by Michel Faber
He wondered how God would feel about him announcing, right here in the car, that he really, desperately needed to know whether Bea had written to him, and that Grainger must therefore turn the vehicle around and drive all the way back to the base. To Grainger, it would look like a failure of nerve. Or maybe she’d be touched by the ardency of his love. And then again, maybe what seemed like a backwards step would in fact be God pushing him forward, God using the delay to put him in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. Or was he just straining to find a theological justification for his own lack of courage? He was being tested, that much was obvious, but what was the nature of the test? Whether he had the humility to appear weak in the eyes of Grainger, or whether he had the strength to push on?
Oh Lord, he prayed. I know it’s impossible, but I wish I could know whether Bea has written back to me yet. I wish I could just close my eyes and see her words before me, right here in the car.
‘OK, Peter, this is your last chance,’ said Grainger.
‘Last chance?’
‘To check for a message from your wife.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘There’s a Shoot in this vehicle. We’re still in range of USIC reception. Another five, ten minutes of driving, and we’ll lose it.’
He could feel himself blushing, with a big daft smile so broad it made his cheeks ache. He felt like hugging her.
‘Yes, please!’
Grainger stopped the vehicle but did not switch off the motor. She flipped open a hatch in the dashboard and pulled out a slim contraption of plastic and steel, which unfolded to reveal a monitor and miniature keyboard. He made the inarticulate noise of surprise and admiration that was called for in the circumstances. There was momentary confusion as to which of them would take responsibility for switching the thing on, and their fingers met on the back of the console.
‘Take your time,’ said Grainger, settling back in her seat and turning her face towards the window, in a display of respect for his privacy.
For nearly a minute – sixty agonising seconds – nothing manifested on the Shoot except a computerised promise that a search was under way. Then the screen filled up from top to bottom with unfamiliar words: Bea’s words. God bless her, she’d responded.
Dear Peter, she wrote.
I’m upstairs in our study. It’s six o’clock in the evening, still full daylight, indeed nicer than it’s been all day. The sun is at a low angle now, mild and buttery yellow, streaming through the window straight onto the wall-hanging/collage that Rachel & Billy & Keiko made for me. Those kids must be teenagers by now, but their wonderful depiction of the ark and its animals is still as cute and eccentric as when it was first done. The way Rachel used bits of orange wool for the lion’s mane never ceases to charm me, especially when it’s lit up by the evening sun as it is now. One of the giraffes’ necks is dangling down, though; I’ll have to stick it back into place.
I only just arrived home from work – bliss to be sitting down at last. Too tired to have a shower yet. Your message was waiting for me when I rushed upstairs to check.
I can understand that you would be eager to go and live with the Oasans ASAP. Of course God is with you and you shouldn’t delay unnecessarily. Try not to sacrifice common sense, though! Remember when that crazy Swedish guy at our Bible study dedicated himself to Jesus? He said his faith in the Lord was so strong that he could just ignore the council’s eviction notice, and God would organise a miraculous last-minute reprieve! Two days later he’s on our doorstep with his bin-bag of possessions . . . I’m not implying you’re a nutcase like him, just reminding you that practicalities are not your strong suit and that bad things can happen to ill-prepared Christians just as they can happen to anyone else. We need to strike a balance between trusting in our Lord to provide, and showing due respect for the gift of life and this body we’ve been lent.
Which means: when you do go to live with your new flock, please make sure you’ve got (1) some way of calling for help if you’re in trouble, (2) an emergency supply of food and water, (3) DIARRHOEA MEDICATION, (4) the compass co-ordinates of the USIC base and the Oasan settlement, (5) a compass, obviously.
Peter glanced up at Grainger, just in case she was reading over his shoulder. But she was still gazing out the window, feigning deep interest in the landscape. Her hands were loosely clasped in the lap of her gown. Small hands, well formed, with pale, stubby-nailed fingers.
He was embarrassed that, apart from a bottle of green water filled from the tap, he’d taken none of the precautions Bea was urging him to. Not even the diarrhoea pills she’d bought for him specially. They would hardly have weighed down his rucksack, those pills, and yet he’d removed them. Why had he removed them? Was he being as foolish as the crazy Swede? Maybe he was indulging a stubborn pride in his minimal baggage, his statement of single-minded intent: two Bibles (King James and New Living Translation, 4th edition), half a dozen indelible marker pens, notebook, towel, scissors, roll of adhesive tape, comb, flashlight, plastic wallet of photographs, T-shirt, underpants. He closed his eyes and prayed: Am I drunk on my own mission?
The answer came, as it so often did, in the form of a sensation of well-being, as if a benign substance in his bloodstream was suddenly taking effect.
‘Have you fallen asleep?’ asked Grainger.
‘No, no, I was just . . . thinking,’ he said.
‘Uh-huh,’ she said.
He returned to Bea’s message, and Grainger returned to her study of the empty scrubland.
Joshua is helping me type, as usual: lying between the keyboard and the monitor, his back legs and tail obscuring the top row of keys. People think I’m being pedantic when I write numbers out as words, or type ‘pounds’ instead of ‘£’, but the fact is that I have to lift up a comatose cat every time I want to use those symbol keys. I did it just now and Joshua made that ‘njurp’ sound that he makes. Last night, he slept right through, didn’t utter a peep (purred a bit). Maybe he’s adjusting to your absence at last. I wish I could! But don’t worry, I’m getting on with things.
The Maldives tragedy has dropped out of the media. There are still small articles on the inner pages of some newspapers, and a few ads placed by charities for donations, but the front pages and the prime-time coverage (as far as I can tell from the clips on my phone) have moved on to other things. An American congressman has just been arrested for shooting his wife. Point-blank range, with a shotgun, in the head, while she was swimming in their private pool with her lover. The newspaper journalists must be so relieved – with the Maldives thing they had to evoke gruesomeness without appearing prurient, whereas with this they can be as gross as they like. The woman’s head was blown off from the jaw up, and her brains (juicy detail!) were floating around in the water. The lover was shot too, in the abdomen (‘possibly aiming for the groin’). Lots of supplementary articles about the congressman, his life history, achievements, college graduation photo, etc. The wife looked (when she still had a head) exactly as you’d expect: glamorous, not quite real.
Mirah and her husband are getting along much better. I met her at the bus stop and she was giggly, almost flirtatious. She didn’t raise the issue of converting to Christianity again, just talked about the weather (it’s been bucketing down again). She only got serious when she talked about the Maldives. Most of the islanders were Sunni Muslims; Mirah’s theory is that they must have displeased Allah by ‘doing bad things with tourists’. A very confused young lady, but I’m glad she’s no longer in crisis and I’ll continue to pray for her. (I’ll pray for your Coretta too.)
Speaking of Muslims, I know they consider it a terrible sin to throw away old or damaged copies of the Qur’an. Well, I’m about to commit a similar sin. You know the big cardboard box of New Testaments we had sitting in the front room? It looks like they’ll have to be dumped. I can imagine this might upset you to hear, given your news about the Oasans being so hungry for the Gospel. But we’ve had some flooding. The rain
was ridiculous, it didn’t let up for five hours, full pelt. There were torrents flowing along the footpaths; the drains just aren’t designed to take that kind of volume. It’s all right now, in fact the weather is lovely, but half the houses in our street have suffered damage. In our case, it’s just some patches of sopping-wet carpet, but unfortunately the books were right on one of those patches and it was a while before I realised they’d been soaking up the water. I tried drying them out in front of the heater. Big mistake! Yesterday they were New Testaments, today they’re blocks of wood pulp.
Anyway, not your problem. Hope this reaches you before you set off!
Bea
Peter drew a deep breath, past the lump in his throat. ‘Do I have time to write her a reply?’ he asked.
Grainger smiled. ‘Maybe I should’ve brought a book.’
‘I’ll be quick,’ he promised.
Dear Bea, he wrote, then got stuck. His heart was beating hard, Grainger was waiting, the engine was running. It was impossible.
No time for a proper ‘epistle’ – think of this as a postcard. I’m on my way!
Love,
Peter
‘OK, that’s it,’ he said, after he pressed the button. His words hung on the screen more briefly than usual; the transmission was almost instant. Maybe the open air was conducive to the Shoot’s function, or maybe it had something to do with the small amount of text.
‘Really?’ said Grainger. ‘You’re done?’
‘Yes, I’m done.’
She leaned across him and replaced the Shoot in its slot. He could smell the fresh sweat inside her clothing.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Let’s hit the road.’
They spoke little on the remainder of the drive. They’d discussed the essentials – or agreed not to discuss them further – and neither of them wanted to part on bad terms.
The Oasan settlement was visible a long time before they reached it. In full daylight, it glowed amber in the light of the sun. Not exactly magnificent, but not without beauty either. A church spire would make all the difference.
‘Are you sure you’ll be OK?’ said Grainger, when they had a mile or so to go.
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
‘You might get sick.’
‘Yes, I might. But I’d be surprised if I died.’
‘What if you really need to come back?’
‘Then the Lord will make it possible for me to come back somehow.’
She chewed on that for a few seconds, as if it were a dry mouthful of bread.
‘The next official USIC visit – our regular trading exchange – is in five days,’ she said, in an efficient, professionally neutral voice. ‘That’s five real days, not days according to your watch. Five cycles of sunrise and sunset. Three hundred . . . ’ (she consulted the clock on the dashboard) ‘ . . . three hundred and sixty-odd hours from now.’
‘Thanks,’ he said. It seemed impolite not to make a note of it, if only on his palm, but he knew perfectly well that he was unable to calculate three hundred and sixty hours into the future, when he’d be sleeping and waking up at various points along the way. He would have to take everything as it came.
At the final approach, C-2 appeared deserted. Their vehicle pulled up at the outermost of the settlement’s buildings, the same place as before, marked with the white star. Except that the building was now marked with something else as well: a large message, freshly painted in white letters three feet tall.
WEL COME
‘Wow,’ said Grainger. ‘Didn’t know they had it in them.’
She stopped the car and flipped open the hatch. Peter got out and fetched his rucksack from the boot, strapping it onto his shoulders so that his arms were free. He wondered what the correct way of taking his leave of Grainger might be: a handshake, a courteous nod, a casual wave, or what.
The crystalline curtain that veiled the nearest doorway sparkled as its trails of beads were brushed aside to allow someone through – a hooded figure, small and solemn. Peter couldn’t tell if it was the same person he’d met before. He remembered the Oasan’s robe as being blue, whereas this one’s was pastel yellow. No sooner had the person stepped out into the light than another person followed him, parting the beads with his delicate gloves. This one’s robe was pale green.
One by one, the Oasans emerged from the building. They were all hooded and gloved, all daintily built, all wearing the same soft leather boots. Their robes were all the same design, but there was scarcely a colour repeated. Pink, mauve, orange, yellow, chestnut, faun, lilac, terracotta, salmon, watermelon, olive, copper, moss, lavender, peach, powder blue . . .
On and on they came, making room for each new arrival, but standing as close together as a family. Within a few minutes, a crowd of seventy or eighty souls had gathered, including smaller creatures who were evidently children. Their faces were mostly obscured, but here and there a whitish-pink swell of flesh peeped out.
Peter gaped back at them, light-headed with exhilaration.
The frontmost of the Oasans turned to face his people, raised his arms high and gave a signal.
‘Amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa . . . ’ they sang, sweet and high and pure. The vowel floated for five, ten seconds without pause, a grand communal exhalation, sustained so long that Peter interpreted it as an abstract sound, unrelated to language or melody. But then it incorporated a consonant – albeit an unidentifiable one – and shifted in pitch: ‘ . . .สีiiiiiiing graaaaaaaaสีe! Howสีweeeeeeeรี่ a สีouuuuuund thaรี่ สีaaaaaaaaaaaaved a wreeeeฐ liiiiike meeeeeeeeeee!’
In synchronised obedience to an energetic hand-gesture from the frontmost Oasan, they all stopped at once. There was a huge intake of breath, a seventy-strong sigh. Peter fell to his knees, having only just recognised the hymn: the anthem of fuddy-duddy evangelism, the archetype of Salvation Army naffness, the epitome of everything he had despised when he’d been a young punk snorting lines of speed off piss-stained toilet lids, of everything he dismissed as stupid when he was liable to wake in a pool of congealed vomit, of everything he considered contemptible when he was stealing money from prostitutes’ handbags, of everything he laughed off as worthless when he himself was a toxic waste of space. I once was lost, and now I’m found.
The conductor gestured again. The choir resumed.
II
ON EARTH
10
The happiest day of my life
Peter hung suspended between ground and sky, in a net, his body covered with dark blue insects. They weren’t feeding on him, they were just using him as a place to be. Every time he stretched or coughed, the bugs would hover up from his skin or hop elsewhere, then settle back. He didn’t mind. Their legs didn’t tickle. They were quiet.
He’d been awake for hours, resting his cheek on his upflung arm so that his eyes were in line with the horizon. The sun was rising. It was the end of the long night, his fifth night spent among the Oasans.
Not that he was among the Oasans now, strictly speaking. He was alone on his improvised hammock, strung aloft between two pillars of his church. His church-in-progress. Four walls, four internal pillars, no roof. No contents except for a few tools and coils of rope and vats of mortar and braziers of oil. The braziers of oil were cold now, glimmering in the dawn light. Far from serving any religious purpose¸ they had a purely practical function – throughout the long dark spell, for the duration of each working ‘day’, they were ignited to throw light on the proceedings, and extinguished again when the last of the Oasans had gone home and ‘Father Peรี่er’ was ready to retire.
His congregation were labouring as fast as they could to build this place, but they weren’t here with him today; not yet. They were still asleep, he supposed, in their own houses. Oasans slept a lot; they got tired easily. They’d work for an hour or two, and then, whether the task had been arduous or not, they would go home and rest in bed for a while.
Peter stretched in his hammock, recalling what those beds looked like,
glad he wasn’t in one now. They resembled old-fashioned bathtubs, sculpted out of a sort of tough, dense moss, as lightweight as balsa wood. The tubs were lined with many layers of a cotton-like material, swaddling the sleeper in a loose, fluffy cocoon.
Three hundred hours ago, when he first succumbed to tiredness after the great exhilarations of his first day, Peter had been offered such a bed. He’d accepted it, in deference to his hosts’ hospitality, and there had been much ceremonial well-wishing for a good long rest. But he hadn’t been able to sleep.
For one thing, it was daytime, and the Oasans felt no need to darken their bedchambers, positioning their cots right under the brightest sunbeams. He’d climbed in anyway, squinting against the glare, hoping he might lose consciousness through sheer exhaustion. Unfortunately, the bed itself was an obstacle to sleep; the bed, in fact, was insufferable. The fluffy blankets were soon drenched with sweat and vapour, they exuded a sickly coconutty smell, and the tub was slightly too small, even though it was larger than the standard model. He suspected it had been carved specially for him, which made him all the more determined to adjust to it if he could.
But it was no good. As well as the absurd bed and the excessive light, there was also a noise problem. On that first day, there were four Oasans sleeping near him – the four who called themselves Jeสีuสี Lover One, Jeสีuสี Lover Fifรี่y-Four, Jeสีuสี Lover สีevenรี่y-Eighรี่ and Jeสีuสี Lover สีevenรี่y-Nine – and all four of them breathed very loudly, creating an obnoxious symphony of sucking and gurgling. Their cots were in another room, but Oasan houses had no closeable doors, and he could hear the sleepers’ every breath, every snuffle, every glutinous swallow. In his bed back home, he was used to the barely audible breathing of Bea and an occasional sigh from Joshua the cat, not this kind of racket. Lying in the house of the Oasans, he reconnected with a long-forgotten episode from his past life: the memory of being lured off the street by a charity worker and put in a hostel for rough sleepers, most of them alcoholics and addicts like himself. The memory, too, of sneaking out of there in the middle of the night, back onto the bitter streets, to look for his own quiet space to doss down in.