A Far Country

by Daniel Mason

  ‘Yes.’

  Then the second boy swung at the first, laughing. ‘Liar!’

  ‘Wait …’ she began, but the boys fell over each other, wrestling. She made her way back, not letting her eyes drop from where the road banked away. A pair of older boys were walking up the road. It’s nothing, she thought. Of course there was a man—I live in a city. Isaias wouldn’t come and leave.

  Still she sensed something, farther now. At the door of her house she stopped. You don’t know, she told herself, but she could feel it moving, flashes sinking away. She peeked into the room. Hugo hadn’t moved. It will only be a second, she told herself. She closed the door and turned down the street.

  She walked quickly. She entered an alley that dove through a cluster of shacks and dropped along a trickling stream reeking of sewage. She passed a group of men clustered at a corner. She felt the words on her lips, Have you seen a boy who looks like me? But as she drew closer she saw that they were drinking. She turned down another alleyway, down worn steps cut into the hillside, slipping briefly before she plunged deeper into the maze. The alley narrowed; at times she had to turn sideways to slip through spaces between buildings. She seemed to be following a path: even when the alleys split and re-formed, there seemed to be only a single way to go. Around her, the houses were lit by dim bulbs. Light glinted through the chinks in the brick and the slivers beneath the doors. She heard fragments of words, whistling, a moan, she saw shapes shifting, smelled rot and dogs, cooking oil, plastic burning, perfume. Birds stirred in their cages. In the shadow of the doorways, silent figures rocked slowly in hammocks or came to barred windows to watch her pass.

  She entered a cleared lot. There she stopped on an old broken concrete floor with a single cinder-block wall. She saw the darkness of a half-dozen paths that ran off into a mass of shanties. It’s that one, she thought, staring at a narrow alley that fell off to her right, but then she paused, filled with doubt. The light was gray. There was barking. Inside the alleyway, a shadow stirred.

  She stared at the alley. She could feel him, it—the light, the shape, the sound, the warmth, the warp in the street—she could feel it moving away, winding down the hill and into darkness. You will lose him, she told herself. But her feet wouldn’t move. The shadows stirred again, and three young men appeared, walking quickly toward her. She turned and stared up at the looming hill, tried to remember her path through the houses and went back in.

  And if it was him? she wondered later. If it wasn’t just my imagination? Why wouldn’t he stay? She waited for an answer, but no answer came. She told herself that next time she would be faster, she would trust her instincts, she wouldn’t wait.

  When Hugo cried, she went to the door, but there was never anyone there. In Saint Michael, they believed that babies could sense what most adults couldn’t, that their bodies closed off slowly, the way a skull closed. She sat with her lips against his fontanel. Sense what? she asked herself, searching for the words. Her mother knew, her grandfather knew; she had never needed to explain. Now, alone in the little room in the city, those moments in the cane fields seemed impossibly far and strange.

  I am like the girl on the flatbed, she thought, the black-haired girl who spoke a language no one knew.

  She thought of the rhabdomancer. Now she wished she could ask him how he divined for water in the city, how he saw the tunnels and underground rivers. What good is anything I know? she wondered. What does it matter that I can survive nights out in the forest? Who cares about enduring hunger when there are markets to buy food? Who needs to hear snakes in the cane if there are no snakes and no cane fields?

  She had the vertiginous sensation that she was back in Prince Leopold, on the days the men of her village met the foremen from the road companies, the construction firms or the big coastal plantations. What can you do? the foremen would ask, and the men tallied off on heavy callused fingers: I can hunt, I can track, I can walk through the night without stopping. Then the foremen shook their heads and said, Why would I need a hunter when I have cattle plantations? What else can you do? I can turn a grindstone in a sugar mill, I can cut, I can carry pounds of cane. But the sugar mills are going, it’s all factories now, What’s worth a couple oxen and a millstone in the new age? I always was a farmer, I can farm even the worst, I can dig and find fertile soil where others see only stone, nowhere is there land I cannot grow. That means little on the coast where the great fields give two crops every year, We need men who know fertile land, not that worthless land of yours, Tell me, man, what else can you do? I can gather stones, make walls, homes. Stones? I know which cactus to eat, and the leaves from which trees, I know how to collect ants and cook them, I know where starch roots are found. Those are skills for scavengers. I can grow corn, manioc, yams. On your little farm, you mean, you can grow those on your little farm, But no one has need for little farms anymore, Tell me, man, what else can you do?

  She cooed to Hugo until he slept.

  In the middle of the week, Manuela called from work. Leo was coming this weekend, she said. ‘It’s sooner than I thought. Clean the house. The sheets, the dishes. And take your underwear off the line. Dust the saints and the top of the shelves.’

  On Saturday morning they walked up the hill to a beauty salon, with a hand-painted shingle and a lone chair. The beautician, a middle-aged woman with heavy hips and a waddling gait, left lipstick stains on the baby’s cheeks. Isabel held Hugo as her cousin had her hair straightened. The beautician talked incessantly about the soap opera at eight and her daughter who was nothing-but-trouble. A third woman sat on the steps with her hair in curlers and echoed with heavy, aspirated humphs. The walls were covered with photos of the newest styles, torn from magazines.

  An old man with a bowl haircut appeared in the doorway and bowed. The women shooed him off. ‘He loves you,’ said the beautician, kissing Manuela, who covered her teeth as she giggled.

  Isabel could smell the perfume on her cousin as they came down the hill. They bought beer from Junior’s store and prepared a stew with beans and onions, tripe and slabs of fat. As it simmered, Manuela sat at the edge of the bed and thumbed absently through a magazine. She made herself up with lipstick and blush, powdered Hugo with talcum. She sat him on her lap and brushed her fingers over his forehead. ‘Daddy is coming,’ she whispered. She sang it softly. Isabel watched as if from a great distance. I should be happy for her, she thought, I should not feel lonely. Soon Manuela said, ‘Leo’s late.’ She began to pace. When night fell, they heard clapping outside the door. Manuela jumped to her feet and tucked her hair behind her ears.

  Leo was a small man who reminded Isabel immediately of an uncle, a serious man who worked in the fields. When Manuela embraced him, his hand rose slowly to caress her back. He said, ‘They made us work this morning, otherwise I would have come sooner.’ He broke into a smile when he saw the baby. He lifted him and spun him around the room. ‘My prince! My cowboy!’ The baby made sputtering sounds with his lips, and Manuela laughed as Isabel had never heard her laugh before.

  He kissed Isabel politely. His cheeks were shaven and he smelled strongly of cologne. She could feel the ridges of his rib cage. A little comb in his shirt pocket brushed against her shoulder.

  He didn’t set Hugo down even as they ate. He talked about a storm. ‘You can’t imagine the waves,’ he said. ‘You feel them even after you come to land. They follow you. In bed you think you are still at sea.’

  She waited for him to say something about Isaias, but he grew silent as he ate. The only sounds were chewing, the clatter of the spoons, the clink of cups against the table. The food was warm and rich. Isabel devoured it, lifting heaping spoonfuls that dripped beans, crushing the fat against the roof of her mouth, feeling it dissolve over her tongue, stopping only to lick the grease from her lips. She felt drunk, heavy. A sweetness seemed to hang from her eyelids, and she didn’t know if it was from the drink or the food. I haven’t eaten like this in years, she thought. For a moment, she forgot the oth
ers and chuckled, humming a Carnival tune, until Manuela said ‘Isabel?’ and eyed her crossly. She ate until her belly hurt, and then collapsed beside Leo and Manuela on the bed, where they huddled around the baby. She felt as if her heart was very big, and rose to finish the beer from their cups and lick the bowls. ‘Do we have more?’ she asked, but they were absorbed in the baby and didn’t respond.

  Isabel lay on her back next to them. She moved closer so her body pressed against her cousin. Manuela’s hair smelled sweet with perfume. Isabel buried her face into it, but her cousin didn’t seem to notice. She decided she wanted to hold the baby, but Manuela pushed her gently away. ‘No. Let Leo hold him, Isabel. You are with him all the time.’ Twice she tried to stand, but the walls spun.

  That night, as she slept on the floor, Isabel could hear them making love in the bed above her. Manuela whispered, Hush, and later, Isabel heard her moan, a soft cry she didn’t think could come from her cousin. She lay perfectly still, her arms pressed to her sides. She felt her face grow warm.

  In the morning, she awoke with a blinding headache and almost fell asleep again on the floor of the washroom. They dressed. Manuela let her wear lipstick. In church, she tried to see if any of the men were looking at her. She slid her shoes against the floor. On the steps, she asked Leo, ‘Have you seen Isaias?’

  ‘Not for months,’ he said. ‘I was going to ask you.’

  They spent the day together in the Center. Leo bought Isabel an ice cream, and she ate it outside the Municipal Theater, swinging her legs from a plinth beneath a tall caryatid, watching the theater crowds. Drops of cream fell on her dress, and when Manuela wasn’t looking she leaned forward and licked them from the cotton.

  Before he left, Leo gave Manuela a small roll of bills. ‘This is it?’ she asked. ‘Do you know how much last night’s meal cost?’ He protested, ‘The price of the bus ride went up.’ Manuela looked away, and Isabel imagined her calculating. She tucked the money into her bra. In the evening they took him to the station where buses left for the coast. Manuela went to the ticket window and asked about the prices. ‘Why don’t you trust me?’ asked Leo.

  They waited outside the bus. Leo held the baby until the driver said, ‘Get on, brother!’

  As they rode back to New Eden, Manuela cried. ‘He’ll be back soon,’ offered Isabel. ‘Two months!’ said Manuela. ‘My baby won’t see his father for two months.’ For a long time, she turned from Isabel and wept softly, her head pressed against the glass. She is crying too much, thought Isabel, She should be stronger.

  Outside the window, mother-of-pearl clouds haloed the hill. She held her cousin’s hand until they reached home.

  That night, Isabel dreamed Isaias came to see her. He entered the room through the door and sat on the side of the bed.

  He was wearing his Carnival jacket, with tinsel and colored ribbons. His hair was combed. He drummed his fingers on the side of the bed and whistled happily. Where are you? she asked. He laughed and said, It’s easy, and leaned over to whisper. She awoke with the feeling of his breath on her ear.

  She tried to remember what he said, chasing the dream back until her memory failed her. Still, she was comforted. She closed her eyes and thought, Does it count, to be comforted in a dream? Does he know he is talking to me? If I remembered what he said, would I follow his advice, the dream-advice of a dream-brother?

  She slept again, and Isaias was there. He left sometime in the early hours of dawn.

  In late July, a month after Isabel’s arrival, Manuela came home with news of work. It was election season, she said. ‘The job is only on the weekends, so you can still watch Hugo during the week. You’ll miss church, I know, but there isn’t any other way.’ She gave Isabel directions to a campaign office in the Center and woke her early the next morning.

  At the office, a man asked what she could do. ‘Do you know typing? How is your math? Have you worked with a campaign before?’ The office was crowded with boys and girls her age. ‘I can read,’ she said, ‘and write with a pen.’ She prayed he wouldn’t ask her to show him. ‘You’ll be a flag waver,’ he said.

  She didn’t expect to start right away, but he gave her a shirt and cap in the colors of the party. He said, ‘We drive through the city all day. If we pass you and you are not waving the flag, you will be docked half your pay. You are allowed to stop waving only when the traffic is not moving. You are never allowed to set the flag on the ground, although you can rest the base of the pole if you like. You shouldn’t do anything that could reflect poorly on the Candidate. You can break to eat lunch at noon, but no more than thirty minutes. If you lose the flag or it’s stolen because you’re careless, you’ll have the value of the flag docked from your pay. The value of a flag is three days of waving.’

  She filed behind the others into a van. It stopped at the busiest intersections and let them out one by one. Soon Isabel was left with the foreman and another girl. She hoped she would be next—she didn’t like how he had held her arm when he helped her into the car. When they stopped, he motioned the two of them out. He gave them both flags. ‘I want you both on that traffic island—you, there, and you, there. Stay in those places. Don’t talk. If you talk, I’ll know.’

  On the corner of a wide avenue with tall buildings, they waited for the light to turn. ‘Ever done this before?’ asked the girl. Isabel shook her head. ‘Then watch out for the mirrors—they come close—and careful with the flag. Once mine got caught on someone’s grille and almost threw me into the street, and it broke, and I had to pay for it. And we can’t talk—he’s serious about that. He’s docked my pay before. But we can talk at lunch.’

  The traffic was heavy when they took their spots on the island. The flag was gold, with the Candidate’s name flanked by black stars. Carefully, importantly, Isabel smoothed out the hem of her shirt and tried to stand as tall as she could. Around her, the street reverberated with the sound of honking and roaring motors.

  Scarcely a half hour passed, and her arms began to tire. She looked at the other girl, who was shimmying her shoulders as if she were dancing to music. The girl signaled to rest the base of the pole on the ground as she waved. The traffic grew worse. From passing cars, she heard whistles or boos. ‘Go home!’ shouted one. ‘How can you work for that animal?’ Another shouted, ‘You are a traitor to your class!’ Isabel didn’t understand what this meant, but, to be safe, she waved slower.

  In the late morning, they were joined on the island by a pair of old men. They wore placards that read ROCKET CHICKEN and hats with chicken beaks on the rim and tails behind. They had tired, furrowed faces that reminded her of her grandfather. The placards showed a bird running with a plate of cooked chicken on its outstretched fingers. Does the chicken know what it’s carrying? Isabel wondered. She tried to make herself smile, but the more she stared, the more the image disturbed her. The men shuffled uncomfortably. Someone probably told them: No resting the placards! She thought, I’m lucky I have a flag.

  The sun glinted off the sloping glass walls and formed mirages in the intersections. Soon Isabel could not see the end of the avenue for all the pollution. It was hot; the air clung to her like a wet film. I know how to bear heat, she told herself. But it was different from the dry heat in the north. By late morning, her nose and eyes were burning. She was dizzy and was afraid she might fall. She sat cross-legged on the island. Did the man say anything about sitting? But the exhaust made sitting worse than being on her feet. How many days do I have to do this? she wondered. When her feet began to ache, she paced back and forth along the island. I used to walk for hours, she thought. She crouched until her legs grew numb. The other girl had tied her shirt above her belly and turned her hat brim backward on her head. When she came close, Isabel whispered, ‘You can’t do that.’ The girl laughed. ‘Of course I can; they like it better. It’s the sexy style.’ She let the flag sway in her hands, spun it and let it fall, only to catch it again. She dipped it into the street and whirled it away as the cars charged.

/>   At noon, they slumped against the huge roots of a ficus that broke through the mosaic of the city sidewalk. The girl said, ‘You’ll be okay. I used to hate it, too, but it’s better than other jobs. The secret is pretending you’re a famous star and not just a flag waver. The day goes by, you’ll see.’

  The girl’s name was Josiane. She was sixteen. She lived with her mother in New Jerusalem, in the Settlements, not far from Isabel. She had six brothers and sisters. She waved flags for two parties, she said, it didn’t matter. They paid well because no one wanted charges of cheating their campaign workers. During the week, she worked in a doll factory and sold bus passes in the evening. She was born in the north but came to the city when she was seven. ‘You know, that old story,’ she said. Isabel shook her head. ‘Like you, I bet,’ said Josiane. ‘Drought, parrot perch …’ She laughed and waved it away with her hand.

  Black hair fell down her neck in ropy braids. She had long, thin arms, and spoke with her hands. ‘Street’s crowded,’ she said, turning her palm up and tapping her fingers together. Or: ‘Watch your pockets with that one,’ this time pointing her lips to a boy with a stocking cap, placing her thumb on her thigh and sweeping her painted nails past.

  With a wink, she showed Isabel a book she brought to read on the bus. It was called Traveling Fire and was Number 27 in the Young Passion Collection. On the cover was a shirtless man caressing a girl in jeans and a bra. It was about a girl named Marina and a traveling cowboy named Thyago Firestorm. The spine was broken at chapter seven, “The Burning Desire.” It was heavily annotated: someone with a pink pen had underlined ‘her burning love’ and ‘her famished heart,’ and stars flanked ‘their unquenchable passion.’ In the margin where the famished Marina is prohibited from seeing Thyago, a different pen had written, Let them be! The pages were bent and the print smudged. She had inherited it from a cousin, who had inherited it from a coworker. She would be happy, she said, to pass it along when she finished.