The Book of Strange New Things (50 page)

‘Flabbits.’

‘Lunch!’

There was a flurry of laughter but someone immediately hollered: ‘Forget it, Powell.’

‘Couldn’t we try just one?’ protested Powell.

‘They may be highly intelligent.’

‘You’re kidding me.’

‘They may be considered sacred. By the natives.’

‘Who says they’re edible?’ called a woman’s voice. ‘They could be poisonous as hell.’

‘They’re headed in the direction of Freaktown,’ Stanko pointed out. ‘If they’re edible and if it’s OK to eat them, we’ll probably get some eventually. Like, given to us. And it’ll be kosher.’

‘What do you mean, kosher?’

‘I didn’t mean . . . I meant, nothing sneaky about it. Just part of the regular deal.’

‘You’re all being disgusting,’ another woman’s voice remarked. ‘How could anyone even think of eating these? They’re so adorable.’

‘Adorable as a vegetable. Look at those eyes. Three brain cells, max.’

‘Maybe they bite.’

And so they stood there, bantering, happy as children, while the exotic procession shuffled past.

‘Hey, Peter! How’s tricks, bro?’ It was BG. He was in a jovial mood, if somewhat in need of a washcloth. This outing had evidently interrupted him in the middle of eating or drinking something white and frothy, judging from the creamy moustache haloing his upper lip.

‘I’m fine, BG,’ said Peter. ‘A bit tired. And you?’

‘On top of it, man, on top of it. Ain’t these guys great?’ He indicated the horde of animals, whose hundred hefty backsides swayed in formation as they shuffled by.

‘A real thrill to see,’ Peter agreed. ‘I’m glad I didn’t miss them. Nobody told me.’

‘It was on the PA system, bro. Loud and clear.’

‘Not in my room.’

‘Ah, they must’ve switched it off for you, man. Out of respect. You got your private spiritual stuff to concentrate on. You don’t want somebody naggin’ in your ear fifty times a day, “Could So-And-So come to Room 25, please”, “Could all available personnel report to the loading bay”, “Haircuts available in one hour in Room 9”, “Hey everybody, get your asses out of the East Wing entrance, ’cause there’s a huge posse of funny-lookin’ little motherfuckers headed this way!”’

Peter smiled, but the news of his exclusion from the public address system bothered him. He was disconnected enough from the lives of the USIC personnel as it was. ‘Well,’ he sighed, ‘I would hate to have missed this.’

‘But you didn’t, bro,’ beamed BG. ‘You didn’t.’ He wiggled his eyebrows upwards at the heavens. ‘You must’ve got a tip-off, am I right?’

‘Maybe I did.’ Peter was exhausted all of a sudden, weighed down by his sweat-sodden clothing and his undischarged sense of inadequacy. God’s enigmatic instruction about the need for further study and making full proof of his ministry rematerialised in his mind.

BG got down to business: the reason he’d pushed through his colleagues to reach Peter. ‘So, what would
you
call ’em?’

‘Call them?’

‘Our cute little pals there,’ said BG, waving his hand at the retreating army.

Peter thought for a moment. ‘The Oasans must have a word for them.’

‘No use to us, bro.’ BG contorted his face and flapped his tongue idiotically in and out of his lips, emitting a blubbering sound. A second later, with the aplomb of a professional comedian, he composed his features into a mask of dignity. ‘With Tartaglione gone,’ he said, ‘there ain’t nobody here can understand the noises those guys make. You heard the old story of the kangaroo, Peter?’

‘No, BG: tell me the old story of the kangaroo.’

The animal horde was fully past now, making incremental headway towards their destination. Some of the USIC staff stood peering at the dwindling swarm of bodies, but most started ambling back towards the base. BG laid an arm around Peter’s shoulder, indicating that they should walk together. ‘There was this explorer guy,’ he said, ‘way back in the day, called Captain Cook. His specialty was landing on brand new pieces of real estate across the ocean, and swiping them off of the black folks that lived there. Anyway, he went all the way down to Australia. You know where that is?’

Peter nodded.

‘A lot of folks here get kinda hazy on geography,’ said BG. ‘Specially if they never been there. Anyway, Captain Cook landed in Australia and he saw these a
maaa
zing animals jumpin’ around. Big furry motherfuckers with gigantic rabbit legs and a pouch on their stomach and standin’ upright and shit. And he asked the black folks, “What do you guys call this creature?”, and the black folks said “Kangaroo”.’

‘Uh-huh,’ said Peter, sensing that some sort of punchline was coming.

‘Years later, some dude studied the black folks’ language, and guess what? “Kangaroo” meant “What you sayin’, bro?”’

BG bellowed with laughter, his massive body quaking with mirth as he escorted the pastor back to civilisation. Peter laughed too, but even as his mouth made the correct shape and his throat produced the appropriate sounds, he knew what God wanted him to do. He would learn the Oasans’ language. He would learn it if it killed him.

20

Everything would be all right if she only could

And so they began. Pressed close together, Peter and Beatrice could no longer see each other. Their mouths were joined, their eyes clasped shut, their bodies could have been anyone’s bodies since the world was created.

A few minutes later, he was wide awake. Bea was a billion miles removed from him, and he was shuffling to the washing machine, holding his soiled bedsheets bundled in his arms. Outside the window, it was the same sunny afternoon as it had been when he’d fallen asleep. The room was bathed in golden light just as before, as though time itself had been baked by the sun, while somewhere far away, his wife’s days and nights were flickering unseen.

Peter fed the bedsheets into the metallic drum. The
CONSERVE WATER – COULD THIS LOAD BE HAND-WASHED?
placard teased at his conscience, but he couldn’t recall his semen ever smelling so pungent and he was worried that if he tried to hand-wash the sheets, the odour might permeate his quarters and be instantly noticeable if a visitor walked in. Grainger, for instance.

He scooped some soap flakes into the washing machine from the plastic tub provided. The flakes were waxy, as if shaved from a block of real old-fashioned soap. They certainly weren’t any kind of chemical detergent. Might they be whiteflower in one of its myriad forms? He lowered his nose to the tub and sniffed, but the smell of his own body was distracting. He shut the machine and set it going.

Funny, when he was among the Oasans, he never masturbated or had wet dreams. It was as though his sexual nature went into hibernation. He was male, and male equipment hung from his pelvis, but it was just
there
, irrelevant as an earlobe. Only when he returned to the USIC base did his sexuality revive. Likewise, it was only when he was in the USIC base that he felt the full weight of loneliness.

He stood naked next to the Shoot. Its screen was cold and dark, though he couldn’t recall switching it off. It must have switched itself off sometime during his sleep, to conserve energy. He hoped he’d managed, before exhaustion overtook him, to send whatever messages he’d been writing to Bea. It was all a bit of a blur. What he’d said; what she’d said. He vaguely remembered something about the carpets in the living room having to be removed and thrown away. Or maybe it was the curtains. And rats. Something about rats. Oh yes: Bea had walked to the kerbside to add a garbage bag to the already overflowing wheelie bin there (collections were irregular these days) and she’d got the shock of her life when a rat leapt out, narrowly missing her face.

The rat was probably as frightened as you, he’d reassured her. Or words to that effect.

Locked in the shower cubicle, he lathered himself clean, while his bedclothes churned nearby. Scalded seeds of his DNA gurgled gently into the drainage pipes.

Sitting at the Shoot, towelled and fresh, he was reaching forward to check for more messages from Bea when he noticed a droplet of blood trickling down his upper arm. He’d washed his hair and, while massaging his scalp, had dislodged a scab from the top of one of his ears. His burns were healing well but the flesh of his ears was rich in blood vessels and needed to be left undisturbed while the epidermal cells did their work. He looked around for toilet paper; remembered that USIC didn’t supply any. He had some Band-Aids somewhere, but a fresh droplet tickled his shoulder and he didn’t fancy searching through his bag. Instead he picked up a pair of underpants and fitted them on his head so that the fabric nestled against his bleeding ear.

Lord, please don’t let Grainger walk in unexpectedly now . . .

Once more he seated himself at the Shoot. A new message had loaded in. He opened it, already visualising the word ‘dear’ before it manifested on the screen.

Peter,

I am so, so angry wiuth you. You’re my husband and I love you but I’m hurt and furious.

In all the time we’ve been apart you have mnentioned NOT ONE WORD about our baby. Are you trying to teach me a lesson or do you just not care? I have dropped a few hints reminding you htat I’m pregnant but I haven’t pushed too hard because it’s really up to you to decide if you’ll engage with it or not.

In the past whenever we discussed having kids, you always found reasons why we shouldn’t – ‘not yet’. You always assured me you would LOVE to do it one day and that it was only a matter of timing. Well I’m sorry if I got the timing wrong but I was terrified you would never come back amd you are the only man I want to have childrenb with. Yes I know I sound confused but I don’t think I’m as confused as you are. I see now that you’ve been avoiuding avoiding avoiding fatherhood all these years. It’s a scary step, everyone knows that but people take that leap imto the dark and that’s how the human race goes on. But your missions were always more compelling weren’t they? So many challenges. Another day amnother challenge. Challenges which are really not too hard at all. Because we can try our best to help strangers, but utimately those strangers are responsible for their own fate, aren’t they? If we can’t help them, it’s sad but we just move on and help somepne else. But a child isn’t like that. Not when it’s your own child. Your own child’s fate matters more than anything. You can’t AFFORD to fail even thoiugh you probably will, and that’s what’s so scary. But you know what? – for millions of years people have been stupidf enough or brave enough to try anyway. I’m feeling that pressure right now carrying our baby inside me.

And you’re clearly not interested.

Peter I’m sorry if it looks like I’m not being sympthaetic to the difficulties that you’re no doubt facinfg in your mission. But you haven’t really told me anything about those difficylties. So I can only imagine. Or more to the point, NOT imagine. All I can see from the few morsels you’ve shared with me, is that you’re having a big adventure up there. You’ve been given the cushiest treatment any Christian missionary has ever had in the entire history of evangelism. Other missionaries have been thrown into prison, spat on, speared, pelted wiuth stones, threatened wiht knives and guns, hacked to death by machetes, crucified upside down. At the very least they’ve been given the cold shoukder and frustrated in every conceivable way. As far as I can tell, you arrived to a hero’s welcome. USIC drives you to the Oasans and picks you up again when you’re ready for a rest. Your congregation all love Jesus already and think you’re the bee’s knees and want nothing from you but Bible study. You supervise building works while getting a suntan, and every now and then, somebody brings you a painting to hang up on the ceiling. It sounds like you’re compiling your very own Sistine Chapel up there! And the latest news I get from you is that you just saw a parade of cute littlw animals.

Peter I know you don’t want to hear this but I’M IN TROUBLE. Things are falling apart at a terrifying rate. Some of it I’ve told you about and a lot of it I haven’t. Any other husband, once he got wind ofg what’s been going on here would have offered to come home by now. Or at least made noises about it.

I#m writing this at 5 AM after a sleepless night and I’m almost hallucinating wioth stress and I will probably regret sending you this when I#ve finally had some sleep. But you’ve alwayts been on my side in the past and now you’re hurting me and I don’t know where to turn. Have you given ANY THOUGHT AT ALL to how it might make me feel when you inform me that Grainger, the person who seems to be closest to you up there, is a female and that you’ve ‘just spent some time with her’ and that she’s very ‘vulnerable’ but you’re happy to report that she ‘opened up’ more today than she’s done for you before? I’m sure it will be a wonderful breakthriough for you both when she lets you call her by her first name and you finally ‘get to the bottom’ of why she’s hurting (maybe it will coincide with the happy day when this other woman you’ve been ministering to, Maneater or whatever she;s called, is ready to ‘take it further’) – but Peter has it occurred to you that I might be just a teensy bit ‘vulnerable’ too!

I know you lovbe me and I#m sure you are not doing anything bad withj Grainger but I wish you thought a bit more cvarefully about the language tyou use when talking about her and you. You devote so much time andf energy to pondering exactly the right words to choose in your Bible paraphrases for the Jesus Lovers but when it comes to communicating with me, your inbfinite attention to nuance deserts you.

It’s nice that you are having such vivid memoeries of our wedding but it would be a lot better for me if you had some vivid memories of the woman you left behibnd a few months ago and what she might need right now.

In tears,

Bea

There was another message, sent a mere two minutes later. He opened it, hoping it might be some sort of retraction or softening of the blow – not an apology exactly, but a step back, a second thought, maybe an admission that she was drunk. Instead, she didn’t even call him by name.

As for the rat, PLEASE let’s not pretend – it was NOT as frighjtened as me. I’m sure it was having a simply marvellous time being a rat and it’s overjoyed that our neighbouirhood is choking on its own waste. I just don’t know what to do. Lots of people are driving tyheir garbage to other parts of town and dumping it anywhere they think noeone will catch them doing it. I wou;ldn’t be surprised if a lot iof the filth that’s scattered over our street comes from drive-by dumpings. The police seem powerless to stop it. They seem powerless to stop anything. Tbey just drive arounfd in their squad cars, talking into their handsets. What use is that? What are we paying them for? They’re just watching us go under.