine. Take this waiting room that I preside over, for instance: the thoughtful plastic crate of toys we have available for the children, the dear little shelf of Sunshine Books. Sometimes clients have to bring their kids in, you see, and at first glance they are relieved that there will be something to occupy their insufferable spawn, and their opinion of our office improves. We are Child Friendly. We Care about Families.

  But what they don’t know is that there is a particular art to choosing toys and games for a waiting room. I know, because I’m the one who curated this fine selection. You don’t want items that need continual battery replacements, for instance. And you don’t want items that are hard to disinfect, like stuffed animals. So that really only leaves items that you can build with, like Duplo bricks. So there they will be: a parent with a kid in tow, and they’ll plonk the kid at the toy box, and the kid will start assembling something from the Duplo—invariably a house or a postmodern sculpture. This structure, whatever it is, will be highly unsettling to the parent. Why? The complete absence of blue bricks. No seriously, have you looked at a dense wall of colors that doesn’t contain blue? It’s sinister. So they’ll sit there watching their kid build, they’ll get called in for their appointment, they’ll go home, and at the backs of their minds there will be this feeling of unwholeness. Maybe the kid will feel it too. Aggression, despair. And the last person they will suspect is the friendly receptionist.