What Lot's Wife Saw (16 page)

Drake maintained that we should break into it without moving it, to minimise the chance that we would touch something we shouldn’t. Montenegro disagreed, suggesting that if we didn’t remove it and study it from all angles we would not manage to open it. He seemed to be right in my mind, as I couldn’t see how to force it while it remained slotted tight.

“Why don’t those that disengage it every time for the procession do the honours?” Fabrizio suggested, so that it wouldn’t be wrenched roughly from its slots. So it was decided that Siccouane and I should remove it, in the same way that we, as members of the procession, have been putting it in and taking it out for so many years. In a panic, I realised that my mind came up blank, although I’d mechanically removed the Box a thousand times before. A glance at Siccouane showed me that he was in no better state. He said nervously that it was probably due to the fact that there were always four present, not just two. In addition to that, we were often tied together when we did it.

Lady Regina wasted no time, and using a curtain cord, she tied me to Siccouane, Montenegro and Drake around the Box. Siccouane set himself loose and walked to the end of the quartet, his proper position, before retying himself. We practised several times on a case of similar dimensions. When Siccouane and I had loosened up, and our bodies began to act instinctively, we took positions around the Green Box. Siccouane shut his eyes to let his instincts dictate his movements and I imagined myself enjoying a peaceful sunset over the desert. In no time at all, the Box was free, safely in our hands.

We bit our lips, expecting something dreadful to happen. The Lady squeezed below the Box and fingered the indentations while Fabrizio glued his ear to the Box in case a threatening noise emanated from it. Nothing suspicious reached our eyes or ears, everything appeared normal. We exhaled in relief and carefully set the Box down on a table. Montenegro wiped the sweat from his brow and barked at the Doctor, “You’ll be the death of us, you and your hysterics, Fabrizio. What did you expect would happen, anyway?”

It was obvious Fabrizio hadn’t felt the same tension, remarking that it would be great if the only thing to remind us of this night was the memory of how illogical our fears had been.

We examined the Box from all angles to find a way to open it without leaving traces. The Green Box had no screws and no visible joins, it was made from seamless, solid, heavy duty metal. The only way we could possibly open it would be to pick the lock.

Drake, as usual, immediately opposed the idea. “Not the lock! The lock will sense that we lack the right key and will trigger an alarm. The Box might self-destruct!”

We drew back, despite thinking that there was no other way to open the Box, but more than willing to let someone else make the decision. Drake, encouraged, begged us not to tamper with the lock, adding the possibility of poisonous gases as well as the vicious launch of deadly stilettos to impale us. “The Box will protect itself! I’m certain!” he shouted.

We decided to take comprehensive protective measures. We brought the curtains down, cut them into strips and wound them around our mouths and noses, to keep out noxious gases. We broke the legs off the chairs and removed their stuffed seats. These we deployed around the table, forming a little fortress in front of the lock so that most of us could crouch behind it when the lock was picked.

We agreed that Dr Fabrizio should undertake the picking. His surgeon’s hands and their familiarity with his versatile medical instruments would be our best hope of success. More strips of cloth were wrapped around his wrists and forearms to protect against the stilettos. To armour him we attached cushions and saucepan lids around his middle, shoulders and head. We tried not to add to his apprehensions and kept ourselves quiet until he felt ready for his undertaking.

For a few seconds Fabrizio did some stretching and limbering exercises with his fingers. He crossed himself and declared himself ready. We collectively held our breaths.

Holding narrow forceps in his right hand and a scalpel in his left, he approached the dark little hole with care. He shoved the scalpel into it and tested the inner protrusions and indentations with the flat side of the blade. We strained our ears but all that reached them was the faint sound of metal against metal. At that very moment, Bianca entered the room, her first footfall causing the floorboards to creak. Fabrizio nearly fainted from fright.

“For God’s sake, Bianca, I told you we’re not to be disturbed for any reason!” screamed Lady Regina.

Bianca’s colourless eyes goggled as they swept around the devastated office, the broken chairs, the ripped curtains. A shocked squeal escaped her lips as she took in the occupants as well. There we were, stark naked, streaked with blood and ashes, curtain material wrapped around our sweating faces, while Fabrizio lay in a half-faint across the Green Box, swaddled in cushions and saucepan lids as if dressed up for carnival.

“Excuse me, your Ladyship, there’s someone outside asking for you,” she managed to stutter.

“Tell him to get lost, whoever he is!” shouted Regina.

Bianca swallowed and said with a voice that could barely be heard, “He claims to be the New Governor.”

“You’re underestimating us, but we’re used to being underrated and it has stopped bothering us. In fact, sometimes, we actively seek it,” the bald man said, smiling.

Phileas Book protested that he had been misunderstood, as he hadn’t meant that the Seventy-Five were naïve – actually, he had wanted to say the opposite or, rather, he was damned if he did know what he had intended. So far the man had managed to twist everything he’d said, and Book felt as if he was continually guiltily explaining himself. All he’d wanted to do was to inform this arrogant character that he’d read in the papers about the inhuman system of government in the Colony and he couldn’t hide his indignation. “The Seventy-Five blatantly suck the colonists dry and keep them orderly and obedient using the basest of psychological trickery.”

“Mr Book, Mr Book, permit me to correct you. They’re employees, not colonists. The term ‘colonist’ has been adopted purely on the grounds of marketing the product, but let’s not deceive ourselves; anyone on the company’s property in the Dead Sea area is a salaried employee of the Consortium. There’s no private initiative or even private possessions of any kind on the Colony and no one is allowed to visit if they don’t have a defined professional relationship with the Consortium, so kindly stop regarding it as a political entity – it’s a business. The personnel were hired, they signed contracts, accepted the explicit terms and undertook certain responsibilities. So what can you be thinking when you claim that we use ‘psychological trickery’ on them? We simply manage our human resources in a way that ensures the smooth running of our remote investment. Our simplistic methods pale before those adopted by other cutting-edge companies, the dictatorship of performance indices, the burden of ill-defined responsibilities, the regime of cut-throat internal competition, and you’re getting excited because we employ some free association or apply gentle pressure here and there? Obviously this is because it’s set in your mind that they’re
citizens
. No, Mr Book, they’re employees, at the disposal of the Consortium on a twenty-four hour basis, for which they are generously remunerated.”

Phileas Book found it impossible to accept that in today’s modern democratic society people could be ruled by a blatantly despotic regime, flouting the international Bill of Rights. Township or business, the Seventy-Five were breaking the law.

The man inhaled the minty aroma that curled out of the teapot.

“Evidently, Mr Book, you’ve only a vague, even naïve, notion of what democracy is. I don’t really blame you because you’ve never had to solve political problems, nor had to govern heterogeneous masses who don’t know what they seek or how far they can reach. If you had, you would know that the first thing a democracy does when security is threatened is abolish personal rights and restrict freedom. And from where does the threat arise? From the local conditions, naturally. These conditions dictate the system of government, Mr Book, and they oblige the establishment to adopt certain policies; the
reverse
would be the imposition of arbitrary rule. We cannot ignore the geophysical realities of the Colony, the isolation renders it virtually uncontrollable. Our employees are like the sailors of a vessel that’s sailing mid-ocean with no communication system, completely isolated from shore. Now, in these conditions, the captain is God and there would be chaos if he weren’t.”

Book settled back into the couch and remained silent with his cup in his hand. Perhaps if he didn’t speak the man would stop continuously correcting him. The man interpreted Book’s quiescence as surrender and cheerfully changed the subject.

“Why do you use letters in your crosswords, Mr Book? Why not articles, essays or excerpts from literary works, for example?”

Book felt his patience wearing thin. “Are you so interested in my work? Can you kindly explain to me why you’ve dragged me here?”

Visibly annoyed, the man tapped his finger rhythmically on the armrest.

“Mr Book, I ask the questions, and you answer them. Those are the rules. Tucked away in your wallet is a cheque whose value, if I’m not mistaken, considerably exceeds ten years’ wages from
The Times
. These wages, I’m told, will discontinue in the near future. I do wonder where a recently laid-off designer of Epistlewords would seek his next employment? Can he allow himself the luxury of raising objections to the terms I offer?” He drew out his next sip of tea to afford Book time to appreciate the predicament he faced and then favoured him with a hearty beam. “You are, most surely, free to return the cheque and leave if you don’t wish to cooperate with us. We always want people to cooperate of their own free will.”

Book studied his shadow, which stayed absolutely immobile, taking its cue from his own inaction. Whenever the Consortium puts you under siege to get something it wants, all the alternative routes open to you are so illusory that if you choose one of them you could drown in your own saliva. He preferred to leave the demand for his surrender unanswered, adopting a stance an ostrich would be proud of, and managed to mutter hoarsely, “You haven’t told me your name or your title, sir. I don’t know how to properly address you.”

The man laughed at this evasion.

“Oh, please admit that my name is of total indifference to you, and as for my position within the company, it would take too many hours to explain. I’ll tell you, however, what you’d really like to know. Yes, Mr Book, I can confirm that you’re talking to the top, the top decision-making management.”

Book looked warily around him, trying to find where the top management was hiding since he doubted whether the man would actually describe himself that way. He scrutinised the ceiling for hidden cameras and probed the arms of the couch for the microphones that transmit their conversation to those really in charge. The unremitting light in the lounge, apart from fatiguing his eyes, had nailed his shadow onto the deep pile of the carpet. Despite himself, he mentally measured it and felt a familiar shame that after so many years he remained a meagre one metre forty-eight.

Paradoxically, from that abysmal night in Aunt Mildred’s lounge when the television had informed him that he’d just been severed from his past and that, half-formed, he’d been thrust into the limbo of the present, his body had obeyed and had stopped growing. His height had been frozen like a frame from a horror movie. In vain he had stood against the wall, drawing lines above his head and appealing to the mercy of Gustave’s measuring stick. One metre forty-eight. He’d never grow, time’s passage would envelop him without nurturing his exterior and would deliver him, a wrinkled teenager, into old age.

During the gruelling months that followed the catastrophe, his only consolation had been that his seven most beloved people, the seven satellites of his bygone life to whom he owed his very existence and who encircled him in their orbits, defining him by their affection, had each managed to write him a letter. They’d all found time to disclose their feelings for him on paper, camouflaged behind innocent tales, teasing, jokes and childish illustrations, they’d all applied their saliva to seal the envelope which had been posted in time. He shuddered at the thought these letters could have been intercepted by the disaster since then he would have had nothing concrete of theirs to confirm that they’d actually existed and weren’t mere figments of his imagination. There would have been nothing to prove that he hadn’t suddenly appeared that gloomy afternoon like some fungus in Aunt Mildred’s lounge, but had real roots. There had been a time when there’d been solid land where maps now showed sea; a time when he’d had parents who considered him their child; when there’d been sisters called Françoise, Manon and Fabienne; when there’d been a blood brother called Gustave who’d known all his secrets; when there’d been an unrealised dream called Mélanie. In their midst had been Phileas Book, and since all these people had existed, it could only be that he existed as well.

Aunt Mildred died instantly in the lounge, as if her soul had been waiting to be liberated by this calamity. Book passed his sixteenth birthday as a guest of Dublin’s Social Services Shelter, with one ear glued, in agony, to the radio. Rescuers searched the flooded waters back and forth, fishing in hope, but reeling in ninety-nine deaths for every life. One felt that the mud would swallow the whole continent. The stench of mould and the rancid smell of decomposition reached as far as Ireland, while each week that passed diminished the chances of his ever finding one of his own. The radio incessantly announced lists of recovered bodies deposited by the tsunami in the most unlikely corners of the planet, and he kept thanking his lucky stars that his loved ones hadn’t been among them. He gritted his teeth, willing the passage of each second to slow so that time would stretch and afford those swept to sea a better chance. He listened to reports about those recovered, half-dead, injured, babbling insanely or dumb through amnesia, but with a life spark that still glowed. Alive, at least! His only hope was that he’d find them, nurse them back to health, remind them of their names and identities, and provide them with parts of his own body to replace what was missing in theirs. He would lie down beside them as they regained their strength and then, he was sure, his shadow would grow.