by T. C. Farren
‘Easy, Shikorina, easy,’ the social worker soothes. His tender tone brings her shrieks down to a whimper.
Tamba looks shamefaced after his show of strength. ‘That one always reacts badly to anaesthetics.’
The anaesthetic? Really? Not the sixty-seven stitches cutting a jagged line from her collarbone to her hip?
Andride shakes his head. ‘No. They broke her ribs again. She doesn’t scream for nothing.’
Of course Tamba doesn’t hear this minor detail. He orders over his radio, ‘Connect their feed pipes, Malachi. And check their cuts. Sometimes they open up in transit.’
But there is no way in hell or heaven I can go closer. I turn away from Shikorina’s wound, which has delivered lovely new lungs for Olivia’s little Timmy.
‘Malachi, do you need to debrief?’
What does he want me to do, climb up his spiral and chat about my fear of blood?
But I must pull myself together, as Tamba says. I must rehearse for tonight. I turn back, take a few tentative steps towards Lolie. Her face is as transparent as the waning moon last night. Her jaw ripples with the same striations as the metal wires of her prison. This young girl is in pain. I press my button, touch my lips, mime a sip of something.
‘Painkillers?’
Clever Tamba.
‘Dammit,’ he mutters. He leaves his microphone on. ‘Olivia, did number nineteen . . . No, number twenty’s looking good . . . Olivia . . . Listen! Did number nineteen get painkillers? You sure? . . . Look, it’s just freaky to watch. Can you ask for extra? . . . Thanks.’
The radio play ends. I feel a rush of gratitude for Tamba who is nothing like his father who cuts and sews people like he is upholstering lounge suites. I force myself to inspect the other two prisoners. Those careless black stitches are grotesque, but they seem to have survived the cable-car trip.
Oh no. What of the sharks tonight? They will surely smell the blood on these prisoners, who really should be in ICU. As Charmayne says, it’s a hopeless, mad mission. I have no nautical skills, no idea how I will hustle all these people into an escape vessel, lower it sixty metres and start the engines.
Something unravels in me. All I know is, in terms of logistics, God is our only hope.
I do what Tamba says, clip the feed pipes to the mesh. Then I clip and clean the rest of the prisoners, with that strange calm that comes before death. I remember it.
* * *
By the time I reach Madame Sophie, she looks like she has already been through a terror at sea. Her hair is clumped and clinging, her nails oddly tatty.
‘I’m scared, Malachi. What if we die tonight?’
That’s strange. Yesterday, Madame Sophie was fantasising about death. I check Tamba’s window. He has finally relaxed his guard after hours of stalking me. He slouches in his roller chair, doodling with what looks like a digital pen.
I pull my phone from my pocket, type beneath the leather, ‘There’s a good chance of it.’
‘Don’t talk like that, Malachi,’ Vicki says in a low voice behind me. Damn it, she sounds sexy.
‘What if I see my mother?’ Madame Sophie frets. ‘What if she’s angry with me?’
‘Ask Eulalie,’ I type. I add, very sincerely, ‘Or die and find out.’
‘Malachi. You’re not helping.’
‘Leave him, Sophie,’ Josiah growls.
‘I’m scared, Josiah.’
‘Well, stay behind, you silly thing.’
The bickering pair sound gentler than they have all week.
‘Stop,’ I type. ‘We don’t have time for this.’
Strangely, I feel no revulsion for Josiah’s hands today. I tighten the glove, use two thumbs on the clipper to split the knots in his nails. This is, after all, my very last job as a manicurist.
Josiah ventures, ‘I know about boat engines. I used to fix them on Lake Chad before my father made me officer in the Anti-Balaka.’
Engines! I want to laugh down the rig and the sky above it. No wonder the grease.
A swarthy blush creeps beneath his scarred skin. ‘I’m just saying, engines, I know them.’
I incline my head. Thank you, Josiah.
‘What about worms?’
The evil Vicki can’t help herself.
Josiah narrows his eyes. ‘What do you mean?’
Samuel intercedes. ‘Vicki, leave it. We need to stick together, like Malachi said.’
I nod emphatically. And God only knows where bickering could lead, once all these killers are free.
Upstairs, Tamba is considering his doodles, twiddling his pen like a drum majorette. I throw down my last towel, soiled by Josiah’s feet. I lift my chin, hope my profile looks heroic from Vicki’s point of view as I walk towards the trolley for the last time in my life.
Josiah starts again behind me. ‘What do you mean?’
Vicki is incredulous. ‘You’re really asking?’
‘Shut up, you two,’ Samuel says. ‘Please.’
Shut up. I love you, is what I would love to say. I want to slide my volume to maximum, shout out before I die, ‘I LOVE YOU VICKI!’
Instead I touch the button on my intercom.
‘Yes?’
I lay my cheek on my hands, mime a sweet, sexless afternoon sleep.
Tamba sighs. ‘I’m tired too. Someone woke me up at sparrow’s fart.’
I stare at him innocently.
‘Go so long. I’ve got to monitor the surgeries and send their stats through at five thirty.’
I nod at Tamba, lay my clipper on the trolley. Lay my leather brace for raptor taming next to it. I open the door, carry my bucket of towels over the threshold. I swing the door slowly closed, leave it open a crack. Feel in my pocket for my single sachet of salt, bend it in the middle. I fit it gently in the tiny hatch inside the door frame.
Please don’t break.
I shut the metal door gently. This time the click is a faint hiss, the miniature version of hitting a pillow. The light goes red for security observed, restraints in place.
Please let the light be telling a lie.
There is a scattering of white salt on the floor. The bolt has punctured it. I sink to my hands and knees, blow the grains under the door.
Don’t be an idiot. Who on earth would notice a tiny spill of white powder?
Tamba the ex-addict might, actually. He might want to fall to the floor and sniff it up his nostrils.
I stand quickly, glance up at Tamba’s shut door. He said five thirty. I climb the spiral stairs quietly. Near the top I drop to my knees, hunt for the cover of the shutdown switch.
No sign of it. I feel in the shadow beneath the second step. My fingers hit a slightly protruding plate. Yes.
I press my forehead against the step, peer into the shadow beneath it. The plate is the same yellow as the rest of the rig, almost invisible. I dig my fingers under the bottom edge. There is a shuffle and a scrape on the other side of the door. I shoot to my feet, but one heel slips off the stair. I flail my arms to stop myself from toppling.
Tamba’s door swings open. ‘Malachi, what . . .?’
I clutch the railing, my eyes too wide. I pat my cheek hard, mime a rough revival from sleep. I toss invisible food into my mouth, chew double-speed like a cartoon squirrel.
‘I must wake you for supper?’ Tamba wants to laugh, but he has a greater need. He presses on his penis like a small boy on a long bus journey. ‘Okay, Malachi.’
He pushes past and trots down the stairs ahead of me.
I dare not stay to inspect the switch, in case Tamba glances back and sees me through the haze induced by too much urine.
* * *
I lie on my bed in filthy white, thirsty. The sound of Tamba urinating only makes it worse.
Tamba comes out buttoning his trousers. ‘Got to get back. Meirong’s so paranoid, I can’t even piss.’ He surveys me on the bed. ‘Lucky fish.’
I smile at him. Lucky fish is something a kid might say when his friend gets a bigger slice of chocolate
cake. Tamba hurries off to record blood pressure, pulse rate, temp for the five surgeries who will be lucky to get within sniffing distance of the sharks tonight. I feel inside my pillowcase, touch the plastic sacs of antibiotics. Then I take my chocolate cake, drop into a desperate sleep made sweet by the terror of what comes after it.
* * *
Someone sinks a fist into my ribs, jiggles it. I jerk awake, grab the wrist with steel fingers. It wrestles free.
‘Geez, Malachi!’
I stare at his nostrils, try to remember who he is.
‘Remind me not to surprise you in the middle of the night!’ Tamba says.
I smile a sleepy apology.
‘Supper, dude. Five minutes.’ Tamba is gone, his dreadlocks leaving last.
The fist in my ribs calls me to combat. I spring to my feet, throw off my crushed angel outfit. I am about to save thirty-nine lives, or be the cause of their violent ending. Either way, I must prepare myself for murder and mayhem.
I adjust the shower to temperate, rub my hands over my skin. I knead my shoulder bones, my pectoral muscles, stroke my long forearms. The water falls warmly, a consistent lover. I stroke my thighs firmly, beg them to have the strength to bound up three hundred metal stairs. My feet, I rub them, pinch on my toes. Stay with me, please. Press me upright.
I rub the edges of my ears, the sweet, sensitive cartilage.
Will I soon be dead?
I massage my scalp with my fingertips. It’s okay, it’s okay. If they blow me up, there is something in me that has no need of neurons shaped like tadpoles with preposterously long tails. There is my living spirit.
I bang the heels of both hands against my heart. Keep beating, please, until I tell you to stop.
I open my eyes in the falling water, rinse them. Next, I stroke my pitted penis. Forgive me for hating you when you are so beauteous. My penis rises up in my hands. I smile at its one eye gazing up at me. I pull the skin down gently. Groan softly. Soon, if I live. I will give you pleasure.
But tonight I need it begging to be touched. I need it urging me to save Vicki. I would so love to enter her fig lips gently, have her suck me. Feel the spongy floor of her tongue curling around me, sliding in, sliding out. My erection is so enormous I could hang my towel on it. I take a moment to gape at it. I tear my eyes from the mirror. This is serious.
I dry my skin gently. Tonight I must be a silent shadow herding them up to the stars.
I dress in black chinos and a black t-shirt. I nod to the mirror now, a dark pastor. I tuck my stiff penis into my Sunday best.
I lift my mattress and pull out the key to the deck. I swap the lanyards, clip the hall key to the pink strap, clip the deck key to the red. I pour the red strap onto the cabinet, let it take the form of a beaten snake.
* * *
As I enter the canteen, Meirong leaps to her feet like she wants to punch me. She thrusts out an open palm. ‘Key.’
I smile obligingly, unravel the pink lanyard from my pocket. Meirong snatches it and loops it around her neck. I try not to look at it dangling between her breasts. Not because of the soft, swollen place where it is nestling, but because I have just played a trick on a very dangerous woman. The weight of the key seems to relax her.
But something has lit the green fuse in Tamba’s right eye. ‘You look smart, Malachi. You going somewhere special?’
I smile and shrug, mime a shower. I uncurl my fingers, show the opening of the petals of a sweet-smelling flower. I sit down, turn the tables on Tamba. I point a finger at him, pinch my nose as if to say, Dude, you’re stinky.
Tamba lifts an arm, smells himself. Janeé giggles.
‘Mmm. Sweet Tempest,’ Tamba says.
I can’t help but let out a deep laugh. Sweet Tempest, the perfect deodorant for being lost at sea. I watched the making of their ad on TV once – they spent two million dollars on a mechanical seagull the size of a pterodactyl. The sky, I remember, was not the pale, punished blue I have seen above the rig. It was the luminous blue of brake fluid. I start to hum the song from the Sweet Tempest TV ad.
Janeé shrieks with delight. ‘Malachi’s singing!’
Tamba grins, lifts his arms to fly, gives us a whiff of chemical sweat. I have managed to distract him from me dressing like James Bond, but I am appalled at my own stupidity. Nice, Malachi. Have a shower and dress like a cat burglar with your roommate watching your every move.
Isn’t this why there was such a bloody, bloody ending to Thomas Wyatt’s sonnet?
A deep despondency settles over me. These could be my last moments on earth, and here I am humming advertising jingles.
Olivia traipses into the canteen, her white skirt rolled up like she has been leaping for joy across green grass. I am the only one who notices that she is barefoot. She sits down, beaming. There are pink smudges on her hippie shirt like she has been eating ice cream. But the fluids in her lab are mostly pink. Possibly from the preservative.
Janeé serves us our supper, a whole baby chicken each, but in South Africa they don’t call it that, they call it a flatty. A chicken pressed flat, its tendons stretched to make it lie low. This one is dusted with something that smells like Aromat.
Olivia pricks her flatty with her fork. ‘Looks lovely, Janeé.’
‘Delicious,’ Janeé agrees, like someone else cooked it.
My last supper, and I am eating what I could have bought in a Nando’s budget box for eighty bucks in Nelspruit. New Nation supplies the franchise with fast-growing hybrid fowl, those creatures with no wings, no beaks, no feathers, no feet.
I mean, no feet.
I stare at my golden thighs that end at the knee. This poor thing didn’t even get to stand up.
I nip the end off a sachet of salt. Sprinkle it on my chips. Will a sachet of salt take us to the sea? If it wasn’t so pathetic, it would be funny.
Funny like dropping my trousers before the Asian beauty before me. Meirong catches my eye, blushes a becoming pale pink. She was thinking of my bum. Definitely.
What is wrong with me? I can’t stop thinking like a man. Pornographically.
Sex and death. Non-identical twins.
Now that Meirong has seen my bum, she seems to consider me a human being. ‘It won’t be long, Malachi. Six months will go quickly.’
I nod amicably at her.
‘We’re thinking of using that subject with no teeth? He keeps pulling them out, the idiot.’
Tamba says, ‘Number thirteen.’
The Indian. They were going to use him to grow my tongue! Ironic, very ironic that he is the only one who can help me with the black box. My laugh erupts as a hiccup.
What black box?
Get real, Malachi. Six hours to go and the precious object is nothing more than a mention from a dead young woman.
As Olivia tucks into her chicken, she tells me her news. ‘Timmy’s in theatre right now, Malachi. They’re busy with the transplant.’
I grin at her. Wow. Wonderful!
‘I’m not worried, really,’ she assures me passionately. ‘I prayed the whole of last night.’ But tears dampen the smudges beneath her eyes.
Janeé hugs Olivia with a huge arm. ‘My boy, too. They’re fixing him tomorrow,’ she tells me.
Lovely.
I exude genuine happiness for both of them. Inaudible sounds tease my mind for the second time today. First Romano’s pain, now Janeé and Olivia – they are ululating, aren’t they?
Something odd is happening to me. It’s like I can hear people’s sound effects. Am I becoming schizophrenic?
I stare at my footless flatty, feel a terrible yearning for sand and grass and trees. Let me walk again on solid land, please. I will eat the earth if necessary to show how grateful I am to be delivered to it. God only knows how. Lifeboat. Black box. Outboard engines. These are not things I am familiar with, other than from my compulsive reading of discarded magazines. The fluid in my body dives towards my feet. I am frightened, so frightened of the monster sea waiting to unleash its hat
red of the human race with its cruel fish-finders, its oozing oil, its fishing nets as long as the Nile River.
I stare down at my plate. And I can’t eat a chicken that may never have stood on the earth. This flatty is too flat.
‘Malachi? Don’t you like your chicken?’ It is Tamba this time who busts me.
I take a nibble. My last supper. I must eat.
Frances slipped into the water like a carcass.
Across from me, Olivia chews on her chicken that looks like Oscar Pistorius, the guy with the metal legs who nearly won the Olympics, then shot his model girlfriend dead. Raizier should have stolen him from prison and made him grow beautiful new hearts, one after another.
My mind keeps slipping sideways into fiction. Flighty, like Hamri.
That’s when it hits me. Romano’s daughter. What about her heart?
I wave at Meirong, pull her attention from her chicken. I pat my shoulders, indicate Romano’s epaulettes.
Meirong frowns. I aim an automatic rifle at her, pull the trigger.
‘Romano?’ Olivia guesses.
I nod eagerly.
‘What about Romano?’ Meirong asks warily.
I thrust out my hand below shoulder height, sweep the air on both sides of my head. Plaits. Hair. Feminine. Have they not seen his heartbreaking photograph?
Janeé is the one who gets it. ‘His little girl.’
I tap at my heart, throw open both palms to ask clearly, Where is it?
‘It’s sorted,’ Meirong says.
Tamba becomes steely next to me. ‘Have you sent it?’
‘Tamba,’ Meirong warns.
‘Have you?’
‘It’s . . . earmarked.’
Olivia and Janeé’s smiles flap like wings. They dive back into their chicken. Tamba and I both glare at Meirong. Earmarked, like a notch in the ear of a cow? I take a bite of my Oscar Pistorius. Something in my heart rips.
Will a little girl die because of me?
The Aromat makes me thirsty, but I dare not take a drink. There is only fatal raspberry on the table today.
Olivia sniffs up her happy tears. ‘I’m never going to get to sleep tonight. Should we play Remote-Mo badminton later, Janeé?’