If she’d been a few steps farther away, he wouldn’t have seen her.
If she’d been a few steps back, she’d have had some warning. She could have smiled, said hi, carried on right past.
But she was right in Sam’s path. Caitlin, who loved him, whom he did not love, who was leaving in four days. The only reason she stopped was that he’d walked into her. There was a moment of non-recognition. Then she knew him. She took a step back, and in that moment, with the sun behind her, he was pleased to see her but also sad, because she was virtually gone.
“Are you all packed?”
“Yes,” she said, and the corners of her mouth twitched. Perhaps she thought of escape. She was looking in his direction, but not directly at him, as if there were someone next to him whom she greatly preferred.
“I’m leaving too,” he said.
She did not seem surprised. “To where?”
“The Philippines.”
“Cool,” she said, but didn’t ask why. She just kept staring to the side of him.
“Well, best of luck,” he said, and immediately felt ridiculous. This was not what you said to someone you were never going to see again (and certainly not someone you had known well). But if Caitlin found this inappropriate, or simply stupid, she hid it admirably.
“You, too,” she said, and then she did smile, a broad, unforced curving of her mouth that spoke as plainly as words. She honestly wished him well.
“Thanks,” he said, and she took a side step, and that was when he saw Sinead. She was outside Mr. Asham’s shop, and she had definitely seen him, because she was holding her phone at arm’s length to take a picture. Having done so, she slowly started towards him.
If the probability of two bodies colliding is so minute, how much smaller are the chances of a third body converging on the same place? Whilst it is possible that Sinead had been waiting there a long time, it was not her habitual spot. Her being there as he stepped towards Caitlin and put a hand on her arm was truly a miracle of the most unfortunate kind.
It is difficult to say how many minds Sam was in at that moment. Perhaps we should start with his best and most basic thought, which was that suddenly Caitlin’s hair was infused with the sun; every strand had an aura that made it singly worthy of wonder. It was not that he was blinded, or couldn’t see her face, just that it was washed in unexpected light. When she had sidestepped, so as to leave, she had moved into a narrow sunbeam, no more than a handbreadth wide, all that could sneak through the luxuriant tree branches (though no match for the trees of Socotra, the “Island of Bliss”). The light was behind her, though not directly, so that the side of her face and the surrounding hair were illuminated—and not just in the sense of being brightened. They possessed a radiance that spoke of deeper enlightenment, a quality present in old religious paintings in which the women were angels or saints. Yet it was a look much older than Christ. When we lived in huts, perhaps even in caves, the sight of sunlight parting a person’s hair must have inspired a similar feeling. What Sam felt was as old as our brain’s ability to perceive beauty. And so there was definitely one healthy reason he leant towards Caitlin.
His lips were two feet from hers when he realised she wasn’t responding. She was as glassy eyed as an animal that perceives danger. It was very confusing. If she wasn’t interested, why didn’t she protest? If she did want to kiss him, why didn’t she lean in?
Over Caitlin’s shoulder he saw that Sinead was only ten feet away. For the last week he had been wondering what she was going to do next. He’d been hoping that his violation had brought her some peace—albeit for his sake, not hers. But the look on her face was enough to disprove this idea. Her front teeth were hurting her lower lip, and she was breathing fast. He saw a level of desire that was akin to fury.
When one first considers the odds of our imaginary rock reaching Earth and the many things that might distort its path, the idea of it doing so seems implausible. But as the hours pass, and the rock continues—close calls with comets notwithstanding—it no longer seems unlikely. By the time the bluish dot of Earth appears, the impact seems fated. The rock will strike our planet; Sinead and Sam must collide.
But the wonderful, terrible truth is that hope persists. A wormhole, a nuclear bomb, the hand of a merciful God. Though salvation now seems as impossible as destruction once did, all those 416.66 hours ago, there is always, no matter how bright the lights in the sky, how tall the tidal wave, that pinch of disbelief.
Sinead was eight, seven, six feet away, close enough to see Sam’s eyes as he kissed Caitlin. He was staring back at a rock that had seemed unstoppable only a moment before. Kissing Caitlin felt amazing, though not because of her mouth. What made it enjoyable was not the way she smelt—like lavender—or her knuckles pressed into his back. It was the broken look of the rock that made him kiss Caitlin as if it were New Year’s Eve and they were drunk and there was fire in the sky. He put his hands on her neck, then smoothed them into her hair; she pressed herself harder against him. She took her mouth from his, but just for a moment, to gasp in air, then they were kissing again. He did not want the moment to end. He wanted to keep kissing Caitlin, and for Sinead to see, for it to hurt in a manner that never became familiar. He wanted it to be a jagged and surprising pain that shifted like the bloody beads of a vicious kaleidoscope. Turning, shifting, opening new cracks in her mind, her heart, wherever pain came from. Sam was glad when Sinead’s hand covered her mouth, pleased when she went pale; when her shoulders dropped he felt satisfied. These reactions, her distress, were certainly revenge, and gratifying, and still not enough. He was disappointed when, with leaden feet, and tears in its eyes, the rock began to reverse. He kept kissing Caitlin even after Sinead ran, just in case she looked back.
Joy is a weaker feeling than hate: It was Caitlin who took her mouth away. She looked at Sam, brought her palm to his cheek, and kissed him very softly. Her tongue did not push through his lips; it explored without entering, flicking left, then right, and Sinead was definitely gone. For several heartbeats there was disbelief, a sense of anticlimax. Then Sam’s body was subject to an intense thrill that resembled an orgasm, but only the way a breeze can be compared to a hurricane. It was the euphoria that follows a victory so implausible, so unexpected, that there is a twitch of embarrassment to the winners’ smiles. Though it would peak, then ebb—which was both regrettable and merciful, because just as one cannot function when in terrible pain, so pleasure can be equally debilitating—the parallel ended there. Though an orgasm can influence how we feel for hours, days, it does not transform us. Only a sense of great deliverance can accomplish that. This has always been so. Those who survived the Black Death, the Holocaust, the Siege of Leningrad might have kept the same names, might have resumed the trades they had practiced before, slept in the same beds with the same people, but they were, each one of them, now cast from different metal.
As for those who say, But we are always changing—and in support of this platitude offer a parable in which a man steps into a river and consumes a kilo of grapes, but when he steps out with only a stalk and all that fruit in his gut, is apparently not the same man—to those people, most of them young, I say: Go ask your parents. Ask your grandparents. See how many say they died on August 2, 2017. The day that, in many cases, is now also their birthday. Whilst I find this adoption of a memorial day entirely understandable, it does mean that people tend not to believe me when I say that this is actually my birthday, and always has been.
I don’t suppose it matters. These days I do little to celebrate; it has been years since I spent an afternoon on the beach, and alcohol gives me heartburn. At my age no one expects some kind of bacchanal, which is doubly a relief. Even if I were capable of such excesses, it seems disrespectful to celebrate on a day when billions died. This was particularly the case during the fifties and sixties when parades and reenactments were still popular, but even now, when the day is marked in more modest fashion, with banners, skywriting, and commemorative fil
ms, I feel the same discomfort. This isn’t a common reservation. Lots of people whose birthday is on the second (both originally, and adopted) have no qualms about throwing a large party with musicians that goes on till dawn. The only concession is that they avoid fireworks.
I have friends who roll their eyes when I say that I’m not having a birthday party. “Again?” they ask. “Life goes on,” they say, sometimes in a jocular fashion, but just as often in exasperation.
“Of course life goes on,” I reply. “That’s undeniable. It shouldn’t be any other way. We have to live as fully as we can. But I think 364 days a year are enough for that.”
This answer, or some variant of it, satisfies most of them. Only rarely do I have to go further, like with Shun Li yesterday. She’s having a difficult time right now; her husband is having gene therapy, and it’s not going well. Some of this anxiety was involved in her attack on me. She said my refusal to celebrate had nothing to do with the anniversary. She accused me of being morbid.
I wasn’t having a good day either. My back was very painful. This was why I spoke at length of what I had seen in Manila on my birthday in 2017. After the first meteors hit Europe, everyone was in shock. The streets were lined with cars whose drivers had pulled over when they heard the news. People kept glancing up at the sky. Strangers put their arms round my shoulders, or embraced me fully. I think they saw me as a representative of those former places.
I was in a bar when we heard about the second wave. By then, nobody was paying for drinks; the bottles were on the counter. Many were crying and screaming; the rest stood or sat in small groups, repeating brief phrases I couldn’t understand but guessed were “How terrible” or “I can’t believe it.” We stared at the TV, on which there were satellite images that were just a mess.
When it started raining, I left the bar and walked till I was lost. There was nowhere I wanted to be. I barely registered that I was in a foreign city surrounded by sights and words I did not understand. Only the corporate logos were familiar, though even they seemed strange, not as confident. The rain was hot, and so heavy it stung; when I got tired of walking I lay on the pavement and let it strike my face. Maybe I passed out, but probably not; I don’t think I lost time. When I stood up, it was dark and I didn’t want to be drunk. The city seemed incredibly bright, as if every light that people owned had been switched on, the way children do at night when they’re left alone.
I walked on. At first the streets were broad and lined with apartment buildings with lush, well-tended lawns. Some people passed at a run. Cars were sounding their horns and flashing their lights as if they were returning from a sporting event where their team had won. Soon I heard music, a fast song with heavy bass and a woman singing in Filipino. The music was too loud, distorted. I didn’t want to hear it; I only wanted quiet, but the road I was on led me towards its source. I entered a large square surrounded by grand colonial buildings that had a fountain in its centre, around which were clustered a crowd of perhaps five thousand people, almost all of who were dancing. Most were young, but there were also some elderly people tapping their feet on the margins. A lot of the dancers were drunk, or maybe high, but none seemed deranged, hysterical, or in any way out of control. There were many smiles, frequent laughter; it was one of the happiest crowds I have ever seen.
In hindsight, I can think of many reasons why they were enjoying themselves after finding out that more than a billion had died. For some it must have seemed like the end of the world; if they were going to die, they wanted it to happen whilst they were fully alive. I’m sure that for others the dancing and singing were just an expression of their great relief. It could easily have been Asia that did not exist. There might have been such parties in Paris and New York.
But at the time their joy disgusted me. Though I was too distraught (and drunk) to think clearly, one idea kept repeating like someone jabbing me with a sharp stick: They were celebrating the deaths of everyone I knew. The longer I watched, the more insensitive their party seemed. It was so obviously wrong, so disrespectful; its offensiveness had to be deliberate. They were not content with turning happily away from the disaster; they also wanted to laugh.
If someone hadn’t put a bottle in my hand, I might have left and passed out in an alley.
If I’d been standing somewhere else, I might not have seen those five young men.
But they did, and I wasn’t, so I got even drunker and saw the five young men with their arms around each others’ shoulders. They were between eighteen and twenty-one; each was wearing a cloak. They were facing me, so all I could see of their cloaks was the part around their necks: one was yellow and red, another black and yellow, while the others were red, white, and blue. They were slurring the words of the song they were singing; two had their eyes closed as they swayed back and forth. One of the boys kept blowing a whistle I hoped he’d swallow. They seemed like football supporters because of the way they acted in tandem, chanting and clapping with a coordination that suggested a single mind. When they turned around, they did so in such perfect unison that it was like part of a dance number. That they could do so in such a state of intoxication seems impressive now. But on that humid night all I felt was surprise that quickly shifted to rage. The young men’s “cloaks” were flags that had been tied around their necks. All of them belonged to countries that no longer existed. There was the yellow and black of what had been Germany:
There was the red and yellow of Spain:
As for the red, white, and blue, these belonged to two different countries: Great Britain and the United States of America.
At the time, I did not stop to wonder how these young men had obtained the flags. Did they already have them, and if so, why? Were they taken from outside a hotel or embassy during the confusion? Or had they, during this period of grief and shock, gone to a shop and bought them? At that moment, I had no such questions. For the first time since leaving Comely Bank, I knew what I should do. As I raised my arm, I was certain that this was the only thing I could do.
If the bottle had been empty.
If the boy wearing the flag of my country had kept his eyes open.
But it wasn’t.
And he didn’t.
The bottle broke on his temple.
Glass went into my hand.
My arm.
My cheek.
Then the boy was on the ground.
Two of the flags were clutching their faces; the other two were in shock. We were the epicentre of an enforced sobriety that pulsed through the crowd, taking the attention of one layer of people, which was quickly noticed by those in the next, nothing being more interesting than someone else’s interest. I wish I could say that the sight of so much blood, or the unconscious boy, restored me to my senses. Instead I shouted at the four standing boys, who may not have understood English—though someone within hearing did, because at my trial the prosecution quoted me. Isn’t that funny? is apparently what I said.
Of course, when I told this story to Shun Li this morning, I stopped before this part. The party in the square was enough to make my point.
“Maybe I’m wrong,” I said. “But every year, when my birthday approaches, I remember that music and dancing and feel overwhelmed.”
She was not convinced. She said, “But you still make it to the pier, just like you do every day. If you want to do something special, which isn’t a celebration, why not go in the tunnel tomorrow?”
“I might.”
“Really?” she said, and her laughter seemed unnecessary. It’s not as if I’ve said I’ll never go in. I could go tomorrow. I haven’t decided.
Shun Li and I have different worldviews. She is interested only in what lies ahead. If I told her about Comely Bank and Sam’s last days, I can imagine her response. “What does it matter if sixty years ago a man kissed a girl just so he could hurt another girl?” is what she’d say. She wouldn’t want to hear about Caitlin’s two minds, her fear and evident joy. She’d shrug away the notion that whils
t the dead do not live on through us, our feelings for them persist. She might say, in her brusque fashion, that though this is obviously important for the person feeling the happiness, sorrow, or guilt, there is no reason this should matter to anyone else.
For someone like herself, who never knew Sam, Sinead, Alasdair, or Caitlin, they can only be characters in a story; however vivid or interesting they seem, they cannot be real. Their words (“What are you doing?” asked Caitlin) and their actions (she looked at Sam in confusion) will lack resonance for her. If Shun Li did ask, What happened next? it would be with no more interest than she would inquire about a film I had seen (and probably less, Shun Li being something of a movie buff). If I answered this somewhat dutiful question by telling her that Caitlin was as shocked as those flag-covered boys, or that her mouth vacillated between a thin, compressed line of pleasure and a small circle whose bottom half was pulled down as if by spiteful, pinching fingers, Shun Li would nod and say Uh-huh. If I dared add that Caitlin’s next action was to turn her body sharply away from Sam’s, as if she were wrenching it free, then to turn and run away, Shun Li would sigh and turn her gaze to the ceiling. Any further information—that Caitlin then cancelled her flight—would certainly provoke an outburst and her favourite question: Why can’t you just forget?
She has a right to her opinion. I can’t say she’s wrong. My only defence is that every person has their history. We begin as caves, grow into huts, spurt into villages. As adults we are towns, and in some cases, cities.
But however high our towers reach, there are always traces of the stage before. Apart from our parents, our siblings, our cousins, there are friends from school, crushes, bullies, people we have not seen for decades but still think of when we are thirty-eight, fifty-six, ninety years old. Everyone has their relics. Even Shun Li speaks on rare occasions of Gezim, her first husband. No matter how high her skyscrapers (she is without question the finest living guqin player) the spire of their separation remains just as sharp.
The Casualties Page 19