Blue Shifting (22 page)

There was a knock at the door.

He called out that he was dressing, pulled on his cords and his sweat-soaked shirt and opened the door. Katia and Kim stood outside, hand in hand, like penniless mendicants in their old clothes. Janner invited them in. They had bathed – their hair was wet and lank – and their cleanliness pointed up the state of their dress,

He arranged three dining chairs on the balcony overlooking the central courtyard, saying nothing. Kim hugged her legs and squinted at the pigeons lining the opposite roof-top. Katia seemed nervous, as if wanting to talk to Janner but unable to do so.

Ten years of living alone had made Janner rather frugal. He'd shared nothing with no one for that long. He had worked for what he had earned, spent only for himself and saved the rest. Old habits, he thought, die hard. He found it in himself to be ashamed that he was reluctant to come spontaneously to Katia's aid.

He considered how easy it had been for himself over the past few days – with enough money to cushion himself against privation. How had Katia coped, plucked from Leningrad with nothing but the clothes she stood up in? And Kim – what must it have been like for her?

He returned inside, found his wallet and withdrew two fifty dollar notes.

He stepped back on to the balcony, shifted uneasily. "Ah... look-" He thrust the notes at Katia. "These are for you. Buy yourself some clothes – you'll probably need a bag, a rucksack. Get some new things for Kim as well, okay? This should cover it."

Katia slowly accepted the notes, unfolded them and smoothed them on her lap. She squinted up at Janner, the sun in her eyes. "Thank you, Greg. I appreciate it. Kim, come." She held out a hand. "Would you like a new dress?"

When they had departed, Janner sat out in the hot noon sun and realised that he felt a strange, almost light-headed, sense of relief that he was once again alone.

Later, he left the room and strolled through the streets around the hotel. He changed fifty dollars into drachmas, bought a new rucksack, several changes of clothes, and two bottles of retsina. The streets were crowded, making him uneasy. He saw a tall American at one point, talking to a shop proprietor, and, recalling what Katia had said, he ducked into the nearest alley in an irrational desire not to be seen. He hurried back to the safety of his hotel room, finally closing the door with a sense of accomplishment. He showered again, changed into his latest acquisitions – a pair of light-weight beige trousers and a sports shirt, lay on the bed and closed his eyes. It was not yet three in the afternoon.

~

He was awaken some time later by a noise from the far end of the room. He sat up. Light from the hallway outside sliced into the darkness. Katia peered through the partly open door. "Greg, are you awake?"

"What time is it?"

"Almost twelve. Would you like something to eat? I looked in earlier, but you were asleep."

He turned on the light, splashed his face with water from a basin in the corner.

"Look who is here," Katia said, dragging a reluctant Kim into the room. "What do you think?"

Kim stood to defiant attention in the middle of the room. Janner dried his face and smiled at the girl. "Well, well. A distinct improvement."

Kim wore sandals and a blue and white striped dress with a big ribbon at the waist. Katia had bought her a small backpack in the form of a koala bear, its arms and legs meeting around her neck and chest.

Katia was unloading a basket of food on to the bed: a cob of bread, feta cheese, tomatoes, olives and apples. She arranged them on the counterpane like a picnic and sat cross-legged on the bed.

"Here is your change," she said, depositing a handful of crumpled notes on the bedside table.

She had bought herself a pair of green safari shorts and a yellow blouse. Around her neck was a crucifix on a fine gold chain. Janner wondered if it had been there all the time, or if she had just bought it.

Rather than join Katia on the bed, he pulled up a chair and ripped off a chunk of bread. He remembered the retsina. He prised off the caps with the bottle opener on a Swiss army knife he'd bought that afternoon.

Kim remained, unmoving, in the middle of the room.

Katia lifted a red apple. "Kim?"

The girl gave her head the merest of shakes.

Katia gestured to the rest of the food on the bed.

Kim strode on to the balcony and sat on a chair in the darkness, her hands on her knees.

Janner asked, "Has she spoken yet?"

"Not one word. She does not understand English."

"What about in her own language?"

Katia shook her head, moved a strand of hair from her face and manoeuvred a chunk of bread, loaded with a slab of feta, towards her mouth.

They drank the retsina from the bottles.

Janner said, "How did you eat before, without money?"

Katia was silent, as if reluctant to dwell on the disturbing events of the past few days. "In Surabaya," she whispered, "I was not hungry. I felt too sick to eat. I thought I was going mad. One moment I was in my apartment, ready to set off for work – I am a teacher of small children – and then,
boomf
! I am in an empty building in a strange city. It was an old factory, I think. I had to break a window to get out. I walked around for a long time. When night came I found a park and slept in a small shelter." Janner glanced up at Katia, alerted by something in her voice; her hands were shaking and tears filled her eyes.

He played with the label on the retsina, turning the picture of Zeus upside-down on the cold, condensation-slick bottle. "What time was it in Leningrad when you vanished?"

She knuckled a tear from her cheek. "Around five o'clock."

"Did you notice the time when you arrived in Surabaya?"

"I saw a clock-tower," she murmured, "it was just after five, as if no time had passed at all."

Janner pointed at her with his bottle. "Are you sure about that? Surely Indonesia's a few hours ahead of Russia?"

Katia opened her mouth in a silent, "Oh." She grimaced. "Of course. I didn't realise... Every time I moved, it was five o'clock in the morning, and again five wherever I landed."

"I know it's
all
impossible, but this is crazy. I left New Zealand at five in the morning, arriving in Surabaya at the same time, even though New Zealand is an hour or two ahead of Indonesia. It just doesn't make sense – unless all this is an hallucination."

Katia bit into a tomato. "This doesn't taste like an hallucination," she said glumly.

"How did you get on in Alexandria?"

"I didn't like. I thought maybe when the blue light began I was going home. I arrived in a quiet street. I just walked. Many people stared at me. I thought about going to the Soviet embassy and telling them what had happened – but I thought they would not believe me, maybe imprison me. I don't know what I thought." She tapped her head. "Maybe I was a little crazy."

"You didn't eat?"

"I stole fruit from a stall in the market place where I saw you. That is all. In the night I sat in the doorway of a locked-up shop, sleeping a little. I was asleep when the change came. I woke up in a Spanish city-"

"La Paz," Janner said. "Bolivia."

"La Paz... I thought I was in Spain." Katia smiled sadly. "La Paz was good. An old lady found me in the street. She took me into her house, gave me meals. That night I slept in a bed for the first time. I woke up just before the change."

"And yesterday you found yourself in Varanasi."

"I arrived in the street, frightening many people. They ran away. I made my way to the river. I thought, when I saw you... I thought at last I might find out what was happening. And then when I spoke to you... I thought I was mistaken and you were just another traveller. I stopped there all day – I was too afraid to move. Then, again at five,
boomf
– and I was here. I saw Kim and knew I had seen her before. So I tried to talk to her, but she ran. Then I met you. I was lucky. I would still be alone right now. When I think how big Athens is I realise how lucky I was."

Janner shrugged. "I don't know... I think we all come down roughly in the same area – that'd account for you seeing Kim and myself on more than one occasion. The chances of spotting someone twice in two days in cities as big as the ones we've visited must be pretty astronomical. The three of us arrived in the Acropolis, after all."

Katia was nodding absently, staring at the wall with an olive poised before her lips. She lowered it at last. "Perhaps tomorrow, because we are together now, we will arrive in the new city even closer together?"

Janner raised his bottle. "Who knows?" He concealed his embarrassment by taking a long drink of retsina.

Katia was watching Kim on the balcony. The girl was still on her chair, hands on her knees, staring into the night.

Katia shook her head. "It was very hard for me," she said. "But for Kim it must have been so much more." She looked at Janner. "But what if we do not arrive together in the next city, what if we are far apart and Kim cannot find us?"

Janner shrugged uncomfortably. "Always assuming there is a next city. You never know, we might find ourselves back home."

"Somehow I think not," she said. She brightened. "Perhaps we should make arrangements – we will agree to meet at a certain place when we arrive."

Janner gestured. "Like where?"

"I don't know. Oh... what is always in every city in the world?"

"Banks?"

"Maybe – but banks are usually in certain districts. What if we arrive many miles away-?" She stopped. "What about Post Offices, Greg? There are always many Post Offices."

"So many that we might all end up at different ones."

"But each city has only one
General
Post Office... Okay, we'll meet at nearest GPO."

"What about Kim?"

Katia's face clouded over. She shook her head. "Kim!" she called to the girl, who made no reply. She stared into the night, quiet and melancholy.

From a writing desk in the corner, Katia fetched a pen and a writing pad. Laboriously, resting the paper on her lap, she wrote: 'Can you tell me nearest GPO, please?' And the same, beneath this, in varying standards of French and Spanish.

She held it up. "This is all I know."

"Here, I think I can do one." He took the pad and printed the same message in schoolboy German.

Katia stepped out on to the balcony, took Kim's hand and led her to the bed. She held up the paper. "Tomorrow, when in new city, show this to people, okay? Greg and myself will meet you at Post Office." She mimed licking down an envelope and posting it. Kim watched her closely, then took the note and tucked it into the pocket of her new dress. Though she had said nothing to indicate that she knew what Katia had told her, Janner received the impression that Kim understood more than she was letting on.

Now the girl sat on the bed, picked up a tomato and began to eat. Janner filled his empty retsina bottle with water from the sink and passed it to her.

Katia looked at her wrist-watch and announced that it was four-thirty.

"We'd better gather all our belongings," Janner said, "make sure they're with us come five."

While Katia fetched her bag from the adjacent room, Janner packed his rucksack and set it next to him on the bed. Kim picked through the remains of the meal, turning her nose up at the olives – the most vehement expression, other than her original tears, he had seen from her so far.

At ten to five they seated themselves on the bed in a small circle, facing each other. Janner pulled his wallet from his jacket pocket. He pulled out half of all the dollars he possessed and passed them to Katia. He could not meet her eyes.

She just held the wad of notes before her, staring. "Greg?"

"Take it. You might need it. There's always the chance that we won't meet up in the next city."

She counted a hundred dollars, tucked them into Kim's pocket next to her Post Office note, then wedged the same amount into the pocket of her shorts. "Thank you, Greg," she said in a small voice.

She shrugged on a denim jacket she had bought herself. They sat with their possessions in their laps and waited. As five o'clock approached, Katia reached out and took the little girl's hand in hers.

Janner felt relief that she did not try to take his hand.

The tingling began in his arms, then worked its way around his body. He looked up; already, Katia was beginning to glow. Her body radiated a blue light which surrounded her evenly, then expanded, encapsulating her in a sparkling sphere. As he stared, his own light expanded, along with the sensation of rapture. The last thing he noticed before his own light became opaque was Kim: the little girl was open-mouthed within her own nimbus, like a princess caught in the heart of a crystal.

Then the blue light vanished.

3

He was sitting cross-legged on the grass of a vast sportsfield. Dawn was brightening a horizon made irregular by a line of one-storey weatherboard houses. On the other side of the playing area was a row of trees Janner recognised as eucalyptus. At either end of the oval, four white-painted timber posts rose against the sky; the two central posts were perhaps thirty feet high, the two outer ones twenty. Janner smiled to himself. He had materialised on an Australian Rules football pitch, which could only mean he was somewhere on that continent. By the parched condition of the grass he reckoned he was in one of the northern states, the Northern Territories or Queensland. He was closer to home than he'd ever been since the beginning of this crazy affair. In theory he could make it to the nearest airport, catch an internal flight to Sydney, and from there fly on to New Zealand. He'd probably make it to his home town just in time to be whisked away again tomorrow morning.

He was relieved that his proximity to Katia and Kim at the moment of transition had not resulted in their arriving here in the same formation. Despite their arrangement to meet at the local GPO, Janner had little inclination to do so. He felt he had discharged his obligations when he had given Katia the money in Athens. He had no responsibility, he told himself, to two people who were almost perfect strangers. Katia would look after Kim, and the money would see them right for a good time yet. He would continue now as he had lived his life for the past ten years.