The Canal (9 page)

“There’s something that’s been worrying me about all this …”

She spoke these words to me slowly. Ever so slightly our cheeks touched, glanced, her skin as soft as a peach, warm—as I had imagined it to be. It was as if I’d known her all my life. It was if we knew each other inside out. This closeness will never leave me.

“What has been worrying you?”

“There’s something about them …”

“Who?”

“…”

“Who?”

“…”

“Who? You can’t just say that to me and stop!”

“Suicide bombers …”

“
Suicide bombers
?”

“Yes, suicide bombers. There’s something about them …”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s something about them that
affects
me, touches something inside of my … deep inside of me. I can’t explain it, I can only begin to tell you about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“They … excite … me.”

When she said this she was so close to me her wet lips brushed against my cheek like a kiss. It sent a shiver so intense down my spine that I thought I was about to collapse. I was sure she wanted to kiss me, to hold me, to be solely with me. It felt like I had finally witnessed the reality of her, as if everything had been configuring towards this moment. It hadn’t, of course, but I didn’t know about that. I was trapped. I was convinced it was meant to be—that moment, those very words, that closeness, that physical closeness we were experiencing at that most naked of moments … And then I began to think about what she had said to me and it began to leave me cold. I had listened to that word:
excite
, with all its connotations. It rankled deep within. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know what to say. I sat there with her cheek, her lips close to mine, her breath caressing my face, the humidity of it causing the shiver within me. My body was paralysed and completely static. It took the greatest effort to move an index finger. I dared not move my head. I dared not move my face away from her. I wanted to stay like that, for that to be it, for nothing else to ever happen again. Absolutely nothing.

It’s funny, life. Up until that moment I never thought I’d say something like that, let alone think it.

She became silent for some time.

It became hard for me to think of something to say. Nothing would have sounded right at that moment. I was truly empty of everything except a desire to fuck her with everything within me: every cell, every drop of blood, every ounce of oxygen fuelling each and every muscle. I wanted it so much. But I was completely powerless to make it happen. I truly was.

I looked up, momentarily alerted to something in my peripheral vision, up by the iron bridge and the Banksy graffiti. I’m sure it was a fox with a rat in its mouth. But it couldn’t have been, as it was broad daylight. I didn’t know much about foxes, but I was positive they kept a low profile during the day. But there it was, up by the iron bridge, running with the rat between its sharp teeth without a care in the world. I’m sure it was a fox.

“Why do they excite you?”

“It’s hard to explain …”

“But surely you must have some idea?”

“The majority of suicide bombings are often carried out with the aid of a vehicle—a truck, a van, a car … or a civilian aircraft, for instance. But sometimes the suicide bombing is carried out on foot—a simple explosive belt attached to the bomber. When the bomber sets off in either their designated car, van, truck … 
whatever
 … when they attach their explosive belt and set off towards their pre-planned target, they are transformed, they are extraordinary … They are pure machine.”

“But they excite you?”

“Yes … I’m … Yes, they do. They have something we don’t …”

“What?”

“They defy death, whereas we fear it. They embrace it with open arms. For me there is something real about that. It is purely that, coupled with their use of technology and
machine, that excites me. I think of them often … I stare at their faces … I watched the footage of 9/11 over and over and over again when it happened … I still do. It was such a beautiful image—I feel guilty for saying, for thinking this, but I can’t help it. Every time I see those images, or any footage of a suicide bomber, I feel … I feel shivers of excitement running through me.”

“I don’t understand that, for fuck’s sake … Watching those moments of massive death and destruction over and over.”

“I’m not asking you to understand. I’m asking you to listen.”

“I don’t think you should tell me these things …”

“I’ll be the judge of that. You know it’s a common misconception that all suicide bombers are poor, that they come from impoverished backgrounds. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Okay, those who detonated themselves in London were predominantly working-class, but they weren’t poor. Most were educated, too. I often think about them. I often watch the news reports I recorded, the CCTV footage of them. Those extraordinary young men. I often dream about them, their brown skin. I speak to them in my dreams, I caress them in my dreams, I fantasise about them during the day. Am I a sick person for doing this? Should they be on my mind the way they are?”

“I don’t know what to think. People think the strangest things. We all wake up from dreams that make no sense to us from time to time …”

“But these dreams make perfect sense to me.”

“Oh … I …”

“You know, the majority of these suicide bombers show no outward signs of psychopathology. Most people, those not involved, have no idea of their intentions. It’s no surprise to me that their relatives and friends are apoplectic
when they find out. But my dreams … They are increasingly sexual. But not pornographic, if that’s what you’re thinking. Just a tangible element of sexuality is involved. I
touch
these men, their bare skin, as they wash, as they prepare. I touch the explosives, I’m there during the bomb-making process. I help them put it together, I help them fit it into the rucksack, I help them put it on. I caress the material …”

“It’s just a dream. It’s boredom.”

“It’s more than that. ‘Let me die with the Philistines!’ cried Samson. The concept of self-sacrifice is nothing new to western society. The Christian Knights Templar sacrificed one of their own ships and hundreds of their own men just to kill twice as many Muslims. This is nothing new to us. I am not alone. We grew up with tales of the Japanese Kamikaze pilots and bombers during World War Two. Aircraft as flying bombs is nothing new to us. It was in your father’s lifetime that Japanese naval officers would man and steer torpedoes; who, after aiming the torpedo at their intended target, would proceed to shoot each other dead as the machine hurtled towards its victims. We act like this is a new thing. But it’s not, is it?”

“And you find self-murder exciting?”

“Yes, especially the recent bombers, more so than those who piloted the planes into the World Trade Center. The CCTV footage of the London bombers is just so modern, so normal. They looked so real, there is nothing untoward in their actions prior to the catastrophe. Then they became those extraordinary beings … Yet in those images there’s no intimation that they were about to transform themselves. They were completely part of the ebb and flow of the city, walking into that railway station, not once looking out of place.”

“You have to tell me more about your dreams … You have to.”

She ignored me. Thinking back, it is no surprise to me that it wasn’t tales of suicide bombings I was after. I simply wanted to listen to her speak intimately about those things that were hers alone: her desires and fantasies.

“Most people believe religion to be the sole cause of the suicide bombers’ actions. I refute this …”

As she said this I saw the fox again as it rummaged for food on the other side of the canal by the iron bridge. It looked content and happy, if a little malnourished.

I pointed over to it.

“Why are you pointing over to that dog? I thought you wanted to hear more about my dreams?”

“It’s a fox … It’s not a dog …”

“Yes it is. It’s clearly a dog.”

The fox continued to look for food, oblivious to us both watching it on the other side of the canal. It was definitely a fox. I wasn’t sure why she thought it was a dog. I never asked her. My hands were trembling. I wanted to put them on her thighs; I wanted to hold her. I felt foolish, like I was in some sort of dream, or caught up in some sick prank.

“You know, aside from my dreams … These modern suicide bombers are the dark side of the moon. We can never truly see them, be them, understand them … Yet they are constantly with us, only ever surfacing when the time is right. It’s funny.”

“What is?”

“Sometimes their actions
are
my dreams—their actions have been exiled into my unreality, my world beyond.”

“Tell me about your dreams, about them, what happens in them?”

“I’m turned on, of course … 
Is that what you want to hear
?”

“No … You’re turned on by what they do? By their actions?”

“Just by them. They are in a room with me and I am watching them bathe and wash and prepare … I watch them as they calmly pack everything they need. I touch them,
stroke their skin
. I wake up every time, distressed, the sweat dripping from me, my heart beating. This dream returns to me over and over again … I cannot stop it …”

I was finding it hard to control myself as her warm breath caressed my neck, under my right ear.

I’ve never been able to fully remember my dreams. In fact, I was always jealous of those that could, to such an extent I would make mine up so I could be like those people who tell you their interesting and meaningful imaginings from the previous night. If I did remember my dreams they were usually images of random colours, roads, faces, sounds, and feelings. Nothing was ever coherent enough to piece together into a narrative. Over the years I began to accept these fragments as pieces of me that didn’t need to be unravelled, or put back together to form a whole. The whole doesn’t exist. I rather like them, my dreams, as they are: meaningless and nonsensical. I must have had dreams about people along the way. Private dreams. Dreams that I would never tell a soul. It must have happened to me, but I can’t remember any of them. Even the embarrassing dreams of my teenage years have left no mark upon me—it’s like they never existed.

A couple of years ago I got talking to a stranger in a pub on Kingsland Road. He had just sat himself down next to me. At first, I felt extremely uncomfortable, but his presence soon began to calm me down. I had had a busy day at work and I was trying to relax with a warm pint of Guinness. At first he pulled out a book from his bag and began to read—I have no idea what this book was, but it was thick, with a very light blue cover, possibly of clouds. Thinking back it was his movements when reading that
annoyed me—the pauses, the hand on his chin, and the slight nods of the head—and I was quite relieved when he actually put down his book and began to speak to me. He had a northern accent, although it was soft and lilting and not as abrupt and thick as they can sometimes be.

“One of those days.”

I glanced up from my pint of Guinness and feigned a knowing smile in the hope that that would be the end of it.

“I said, one of those days …”

“Oh … Yes … I suppose so …”

“I’ve given up …”

“Oh … 
Given up what
?”

“Everything.”

“
Everything
?”

“Yes. I’ve given the whole lot away.”

“What do you mean?”

“My possessions. Best thing I ever did. The greatest day of my life was the day I gave away my car …”

“You
gave
it away?”

“Yes, to a friend. I’d had enough of it. I wanted myself back … my life back.”

“Sounds like a good plan.”

“All my life I have had this recurring dream …”

“Really?”

“I am alone on an island in the sun. Not even the wind to keep me company. When I was a child I used to wake up in cold sweats from this dream. But as I got older it began to make sense. It got to the point that I would lie in bed hoping that I would soon drift off to that island. And when I did I never wanted to wake up again. Waking up was just another disappointment … And now …”

“And now what?”

“And now I spend all day thinking about that island. It’s all I think about. It has taken me over.”

I wanted to be on that island, too—but not alone. I wanted to be on that island with her. Nothing would be able to interrupt us. She wouldn’t have those dreams. She wouldn’t have those thoughts. We’d exist together in sheer, unadulterated bliss.

Boredom would be ours.

She had stopped talking and was, again, staring straight ahead towards the whitewashed office block. In the silence, something about her gaze made me suspicious; I wasn’t sure she had been telling the truth. It felt like she had been testing me, like I was her little pupil or something. It felt like she was revealing something to me for the very first time—something that had not yet happened, something that was obvious to her, but not yet to me. Maybe I had misheard everything she had told me? Maybe I didn’t understand? The things she had said to me unnerved me; such things aren’t normal. At least, I didn’t think they were. But she spoke with such conviction, such vim, such heartfelt emotion that even if it was a lie, a test, I didn’t care. I wanted to keep listening to her, by the canal, on the bench. It was like I was envisaging some present that could only be found in a future that could never exist … a future that was being reinvented by her.

I used to think about the future a lot: what it would be like, what we would be doing, what everything would look like. I used to ask anyone who would listen: what do you think the future will be like? They almost always mentioned space travel and exploration in their not too dissimilar answers; technology, computers, micro-thin TVs and other extensions of ourselves. It seemed to me the future had already been mapped out by us, like it had been invented by us, for us, that we already had a clear idea about what it was going to be like. Yet when she spoke to me that day, on
the bench, it felt like something had happened, like a new future had be revealed to me, there on the bench beside the towpath and the murky water, the coots, the two swans, and the office workers. It felt like only she knew what was going to happen, what it was going to be like for us. She didn’t look in the least bit surprised when I asked her what she thought the future was going to be like. It’s funny, I may have imagined it, but I am certain the faintest flicker of a smile crept onto her face, a faint curl of the top lip as she turned her face towards mine. I had to ask her.