Meatloaf in Manhattan (7 page)

Later that night the deeds of battle are recounted: the daring raids, the reckless attacks. Little-Path is remembered and honoured in the counting coup.

‘I saw Little-Path,' says Reindeer-Stalking, ‘high on the ridge before the greatcoat was killed. Our young brave crept upon him and touched him on the hand. So close was he, so daring a deed.'

All the braves whoop and clap, the fire dances to their cheers and Little-Path is handed the prized feather from the golden eagle.

The sound of a train's whistle brings Little-Path back from his daydreaming. He folds the letter Eileen Kellogg had dictated to her pastor and places it in the bag. He looks up, and there in front of him, as if a ghost from the Battle of Greasy Grass, stands an older man. A Sioux or a Cheyenne. Difficult to tell from the bloated face, the matted hair and straggly beard. The clothes he wears, tied somehow together by strands of string, are rags gathered from the roadside and railway sidings.

‘My name is Thunder Bear,' says the invisible mouth from within the beard. ‘Everything is gone,' he says swigging from the bottle of whisky. He sinks to his knees, his morning melancholia gently giving way to daytime madness. He scrabbles around on the ground, whipping up the dust with his gnarled fingers. ‘Where are the braves? Nowhere for us to go to grow. The white man has won, taken everything from us. And given us this,' says Thunder Bear, holding up the bottle to the light, staring intently at the amber liquid. ‘So braves fall off their horses, fathers rape their children. No one can trap a buffalo, there are no buffalo.'

Little-Path listens to the old chief, saddened beyond sadness. He says nothing, unsure if the older man is even aware of his presence. Up above, the clock shows the hour and he knows it is time to go.

After a short walk, Little-Path stands outside the simple wood-framed house on a street behind the telegraph office. Slung over his shoulder is the bag he has carried with him ever since the last night of the battle. The woman he has come to meet is looking at him from the parlour window. Eileen Kellogg is tall and thin, with white hair tied away from her face in a bun. She wears a shapeless dress of grey calico that reaches to the floor. Little-Path sees her and she sees him. Her face is expressionless. As she moves away from the window the curtain flutters. The front door opens. He walks up the pathway, knocks on the doorframe, hesitates, and then enters. He can see her sitting by the fire, a bible in her lap. There are no flames in the hearth.

‘Sit down,' she says without turning to look at him. He sits on a wooden stall, the only other seat in the room. ‘So, you have come to tell me how you slaughtered my brother. How you scalped him and cut off his ear.' She looks up, studying this old man with the deeply lined face, with a feather in his ponytailed hair. ‘He was so battered they only identified him by his boots.' Little-Path says nothing. ‘They told me you got your womenfolk to smash in their faces with clubs, no matter if they were dead or alive.'

Her stare is hard and bitter. It accuses. It demands.

‘I was only a boy,' says Little-Path, ‘There were many deaths and many more in the days and years to come. I killed no one that day. I killed no one in my life. But I was there. I saw your brother when he was alive and then I saw him when he was dead.'

‘You said, in the letter I received, that you have something for me, something of my brother's.'

Little-Path opens the bag he had found in the bush above the ravine, the bag he has kept safe down all these decades. He takes out the small book that Marcus Kellogg had been writing in as he sat on the rock above the gulch, watching the savagery and carnage below.

‘How did you find me?' she says taking the book from Little-Path.

‘I searched. I think the clouds guided me to when the time was right.'

‘The clouds?'

‘Your brother. Although I spoke no English back then I captured the sounds he spoke that day. He said, “We can't take the clouds.” Over and again he said those words and I held them in my mind until I could understand their meaning.'

The woman shrugs her shoulders, ignoring the heathenness of Little-Path's words. She turns the book over in her palm as if caressing the hand of her brother. The book is leather-bound with a metal clasp. She opens it up and looks at the neat lines of writing, the sheets of simply drawn maps, the rough sketches of cavalrymen and campfires. The writing on the final page is slanted, hurried, jumping across dividing lines. She looks up at the messenger, the boy from the battle.

‘Read this last page to me,' she says, bracing herself for whatever the words will reveal. ‘Reading was something I have never learnt to do.'

Little-Path takes the book from her. Momentarily their fingers touch. Eileen's hand recoils as if from a flame. Then he reads the lines he's read a thousand times before, ever since he learnt the language of the bluecoats on the reservation, when all was lost and all had to be found again.

‘Our situation is hopeless. There will be no victory here. Hell is unleashed all around and we are being slaughtered. The clouds pass by overhead, they race on the wind, as if nothing is amiss. They will be here in the morning when we are gone. Is this God's judgment on our race? His ruling on our own barbarianism, now dealt to us in the valley and ravine below? For claiming that which is not ours to take? I grieve for my daughters who will soon be orphans. Forgive my sins, my shortcomings. Grow strong. But the clouds …'

They sit in silence, the elderly lady in a long grey frock and the Sioux Indian with an eagle feather in his hair. Dusk settles into the room and the light fades. On the mantelpiece above the hearth Little-Path notices a wooden cross and a small photograph in a silver frame. In the half-light he sees the sepia image of two young women. They stand under the clock of the Bismarck train station with suitcases at their feet. They are clearly about to embark on a journey. Little-Path stands up to go. Eileen Kellogg grips the bible tightly, feeling for the words she cannot read, but has heard a thousand times from the preacher.

‘Thank you. Thank you,' she says, in little more than a whisper. ‘For this act of kindness.'

‘I am sorry for your loss,' says Little-Path. ‘I will go now.'

‘Yes,' she says, ‘before the weather sets in.'

Little-Path nods and smiles and leaves the house. Outside in the garden he looks up to the sky. There's a distant rumble of thunder, a dampness in the air and a sense of rain.

Eileen sits in the chair by the fireplace, watching Little-Path as he closes the gate behind him and walks off down the road towards the station and the eastbound night train. Presently she lights the logs. The flames brighten the room and warm her body. She unclips the clasp and opens the book. Running the tip of her fingers along the curve and slope of the written word, she thinks of her darling brother, alone on the ravine, hell raging below, clouds racing above.

THE GENERAL AND THE BILLIARD CUE

The General doesn't like what he sees in the mirror. His shirt is grubby and his collar is frayed. The four golden stars on his epaulettes are faded and dull. Most of all he dislikes the uncertainty in his eyes. He leans closer to the glass in the hope it might help him to see more, to understand better. He tightens his tie, sadly aware of his thickening neck. Outside the night is drawing in and fresh falls of snow swirl in the wind, swept in from the peaks of the Altai Mountains. Too much has changed, but the snow will continue to fall, of that he can be certain.

I'm sitting in a hotel room in Barnaul, Western Siberia, wrapped in every layer of clothing I can find. In the square outside my fifth floor window the statue of Lenin looks out over a brand new world. If he could bear to peek around the corner Lenin would see the garish yellow archways leading, not on to the glorious road to socialism, but to McDonald's and an internet cafe. My job is to work with the Ministry of Health to prevent the spread of AIDS in a country where the economy is in ruins and the narcomafia holds sway in Dumas from Moscow to Vladivostok. Young kids, lost in the new post-communist world, are jacking up heroin to soften the blows of the mythical globalisation dream. Not many care or know about the dangers of sharing needles. There's a lot to think about, but for the moment I have two immediate concerns of my own. One, the vain hope of some hot water to shave with; and, two, my luggage, lost and probably ravaged at Domodedovo airport in Moscow.

There's an urgent knock on my door. It's Ivan, my interpreter.

‘Dr Browne, it's time to meet the General. The car's waiting.'

‘Fine,
spasebar
, Ivan. I'll be down in one minute.'

Outside it is bitterly cold. The snow is stacked up on the roadside and the car has snow chains on the tyres. I sit upfront with Misha the driver.

‘Dobra vercha
, Misha.'

The heating is on full blast, as is the pop music of the radio. On the dashboard is Misha's mascot, the plastic spider, curiously complementing the web of cracks in the windscreen. We skid and meander along the icy streets of Barnaul, the first town to be built by Peter the Great in Western Siberia. We pass the old foundry, where the gold and silver that so excited the Tsar was smelted. Nowadays, Barnaul is the capital of Altai Krai and its centre has moved away from Pushkin Square and the fine old houses built by the businessmen sent by Peter to exploit its mineral wealth.

As we leave the city the road becomes even more treacherous. On either side the ubiquitous birch trees are firmly planted in a thick crystal-clean white blanket.

The music blares, the heat becomes stifling and the windscreen wipers battle to keep the swirling blizzard at bay. When we arrive at the sanatorium it is already dark. The driving snow in the floodlights of the car park looks like a plague of locusts as we are hurried from the car to the building.

Inside, the bright lights and colourful décor contrast starkly with the cold and dark winter's night. In the corridor, as I struggle out of my hefty boots, I look into the reception room. The walls are thick with tomato-red flock wallpaper. Heavy velvet curtains cover the windows from ceiling to floor and in the middle of the room a dining table groans with food and drink. There are bottles of vodka, beer and wine, and platefuls of red and black caviar, potato and herring salads and meats and cheeses of all variety. We are greeted by our fellow guests. There is Oleg, a handsome young man in his early thirties, a narcologist of the new breed who is eager to learn from the West and break free of the old Soviet style of medicalising all health problems. Next to him stands Dr Roshikiev, well into his middle age, and as chief narcologist for the oblast, frightened of these new ideas that threaten his hegemony over the treatment of drug users. The third guest is the grey-haired Enid Schneider, a World Health Bank consultant of the type who wears a cashmere scarf and is more interested in the shopping, sites and inflated consultancy rates than improving public health. She gives me a jaded nod of acknowledgement. I do my best to return a polite ‘hello, good to see you again'. Soon she'll be complaining about the bathroom in the hotel, the long haul back to Moscow and her preference for the temples and weather of Myanmar.

‘We are waiting for the General,' says Oleg in his fast-improving English, ‘but we can sit at the table and have a drink.'

We follow him and Dr Roshikiev into the dining room and take our places at the table. I make sure I have a fresh glass and bottle of mineral water close at hand for the inevitable toasts, then listen as the younger and older man conclude some urgent business in Russian. I nibble on a piece of rye bread, aware the main spread should not be disturbed until the General arrives. This is to be a crucial meeting. To make AIDS prevention viable it is critical to win over the law enforcement agencies. In dealing with injecting drug users the balance needs to be shifted from the criminal to the public health agenda.

Dr Roshikiev turns to speak to Ivan. Amongst the few words of Russian I recognise, I notice the word ‘methadone'.

Ivan nods at the older man as he deciphers his question. Ivan looks like a Cossack, with thick jet-back hair, dark eyes, dark skin and a full bristly moustache.

‘Dr Browne, Nicholiavich Roshikiev asks what do you think of methadone in treating drug users? He says it is illegal here in Russia, but wants to know if it is useful in harm reduction.'

‘A good question. Let me speak plainly,' I reply.

‘And simply, please,' says Ivan. ‘My English is stronger, but not yet that good.'

‘Of course. So, methadone is a valuable treatment option in helping drug users to come off heroin,' I reply and then wait while Ivan translates. Across the table, Enid is looking bored and uninterested; sentiments, I recall, that seem to permeate the sloppy reports she despatches back to her funders.

When Ivan has finished his Russian and looks back at me, I continue.

‘It has been shown to lead to a reduction in injecting, as it's mainly produced to be taken orally. Also it's a way of keeping drug users in treatment and gives us the chance to work with them on their addiction and risk behaviour.'

As Ivan translates for Doctor Roshikiev there comes the sound of voices and the clunking of discarded boots from the hallway.

‘The General,' says Oleg, and we all stand up in anticipation.

He enters the room, three steps ahead of his entourage. His uniform is tight on his body. The top button of his shirt undone and his tie loosened. His legs look too short and his torso too big. His belly hangs over his belt, barely trussed in by an off-white shirt straining at the buttons. He has a large, fleshy grey face and wispy black hair smeared on to a shiny scalp. He sits down and places his pack of Marlboro Reds and a silver lighter on the table. In spite of his jaded appearance I have heard he is trying hard to understand why he should help drug users; and trying even harder to comprehend a world turned on its head, where the old order lies in ruins, criminals flaunt their wealth in Moscow and drug addicts are given priority over the old and sick.