The discs and tapes were immediately destroyed and a written and verbal order announcing the enforced surrender of all similar material was issued. Everyone in the search unit was transferred to a ‘training session’ in the city’s Great Hall of Benefits. Things like this seemed to happen every two or three weeks. They’d be digging in search of water and come across some old computers; the digger’s claw would scrape against old computer parts or a glimmer of tapes and discs would peek through the disturbed earth. Some people were prepared to pay a lot of money to get their hands on that sort of rubbish—despite the threat of being archived—and several people had already been transformed into little square-cuts for being in possession of ‘found’ music or films, which now graced one of Gao Dong’s waistcoats and lapels. Whenever Rashid thought about the Benefactor’s love of fine costumes, the collars and sashes, the cravats and cummerbunds, he couldn’t stop another image from entering his head: that of a gag. It was because of a slogan he had heard once, or read: ‘History is a hostage, but it will bite through the gag you tie around its mouth, bite through and still be heard.’
* * *
The time was nearing one p.m., and the young man, in his twenties, who called himself ‘Rashid’, considered going out for the day. If he stepped out into the street, he would automatically become ‘Beneficiary no. RBS89’—or ‘RBS’ for short (the number ‘89’ simply referred to the year he was born). But if he stayed in, he could remain unnamed, no one. Under the rule of Gao Dong—who’d come to power in the wealthy city-state of Kirkuk as a result of the Three Month War in 2078—all citizens had been reclassified as beneficiaries. This was because everything His Excellency now did for them, or to them, or on their behalf, in his governmental and military capacity as commander and chief, was to their benefit. His security measures were for their benefit; his purges of camps outside Kirkuk, driving out refugees wanting to share in their spoils, was for their benefit; his war on workers’ unions and their terrorists—all for their benefit. And every citizen prayed for his continued protection, of course.
This is how things stand in Kirkuk today—or rather in what the Beloved Commander calls ‘Gao’s Flame’—in honour of the city’s eternal flame.1 The old districts of the city and the Assyrian Citadel look more or less as they have done for over a century, even though the city has been cut off from Mesopotamia for four decades now, since Gao Dong’s arrival; the outskirts of the city have been developed as the city has expanded, and outside them are the camps, the migrants, and exiled union extremists. Over the years, Gao’s Flame has grown as one of the world’s richest city-states, a place of enormous wealth and investment, thanks to its petroleum reserves, where its citizens enjoyed peace and tranquility. An Assyrian from the city, named Sargon, built the Citadel anew and in each of its seven corners he placed huge gates flanked by winged bulls in the style of those sculpted by the Gods of Arrapha2 thousands of years before. Although the Three Month War had damaged parts of the aluminium-clad Citadel wall, the bulls still preserved their timeless lustre, shining in the sunlight, and staring out into each coming day with dark, wide eyes, their strong, youthful hooves planted firmly into Arrapha’s soil.
In the evenings, the young man known as RBS89—or ‘Rashid Bin Suleiman’ to his family—would meet some friends outside the Citadel at the Prophet Daniel Gate; from there, they would go to the ruined graveyards nearby, to chat and catch up before dusk became night. In the graveyard, some of his friends—not him, of course—would sing songs in the old tongues and recite poems that Gao Dong’s government had specifically reclassified. It was as though these friends were performing some secret ritual, something like a religious ceremony, even though the songs’ lyrics were completely domestic in their subject matter. They had never told Rashid—so he could never be accused of knowing—but these friends had all lost parents and relatives in the Great Benefactor’s arrival—hundreds had been executed by Gao Dong and his purification policies. His friends would sing these simple love songs in hushed, ardent voices, heedless of the danger they faced if the authorities overheard them. ‘The people of Kirkuk had fallen into Gao Dong’s grasp as easily as a butterfly into the hands of a collector,’ his friends would say, ‘because the whole world had changed. The balance of power had tipped towards China, and now Kirkuk, once a solitary kingdom, speaking entirely its own language,3 had become just another outpost.’
One evening, about three weeks before, as the young men and women had gathered in the graveyard, a red government droid hovered towards them. His friends knew what to do, switching seamlessly from the ancient song they were singing at the time, to a Chinese one. They always managed to have a contemporary Chinese song ready, whose melody matched exactly with the ancient one. This was standard procedure whenever a member of the red police came near, and it worked every time. ‘I wish I were a stone / At the base of the citadel,’ they would sing one minute, ‘So that I could be friends / With everyone who visits.’ Then, a second later it would be love song set in modern Beijing. It was a cat-and-mouse game. But listening to them sing that first song, they all sometimes wondered, privately, if something was missing, if something at the core had been stolen away, and if the now they inhabited was impenetrable to it. Whatever it was, it could no longer reach through; instead they all mouthed a set of sounds they didn’t truly understand.
One of the young men gathered there that evening—there is no evidence it was Rashid—failed to follow the normal procedure. While his friends switched effortlessly to a Chinese pop song, this particular youth carried on singing in Arabic, or possibly Turkmen. Indeed he sang louder and louder as the droid came near, inspecting him close-up. He drowned out the singing of the others, many of whom broke away quickly and disappeared. The words were obviously strange to him:
There are three fig trees growing
Beside the wall at the citadel.
But he kept singing them, as if singing them louder and louder would give them more meaning, somehow, or help their meaning reach through to him:
My hands are bound,
A chain is wrapped around my neck.
Don’t yank the chains,
’cause my arms already hurt.
Three weeks later, the afternoon that Rashid received the bracelet text, he decided against going out. It was a Saturday after all, he didn’t need to do anything. Instead he would play with his artifacts. These were not recordings, you understand; they contained no written or spoken or musical examples of reclassified languages. They were merely sculptural objects, with interesting shapes—glittering discs or dull cuboids with spindles of tape inside.
By some strange coincidence, Rashid owned hundreds of them, and also had the means to duplicate them—just as objects, of course, for their aesthetic, sculptural value. He stood in his pyjamas, scanning his shelves, trying to decide which one to play with, when a special detachment of red droids burst through the front door to his house, brushing aside Suleiman Senior, and marching up to his room. Some people have claimed that RBS89 managed to take one of these objects and extract a melody from it, in the time the droids took to break down his door. There is no evidence to support this, nor the claim that RBS89 was singing this melody as he was carried away, or that he danced in his prison cell, singing the same. Similar rumours were spread about the other suspects removed by red forces in the Begler, Piryadi, and Azadi neighbourhoods, in the crackdown that became known as ‘Operation Daniel’.
Even more unfounded is the superstition, circulated in some of the poorer districts, that a melody sung in the face of death resounds louder in that palace of final destination, the glittering Archive. That would imply that when General Woo Shang presented Gao Dong, The Beloved, three weeks later, with a new pair of diamond-studded boots, in his castle on the Euphrates River, one of the tiny gemstones on those boots would still be vibrating, deep inside, with the words of a silly song—‘Take me to the bar./ Take me to the coffeehouse. / Let’s go somewhere fun…’ 4 This is not true.
KUSZIB
HASSAN ABDULRAZZAK
Ur was super excited. His boss wasn’t known for generosity, so the day he offered him two free tickets to the Feast, Ur could barely contain himself. ‘I have to be in another sector this weekend,’ his boss explained in his usual, ridiculous baritone. Ur suspected a new mistress.
He couldn’t wait to get home. ‘Guess what sugarlump?’ he called out to his wife. ‘We’re going to the Feast!’ Ona’s eyes lit up for the first time in months.
Ur knew that Ona was unhappy with their move to Sector 42, even though they lived in its most exciting city, Centre Point. She never came out and said as much, but some resentments take a long time to simmer, even longer to bubble and froth.
The tickets in Ur’s hand felt like the first sign of the better life he had promised Ona. The annual Feast was the place to be at that time of year. Impossible to get invited to, it offered everything: a chance to sample the sector’s finest gastronomical delights; the opportunity to mix with the cream of society; and introductions to the kind of people you’d never normally encounter as a mere sorting clerk, which is what Ur was. A sorting clerk with big ambitions.
‘We have access to the fashion show as well!’ Ur declared. He kissed Ona, tasting oregano and basil on her tongue before sampling, with the tip of a spoon, the sauce she was preparing. They tried to make love that night but it proved, as on previous occasions since the move to Sector 42, to be a joyless affair. Later, in the early hours, Ona sat up in bed and began sobbing quietly to herself. Ur pretended to be asleep.
The morning of the Feast finally arrived, and Ur took Ona shopping. They treated themselves to tailored outfits, the type they’d never dream of buying normally, then, while Ona booked herself into a beauty salon, Ur killed an hour staring at window displays of laser-harpoons. On returning home they showered, perfumed and dressed. Ur thought Ona was looking very attractive in her new outfit. He put his arm around her but she gently pulled away as she fixed her earrings. Ur’s faint smile disappeared. He wondered whether over the course of this night things would get better or worse between them.
Ur parked the Paradigm Hover in the vehicle dock, and the couple took the magnet capsule to Alliance City Station (in a part of town that used to be called Revolution City in the old days). From there they reached the exhibition complex on disposable solar-blades, which they kicked off and recycled in a terror-proof bin in front of the complex. Through the glass façade, they could see the Feast was already underway.
Passing through the main entrance, Ur and Ona held their invitations aloft, to be scanned by the security system. As each invite was read, the mesh of lasers crisscrossing the doorway disappeared and the guest walked through. On the other side, Ona and Ur were met by a pair of ten-foot-high robotic puppies bounding toward them, enthusiastically. The puppies bathed them in purple light emitted from their big, adorable eyes as they scanned for weapons. Ur had to remind himself that cute as these floppy-eared, chrome-coloured puppies were, they were designed to pounce and swallow terrorists whole, in a fraction of a second. Bombs could explode noiselessly inside their stomachs.
The great hall took the breath of anyone who entered it. Using reflective surfaces and synthetic-crystal paint, the designers managed to convey a sense of vastness, even infinity.
Row upon row of stalls stretched like waves over an ocean. Farmers and merchants from all over Sector 42, not just Centre Point but farther afield, were gathered to display their produce. The first fifty or so rows were dedicated solely to wine.
Ona paused in front of one stall that displayed wines with peculiar-looking labels. The labels featured a painting of a farmhouse surrounded by horses and fields stretching into the distance. It was like a picture out of an info-bite manual. Ur asked the old merchant manning the stall if they could sample some of it. The merchant poured two generous glassfuls and handed them over.
‘Smell it first,’ he suggested to Ur who was about to down it in one go.
‘Why?’
‘That’s how it was done in the old days.’
Ur sniffed and was pleasantly surprised, even moderately aroused, by the aroma. Ona followed suit and a smile stole across her face.
‘Now drink,’ the old merchant instructed.
Ur began to drink. The wine caressed his throat like a sheet of velvet. Seconds later, an explosion of taste erupted in the back of his throat. The alcohol reached the brain and he felt his muscles relax with a substantial quantity of happiness.
‘This is not normal wine, is it? What’s it made of?’
‘Grapes,’ replied the merchant.
‘Grapes?’
‘Red grapes to be precise. This is how they made wine here in the old days. We are the only company that has been granted a licence to create produce according to the old ways’.
‘But this tastes great,’ Ona interjected. Ur and the merchant looked at her surprised, assuming she hadn’t been following their conversation. ‘There should be more things like this. We should be encouraged to learn about the old days.’ Ona’s voice was ripe with enthusiasm. The old merchant poured another shot of wine for her then leaned forward to whisper, ‘You know, the elders frown on this, madam.’
Ur finished his sample and asked: ‘Does your company produce any normal wines?’
‘Sure. Here try this.’
The merchant took out a container from the thirty-seven-degrees incubator and poured a sample in a fresh cup.
It was local wine with the usual two-rivers logo on the label.
Ur tasted the wine. It was the familiar sort, the type he could obtain easily at his local market. He formulated his next question carefully, before asking with confidence:
‘What kind of humans is this made out of?’
‘It’s from the blood of locals,’ the old merchant replied in a lacklustre voice, clearly unimpressed with Ur’s rather unrefined question.
‘Perhaps you should be asking, rather, what they were fed on?’ he suggested.
‘Er, yes, precisely,’ Ur blushed.
‘We prefer organic methods. That’s what our company is all about.’ The merchant’s hands animated his speech. ‘So for a start we cook their meals. Most wine merchants don’t bother with such details. Humans can indeed eat raw meat, but their teeth are not particularly suited for it so they prefer cooked food.’
‘Just like us!’ Ona yelped.
‘Yes, perhaps there is a degree of similarity with us.’
The merchant produced more wine bottles with different logos. ‘These come from farther afield. Have a taste.’ He poured fresh glasses for the couple.
‘What do you cook for them?’ Ona asked with real interest, as cooking was one of the things she excelled at.
‘Whatever we can get cheaply: sheep, donkeys, rats, that sort of thing. Sometimes we feed them their own babies but we found it best not to make them aware of that, otherwise they get agitated.’
Ona put her glass down. Ur took another sip from his.
‘We screen them for disease on a regular basis. They’re susceptible to so many viruses, as a species. We have to be careful especially when handling their fluids: blood, mucus, semen, et cetera. Most of their viruses can not cross over to us but we still have to follow regulations.’
‘Well you have a good produce here. It’s high quality,’ Ur said this knowing what the merchant would ask next.
‘Would you like to purchase anything, sir? We can have it sent to your address.’
Before he had time to reply or fumble for his credit chip, Ona interjected.
‘Maybe later, there is still so much to see.’
She was always the sensible one. Ur also knew that by saying this she was reminding him of their plan: to work in Centre Point until they’d saved enough credit to buy a plot of sea back home.
They sampled more wine from other regions. Mainly made from human blood, although the ‘Other Vinos’ section offered vintages derived from dog, cat, hamster, and pig. Ona was gett
ing a little tipsy. Ur kissed her. She kissed him back and he could feel a flicker of fire between them. But not enough, he thought. The blood on their lips intermingled. Her brown-eyed African mixed with his German blond.
After the wine, came the meat stalls. To Ona it seemed that every part of the human was used in one way or another. There were arms, torsos and thighs hanging from hooks and several counters displayed heads stuffed with fried tomatoes or peppers where the eyes used to be. At Ona’s local market human meat was often highly processed and vacuum-wrapped. It was easy to forget where it came from. But here she was confronted by the entirety of the human animal. Ur passed one head with two carrots sticking out of its ears. He had to suppress an attack of the giggles as he made his way forward.
Then there were the sausages; coils and coils of them, stacked ancient castle walls in refrigerated trays. Ur knew these were made from things like ground-up eyes, lips, cheeks, tongues, muscle, spinal cord. Just about every part of the human anatomy fed into those cylindrical delights. Ona picked one of the foreskin-and-herb-coated sausages to examine it when she noticed a crowd had gathered around a small platform directly opposite her.
It appeared a demonstration was about to take place. The butcher standing on the platform was dressed in orange overalls. On a table in front of him lay an entire human leg. The tanned limb was completely smooth unlike many others that hung around them. Something about it suggested femininity. The toenails were painted red and the middle toe was adorned with a tiny silver ring. The butcher stood with one hand firmly gripping the thigh; with his other hand he held up an old-fashioned cleaver, its edge glinting like a laser beam. Once a sufficient crowd gathered, he raised the leg and cleared his throat, then for a moment he stopped himself, noticing the toe ring. With a flick of the cleaver it was gone, flying through the air above them, then landing somewhere behind him with a tiny jingle. The nail on the toe also came off and a small trickle of congealed blood dribbled over the other toes and onto the table. Ur, Ona and most of the others watching recognised that the leg was organic; real fresh.
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