White Queen

by Gwyneth Jones

  G W Y N E T H J O N E S

  This is a work of fiction. The city, characters and events to be found in these pages are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual places or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  WHITE QUEEN

  Print copyright © 1991 by Gwyneth Jones

  Digital copyright © 2010 by Gwyneth Jones

  Digital ISBN: 978-1-933500-68-3

  All rights reserved.

  First published in 1991 by Victor Gollancz, London UK

  First published in the USA by Tor (Tom Doherty Associates) New York, 1993

  Cover Illustration courtesy Mike Perkowitz © 2003

  http://perkowitz.net/

  Gerardville, West Africa—June 2038

  1

  BIRD DOG

  i

  Johnny could never sleep in Africa. Sometimes he would force himself to be sensible about it: get up and wander the streets. Then he would find plenty of other people around, dancing to muted Natural in half-empty canvas shebeens, walking dreamily in the bluey gloom, sitting chatting on the fissured pavements. He would step over bodies of the fallen, sometimes catching the sigh of their peaceful breath. Their casual poses reminded him of Bella, who at eighteen months old couldn’t understand that you had to go to the place assigned for rest before you could lie down. There were no improper places in her world. She was never away from home.

  At last this particular stupid night ended. The pattern of his mosquito net printed itself on the clammy dawn. He put Robert in his pocket, left his room to the native roaches and went out into the old city, to his customary breakfast bar. It was the rainy season—not that there was much difference here, even nowadays, between rainy and slightly less rainy. The lumpy clay fragments of the pagan palace glistened behind their crumbling UNESCO barricades. Across the road the Islamic Palace, which still housed some of the country’s administration, presented a high blank wall to the world. The New City, over the river, was a misty vision of white towers and greenery.

  Johnny crossed the railway line (defunct) and bought a faxed American paper from his usual copyshop. As always a foolish soreness prevented him from buying his own paper in this crude form. In the ex-goods yard a market came and went according to the local calendar (except when a lucky trading day fell on a Friday). Alongside its site stood a row of eating booths.

  He liked Mama’s because the clientele was sufficiently mixed that he didn’t stand out more than he must. It was a ramshackle construction of canvas and scaffolding, with a dirt floor, but the presence of Mama, a big woman with an air of sleepy authority and a taste for rich and complex headties, gave the place a touch of class.

  Out in the open a party of revelers in tired evening clothes were finishing their night with coffee and brandies. He sat down inside with his paper, nodding shyly at his fellow breakfasters. Right under the counter three children in painful school uniform sat gobbling breakfast, eyes glued to an ancient cartoon show. The presence of the tv depressed Johnny, but he eyed the kids hungrily: children and home!

  Dominic, who was eight, and liked soccer but preferred cricket, brought cornmeal porridge and chopped banana: and a tumbler of “sour coffee” in a battered metal holder.

  “Oye! Mr. American. Eat well.”

  Heads turned as the foreigner’s identity was announced. The city was small, gossip endemic.

  Johnny tried to control his piteous cringing. One of the all-night revelers looked up and turned out to be David Mungea, Johnny’s best friend in the city. He came strolling over, lanky and graceful.

  “Your good news continues!”

  He was pointing to the paper, which was full of garbled accounts of the revolution that was going on in the USA. Asabaland had had a Marxist regime for a few years, and for some weird reason they were sentimental about it. Notwithstanding a cheerfully brutal open economy, and one of the worst energy audits on the continent, they were all socialists here.

  Johnny shrugged.

  David, Minister of Transport and indefatigable party-animal, was actually past seventy, and old enough to remember what exile meant. “Only a fool would not be cynical. But you’ll be cleared, Johnny. You’ll see your family again.”

  “Shit, I don’t know. Fucking revolutions: they never do any good.”

  His hope was painful today, he didn’t want it touched.

  David tactfully changed the subject, nodding at the other foreigner across the table. “This is what makes me love my city, Johnny. Here we are, Americans, Africans, lecturers, truck drivers, sitting down to breakfast together. This is the way life should be—diversity and harmony!”

  It was the girl.

  She had been following Johnny about for a long time, almost since the day he arrived. He still knew nothing about her. Johnny had two reasons for being in Africa. In the first place, he might as well be here as anywhere. The other reason was too absurd to mention: but just for fun, it could be that he was onto something, a story; and that something might involve this girl.

  She seemed to agree with David. She then seemed to return to a warm conversation with the woman beside her—one of the lecturers, by the formal clothes. Johnny wondered how he hadn’t noticed her when he sat down. He stared: trying to see, for once, what actually happened. She did not speak. No words came out of her mouth. He was damned sure of it.

  “I think she likes you,” said David. “Lucky man. We were just saying, over there, that’s a very attractive young lady.” He considered. “Not my type. I prefer to wrestle only with someone who could break my arm if she felt so inclined. But the personality, mmm. You know her?”

  “Nobody does,” said Johnny.

  “Aha! I knew you were interested. That’s a good sign.” He lifted Johnny’s hand and gripped it. “Be happy, my friend. Believe that good things do happen. Remember, I’m praying for you.”

  Johnny left soon after the girl, tipping the Tribune into a recycle bin as he walked out. Dominic took the American’s bowl and tumbler in his gloved hands and carried them to a skinny young man who was hunkered down in the back doing the special washing up. He returned with a bucket of hot water and bleach, and sluiced Johnny’s place.

  Johnny wondered if the Minister’s prayers would do him any good. David claimed that he tried to be a decent Christian. But that gorgeous heavy weight jazz singer with him at Mama’s was not his wife. And the country was littered with young roads blighted at birth by some Mungea connection’s greater need for a couple of new Jaguar XL tilt-rotors. He followed the girl to a small supermarket and watched her buy a pack of salted roast broad beans, and a big carton of sanitary towels. He asked about her at the check-out. The local English was heavily contaminated with French, besides Arabic and other untraceable African influences. Johnny managed to get by.

  The young woman beamed. “Ah, l’Americane! La jolie-laide! So much a nice girl.” But she knew nothing.

  The mystery girl was tall and slight, with a touch of coltish awkwardness as if she hadn’t finished growing. She had dark hair, and a dusky olive complexion that didn’t absolutely rule out many nationalities. He was personally gut-sure that she was not from America, North or South. In crude terms, the mystery had only two elements. There was the way this other foreigner followed Johnny around but was not staying anywhere and could not be cornered. And there was the bad harelip which left her almost no nose and a split upper lip. The deformity explained her reluctance to speak: but was apparently invisible to everyone but Johnny. The pretty American!

  She wasn’t in sight outside.

  He walked on to the yard gate of a plastics smeltery, all quiet now until the Industrial Power-Hours began. No more hotels or shops this way. She was gone. It didn’t matter. His interest was only a half-conscious, half-deluded fantasy, latest move
in the lonely game he was using to while away his exile. Good things do happen, thought Johnny. He felt a rush of gratitude to whoever had brought up this young woman: giving her such sunny confidence, such an affirmed self image that her deformity meant nothing to her or to anyone who met her.

  Because of the great river that formed its northern boundary, landlocked Asabaland had never been isolated. Without gold or oil, this area had been a significant continental trading mart since before the pyramids were raised. The modern country was a palimpsest of sub-Saharan history. Since the end of “pagan times,” early Thirteenth Century by Christian reckoning, it had been Islamic, then Portuguese, then “pagan” again: then, for a formative period, French, then briefly German; then finally British. After the British it had suffered a bloody right wing dictatorship, followed by mad Marxists and economic collapse. In the mid to late Twentieth century it had lost fifty percent of its forest cover, and had a population explosion. Between 1985 and 2010 it lost another thirty percent forest, and population was hacked back by unprecedented disease and famine; but losses never approached a return to the pre-industrial numbers. At present Asaba had a small war, and a desertification problem, in the north. But basically it was busy creating wealth, by supposedly benign means.

  The capital, Gerardville, was called “Fo,” a Fulani term of disputed etymology, by everyone and in every location except on the road signs to the airport. It lay in the foothills of the highland, removed from invasion routes. No one here seemed to worry much about the desert, or the tribal dispute that dated back to where the Treaty of Versailles had meddled with an ancient frontier. Asaba’s ambition—David said—was to be a leafy suburb of the global village. Fo saw itself as already there. It was a strange image for Johnny, far removed from the Africa that people wanted to buy at home. He kept wondering—nerves twitching for the amputated limb of that skill he would never use again—exactly how he’d angle this version to get it through the tube.

  Johnny crossed into New City over the small local river, by the Gromyko bridge that carried Granderoute Macmillan, the road south. He continued on foot through Fo’s morning clangor of trams, oxcarts, pushbikes, gas-hog taxis and humming leclecs. He was reticent about using public transport. He was morally certain he could do his neighbors no harm, but that would not make the experience of being spotted and thrown off any more pleasant.

  You had to walk to the American Embassy anyway if you didn’t arrive by chopper. The folks hadn’t encouraged casual visitors, even before things at home reached crisis point. You couldn’t get a pushbike up the drive now. Grass grown and choked with rampant African weeds, the approach to the eagle-crowned gateway was a green tunnel leading to some enchanted land, the kingdom of sleeping beauty.

  The complex was a shock after Fo: the big white dishes mooning out from the roofs, the meager human accommodation dominated by that crown. Even now that most world business was done by undersea cable, the US government stuck faithfully by the old icons. Johnny felt the reversed balance and swallowed the bad message it had for him personally. This was still a homecoming.

  “I’m sorry I had to have the gate let you in. We’ve paid off the local staff, you know: austerity measures.”

  The Ambassador was a courteous Mid-Westerner called Joseph (Josh) Mint. Johnny didn’t know what crosswired instructions Mint was getting, from the Presidential Retreat and from the new occupiers of the White House, but the man managed to stay remarkably calm.

  Johnny remained standing. He must touch nothing in this room. The soles of his shoes were a problem the ambassador stretched a point to ignore. The apology about the gate was part of their routine: though it was true that Josh was now alone here.

  “Josh, I want to talk to you.”

  “About what, Johnny? Fire away, I’ve plenty of time.”

  About what! Disingenuous bastard. Johnny controlled his fury. “I read in the paper about Barr and Matthias and Ledern. Josh, is there any hope?”

  Mint looked reproachful. “Johnny, the leaders of this interregnum situation have to break up the racial appearance of their coup. Of course they’re going to rehabilitate White Liberal “political criminals” as far as they can. But your case can’t be affected. You know that.”

  “I was framed,” said Johnny.

  He wondered how Mint managed not to laugh in his face. It’s amazing how naive an acute, sophisticated journalist can become, when the situation is personal. The toppled regime could be accused of anything but this: it could not be admitted that any agency had ever had the power to subvert the National Institute of Health. The Big Machinery, Our God-Given Systems, must be forever above suspicion. He felt the truth of it, written in his own stupidest convictions. He looked at the desk, where his file lay open on the integral screen. John Francis Guglioli, aged twenty six, twelve years younger than the century. He had always hated the name Francis—Frank, an old guy with a paunch and grey bristles, fond of baseball, sitting in front of a tv wall in his undershirt…. It was good of Mint to leave the page open like that, but it was a painful reminder that Johnny Guglioli had once been an insider, someone allowed behind the screens and into the critical files.

  He had the dizzying feeling that he wasn’t in this room. He was looking at Mint through a screen. If he reached out, if they gripped hands (which Kent would not, for all his courtesy), it would still be unreal. There was no contact, none possible.

  Joseph Mint studied his visitor, a slightly gangling young man with straight hair brushed back into a neat braid. Shabby but decent clothing: an open, childishly rounded face that showed no sign yet of ill health. He was sincerely sorry for the boy.

  “You were a foreign correspondent, Johnny. Traveling, lonely, sometimes starved of information: maybe experimenting in foolish ways. Be honest. You cannot know for certain that you’re clean. But suppose you are.” He paused. “I’m not a Socialist. I reckon it’s a compliment to these people that I’m not afraid to say that. If they win fair elections, soon, I’ll accept them the way I would any elected administration, that’s my best offer—”

  Good for Josh. This room was livespace, of course, like any public office. Not much chance that anyone was grabbing, but it’s always worth turning your good profile.

  “But you are one of them, Johnny. It looks like your side gets to win this time. If it helps, think of yourself as a human sacrifice. In a great cause.”

  Johnny nodded dully. His allegiance was complicated, but who cared.

  Mint pushed a couple of envelopes across the screen. One contained Johnny’s regular pocket-money, in Asa pound notes. The other was from home. Since Johnny didn’t have a phone number now, the only communications he received came by freight.

  “Mail for you. There’s a picture of your little girl. She’s very sweet.”

  “Thanks.”

  The Ambassador pondered. Johnny, feeling undismissed, could not control a throb of hope.

  “One thing puzzles me Johnny. What exactly are you doing in Africa: in Gerardville? You’ve been here, what, three months?”

  “No reason. It’s as good as anywhere.”

  “Nothing political, I hope?”

  Johnny laughed. “Not in the least.”

  “Good. Goodbye, Johnny. Thanks for dropping in.”

  When Johnny and Izabel decided to get married, Johnny took her out into the open (real wilderness, no theme park), and told her that he was a trade union activist. They were both nineteen. He’d been the pampered property of a media corporation for years, talent-scouted out of high school. He was an eejay, an engineer-journalist: Johnny Guglioli with his little backpack of fantastic equipment, one of the few actual human beings who brought the World Outside home to the USA. He loved his work, but he wanted artistic control. He believed, naively, that in fighting for the right to report honestly he was doing all anyone in the bleeding crowd could ask.

  Izzy had always been scared. But she surely hadn’t turned him in. Probably he would never know who had done that. The puzzle
wasn’t high on his agenda. He didn’t blame her for the divorce. He didn’t even miss her, not in any way that made sense. He missed their child, Bella, horribly. And without hope, because the baby who had been the light of his life didn’t exist anymore. It was two years now. Two years.

  It would have been better for Johnny if the revolution hadn’t happened. At least then he’d still be a political exile, able to dream of the day when all injustice would be undone.

  He tossed his letters unread. He nearly chucked the picture too, but some stubborn instinct of self-preservation prevented him. He walked about under the Gromyko bridge, social center for the dregs of Fo society. It was raining hard now; the New City and the old had both vanished.

  He studied the down and outs, and took grim warning.

  Rationally he knew that he would never see his baby again. But he also knew that he had done nothing wrong. Something deeper than all his pain told him to hang on. The innocent are not punished forever. Everything would be restored to him, somehow. Until that day he must use whatever means necessary to survive intact: to remain Johnny Guglioli.

  ii

  Outside some workshops a fight had broken out. The two principals and their supporters screamed at each other and scuffled under the streaming rain. Meanwhile a caterpillar truck loaded with goods was stuck in a pothole. It struggled, signaling doggedly for human assistance. The trader finally pointed this out, his round, gaudily wrapped body shaking with indignation. The gawky driver broke off the quarrel to swing himself into the cab and cut out the alarm. Both of them callously returned to the fray.

  No one was taking any notice of the explorers. They weren’t behaving any differently from the local bystanders—who were standing around, nervous and excited. But they were convinced that STRANGER was written all over them. The explorers’ captain was just about holding them together, when the truckers suddenly decided to use the struggling machine as an excuse to back down. They converged on it, shoving and cursing. The driver gunned the engine, eliciting dreadful cries. Everyone felt awful: but the captain, that person whose aspect is always tenderness for the helpless, couldn’t bear it any longer.