Canal Dreams

by Iain Banks

  'No.

  'Yes? Mr Moriya said to the young engineer.

  'Sir; may I use your phone? I will order a replacement unit.

  'Yes, yes, of course. Mr Moriya waved the man to the phone. 'Hisako… He leant his smooth, bulky forearms on the desktop. The engineer chattered down the phone to his office. 'Couldn't you try? Take some sedatives…?

  'I did, Moriya-san. I went out to Narita last week with a. friend whose brother is a senior pilot for JAL, but I could not even sit on the plane with the doors closed. She shook her head. 'It must be by ship. She tried to look reassuring.

  Mr Moriya sat back disconsolately in his seat and gently slapped his forehead with one palm. 'I give in, he sighed.

  'It will only be a few weeks, she told him. 'Then I will be in Europe, in London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Madrid, Stockholm; all the places we have agreed.

  'And Prague, and Edinburgh, Mr Moriya said, sounding sad but looking a little more hopeful.

  'It will be worth the time. I will practise on the journey.

  'And Florence and Venice.

  'I need a break from so many recitals and classes, anyway.

  'Not to mention Barcelona, and I think Bern want you, too. Mr Moriya watched the young engineer, who was still talking to his office. 'And Athens, and Amsterdam.

  'I'll arrive refreshed. So much sea air; it will be good for me.

  'It must be your choice, Mr Moriya said, glancing at his watch. 'I'm just your agent; I just want to see you use your talent to the full. You don't have to listen to me.

  'I always do, Moriya-san. But I cannot fly. A few weeks; that's all it will take.

  Mr Moriya looked glum again. The young engineer put the phone down and said a new unit was on its way. He packed his tools away and then started wrapping up the pieces of the broken air-conditioner in the large white sheet.

  Now it was more than two months later, and half those dates had been cancelled or postponed; her visits to those magically named cities — cities she had never seen before, and only ever dreamed about — had become casualties of an undeclared war, the list of their names growing every few days, like a slow. accretion of the dead.

  'Là, Philippe said. 'The Fantasia.

  She followed his gaze, and just beyond the stem of the ship they were heading for — Philippe's ship, the tanker Le Cercle — she could see the small white shape of the Fantasia del Mer, heading for Gatún Port, pushing away from the three ships anchored in the centre of the lake.

  'So it was her, she said. 'Must have gone to Frijoles first, then. She looked back to him. 'Perhaps we'll get some mail now.

  'Some real beer, even. Philippe grinned.

  'You be rucky, she laughed, putting on a thick Japanese accent. He laughed too, and she felt, as she always did at such moments, about a third of her real age.

  The warm, humid air blew about her as she turned to face the bows again, still trying to dry her hair.

  The line of hills on the far side of the broad lake, beyond the trapped ships, looked like a towering dark wave somehow frozen against the steel-grey sky.

  'Calvados! Rémy Martin! Fresh bananas! And two sides of meat! And Metaxa seven star! Lekkas, the cook on Le Cercle, shouted down to Hisako and Philippe as they moored the Gemini to the small pontoon at the foot of the companionway and started up the steps, scuba gear hoisted over their shoulders. The Fantasia del Mer had delivered the first supplies for two weeks. 'I have olives! Lekkas shouted, waving his arms about in circles. 'Flour for pitta! Bulgar! Feta! Tonight I make you meze! We'll have Greek meal! Much garlic! He reached down and took Hisako's cylinders from her as she reached deck level. 'Ms Onoda; sounds good, yes?

  'Yes, she said. 'Any mail?

  'No mail, Lekkas said.

  'Any news, George? Philippe asked.

  'Nothing on the radio, sir. Two editions of Colón News come with the supplies; Channel 8… well, is just as usual.

  Philippe glanced at his watch. 'News in a few minutes anyway. He clapped the cook on the shoulder. 'Greek tonight, eh?

  The three of them started walking along the deck; Hisako went to take her own gear, but Lekkas lifted it as he nodded to Philippe. 'And I have a bottle of ouzo and some of retsina I been saving. We have one good meal.

  They put the scuba gear in a storeroom on the main deck level; Lekkas went to the galley while Hisako and Philippe went up to the officers' quarters, aft of the bridge. Philippe's cabin was a smaller version of the captain's, across the corridor; a modest stateroom, a double-bed cabin with three portholes facing astern, a closet and a shower room. Philippe switched the TV on as soon as they got in. Hisako decided to take a shower. She could hear some game show on the TV over the noise of the water.

  When she came out, Philippe was lying naked on a towel on the bed, watching Channel 8 news. A uniformed woman of the US Southern Command read out the latest releases from the Pentagon, Cuba, Panama City, San José, Bogotá and Managua, then detailed guerrilla and government losses in Costa Rica, western and eastern Panama, and Columbia. Hisako lay down on the bed beside him, stroking one hand through the black hair on his chest. Philippe took her hand and held it, still watching the screen.

  '… for the peace conference in Salinas, Ecuador next week. Representative Buckman, spokesman for the congressional group, said they hoped to overfly Gatún Lake, in the Panama Canal, where three ships are at present trapped by the conflict.

  'South Africa; and the increasingly beleaguered white regime in Johannesburg has again threatened to use- Philippe clicked the set to standby and rolled over to take her in his arms.

  'So we can wave to the yanquis when they fly over us, eh? We should be grateful, yes?

  She smiled and said nothing, but put one fingertip on the end of his nose, wiggling it, feeling the cartilage under the l6 skin. He moved his head up, softly biting her finger. He kissed her, moved against her, then looked at his watch again. He took it off.

  'Ah, we have enough time then, she said, conspiratorially. She knew he was due to talk over the radio to the shipping line's agent in Caracas soon.

  'Just about; they'll wait.

  'What if they replace you? she whispered, sliding one arm under his body. 'What would I do then?

  Philippe shrugged. 'If they can replace me, they can get you out too.

  It wasn't what she meant, and she wondered if he knew that. But he moved his arms down her spine — making her shiver — to the small of her back, and she didn't feel inclined to pursue the point.

  She walked down the muddy highway. She wondered where all the traffic had gone. The highway looked broad enough for enormous trucks and vehicles, like the scrapers you saw constructing new roads, or the huge dump trucks in open-cast mines. She looked behind her, shivering, but saw nothing. The sky was dark but the ground was bright; corn swept back and forth on either side of her, like weeds in a stream. The corn was grey, like the sky and the ground and the road. Her feet raised slow clouds of dust from the road, and the clouds. floated in the sky behind her. The road wound round the sides of low grey hills, twisting this way and that through the silent landscape. Away in the distance, through the slow-swaying weeds, men fought, swinging sparkling swords at each other. She had to jump up and down to see the faraway figures; the weeds were crowding in around her.

  Once, when she jumped up to see the warriors, she couldn't see them at all but instead, over the field of swaying grey crops, glimpsed another landscape entirely, far below and far away, with a great dark stretch of water lying among mountains; but when she jumped after that all she saw were the samurai again, swords striking sparks off each other, while the sky beyond boiled blackly, like smoke.

  The track entered a dark forest where the bright leaves fluttered against the starless sky. Finally the path became twisty and narrow and she had to force her way through the wet foliage to the city.

  The city was deserted, and she was surprised and angry that her footsteps made no sound; they ought to echo off the tall sides of the great buildin
gs. Her boots were clean now, but when she looked back she saw that she was leaving a line of silvery footprints along the street; they glittered and wobbled where they lay on the paving stones, as though they were alive. It was growing darker in the town, and the alley had no lights; she was frightened of tripping on something. At last she came to the temple.

  The temple was long and thin and tall; buttresses and the ribs of its roof made lines against the dull, orange-black sky. She heard something at last; metal ringing, and raised voices, so she started looking for a way into the temple. She couldn't find any doors, and began to hit the stone walls, then she noticed a great window, set low down in the wall, with no glass in it. She climbed through.

  Inside it was like a factory, but the machines sat on the grass. At the far end of the building, on a stage raised a little off the grass, the samurai were fighting. She went up to tell them to stop, and saw that the two warriors weren't fighting each other; they were both fighting Philippe. She cried out to him, and he heard, and stopped to wave, putting his sword down.

  One of the samurai pulled his sword arm back behind him, and then swung forward and down; the thin, slightly curved sword bit into Philippe's white dress uniform at the neck, and cut him in half, coming out at his waist. Philippe looked surprised; she tried to scream but no sound came out. The samurai bowed slowly, and put his sword back carefully into its scabbard; his left arm jutted out like a triangle from his side, and his thumb slid up the blunt side of the sword as it went back into its sheath; she saw a little bead of blood wiped off the edge of metal; it collected on the warrior's thumb.

  Then the sword burst out of the scabbard again and started jumping about the altar like a firecracker, jumping and unravelling and making a noise like a flexible metal tape measure as it leapt and expanded and unfolded over Philippe's white and red body.

  Philippe was weeping and so was the warrior, and so was she.

  Philippe woke her, pulling her to his side. Her jerking legs had kicked him, and he'd heard her breathing oddly. She wasn't crying when she woke up, but she sighed deeply when she realised none of it had been real.

  She buried her face in his shoulder and clung to him like some terrified monkey to its mother, while he gently stroked her hair and she fell gradually back to sleep again, and relaxed once more, breath slackening and slowing and shallowing.

  2: Bridge of the World

  She was promised a cello for her birthday, but she was impatient, so she made her own. Pocket money bought an old violin from a junk shop, and she discovered a large nail on a building site. She glued the nail on to the bottom of the violin to make the spike. 'Don't ever forget it's not a violin, her mother told her, amused. 'You'll stab yourself in the neck! She made a bow from a piece of wood salvaged from a broken screen an aunt in Tomakomai was throwing out, and some elastic bought in a Sapporo market.

  The stretched elastic broke the wooden bow before she even had a chance to play the violin/cello, so she made another from a branch she found in the woods. She thought you were supposed to put chalk on the bow, so the violin/cello ended up covered in white each time she played. it, as did her hands. She shook the chalk dust out of the holes in the instrument afterwards. Hisako and her mother lived in a tiny flat in the Susukino district, and the sound Hisako made was so terrible her mother raided her savings and bought the child a real cello in October, three months before Hisako's birthday.

  Hisako had to wrestle with the huge instrument (and, much to her consternation, throwaway a great deal of assiduously ground-up chalk begged from school), but finally succeeded in producing tunes her mother could recognise, and by her birthday the following January was clamouring for lessons. Mrs Onoda discovered — only a little to her dismay — that there was a gentleman in Sapporo able and willing to give cello lessons; a lecturer in the university music department who championed Western music in general and the string quartet in particular. Mrs Onoda made another resigned trip to the bank and paid for a six-month course of lessons with Mr Kawamitsu.

  Panamá Puente del Monde said the taxi's number plate.

  'Bridge of the world! Mr Mandamus translated, though Hisako had guessed what it meant. This was one of the names they called the country. The other was 'The Heart of the Universe'.

  'Ah, she said, politely.

  It was eight o'clock in the evening on Pier 18 in Balboa on the day the Nakado had docked after its Pacific crossing. They were taking a taxi into Panama City, which was lighting up the overcast sky beyond the orange-necklaced dark bulk of Balboa Heights.

  'Oh, get in here, Mandamus, I'm hungry, Broekman said from inside the cab. It had taken them longer than they'd expected to clear Customs.

  'Puente del Monde! Mandamus said, and with a clumsy flourish opened the passenger's door for Hisako, narrowly avoided jamming her ankle in the door as he closed it again, and got into the back seat beside Broekman.

  'Panama City, por favor! Mandamus shouted at the driver, a young man in a vest.

  'Panama, the driver said, shaking his head. 'Yeah, OK. Any particular bit?

  'Via Brasil, Mandamus told him.

  Hisako laughed, covering her mouth with her hand.

  'Via Brasil, the driver nodded. He stuffed the copy of Newsweek he'd been reading between the dash and the windscreen and put the auto into drive. The cab bumped over the rail tracks sunk into the rough concrete of the dock.

  There was a brightly lit checkpoint where they left the Canal Area at the junction of Avenida A and Avenida de los Martires. The driver cursed and spat out of the window as they approached the short line of cars and light trucks, though they were soon waved through by the US and Panamanian troops. The queue of vehicles waiting on the far side of the barrier was much longer.

  They drove through the city, through the stink of traffic fumes and sudden oases of flower-scent. 'Frangipani, Mr Mandamus said, sniffing deeply, and nodding.

  Hisako rolled her window down, letting the hairdryer-hot moist air spill round her as they sped and lurched their way down the crowded avenues. The city was just waking up; it was bright and busy and full of cars with their windows down and their music turned up. Even the troop-filled jeeps they encountered usually had a ghetto-blaster perched on the rear or taped to the T-bar, beside the machine-gun. The population made the biggest impression, though. The streets swarmed with riotously different people; every colour and race she thought she'd ever heard of.

  She had gone ashore in Honolulu for a day, while changing ships, and been surprised at how odd it felt to be surrounded by so many gaijin (though the Hawaiian natives hadn't looked all that unusual to her). Then, on the Nakodo, due to take her from Honolulu to Rotterdam via Panama and New Orleans, she'd been surrounded mostly by foreigners; the Korean crew; Broekman, the second engineer; and Mr Mandamus, the one other passenger. Only the three senior officers on the ship, and the steward, were Japanese. So she thought she'd adjusted, but the extravagance of the racial mix, and the sheer numbers of people in Panama, amazed her.

  She wondered how Broekman felt. A South African, he professed, and seemed, to despise the white state, but he'd been brought up in it, and she thought Panama must still come as something of a shock to the system.

  They drove to the Juji, on the Via Brasil. It was a Japanese restaurant; Mr Mandamus's idea of a surprise. She had wanted to eat local cuisine, but didn't let her disappointment show. The restaurant had a Japanese chef, a skiing fan from Niigata who knew Sapporo well, and they talked for a while ('Only water skiing in Panama! ). The shabu-shabu was good, and the tempura. Broekman grumbled about steaks, but seemed content enough after that. Mr Mandamus, having checked with Hisako that slurping was still quite in order, proceeded enthusiastically to slurp his way through every dish presented, even the dry ones, half-gargling with Kirin beer. On the other side of a screen a noisy group of Japanese bankers easily outdid Mandamus in volume and spent most of the time making elaborate toasts to each other and ordering more sake. She felt she might almost as well be at ho
me.

  When they left, the city was still waking up; the nightclubs. and casinos opening for trade. They went to a couple of bars on Avenue Robeno Duran; Mr Mandamus didn't like the look of the first one because most of the men were GIs. 'I have nothing against our American cousins, he explained to Hisako as they walked away. She thought he wasn't going to say anything else, but then he leant close and hissed, 'Danger of bombs! and ducked into another bar. Broekman shook his head.

  In the Marriott Casino they gambled, strolling among the green-felt tables and the stunning local women and the men in their white tuxedos. She felt small and dowdy in comparison, like a raggedly dressed child, but with a child's delight at the glitter and buzz of the place, too. The roulette wheels clicked, dice clattered across the baize, cards flicked from manicured hands. Guards the size of sumo wrestlers tried to lumber inconspicuously between the white jackets and long dresses, or stood impassively against the walls, hands behind their backs, displaying tailored bulges under their jackets, only their eyes moving.

  Mr. Mandamus lost little and often on the tranganiquel, stuffing quarters into the flashing machines and claiming he had an infallible system. Broekman won two hundred dollars at vingt-et-un and ordered champagne for Hisako, who gambled without much enthusiasm or luck at dado.

  They took a taxi back into the centre and walked along the Avenue Balboa, by the side of the bay, where the Pacific broke whitely and patrol boats grumbled in the distance, then finished up in Bacchus II, where Mandamus found ('Ah! Surprise! ) the karaoke room and spent an embarrassingly long time singing along with the Japanese backing tracks, trying to get Hisako to join in, and making noisy friends with the same group of bankers they'd encountered in the Juji.

  She was falling asleep in the taxi back to Pier 18.