Machine Of Death (14 page)

Fair enough, I thought and prepared for the subject to change, but he surprised me by continuing.

“There was one time out in Asia, though, when I thought that all the emphysema in the world wasn’t going to save me. You want to hear it?”

“That’s why I asked,” I replied. We ordered another round of beers and he began his tale.

I was in a country that was undergoing a bit of a revolution at the time, but figured it wouldn’t affect me much. I was just a tourist, tramping around the mountains with my backpack, supporting the local economies by staying in little three-house villages and purifying the bottled water I was buying. No problem to anyone. But the revolutionaries had a lot of support in these villages, or at least it seemed like they did from the way their graffiti was scrawled on rocks and buildings.

I didn’t pretend to understand the politics of it all, and for most of my travels that didn’t give me any trouble. I had no idea what a revolutionary even looked like until I found myself face to face with three of them one evening.

I was in the common room at a little guesthouse, eating lentils and drinking a beer some poor sherpa must have dragged up the mountain on the same slippery little paths I was travelling for adventure. It was spring, so the snow at the lower altitudes was gone, but the weather could still wreak havoc with your schedule if you cared about those kinds of things. And it was still pretty chilly, so these smoky old common rooms at the guesthouses were the perfect places to rest after a day on your feet.

When I looked up from my plate, three young men were sitting on the other side of the rough table, staring at me intensely. None of them were very tall, but they had the tough look of mountain people. Their faces were purple from burst blood vessels—or maybe it was makeup, I’m not going to pass myself off as some expert here. They wore heavy canvas clothes and long, filthy woolen scarves.

So these three guys were sitting there, silently staring while I ate. Kind of unnerving, as you might expect, but I’d gotten used to people staring with abandon and didn’t let any annoyance show.

When I finished my meal the one on the left spoke to me. “Do you know where we can get a Machine of Death?”

This surprised me on a few levels. First, his English was good. I’d only learned a couple of words of the local language, and usually struggled to understand the broken English employed by those in the hospitality industry out there. This guy’s was accented, sure, but very clear.

Second, a Machine of Death? A bit of a non sequitur there. I would have expected something about how they wanted to be my guides for a great new route to the summit of Angku Norge IV that no Westerner had ever set eyes on (apart from the Swedish couple they took yesterday). He noted my surprise and continued.

“I’m sorry to interrupt but we are from the local, umm…non-governmental organization.” He smiled shyly at his joke. “Our operations in this region would be greatly helped if we had access to such a device. It’s understood that in the West these machines are to be had in great abundance, but here in the mountains we are sadly deficient in your luxuries. We were hoping you knew where we might be able to find one.”

“I’m not sure I do know where to get one,” I told them. “It’s not really my line. I mean, I’m just a guy, no special connections or anything. I don’t think I’d be able to help you.”

“That’s all right,” he replied as he and his two friends got up and wrapped their scarves around them, preparing to leave. “But if you could keep your eyes open and remember us, we would greatly appreciate it. My English name is MJ. Like Michael Jackson.”

They would have walked out of the guest house right then, but I was curious about one thing. “You do know that a Machine of Death doesn’t kill anyone, right?”

They stopped at the blanket-covered doorway and MJ explained with a slightly patronizing air, “We aren’t simpletons. Of course we know what the Machine does. We need one for internal use.”

“How so?” I was really curious at this point.

“We have some traitors in our group. They are selling information about us to the government but we don’t know who they are. Yet. This is a big problem for our cause. When we find them, we will execute them in the name of revolution.” I nodded, and he seemed encouraged by the way I didn’t shrink away at this plain talk of death and traitors and such.

“If we had a death machine we would be able to find out who is due to be executed. It would say Firing Squad, because that’s how we deal with traitors. With the Machine’s verdict we will know who the traitors are. Then we will execute them as such.”

It was a very straightforward explanation, and for some reason it impressed me. I thanked MJ for his answer, and promised him that I’d keep an eye open.

“It’s kind of weird to think of now,” my friend said between mouthfuls of salad, “but I found their logic oddly appealing. I mean, I really wanted to help them. These poor guys just wanted to get their revolution going without outside interference and needed a common enough device to get on with it.”

“Outside interference is kind of par for the course when it comes to revolutions though, isn’t it?” I asked. “And besides, I’m pretty sure the Machines don’t work like that.”

“Well sure, sitting here it seems a little off to see them as foolproof traitor-finding machines. But these guys just seemed so confident their plan was solid and that all that was holding them back was this lack of technology. It’s hard to get down on that kind of idealism. I was young at the time.” He shrugged, half-smiling, and speared a segment of mandarin orange.

“But this isn’t where you felt in danger?”

“Oh no. That only came after I found them a Machine.”

It was a couple of weeks later. I’d made my way up through those revolutionary mountain paths and then down to the road where I was about to catch a bus back to the lowlands. There was a bit of a chill in the air but the sun was busy melting away the snowdrifts, all that remained of a blizzard that had delayed me here a few days. I was sitting at a teahouse where I could keep an eye on the road without getting run over, and enjoying the opportunity to let my socks dry out on the cheap plastic table.

I heard sounds of a party coming from a part of the village I couldn’t see. It seemed to be a wedding or something, lots of music and cheering and things. It made for a festive background while I sipped my tea. Out of nowhere the music stopped. A few minutes later a bunch of well-dressed young men came out of an alley and dumped what looked like a small refrigerator into the creek that ran next to the road. After a moment of study, I realized it wasn’t a fridge at all, but a Machine of Death.

There’s no way,
I thought to myself. I mean, what are the chances that such a thing would show up unattended so soon? I’d been thinking about the revolutionaries as sort of a quixotic rabble, good for a bit of local colour in my stories, but nothing more. Now here I was, in a position to get them exactly what they desired. It was kind of an odd feeling. I don’t think I can remember ever being in such a powerful position before.

Anyway, I paid my bill and went down to the creek to check out the Machine. It was intact, except for the electrical cord, which didn’t have a plug anymore. Looked like it had been torn out quite forcibly. No one was coming down to berate me for messing with their property, so after about half an hour I figured it was free for the taking.

I found a young guy and asked him if he’d like to make a bit of money. He was from the town, not the mountains, wearing knockoff plastic sneakers. He understood a bit of English and seemed eager for the cash.

“I need you and maybe a couple of your friends to help me carry this thing to a village,” I told him, down by the creek. “It’ll take a day or two, but I’ll take care of your expenses.” The kid hemmed and hawed about it but eventually we negotiated a price for him and three of his friends to help me.

Of course I was going with them. I couldn’t remember the name of the village I’d met my revolutionaries in, but knew how to get there. And besides, I wanted to make sure the Machine arrived without being dumped in another mountain stream.

The hike back to the village went quickly. I didn’t do any of the carrying but the guys I got did fine. On the walk they ended up telling me how the Machine had arrived in the first place: The richest guy in the village had a daughter who was getting married, and he imported it at fantastic expense for the wedding party. It was sort of a novelty thing, flaunting how rich they were. The groom was the first to find out how he was going to die, and the paper read ‘Stabbed in Heart by Jealous Wife.’ Not the greatest way to get a marriage started off right. The Machine, disgraced by such an inauspicious announcement, was discarded, as I’d witnessed.

At this my friend stopped his story and contemplated his still half-full bowl of soup.

“So what happened?” I asked. My soup was done—the benefit of listening to a tale over dinner instead of telling, I guess.

“Now, in my mind the plan had been to drop off the Machine somewhere in town and get word to the revolutionaries somehow.” He put down his fork and knife and his fingers ran along the rim of his water glass as he explained. “I wasn’t demanding any payment for my service, so I didn’t really need to see them again. It was barely an inconvenience, or at least, that’s what I hoped. I mean, I wasn’t doing this to be praised or anything, right?”

I knew what he meant. “You wanted to be able to say, ‘Oh this? It was nothing. Don’t worry about it.’”

“Exactly! It had cost me the equivalent of, I don’t know, four dollars in sherpa fees. Not a big deal at all. But they didn’t see it that way.”

One of my guys tried to explain to the woman at the guesthouse that she should tell the revolutionaries that the plug needed replacing before the Machine could be used. It was taking a while. She was confused about what the Machine did and even though I’d told my translator the details weren’t important, it seemed he couldn’t stop himself. She was loading wood into the stove while he talked, forcing him to repeat himself over the clatter and roar of the fire.

I was ready to let my inner North American take over and leave for the sake of my schedule. I was done, ready to go catch the bus back down to the lowlands the next day. My bag was on my back when the blanket-door behind me lifted up. I hadn’t realized how smoky the stove had made it inside until a shaft of light fell through the room only to be blocked again by three figures walking in.

“It is so nice to see you again,” said the one in the centre. It was Michael Jackson and the revolutionaries. “How time flies.”

They looked the same as when I’d last seen them. Same old uniforms with the same long, woolen scarves, same earnest expressions. I guess the only difference in me was a bit more beard, so who was I to talk?

“Hey guys, nice to see you, too. I guess this’ll be easier than all these explanations here.” I indicated my sherpa and the proprietor woman, and noticed they’d both shut right up when the others entered. The woman had a smile on her face, and the sherpa had a defiantly set jaw. The other three sherpas weren’t making any sudden moves, but they kept their hands in their pockets ominously.

I didn’t want to get in the middle of a fight, so I told my guy everything was fine and gave him his money. He took it without taking his eyes off the revolutionaries, and then he and his friends left, quickly, like they were trying not to show how badly they wanted to run.

That’s when I started to get an inkling that I might not exactly understand everything that was going on.

Once the townies were gone, MJ warmed right up. He beckoned me to sit at the hacked and dented wooden table. “What brings you back to this village?”

“I found you a Machine of Death. It’s sitting outside.”

The woman brought us tea. The other two revolutionaries stood back by the blanket-door. Something about them seemed a lot more menacing than I’d remembered, as if they’d seen a lot of action in the past few weeks. They weren’t old, but they weren’t the fresh-faced youths I thought I’d met.

Michael Jackson spoke thoughtfully, “Yes, we saw it when we arrived. I hoped that’s what it was.” He took a few more sips of tea. “So what do you want for it?” He asked this in the same quiet tone, but I noticed that the two others at the door were watching me closely.

At this point my emphysema sentence popped into my head. These guys weren’t going to kill me. I knew that. But I also knew there’s a lot of wiggle room in these things. If I said the wrong thing they could possibly make me a prisoner for the rest of my days. Or at least enough of those days to make me severely uncomfortable. Happily, I didn’t have any intention of doing anything to get anyone angry.

“Me?” I asked, smiling as broadly and non-threateningly as I could. “I don’t want anything. It’s my gift to you. It’s a little broken though. The Machine doesn’t plug in because the cord is torn. I’m sure you can fix that.”

Maybe I was just projecting my own emotions into him, but MJ seemed relieved. Instead of the terse businesslike smile he’d been wearing, a much more peasant-like grin split his face.

“That is excellent! Thank you so much for your help. We cannot possibly repay the magnanimity of your gesture.”

“Oh this? It was nothing,” I said. “Don’t worry about it. In fact I should be on my way back. I have a flight to catch in a week and the buses around here take…”

MJ grabbed my arm in what seemed a friendly gesture. Not a violent restraint, though his grip was strong. “No, you cannot! We may be poor and unable to honour your gift as you deserve, but the one thing we can do is to have a meal. You will come back to our camp and we will have a feast to the now-inevitable success of our cause!”

I tried to demur, to explain about bus schedules, to say I didn’t need any sort of feast or honour, to spout clichés about a good deed being its own reward, but he wouldn’t have any of it. He promised it would be done that very evening and that I’d lose practically no time at all. His grip on my arm didn’t slacken through the whole exchange I desperately didn’t want to escalate into an argument. In the end, I gave in, and went back to the revolutionary camp.