LOST HIGHWAY

by Zac Funstein

  Hagos brought matters to a present moment status.

  “We’ve had a message from London from Estevan……”

  “I trust they were well-Ingrid, Tomás, the gang!”

  “We have a chum here who needed their help discerning if some JHW Testosterone is A or B. They tried but it didn’t seem to work so we guessed that your homespun skills might be able to succeed where others have failed Joad.”

  Hagos was taken to when they first met. There was one other passenger on the platform—a very handsome young lady who was speaking on a cell-phone, beside her was some luggage on wheels. There was something in her tone/manner that disarmed reserve. This seemed an especially vulnerable person-in such an isolated location.

  An officer in uniform came from the temporary station nearby then approached the party asking:

  "Are there any passengers for the coast here I need to see your papers?”

  "I am going there," the young lady said almost coquettishly putting down her phone for the moment on top of the suitcase.

  The one so enquiring was equally taken by her it could be seen.

  "Where are you from, miss?”

  Then, seeing her surprise, the official continued: "You must excuse the question but I am a quarantine officer we have quarantined against all points nearby that have been exposed to the fever."

  "That, then, does not include us,” said the one enquired of confidently. "I am from the outer district, where there is no fever, moreover there is a very strict quarantine. I wouldn’t be engaging you now if there was the slightest chance of being unclean."

  "Have you a health certificate that has been issued?"

  "A what certificate?"

  "A clean bill of health from any of the authorities or physicians that have been passed themselves as deemed worthy to give judgement on such matters."

  "No, sir; I am Miss Shirley P. Lima I am going to visit friends.”

  Her reply was deliberately guarded designed to give away as little as possible.

  Several days had elapsed since Shirley had accompanied Lucas Rodrigues Martins with his aunt on the mysterious mission that had brought her to Safe Haven Villas. Following that memorable morning, the delightful events of which had offered such signal proof of the adoration of her dear ones, Shirley had moved about as one lost in a maze of quiet happiness. Every now/ then her efforts would halt suddenly in the perusal of the blessings that were hers to wonder almost wistfully if it were not all too beautiful, too dear, to last. Sometimes Lima marveled that, after so persistently keeping love out of her busy life that it should have at length come into its purest realization. Once the very consideration had irked/ distressed her. Now Lima experienced a sense of deep surprise at having been so blind.

  The officer looked embarrassed as it was possible to get. The health-certificate regulation/ inland quarantine were new so forced him frequently into unpleasant positions- that for which there was no precedent. There was no choice unless demotion to traffic duty was his wish.

  "You will excuse us," the officer said, finally; "but have you anything that could establish that fact, visiting cards, correspondence—"

  "I have told you," Shirley replied pausing a little, "who I am plus where I am from. That should be enough-unless you want us to complain to your superiors that is."

  "That would be fine miss, if all that was needed mere affirmation, but I am compelled to keep all persons from the west-bound train who cannot prove their residence in a non-infected district. The law is impartial in this."

  "And I cannot go on, then?" There was a pleading as if something precious was being taken away. Then Botello approached.

  "I can fix that, sir," Joad said, briskly addressing the officer. "I am not personally acquainted with Miss Lima, but I can testify to what Shirley says as based in fact. I have seen her almost daily. My name is Joad Hernández Botello. Here are my letters- my baggage is over yonder."

  "Are you a son of Lieutenant Thiago Fernandes Botello of São Paulo, lieutenant of the old 'bullet-shields,' as we used to call the regiment?"

  "Yes, indeed for my pains," then there was a slight mood change.”But Thiago was a colonel

  -it was Maceió too not São Paulo.”

  The regiment was called ‘Iron-Clad’ too not as stated-though this wasn’t mentioned.

  "My name is Ribeiro," said the officer. "I followed Thiago during the war, you are—by Jove! you are the child that they once brought to camp introduced as the latest infantry recruit! Well, I see the Botello profile now."

  The men then greeted each other fervently as if old friends who had not seen each other in a while. The officer bowed to Shirley. "The matter is okay," Ribeiro said, smiling; "I will give you a paper presently that will carry you through.”

  Presently, with a supreme effort she recovered herself Joad had shaken off his father's admirer so was coming her way.

  Lima looked up shyly. "I am very much obliged to you for getting me out of trouble; I——"

  "Don't mention it, miss; these fellows haven't much discretion."

  "But what a fib it was!"

  "How-an untruth surely not."

  But before this could be confessed the sound of an approaching express could be heard

  "Here comes your train; let us put you aboard Miss Lima.”

  Joad helped her on board. The repentant quarantine officer supplied her with a clean pass and then bid her a safe journey.

  Fikru who was on the same platform hurried to catch this as it was threatening to get under way.

  Joad was the only other traveller in the carriage

  As Fikru entered his coat was drawn off then dropped it upon his bags. The motion of the starting train did not add to his comfort.

  "Confound such a road!"

  "A railroad company that will run cars like this on such a schedule ought to be abolished, the officers imprisoned, track torn up-the rolling stock burned! But then," he continued, "I am the fool. I ought not to have come by this God-forsaken route."

  "It is certainly not pleasant travelling to-day," his companion remarked.

  "Are you a resident of the south?" It was the stranger who spoke first. This delicate courtesy was not lost on Fikru.

  "Yes. That is, I count myself a citizen of this state. But I sell clothing for a New York house and am away from home a great deal."

  "You delivered the young lady at the junction from quite a predicament."

  "Didn't I, just.”

  O

  Here some properties have been empty so long their curtains have given up holding on, have come undone thread by thread. It was here that Thiago Alves Ferreira resided the one that could make everything a success where it had failed so miserably before. Thiago was wearing a plain jacket, tie undone when the letter came from Otávio Oliveira Rocha informing him the towel had been thrown in that is better that someone else took over-that person was him.

  Otávio’s immediate boss (for want of a better term) Herman Escalante Uribe had said upon being informed of this decision:

  ‘When you delegate something to a subordinate Rocha, for example, it is absolutely your responsibility you must understand this. You as a leader must take complete responsibility for what the subordinate does. I once said, as a sort of aside, that leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong - giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.’

  ‘I understand where you are coming from totally but even if it results in Ferreira getting all the kudos I have to do this. My Chrysler LHS hit a post recently next to the concrete median barrier adjacent to the fast lane of a motorway which I took as a warning I should opt out in general. Sometimes life gives these signals.’

  Herman did not like to stress that this was something of an accident quadrant-there must have been lots of life-changers originating from there. A Ferrari took a sharp left lost it, swerving across the lanes, taking out a newsstand before crashing into a trimming- parlor. None of them were
wearing seat belts the drivers good friend died hitting the stand full on.

  Perhaps the most amazing sensation passed in all of us is that of presentiment. We might consider it as an eternal proof of the irrationality of the universe. Original man might have wandered through a world full of uncanny signs trembling at each step we will never know.This debate might engage all but the most garrulous of the chattering classes rather less than the issue of how many angels can stand on the point of a pin but it will rage.

  The task of unbolting the entrance to where Thiago lived known as ‘Sahula’ (called after the land that prehistorians call Sahul, the union in one land of Australia plus New Guinea, which came into being when these land masses were joined to each other) usually fell to his wife since curatorship of the nearby medieval chapel had fallen to history graduate Jacqui Ferreira, who was set to help visitors explore its fascinating depths. Otávio could never hear this without picturing- as once happened- being trapped-using his mobile to call the authorities- they were on the scene within minutes - unbolting the cupboard door freeing him unharmed.

  Jacqui was too busy rearranging her skirts after her untimely fall however (apres waxing the floor) to notice when Otávio called. In its time this tiny jewel of a snip-purchase has served as a governor's residence a town hall a printers plus a prison. Much had changed but the locks had stayed the same.

  Thiago a short, portly fellow who wise-cracked his way through everything came to take great pleasure in his craft with words, honing them like his skills in his ballistic class, dreaming up pithy wisecracks/aphorisms which were collected then displayed in his studio. Thiago used paradox, proverb, exaggeration, parable, irony too but this got the main usage. This was the one to watch.

  “I'm always coming up with witticisms, always searching for the funny side of a situation. It's really fun to watch TV just do a little post every once in a while - just some random observation or critique. We've gotten used to a voiceover that explains everything, or characters that muddle their way through their adventures.”

  “Now take Antônio Souza Almeida.”

  “Never heard of them Ferreira but carry on.”

  There are certain things that are no laughing matters it would seem.

  “The Santiago-born Antônio when not pontificating about his new homeland plays a hapless barrister, which neatly illustrates the pervasive attitude among Brazilian sitcom writers; given the choice between a wisecracker/ a buffoon, the buffoon gets the gig always.”

  Thiago folded the schedule up neatly then put it in one of the pockets sewn into his cloak.

  “This is all well/good Thiago but how it helps us determine the denim is what I am more concerned about.”

  His dread of notoriety/ censure may have exercised a good check on his behaviour but it didn’t seem to essentially change anything.Thiago was the same as ever.

  “You know, of course, that the San Andreas is a famous -- or-I should say-notorious -- earthquake -- fault. I always ask myself when offered a job like this does it hit the San Andreas or not. Do we want to scrap the film give it more notoriety — be it good or bad with all the controversy or do we wanna go on like Lautaro Montero Auvergne-no we do not.”

  Lautaro Montero Auvergne adopted the alias ‘Sheikh Haron’ then styled himself as a local ‘spiritual advisor.’ It was an embezzlement of the highest order rocking the religious establishment.

  There was something about Lautaro that Otávio liked-most that gain notoriety in America tend to lean towards the violent or random, but Lautaro was a gentle soul who steered away from the noisy or sensational. In the wars against the English in the middle ages then in the religious wars that followed the town had its full participation; it acquired a terrible notoriety by the trial and execution of many members of the nobility of Auvergne who had tyrannized over the neighbouring districts. But of all the towns Auvergne was the most equitable, the most lenient. too steeped in history, too used to possible pitfalls to show true French joie de vivre at such unkindness.

  “Whatever I’m sure your talent will pull us through Thiago.”

  Thiago Alves Ferreira had a brother Gunter Corona. Born of the Great Depression, the brothers were rootless, no ties, no responsibilities, fighting on behalf of the disenfranchised little man in a floating world of vacuous, witty, vain, often acid yet strangely disagreeable people.

  Paul Klee the artist once said ‘Nature is garrulous to the point of confusion, let the artist be truly taciturn’. The same might be said of those burdened with the responsibilities like these of finding just what happened.

  Rather like Casto Ocasio Lomeli’s wonder-box Thiago had an adult tin in which various heirlooms were kept. An heirloom from childhood whenever Casto moved this tin went with him. Now something from inside seemed to almost signal it needed his attention-however getting the top off was proving difficult. With his full energy under the clasp, Thiago used his remaining energy to unhinge it then throw the top of the box open.

  It was always a stunning opening, a gleaming subterranean realm of pale lacquer plus smoked mirrors with a set of inner drawers you'd run off with in the middle of the night if you believed you could get away with it-such was their ornateness. Hinged together with the subtlety of a child's construction set the characters contained within too, for all their nuzzling, cuddling, punching in which they were made to indulge, drifted in their separate spheres, together but never touching, like the dim content of a lost galaxy.

  In one is a still of The Fast Runner, the first feature made in the Inuit language,this told an ancient tale of how something wicked descended on a tribe, causing a feud that involved treachery, adultery plus parricide. It had been given to him by Dagmar Vítů a criminology professor at the University of South Florida who has studied the parricide in some depth. They had fathomed Marie Jelínková together one of the youngest children to ‘remove’ both parents in history.

  How strange to think that a couple's life could hinge on such a trivial mistake on a refusal to give their daughter extra allowance. They now had a most unusual friendship Dagmar spoke affectingly of this story as a peculiarly American tragedy. This was their shared interest as was the belief that the Nepalese royal family's self-destruction was a symptom of a broader malaise affecting the entire nation although this was a separate aside. Their meetings always followed the same routine-visit his senile mother in an old-folks' home make sure they weren’t slipping her a mickey-finn then to Dagmar’s where like any middle-class couple the talk moved onto the property scene plus political concerns. Little, the Afro-American history buff from Haiti good at chronological exposition who boasted a hefty CV would be there-on his psychological passage from youth to adulthood Little had changed in extraordinary ways. Both had watched him develop. Little who had a peculiar encyclopaedic interest in multifarious aristocratic families from all over Ireland had grown as a person.

  Thiago phoned Dagmar up.

  “D I have been staring at The Fast Runner still again, you seemed to go with it. Then I realised how your acumen might be used.”

  “That’s incredible I’m pleased for you-that was an important occasion.”

  “Really-this is serious Vítů. The solution of the Schreiber case seems to have fallen into my sphere of interest. I have no choice but to find the answer or rest will not be mine.”

  They both knew instinctively what the other would do having gone over it so often before. They had always agreed Renaissance science received added impetus from the increased transmission between east/ west. Now nothing had changed in the transmission stakes. Little’s Afro-Canadian slant was bound to give a new angle. Getting through to him was difficult-someone must have said if your computer is permanently connected, the chances are that, sooner or later, an attempt will be made to access it without your knowledge-for his e-mail was switched off but eventually his smartphone was answered. A man strong in his faith, certain in his knowledge of that which was ultimately important the sound of a church-service could be heard in
the distance.

  Little Onwubiko listened respectfully as always-no one had known him be anything but unfailingly polite or brilliant at getting to the crux of the matter.

  “They are always trawling that road in BC-there seems to be a lot of incidents there Thiago. They are appealing for witnesses to come forward, including lorry drivers who may have been involved in the incident.”

  “This is a specific incident-the girl was called Gladys Schreiber Little.”

  This was mentioned with the anticipation of triggering some association within him for Onwubiko seemed to keep on the pulse of a lot of different interests. However Little had a different take.

  “I’m inclined to believe that this was due to changes in the manner in which the Native-Americans lived-there, originally communities were based on a motte (a mound, conical in shape, the bailey) with a level area around the motte, both of which would have had a stockade surrounding. When the stockades were removed then the trouble started.”

  Ferreira whose grandfather spent a stint in a military stockade before President Nixon ordered his release, still sensed keenly what it was to be like to be locked up, indefinitely without charges, in some military stockade. There were those in hard labour wearing fetters so contained even now. Earlier Massachusetts militia attacked men, women plus children at the stockaded Mystic village,punishing the Pequots for the evisceration of an English trader setting it ablaze shooting escapees. Stockades were bad news.

  “I know where you are coming from-this might be a member of their community-an elder using a position of trust but most are inclined to believe this is a serial-attack from outside.”

  This was uttered with such surety no one could picture but otherwise.

  “This has been going on for a while- Canada’s press staffers aren’t voluntarily putting themselves in rotation in Times Square to keep up with any new developments that is for sure.”

  The next morning there was a hum of excitement in the Shirley Baca Candelaria Catholic Home For Old Ladies of a Gentle Disposition. Word had got around that Deonilde Loera Zelaya was going away-not just for a day out-an excursion to Vancouver or Quebec- but for good. Some of the ladies who knew her were plainly envious- said spiteful, nasty things, while others were glad that at least one of their number would be able to leave behind the ‘home’—the living on charity—that nightmare of the old. Like a terrible abattoir where nothing that went in one end came out the other end alive- those that escaped here were few. It was nice that someone was able to halt the tide of aging once in a while.