by Gavin Chait
‘No, it will take several hours. Perhaps tomorrow morning you will feel better. Tonight I will sing and you will rest. No harm can happen here.’
Ismael smiles warmly, ‘Joshua,’ shaking his hand and touching it to his heart. He greets each of them – Daniel, Sarah, Abishai, David and Jason – in turn.
‘Come, sit with me. Behzad’s coffee is quite good. He somehow contrives to bring it here from Ethiopia.’
They draw up two tables to host them all, and order coffee. While they are waiting, Ismael says, ‘Symon, have I ever told my favourite of Etai’s samara?’
Ismael’s tale
Pinch Point
Usted’s bow light picks out his slow progress up the river to where I wait aboard the stricken yacht.
The river here is wide but shallow. Fast moving where the water rushes about the rocks and shoals. Usted has sailed his tug up and down the waters of the Surkhob for forty-five years but, in early spring, at three in the morning, he knows that only a fool rushes.
And I’m not going anywhere.
My wife and I came to Tajikistan a decade ago: short-term replacements for a district commissar on sick leave. He died. We stayed.
The people in my district are Wakhi. They have been here for thousands of years, always the spoils of one empire or another. They’ve outlasted the Persians, the Sassanids, the Samanids, the Qarakhanids, the Timurids, the Astrakhanids, the Manghits, Jahangir Khoja and his short-lived madness, the Soviets, their own strong men, and they’ve seen us Russians return.
They’ll outlast us once more.
What does a commissar in one of Russia’s colonies do, you ask? A lot and a little, depending on one’s approach. The first commissars treated these postings as an opportunity to loot and build up a little power before returning to the comforts of home. They soon learned that it is far more than 3,000 kilometres from Moscow to Dushanbe.
Now, most commissars are drunks: despised at home, hated by the people unfortunate enough to have them.
We Russians came here for the minerals, which, a century ago, still had some meaning. Now, not so much. We stay because to go would be to admit the weakness and corruption at the heart of the state. I don’t believe that any of the other nations care what we do any longer. Stay, go. Do what you will.
We have built an empire and become the worst face of what we have always accused others of being.
The people could rebel but they do not. Perhaps they accept. Perhaps they believe that the fight would be devastating. Fifty years ago we could have turned even the stones to dust. Now, all they would have to do is push out a few commissars. There is nothing the state could do.
My wife and I chose to come.
We are a long way from the siloviks and arbitrary rules of the city, and we may do a little good. I travel constantly across my territory. I visit villages, schools, clinics. I listen, I document. I learned the songs of the people. I wrote a book of Pamiri poetry. I updated the historical and ethnographic records. I do a little medicine.
Mostly, I connect isolated hamlets, sharing best practice, leaving a little in one village that I pick up in another. My wife travels with me, my constant friend, adviser and companion. We helped finance the first printer in Obigram, also the first in my district. I assisted Rogun School to raise funds for a sphere.
Sometimes my wife and I advise in civil disputes, but mostly we listen. I do not know if we are loved – how could anyone love an imperialist? – but we are respected. Perhaps even trusted, a little.
I have taken it upon myself to remind them of who they are, what makes them special, one to another. The depth of their culture. The wonder of their heritage. The hard-faced beauty of their world.
Sometimes they hear. Sometimes they don’t. I am not leading them to change. I am a messenger. The choices are theirs.
I love the mountains: the dry, dusty magnificence of the landscape. The ice and the power still left in the glaciers, carving their way through canyons and gorges for millennia. Have you seen an avalanche consuming all in its path? I love the villages in the foothills. The smell of osh and the taste of green tea. The people, their faces so preternaturally old, guarded, keeping their thoughts.
I enjoy the silence of their conversation.
Agh, listen to the ambassador complain. ‘Ambassador’, as if giving him the title somehow justifies the oppression. ‘They have an ambassador, they’re actually independent. They want us here.’
Our ambassador has a luxury motor yacht. Flew it by helicopter from Moscow and deposited it in the Nurek Reservoir beside his little dacha by the lake. I grant you, it is splendid from the outside, but – like the Russian Empire – quite hollow. The motor is too small for the currents; the range is too short for the distance. It is only partially fitted out on the inside. After the stateroom, there wasn’t much money left for the rest.
‘Why can’t these peasants move any faster?’ he is shouting. Like his boat, the ambassador is hollow. No insight, no patience.
Usted is close now. I can see his wife, Sarez, standing with him. They are a matched pair. Him in an old hat, her in a shawl. Similar faces, except for his thin moustache. His concentration is intense.
The ambassador is not grateful. His wife is shouting, too. It is not Usted who chose to sail up the Surkhob in the spring in a big yacht. Usted did not run it into the gravel shoals that are so treacherous all along its winding banks.
Usted comes on board. I greet him. He nods at me. In this place, at this time, that is warmth indeed. He stares blankly at the ambassador as he shouts. Usted has no Russian. He wouldn’t listen even if he did.
‘I’ll be in the stateroom,’ says the ambassador, taking his skinny wife with him. As if there is anywhere else to sit. There are no servants on the yacht, no kitchen. Only a cabinet full of vodka.
He called me in the late afternoon to come out. Did not tell me that his yacht had run aground. He thought I could fix it myself. I came by car and then, at a tiny village with no name nearby, had a small boy take me out in his rowboat. There was nothing I could do.
I could have called on many people from Nurek. I chose Usted.
Usted looks at me, asking. I shrug and make a slight bow to him. This is his call to make. Usted stares at me. His gaze is an interrogation: why would a big boat like this not be able to get itself off the gravel?
Usted turns, opens the hatchway door and enters the yacht. The cabin is narrow but wide, and the stateroom door is closed. Usted guesses that the engine must be aft and he opens the door on the left. There is darkness and he flashes his electric torch, looking for a light switch. He illuminates a shell of a room.
He is silent. He steps into the room and I follow. He sees that the other two doors come into this space as well. He moves his torch back and forth, identifying the motor-housing at the rear. He lifts up the wooden cowl. Underneath is a small motor, scarcely big enough to power a launch.
Usted shines his light on me. I stare back. I am still. I say nothing.
Maybe he hears. Maybe he doesn’t. I am not their saviour. I merely pick up a little in one place and share it again in another. Sometimes that is enough; mostly it makes no impact at all.
Usted and Sarez tow us all the way back to the wharf at Nurek, standing side by side in the cockpit saying nothing.
The ambassador emerges when we arrive. He can barely stand. His wife is passed out on one of the magnificent sofas. He offers no thanks and staggers up the pathway towards his mansion house.
I slip money into Sarez’s hands as I thank her, money I know Usted would not accept. He inclines his head, a humorous gesture from a man who never smiles.
I watch them sail away, Usted and Sarez in the cockpit, side by side, saying nothing at all. Eventually, they are too far away to see except as a beacon, carrying their light out into the darkness beyond.
28
Symon looks pale. ‘I feel dizzy,’ he says, awkward and uncomfortable.
Joshua stands hastily. ‘What sh
ould we do?’
‘It is well, Symon,’ says Ismael. ‘The process has started. You should sleep. In the morning you will be back inside. You will be safe here tonight.’
Symon nods, shrugs off help. ‘Samara will be here in the morning. Thank you and I will be in the room.’ He walks away.
‘What does he mean?’ asks Daniel.
‘I have given him a temporary relief,’ says Ismael. ‘As long as you are gentle over the next few days, he may make it back to his people as Samara.’
Joshua looks surprised and curious, ‘Balladeer, if you have chosen to intervene, why not call his people?’
‘I am not intervening,’ he smiles. ‘Even if I were to choose to do so, I could not contact his people directly. My symbiont is similar but different to their technology. Now, did I not say that Behzad’s coffee was good? Come, we shall have another.’
Joshua can see that they will get no more from the Griot. Daniel is not finished yet.
‘Balladeer, is that what you do? Pick up a little in one place and leave a little behind?’ he asks.
Ismael’s eyes crinkle with delight. He giggles, shaking, his hands steepled on the table. ‘Perhaps,’ he says.
‘Do you know what happened sixty-five years ago?’ he asks.
Jason answers, as every child knows, ‘The war in the sky.’
‘Yes,’ says Ismael, ‘but do you know what it was about?’
The others shake their heads. This did not involve their people at all.
‘You are too young to know, and it was a long way away, but many things are because of what was.’
‘Balladeer, forgive me,’ says Joshua with a smile, ‘must you always be so cryptic?’
Ismael chuckles again. ‘Very well, let me tell you a little of what happened. But not about myself. Perhaps you can ask Samara tomorrow?
‘There was a war, but it was not in space. It was in China. That was where it began.
‘China, sixty-five years ago, was a great power. Yuèliàng was the greatest of the orbital cities and entirely owned and controlled by the Party. Except, as countless empires have discovered in the past, controlling distant outposts is difficult. Seven hundred and fifty thousand people, all highly educated and ambitious clustered in one place. They declared independence. Unilaterally.
‘China claimed to be surprised. They blamed a conspiracy of outsiders,’ Ismael makes a face like an ogre. ‘Silliness. There had been a protest movement for almost fifty years by then. Plenty of time to invent the form of a new state.
‘China refused to accept. They tried to send troops to retake the city, but the people of Yuèliàng simply closed their space elevator and blocked the entrances. Even if they could fly troops up, without the elevator they could land no more than a few hundred at a time, against such a vast city. There is not much you can do to a place that is already fully self-sufficient.
‘The Chinese leadership was proud. They could not accept this betrayal. For if Yuèliàng, then what of their subjugate states on Earth? What of Tibet, Mongolia, Bhutan, Taiwan? They aimed their great nuclear arsenal in Tibet at the station and gave them an ultimatum.
‘Tibet erupted. So too did Mongolia and Xinjiang. Troops were sent in. Fighters from around the world travelled to Tibet. Your Samara was amongst them.
‘What?’ says Joshua. ‘His people sent troops? I understand that they cannot be beaten?’
‘The Nine cannot be beaten here on Earth, no,’ says Ismael, ‘but Samara was not yet one of them. He was only twenty-eight. A boy. A very lost boy.
‘His father is the most talented storyteller of our age. His grandfather one of its greatest inventors. His mother a leading biologist. His grandmother is a brilliant poet. Samara has no special gifts. He travels incessantly. He visits other orbital cities. He joins lost causes. Stranded between genius, he searches for someone to be.’
‘He is a good man. Did his family not see this?’ asks Sarah.
‘This has nothing to do with his family. They love him, cherish him. They do not ask anything other than that he be happy. This is his journey.
‘In Tibet, he joined a group of Uyghurs who had travelled to Lhasa from Xinjiang to confront the Chinese. Lhasa, the capital, was a violent brawl.’
The names and peoples mean little to the others. The Griot does not explain. No matter, they can understand the complexity and the chaos.
‘The United Nations was meeting. This was a great legal gathering of all the leaders of all the independent countries of the world. China, though, was one of its key members. And too many other countries had their own restive orbital cities. They could not reach agreement on what China should do.
‘No one, though,’ his eyes gleam, ‘would assist the Chinese by allowing them to use their space elevators.
‘As the leaders debated, the fighting in Tibet was growing ever more oppressive. China declared they would not fire nuclear missiles, but that left many other options. They fired a test missile at Lhasa. One hundred and fifty thousand people were killed. The city was dust. The Potala Palace, which had stood for more than six hundred years, was destroyed.
‘Samara’s Uyghurs were incensed. They attacked the compound outside the city of Shigatse where the missiles were based. The Chinese were waiting. They slaughtered them. Samara was badly injured, but Symon saved him.
‘Two missiles were fired. Yuèliàng was an orbital city, unarmed and defenceless. Seven hundred and fifty thousand people were killed instantly. The explosion created a massive debris cloud. Two small nearby orbital cities, Cuthbar and New Kuwait, were destroyed. Another nineteen thousand people were killed.’
Sarah and David have gone pale. Joshua has clenched his fists. Daniel, Abishai and Jason stare downcast at the table.
‘A wave of debris spread out around the earth. It became suicidal for any craft to enter high earth orbit unshielded. The remaining cities had to respond quickly or they would also be destroyed. Some were able to amplify their fusion reactors to generate a safety field. Some borrowed reactors. Some broke orbit and moved out into the solar system. Some were not so fortunate.
‘The orbital cities adapted. There was migration as smaller cities emptied, their people moving to the biggest. Achenia gained one hundred and fifty thousand new people in ten years. The cities that chose to remain in orbit created shielded channels through which they could transfer ships and goods. They covered their cities in gravel and rock that they harvested from the moon. They made themselves safe from the debris cloud, but they have not felt safe ever since.’
‘That is the metal that the militia collect when it falls from space? The remains of the dead?’ asks Abishai.
‘Indeed, my daughter,’ says Ismael.
‘And what of the great leaders? Did they do nothing?’ asks Joshua.
‘The United Nations collapsed. People lost faith in their leaders. Worse followed. The orbital cities refused to trade. China had, in one act, murdered most of its great thinkers and academics. Far from bringing order, the Chinese state disintegrated. Trade collapsed. Many nations followed, losing access to borrowed goods and capital, and falling apart. And the result to your nation you know.
‘There was another effect, though. Much of the Earth’s space-based infrastructure was in higher earth orbit. Satellites were destroyed. Most of the connect went with them. A land-based connect was rebuilt, but it is not the same, not as ever-present as the old. Many regions are left outside, such as Ewuru. Maybe that is a good thing?’ Ismael raises his eyebrows.
‘There were many space elevators,’ he shakes his head. ‘The debris chopped through most of them, leaving only three. It is expensive to keep them safe against the debris but, even though they are not much used, these elevators are still there. Japan’s Hokkaido city, Achenia’s, and that managed by the US, supporting their Tartarus prison.’
‘Where Samara was,’ says Jason.
Ismael touches his nose, nodding.
‘In the aftermath, we griots made a decision. We w
ould leave the orbital cities and return to Earth. We will document the turning of the seasons – become an ancient memory as in times of old. The original griots were a people’s knowledge of themselves. We can aspire to no less.’
‘There are many of you?’ asks Sarah.
‘Enough,’ he smiles.
‘And Samara?’ asks Jason.
‘That I do not know. You may ask him, perhaps he will tell you?’
Ismael rises from his seat. ‘Thank you for your company. Now, I must go and earn my keep,’ he says.
The restaurant has filled. People are still arriving and cramming into spaces along the walls and around the stage. A pleasant buzz of friendship and expectation.
‘So that is why he had to come down to Earth and not stay in orbit to cross to his own people,’ says Daniel. ‘I could not understand that choice, but this makes sense.’
‘It also makes sense why his people would take such care before – what is the term he used? – cutting the umbilical,’ says Abishai.
‘I think we should eat,’ says Joshua.
‘Yes, I am starving,’ says Jason.
‘I cannot eat,’ says Sarah. Her face is haunted. ‘Those poor people.’
Joshua reaches across the table and holds her hand. She looks up at him. ‘My daughter, you must eat. We must honour the dead, but we must also care for ourselves.’
She takes a deep breath and slowly eases it out. Nods and squeezes his hand.
Up on the stage, Ismael is seated on a three-legged cellulosic stool. He straddles the wide calabash base of a kora, the twenty-one-string harp of West Africa. He looks out at the room, beaming. He extends his forefinger on to a string and begins to rub it up and down.
He releases it, and the strident rhythm continues. He plucks harmonies and melodies. Each adding to the former. He taps on the calabash, creating a percussive beat. The sound rises, takes shape, a force that envelops the room. People are dancing, stamping their feet, an ecstatic pandemonium.
He stands, leaving the kora. The music still plays. He jumps off the stage, dancing amongst the people. His arms at his shoulders, his bottom out. He touches plates, glasses, spoons, setting up new melodies, new harmonies.