Barbara fingered the picture, wiped the dust away from it and unfurled its edges. The girls looked so sombre. The perfect Mary, with her socks sitting regimentally at her knees, hair glistening in a bob that always retained its shape, and dress freshly ironed, as crisp as the day of its purchase. Next to her, Barbara—box-like, stern, no socks, hair in a ball, staring at Mary. Her timing was off as always, gaping just as the shutter opened.
Barbara moved closer to the lamp. She studied the eyes in the photograph. Mary’s expression shimmered with self-confidence, shooting little sparkles of admiration and self-respect. But what was in Barbara’s eyes? Was it idolatry, awe? Bringing the photograph closer to the light, Barbara saw more in there. Was it jealousy, envy? No, she could not make sense of it. She moved closer to the light and the idea finally came to her: she was staring at her sister with disdain!
Barbara gasped at this notion—a younger sister looking with contempt at that which the angels cherish and exalt?
But there was no denying it; there it was, plain as a pixel, displayed for the entire family, recorded for the ages and for all eyes to see. Memory now had little role to play. The cold evidence was before her eyes, and Barbara’s heart froze at the sight.
She now remembered what the years had buried. She had always grasped new concepts and abstractions too quickly, had always been able to create new worlds and visualize bizarre realities. She had not been an easy fit in a family that worshipped facts, that only believed in things they could touch and visions they could see. Her rebel label had arisen as a result of her questioning given wisdom and drawing on her imagination.
Barbara was the only person who could challenge Mary’s fragile world view, who could see past the glistening facade to the imperfections beyond; the only one who knew it had taken Mary twenty minutes to prepare for that photo. Was this how Mary—so outwardly confident—had developed such an antipathy towards her?
This must be the secret. Barbara turned to her icon of Saraswathi, Goddess of Wisdom, and lit two joss sticks.
She had to change the territory on which the two sisters connected, leaving behind the minefield of facts and data and moving to the grassy meadows of human relations. She realized how she could provoke Mary by forcing her to plumb depths she did not possess and thus bewilder her. She could blindside her sister at whim. Here, in this revelation, lay her power.
Trembling with excitement, Barbara placed a call to the dreaded 505 area code.
“Mary Glass.”
“Hey! It’s Barbara. How’s everything going?”
“Look, I don’t have much time. What do you want?”
Barbara adopted a therapy-soft voice that she knew would throw every filament of her sister’s razor-sharp nervous system on edge. “I understand you were upset at Thanksgiving by my comments on your job.”
“No,” Mary corrected. “Not upset—”
“Well, hurt.”
“Not hurt, Barbie.” Mary’s prim voice was like sandpaper on Barbara’s ears. “Angry. I’m furious.”
“Well, anger’s just a mask for something deeper.” Barbara adopted an even softer tone, which she knew would send flesh crawling down her sister’s back. “Look, I honestly didn’t mean to make you feel ashamed of your job or to demean you in any way. I am sure you find your work very fulfilling. I’m sure you’re good at whatever it is you do.”
“I’m not distressed, Barbie.” Mary’s voice was rising. “I’m furious.”
“I hear what you’re saying. It can be painful to be considered inconsequential, but believe me that wasn’t my intent. To me,” Barbara continued, dispensing a key tenet of Taoist wisdom, “I am you and you are me. There is no separation. We are as one in the great flow of the universe. So,” more brightly, as she had found her water bill, “how’s life generally?”
“Apart from being angry, I’m fine. Have you found a job yet?”
“I already have a job, Mary.” The bill amounted to $500.
“Conflict resolution? That’s a joke. With your temper?”
The secret is not to judge her, Barbara thought. She’s doing the best she can with what she knows. “Well, you might be right. I guess I don’t think I could ever settle for the solitary, I should say the, uh … singular devotion to a job.” She sat back to enjoy the jab.
The line went dead. Barbara thought she had lost signal. Then she heard a wisp of Mary’s breath, doubtless struggling to find a fitting response. The attributes that propelled Mary so far in business—lack of emotion, cold calculation, superficial interactions—did not bode well for her personal life.
Mary started to speak. Too late. Barbara changed the subject. “By the way, I’ve found a new job.”
“Oh, really?” Barbara could hear the tightness around Mary’s mouth. “What?”
Barbara panicked. Why had she said that? Why had she run back to the minefield of facts again? Now she had no option but to lie. “With the United Nations.”
“I don’t believe you. Which agency?”
Barbara scrambled for a reply. Well, all she could do was bring forward the future. “UNEP.”
“The Environment Programme? No way. What’s your role?”
Barbara frantically searched for a name, but could think of only one agency from the back pages of West Africa Magazine. “It’s with the Dam Commission, I think.” She had to get back on safe ground. “Not sure, though. Maybe it’s gorillas.” She paused. “Hmmm.” She paused again, since Type A’s could not bear a dawdling pace. “No, I remember now. It is the Dam Commission. They’re into conflict resolution.”
Mary’s tone changed. “The Dam Commission? Who do you report to?”
Was that concern in Mary’s voice? After all, Barbara would have diplomatic immunity—which would pretty much make her a diplomat. She could not produce a name, so instead she relied on her reputation as a simpleton. “Can’t remember.”
“Oh, come on. You know who it is. Is it Herman Meyer?”
Herman Meyer. Barbara picked up a purple pen and scribbled the name on a corner of the Yellow Pages. She needed to know more, so she played the ingenue. “Don’t know. Sounds like a hot dog. Who’s he?”
“Of course you do. Executive Director. C’mon, who do you report to? What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you realize that with TransAqua’s help you could be one of the most important people over there?”
“No. But I do realize that with my help you could be one of the most important people at TransAqua.” Barbara said this in a carefree, indifferent tone that she knew would send Mary into one of her legendary rages.
“Hope they don’t fire you,” Mary snapped.
“No one gets fired in the UN. You just get reassigned, that’s all.” Barbara yawned slightly.
“I’ve called Mary and apologized,” she announced to her father.
“What took so long?” Father asked.
“Oh, we talked about—”
“Well done, darling. Now, apologize to your mother.”
He handed the phone over.
“Well?”
Barbara could tell her mother was about to explode. “Sorry to make you so angry. I didn’t realize how furious you were getting.” Barbara adopted her therapy voice.
“I’m not angry.” Her mother tried to keep her voice level. “I’m upset.”
“Of course you are. Mom, you shouldn’t feel embarrassed about expressing your emotions—even rage.”
“Rage? What the hell do you mean, rage?” Catherine’s voice cracked. “I was in tears.”
Father came on the phone. “What have you done now?”
“Well, if you would just listen, you’d hear the great news. I’ve got a new job with the UN.”
“Really? What division?”
“UNEP.”
“UNEP?” He sounded relieved and disappointed at the same time. These dualities were his special gift. “Oh well, we can’t all start with UNICEF, can we? Well done, darling. How did you get it?”
“I just ap
plied. They need people with conflict manage—”
“Do you get any benefits?”
Mother picked up the other phone: “Is it full-time?”
“It’s in the UN. Full benefits.”
“Oh, finally!” Father expelled a breath he had been holding for twenty years. “What a relief! It’s with UNEP, my dear.” He opted for enthusiasm this time. Brave enthusiasm.
“UNEP?” Mother asked. “What’s UNEP? Why didn’t you apply to UNICEF?”
“It’s the Environment Programme. I have to leave for Kenya in the next month or so.”
“Kenya!” they both exclaimed simultaneously. “How exotic!”
Once she had put down the phone, Barbara went to her window. She decided to sit in appreciation and awe of winter’s amethyst sunset. After a few minutes, she got bored, grabbed her Norwegian cloak and rushed through the stripped trees and sullen landscape of mid-January to the local library. On entering, she put her hands together in a Namaste greeting and bowed to the librarian, who shuddered down into his patterned sweater. She headed directly to the travel section and rifled through books on Kenya and Nigeria.
After plopping into a chair and wedging herself into its soft arms, she jotted down a number of safari companies in Kenya, then turned her attention to Nigeria. Her square fingers flicked through the pages of a coffee table book until she found a few pictures of the Tuareg. Stunning, she thought. Amazing turbans. She pictured herself in the Sahara, wearing an elaborate indigo turban, surrounded by camels with saddles of carved leather, as the endless sands stretched before her.
She flicked the page. Here, even greater bounty lay, as she scrutinized the jewellery worn by the women. She laid her head back on the chair, imagining herself in a tent with multicoloured carpets, wearing a host of bangles and necklaces, drinking yak milk, sorting bombs into different piles.
She caught the eye of a fellow reader and smiled. “Travelling to the Sahara,” she said in a loud whisper that could be heard throughout the entire reference section.
As winter’s chill deepened, Dahlia finally called. “Success, my dear!”
“UNEP answered? I knew it. I just had this feeling about Kenya. I have some psychic ability, you know. People have often mentioned—”
“Kenya?” Almost an octave for one word. “No, not Kenya. Ottawa!”
“Ottawa?” Stupefied. “Ottawa in Norway? Not UNEP?” Barbara panicked. No sarongs needed in Norway.
“Ottawa’s in Canada, and that’s where Drop of Life is. It’s a much more radical group than the UN. You’d be bored. No,” Dahlia was firm, “this is most definitely the group for you.”
Barbara panicked. “And Kenya?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t even try. The UN takes over a year to hire anyone.”
Barbara’s heart was thumping. She wondered how she would get herself out of this mess. She could not admit her failure to her parents, nor could she let her noxious sister realize she had never even been in contact with UNEP. No, she would simply have to pretend she was leaving for Kenya to embark on a fact-finding mission. This would put her out of contact until she could sort this mess out.
Barbara prepared for her interview with Ottawa. She revised her strongest and weakest points. She decided not to mention punctuality as a weakness. In the end, she plumped for timidity. “My weakest point? I lack assertiveness, but I have taken classes to overcome this.”
After protracted interviews over two months, Barbara was accepted at Drop of Life. Arrangements were made to transfer her to Ottawa at the beginning of March. She looked up Ottawa on the Internet—six months of winter, with temperatures well under freezing. This was followed by three months of summer with temperatures over 100°F. Even Ulan Bator sounded more appealing: at least she could live in a yurt.
To honour a promise made in a barn under freezing conditions, Barbara knew she had to get Astro to come with her. She addressed him as gently as she could as they walked into the yoga studio.
“Astro, I’ve been accepted by Drop of Life in Ottawa.”
He stopped in his tracks in front of a woman with unshaven armpits who was lying down, stretching her back. He turned to look at Barbara, pupils dilating through bright yellow irises until it seemed his eyes had turned brown. He stood fixed in position, not moving, his face expressing no particular emotion, just contemplating, perhaps.
Or panicking.
“What?” he asked, a tremble in his voice. “I thought you weren’t going to leave me. You promised!”
“Of course I’m not leaving you.” Barbara walked towards the centre of the studio. “I love you.” The yoga students opened their eyes and looked up at the pair. “Why don’t you come with me?”
“How?” Astro’s bottom lip began to quiver. “I don’t have a work permit.”
Barbara picked up a purple yoga mat. “I’ll support you,” she called over a woman in lotus pose. She walked to the front and unfurled her mat.
He started sobbing violently. “Leave home?”
A large woman in shorts and dangly earrings looked up at him and then back at Barbara, concern etched on her face.
“Don’t worry, Astro.” Barbara hopped past a couple of yoga students in relaxation pose, both with eyes wide open, and she encased him in a hug. “We’ll work something out. It’s not that far.”
“No!” A strangled sob. “You’re leaving me. I can’t believe it.”
Barbara could do nothing to help; it appeared as if the blue fingers of panic had grabbed his soul. He fell to the floor, sobbing, barely able to breathe, next to a woman in a pink leotard and matching headband.
Dayisha and the other students looked on as he wailed. Even Barbara knew it would be quite heartless to ask for silence at a moment like this.
ELEVEN
8-011-234
John Sinclair sat in his office, squeezing a stress ball, his mind flooded with images of Mary. Mary being pushed off the top floor of TransAqua, her body falling in fractured reflections past the building’s mirrored panes. Something had to be done to put her in her place.
He hit speed-dial. “Hey, Beano!”
“Johnno! If you want to ask me for a date, just come right out with it!”
“Too shy. That’s my problem. I prefer stalking. Anyhoos, just wanted to be the first to congratulate you. The Big Cheese has agreed to hire you. As usual, he’s made sure duties overlap—you’re dangerously close to Glass’s region in the sub-Sahara because, as you know, sands do tend to shift.” An easy chuckle slid out. “Got time to come to my place, as they say?’
“I’ll check my little black book. Hmm. Gotta bit of time right now. I could slip you in.” A snort.
Sinclair could hear the dimples. He stood up to survey the landscape he detested, bleak scrubland hostile to human dominance, now plastered with snow. Downwards, towards the city, dreary, desiccated bushes poked through the cluster of adobe houses. The buildings’ dried clay architecture only reminded him of the region’s lack of moisture—his head swirled with dreams of an oceanside villa, the reassuring lull of waves on the shore.
Beano vaulted into the office as if his sneakers had coils in them. He looked like he had just come off a skateboard—younger by the day.
Sinclair affected an avuncular tone. “This is the big one. So don’t underestimate Glass. Behind that bland facade lurk hormones from the very depths of hell.”
“Really? Could hell be that drab?”
“Playing insipid puts her under the radar—great strategy. And she’s placed the mantle on a king of her choosing, in whatever they wear over there.”
“I think it’s leopard skin, John.”
Why were the second generation of the world’s achievers always the idiots? Two worries surfaced simultaneously in Sinclair’s mind: that they had kept Beano back in Sewage for a reason, and that he would have to wipe up after the boy. “A mediocrity like her has helped oust an entire government,” he explained.
“Yeah, but I hear they’re all but illiterate.”
“Well, let’s put it this way, Beano, someone apparently downright incompetent has persuaded TransAqua to part with unheard-of levels of kickbacks.”
Beano scraped a flop of hair and held it in place, thinking. “That’s not very savvy. She’ll have to keep paying. Does she know that?” He looked neat, yet he wore jeans and no tie. What was Beano’s secret? His uncommonly straight legs? His artless protegé continued. “Is it sex appeal? I mean, she’s got none, right? Am I mistaken? Is the great ship Mary, uh, docking onto Cheeseman, so to speak?”
Sinclair perched on his desk and gestured for Beano to sit. “Listen, she’s got the Niger River project all but signed. It’s the most powerful country in Africa! It’s got a consumer base of almost 180 million.”
“Hey, they’re in desperate need. All she’d have to do is remember their phone number. How difficult is that?”
Displeased, Sinclair cleared his throat. “These deals are more difficult than you might appreciate. Despite her hysteria-induced achievements, Beano, you may have noticed that Mary has yet to meet Kolo. You have to be in this game for a while to realize something’s up. Two months since she first contacted him, one month since he became president. It never takes that long to arrange a meeting that his presidency depends on. Is she going to go straight from phone calls to signing a contract?”
“Can the guy write?”
With escalating irritation, Sinclair skidded into sarcasm. “An X or a thumbprint would still meet requirements.” This elicited some juvenile tittering, and Sinclair realized Beano had been kidding. Perhaps joking all along? “I don’t know why Cheeseman’s swallowing it. Must have other things on his mind.”
“What d’you think’s going wrong?”
“Competitive offers from the French. No backup from his own government. Staving off another coup. Who knows?”
“I don’t know if it’ll help,” Beano offered a shrug of impotence, “but I can ring Dad and see how the land lies. He’d tell you the best people to deal with.”
Doing Dangerously Well Page 12