Arms Race (9 page)

I don't know. I doubt it.

But what about those bullets, and the ute and that burned house?

I shrugged. It's the past. It can't affect us.

Christie turned her head away and was quiet. Dusk was settling over the bush and
I switched on the headlights. When I looked over again, I thought she had fallen
asleep. Then I saw her watching my reflection in the glass.

Steven, she said.

Yes?

If the past can't affect us, how can we affect the future?

I took one hand from the wheel and squeezed her thigh, and smiled. By having children,
I said.

As the light faded into evening we came past the stockyards and into the town. There
was a wide street of neat shops with a handsome stone pub at the corner. Four-wheel-drives
and utes filled the car park.

We sat for a moment with the engine ticking in the stillness.

Let's get one thing straight, Christie said. I'm not your daughter.

You're not my daughter, I said. I'm sorry I said that. That was stupid.

Yes, she said. She leaned over and kissed my cheek. Stupid. You need to tell people
the truth. And I think you owe me a drink.

We pushed open the door of the pub. There were nods and a polite smile or two from
the locals. I followed Christie to the bar, and tried not to stare at her switch-hipped
walk.

What can I get you?

The woman behind the bar was about my age. She had grey hair pulled back from a tanned,
no-nonsense face.

Crownie for him, Christie said. Have you got cider?

Cider?

Sorry, Christie said. I just—

Course we got cider. I'm kidding. Apple or pear?

Pear, thanks.

The woman looked at me with interest. You're the engineer come to look at the mine,
right?

Yes. I'm Steven. This is Christie.

Lindy. How's it going out there?

So far, so good.

It'd be bloody marvellous if you got it running again. There you go. She placed our
drinks on the bar and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. She smiled at me. So, how
you liking Enmore? Not too lonely?

Well—

Yeah, Christie cut in. A bit. It's pretty quiet.

Not much to do out there at your age, the woman said. How you keeping busy?

Christie shrugged. Reading books. Or going exploring. It's a weird place.

Oh yeah? the woman said lightly.

There's a stolen ute dumped behind our house. I found bullets in the glove box.

The woman raised her eyebrows.

It's been there a while, I said. But I guess we could report it.

Wouldn't bother, she replied. There's cars dumped all over round here.

And, Christie said, there's a place that burned down that's got a really creepy vibe.

Oh. I know the one.

You knew those people? What happened?

It's okay, I said. It's none of our—

Bloke was an alcoholic, the woman said. She took a cloth and began wiping down the
bar. House burned down, wife left him, daughter ran away. It happens.

Definitely weird, Christie said. She sipped her drink. You know the other thing?
Steven's got this scar that's like a map of the mine and all those houses.

A map?

Check it out.

Christie lifted my arm into the light, and I could see the woman watching, her top
lip faintly curled. I pulled my arm away, uncomfortable, embarrassed.

It's like the mine's a scar itself, Christie said. I reckon something bad happened
out there.

Yeah, like what? The woman threw her cloth into the sink, and there was a note in
her voice I did not like.

Something full on, Christie said. Not sure I want to know.

Anyway, I said, let's—

Maybe, the woman said, lowering her voice, you'll find bodies at the bottom of the
mine.

Christie leaned forward, nodding.

People killed in the cave-in. Or maybe the mine was on an Aboriginal burial ground.
But you know what I really think?

What?

I think they threw bodies in there after a massacre.

Oh, shit, Christie said, and there was a change in her face: youthful fascination
pinched out by something hard and cold. You think so?

Oh, for sure, the woman said, her voice now ripe with scorn. There were massacres
all round here. Got to be connected. Your Abos, the scar, the mine, the ute, the
burned house, yeah, and the man who messes with his daughter.
Got
to be connected.

Christie said nothing, her face slammed shut. I lifted
the cold glass of my bottle
to my lips but could not drink. I felt old and wrong.

Or, the woman said, it's just a bunch of poor fucks living in the middle of nowhere,
with no jobs. There's no mystery. Bad shit happens to people like that all the time.
You get that mine opened and watch it get better. Seventeen.

Excuse me? I said.

Seventeen dollars. Round here you have to pay for your drinks.

I took out my wallet and handed her a twenty.

She walked to the till, then called back over her shoulder. It's just a hole in the
fucking ground. Your daughter's been reading too many books.

I could feel fury shimmering off Christie like heat from the Pilbara at noon. I found
her hand.

She's not my daughter, I called back.

Two men along the bar turned to look, and I saw their gaze slide from me to Christie.

We're partners, I said, as loudly as I dared.

THE LOTUS EATERS

On the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotus-eater, who live on a food that
comes from a kind of flower… I sent two of my company to see what manner of men the
people of the place might be, and they had a third man under them. They started at
once, and went about among the Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them
to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring
about home.

—Homer,
THE ODYSSEY

IT WAS tourist season when I arrived. Resorts gleamed among the jungle. Backpackers
filled the bars. I crossed the steel bridge at Nong Khiaw in suffocating heat. The
locals lay sleeping in the shade. Ahead on the road I heard a mocking singsong voice
cry out in French.

I am so
layyyy-zeee
!

In a roadside clearing, four of my compatriots sat slumped beside a bamboo shack.
They wore the red-eyed smirks of the drunk-for-weeks. Empty bottles covered the table
in front of them.

The man who had spoken was handsome and skeletal. Against the deep tough brown of
his skin, his singlet was shockingly white. He threw up his hands. Every day I say
Enough! I'm going!
But every day they get me. They say
Laos-laos!
I drink and the
day is gone. So I say
Tomorrow! Tomorrow, I'll go.
But every day's the same. I am
so
layyyy-zeee
!

The man sounded delighted. He pronounced the word like he was diving into a deep
azure pool.

Friends, I called. Room for one more?

They looked up at my approach. A woman rose immediately. She seemed relieved.

Take my place, she said. It's time for me to go.

She kissed them each in turn and said goodbye and went on up the road. I dropped
my pack and took her seat.

Back in Paris I was a musician, said the man in the white singlet. I love music!
But there was no rest. Life was work, work, work. A beautiful thing became a curse,
and so I ran away. Here there is only one thing to do: nothing.

His hand went among the slum of bottles, toppling them in search of drink. He poured
a thick clear spirit into dirty glasses, and set one before each of us.

Laos-laos
, he said. Rice whisky, aged in a bucket. France makes the wine of the gods.
Laos makes the liquor of ghosts. To laziness!

To laziness, a lithe pale woman said. To laziness and idleness and cant.

We threw
it down, and I felt it crawl back up my spine.

I'm Louis, the man said. This is Céline. She's a lawyer. She was a partner in Casteaux
et fils, no less. But of course, she prefers
ooooo-pium
!

The woman turned to me. She had an exquisite, intelligent face cratered with orange-red
sores: no doubt some obscure tropical disease, expensive to catch. I thought I would
like to sleep with her.

The more I learned of the law? she said, and gave the barest amused shrug, as if
the air itself was too heavy.

And this is Maxime, Louis said. He's a chef. He drinks like a chef. But he hates
to cook!

The man had a heavy beard, and the kind of morose gravity that makes talkative people
act like fools. Filling his silence would be like shovelling sand into the sea. He
laid a possessive paw across Céline's shoulders, and tilted his head at me.
Salut.

We drank a hole in the afternoon, and I saw that we would be friends. They were armchair
nihilists, obsessed with escape and, once escaped, obsessed with looking back.

Why did you leave France? Louis said. Please, it's our favourite game.

You want to know the truth? I said.

Tell us, Louis said. Why?

Because the world is ending.

Oh-ho, Louis cried. Now I know we will be friends! But why will it end?

Because the planet will throw us off, I said. The polar caps are going, the glaciers
are going. Soon it'll tip. Heatwaves and droughts and floods. Soon we'll be living
in hell.

Oh-ho, Louis repeated. You are one of them. You really believe that?

No, I said. It is unfashionable to believe anything at all. But I act as if it's
true.

How? Céline asked. How do you act?

I opt out. I refuse to participate.

Of course, Céline said. You save the world by flying around the world getting drunk.

Why shouldn't he, Louis said. Drink has been saving the world for centuries. Luang!
Come!

A face appeared in the window of the shack: a middle-aged man, his face crushed and
fragrant with sleep.

Luang, Louis said, the world is ending again. Get us four
laap
. Another bottle of
laos-laos
. Make it quick.

The man came round to clear our table, dreamlike in the heat's embrace.

What is your name? I murmured to him.

His name is Luang, Louis said. Those are his children.

Beside us in the road, three barefoot children played a fast-forward game of pétanque,
lobbing silver balls into the ripening twilight.

One dollar, two dollar, three dollar, four, Louis said. He's saving our money to
send his children to university.He thinks it will make their lives better.

Luang smiled; he seemed embarrassed.

He is a good man, Louis said. But slow, like his country. Few things happen at very
low speed. Nothing will change.

That's why I love it here, Céline said. Every day is the same as the last.

How long have you been here? I asked her.

Céline's eyes were milky grey, an empty mirror for the fading sky. A long time, she
said.

I smiled. How long?

One hundred and twenty years.

My smile wavered. She lit a cigarette, and rested her chin in her hand. A thin drift
of smoke curled between us.

This bar has been full of drunken Frenchmen, she said, since the year eighteen ninety-three.
It has never been empty. These seats pass like batons in a relay. We sit and try
to remember why we are here, but the truth is—we have come here to forget.

To forget what? I asked.

Again that shrug, shaking off the weight of the air.

That is a good question, she said.

It was burning season when I arrived. Fires gleamed among the jungle. Smoke filled
the valleys. I crossed the iron bridge at Nong Khiaw. The old river below was restless,
and the
new road above freighted with a secret traffic pushing south. Planes droned
overhead. There were rumours that the borders would close. Ahead on the road I heard
a rough sardonic voice cry out in French.

I am so
layyyy-zeee
!

There was a bamboo shack in a clearing cut from the jungle. Two men and a woman sat
slumped under a Coca-Cola awning.

Of course we should flee! the man was saying. He lolled in his chair, wild with false
mirth. But why? I tell you this because you are too drunk to remember: we put them
up to it, so we should answer for it. We paid them, armed them, put fire in their
blood. They pulled the trigger, but the deeds are ours—

He broke off to watch my approach. His sideburns were unkempt, his fedora pushed
back rakishly on his head.

Mademoiselle, he called. You are French, no?

Yes.

Do you hate your country?

I shrugged. Of course.

Good! Luang! Another chair.

Have mine, the Frenchwoman said. What the hell—there may still be time.

She kissed the two men, picked up a small valise and went quickly up the road. I
laid my bag in the dirt and took her seat.

I am Louis, the man said. You are?

Céline, I said.

This is Maxime, Louis said. He is a soldier. He drinks like a soldier but he hates
to fight.

The man sat closed behind a heavy beard. He was perhaps Moroccan, and he had a damaged
silence about him, like artillery stilled at dusk. He looked at me and said nothing.

It is lucky you hate your country, Louis said, because you can never go back. The
evacuation planes have flown. They are closing the borders. I for one think we must
celebrate.

His hand went among the arsenal of bottles. He seized each one and, finding it empty,
hurled it into the trees. He found one that was full and poured three cups.

Laos-laos
, Louis said. Rice whisky. If you have any nerve left at all, this will
dissolve it. To despair!

To despair!

I threw it down, and my nerves lit up like jungle canopy under napalm.

You know the Pathet Laos have quit their caves? Louis said. They are moving on the
capital.