by Anna Tambour
He lay on his back listening. The swallows seemed to have flocked off. The drone of the winged things was so distant that he wasn’t sure if his ears were droning just to please him, and the crick crick was nowhere to be heard.
It was time to get on his way, but the sky was so pretty. He watched a cloud float aimlessly for a while, but he had to get on his way, so as he watched the cloud to see if it would do anything dramatic, he reached for the old eelskin case because a man with a case in the hand can’t lie on his back and watch clouds float all day.
He must have thrashed in his sleep because his fingers didn’t feel the smooth, sewn case, but instead, touched some rough thornbush. Why are clouds like cotton? He made a resolution that moment that from this year forward, he would devote all the spare time he would have, to thinking revelating thoughts.
But for the moment, he had to get on his way.
He rolled away from the bush. Lucky he hadn’t rolled into the bush in the dark. He didn’t want to get a splinter in his delicate fingers so he rolled away from it and stood up, as he might have to reach under it to find where that case had been kicked to.
He saw the bush and it was like no other that he had ever set his eyes upon—curly and scraggly and pointy and tangled red and gold and mousy brown, lying on a path that was stained, as if a flock of birds had eaten blackberries above it. An end of tattered eelskin protruded from the mass, thin and worthless as the shed skin of a viper, caught on a thornbush. The hair bush was still growing, breaking out of its beeswax stays. Each hair was reverting to what it had been when he bought it.
A lesson
THE OMNISCIENT WAS CRESTFALLEN. The local office of the Truth hadn’t been hard to find, but once inside the hallowed doors, truth had been elusive.
The others in the Omniscient’s group looked on. They hadn’t known that the mark was real. Galina and the chief train driver had only heard rumours, and the Muse was ignorant. But the mark had triggered juices to flow in the Omniscient’s memory glands. He had thought that he might need to go to the press when he had first vowed that the truth would set Savva free, but he had not wanted to have to resort to law.
As it was, Truth was a revelation of the worst order.
They knew of Savva’s exploit but far from wanting to feature him as a hero who had acted in solidarity with their banner, they wanted to consider the action he had taken as non-existent. They did not want to cover it. They had not taken a single photograph of the President with the mark that nature had bestowed upon him. They condoned the falsification of his image, the covering of the mark.
The Omniscient was not only crestfallen. He was disgusted. And very very sad.
He wouldn’t have the heart to tell that sweet little man who read their rag so assiduously, but now the Omniscient knew that the attendant’s favourite section was some sort of journalistic joke, fostered on the simple people.
“Is this disappearance of the mark one of your anomalous phenomena?” he was brought so low that he sneered.
“As a matter of fact, it is,” said the editor.
The Omniscient laughed bitterly. “Like the psychotronic weapon that turns humans into zombies?”
“Bekhtereva’s machine isn’t laughable, unless you think General Ratnikov is a clown,” said the editor dryly. “The General approved it. But you act educated, so I shouldn’t have to tell you that the disappearance of the mark cannot be attributed to anything bearing an ON/OFF button. The disappearance is pure physics.”
“Physics!” exploded the Omniscient. “Don’t decry the sacred role physics—”
“My time is valuable, Comrade citizen.” The editor took out a red pencil and began to mark some papers.
The Omniscient was not defeated. “Physics is a force of nature.”
“A natural rule of law.”
“Yes indeed.” The Omniscient was glad they could agree upon one point.
The editor looked at him with disappointment. “I would have thought that anyone who knew physics . . . ”
The Omniscient dropped his eyes.
“Perhaps you are not aware,” said the editor, “of the Law of Negative Effects, a subsection of the Law of Special Rules.”
“I thought I knew law,” said the Omniscient humbly. “Please.”
The editor’s eyes took on the glazed look of those who need to disassociate themselves from the temporal world in order to remember.
“For certain purposes and in diverse circumstances,” he recited, “an Effect can occur that
(a) treats a particular event that actually happened as not having happened; and
(b) treats a particular event that did not actually happen as having happened and, if appropriate, treats the event as:
(i) having happened at a particular time; and as
(ii) having involved particular action by a particular entity; and
(c) treats a particular event that actually happened as:
(i) having happened at a time different from the time it actually happened; or
(ii) having involved particular action by a particular entity (whether or not the event actually involved any action by that entity).”
“I beg your pardon,” said the Omniscient. “I never knew.”
The editor smiled. “We can’t all know everything all the time.”
The little group left the newspaper office looking like a bedraggled comet. It fell to earth in the park, where the Omniscient sat heavily on a bench.
“I have failed,” he announced. “If only I had remembered.”
“Remembered what,” asked the Muse. Listening to that rubbish in the newspaper office, it was all she could do to keep herself straight-faced. The idea that anyone could take it seriously chilled her to the core.
“You should dress warmly,” she said to the Omniscient.
He didn’t hear her, so busy was he, remembering. “You make your own history, remember?”
The Muse groaned.
“You see, miss, uh . . . Comrade Valeria? It’s the perfect confluence of Nature and Law.”
The Omniscient’s face lit with the unearthly joy and terrible sadness of revelation. “It’s Natural Law, though that policeman couldn’t quote the chapter.”
“Gorgonna!”
Old puns don’t die
“”GORGANNA,” Nick shouted, and it felt so gooood. None of this group would hear and he didn’t know what the hell gorgonna meant, but screaming the word that this rather wacko woman used to release her inner self allowed Nick to bask in the warm clean illusion of camaraderie—instead of feeling frustrated, lonely, frozen out, and muddy as a gutter in this town—muddy with guilt.
Yes, guilt.
Are the sins of the fathers visited upon their sons? Nick had never been into philosophy but he didn’t have much choice now. He felt that they must be. Could something in my genes have caused this to happen?
Of course not, yet he felt both guilt and an acne outbreak of memories.
The Providential Truth-Building Society.
That had been his dad’s name for the Australian Tax Office. When Geoff Kippax’s life as a Captain of Industry had hit the rocks, he had crawled back to his old department, the Tax Office, but it had changed. No more could he get a cushy public service become a consultant. The pay was astronomical, but he didn’t have the security he’d had before. He also had the bitterness Jill Kippax had left him with, the unfairness of alimony. He couldn’t get any, though she was accruing company directorships faster than frequent-flier points.
Geoff Kippax, therefore, devoted his life to really working for those high consultancy fees, and in doing so delighted the Office and his mates there in particular. Nick knew all this because his father kept him informed, whether Nick wanted to know or not. Geoff Kippax’s expertise was in Tax Law, and the brief was always the same: Maximise tax (and, his mates added, screw our exes). For a few years, he produced modest successes that were only incrementally nasty. Then he achieved greatness. His masterpiece, which he s
ent to his son, framed, was Chapter 4 - Special Rules, Part 4-7, Division 165 - Anti-avoidance, Subdivision 165-B - Commissioner may negate effects . . . For the purposes of making a declaration under this Subdivision, the Commissioner may: (a) treat a particular event that actually happened as not having happened; and dot dot dot, exactly as quoted minutes ago.
That nickname his dad used for his beloved department. Nick as a child tried to ignore his parents’ wit, but they were pests. As an adult, he first tried to drown out their attentions and more so, their bitter influence: by creating food, and when that had proved too easy; wine judging; and when that had turned, inevitably, into a bitter joke, he had sought adventures in, first: extreme comestibles; and when that had become tame, he had sought the ultimate.
He’d had a while to tell his little joke to himself, It’s what made me what I am today, but he wasn’t into reviewing his life at the moment. He needed to think back to earlier times.
He hadn’t tried to drown out The Providential Truth-Building Society. The wit had completely missed him. It was just part of his dad, like any pun repeated till it doesn’t annoy you any more.
Nick’s mind turned to the present, to that newspaper the old guy here put so much store in. Nick had never been a linguist but was getting pretty good now, with nothing else to do but listen— but Pravda. He’d known of it before, but he’d never known it meant anything, always thought it a brand, like Kraft, Beluga, Prada.
And the old guy’s embarrassingly naïve, irritatingly evangelistic The truth will set him free bullshit. Nick had understood it enough to want to gag, but he hadn’t understood.
NOW I understand.
Pravda = truth. Sick!
But there was another revelation that made him even sicker. That bloke, the President with the birthmark. He was president here, when?
Nick had to think back, and for someone who had always considered politics distasteful, it was a hard slog, but he had a good memory for what counts. Got it! Date this as Pre- Vodka Granita. This could be that infamous year of the sticky puddings. which brought Nick to a conclusion that he reluctantly had to reach. Not only is Dad a bitter old fart, but he can’t even create anything original.
Gorgonna!
Nick pulled himself out of this spiral of self-interest. What does Dad matter? What do I matter?
Galina had been sobbing quietly since they left the Pravda office. Now she lifted her face and blew her nose.
Nick wanted more than anything in the world, to hold her in his arms. No, he corrected. To hold you both in my arms.
All I’ve ever sought, he said, not that anyone heard, here—is to see true love. I would make you one helluva wedding cake.
Natural conclusions
“SO YOU SEE,” said the Omniscient. “Your nice young man (for it had reached his consciousness that the cook was in love with the prisoner) has broken the law and must serve his term of incarceration. We are powerless to change the way the law is administered, I am terribly sorry to say.”
Galina jumped up. “Then I’ll go to prison with him!”
The Muse put her hand out, but drew it back without touching Galina. “I’ll go.”
Galina’s eyebrows rose to twin peaks, but her eyes were unnaturally shiny.
“You?” the Omniscient broke in, staring at the Muse.
Galina smiled at her.
“Out of the question,” declared the Omniscient. “Outrageous.” He mumbled something to himself. “I’ll go. And I’ll brook no argument.”
He squared his shoulders and glared at the women. I just hope they don’t hang me from the ceiling like that one in—
“No one’s going to prison,” said the Muse.
Galina looked her up and down. “That’s right,” she said, more in hope than faith. But in solidarity, she turned on her heel so that she and the Muse stood side by side.
The Omniscient turned to the chief train driver, “Comrade, er…” He wanted to remember the man’s name but couldn’t. “Do you know what they’re planning?”
Yuri Shurov had been too shy to shout “No!” to Galina’s idea of going to prison, and too sane to think that her going to prison would mean that Savva would be released. It would only add one more prisoner.
But the beautiful woman in red had volunteered and then said that no one would go to prison. He believed her, whatever she was planning. She looked tough.
He turned to give the old man reassurance. “Comrade,” he began, and as the chief train driver was not only shy but an unusually polite man, he tried to remember the name of this well- meaning senior citizen. “Comrade . . . ” Dugov? Gogol? Dobrov?
His memory was cleaner than a washed bottle, but all of a sudden he remembered: the time!
He ran away. There was no time to explain.
Close call
2:07 P.M., carriage 1a
Mr Sandeep Guruprasad had never been what you could call ‘an impatient man’, but he was beginning to lose his temper.
“Please listen, Mr Riley, for I will yet again state to you as clearly as a schedule, that to shunt to the other track, the switching apparati must be employed. And for that, someone must leave the train bodily, as only a person’s physical presence can effect to throw the switches. As you must have seen when you looked out the window, these switches in full view of the railway station. In summation, if you assume that, should I be observed, I would be contemplated as an employee of this Railway, you are a more credulous man than I would deem worthy of the title ‘a person of intelligence’. Therefore—”
He raised a finger. “That was not constructive. As I was about to say, there is another way. One of you gentlemen must venture from this train and perform the task, if you insist on taking this fateful measure. And you, furthermore, must perform it in the proper uniform, which perforce you have much experience of, having painted employees of this railway in one-to-one hundred scale, I believe you said, upon more than one occasion?”
Mr Guruprasad cast his eyes upon a heretofore unmentioned member of the majority of 7, who looked away.
Riley spoke up. “You’re some team player.”
“Damn uncooperative,” said another committed tourist from the mass blocking the doorway.
Guruprasad looked at them with the imperturbability of a public servant with 25 years service under his belt. In his unasked- for position as commander of the mutiny and thus, this speech outlining duties, he had not reached the subject of train driving. They assumed the unassumable. But why cross that bridge till they came to it?
Riley stomped forward on his walker till his breath was close enough to revolt the tea-totalling Guruprasad.
“Tell you what I’m gonna do. I’ll give you to three and, hey!” He jerked his walker upwards, sideways, both walker and he standing on one leg, hovering.
Was that a lurch of the train? Yes! and another. The doorway unclogged instantly as 5 men scuttled to the windows along the passage. Riley toppled. His walker clattering to a prone position, and he, like an elephant seal on a pup as his arm hit the compartment’s little window table and tore it from its attachment.
The train was on the move.
Not only that, but the train was now running on that other track.
“Innit abow time,” said Calum Boldridge, stretching out on his top bunk.
Riley filled the compartment’s floor and spread onto both bottom bunks, creating an emotional wash in the expression of Mrs Guruprasad, who hastened to move wallward, body and book.
However, decades of healthy habits had forged muscles of iron in Sandeep Guruprasad. His legs now moved with the grace and strength of pistons as he used his arms like levers. After he had balanced the bag of blubber upright and secured its grip upon the walker, he couldn’t help turning to his wife, sending her a smile that said nine words: See how rewarding a bit of exercise could be?
“Thanks,” said Riley grudgingly.
“I’ll see to that,” he heard, and suddenly Mrs Guruprasad (a woman he had never seen
in any position other than lying full-length) had risen to a height that almost reached his elbow, taken his left arm in her hands, examined it with more care than he’d known humanly possible—and as he watched, she left the compartment only long enough to visit the samovar in the passage. She bustled back and cleaned his arm with hot water and a spotless washcloth, tweezed out an invisible splinter. He was pretty boggled by all that, but now she applied a bright yellow salve, and a pink plastic bandage to the cut that he would have ignored until it filled with pus, then squeezed, repeating as needed till it crusted over in a final scab that formed a scar.
In the meantime, Mr Guruprasad had unwrapped a roll of tools and in some ingenious way, firmly reattached the table to the wall. It now looked as it had before—a bit weary but not hard-done by.
The Guruprasads then exchanged guarded glances, and smiled at Riley.
Mrs Guruprasad had never been a train employee, but being married to Sandeep Guruprasad had given her as much education as she needed to know that, far from being on the move, this train had just been shunted to a disused track so that other trains that were on the move, could move through.
“Do you require assistance?” Sandeep Guruprasad asked in his most professional Railway voice.
“Thanks,” said Riley. He let Guruprasad arrange him on the bottom bunk.
Mrs. Guruprasad held out Riley’s rather flattened flask. It must have dropped out of his pocket. “I think a little tot would be in order,” she said to her husband.
Sandeep’s lip curled before he caught on. He turned to offer it to Riley, but he was already dead to the world.
The Guruprasads’ eyes were big, their ears straining to hear every sound.
William “Toots” Riley was typical. He was snoring—in the same state of nervous exhaustion as the other 6 fanatically committed tourists. None of them felt the need to look out a window. They were sick of the place. Now the intolerable delay they had just endured would become another Amazing Travel Adventure, another anecdote in that fat book each was writing in his head and each assailed all others with excerpts from at every waking opportunity: The Pain of Travelling.