Guardian

by A. J. Hartley

  “Your missing correspondent was Arthur Besland?” I said.

  “One of them, yes. What do you mean was?”

  “I’m sorry, Sureyna. He’s dead. Mahweni from near Mnenga’s village brought his body to the city. By now it will be on its way to the morgue. His belongings were not with him, but this money was sewn into his jacket. I assume it belongs to the paper.”

  I waited for her to set her box down slowly, and handed it to her.

  “How did he die?” she asked dreamily. She did not look like she was going to weep, but she seemed off-balance.

  “I’m not sure. Stabbed, I think. He was out in the bush, but he was not killed by an animal. I’m sorry.”

  I’m not good at consolation. Other people’s sorrow makes me awkward. Sureyna nodded vaguely.

  “Were you good friends?” I tried.

  She shook her head. “I only met him a few times. I don’t think he was pleased that the Standard hired me as a reporter at first, but he complimented me on the Elitus story. But no. He was always away. A good reporter. I had hoped he might be a mentor to me one day, but I suppose…”

  Her voice trailed off, and she looked suddenly lost.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again, meaning it. “We’ll get to the bottom of it. You’ll be able to write a tribute article to him, an obituary or…” She was still shaking her head. “What?” I said, frowning at the box she had been carrying. “Sureyna? What’s going on?”

  “You saw who Richter appointed to take over the newly created Security Department?” she said.

  “No. Who?”

  “Colonel Archibald Mandel,” she said in a leaden tone, laying it all out as if every word had significance, all of it bad, “former secretary of trade and industry under the Nationals and late of the Glorious Third Infantry Regiment.”

  That wasn’t just her usual perfect recall that made her sound like a newspaper report. She didn’t like him, and with good reason, though neither of us had met him in person. Mandel was the man Ansveld had warned me about, the man who had run the Red Fort, or rather turned a blind eye to what Major Gritt did in his name, and he had an ugly reputation among those he did not consider his equals. I knew he had been connected to Richter, both by racial politics and industry connections: Richter and his secretary, Saunders, must have dealt with him all the time, given his background in the steel industry.

  I remembered the man from a picture I had seen the day I met Emtezu: Mandel was an austere—if slightly absurd—military man with a handlebar mustache and a monocle. He had extricated himself from the business over the faux luxorite cave when their plans had gone awry, leaving his co-conspirators—including Vestris—to take the blame while he went into quiet retirement.

  “But Mandel was in disgrace after the Red Fort business!” I said. “He resigned from politics over his shares in Grappoli munitions factories.”

  “Well, he’s back,” said Sureyna. “I’d say it was less disgrace than public embarrassment. Apparently the Nationals think he’s paid his debt and is, as they put it, what the times require, which is their usual way of justifying ethical violations. Given his military background and knowledge of government, he was, apparently, an easy pick for this new security division the Heritage leaders have dreamed up. I suspect his former National party cronies are just glad to see a familiar face in Richter’s inner circle. They go along with it all, but they’re afraid of him and his goose-stepping supporters.”

  “What does ‘head of security’ even mean? We have police, army. Why do we need another security force?”

  “Not clear yet,” said Sureyna, “but it has people scared. Richter says it’s a way to unite the existing branches, but it sounds more like a way for the prime minister’s office to control what the police and military do more directly, and it allows the creation of a civilian militia, whatever that is. I’ve heard several generals are unhappy about it, and there’s a group of police inspectors who have written a letter of protest to the commissioner, but that won’t make any difference.”

  “Willinghouse said this would happen,” I said. “That Mandel would make a return to politics. But what does this have to do with you?”

  “The colonel remembers me,” she said, looking utterly forlorn. “My writing, I mean. I don’t know what he said, or how much it’s part of a more general shift as the Standard faces a new political reality, but…” She shrugged sadly, a gesture that made her look younger than she was. “The paper doesn’t feel that they can maintain the appearance of objective political journalism with”—and here she was quoting—“a staff whose members belong to those groups that are most conspicuously hostile to the present administration.”

  “What does that mean?” I demanded.

  She sighed.

  “I’ve been fired.”

  CHAPTER

  14

  I MADE A HALF move toward her, but she, knowing how easily I was embarrassed by hugging and the like, shook her head, and when I stood there trying to find the words, she cut me off saying, “I know. But I’m more angry than sad, and that makes it easier.”

  “So what will you do now?” I asked, finding my voice again.

  “The Standard said I could have my old job back, selling papers on the street,” said Sureyna. I had taken the cardboard box from her, and she was walking doggedly with her reticule at her side, her eyes fixed on the road ahead.

  “Will you take it?”

  She snorted. “Never,” she said. “Unless I can’t find anything else.”

  She shot me a wan smile, and I returned it. Principled defiance is expensive when you have no food.

  “Any ideas?” I said.

  “One. This.”

  She nodded to a run-down-looking block of little shops frequented by the more affluent city blacks, and at a haberdasher’s in particular. I gave her a quizzical look, but she kept walking, jutting her chin toward the second story where a pair of posters were hung in the narrow windows. They read simply THE CITIZEN.

  “Not exactly the Standard’s status,” she said, “but a good circulation among my people.”

  The Citizen was the free newsletter of Bar-Selehm’s assimilated Mahweni.

  “Are they hiring?” I asked.

  Sureyna shook her head.

  “So why are we—” I began.

  She unfastened her tied-back hair and teased it into shape. It made her look quite different.

  “They haven’t met me yet,” she said.

  “Well,” I conceded, “I’m betting The Citizen doesn’t have many journalists who worked at the Standard.”

  “You’d be surprised,” she said. “Some of my colleagues—former colleagues, I should say—used to ghost for The Citizen. It’s a decent paper. You coming in?”

  I considered the shop with its all black clientele.

  “You think I’m welcome?” I said.

  “I think you’re confusing us with the other blokes,” she said, grinning as she pushed the door open.

  I blundered after her, levering my way through the door with the corner of the box, and wondering, given the state of things in Parliament, what the future of The Citizen looked like. Pretty bleak, I would have thought. And short.

  The paper’s offices might welcome me, but the paper itself had never had much to say about the Lani population. I had seen it rarely, and then mainly used to wrap fish down the Branmoor Steps chippy. The Seventh Street boys, who rarely had any time for or grasp of politics, had viewed it with suspicion, and had relied on the Clarion for their news. The Citizen always seemed to lead with accounts of demonstrations and detentions, though it was also a headquarters for social programs created primarily for the city’s blacks. The latest headlines trumpeted the arrest of Aaron Muhapi after a peaceful protest. I put Sureyna’s box down and considered the portrait of Muhapi’s earnest and intelligent face in the middle of the front page as Sureyna introduced herself to the staff.

  There were three of them, two women and a man, all in their thirtie
s or thereabouts. They had all looked up with curiosity verging on alarm when we came in, but had relaxed as soon as they saw who we were. Or who we weren’t. One of the women wore heavy glasses on a leather thong around her neck. The other wore a yellow shirt that set off the darkness of her skin. She was looking at Sureyna and her overstuffed bag of papers doubtfully.

  “So,” said Sureyna, matter-of-factly. “My name is Sureyna Nbotti, and until about an hour ago, I was a journalist at the Bar-Selehm Standard. Now I work for you.”

  I stared at her. The eyebrows of the woman in yellow crept low on her face in puzzlement, while the other woman’s did the opposite.

  “Have you spoken to someone at the newspaper about employment?” said the man, as if he might have missed a crucial piece of information.

  “I haven’t,” Sureyna said. “That’s what I’m doing now. And I’d say that the newspaper could use me.” She considered the current issue, a roughly formatted single sheet of paper folded in half, nothing like as professional as the Standard.

  The woman in yellow, affronted at the implication, said, “I’m afraid we have no openings in the writing department at this time. You are welcome to leave your contact information and some samples of your work—”

  “Which of you is the writing department?” said Sureyna. The woman in glasses began to raise her hand slowly, but Sureyna pressed on before she could say anything. “I just got fired not because of what I can or can’t do, but because the paper I worked for doesn’t want to look too black in case people don’t take them seriously. That means you have a one-time offer. Hire me, and I’ll produce some samples of my work right now, and you won’t need ink, because I’m gonna write in fire. You hear what I’m saying? I’m going to write, and my words will be like an earthquake that will shake the government to its foundations. I’m going to write so you won’t even have to read it. You can just hold the paper up to your head, and you’ll hear it singing.”

  Sureyna was nothing like my height, and standing in front of the newspaper staff, she looked little more than a child, but her eyes were shining, and her arms and fists were locked with such force that they trembled in the loaded silence that followed her speech.

  “Sounds like you should give that girl a job,” said a familiar voice from the stairwell behind us.

  Everyone turned in that direction and saw two black men, one supporting the other, who was limping badly and had one eye swollen shut. It was Aaron Muhapi.

  The newspaper staff leapt to their feet to help him as the aide from the Willinghouse estate meeting got him up the last of the steps.

  “What did they do to you this time?” said the woman in yellow.

  “Oh, you know,” said Muhapi, smiling hollowly. “They took offense to some of the things I said.”

  “Bastards,” said the man.

  “It’s not so bad,” said Muhapi, “though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised.”

  “Richter has given the police new powers,” said the aide to the room in general. “Nothing official, of course, but the word has gotten through. No one is going to look too closely at what happens to a black activist.”

  “You made a speech!” exclaimed the woman in yellow.

  “I suppose that was enough,” said Muhapi. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d really like to sit down.” A chair was moved out into the room for him, and he settled into it heavily, wincing. “That’s good,” he said. “That’s what I needed. So I see The Citizen is expanding its staff? That’s excellent too.” He was putting a brave face on it, trying to redirect the conversation off him, but he was clearly in pain.

  “We don’t have the funds to hire a new—” the woman in yellow began.

  “How much do you need?” I said.

  “You think you can supply enough to pay a reporter?” the woman shot back with undisguised skepticism.

  “Miss Anglet is a woman of resource,” said Muhapi.

  “You know these people?” said the woman in yellow, taken aback.

  “I know everyone,” said Muhapi, grinning. “Now, I’m afraid the police broke my spectacles, so I’m going to need to get some new ones. Could someone run down to Vetch Street and tell Mr. Saltzberg that his best customer needs his services again?”

  I watched them, the way they deferred to him, the concern in their faces.

  “What will you do now?” I said.

  “I am hoping that I can get some new glasses,” he said, with a slight twinkle. “But … that is not what you meant. I will keep doing what I always do. Speak. Ask questions. I have been promoting an idea for a small university for black and colored students where they can study their cultural history and literature so that they don’t always feel pushed to the side of their own lives.”

  “I don’t think now is the time,” said the aide. He said it to Muhapi, but he seemed to consult with the women with his eyes, as if this was something they had discussed before. “They took you off the street. They beat you!”

  “This is how the game is played,” said Muhapi wearily. “They have taken their turn, and now it is mine.”

  “The rules are changing, Aaron,” said the aide. “Richter has changed them.”

  Muhapi gave him a long look, then smiled at me and Sureyna.

  “Peter worries too much,” he said.

  “So does your wife. And your son,” said the aide.

  Muhapi’s look was longer this time as though a blow had landed and taken some of the fight out of him, though he recovered soon enough. He nodded. “Yes,” he said, “and for my part, I would like to make the world they live in a little better. A little fairer. I do not think that is too much to ask or to risk for.”

  “They will beat you,” said Peter, and there was more than worry in his face. There was devotion. Love.

  “Better that than I sit to the side of their world smiling,” said Muhapi, “telling them everything is all right and that our hopes, our lives do not matter. I will not be some sideshow entertainer, some minstrel for their amusement, and I will not be silent. I cannot be.”

  That last he said almost sadly; he had no choice in the matter, and it pained him.

  “Now,” he said. “About those spectacles.”

  * * *

  I LEFT SUREYNA AT the Citizen offices to discuss the terms of her employment further and returned to Grand Parade outside Parliament, gazing up at the dome and thinking about Willinghouse. Since he had been arrested, we had heard nothing from him, except what the papers hinted about the matter coming to a hasty trial. I didn’t like the sound of that. Richter’s arm had grown remarkably long since his installment in the prime minister’s office, and each new edition of the Standard contained developments that would have been shocking only a few days ago.

  Perhaps they still were. It was unclear to me what the whites in the city thought of the new regime, though many had cheered Richter and his Heritage party on. Now? I wasn’t sure. I thought all but his most ardent supporters had felt a tremor of anxiety at how quickly he had seized control and the firmness of his grip thereafter, but what did I know?

  I wandered toward Winckley Street where the boy who had taken Sureyna’s old job was selling papers to a fevered crowd and, on impulse, bought one. The headlines seemed to grow shriller by the day, and tonight’s was no exception.

  PM EXPANDS SECURITY POWERS. CANCELS ELECTION.

  I stopped where I was and read hungrily, my stomach knotted.

  In an unprecedented move, Prime Minister Norton Richter today announced that, given the heightened tensions in the city, the upcoming general election would be postponed for a minimum of six months. During this time, according to Jebediah Saunders, Mr. Richter’s private secretary, the police and military would have significantly greater freedom and authority to act in the best interests and preservation of the city.

  I stared dazedly across the street to where a ragged Lani boy was pasting flyers for the traveling circus I had seen advertised earlier, and I wondered once more what was ha
ppening and how we could possibly slow it down. Bar-Selehm was becoming a circus itself, juggling truth and justice from hand to hand with clowns on every corner—comic and somehow menacing—while our politicians engaged in some kind of high-wire act as the rest of us looked on dumbly …

  High-wire act.

  My brain snagged on the phrase like driftwood in reeds. I stared at the poster, its garish text and its images of clowns, elephants, and vaulting gymnasts. What had Tanish said about the barefoot climber? It wasn’t just expert, it was show-offy. Theatrical. It wasn’t what a steeplejack would do, scaling a rope with no boots on and a knife between his teeth. No chance.

  But it was just what a circus performer would do. I crossed the street, dashing recklessly between a pair of dragoons on orleks and a horse-drawn fly whose driver yelled at me. I tore one of the posters from the Lani boy’s hands.

  “Oy!” he said. “What’s your game?”

  I ignored him, focusing on the all-important text.

  One Week Only!

  Messrs. Xeranti and Guests

  Exotic and Death-Defying

  World-Famous

  Traveling

  CIRCUS!

  Nbeki Park.

  “You never seen a circus before?” said the boy derisively. “Where’ve you been?”

  I flipped him a farthing, which he caught expertly, then I walked toward the town house, my mind racing.

  CHAPTER

  15

  THE COMPLEX OF TENTS and sideshow wagons that was the Xeranti traveling circus had been set up in a dusty, poorly maintained park in Nbeki, a low-rent district nestled by the river just inside the city’s western wall. It was home to those laborers and factory workers who made just enough to stay out of the south side shanties, but not enough to live in Morgessa or Thornhill, a hardscrabble place, but one that looked after its own, black and white. It was one of the few places in the city where both races—with a scattering of Lani thrown in—lived side by side in compact row houses with relatively little friction. Though the park was a frequent staging ground for demonstrations and political rallies, it wasn’t uncommon to see all the city’s racial populations standing and listening together, united by the thing they had most in common: poverty.