A NOVEL BY CHRISTIAN REINER

Donkey
Tales
A NOVEL BY
CHRISTIAN REINER
3

Foreword
The shallow features of the Caribbean sea might indicate to some an
unstable submerged land mass, due to the cataclysmic shift of the
earth’s magnetic poles or possibly to the huge meteorite impact near
Merida in distant history which did in fact bring about the
extinction of the dinosaurs. It is a matter of contention as to what
chain of islands can claim Gallaan as its own.
Ionana, on some early maps appears as a bigger twin island, but is
in reality nowhere to be seen. Claimed by the King of France in
1642, it goes to reason that Gallaan was ceded to the French West
India Company. Eventually, in the 1850s in a small board room in
Amsterdam, this tiny spot on the world map was divided into a
Dutch enclave and a Spanish eastern region. The palms don’t know
it and neither does the sand as it dances in the surf.
This historical novel deals with the first of the great upheaval
periods. It covers the time from about 2050 through 2075. As we all
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can appreciate, the initial shock waves of catastrophe were a difficult
thing for those pioneers. This novel is a testament to that human
spirit. Why did so many have to perish? Why did so few survive? The
great theme of the 21st and 22nd century. As of last year, the world
population has risen again to one hundred and thirty two thousand.
This book however satisfies a growing curiosity about the ‘old days’.
A curiosity fuelled by the now popular notion, that we as humanity
have encountered a fatigue factor in our ability to mutate/evolve
further. We must pursue kinds of adaptations that we seem
incapable of processing genetically. The search is on for a creature
with an inbred kindness, a lack of greed and little ambition. These
words are not scientific - yet in the new science these factless
metaphors have become enshrined due to their resilience factors in
four dimensional equations.
It is now all of us who are looking. Of course, the question remains
as to wether or not we are capable of seeing such a creature. Are we
not blind to the abilities? Are we not fooled by the promises? Can
the old envision the new, or are in fact changes materializing
beyond our comprehension?
The Author
Sumatra, August 2306
8

Chapter One
It stood not far from the surf in the sand. A brown long coat, the dark
cross on his shoulders, a burro, almost motionless. The tail moving in
small swishes - the eyes mostly closed. One leg slightly lifted - dreaming.
••••
O.G.D. was conceived in an accidental fashion, but never aborted. In the
rudimentary laboratories of the Dallas based conglomerate of Bush, Burns
& Tenermann - there the umbilical cables were severed. It was a joke, so
chairman Walter Banks, known for his great stories at the dinner table,
would tell anyone with the right security clearance. He was a man drawn to
rich caramel desserts and to women of the extravagant kind, who could
deliver a similar sweetness in their character as Butterscotch sauce, whom
he generally divorced before the second matrimonial year.
An ignorant ass, yes, but it does explain his equal attraction to the darker
south side of Houston suburbia, to the sweaty gambling shacks and porn
shops of the poorer Dallas suburbs, where street lights have never shone -
particularly when he was inbetween women. In fact he never
comprehended in his own time the full scope of the demons he had
released, those long horned hounds.
It is late, very late at the Christmas party. Almost all of the three hundred
odd employees and their wives and tired kids already on their way home,
with the frozen turkeys and their thirteenth pay cheque - humming carols,
arguing, drunk or whatever. Just a few of the big old boys and their
entourage remain. They have now moved up to the private lounge, with the
vaulted ceilings and the limitless view up in the penthouse suite.
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The only person paying any attention to Walter was the beautiful brunette
who was following him around like a handfed deer. But obviously not
listening to a word he was saying or she would have run in disgust,
assuming she had a survival instinct. She in turn had been followed by
none other than Caesar Fabrice, five foot four assistant head of general
research.
It was Walter, who had mumbled in a drunken stupor that sometimes he
wished he could zap his ex-wives. “Get them and be done with it.” Waving
his arms - lost for words, making a complete circle, then “Yeah, zap ‘em!”
Then he just stood there and a shudder of fatigue rushed through him. “All
we need is their genetic profile. If we could see those little thingies from
space. The genetic strings, helixes and all that stuff.... you know?” For a
moment his eyes could not focus. “Guys!” Silence, then the awkward
lighting of his cigar. Then “Guys!”
He gazed up at the pot lights in the ceiling for effect, imagining it all. Then
he rolled on to the couch by the super sized fire place, where some large
logs pretended to blaze away amongst the gas flames, where two steer
could have been roasted side by side. He took a swig from his tumbler. “We
could hit them right then and there, laying on their white boats with their
personal faggot trainers snorting coke! Can’t you see it? Man!”
He raised his arms, just like Moses might have done, receiving the word of
god. “Boom!” He cried out. “Boom! Boom! Bang!” A drule ran down his
cheek and the cigar dropped to the carpet. With one last effort he stood up
again and then he wrenched all that fine pate and Polish potato salad and
the seven glasses of cognac and the butterscotch tarts onto the walnut
parquet.
Caesar had heard the last of what Walter had said, despite the fact that his
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full attention was still locked onto the firm buttocks of Mrs. Bank. Even
Walter’s theatrics could not divert his gaze. After a long pause in which
three little men came and mopped up the mess and fumigated the lounge
and in which Walter changed his clothing, he said: “Want me to look into
it?” Forever the image of Zorro, Caesar was looking at Paul now, who was
sitting opposite Walter. He had turned in surprise, but Caesar’s inner eyes
were still mesmerized by the beautiful cutaways in Mrs. Banks’ dress. He
found that if he drank just a little too much, that kind of urge was a bitch
to control.
Then there was a pause, the type of pause that happens when the night has
gotten too long. “What are you looking into, Caesar?” Walter asked
eventually, not particularly interested with two hands on his stomach.
Caesar’s deeprooted anger surfaced like a flicker and then it was gone again
- flash like. He would never be on the same level as these guys. He hated
these idiots with such a passion as only latin blood can provide. They were
old school, not mex-texanos. They were careless, smart, dull - could afford
to be and did not give a damn, but for a rattler’s tail. It was bred into
Caesar, to look up to these people, serve these people and this he resented
the most - his own predilections to servitude. I am the peasant, he thought.
“Did you not say you wanted to build something?” Now an air of
confidence about Caesar, playing with his cufflinks. “You want to ‘zap’
people, use their genetic code to hunt them down?” To him it was a late
night joke. A stupid, dumb and typically Walter thing. He got drunk - he
got ideas. He turned to Paul, but instead was mesmerized once again, this
time by Mrs. Horsefoot - and in those deep velvet eyes he almost lost his
train of thought. “Isn’t that what he said, Paul?” Caesar had regained his
composure, settled on the old leather saddle that sat by the fire place. He
needed Paul’s support here. He looked at Paul again. “Did I understand
him right, Paul?” He was pointing at the Banks pair and laughed while
doing so.
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Paul did not bother to react. His private eye buddy had confirmed over and
over again, that Mrs. Horsefoot and Caesar Fabrice copulated at least
several times a week in one of those cheap bachelor suits you can rent on
the south side, but mostly in the back of his SUV. Sometimes Paul found
the pretense a little bit much.
“Yeah” he said getting up, swerving towards Caesar. He was in a mood to
kick him in the head, but was making a semi-elegant curve instead and
headed straight for Walter. His intention was to bend down slowly and
whisper in Walter’s ear in a breathy voice, that he should get rid of this
prick. But it so happened that he moved too far forward because the floor
was still wet.
The weight of his fat ass propelled him forward and his head suddenly sank
past Walter and got trapped between the lovely thigh of the fifth Mrs. Banks
and the big left leg of Walter’s. Paul’s gut landed on Walter’s pointy knees,
which were braced solidly against the floor and this put such pressure on
his chest cavity that a sound like wailing emanated from the dark space in
which Paul’s head was stuck. Walter impulsively pushed him off hard.
Paul rolled onto the floor and lay on his back. He sat up. Looking a little
lopsided, but invigorated by Mrs. Banks’ splendid body odor. “Yes!” he
shouted “Yes! Gentlemen, ladies! Let us here and now decide to build a
space contraption that blows away all the evildoers, including the thirty five
previous wives of this here gentlemen!”
He laughed and with the imprint of Mrs. Banks’s lovely thigh still on the
right side of his face, he begged Walter. “Make it his priority, Walter.”
Thumbing over at Caesar. Caesar had gotten up and was now walking
casually over to an unguarded Mrs. Horsefoot. This was a risky move. She
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smiled at him in a forced way. “What the hell is he up to?” he whispered to
her and shock his head. She kept smiling as if he had made an amusing
remark, but under her breath she muttered “Get away from me! Now!
Idiot!” He could tell she was in one of her moods, which he secretly
adored.
“Caesar!” That voice again. “Get over here, Zappato!” This was the
definitive sign that his boss was drunk. Caesar turned. There was Walter
and the only time he would call him Zappato was when he was plain losing
it. Caesar walked over and actually put his arm on Paul’s shoulder. “Yes” he
said with an apparently relaxed tone, as if all his life he had watched reruns
of Fantasy Island. “How can I be of service, gentleman.” It was supposed to
be a funny mockery, but it came out so straight that nobody got it.
Walter did not like Caesar, he gave him the creeps. “Look” he said and then
looked at Paul. “This V.P. finance here, our good buddy Paul, wants me to
seconde you for a year, five years - whatever, to work on a space zapper.” He
saw the look on Caesar’s face. “Well at least until it is done.” He was turning
firm in his mind. “Okay?” This was not a question - it was an order and
Caesar knew it by the tone in the voice.
Walter let his head down a little and he looked at his drink. “You do this
for me, you Mexican geek or god, depending on whether or not you are in
bed with someone of your own sex.” A smile running across his chin, then
he put a pause in just for effect - a long pause and nobody spoke. “You do
this for me, well actually Paul, and I will give you the Public Safety
portfolio.” He raised his hand. “You are all my witnesses. No complaints.
You can look through all the project junk in Hall 40 through Hall 46.
Whatever you find - it is yours to play with.”
He stood up and looked around. “I will tell security. I will issue a special
15

lue pass myself.” He wasn’t going anywhere, just stood there - not coming,
not going, swaying a little. “That is wonderful!” Caesar proclaimed with a
big grin on his face. “Thank you, Walter. I will start on it right away.
Tomorrow. Yes. First thing!” He then moved forward towards Paul. He was
going to give him a big hug, but then he could not do it. “Thank you so
much, Paul.” “You are a great pal.” But it did not sound like pal, it had an
air of pale, or pool, or puff.
The large room still had that warm feeling, that shortbread, chocolate smell
- mix in a little wine, the fresh cedar bows making it pungent. “You can start
whenever you want. It is the last challenge I will ever place on your head,
good man.” Caesar understood the game. Felice Navidad be damned, he
would work right through the holidays - he had the run of the place. His
wife was in the lovely Swiss resort of Davos for the holidays. His children
hanging out with friends in Pittsburgh.
Caesar went to the washroom. He was looking in the mirror - don’t be
ashamed, don’t bother, he thought. He combed his hair, jet black it was -
longish in the back. Walter came in and up behind him and before he
could do anything about it, he had grabbed Caesar’s balls and squeezed as
only rednecks can and then his head came close to his and he whispered
in that dirty voice of his “And leave Paul’s wife alone - while you are at it.”
He gave Caesar a vicious tug.
Then he let go, but his elbow came up and caught Caesar under the nose
and he fell forward onto the sink and the blood drained down the clean
porcelain and then he rolled of the edge of the marble counter. He curled
into a ball on the tiled floor and could not bring himself to scream. By the
time Caesar went back to the big lounge, it was empty.
He disappeared from the social circuit. Instead Hall 42 in particular was
brightly lit day and night until the howlers, rockets and canon balls
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ushered in the new year. He called it Orbital Genetic Detection - O.G.D. for
short. It was basically configured by the time the flash floods hit in
February. Caesar had adopted the concept - borrowed it from the deep sea
search and rescue devices, that had been commissioned as far back as the
Reagan presidency for submarine espionage. Caesar had found them
buried behind the extinct species rejuvenation machines and the tit-for-tat
guidance systems developed after the Cuban missile crisis by President
Kennedy’s eggheads. What he still needed was the genetic angle. Publicly
this technology did not exist, but Caesar knew better.
He had heard rumours - years back in the days of the Islamic paranoia -
that a device had been used in Congress to verify the congress men’s
identity with such a device, mounted high in the cupola. There had been a
fear that Islamic impostors could infiltrate this hallowed house of law. He
did some research and found both a prototype and the first assembly line
model in hall 56. He told no one - but without calling in a few markers, he
would not have been able to manage.
What had started as a project to gain him control of the Public Safety
department, now was becoming such a powerful instrument in it’s own
right - to hell with Public Safety. This is what he lived for, this sense of a
real hunt for discovery - something those executive morons would never
understand. Again his resentment of all things American rose to the surface
and a plan took shape in Caesar’s mind. He would pay Walter back. He
would find revenge - if that is all he did. He could not just bolt and be done
with it, settle in a little seaside village in the Yucatan and enjoy the simple
life, dreaming of yester years.
If he wanted this to work, he would need the support of this whole outfit
and he needed the launch capacity of NASA, which wouldn’t be a problem
as long as he stayed in the system. All because Walter wanted to erase his
17

exwives. He needed to play it just right and only when all the gadgets were
in space and the controls finally wired to the operations centre, would it
become obvious - but only to people who searched deeply into the code,
that he also had control over the satellites. He needed to be patient. Play it
safe now, he told himself. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot. Use their greed,
he thought. Subservience was such a wonderful guise.
The boys in security had become his friends. They were resentful, having to
work these extra shifts and he made it clear that he felt the same way about
this project. He worked on the premise that none of them reported back to
anyone, but he was not sure. Just to be certain, he kept things in such a
random order, that it would be difficult to back track everything he had
accomplished. He also had rigged the cameras in hall 42.
The work in hall 56 took all but fifteen minutes and it would have taken
less, had he not first moved a giant black box from shelving 14a to the top
shelving 27g, which had nothing to do with anything - but blocked the
camera view. Just a divergence. To the security guys it appeared, from
everything he had to say in those days, that this was a special favour to the
President of the United States.
The real work started when he got home. The kids had come back, so had
his wife. He had thought of contacting Mrs. Horsefoot, but could not bring
himself to do it. It was not that important. He had removed the Unix code
boxes from the devices and had created an elaborate scheme with emulated
temp folders into which he had built a corrupted code language. Into those
he had buried the actual operating system in Linux code which was
emulating a System XXIII on the Mac side.
He had learned some time ago that what actually confuses those that are
looking the most is simplicity. So he had used the schematic of a garage
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door opener and had built on those basic logical arms and created what
seemed like the effect seen by looking through ten spider webs with an
ultimate depth of field. This would delay them. The genius of it was that
the system functioned adequately and elegantly. The hidden technology
was the real deal and nobody could see it or control it without provocation.
All his pass words were based on a Chinese substrata of keyboard
functions, spelling out the five middle names of his grandmothers in
various sequences. He had had them tattooed onto his left upper arm two
years ago. His whole security protocol took three long nights, partly
because he needed to incorporate a sufficient amount of sequences, not
just build a hide and seek architecture. At the end of March he finally felt
the first surges of satisfaction. It was like sneaking away from school to go
surfing at the piers. These surges of gratitude grew. When he had completed
the building of the system and set it up in such a way that all he had to do
was walk anywhere without a computer terminal and the machine would
find him and since he had coded the commands according to the Tai Chi
principles, the machine would use his body language to do as it was told.
He had bought an orange coverall and into it he had sown the sensors and
transmitters that would let the eye in the sky know what he wanted. He had
also bought a roller blade helmet onto which he mounted the locator
beacon - that way the Satellite could find him. The geostationary satellite
would have no problem finding him. Walter you stupid shit, you have it
coming, he thought.
So it was the middle of July, when a bewildered Walter leaned down in
between the wires and the tubes to hear the last words Paul Horsefoot
whispered after the massive heart attack, which he suffered when the
elevator he was riding plummeted from the fifth floor after a local power
outage. “He screwed us. Wwww.” He couldn’t get that part out “Who?!”
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Walter said it as if his old buddy was having a drunken snooze - too lazy to
wake up. “Hhh. Hhhh. Him” Paul whispered. Then his head turned
sideways and he was gone. “Who?!” Walter asked again, ignoring that this
man had just died. He pinched the corpse. This is so typically Paul, Walter
thought. Walter being the type who can be either sober or drunk at the
drop of a hat. He shook the corpse. Gets up and dies on me without telling.
He was furious.
He bounced the bed up and down. Stupid git. No wonder he was from
Idaho. Losers and deadbeats live in Idaho. He was distracted, a little
panicked. Abruptly he straightened out and turned sharply to get out of
there. The nurse was coming towards him, her hands up - eyes big, trying
to hold him back, which made him speed up and assume a forceful
forward motion and then he felt the tugging of all those lines and tubes
and then he heard the sickening thud behind him and he saw the horror
on the nurses face and he bolted even more and then he shed all those lines
and his last look back showed Paul spread eagle and twisted on the
polished linoleum floor with both the nurse and his wife hanging on him,
so that he could not be dragged down the corridor.
Walter was used to messes being cleaned up in his wake. This was not a
good day, Walter decided on the way to the parking lot. He had forgotten
that the limousine was waiting by the front entrance. Paul was out of the
loop and ‘Him’ was one big mystery. He did not care about Paul. When
people were that close to him and watched his every move, they were a
pain.
The D.G.O. device was first implemented by vaporizing the old cedar hot
tub in which the first Mrs. Banks was being entertained by an aging rock
star of all people. This was not long after Paul Horsefoot’s elaborate
funeral. Mrs. Horsefoot was spared the agony of an empty matrimonial bed
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y a longish line of old associates - of which Caesar was no longer one. He
had became estranged, almost aloof.
In late July of that year a peculiar incident made the local papers. A man
named Walter Banks, driving a Cadillac convertible, caught fire while
cruising on the highway outside Tucson, just past the air force graveyard. It
was not that the engine had caused the fire, so eye witnesses proclaimed.
Those testifying from oncoming traffic mentioned that they saw a shaft of
light bolting from the sky. There was no build up of smoke, so the driver of
the rig said. “That car flew by me and the driver was on fire - big time, like
fireworks. Instantaneous combustion whatyamacallit.” The rig operator
had no explanation. “He never made the curve to the left, but went straight
into that big concrete tepee of the tourist info centre and exploded.” The
story had no legs after that, except if you had connected the bombastic
habituaries in the Houston Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News and the
Wall Street Journal, in which the nature of his passing was mentioned as a
car accident.
••••
A strong gail blew across the Caribbean sea in the early morning of
December 17th, 2054. The sleek cruiser-class McKinnon was slicing her
way through the whitecaps, barely rolling. The ship flew the flag of the
Ignazio group of companies, a golden lion on a dark green square. It must
have cost a good chunk of cash, to convert such a high powered ship to be
the sole possession of a civil corporation, in fact she was owned by one
wealthy man.
More than six years ago, on a grey ghostly morning a bit like today, the
powerful ship had left the Lexington shipyards, where she had been
stripped of her cannons and all other defensive installations. They had
sailed her south through Chesapeake Bay to the Atlantic, proceeded to pass
through the Panama canal and then she was refitted, away from searching
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American eyes, in a shipyard in the Gulf of Fonseca with twin armour
piercing canons, a state of the art anti aircraft system, the latest in French
sidewinder missiles, two Helicopters, a Sea Harrier GR3 and all the
electronic gadgets that are a necessity to run a maritime operation in these
days of chaos. Piracy had become a royal pain in the first decades of the
new millennium. Ironically, the McKinnon was now more militarily
capable then ever before.
The course had taking them south through the Tropic of Cancer in a bright
starry night, but the weather had shifted - clouds rolled in from the
direction of Jamaica. The windward passage was the last uncertainty and
now with the lights of Port-au-Prince fading behind them to the left, it was
a straight run south/south-west. Captain Pierre Dagaz left the bridge after
another quick glance at the radar. He was a short man of square built and
only one eye - he wore a black patch. They would arrive about 15:00 hours
Florida time. The Chinese born second officer Han, had standing
instructions to wake him should there ever be even a sense of a situation
and many a times that had proven a lifesaving tactic. Dagaz trusted this
man with his life - which in turn was what old man Tom expected - loyalty.
The warm water ran across his hands, wetting his razor for a quick shave.
He did this before he rested. In case he was needed in a hurry he did not
want to appear unprepared. It was important to him. He laid out a fresh
uniform shirt, khaki with dark green and gold trim. Involuntarily in his
mind he reran a scenario late in last year’s summer in the South China sea.
Just off the coast of Mindoro. Very strong winds, the waves about eighteen
feet, the currents strong from the Sulu Sea and the navigational electronics
for some reason not being reliable.
They were suddenly surrounded by Vietnamese. The McKinnon turned on
all search lights. There were sharpshooters in the riggings of their junks, a
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small flotilla. In the black of that tempest night, old man Tom standing on
the bridge, legs spread to brace against the roll of the ship, he had raised
his arm and just pointed into the darkness, south and that is the way they
had run from the rabble. The engines roaring into full thrust. Then
suddenly Tom had acted as few men would. He commanded the Sea
Harrier raised. This was tricky business in high seas, but within three
minutes she was airborne. They watched the assault from a distance.
The moon had appeared from behind the clouds like a good omen.
Without hesitation Tom had turned the ship around. The canons were
lifted and the McKinnon set her sights on the remaining pirates, now dimly
visible. Shearing through them with complete disregard for collisions - her
bow being like a knife. The guns did the rest until the sea was flat around
them. They had lost three men that night, several wounded, him loosing
his eye to a piece of shattered glass, but the bullet had missed him. They
had saved the ship and a cargo of silk worth two hundred and fifty million
dollars. The McKinnon was rumour from that night forward - eventually
legend.
He picked up the phone and dialed the relay that would make the satellite
call untraceable. From there his signal would be forwarded to a small
Spanish fishing village north from Valencia along the coastal highway. His
eldest son answered the phone in lazy Spanish. Pierre smiled. Carlos
sounded distracted, probably watching cartoons, sick at home - skipping
school. When Dagaz finally hung up, his picture of the world in order, he
fell back onto the bed and closed his eyes. Now he relived the long day,
experienced from memory the most meaningful moments.
Sometimes he would play some of the scenes again. Somewhere in that
replay he would fade and it was not an uncommon thing for the dream to
pick up where the memory had left off and in that dream state he would
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fix agitation and poor morale. This is something Tom had taught him. If all
you can do is react to a problem, then you are not genuinely in control.
Anticipate, anticipate. If need be, sometimes create the problem so that you
are the only one who can solve it, because you know the root, you are the
root. “Makes you look good too” the old man had said with a dry smile.
••••
The head of Rocio, the night attendant, was bobbing up and down in the
dim light of the main lounge. Catching herself in a half sleep and then
rearranging herself, giving in once more to cozy comfort, delicious like a
slow tango. The silver service platter on her lap, having teetered on her
knees, finally slid downward and hit the mahogany floor with a crash,
coinciding with the precise moment when in her dream she was shooting
the left ear off her brutal drunken husband.
She jerked and rolled her now wide eyes from left to right and listened fully
alert. There was nobody in sight, yet she murmured an apology out of habit
- after all god was watching. She got up from the wooden chair and swayed
drunken with sleep, stumbling the twenty paces to the soft sofa under the
large Matisse canvas. She got out her heavy rosary and began her Ave
Marias, which were sometimes the only antidote to falling into very deep
sleep. Secretly she wished for that dream to replay one more time before
breakfast. She had dreamt it a thousand times, it was like an addiction. If
she strung all the dreams together, there would be nothing left, she had
shot so many holes into this hideous butcher - night after night - that now
there was only the air of him.
The twins were the first up. Little naked feet - muted thuds - racing from the
far doors, still in pajamas, then the tap tap of smacking skin when they hit
the wooden floor. To tell them apart was difficult. You could figure it out
only if you paid attention to their eyes or body language. Jack always came
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forward and was fearless while Jo tended to recede and attempted to draw
people in. They were trouble just as chalk inevitably shrieks on the black
board, as falling dishes break. They spotted the hulk of Rocio on the sofa
in the dim light.
Speaking fluent Spanish, they asked the blurry eyed woman for cabin
numbers after they mercilessly had pocked her awake. Her rosary still
sailing across the large majestic parquet dance floor in a large wobbly arc
due to a defensive reflex in her right arm. They did not get anywhere with
her. Gave up, moved on - up one level via the circular staircase that once
adorned a plantation library - like a wolf pack made of two. They knew it
might not lead to the other kids, but these two were bent on the chase. It
was the hunt that mattered to them, while the prey was only a necessity.
••••
As the sun turned a deep orange red before it sank behind the glistening
line of the ocean, the sky the colours of gold and magenta, as a small sturdy
boat slowly entered the large bay and found its way without any sound to
the mooring, like a liquid version of a romantic painting. The older man
lifted his canvass bags from the flat bottom of the wooden skiff and
jumped on to the stone steps that led to the top of the long sea wall, built
crudely from random stones and concrete. He was dressed in an old blue
coverall, a worn out green South African army jacket over top against the
sea breezes and a red felt hat that now was the colour of mango. The face
of Umberto Cadiz was older than his sixty years, lines deep in the face and
a wide mouth surrounded by a ghost of a beard. He had a sea look, a good
face.
He walked slowly along darkening doorways and lamp lit windows. He
delivered most of his catch to the cloister, then headed towards home.
Umberto was still sure footed, strong and in no particular hurry. He looked
25

ack over his shoulder at the vantage point between Ernesto Tecca’s house
and the old bakery half way up the village on the way to his house, the
outmost one.
Much as every night, he looked over the bay, let his eyes wander randomly
and when he felt that the winds would not come this night, he put down
what was left of his catch and leaned against the stone wall between the
two houses. He took his pipe from the jacket pocket and lit what little
tobacco was left in it. This ritual of observing he had done since he was a
young man. In fact everything he had done and did was a repetition of
years and years of sameness. This made him comfortable.
He was in between worlds now, on land yes, but not home and looking at
the huge endless water beneath him, where still a faint hint of lila coloured
streaks faded into the distance, he was well aware that this was his life, his
nature. A mist pervaded the picture now, where the ghosts of his forefathers
walked, blackening the shadows. Noba island, which sat in the middle of
the bay like a big birthday cake, now appeared as a dark triangle. Uncertain
rich grays turned slowly to become the deep impenetrable darkness that
made the night, when only the stars and their cool bright indifference filled
the sky with milky lace.
He looked west towards the glow of White Oaks with its electric lights.
Three years ago they had started building and now it was finished. The
workers were gone. To Umberto none of these things honestly mattered.
His mind could not encompass these changes - he had tried. His brain
would not let him see a picture larger then the one he had painted of his
world long ago. There was land and there was sea and there were the gods
of his ancestors. Nothing else would fit into the small, but strong frame of
his imagination. So he slept reasonably deep, ate good meals and fished
the best he could while experiencing the down drift of age, even less able
26

to change course now.
He had finished his pipe some time ago, but had not yet settled into the
quiet night the way he wished he could and often did - but not tonight. At
sea he was alert, never relaxed. It was not a place for dreamers. As he stood
there now, music drifted across from White Oaks and mingled with the
sounds of the jungle that covered the rest of the bay shore and Noba island.
He was a man far from anger. Agitated at times, yes. Now hungry, he picked
up his sack and walked up to the house, wondering if his old mother had
recovered.
••••
Juan Hernandez, in his dirty brown pants and a grey ruffled shirt that had
seen prettier days, sat on the steps of the Cathedral. It was called that, four
steps hewn from the blueish basalt rock that could be seen sticking out of
the thin layer of dirty topsoil. On top of the steps to the left and right were
the beginnings of two gigantic arches that once were intended to form a
gothic portal, if they had ever reached that far.
They would have met thirty seven feet above the bishops and cardinals,
princes and dignitaries who would have come to celebrate the inauguration
of what Father Piolo called the Magdalena Cathedral. The interior rich with
rays from the enormous stained glass windows. A vestibule of gold and
wrought iron, a sanctum sanctorum in marble and Hondurean hardwoods,
pews fashioned from English oak under a vaulted cupola one hundred feet
high, where angels of stone transferred the roofs massive weight into tall
ribbed pillars in the fashion of the Cathedral of Salamanca.
That is the way Father Piolo described it. Showing them all the large
detailed drawings he had made, relying on god the great engineer. He had
urged the natives to work for the sake of this greatness and eternal heaven.
27

Eventually, getting frustrated, he had threatened them also with hell.
All Juan now saw, while he was scribbling unrecognizable faces into his
book, were eight goats tethered away from the hot afternoon sun at the
edge of the jungle. It was this impossible torturous vision of glory that had
finally broken the old monk from Toledo. With his god in the heavens and
no Quetzalcoatl to be seen, he could not make the people work. If he
pushed and threatened they would only turn their backs. It was simply not
their way anymore.
Why should one build a house of stone that keeps out the stars. It would
bend a thousand men and more before their time only to please a man
from Rome? A god of such wilfulness needs no disciples, they thought and
least of all their labour. All these years of teaching and what did they give
in return, he was angry. There he stood with his eyes towards the sky as if
El Greco had stood him there for yet another elongated painting.
The old monk lived on for another two years, becoming feeble and quiet
until he withered into a helpless bundle, which they dutifully nursed until
his death. The nuns of St. Agnes remembered the young and robust
bearded man that had come to them. He gave them their new faith and a
path on which they had wandered ever since. The black Spanish ship which
had brought him, took on water and sailed away within days. Two years
later, the hull rotted by ship worm, this black ship had been abandoned off
Monserat.
But the good oblate had brought his books and his charts, the maps of the
world and a sextant. But that was not all. Few paid attention to the three
apes he had brought with him. They were to him as evil as the creatures of
Goya’s etchings. He called them sinners - ugly hideous vulgar beasts and he
punished them whenever he saw them copulating, which they did on a
28

egular basis, by withholding food and even water for days on end until
they lay on the ground of their cage - weak and motionless.
Eventually one of them died because of this stupid treatment, which is not
surprising - given the disregard of this churchman for the animal kingdom.
The remaining two female apes escaped from the cage, as the careless
workers finally removed the putrid corpse of the male and promptly swam
to the island in the bay. They were Bonobos, deep from the heart of Africa,
and it did not take them long to bring to term their offsprings, which was
in fact a miracle, since they normally only give birth once in a five to six
year period.
The black capped Capuchin, which had migrated from Ecuador or Guyana
probably thousands of years ago, were native to Gallaan. Being smaller and
less likely to swim, they did not represent a threat to these new arrivals.
Father Piolo had called them Takas. Crazy things with no soul and it was
obvious to everybody that he feared them. To him they were the portents
of hell and since they lived on the island in the bay he called it Tecaro -
island of the Taka devils. But eventually he was more occupied with the
great tasks of heaven - the setting of stone upon stone, so he paid them no
further attention. However, it is my own good sense that tells me to rename
them to what they were. Bonobos. And their island I will call Noba. And
despite all the respect I have for Piolo the pioneer, I find his so called
knowledge and his treatment of these animals - his apparent kindness that
carried such a brutal edge - genuinely demonic. I am the author and I can
say these things - this is my book.
These creatures were shy, agile and often displayed a soundless quality - a
stillness all about them - which only adds to their mystery. Having no
predators to contend with, they flourished. Often you can see them
29

swimming across the bay to feed in the deep jungles of Gallaan for the day
- before returning just before dusk to Noba island.
Timekeepers Log
“El Tiempo no es una medida hecha por el hombre, sino por los
brillantes diamantes repartidos en el cielo de la noche. En donde
vive la luz de los dioses. Los que crean la lluvia, los que traen a los
niños y el mas maravilloso de todos que mantienen el sol en el
cielo. Asi me han dicho las gaviotas y los lagartos de pecho azul.”
Time is a measure not made by man - but by the twinkling
diamonds that are scattered about the night sky. Within their light
dwell the gods. The ones that make rain, the ones that bring
children and the great one who keeps the sun in the sky. So the sea
gulls tell me and the blue geckos.
Pablo
It could be the size or the flatness of its contours that made my island so
obscure. Maybe it was the tempestuous winds from the east that guard it
like a dragon encircles a secret treasure. Columbus shows it as a small spot
on the early maps. The explorer Diaz makes mention of it in his log in
1548. Don Francisco de Montej, an officer of Cortez’ named it Gallaan. It
reminded him of the hilly surround of his family’s estate in Galicia, not far
from Vigo. He did not have time to stop, explore and chart it further.
Having seen the tell tale signs of a hurricane in the late light of day he
quickly set full sails and luckily outran the storm. On early charts it was
visible as a small zeppelin shape without name.
Eventually that small shape was changed to the actual sickle shape it is with
30

a perfectly circular smaller island in the centre of the harbour, known as
Noba island, because the silent apes live there, and the main island itself
was finally confirmed as Gallaan by Father Piolo, who proudly proclaimed
that Don Francisco de Montej was in fact his great great uncle.
This speck on the map became to him - a young missionary searching for
a foothold in the new world - a place of peace. Of course he would teach
the natives - but there was no hurry. Because of his calmness and initial
inner strength, something a fugitive might feel once safe in exile, he was
accepted. ‘Our heavenly Lady, Mary Mother of God, has granted me a place
in paradise even though I am amongst the living. I shall work under her
blessed smile all the days of my life’ he wrote. He died on Christmas day in
the year 1624 at the age of 82. I saw his book of thoughts in the cloister
and young Sister Clara let me secretly read in it.
I, Pablo, was born here on our island in the house that my great great grand
uncle Padico had built many years ago before my time. A simple, sturdy
adobe in the middle of the small village of San Agusto, with two tiny
windows facing the sea and overlooking the harbour, that reminds one of
the open claw of a crab with a large perl in the centre of it. I was known to
wander from an early age, climbing the short but steep cliffs and spending
the days in the company of the wind that blows from the Atlantic and the
jungle that covers more densely the western part of the island. It was not
considered strange to be this way.
The nuns at the cloister of St. Agnes are the keepers of records and they
regarded my behaviour as a somewhat rare but recognizable trait. For
centuries the men have gone out alone, in small seaworthy crafts - fishing
for Tagish, a good sized tropical herring which is abundant here. It is said
that the native tribes of the far north are cousins to our race and that long
ago these ancestors of ours had come here by good fortune.
31

We are neither Arawak or Carrib. Our skins are similar, but our bodies are
generally taller and our eyes are often a shade of greenish blue. Our oral
history goes back to a time when the legends talk about large plains and
animals big enough to feed the tribe for a month at a time. We eventually
wandered south and somehow through the power of circumstance and the
vigilance of the timekeepers, we found our way through hostile territory to
the ocean.
We learned to fish and to respect the power of the sea and some time later
we ventured on a journey. A fact is that only half of us left the safety of the
coast. The young children and the elders stayed behind. We built crafts
large enough to carry twenty of us, ten men and ten women in each vessel.
There were twelve craft and we dragged large bladders filled with fresh
water behind us and our sails were the colour of azur and a small flag of
red tied to the masts. Through storms and heavy seas we sailed. Five boats
arrived together and out of that seed of people, the tribe was born and our
way of life continued on Gallaan.
Cruise ships don’t ever come here. There is a shipping route to the Panama
canal a good distance past the horizon. We have always controlled
ourselves, bury the dead and raise the children and in between pursue what
is good for us all. Our young men must build a boat for their own rite of
passage. It has a small mast and a triangular sail, dyed green - our colour of
hope. It is large enough to go across the Caribbean sea to the west. Since
the winds come from the east more often than not and the currents are
favourable, they find a new home on the many islands that dot the sea. If
they find a bride somewhere then they may return or go to her native place
and stay away forever.
Our young women equally have a ritual by which they must vow to go
away to be the mothers of a wayfarers’ children. These young men arrive
32

out of nowhere and they take a bride away with them. Equally, if a young
woman has no interest in a man she may stay and become a nun, but that
is a more recent development. It is always the decision of the abbess of St.
Agnes. “The blood must be clean” she says. Naturally these rules lead to a
lot of heart break amongst the young, many a soul mates are wrenched
apart this way. But these ancient rules can not be broken - ever.
From an early age, besides being quirky, I showed an aptitude for numbers
and an ability to learn complex matters. My interest has always been in
peculiar things, so my reputations, both as a misfit and as a gifted person
were firmly established. This must have influenced the decision the abbess
eventually made. I became the timekeeper’s apprentice.
Approximately two years after I started my studies with Mario Muni, he fell
in a winter storm from the high cliff he had visited so many times to
measure the rise of Hercuile, generally known to the world as the morning
star; the journey of Tacao, the star often called Jupiter and many other
calculations. The ancient brass sextant with which he worked had been
anchored permanently up there high on the edge. Spikes had been driven
into the brittle rock that held the platform. I can only presume that it gave
way that night and he fell straight into the sea far below and was not found.
It gave me nightmares for a long time, always reaching to hold him - pull
him to safety. A wise man yet a difficult man, full of the knowledge of the
stars from which he built his time tables. Besides being a gifted timekeeper
he was also a blessed womanizer. I know of at least six of them that he used
to visit regularly, two nuns amongst them. He never neglected his
timekeeping duties as far as I know and I did always greatly admire him.
When he did not wake me on that morning, which he never failed to do, I
ran along the jungle trail to the cliff to find him. There was no sign of him,
33

the platform hung along the cliff face swinging in the wind, held only by
two leather straps. The sextant had jammed into a crevasse far below, all
bent to pieces. I was breathing heavily from the run up the mountain and
Mario’s disappearance made my heart beat even faster, but I ran all the way
down to San Agusto, headed straight for the house of Donna Iginotez, his
latest favourite, and banged against the wood with my shoe until she came
to the door.
I was still hoping to find Mario. Sometimes he would go to the village to
spend the night with her and not tell me, but he was always back in time
to wake me in the hut not far from the lookout. He was not there, so a
sleepy eyed Donna told me, showing no sign of worry and walking to the
gully to empty the night pot she held in her hands. After she called me a
dumb fool for waking her she told me to never knock on her door again,
night or day.
My apprenticeship with Mario had not been a strict affair. He tolerated me
and I did my shores. Mostly shores and little learning. I carried supplies up
the mountain, I kept the hut clean and cooked the meals - one of which I
would deliver each day to him in the early evenings, before he spent the
night keeping time. There was no rush. This suited me fine, it gave me time
to do my own searching and while he reprimanded me every time I could
not be found or stayed away for the night, I had the feeling that he did not
care too much.
Now I wished that I had pressed him harder to convey to me the old
wisdoms. I thought I had a long time to absorb everything he had to teach
me - until it would become like second nature, not suddenly death making
short thrift of it all. I confess that my attention was on the girls. I was a
young boy. I loved girls, their friendship, their teasing, their different ways
of thinking, their beauty. They had a power over me and nothing I did
34

could get me out of the traps they consistently set for me. I suspected the
nuns to be the same way, only bigger.
When I arrived at the cloister, they told young Sister Clara and when she
finally came I told her everything I had seen that morning. I was tired and
shaking. I was made to eat a thick porridge. The nuns sent three men up to
the lookout. They searched for two days and found no Mario. The day after
the men returned, there was a beautiful solemn service at the chapel by the
sea, which was a huge circle of boulders to the right of San Agusto, in the
centre of which stood an enormous stone slab ten feet tall into which a
large cross had been carved. Into the fissures of that large rock the nuns had
wedged candles. The abbess placed her holy water and incense on a small
table beside that rock. First there was praying and then some words from
the abbess, before a wooden bundle, symbolizing the disappeared man,
was burned. They sang a very old song.
So there I was, the one given the responsibility to keep the time. The old
piles of charts would be difficult to interpret. The men had retrieved the
sextant and built a new platform, but now away from the edge. They
brought the sextant to the village and Hidalgo, the blacksmith amongst
other things, fixed it as best he could. Mario had showed me the variety of
notches in the various circles of the heavy brass instrument to give a precise
correlation of numbers, which then all summed up to the common
symbolic indicator by which all other readings were factored. These
numbers were then charted against the 365 days of the sun years as well as
the 260 day years of the old people.
Sister Clara in her kindness listened to me, when my doubts rose to the
surface. She was young, maybe four years older than me - no more. I
confessed as to how little I knew, how Mario had been too busy to pay
attention to my education. She reassured me and put me in a spare little
room in the cloister that had an old rickety bed and a side table. This is
35

where I slept. She came to my bed in the evening, woke me and comforted
me again, smiled at all the matters I considered so grave. She lay beside me
and rocked me to sleep as if I was her little child. It made me feel good.
In the morning she took me to the abbess, who in turn gave me firm
instructions to find new ways of keeping time while maintaining the old
traditions. She spoke at length, looking at me with hard eyes. The abbess is
not easy to describe. She is at least seven feet tall, probably more. She has
long red curly hair. She has a white complexion with reddish edges and
deep charcoal eyes. She is very emaciated, like a fishing rod. Her neck is so
thin but her head stays upright. Her lips look like a wound. She is different
from all of us.
Whatever I needed would be given to me and it was my right to ask her
personally for any tools I required to find a way to make the timekeeping
as accurate as I possibly could. She offered me some liquorice which she
herself chewed constantly. She gave me a long list of stars to watch and
many constellations. She was particularly interested in Dandao, the blue
star. She gave me precise intervals of measurings - every third day. She
promised to send Sister Clara to my lonely hut twice for every moon, to
spend the night and to listen to my discoveries, which I had to write down
in great detail in a new empty book she gave me right then and there. It was
a black book with enough pages to last until I became an adult - which was
in four years time.
She blessed twenty sharpened pencils, letting the smoke from her incense
wash over them and then handed them to me. She also made me a gift of
a pocket knife. That way I could keep the pencil points sharp and the
writing clean and clear in the new book. She added an eraser in the shape
of Mickey Mouse. I had never been so close to this woman, the most
powerful person on the island and I found myself wondering if she might
sometimes be a ghost.
36

She was attended by several older sisters. Placid looking women with firm,
rigid faces, observing as if to keep a record of their own of the proceedings.
The abbess, speaking to me in a benevolent calm tone, holding me with her
strong gaze and radiant face, drew me closer to her. Her body did not move
while she talked, but there was one time when she shifted in her large
ornate wooden chair and an elegant white foot came out from under the
long black robe, all white and clean, with a thick gold ring slipped over the
big toe in the shape of a serpent and the nails painted a pearly blue.
I stayed at the cloister for another two weeks. Sister Peneo instructed me in
the astronomical charts. My head hurt, so much was forced into it and my
nights were full of dreams with numbers, little white or blue orbits, flashes
of almost indivisible objects across a great darkness. She had copied all the
volumes for me and on each one she had written the dates of observation
and the behaviour of the planets. This was a project she had started years
earlier as a personal devotion. The Pleiades and their movements were of
paramount importance, so she told me. She referred to them as the cloister
in the sky - the sisters. In the last days of my stay, Sister Peneo questioned
me for solutions and probed for uncertainties and judging by her face I did
good.
I awoke deep in the night, somebody touching me. The room was black.
The soft swishing sound of a robe was all I could hear and then hands
touching my face. She whispered haunting words, softly and hummed an
unfamiliar song, the smell of liquorice in the air. She lit a candle and stood
it on my little bedside table. I could see the sharp lines of her face,
dramatically lit from below and the long red curls falling freely around her
face, her having taken out the silver combs. She had brought me sweet tea,
which I drank gratefully.
She sat on my bed. She told me the story of Lazarus and then the story of
37

St. Francis, which made me sleepy. But then it was the story of John the
baptist and a fire seemed to light up the room. She moved her arms in big
arches as she described his charismatic life. So animated was she that sweat
perled on her forehead - little reflections of candlelight - and eventually she
stood up and when her voice jumped an octave as she came to the
beheading, she twirled about and then she threw off her robe and then she
stood there - naked - except for a pair of white tattered long johns - shaking.
Suddenly she began dancing even more erratically, as the good man’s head
was on a platter made of silver. She grabbed the crucifix that hung from her
neck, screamed - wailed - so loud that I thought the whole cloister would
come running. She pulled me from the bed and she danced with me in
circles for a long time, until my feet ached something fierce.
She eventually collapsed onto my bed with a final outburst of
uncontrollable tears. The wobbly bed in turn fell off its legs and knocked
over the side table and the candle and then she sobbed even more deeply
- howling in fact. So I reached into the dark, found her and stroked her hair
and patted her shoulders with my little hands. Oh, how can you comfort
Salome? With this thought I my mind, she came closer.
When exactly she left - I do not know. I had dreams of a monstrous red fish
rising from the ocean floor and his colour changed to red and he got bigger
and filled the sky - so enormous in fact, that it blocked the sun. Its mouth
a deep massive black void with no stars and then all the waters drained
from the sea into the mouth of the fish. I remember crying out in the heat
of the maelstrom - so troubled was I.
The nuns woke me early next morning and after feeding me a simple
breakfast, they sent me on my way. All was prepared - we had discussed it
the night before. Nothing was spoken. Morning silence. Before the sun was
38

near rising, I was travelling up to Mario Munis’ house. Burdened with
charts and maps, the repaired sextant and the little burro, whom I named
Chariot, to help me carry my sacks of food and supplies. I did not want to
look back. May those who read my journal remember me kindly.
Pablo, Timekeeper
November 22nd, 2048 - San Agusto
••••
The White Oaks compound was fashioned in steel, glass and those thick
adobe walls with their comforting curves, structures with all the charms of
a great spanish hacienda; made of particle board and two by fours, covered
with fibre glass stucco in textures that gave it that look of genuine adobe.
Wrought iron gates with ornate black grape leafs. Staff in black bermuda
shorts and vivid blue tops. Now that Phase One and Two were complete,
Phase Three being a glass dome to eventually span the entire compound,
the project looked like a great achievement. The investors would have never
committed to all this if they could see it now, because the project had such
a sense of opulence that surely hinted at cost overruns in the millions.
What they had been shown were feasible, frugal arrangements.
The origins of the project lay a good ten years back, when a two year
wrangling with the French/Dutch authorities had been completed. Once
the appropriate bribes had found there way to Utrecht and Paris, the actual
recruitment began and the money to finance this venture flowed from the
corridors of private industry, the country clubs on the American mainland,
the banks of Upper Canada and the bullet proof adult enclaves in southern
California.
39

A pension fund here, a diversification strategy there allowed the project to
gain momentum. It was a health care investment. Sunset Holdings Inc. out
of Minnesota was the conglomerate that drove the project. A question of
good dry air favourable to the asthmatics, that now come here from all over
the world, if they could afford it. Carved out of the jungle were drugstores,
tennis courts, a little white chapel in the style of a quaint castle á la mad
King Ludwig; a fully functional clinic with catscan and cancer research
department; swimming pools and shuffle boards; a magnificent atrium of
orchids and medicinal herbs; a little outdoor movie theatre with old Ford
Farlane benches and a discreet funeral parlour with a tasteful crematorium.
A state-of-the-art Japanese solaria generating plant producing 28000
kilowatts a month. The white duplex villas were laid out like two wings of
a bird, sprawling from 90 feet up from the beach behind the golf course, all
the way to the steeper mountain slope from where one could look over the
wide harbour to San Agusto and the island of Noba, where the apes live.
White Oaks was a reality. The almost two thousand permanent residents
were on average sixty two years old.
A large part of the sheer jungle had been stripped of vegetation in such a
subtle way as to avoid both problems with erosion and to give the illusion
of an undisturbed paradise. This pristine quality was the foundation that
allowed White Oaks to charge at least 50-80% more than any similar
retirement community. It exuded a sense of stability, a tranquil place.
All building supplies had been flown in by seaplanes or had arrived on
large barges from the Venezuelan mainland and the steel mills in Jamaica.
There had been problems, but none that money and a good project
manager could not fix. The workers were housed in a large compound of
old military tents. The cantina able to service about six hundred workers
during the peak construction period.
40

Groups of Capuchins came to the edge of the jungle. Chatted and watched,
then would disappear again. The natives meanwhile, also had kept to
themselves and any contact from either side had been politely and firmly
declined, not that there was any drastic tension. “They are a simple friendly
people numbering less than two hundred and fifty.” That is what it said in
the lavish colourful prospectus for White Oaks, featuring a white oak on
the cover which is native to a region two thousand miles north.
“They live on the east side of the island in an idyllic little sea port called
San Agusto.” So it said in the promo video. They have been very
enthusiastic and inviting. The truth was that they never expected this to
happen at all; never conceived of this scenario and therefor did not have in
their grasp a way to see the permanence of it all.
••••
Mabel Truska, living in unit 412, liked to explore after lunch. She would cut
apparently aimlessly through the groomed grounds and then find a small
gate at the end of the upland section. There she would linger long enough
to ensure nobody was paying any attention to her and then she would slip
through and to her great joy, the jungle was still there, untouched by
machines. Sometimes a donkey would graze in the little meadow, where a
small brook no larger than a culvert was feeding a pond. The pungent
aroma rushing towards her, bringing again the memories of a childhood
spent in the gullies of the Nebraska farm land, where creeks created their
own abundance of perfectly cluttered growth, weeds mostly, poplars and
old hazelnut bushes.
Massive trunks rose around her to the majestic height of the canopy. She
liked the musky aroma of the air. This strange world full of sounds and
shapes to which she would never relate as something normal. This was the
41

perfect place for memories, she thought, a play ground of sorts. Wilma, her
twin sister; made of some other cloth than her’s - the fragile one, not ready
to spend a lifetime in the kitchen, raising children - she could come here
and visit.
Their separate lives had always been awkward. Parts of their characters
overlapped, came to life and entwined only when they were together, and
they were seldom apart in those days. When for some reason they were
separated, this lack of the other showed. Wilma became forgetful and
flooded bathrooms, later ignored the centre lines of highways and was
found once after midnight, sitting in the old Toyota in the super market
parking lot. She said she had been listening to music, but Mabel knew she
had been lost - just could not find home.
Mabel would be quiet but reliable when she was alone and it was clear to
everybody that she could cope on her own - in a different setting away from
Wilma. So it was an ominous occasion when Wilma passed away in her
sleep at age twenty, to the bewilderment of the family doctor and the
genuine sorrow of the rural community. Wilma had been betrothed to
Hank. At the funeral, after accepting condolences from everybody, Hank
had hugged Mabel and somehow he could not let go. At first she had
pushed against him, then frantically until she realized that this is how it
would be.
Mabel felt many a times the peculiar conditions imposed on her life by
Wilma’s passing. She felt the loss of her sister more than she recognized the
path she had shaped for her by her absence. She was convinced that she
would never be whole as others were - one soul in two bodies, as a greek
man had said. In Wilma’s eyes she had seen a similar light to that which
shone from the eyes of the buffalo she had seen in the nature park on a
high school trip North on Route 83. That crazed dull glitter that once had
probably made the huge herds spook and run, run towards yet another
42

distant horizon, looking for the great Manitou - to find shelter in the folds
of his cloudy skin.
Mabel had raised the children beside a man preoccupied with animals and
farm machinery, while she tended to fevers, sowing badges on Brownie
uniforms and helping with the fundamentals of algebra. Last year her
husband had died from pancreas complications that radiation and surgery
could not fix. Her husband had been a good man, strong in his youth. But
little by little the land had bent him and the wind takes the mind of those
predisposed to blame. It could be that he would have become the same old
miserable character, if he had been the rich son of a rich man and not made
one damn meaningful effort all his days. He had never noticed the glory of
the land, had never attempted to form a rhythm that was him and it. So he
had fought and lost all the while.
We use the world to shape us, she thought. One of the last things he did,
while he still had the strength and stubbornness, was to make her buy him
a box of dynamite sticks from the Government Depot in Lincoln. He was
feverish when she came back from town, took the large box without saying
a word and walked out to where the old combine sat in the middle of the
big field. It had sat there, rusting away in the spring rains, an ice sculpture
in the winter’s driving snow, year after year. Ever since he had walked away
from it - unable to fix it, he had switched to range cattle and bought his
feed for the winter months.
Once, years ago, he had painted that combine bright blue, but now it stood
there - again rusty brown and grease black. He came back a short while
later, walking the fuse roll, having laid the line and then he had sat down
in the rocking chair with the detonator. He had called her out on to the
veranda, his voice high and grating, had held her hand and smiled. Then
he had pushed the plunger, squeezed her hand and the old combine flew
up into the air and separated into pieces as the sound and then a short little
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wind finally hit them.
Sailing weightlessly for a moment, mingling in a large cloud with the dirt
and dust and then thudding to the ground, broke in half and the earth
shock just a little. It was still there. It had moved maybe ten feet but it was
still recognizable - even upside down. He was trembling. It gave him a
sense of relief, maybe even happiness that it looked crippled, just like him,
Mabel had thought. His face now had a vacant sheen. Having vanquished
his demon for at least one brief moment as it twirled through the air, he
was now free in his own heart and died not long after.
She had sold the place and she had been in such a hurry to get away that
she neglected to say good-bye to the church club in Maxwell, Nebraska,
where she had spent more than thirty years of Sunday brunches and
Christmas bazaars. Left it to the real estate agent to make all the
arrangements. She did not have to fear for her future. She was safe - the last
thing she particularly cared about.
Mabel had thought of her life as a monotone, not a life of colours. So how
could she make a quilt with any meaningful pattern if all her squares had
the same kind of hue?
As she thought about it some more, she realized that that was not quite
true. There were the early years - they would be dove blue. Her marriage -
that could be pale orange or whitish yellow. The children - they would be
red and green. So she wanted a blanket and on it interwoven circles in blue,
yellow and red. Two curvy bands underlaying in lavender. The base beige
and brown, like the fields in the spring and fall. As she imagined the
making of it, it took shape and was more real than threads and fibre and
she was able to wrap herself in its warmth, have a peaceful long sleep with
dreams of barn dances, galleries of school pictures and Wilma’s laughter.
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••••
He had become aware of the facts - finally realizing that about half of
everything he had done and then half again probably, half of everything he
had seen had gone straight over his head, had not sunk in and the losses
finally banged into his memory like flies before winter. What was due him
never materialized. Why would these things surface now - this late in the
game? These flashes - remorse, regret, repulsion - all part of the same soup
and he the stock of it.
Whereas before his sense of his own history was as deficient as was his view
of the future, suddenly he was prone to spasms of deep insight. In the past
he had sometimes risen to the level of agitation about what was happening
to him. This had been generally a matter of plain stupidity. The distribution
of talent, his upbringing dealing him the seven of diamonds or losing the
car keys. With these new depths of insight into his own character however,
he slowly convinced himself of his own uniqueness and also his own
magnetic personality, which he kept well hidden on the grounds that such
a display of genuine charisma might intimidate people. He was still
orbiting about himself. The knowledge he gained mostly fuelled his
ignorance. These daily patterns of pursuing trains of thought without
passengers, without stations and no schedules carried an ominous sense of
certain derailment lurking along the tracks in his mind. He was prone to
heart burn.
Born as MacAlley the third, it was a fluke to be landed here. This was not
him. He did not plan this cul-de-sac. This would be a life of waiting, of
check-ups and pre-emptive strikes against diseases. Discussing vitamin
deficiencies over Gin Rommie with perfectly pleasant strangers who had
developed a similar forced congeniality as those surviving in a lifeboat
together within sight of land.
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He became known for his dark sarcasm and vulgar touching. Then,
suddenly, he would close the hatches to his peanut brittle heart by simply
becoming incommunicado. He would spend days pacing his den in a
chronic state of bewilderment, except for those flashes of awareness, which
led him at times to crumble down on the carpet in fits of tears. His
Norwegian neighbour’s Austrian wife, who liked to slip over to his pad
when her husband went for physio, would find the door unanswered.
••••
Arthur carefully arranged his desk with his short round fingers. He took his
time. Everything that was in his immediate reach without raising himself
from the comfortable chair, he straightened. The things to do, those to
contemplate and the urgent matters all in their line of priority. He rubbed
his hands - one flat palm against another - forwards and backwards until
he felt the simple tingle that went so well with a sense of satisfaction, like
gin and tonic. He just needed to calm himself. Having a smile on his face
was not unusual. It was the precursor to a darker state - a weather system in
his mind, where red sunsets are followed by rain. Today he would have to
give answers to questions, knowing he would hesitate, loose his
composure.
Shirley McDougall would come by seaplane. The lagoon below was calm.
He had checked that already. Miss McDougall would show up and stay and
ask the questions which might drastically change his life. If he didn’t
deliver the goods, and he knew he could not, he would be most likely fired
despite his 2% interest in the development.
He had inklings that this might be what would go down today. He would
have to take responsibility for the work of three missing persons. The
accountant, the purchasing manager and the controller. They had
disappeared three weeks ago and had been hastily replaced by a temp
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service out of Honduras. Three young well trained people, whom it had
taken a week to figure out that at least twenty million dollars could not be
accounted for.
Rumour had it that the disappeared had in fact hitched a ride on the
Spanish patrol boat to Martinique and from there had caught a flight to
Mexico city. For the last two weeks his suggestions to head quarters in
Minnesota had fallen on deaf ears. There was a lack of response and a
casual disregard towards his final warnings about overruns and building
code violations. He could afford to remain here, retire to his personal
house and keep a low profile.
Nobody could take that from him. Just in case, this had occurred to him
some time ago, he had built himself somewhat of a cottage in the jungle
higher up on the slope of the ridge. He had sworn the five workers to
secrecy with the help of bribe money. A small, comfortable place with a
bed and a stash of supplies that could keep him going for a good long time.
A hideaway from a hideaway. He chuckled, he was a man of details.
Arthur looked at his orderly desk and decided that the matters before him
could wait. He walked across his office to the large window and let his eyes
wander over the elegantly arranged terracotta roofs. From here he had
overseen the construction work, had dealt with a thousand problems. His
eyes followed the flight of the sea gulls until suddenly it occurred to him
that this was probably the last time he would look from this vantage point
as the man in control. Three Bonobo apes sat at the edge of manicured golf
lawn two hundred yards away. Still as stone. His sense of self comfort
expanded and it is fair to say that he was the kind of man who sees no
greater goal than to be strong in the face of defeat. It goes with accepting
challenges.
••••
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Bertie Wasniak was used to musing the finer nuances of situations. He
shifted his huge bulk slightly. It took foresight to negotiate through the
living room and now that he had settled in the large recliner he gave
himself a luxury moment to reflect. Inertia had become a major hurdle in
his life. As a young boy he was sprite, bony and springy. Time had taught
him the harsh arithmetic of snacks, plus booze and a passion for long,
leisurely luncheons. Bert had made it a habit to hide from the world.
He left his family in the midst of a busy life, in mid career and without
warning. To his friends it had appeared like a perfectly fine family
situation. Of course, the usual ups and downs. Him too fat and she eying
the gardener’s son. The children with degrees, the wife otherwise a stout
pillar of the Kalamazoo society and him always busy, always mending
fences for that pharmaceutical giant, where he had spent all his working
life, grown through the ranks and finally become the advisor that
everybody remembered.
‘There are things I have to do. Wishing you a good life.’ That was all his
message had said. This was a planned move. He had directed funds to a
small bank in St. Louis. The more his life had become structured the more
the demons had filled his mind. And while he slowly underwent the
metamorphosis, he also made the final arrangements for his
disappearance. In dreams he would sometimes see the view of his house in
the suburbs, with the nice lawn in the perfect backyard. It wasn’t that he left
all that, instead he left himself behind.
He played the channels as he sat eating a large bowl of dry cereal. The
morning was cool. He had phoned a few times in the beginning, either let
it ring and listen to the voice of the answering machine which oddly always
sounded different each time he listened, or listen to her talk about the dog,
the new curtains in the master bedroom while he never spoke and she
would always know who the silence was at the other end.
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She would live comfortably unless she had ambitions and wasted the
savings. It did not really matter to him anymore. The reason he had
stopped calling was not that he missed her any less. His attention had
shifted away from all that. He had started to paint.
First he experimented with little canvasses, just small sketches of beach
scenes and stillifes. He liked to put light into them. The same he had seen
in Monet. Van Gogh was the master, he loved Van Gogh. There was a
different light about those pictures. He liked their honesty and the strength
of the short brush strokes, that read like a diary and the way he had used
the yellows. In the last two month Bertie had started to work on larger
canvases.
He had converted the guest bedroom into a comfortable small studio. He
had bribed a handyman to add a large skylight. This he kept partially
covered with an external shade from split bamboo. It gave the studio a soft
light. There was no hurry in his work. It was slow and methodical. Not
overly detailed and yet clean and pleasing. The whole suite smelled of oil
paint. He liked this air. He was on to something good, finally. He slept very
little. Eventually he would ask Sofia Esquabar to sit for him. He did not yet
have the courage to work in the style of Renoir, where the flesh vibrates in
such luminous pink hues.
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