Canal Dreams

by Iain Banks

  The talk turned from the riots in Hong Kong to the US peace mission to Ecuador.

  'Perhaps, we are free to go, before long, said Endo, in carefully navigated English.

  You be rucky, Hisako thought, toying with her heavy soup spoon.

  'Well, yeah, Orrick said, looking up and down the table. 'Could be. You get these guys talking and they can fix this thing up. Hell, all they got to do is get the Panamanians to let the Marines back into the Zone and get them F17s flying point and the old venceristas'll have to head back into the hills. Park a battleship or two off PC; that'll get to them; practically fire shells right over the goddamn country. He made a trajectoral motion over the white tablecloth with one broad, blond-haired hand.

  'Our young friend is one of the old guard, Mr Mandamus said to those at the end of the table.

  Orrick shook his head, 'The old National Guard ain't gonna get rid of the reds; only way we're gonna get the ships out of here is get the Marines and GIs out of that Southern Command base and back into the rest of the Zone with the hand-helds and the microbursts.

  'Panamanians lose face to do that, Endo shook his head.

  'I guess they might, sir, but they lost the canal right now; heck, they're losing the whole country, and they can't even guarantee the safety of American citizens in their major cities. How much longer are we supposed to wait? These guys have had their chance.

  'Perhaps the congressmen will succeed in their mission, Hisako said. 'We'll just have to-

  'Perhaps the reds'll see the light and join the Boy Scouts, Orrick said to her.

  'Perhaps I have an idea, Mr Mandamus announced, holding up one finger. 'Why don't we open a book?

  They looked at him in puzzlement. Hisako wondered what Mr Mandamus could be talking about, then if he was showing signs of converting to some religion; opening the Bible at random for inspiration and guidance was popular with certain Christians, she'd heard, and Muslims did the same thing with the Koran. The steward — an old man near retirement called Sawai — came in with a tray full of soup bowls and a basket of bread.

  'Wager, Mr Mandamus explained. 'I shall be bookmaker; we can bet on what day the canal is finally reopened, or on what day the first ship completes its journey; whichever. What do you say?

  Officer Hoashi asked Hisako what the man was talking about. She translated, and thanked Sawai as he placed a bowl in front of her

  'I do not bet, Endo said. 'But… He spread his hands.

  'I'll bet that when they open the canal it'll be Yankees doing the opening, Orrick said, and launched into his soup.

  'I might be prepared to cover that wager, Mandamus said, unenthusiastically.

  'What are we betting on? Broekman strode in and took his place at the table, nodding to Endo.

  'When the ships are released. Mandamus told him.

  'Which decade? Which year? Broekman snapped his napkin and twirled his spoon, waiting for Sawai to serve him. The engineer smelled of soap and cologne.

  'A little sooner than that, we think, Mandamus said, laughing heartily.

  'Do you? Well, I won't be betting.

  'Mr Orrick want to send in Marines, Endo said, slurping daintily at his soup and making a game attempt at the American's name.

  'Standard US behaviour, Broekman nodded.

  'Yeah; it works.

  'Not in Beirut it didn't, Broekman told the younger man. Orrick looked puzzled. Broekman waved one hand impatiently. 'Before your time, maybe.

  ' "Send a gunship!" Mandamus said loudly, as though quoting.

  'Well anyway, this isn't Beirut, Orrick took a piece of bread from the basket, broke it in half and ate.

  'Isn't Saigon, either, but so what? Broekman looked suddenly annoyed, and scowled at the bowl the old steward put in front of him. 'Ach; it isn't up to us. It'll sort itself out one way or the other. We aren't even pawns in this.

  'The congressmen will see the ships though, Hisako said. 'And we were mentioned on the news again last night.

  'Channel 8? Broekman said. 'That's because we're local for them. And a lot these congressmen will see from seven miles up, anyway… if it's a clear day.

  Hisako looked down, sipped at her soup.

  'We're a symbol, man, Orrick told Broekman. 'We matter. That's why the reds haven't attacked us or blown away the dams.

  'They took out that lock at Gatún easily enough, Broekman said.

  'Yeah, but just one, like to prove they could do it.

  'And the tanker lying at the bottom of Limón Bay?

  'It was US registered, like you keep telling me, Mr Broekman, Orrick said. 'And it hadn't gotten famous; it wasn't mentioned in the news till it was blown away. But the reds aren't gonna attack us. It's too public a situation; we mean something. That's why that plane's coming to look-see. We'll be centre-stage, numero uno.

  'You reckon, Broekman said, dipping into his soup. 'Well who am I to argue?

  'I will hazard, Mandamus said, with slow deliberation and narrowed eyes, 'that if negotiations go well, the ships will be released before the end of the month.

  Broekman laughed, coughed into his soup, dabbed at his mouth with the napkin. Orrick nodded his young blond head slowly. 'Only if the guys come in. If the guys come in; then you'll see some action.

  'In what guise, though? Mandamus said, as though to himself.

  'Yeah; you wait, Orrick said, tearing another piece of bread apart. 'You'll see.

  3: The Universal Company

  'Hello? Hello? Hisako? Ms Onoda?

  'I am here.

  'Ah! How are you?

  'Well. Very well. And you?

  'Hisako, what are you doing? Why are you still on that ship? I've put the dates starting in Den Haag back by exactly one month except for Bern. Not always the same venues, but we can sort that out later. But you have to get out of there!.. Are you listening? Hello?

  'It's not easy to get out, Mr Moriya. Helicopters are shot down, small boats are attacked… sometimes near the coast of the lake; Panama airport is closed-

  'They must have more than one!

  '- and because the… no, the city only has one civilian airport. Colón is shut down for-

  'I meant in the country!

  'And the Pan American is mined.

  'What? The airline? Mined?

  'No, the highway. Also, the rebels have taken hostages in Panama and Colón.

  'But you're Japanese, not American! I mean, why-

  'They've kidnapped… they've kidnapped Japanese, Americans, Europeans, Brazilians… many different people. One of the captains of the ships was taken hostage in Cristóbal; Captain Herval… I might get through, but I might not. At least here we are fairly safe.

  'Can't they get those ships out? Can't they move them?

  'The rebels have missiles. Also, they could blow up the locks, or the Madden Dam, or the Mindi Dyke. The canal is… delicate, even though it is big.

  'Hisako, are these real names? No; never mind. Isn't there some way out? Somehow? There's more interest than ever because it's been on the news you're there, but the Europeans won't wait for ever, and you aren't — forgive me — but you aren't getting any younger, Hisako. Oh, I'm sorry. Say you forgive me; I'm not sleeping well, and I'm on the phone to Europe half the night, and I'm snapping at people and… I'm sorry I said that. Do say I'm excused…

  'That's all right. You are correct, of course. But I have talked to the consulate in Panama; they say it is safest to sit tight. They expect there will be peace soon, or that the Americans will take over the Zone again.

  'But when?

  'Who knows? Watch the news.

  'I watch the news! I can't take my eyes off the news! When I'm not running up a phone bill to Europe the size of the US national debt, I'm stuck to CNN Nippon! But watching the. news does not get you to Europe to play the cello!

  'I'm sorry, Mr Moriya. But I can't think of anything I can do.

  'Oh… oh, me neither. But… but… oh, it's all just so frustrating! Ha! Why didn't I stay with the
NHK like my mother said? Never mind! Are you practising? How is the instrument?

  'I am practising. The instrument and I are both fine. I didn't know you were in the NHK.

  'What? Yes; many years ago. Trumpet. I left because I was making more money doing bookings for other people. Also, playing it hurt my eardrums.

  'You are what they call "dark horse", Mr Moriya.

  'I am what they call broke agent, Hisako. And more broke the longer this call goes on. You keep practising.

  'Hai. Thank you for calling. Goodbye.

  'Sayonara, Hisako.

  The Nakodo stayed at Pier 18 for a week; there was a problem with the ship's propeller, which had stuck at one pitch. After two days of rioting and curfews the city had been declared safe again. Hisako went back in with Mandamus, Broekman, and first officer Endo, while the divers tried to fix the prop. Captain Yashiro paced impatiently up and down the bridge watching a succession of ships sail under the Puente de las Americas, past Pier 18, and on towards the locks at Miraflores. Helicopters filled the skies, clattering between the Southern Command base at Fort Clayton and US aircraft carriers and troop ships stationed in the Gulf of Panama. The venceristas were said to be moving down from the Cordillera Central and the Serrania de San Bias. Cuba had warned the US not to intervene, and offered help to the Republic. The US reinforced its base at Guantánamo, on Cuba. The Soviet ambassador visited the White House to deliver a note to the President, the text of which was not released.

  Mr Mandamus stirred his mint tea and looked out on to the Avenida Central, where the clogged traffic honked and hooted furiously, and outrageously decorated buses full of brightly dressed people contrasted with the matt camouflage of the Guards' jeeps and trucks.

  They had started at the Santa Ana Plaza, where Mr Mandamus, guidebook in hand, led them down Calle after having his shoes polished twice. Hisako, Mr Mandamus said, was the only Japanese person he'd ever encountered who didn't own — indeed had never owned — a camera. She agreed it was unusual. Officer Endo took photographs of everything, in a manner Mr Mandamus obviously considered a much more satisfyingly traditional Japanese fashion.

  Hisako spent much time and money on Calle 13. The street was packed with shops and shoppers. She bought Kantule Perfume from the San Blas archipelago, a chaquira necklace made by the Guaymí Indians, a ring with a small Columbian emerald set in it, a chácara bag, a circular pollera dress, a montuna shirt and several molas; a small pillow, a bedspread, and three blouses. Mandamus bought a hat. Broekman stocked up on Cuban cigars. Endo bought a mola for his wife and two extra diskettes for his camera. The men helped her carry all her shopping. Broekman thought some of the natives looked shifty, and said it was probably just as well they were all together, especially as Hisako had collected enough loot on her shopping expedition to make a conquistadore jealous.

  They trooped down to the docks and through the fish market, then got lost in a maze of small, crowded, noisy streets. Mr Mandamus was delighted; the area was called 'Sal si puedes', which meant 'Get out if you can', and it was traditional to get lost in it.

  'You mean you knew we'd get lost? Broekman said, once they were lost. He waved away a variety of people trying to sell him things.

  'Well, I thought we would, Mandamus said thoughtfully.

  'You thought we would, you crazy man?

  'Of course, Mr Mandamus said, glowing with airy satisfaction, while a lottery ticket salesman and the owner of a Chinese restaurant studied the map of the city Mandamus had produced. (They were arguing.) 'They keep changing the street names, you see, Mr Mandamus explained. 'The maps have the new names but the people call the streets after their old names. It's quite simple, really.

  'But what do you want to get us lost for? Broekman said, almost shouting. 'This city's bandit country these days! We need to know what we're doing! We need to know where we are!

  'Don't worry, Mandamus said, wiping his brow with a white handkerchief. He pointed to Endo, who was filming the arm movements of the two arguing Panamanians. 'Mr Endo is a navigating officer!

  Hisako looked round, clutching her shopping bags to her because Broekman had said she ought to, but despite the heat, and the crowds, and the fact they were lost — feeling happy. Not because she'd bought so much, but because here she was, finally in a completely different place. It was dangerous, sometimes frightening, quite lawless compared to Japan, but just so different. She felt alive. She tried to think of what music it would be good to play now, what composition she could take this mood to, so that the notes would sing and speak and take on resonances she hadn't heard in them before.

  They got out eventually. They continued walking, admiring the old Spanish villas, the cathedral, Plaza Bolivar, and the brilliantly white presidential palace with its flamingos. 'I take it the anti-aircraft missiles on the roof are a recent addition, Broekman said, looking over Mandamus's shoulder at the guidebook.

  'So one would imagine.

  They went down to the sea, to the Plaza de Francia, and looked out from the old walls to the islands in the bay; the Pacific was green and blue and violet, shimmering under a cloudless sky. Seabirds wheeled in the baking air.

  They strolled back up the Avenida Central until they came to a café called the International, run by a huge black man called MacPherson who spoke with an accent that combined Jamaican and English public school. They took tea. Mint for Mandamus. Chinese for the rest.

  'Oh! Mandamus said suddenly, still reading the guidebook. 'Listen: "The lower part of the ramparts, near the law courts, contains vaulted cells in which condemned prisoners were chained at low tide." Mandamus looked up, eyes bright. 'You see? And then, when the tide came in, the Pacific drowned them… the moon drowned them! We should go back and see these cells. What do you say?

  Her classmates made fun of her because she looked like a hairy Ainu. The Ainu were the natives of Japan; its abos, its Injuns. After the eighth century they'd been pushed further and further north by the Yamato Japanese moving in from the Asian mainland until they clung on only on Hokkaldo, the most northern island. Stereotypically the Ainu were tall, thick-built and hairy, and Hisako — though of average build — had deep black hair, and bushy eyebrows which almost joined up with the hair at the side of her scalp. Her eyes were deepset, which added to the Ainu look. So the children in her school taunted her and offered to tattoo her lips and wrists, the way real Ainu were marked.

  In school she was poor at almost everything except English, and the other girls told her she'd never get to university — not even a two-year one — because she was stupid, and never get a husband because she was an ugly hairy Ainu, and she'd grow up a poor widowed office lady like her mother.

  She ignored them, tried to read fairy stories in English, and practised her cello playing. Once, in the middle of winter, four girls caught her in a school cloakroom and held her hands down on a near-boiling-hot radiator; she cried, screamed, struggled, while her hands blazed with pain, and the girls laughed and imitated her cries. Finally, roaring with the agony and the unfairness of it all, she pulled her head free of their grip — leaving one of the girls with a handful of bloody, thick, black hair and sank her teeth in the wrist of the biggest girl. She bit as hard as she could, and heard the screams go on around her though her mouth was closed and her hands still burned.

  She woke up on the floor. There was blood in her mouth and her head ached. Her hands were seared and red and tight, and she sat there, legs crossed, rocking back and forward with her hands in her lap, weeping quietly to herself and wishing that life was like a fairy story, so that her falling tears would heal her hands where the drops fell on the raw red skin.

  Her mother seemed to accept her story about pulling an iron rod out of a bonfire on the way back from school: Mrs Onoda said nothing about the patch of missing hair, or the bruise on the side of her daughter's face, and Hisako thought her mother stupid and easily fooled for a while, until she heard the stifled sobs coming from her mother's room that night. Hisako let her ha
nds be bandaged. She would lie in her mother's arms, being read to, or rest her English books in her lap, turning the pages with her nose, or just sit with her cello, looking at it and rubbing her cheek against it. Whenever she started to cry she buried her face in the crook of her elbow, in case her tears stained the cello's varnished surface.

  Mr Kawamitsu had been delighted by the progress she'd made. She was exceptionally gifted, he told her mother (who sighed when she heard this, because it meant it would cost money). Mr Kawamitsu was very excited; he had written to the Tokyo Music Academy, and they had agreed to listen to the child, to see if she was as good as he said. If she was, she would be given a bursary. Of course, this meant travelling to Tokyo… Mrs Onoda went to the bank.

  It was too soon after her hands had been burned, but the date had been set and Mrs Onoda was terrified of upsetting the Academy. They were both sick on the ferry. She still felt terrible when she was taken into the room in the old building near Yoyogi Park, to sit in front of a dozen stern-looking men.

  She played; they listened. They looked just as stern when she'd finished, and she knew she had played badly, that she had thrown away her chance and Mr Kawamitsu would be made to look stupid and her mother would weep behind the screen again.

  She was right; she didn't get the bursary. They did offer her a place, but Mrs Onoda couldn't afford the money. Mr Kawamitsu looked sad rather than angry, and said she must still play, because she could do something very few people could do, and such a gift was not just hers, but belonged to everybody, and she owed it to everyone else to practise diligently. She found that difficult, and her playing became mechanical and without lustre.

  The Academy sent for her again a month after their offer of a place had been rejected; another chance, for the last bursary place. But Mrs Onoda had little money left. Hisako thought about it, and came solemnly to her mother one evening holding the cello like an offering at a shrine, suggesting they sell the instrument to raise the money for the fare; she could borrow one. If she had a chance to practise she might be able to adapt to a new cello… Her mother ruffled her hair, and went to the bank the next morning to take out a loan.