Authors: Alan Cumyn
Tags: #General, #Literary, #Thrillers, #Fiction, #Psychological
Burridge Unbound (11 page)
I finally write the note to my wife.
Dear Maryse,
The whole sky is mine tonight, there are no clouds, the last of the airplanes has just blinked by. I think of who might be up there: the young businessman coming back from a hectic day in Toronto, the maiden aunt who has been to Vancouver to visit her sister’s bratty children and is relieved now to be heading back to her cats, to not have children of her own. The alcoholic newsman who couldn’t write another original sentence if his life depended upon it – everything that happens now reminds him of something else that happened when he was younger and the world was more interesting and the details mattered and he wrote about it then anyway. All of them – the young mother with her two-month-old baby and the confused granny who couldn’t buckle her safety belt without help and the professional athlete who’s pissed off because his six-figure salary is in Canadian dollars not American – all of them are a few inches of metal from total oblivion and yet it feels as if they’re sitting in their own living rooms. Or maybe they’re not so relaxed because of Flight
III
that went down in Peggy’s Cove – there’s been so much coverage, so many of the passengers were U.N. officials and other accomplished types doing important work, and they too were sitting relaxed as if in their own living rooms, veterans of so many flights, no doubt, that went off without a hitch.
For us too the few inches of metal gave way, brought us into oblivion and yet somehow didn’t erase us completely. Improbably, impossibly, we survived the fall, can even walk now, carry on, look more or less normal – at least you do, you still have life and beauty. My fall was further, I suppose, from outer space, but somehow I didn’t entirely burn up upon re-entry. I can’t say the angle was correct and yet here I am, a wreck, but a walking one.
I don’t know why I’m still here, but we both know the reasons for our separation. Closing the door felt like another death, and yet also filled me with perverse relief – another responsibility I could leave behind, another room to shut off and ignore. Having eaten bitter for so long the smell, the possibility of sweet, was unnerving. I’ve said this before and will say it again – it was never you and Patrick, it was always me floundering in the bog. I’ve never gotten over the belief that it would’ve been simpler for all, better even, if I’d only died in my agony as I was supposed to.
And yet lately – the last few weeks perhaps? – something else has seeped into my soul which I wasn’t prepared for. It’s nowhere near joy, or contentment, or ease. Nothing bounding or extraordinary, no somersaults to land me flat on my back – just a few steps really on what feels like firmer ground. I don’t know why, or perhaps I do and am afraid to say.
I’m not afraid to say that sometimes now I have small daydreams of being with you both – that time Patrick crawled into the laundry hamper to be among the warm clothes; that day I stayed home from work and we all played on the floor of the den in our pyjamas and when Patrick conked out we covered him with a blanket where he was and then slipped off back to bed ourselves.
I know that we had a life and then the inches of metal betrayed us and yet now in the ongoing chaos, the writhing and thrashing about after the fall, I find I can think the first unblistered thoughts about that life again. I have no right to hope, I know – I shut you both out and can blame only myself if the door now is closed on both sides.
But perhaps we can begin with something simple, a lunch maybe. I have a nice spot on Victoria Island. On a good day there’s sun and shade and pretty water, wilderness to look at and civilization too. Maybe before winter there will be room for one warm hour. Call me?
Love, Bill
I spend long hours working and reworking the letter, polishing little phrases, cutting and adding and cutting again. Printing out and rereading, changing and rereading. They feel like the first and only words of hope I’ve ever uttered in my sorry life, and they fill me with dread and wonder. I sign and fold the paper, slip it in an envelope, then take it out and read it again, changing words, going back to the computer. On the screen the words are liquid, unimportant in a way – I can try them out like trying on different clothes. It’s been forever since I’ve uttered such words. Of course, I can’t send it. She’d turn in rage, fling the flimsy paper back in my face, file for divorce before I could take another breath. Where was I on Patrick’s birthday? His first day of school? Could I bother to take him to the museum some Saturday – any Saturday in the last year? Where was I in soccer practice, or when he cried at night because I couldn’t even answer a simple e-mail? Where was I when Maryse was mounting her show and needed help in the kitchen, someone to do a load of laundry, to pass a towel over a dish or two?
Words of love and hope. Flimsy, self-serving, pitiful words. Words of weakness and need, of ache and worry and problems down the road. Another wounded man looking for a nurse. Words of waste and reopened wounds.
Reopened envelopes. I read it again, fiddle, reprint, sign, and think. Of course, I can’t send it. I’ve used up every chance. An honourable man would protect those he loved from further harm. I tear it up and then reread the words on the screen and print out the letter again, sign it, seal and address the envelope. One last chance. An honourable man would have to take it. Because I do have something to give now. Maybe?
It’s just a lunch. It’s just hope and love. It’s just …
I put on my thick jacket and ride the overheated elevator down to the street, the real world, and gasp at the cold wind. What kind of wonderland have I been living in? I walk to the mailbox and then past, knowing I can’t send such a letter. Just when they’re healing and getting on with their own lives. Self-serving and pitiful words. Stupid. Broken eggs and spilled milk. Get on with it, man!
Past the mailbox and back, my hands cold in the raw wind. A picnic! Too late. Too little. Winter rattling at the gate.
Past the mailbox and I think, why am I here if I’m not going to mail this? I pull back the door and throw it in, am pulsed with immediate, burning regret. I almost reach in to try to retrieve it.
Long, muttering walk by the canal, the waves choppy from the wind even in this backwater. It will only bring more pain. Why couldn’t I wait? Obviously I’m still unstable, will be the rest of my life. People never really recover from torture. They don’t. They mutter to themselves and wet their beds until their brains have shrivelled and died.
When I get back to my apartment I’m cold through to the core. Joanne, who has let herself in, asks, “Where have you been?” but there’s no time to answer. The phone rings and I freeze with fear – how did she get my letter that quickly? I snatch up the receiver before Joanne can get to it. I don’t want her to know what a fool I am. (Who am I kidding? Of course she knows!)
“Mr. Burridge?” says a female voice, and for a moment I’m confused. Why would Maryse call me Mr. Burridge and speak with an accent? I fail to reply and so she must repeat my name.
“Yes?”
It’s not Maryse. It’s the Santa Irenian ambassador’s secretary, calling to agree to a meeting I’d requested ages ago. Tomorrow morning, she says, nine o’clock. The ambassador is eager to discuss the situation in the mountains.
I reach Derrick later and ask him why the ambassador is suddenly so interested. It must be the new government, we decide. The ambassador, Waylu, is old-guard, but he’s realizing that if he doesn’t appear to change soon he’ll be turfed out.
“Bring all your materials,” I tell Derrick. “We’ll slam him with documents!”
W
aylu Tariola’s office is dominated by a huge map of the tiny island of Santa Irene: a teardrop in the South China Sea, the capital weighing it down, green around the edges with spiny brown mountains in the middle. The ambassador is a wiry man with a sharp, angled faced and small hands. His eyelids are heavy and on the right one is a large black mole that makes it look as if blinking would be painful. But he does, often, anyway, and shifts his head in sudden excited movements, his lips and eyebrows gesturing, sometimes in anger and distrust, but this morning, apparently, in overwhelming welcome, as if this is all he has lived for, this very moment here with me.
“Mr. Burridge! It is such a pleasure at last that our schedules allow us to meet. I have been hoping for so long to have this opportunity,” he says, offering his hand. It’s such a barefaced lie I hardly know what to do – but I take his hand out of politeness and look away. For
months
we’ve been petitioning him to meet with us, and he has ignored us outright, while carrying on a campaign in the press to downplay, deny, or discredit
any reports of human-rights problems in his country. I have in my briefcase a file of these clippings –
AMBASSADOR DENIES KILLINGS; SANTA IRENE: GARDEN PARADISE; RIGHTS VIOLATIONS FABRICATED SAYS DIPLOMAT
. I’d draw them out right now to confront him but he won’t let go of my hand, has taken it with both of his own.
“I have read your gripping account, sir, and I must tell you what a thrill and an honour it is to finally meet with you. You are a prize of humanity, sir. I tell you this with an open and admiring heart.”
A prize of humanity? I look questioningly at him, but he seems content with his odd phrase. I pull my hand away finally, as he is bowing. His three nervous assistants, all in ill-fitting suits, bow as well.
“I’m sorry,” Waylu continues. “I have forgotten my manners. There is tea here and coffee, and all sorts of biscuits and sticky buns, fruit if you would care for it, juices of many varieties. Mr. Viranto, what choice of juices do we have? Guava, rambutan, lychee, mango, pineapple, we have fresh durian. Do you eat durian? It is – what do we call it? – an acquired taste. Please, you must have something, I am so anxious to speak with you.”
“Nothing for me. Thanks.” Derrick follows my lead and we take our seats around a low table.
“Please. Mr. Burridge, I implore you, you must have something. We have oranges, we have fresh bananas,
real
bananas, Mr. Burridge. I know you must have had them when you were in Santa Irene, not the pulpy things that pass for bananas in stores here. I have them delivered by diplomatic pouch. It’s my one vice. All right, perhaps not my only vice. Please, a sticky bun?”
I take a small banana, just to get him to shut up, and Derrick tries the spiny durian, which fills the room with a fetid stink.
His face contorts for a moment, then he smacks his lips and says he likes it, but puts it down.
“Excuse me,” Waylu says – having nothing himself, I note – “but I must ask you, out of awe and admiration, and please forgive me if I am treading on old ground or repeating what everyone asks …” He pauses for a moment, to untangle himself from his sentence. “But how in the world did you ever survive?”
I look at him blankly, dumbfounded.
“I am sorry! This is not an appropriate question. Clearly! I am so sorry. It’s just that I am not alone in believing that you have achieved one of the greatest feats of human survival, and are a living testimony to the power of the human–”
“It was an accident, I think,” I say. “All the way around. I wasn’t supposed to be kidnapped and I wasn’t supposed to survive and I wasn’t supposed to make much of myself afterwards. But here I am, Mr. Ambassador, and regrettably I have many pointed things to say about your government’s fundamental disregard for human life and the spirit you seem to prize so much. With respect, sir.”
Down with the last of my banana. I nod to Derrick and he unloads the documents: the reports of the United Nations special rapporteur, and of the working groups on torture, on extrajudicial executions and arbitrary detention, on enforced or involuntary disappearances. The annual reports of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the State Department. A special report issued by Federation internationale des ligues des droits de l’homme. The summary report we brought to the United Nations. Our seven pages of recommendations. Copies for everyone. Waylu and his assistants take their seats, flip through the pages with apparent interest.
“Of course, of course!” Waylu says. “Let’s not waste time
with formalities. But please, Mr. Burridge, you must accept my apologies for asking about what must be a sensitive matter. I cannot convey the true horror that all of us at the embassy felt during your ordeal. You must have heard how closely we worked with our Canadian counterparts to keep your family informed, and to spur on our Intelligence Service in its efforts to locate and free you finally.”
I cannot bring myself to comment, but stare at him stonily, fighting to keep down the bitterness. My family wasted months dealing with an embassy that had no information whatsoever to provide. At last Waylu looks away in embarrassment.
I glance at my notes. “I thank you for seeing us this morning,
finally,”
I say. “As for the your Intelligence Service – you will note in many of our handouts the abominable record of abuse associated with
IS
officers. But not to skip ahead. My assistant, Derrick Langford, will make the main presentation. Derrick?”
“Santa Irene,” he says, “like many countries emerging from the shadow of oppressive and dictatorial rule, has a long legacy of human-rights violations that must be dealt with.” His hands gesture in small, definite strokes. He looks concerned, emotionally involved, but speaks in restrained language. “The new government in Santa Irene must work to develop a climate of transparency and accountability. The state must work collaboratively with the United Nations and the human-rights and development community, both domestic and international, to put in place those institutions and practices that ensure a civil, democratic society in which fundamental human rights are not only safeguarded in law but in everyday practice.”
The ambassador nods as if considering, weighing every word. He’s a diplomat, of course. We can sit around this table politely discussing mass murder and it is all civil, understood. No matter what comes up there will be no display of bad
manners. Or if there is, it will be a show, not personal, not real. It’s a sickening game I used to have patience for, used to think I understood, but that was another lifetime.