The Museum of Doubt (18 page)

Inanna walked to the truck and opened the driver’s door. Mak loved the way she moved: the strength of her arm, and the grace of her stride. She pulled an injured boy out from behind the wheel and carried him back to the awning. His thigh had been slashed by shrapnel, not deeply. She laid him down on a rug,
put a silk cushion under his head and washed and dressed his wounds, murmuring to him and stroking his forehead. After he was bandaged and given water, Inanna and Enki helped him to his feet and took him to the back of the pick-up, where a tarpaulin was lashed over a heap of something. Enki threw back the tarpaulin and there was a murmured conversation. Enki called Mak over and shone a flashlight on to the truck’s cargo. There were seven blood-caked and dusty corpses, neatly stacked like logs, heads to the rear, although one didn’t have much of a head to speak of. Mak put his hand to his mouth and stroked his chin. There were five men in military uniform and two women, one an old woman in black and the other younger, in a blue polka dot dress and what had once been a white headscarf. There wasn’t a mark on her that they could see.

That’s the boy’s mother, said Enki. Remember her face. Her name’s Najla. It means beautiful eyes. You may see her in the afterlife. I don’t know. Look out for her, and call her by name. She should be easier to engage than the rest. Tell her her son’s OK. Tell her she should sue. Get her to sign an affidavit.

Was this the bombs? said Mak.

Sure. The wrath of Us.

Maurice, said Inanna, you have to go now. We’ll wait for you here. Are you ready? She put her hand on the back of his neck and pulled his head towards hers for a kiss. Are you ready? she said.

Yeah, said Mak.

They gave him an oilskin coat and a pack with a bottle of water, a knife, a coil of rope and a bundle of yellow legal pads. Inanna gave him something the size, shape and weight of a cereal bar, wrapped in gold leaf, to be eaten in dire extremity. Enki showed him how to slaughter the goat, handed him the leash
and patted him on the shoulder. Mak walked off the tarmac and on to the clay.

After a few minutes he looked over his shoulder. The light of the brazier was almost invisible. There was no moon and thickening clouds smothered the stars. On the horizon the shimmering sheet lightning crystallised into forks and he heard thunder. The goat bleated, though it trotted along willingly enough behind him. He walked on. He heard a cry like that of a seabird, only deeper, and a booming like surf. It was utterly dark, save for the lightning, which when it discharged showed a perfectly flat plain, the dry clay veined with fine cracks. His feet and the goat’s hooves left no trace. For hours he walked without seeing anything except lightning and without hearing anything except thunder and the pattering of boots and hooves on the clay.

His free hand knocked into something hard. He stopped and felt the obstacle. It was wood, planks nailed together, like the hull of a boat. By the next lightning he saw it, an unvarnished, unpainted boat lying on its shallow keel, with a single bench inside and no oars. He walked around it and moved on. As he walked subsequent flashes showed more boats, of similar size, dotted across the plain, some upright, some keel-up, some smashed.

It began to rain. In seconds the ground was covered with a thin, frictionless layer of mud, and Mak fell on his face, losing hold of the goat’s leash. He got to his knees and waved his arms blindly in front of him, seeking the rope. He found the animal by its bleating and wrapped the rope twice around his hand. The rain fell in sheets and Mak felt his feet sinking into the ground. He tried to walk forward. Each time he lifted his boot it became heavier as more mud stuck to it. It took him five minutes to walk twenty yards. By that time the mud was
almost coming over the top of his boots and it was becoming harder to drag the goat along with him. The lightning gave just enough light through the rain to see the nearest boat. Mak took the goat leash in his teeth, unlaced his boots, tied them together and hung them round his neck. With the leash in one hand and his filthy sodden socks in the other he waded for the boat, crawling the last few yards, almost swimming, and climbed into it. He hauled the goat up by the collar and sat on the bench.

The rain stopped, and the thunder and lightning, and a crescent moon rose. Mak looked over the side of the boat. The mud still glistened, but it was drying out. He waited. The moonlight showed the flat plain to the horizon, and hundreds of boats. Again, he heard the booming sound, but this time it didn’t fade, it strengthened to a continuous rumble, growing louder. Mak saw one horizon shiver, flex and grow, as if the world was curling up at one edge. When the rumble reached a certain intensity, and the sound was overlain by hissing, and the edge of the world grew to a certain height, and Mak could see not only the twisting crest of what was approaching but the white clouds lining its foremost rim, he dropped the goat’s leash and stood up. The wall of water came on, a dark streaked swell rising to four, five, six storeys, and as it ate the boats between it and Mak, its smoothness was as terrible as its roar. Mak’s legs gave way with awe and dread and he fell, clutching the struggling goat, pressing his face into its warm hide. Inanna, he said, and the wave hit the boat square on the stern, driving it forward, then pitching it over and hammering it into the mud like a nail.

Only the mud proved thin, and the boat shot through it. Mak felt gravity flip, like a swing going over the top, and instead of being pressed down into the mud the boat was shooting up into the air in a spout of water from a hole on the mud’s other side.
He, the boat and the goat landed keel down with a slap in a glutinous river in a different place.

Here, it was light, or at least not wholly dark, a light like a foggy day before the sun has risen. The banks of the river were undulating clay littered with stones. There was no vegetation. Flat brown toads croaked a merged, scratchy song. On one side of the river, human forms walked slowly to and fro, squatted in groups or lay on the ground crosswise, eyes to what passed for sky.

Mak’s boat drifted to the populated bank. He put his boots on and stepped out, dragging the goat behind him. There were thousands of people in sight. The individuals kept at least twenty feet from each other and the few groups didn’t contain more than three people. No-one looked at Mak.

He went up to a couple of men squatting opposite each other. They wore tight-fitting business suits so covered in dust it was impossible to say what colour they were. The tips of their fingers were dark with moist fresh clay. As Mak approached, one of the men dredged his fingers through a fresh scoop in the ground, oozing and green-gray against the white surface, and lifted a dollop of dirt into his mouth, then chewed and swallowed it. The two men weren’t speaking to each other. Mak was struck by the absence of hope in their grey faces. He’d never seen anyone so drained of hope before, and for that reason had never understood how it was a primary emotion. It wasn’t an optional part of the palette. He realised that when he’d seen people defeated before, the hope had been turned right down, but it’d still been there, like a TV where you could tune out the red or the green but not make them go away completely.

Hi, said Mak.

The men didn’t look up.

Hello! Gentlemen! Could I trouble you for just one moment of your time?

No, said the guy on the left.

Look, sir, I’ll make it as brief as I can, and then you can go back to your dirt.

We don’t have moments of time, said the talkative one. If you have moments, that’s fine. I’ll take one of your moments. I’ll take as many as you can count out.

That’s very kind of you, said Mak.

No kindness involved. I need your time. I haven’t got any. ’Cause you’ve just arrived you’ve got time. You can still reckon in hours, maybe even minutes. You still think the sun’s going to rise and set. You still think your watch is going to work. You still think your heart’s going to beat, leaves are going to fall off trees in fall and flowers are going to bloom in spring, the moon’s going to wax and wane, the tides are going to come in and out, ladies are going to bleed once a month and you’re going to guess the hour from horns and bells and the noise of the traffic. None of that happens here. We’ve got no time. Nothing beats, nothing ticks, nothing changes. You can try counting for a while, clapping your hands, drawing lines in the clay. Over there – the man pointed – there’s a place covered a day’s walk in any direction with five bar gates scratched in the ground, each stroke a guess, a guess, at a day gone by. And a cross every six gates, for a month, and a star every twelve months, for a year. Then the one that did it lost a star. He doesn’t do it any more. And over there is a crowd of maybe fifteen gathered round someone who counts. Just counts numbers out loud. He’s up to one billion now.

I can help you, said Mak. I’m a lawyer.

Excellent, said the man. But if you’re one of those lawyers that charges by the hour, we’d better start counting. He began to clap his hands together, chanting in rhythm:10 cents, 20 cents, 30
cents, 40 cents – start talking – 60 cents, 70 cents, 80 cents, 90 cents, a dollar …

It’s OK, said Mak. No win, no fee.

I was joking, said the man. He picked up a toad sitting next to him and squashed it brutally between his hands. The toad emitted a guttaral wittering as it deflated.

Why did you do that? said Mak.

Laughter, said the man. It’s too tiring to laugh ourselves so we crush the toads instead. The sound is similar.

I’m going to go out on a limb here, said Mak. I’m going to guess that you don’t like being dead.

The man seized another toad and compressed it with the same ferocity.

I didn’t mean to be funny, said Mak.

Oh, I wasn’t laughing, said the man. That was anger. He shrugged. None of us can be bothered with emotion any more, so the toads stand in for everything. The toad laughs. The toad cries. The toad gets angry. It’s all the same.

He toppled over and lay on the ground, staring at the river.

Have you ever thought about getting back at the people responsible for leaving you in this state? said Mak. Have you ever thought about claiming damages?

La-la-la, sang the man softly, not moving his head. Ba-baba.

Sir?

The man whipped over onto his other side and curled up into a foetal position. He moaned.

Sir?

No name, whispered the man. I lost my name. The names are the first to go. No-one recognises me. Sometimes we play the mirror game. We sit opposite each other and match each other’s movements. Sometimes I find a good reflection. I start
to recognise myself. But as soon as you start to recognise yourself you begin to fail to reflect your reflection. Then your reflection gets angry and fails to reflect you. You don’t recognise yourself any more. You still don’t know who you are. Nobody knows who you are, because you lost your name.

I’d need your name for an affidavit, said Mak. He looked along the riverbank and saw Najla sitting at the water’s edge, hugging her knees tight to her chest. He went to her and spoke her name. She listened while he made his pitch.

Did you see my son? she said.

Yes.

How was he?

He was good. He had a little bit of shrapnel in his leg. He’ll be fine.

I saw the fire after I was already dead, said Najla. I thought he’d be dead too. She pressed her hand to her face and waved it at Mak palm up. Where’ll he go without a roof? Who’ll cook for him? She lowered her face into her hands and shook it from side to side, and straightened up. Her eyes widened as she spoke to Mak. That world. She pointed her thumb over her shoulder. That world we came from. It was better, wasn’t it? It had a good smell. She inhaled and knocked on her chest with her fist. A good smell. And colours. I was cooking. He was out on the street playing football. I put the bread on. There were some herbs. Mint. A few mint leaves, not a handful, enough to pick up between your fingertips. I rinsed them in water from a bowl and shook them and held them to my nose for a second. There was a pain shooting down between my shoulders and along the edge of my jaw and I saw the fire. I saw the fire and I saw my son running and I knew I was already dead. It was a good world, better than this, whatever it is. Now I can’t get there and he can’t get here, yet, unless the next bomb hits him. I’m glad he’s still
there in that world. Only I don’t know how he’ll get by without me. And here I am without him. What use is a mother without her son?

Mak had been nodding all this time. When she finished he asked whether she’d thought about legal redress. About suing. Would she be prepared to give testimony.

I’m dead, said Najla. My son’s alive. We’re apart. You can’t take me back.

Najla, if we’re going to work together, there’s a few things you have to understand, said Mak. One of them is, I don’t like the word can’t. Another is this thing about you saying you’re dead. My feeling, and at this stage it’s only a feeling, is: that isn’t going to play well with the jury when we get this case to court. Terms like dead and alive, those are their terms. We don’t want to make ourselves prisoners of their terms. We not going to accept this outrageous, offensive division of people into dead and alive. It’s an affront to human dignity. As far as we’re concerned, you’re not dead. You’re a victim of, a victim of … ISL. Involuntary Separation from Life. Try that for size. Try saying it.

ISL, said Najla.

Good. And what happened to you? I’m not coaching.

The Americans dropped a bomb close to my house and I was killed.

No! No. I’m not coaching here but what we want, I think, is something like: as a result of US negligence I was forcibly separated from life.

As a result of our negligence––

US negligence.

––US negligence I was forcibly separated from life.

And made to endure conditions of appalling discomfort, etc. We can work on your full deposition later.

Can you take me back to my son?

The law is a strange and wonderful country, said Mak. It has many new lands still to discover. It would be wrong of me to promise that I, a humble lawyer, could raise the dead. I mean, resolve ISL cases. But I wouldn’t be taking part in this action if I didn’t think we were talking about colossal damages. Absolutely colossal.