Our Memory Like Dust

by Gavin Chait

  ‘Were we watching this?’ asks Uberti.

  Pazanov shrugs. ‘We watch everything, we watch nothing.’

  ‘He distracted us?’

  Pazanov shrugs again.

  ‘What’s happening there now?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing at all. It’s guarded but nothing.’

  Pazanov sounds frustrated. Uberti seems rooted to his chair.

  ‘He must have permits for whatever he’s doing?’

  ‘I checked. He has permits to receive and distribute electricity. Nothing we don’t know. I spoke to López in the Ministry. He doesn’t care how the electricity is coming in. He has a contract and when it arrives, he’ll take it.’

  ‘Are they still expecting it this summer?’

  ‘He didn’t say. He doesn’t seem to care.’

  ‘Can we close it down?’

  ‘Close what down? It isn’t doing anything. Nobody cares that it’s there.’

  Pazanov can feel the brooding tension knotting up the room. Something he has felt for months. Something nameless. Something he still cannot put a hand to.

  ‘Look,’ says Uberti, his voice a hoarse squawk.

  On the Russia Today broadcast, Simon Adaro is walking stiffly out of the Achenia offices in London. He is holding firmly on to the hand of a young woman. The image shifts abruptly back to the studio where a newsreader is trying to look as if she knows what she should be doing. Her make-up is not complete, and a wisp of tissue paper sticks out from the back of her collar. She keeps looking over the camera shoulder to frantic gestures behind. Her mouth opens and closes, but she is mute.

  Uberti turns up the sound.

  A continuous stream of text runs across the footage, ‘BREAKING NEWS’.

  ‘– solar satellite will supply five hundred gigawatts to the European grid –’

  The image cuts to a view above the Earth, showing a series of strange contraptions unfolding endlessly into space. Light from the sun reflected, concentrated into vast arrays and pouring down through a collector to the Earth below.

  ‘– was launched into orbit and assembly completed two weeks ago –’

  Pazanov silently takes his console and slips out of the office, leaving behind the howling fury as Uberti begins to smash his furniture into tiny pieces once more.

  Beneath the cracking wood and tearing fabric, he hears Adaro speak.

  ‘– how do you wish to be remembered? –’

  He hesitates, touching the wall, closes his eyes, seeing Natalya’s face and smile, and walks away from Uberti’s outrage.

  34

  Spring is nudging its way out of the winter darkness, and Shakiso can smell the damp warmth of the forest from across the road in Großer Tiergarten. Tuft is standing at her side staring mournfully out at flocks of pigeons flying past.

  She looks tired, with a new weight to her presence, more rooted.

  Smiling, her face pale, pushing back her fringe, ‘You should go inside, Frieda. It will be here soon, and I’m sure the board will want to get started again.’

  ‘Nonsense, Ms Collard. It is the least I can do,’ standing very formal in her long grey coat. Frieda does not touch her, and Shakiso is grateful for the space, worried she will lose the control she is struggling to maintain.

  The remaining Climate board members are downstairs outside the meeting room, drinking coffee and eating a selection of peculiarly dry biscuits. Shakiso imagines the occasional cough, and apology, as elegantly dressed men and women spray each other with crumbs.

  They were supposed to meet all day, a gathering she has delayed almost beyond the point of good manners. Trying to cram a lifetime of intimacy and shared experience with Simon into only a few months. But Shakiso has completed her part, sharing the results of their work in North Africa and her plans for bringing Moussa Konte into her executive team, securing his role as her successor.

  A dot on the horizon and the Achenian helicopter begins its descent towards them.

  ‘I did what you wanted, Frieda,’ she says, her lip trembling. ‘You know that’s what I do for you. And most of this has been pure luck on my part. Ansar Dine. All those new cities. New technologies. And when it went wrong, Moussa was there to fix my mistakes. All I’ve done is stand in the right place and hand out prizes.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Frieda says, nodding, ‘that is both the right thing and the difficult thing to do,’ uncharacteristically taking her arm. ‘I understand your pain, your need to be with Mr Adaro, but please consider my offer. We need people with your experience to help us in Europe now. Take as much time as you need. We will be here when you are ready.’

  ‘Simon . . . after . . .’ She brushes away tears. ‘Thank you, Frieda. You’ll always be my favourite international tycoon.’

  The helicopter lands, stirring up grit and moss from the roof. With a tight smile and backwards glance to Frieda, Shakiso steers Tuft inside, and the door slides closed behind her. The caracal whines and paces inside the cabin. She pulls her close, feeling her warmth.

  She presses the return button, and the helicopter lifts, turning towards Budapester Straße. Below her, Frieda waves and nods, then heads inside.

  Shakiso leans back, Tuft sprawled across her lap, as the helicopter sets its course to London. She watches the landscape passing beneath her, imagining the millions of lives oblivious to hers. Each with their own joys and tragedies.

  ‘Oligodendroglioma,’ she says to herself. Tiny cancer cells diffused throughout Simon’s brain. Growing slowly over nineteen years. Each day tightening their grip.

  ‘Cancer’s a flesh wound,’ she had said, willing it away, pleading for it to be untrue.

  He had shook his head. ‘Untreatable.’ He had hoped to survive it indefinitely, but he can feel himself slipping. Not for him to die in defiance in some distant battle with the sound of trumpets in his ears, but in silence at home in bed.

  ‘What has this all been for?’ she remembers asking.

  ‘You already know the answer to that. You’re living it. Because even doing the honourable thing can be immensely entertaining,’ his smile, and his eyes the bright blue of an endless childhood.

  It is quiet in the helicopter cabin, the newsfeed on the display console mute. She watches the cascade of stories, her mind blurring. Looking through the canopy, she imagines a beast-like face in the sky, its eyes searching hers, and falls into an exhausted doze.

  In her dream, she sees the four children, older than she remembers, toddlers now.

  -

  It is still cold this early in the spring, and wind and rain flutter at their padded jackets. They are thickly bundled under scarves and fleecy beanies, and their mother looks concerned and harassed as she secures them. Their arms stick out stiffly, and passers-by on the crowded platform offer sympathetic smiles at her managing on her own.

  She is on her knees, addressing each child in turn until she is satisfied.

  ‘You wait where I told you until I call,’ she says as she stands, readjusting her scarf. ‘I will go up to the restaurant and see that all is ready.’

  Four little heads nod, their eyes dark and serious. They totter off in different directions, tiny round balls wandering between the legs of the taller figures staring out from the railings. Other equally wrapped toddlers wave, and they wave back.

  The mother looks at the ticket in her hand and, with a last worried glance after the children, makes her way over to the elevators.

  ‘Madame,’ says the attendant. ‘Use the machine over there to frank your ticket.’

  As she waits at the doors, she can see one of the children standing within the iron lattice of the north leg, looking up towards the top of the tower. A wedding party celebrates in the background. The bride brave in a thin white dress still clutching her corsage, and the air filled with laughter, the tinkle of champagne glasses and softly falling orange and red confetti.

  The elevator arrives, and she squeezes her way in amongst the chatter of other visitors. Appropriate exclamations of awe a
s the carriage rises and gives everyone a view of the city through its glass walls.

  The doors open on the second level, and there is a moment of hesitation. There are gendarmes standing outside the doors wearing flak jackets and looking severe.

  ‘Please, if you could show some identity,’ says one at the door. ‘A routine precaution.’

  Each person shows what they have. A dark-skinned émigré is brusquely taken aside, held between two armed soldiers. He looks flushed and defensive.

  ‘Ah, Madame, you are French,’ says the gendarme inspecting the mother’s passport.

  ‘Oui, monsieur,’ she says. ‘I am going to the restaurant.’

  ‘Well, Madame,’ he says, smiling at her intently, his hand a little too close to her breast, ‘I wish you bon appetit.’

  She nods nervously and walks quickly towards the restaurant, its name carved in italics above the door: Bastiat.

  ‘Bonjour, Madame,’ says the formally dressed concierge, holding a small console in her hands. ‘Do you have a reservation?’

  The woman still appears flustered. ‘No,’ she says. ‘I am meeting someone, and I think they are already here.’

  ‘Please, Madame,’ says the concierge kindly. ‘You are welcome,’ and gesturing for her to enter the restaurant.

  The woman offers a nervous smile and walks deliberately, as if forcing every step. In the centre of the restaurant crowded with breakfast diners, most of whom are staring out at the view of the city, she stops and looks around her.

  Her hand trembles only slightly as she touches her ear to make a call.

  ‘My children,’ she says, her throat swollen. ‘We go to join our fathers.’

  Her scream, when it comes, is shattered with despair and anguish.

  ‘For our fathers!’

  Her face wet with tears.

  Near the elevators, the gendarmes are already turning to run.

  They are too late.

  Five simultaneous explosions.

  Four small bodies evaporate within the wrought-iron legs.

  The iron structure tears apart.

  The Eiffel Tower falls.

  In the air, the screams of the dying and softly drifting orange and red confetti.

  -

  Shakiso wakes to a fading face in the sky, its eyes the depths of sorrow, and silent flames on the console screen. A journalist standing before the carnage, weeping as he attempts to explain, his anguish muted.

  She turns up the volume.

  ‘– two thousand people trapped. Behind me you can see – oh, god, no—’ The camera shifts to the edge of the first level where a man is climbing over the railings, his clothes on fire. He jumps.

  Shakiso mutes the console and, shivering, hugs Tuft to her chest.

  As the helicopter crosses into English protected airspace, two jet-powered drones draw near. They circle her until the craft is verified. Shakiso’s ear vibrates.

  ‘Hollis,’ she says, grateful for human contact.

  ‘Darling Shak,’ he says. ‘We’ve just heard the news. Best we keep this from Simon.’

  She nods quietly, and he feels the gesture in his ear implant.

  ‘English airspace was closed a few minutes ago,’ he continues. ‘I managed to get permission for you to come in but expect to have an escort as you get to London.

  ‘Shak,’ he says. ‘I’m so relieved you can be here. I don’t think he has long.’

  Two drones settle in on either side of the helicopter as it reaches the London periphery. Glaring reflections as they pass over Wet London, the reclamation works pushing steadily down the Thames, and towards the familiar city skyline.

  On the console screen, a familiar haunted face. As if watching someone else do so, she unmutes the sound.

  ‘– Michèle Tillisi, whose husband died in Benghazi over two years ago, is suspected as having –’

  Feeling ice settle on her heart, turning off the console, pushing her face into Tuft’s fur.

  They bank, and the helicopter lands gently on top of Achenia’s building. The drones circle and then return to their duties.

  She can hear muffled conversation as she walks through Hollis’s apartment to the guest room, Tuft silently at her heels.

  ‘– been a fantastic ride, Si –’ Adrià and Hollis smiling as she walks in, Simon looking thrilled, Sam – with his back to her – not responding at all as his recorded hologram continues speaking ‘– promised you a lovely spot with a great view. See you soon, big brother,’ his voice ragged with static.

  Shakiso walks around Sam and kneels beside Simon. His hand, blue veins visible through his transparent skin, uncertain and trembling as it seeks hers.

  ‘My darling,’ she says, filled with anguish at seeing him so frail.

  ‘My –’ stops, breathes in shallow gasps, ‘– love,’ smiling.

  The hologram transmission ends, Sam standing sadly, his hands opening and closing, seeking connection. Awareness of how much he wants to be there, how great the distance.

  Hollis touches her on the shoulder. ‘We’re drinking lots of tea,’ he says. ‘Would you like some?’

  ‘Tea –’ says Simon, laboured, ‘– is good.’

  She smiles. ‘Thank you, please.’

  One of the nursing team comes into the room, quietly replaces one of the fluid-filled pouches and leaves.

  Shakiso bites her lip, refusing to see the machines and pipes surrounding him. His blood draining out of his side into a homeostasis perfusor and returning again, his head in a cloth cap covered in sensors.

  ‘How’s – the – ass?’ he asks.

  Nodding, her face pale, ‘Still got it,’ smiling, willing the moments to last.

  He sleeps. Hours pass, too few. The sun begins to settle orange and red over the Thames. The light flowing warm and comforting across his face.

  He squeezes her hand.

  She leans towards him, her ear against his lips.

  ‘Have – I – told – you?’ he asks.

  And closes his eyes for the last time.

  III

  FROM FLAME MORE THAN HEAT

  Our journey has been one of extraordinary hardship. In time, that difficulty will change. It will not be long before others come, and they will not wait on our invitation. They will be adventurers, families seeking new lives far from conflict, ordinary people. Remember how today feels – your excitement, your fear and anticipation – and welcome our future arrivals as you would wish to have been welcomed. Let them come in peace, for all our hopes and dreams.

  Samara Adaro, Socotra Mars base, March 2056, founding speech to colonists on the first day after planet fall

  Too many people are impatient. We must not be so. Even if it is to take more than my lifetime, eventually we will cross. Your children, or their children, will live in a place of freedom and safety. What else are we to do?

  Farai Ramuelo, on a beach near El Haouaria in Tunisia, 2058, comments to a meeting of elders after the sinking of their boat prior to launch

  You should see it, the way the fine red sand flows across the desert. We explored ten days from the base and watched two serpent dust devils cross us on the horizon. That’s why I’m here, Dad. To see what has never been seen, to be part of something new, to find out what I can be. It was never about leaving. It was always about going towards.

  Edith Teriān, agronomist at Socotra Mars base, July 2061, personal correspondence to her parents

  35

  Milk flows from all along the banks of Saint-Louis Island. Women and men up to their waists in the river, their clothing clinging wet to their skin, upended jugs and bottles in their hands, and the white flame spreading out until it spans each bank. It pours past the city and the marshy lands beyond it until it reaches the surf and is there churned into the ocean.

  From their throats, a song like weeping.

  The wet has returned and rain drifts, like warm gossamer, softening and blurring.

  Shakiso leans on her elbows against the rivete
d metal girders of the Faidherbe Bridge watching the waters flowing beneath her. She has been standing here for hours, midway along the bridge.

  Tuft lies curled around her feet, seeking shelter from the rain, her tail tucked in as protection against passing feet.

  It is almost like being on a ship, with ripples cast in the wake of each vehicle in the incessant traffic driving past. People walk back and forth across the pedestrian walkway, a noisy rumble of conversation overlaid with the clatter of tyres on the iron girders.

  A poster from the presidential elections almost three weeks ago floats along in the current, Sidiki Cissoko’s face triumphant on the soggy print.

  Life moves on without Simon, without her.

  She runs her fingers along the cracking paint of the metal girder. The Faidherbe Bridge. Not even the original, just a name on something. Who remembers the person? Whether he built the bridge himself? Whether he struggled?

  Will that be Simon? A cypher in a legend, his name on a bridge, or a plaque on a building somewhere?

  ‘They do not forget,’ says a warm, musical voice, and the griot smiles, nodding towards the women and men along the shore. ‘It is the fortieth day, and they honour him.’

  He stands alongside her, looking downriver, gently resting a hand upon her shoulder. She buries herself in the folds of his boubou, letting go her sorrow and anguish.

  They embrace there on the walkway of the bridge, the tall man in his ochre-brown boubou and the slim woman in his arms, a stream of people walking by and respecting their mourning.

  ‘Do you always turn up at the right time?’ she asks, wiping her eyes and smiling.

  ‘I am where I am,’ he says.

  She looks towards Sidiki’s face on the poster floating away from them.

  The griot’s eyes are the warmth and depth of the harmattan. ‘What do you most fear, my sister? That Simon will be forgotten? That he will not be honoured?’

  She nods, not daring to speak.

  The griot runs his hand along the metal of the bridge, as if stroking a great beast.