News from Gardenia

by Robert Llewellyn

  I stared out of the window to try and take in what had just frightened the life out of me.

  ‘I have never seen anything like it!’ I said. ‘What on earth is it doing?’

  Xui Li smiled and patted my arm to reassure me.

  ‘There is no need to be alarmed. You may not have seen anything as big before. Just think of it as a subway, but in the air. We have a subway system, underground, but we also have an above-surface public transportation system. This is quite new – it has become very popular in the last ten or so years. So many people now live in the upper areas of buildings that for many it’s far quicker to travel on an above-surface system rather than taking an elevator all the way down to a subway, and then going all the way up an elevator at their destination building. This is how the person you are meeting is getting here, she will be with us presently.’

  She gently pulled on my arm and guided me to another part of the huge window. Along the side of the building was a structure that jutted out. Whatever the thing was that had shot past me moments before had pulled to a halt and was docking alongside. It was a huge pod-like ship, with some kind of propulsion unit on the back and some interesting-looking pads beneath its bulk.

  ‘What keeps it in the air?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Xui Li. ‘You’d have to ask my husband; he knows all that sort of thing. I think it’s hydrogen, it’s something to do with hydrogen.’ Xui Li was already walking away. I could see she had lost interest in explaining everything to me.

  I followed her through the crowd until she stopped and greeted a woman who was considerably taller than the Chinese people surrounding us.

  ‘This is Mei,’ said Xui Li. ‘She will give you her Babel.’

  I took the little bead out of my ear and handed it to Xui Li. She held a small cloth in her hand and I placed it here. She bowed and said something in Chinese. I bowed back as best I could and said thank you.

  Xui Li left me as rapidly as she’d arrived in my life. I wanted to find out more about her but now I was faced with someone new. Mei did look rather different from her fellow countrymen; she was clearly mixed race of some sort – there was an obvious Chinese element in her features but she was tall and had a European aspect to her size and manner. She graciously handed me a Babel bead and I put it in my ear.

  ‘How do you do,’ she said. ‘I am Mei. I had a message from kind people in Gardenia to come and meet you. I was told you know my family.’

  ‘Well yes. In a strange way I do,’ I said, fascinated that this woman was somehow a descendant of a history teacher from Oxfordshire.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ Mei asked. She turned and started walking. I had to almost trot to catch up with her, weaving my way through the crowds so as not to lose sight. I didn’t know if I was hungry but I thought food might be a good idea. Mei guided me towards an area where a lot of people were eating.

  ‘I’m concerned that I can’t pay for food,’ I said as we joined a fast-moving queue.

  ‘Please do not worry. I have credit; this is not an expensive place to eat.’

  We reached a large white box. Mei put her hand on a screen and two stainless-steel bowls of hot noodle soup gently slid into view. They were on individual trays, accompanied by a metal spoon, chopsticks and a cloth napkin.

  ‘We can sit here,’ she said and I joined her at the end of a long bench. It was crowded with people; most of them Chinese but I noticed representatives from every race on earth in that café. As I looked around I noticed that people of African descent made up the vast majority of the non-Chinese people around me. I looked at one very striking man sitting with a group of Chinese people; it was obvious he was speaking Chinese without hesitation.

  The noise and bustle was intense. I didn’t feel nervous about that. I certainly felt a little disoriented; for a start it was late at night in Beijing and yet it was only early afternoon for me. I had checked my phone sporadically during the day’s journey. I had only been out of Gardenia for five hours and yet already I had travelled to the far side of the globe.

  The noodle soup was delicious and really helped; I felt myself calm down as we ate it. A young woman came to our bench and poured something into two metal cups and placed them graciously before us.

  ‘Tea,’ said Mei. ‘Do you like tea?’

  I drank the green tea and grinned at Mei.

  ‘I love tea,’ I said.

  I was experiencing a dizzying mixture of the familiar and bizarrely new. When I have a feeling like that, I allow my intellect and curiosity to take over, thus quelling my irrational fears. I was sitting down in a mall-style food hall in a building higher than anything I had ever imagined. It just didn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘So please tell me, Mei, were you born here in Beijing?’ I asked eventually.

  ‘Yes, my mother was Chinese,’ said Mei. ‘She worked in Europa when she was a young woman, she met my father there. He was half Gardenian, half Indian, so I am a mixture of many races, like most people I suppose. What about you, Gavin, you look very Gardenian to me.’

  ‘Both my parents were from Gardenia,’ I said. ‘However…’ I coughed and shuffled in my seat. Although I had told Mike in Manhattan about coming through the cloud, I didn’t know if it was appropriate to tell Mei. I swallowed and went for it.

  ‘I think I knew your great, great grandmother,’ I said. ‘I come from a different time.’

  ‘Oh, you are an anomalee,’ she said, and the voice in my ear made a big deal of the elongated e at the end of the word. Her reaction was not what I expected.

  ‘I suppose I am, but I’m very unclear exactly how many people make, well, the jump from then to now.’

  Mei laughed. ‘Oh, not many, but it does seem to happen every now and then. There is a man in Nanjing who I have seen talk, he came from 1958 I believe. He was very confused at the start, kept asking what had happened to Chairman Mao. It was slightly amusing although the laughter was a little cruel.’

  I was fascinated, just watching Mei talk – so people had been popping through clouds for years, and no one back then knew about it. It sounded so normal, maybe something that would make the news, but not earth shattering.

  ‘It’s very nice to meet you,’ said Mei. ‘I’ve never met anyone who has come forward in person so this is a great honour. So, you knew my great, great grandmother. Was she a good woman?’

  ‘Yes, she was a wonderful woman,’ I said. ‘I was married to her.’

  Now Mei looked a little shocked, I held my hand up.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I did not have children, I left my time long before your great grandfather was even born. I have read about her children in a book. That is how I came to be here. My friends in Gardenia have arranged this trip for me.’

  ‘I am pleased to hear she was a good woman. I try to be a good woman too. It is very important for me to be good.’

  I must have looked puzzled because before I could ask why, she explained her reasons to me.

  ‘I was a lawyer, now I am a judge, I sit in a court and pass judgement, to do this well you need to be a good person. I strive to be good.’

  ‘So, you have a legal system here?’ I asked. Mei acknowledged this with a curt smile as she sipped her green tea. ‘And you have an economy.’ Again she nodded. ‘But I come from a country with no economy, is that correct? But you still have one here.’

  ‘That is correct,’ said Mei. I loved watching her talk, there was something of Beth there, the way she held her head as she spoke, the way her lips moved, I was convinced I could see a trace and it made me feel so happy.

  ‘The Chinese economy is presently the second biggest after the U.S.A.,’ said Mei. ‘We have the strongest currency, all international trade is conducted with RMB. But…’ I watched her smile broadly, her lips started to move again and moments later I heard, ‘that is no
t saying as much as it would have many years ago, when there still was a true global economy. Now we have only four global trading partners.’

  ‘I’m guessing India, Japan…’

  ‘No, not Japan. Japan is a nonecon.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Oh yes, for more than fifty years now. Our trading partners are India, Brazil, U.S.A. and Midwest. All of them are successful economies, except maybe Midwest. Doing business with them is always very difficult. They are not very trusting; they are very scared of people who are not like them.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard that,’ I said.

  ‘However, they do import some goods and industrial equipment from us and we import some bulk grain products from them. None of this trade is easy and we are slowly reducing the amounts we buy from them. It is said that eventually all countries will become nonecons; there is certainly a big movement for that in China. Outside the big cities small communities are starting to use nonecon methods. I personally don’t have a strong opinion about it, but I like to live in a big city. I don’t want to be a gardener like you.’

  Again she smiled and looked something close to being ashamed. She waved her exquisitely well-manicured fingers at me.

  ‘I value my nails too much. None of the nonecon countries have big cities, just many houses and gardens, everywhere gardens.’

  This was something I already knew too well.

  ‘But I love Beijing. Surely you can see why. It is so vibrant and exciting to live here, there is so much business going on; I love business.’

  ‘It’s certainly very spectacular,’ I said. ‘And I can see people are certainly very busy. But tell me this. I know from reading history that at one time China had the biggest population on earth. Is that still the case?’

  ‘China, the biggest!’ Mei laughed. ‘No, sir, not now. Brazil and India have far more people. China is getting fewer and fewer people all the time. We need more babies but all the women here, women like me, we love business, we love to work and we don’t need men to support us, we all make good money and we don’t have children. I am fifty-eight; I don’t have a child yet. Maybe one day but not yet.’

  Again I had that now familiar shock with the age supposition. I would have put Mei at around twenty-five years old, I should have known better, I had seen her date of birth but in the chaos and shock of being there with her it had fled my mind.

  Her skin was flawless, she was radiant and her hands…that’s how you always could tell. Maybe in the old days a plastic surgeon managed freaky wonders to the face, but hands gave it away. Mei’s fifty-eight-year-old hands looked so young. That particular aspect of human biology, or genetic engineering, or diet or medicine, whatever was the cause, had changed beyond recognition.

  ‘So is the population falling?’

  ‘Oh yes, my husband is a statistician – he would tell you all about population. All over the globe the population is falling. One hundred years ago there were twice as many people alive as there are now. Some see this as a big problem; some see this as a good thing. Me, I like people. I like business, I like law, all businesses need many people to make it fun. That’s why I live in Beijing.’

  Without any warning Mei stood up and waited for me. I followed her through the bustling throng towards the lifts.

  ‘I must get you back to the tether port, I had very clear instructions from Gardenia. You are not staying in Beijing.’

  ‘No, that’s correct, I’m not. This is a very quick visit but I truly wish to come again.’

  ‘You must come and visit and say hello to my husband – he would be very happy to meet you and talk about population. He can talk about population for hours and hours without stopping. I say to him, stop, no more facts about population.’

  She laughed, almost like a child.

  I rode down in the lift with her to the huge shopping mall on level one forty. We stood in the massive looming atrium together; she seemed very distracted now.

  ‘I have to go and do business. It was very nice to meet you Gavin, please – when you are in Beijing next time, look me up.’

  ‘Thank you, Mei,’ I said as graciously as I could. I was being constantly jostled by the passing crowd. ‘How on earth will I find you again?’

  ‘You have my contact details on your Book,’ she said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. The translator even put a nuance on the words.

  ‘Can I have my Babel back please?’ she said. I felt something move in my ear and the little bead pushed itself out, making it very easy to retrieve.

  I handed it to her.

  We shook hands and she walked off into the crowd. I watched her tall slim figure disappear into the chaos all around me. I needed to rest, to find somewhere quiet. The pod, the elastic restraint and the silence of space suddenly seemed very appealing.

  20

  Rashmi, the cabin crewmember on my journey from Beijing to Mumbai, was very kind and very accommodating. The flight was once again full to capacity although this was a slightly different design of pod from the two previous craft I had travelled in.

  It was longer and thinner and I noticed as I went aboard it had two clear porthole windows at one end. As I was strapped in I asked Rashmi if I would be allowed to look out of the window when we were in space.

  ‘I will do what I can, Mr Meckler,’ she said in perfect English – no need for a translator for this conversation. It almost felt odd to converse with someone whose lips were in synch.

  As we climbed the tether I started to experience the now-familiar feeling of increasing weightlessness, I worked out that I had been away from Gardenia for a mere eight hours. I had two further hours on the ground in Mumbai before getting my final flight back home. I knew I couldn’t truly call Gardenia home, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go.

  I think something in the pre-flight drink had a soporific effect because once again I fell asleep during the journey. The next thing I remember was waking with a start and feeling quite nauseous. I could sense that I was weightless again and Rashmi was floating sideways in front of me.

  ‘I have another passenger who wishes to take a view out of the window – would you mind if I take her first? This is her first flight and she is very excited.’

  ‘No, please go ahead,’ I said, and watched her gently float off down the passage between the strapped-in passengers. A moment later she reappeared with a young Indian girl wrapped up like a chrysalis floating sideways past me. They both acknowledged me graciously as they passed, talking in what must have been Hindi.

  I breathed a big sigh. This whole experience was so intense and unusual I had to keep checking with myself that I hadn’t gone mad. I’d just seen two young Indian women float past me sideways as though it was the most normal thing in the world. Except we were miles above the world.

  There was very little noise, just a very faint hiss which I took to be some kind of air circulation system. I was strapped into a plastic hollow with some weird elastic material that held me in place without noticeably squashing me, and I wasn’t dreaming.

  I wriggled my toes and fingers just to make sure I was functioning. Somehow that made everything seem more real. I looked at the passengers opposite me, all wrapped up and all seemingly deeply asleep. A woman opposite had long hair tied back behind her head, but her dark ponytail was waving around like weeds in a slow-flowing river. How many more extraordinary sights could one simple twenty-first century mind take in during a single day before it went barking mad?

  Rashmi guided the young chrysalis girl past me and took her back to her position, then returned for me.

  ‘We are about to dock on the Mumbai tether, Mr Meckler,’ she said. ‘If you like, I can attach you to the view area while I dock the pod. Once we start to descend, however, I will have to return you to your travel position.’

  ‘Oh, that
would be splendid. I promise I won’t be any trouble.’

  With a graceful brush of her hand over the controls beside my travel position, I felt the bonds release me and I started to float free, still tightly wrapped in my cocoon of elastic material.

  Rashmi gently guided me towards the two windows, much bigger than in the first pod I’d travelled in. She moved me to one side of the window and I felt my elastic bonds grip to the wall. I could see the great glowing ark of the earth’s surface but in the distance something caught my eye.

  ‘That is the Mumbai tether station,’ said Rashmi, pointing towards the object. ‘I will leave you now and return shortly.’

  I wanted to tell Rashmi that I loved her too – the experience was so intense and yet so gentle, no sound, no rumbling or hissing, just a gentle breeze of cool air on my face, and a view out of the window which made me want to stop breathing.

  Rashmi slid in through a door near the view window and then I noticed I could see her take up her position in a small transparent kind of bulb that extended from the main body of the pod. She was possibly controlling the ship or at least observing its progress. I could see her talking and flipping through screens on a console in front of her. I wanted to have a go: the screen looked amazing and I was trying to work out what the brightly lit information was telling her when I noticed the Mumbai tether station approaching with great speed. What at first glance had been a tiny speck was suddenly a looming mass. An ocean liner-sized construction, no, bigger – in fact I’d never seen anything as big that wasn’t built on the ground. This was a huge, complex lump of manmade stuff, not many lights or windows as someone from my era who had seen many science fiction films might have expected. If anything it looked more like an oilrig or a large industrial installation.

  As we got closer I realised we were slowing down. I could just make out the hiss of some kind of propulsion system being activated. I looked down at the earth and could make out the west coast of India below us. On the horizon I could see another landmass I took to be Madagascar, but my grasp of geography is slight – it could have been anywhere. I wasn’t even sure which way up I was or which bit of planet earth I was staring at.