Communion Town Page 3

  The barbarism of it is hard to credit. The imagination baulks. We’ll never begin to guess what it was like for the victims, but what choice do we have except to go over the details, transfixed by the fate that was engineered for them, trying and failing to grasp its reality?

  When I last spoke to Nicolas, I asked him what he thought about the conspirators and the way the city dealt with them after their arrests. As for myself, and I’m not very proud of this, my first instinct was that they were being treated far too kindly – but then, of course, I know that’s not good enough. I know it’s by extending to the Cynics the respect and decency they deny to others that we show our difference from them. We offer them the chance their victims can never have. We don’t cast them out, however abhorrent their point of view may be to the values that underpin our way of life. Instead, we take them in. We engage with their ideas and challenge them through vigorous rational debate. We let them know that, in spite of what they’ve done, we’re with them, and we won’t give up on them until we have helped them find a way out of the error in which they are mired. Patiently we show them that we’ll never let them go until they understand, and until they have been understood.

  We tell their stories.

  I said as much to Nicolas, when I faced him across the table in a room not unlike this one. I said to him what I’m saying again now: I can help you, but I need your help. I want to believe that you’re on our side, that you’re serious about embracing the welcome this city has offered, but I need you to make me sure. All you have to do is convince me, I said, and this is your opportunity.

  But what was the response? None. He had nothing to tell me. He lowered those dark brows as if he were embarrassed on my behalf.

  The sad thing is I wasn’t entirely surprised. I hate to say it, but I’ve spent a long time watching over you and Nicolas, doing all I can to help you make the adjustment to your new life – and what have you given back? I ask myself that, Ulya, and to be honest I don’t have an answer.

  I’ll tell you something. You’ll find that there comes a point when you can give up on the regret, at long last – on the hurt of not having kept what you had. But then you hesitate, because letting go means giving up the last piece of ground, and if you did that you’d be surrendering, you’d be allowing yourself to turn into a different person. I can’t help you make that choice. Each of us has to decide for ourselves.

  Think of Communion Town. Can we say how we would have behaved, if it had been us in the place of the citizens as they were surrounded by those things? Things that, in spite of what they were, gave the uncanny impression of having a coordinated and even a compassionate purpose. They were carrying plastic canisters of clean water and packets of all-but-fresh food pilfered from the refuse bins of supermarkets. They offered these gifts with nods of encouragement and gestures of hospitality.

  I don’t think any of us are in a position to moralise on what ensued. All we can do is state the facts as we know them: that after a night and a day trapped underground, every one of those people accepted food and drink from the monsters without hesitation. It’s clear in the security footage. You can watch, if you have a strong stomach, as an overweight man still wearing his jacket and tie crams his mouth with a hunk of bread that has been torn for him by one of the homines, and as a young woman cups her hands, the most natural thing in the world, to catch the water that one of them is pouring for her.

  They must have known the consequences of what they did. By the time the would-be rescuers succeeded in bringing the lifts back to life and prising open the fire doors, there were no human beings left in the tunnels for them to save. Nothing was left down there except the pests, the meaningless creatures that slink with the stray cats and cockroaches in the underparts of the city, and those were fit only to be driven off into the dark with oaths and stones. There are twenty-seven more of the wretched things now than there were before.

  I’m not going to hide my disappointment with Nicolas. He had the chance to improve matters for himself and he turned it down, in the petulant, deliberate way that he has. For reasons that frankly elude me, he prefers to leave everything up to you. But I’m not too sorry, because, it occurs to me now, you were always the one who fascinated the most. Nicolas had his pleasing qualities, certainly, but you, Ulya, you’ve always been the mystery. You know, I believe that since you came to this city you’ve not shown anyone a glimmer of what goes on inside. Did you give yourself away, perhaps just once? I don’t believe you did.

  But you’ve been holding yourself apart for too long now, refusing. I’m here, but I can’t help unless you let me. Think of this as your true arrival in the city. Do you remember how, once, soon after that first glum morning in the Terminus, you spent a long time by the seafront, lost in thought? I was with you then, too, though you didn’t notice me. A storm was setting up offshore, and you must have been cold in that cheap plastic raincoat, but you walked there for an hour. I don’t know what it looked like to you, but to me the sky was a cavernous auditorium, its hangings dark and threadbare and its plasterwork falling apart before our eyes. The sea was full of the anticipatory movements of an audience; rustling programmes, shushing itself, waiting for the spotlight to snap the boards into existence under your feet. I sniffed the chilly, promising air and felt a tingle of excitement, and I was on the point of calling out to you. But I knew it wasn’t yet time, and so I waited, and now at last the chatter has turned to attention and the hush is beginning to stretch, and you have to decide if you’re a singer, a magician or a clown.

  We can make a beginning here. Yes. I feel a special moment approaching. I’m hanging on your words. Now take your time. Breathe in.

  The Song of Serelight Fair

  I saw her on the street today. Another pedestrian pushed in front of me and she was there, already moving past, carrying a takeaway espresso and grasping the strap of her shoulder bag. She’d bought a smart new coat for the autumn, and her hair was cut above the shoulders, but it was the old shade of red again. I ducked towards a news-stand as if I were studying the magazines. She’d prefer that, I thought. She had somewhere to go. For the space of a single footstep, there was nothing in between us but air, and I could have spoken to her without raising my voice, but then the space widened and rush hour commuters filled it, pushing us further and further apart. I followed her for a short distance, just to see if I could stay close, but she outpaced me and I lost her as she boarded a tram. As I watched her disappear a song came into my head, an old song I used to know. I’ve been singing it to myself ever since.

  The first time we met, she was climbing into a rickshaw. It was a bitter night and the two of them had just emerged from the yellow mouth of the Communion Town metro, breathing steam and protesting at the cold. She seemed merry and disputatious, and her boyfriend, a big man in leather gloves and a fine wool overcoat, was finding her difficult to manage. She resisted for a moment as he helped her into the seat. Spots of snow were softening on their coats and in her loose hair. I thought I recognised her from somewhere.

  ‘That’s what he’s here for,’ I heard the boyfriend say. He leant forward, slapped my shoulder and told me an address in Cento Hill. As he settled into the chair, reaching an arm around her, I lifted the bar and took the strain.

  If you wanted to pull a rickshaw, you rented it for the night from one of the toughs at the rank off the pedestrian mall. Once he had secured the cash in his money-belt, dropped the chains onto the pavement and told you to have it back by six, you hauled the chair, with its canvas hood and bicycle wheels, around to the galleria to wait for students and tourists to come out of the nightclubs. You could usually cover the hire and more besides, if you were good at spotting the ones who’d leg it without paying, and those who’d show you a knife and take your night’s earnings. Most of the drunks were harmless, but many found the idea of riding a rickshaw hilarious. They would give false destinations or direct you along a labyrinthine route and collapse in mirth when you arrived back where you
had started; or they’d simply yell encouragements and fling their rubbish at the back of your head. I had a small melted hole where someone had flicked a cigarette butt into the hood of my jacket. On a good night you could make a decent profit, especially if the weather was foul.

  Soaked to the knees, my plimsolls frigid, I splattered through the snowmelt with his voice droning behind me. Damp flakes funnelled down between the granite facades, showing in the streetlights before blotting themselves out on the pavement.

  We were halfway to Cento Hill when the rickshaw wrenched itself sideways. I narrowly avoided slamming my chin into the bar as dirty iced water slopped over my ankles and metal grated on stone. One of the wheels had slipped into a pothole. I caught my breath and leant into the bar to test how badly we were jammed.

  The rickshaw stuck, then shifted abruptly, and I staggered forward to save myself from falling. Turning, I saw that the boyfriend had climbed out. He beckoned to me, and said:

  ‘Do you know what these are?’

  He sounded very calm, very self-controlled.

  ‘These are brand new Jas Copeland loafers. Have you any idea how much they cost?’

  His breath fogged my glasses.

  ‘Is it unreasonable to expect that you should be capable of doing your job without destroying my property? Do you think that’s unfair? More to the point, are you intending to compensate me for the damage?’

  I didn’t reply, but I had a notion I wouldn’t be getting paid for this run.

  ‘I thought not,’ he said. I could tell that this conversation wearied him very much. ‘Hold out your hand. The right one. Palm upwards. Come on, get on with it.’

  Without knowing why, I found myself obeying. I watched my right hand reach out to offer him my palm. He took off his belt, wrapped half its length around his fist, and tugged, testing its strength. Then he stopped. She had climbed out as well, and was finding her footing on the treacherous pavement.

  ‘Wait a mo,’ he said, his tone changing. ‘Where are you going, we’re nowhere –’

  She ignored him and picked her way around the mired rickshaw. As she went past, she leaned close to me and said: ‘You shouldn’t let him speak to you like that.’

  The crystals fell in behind her as she walked away.

  Ten days later at the Institute of Humane Sciences, a lecture had just ended and the central hall was blocked with students, their voices flooding the barrel-vault roof which had previously echoed only the squeaks of my rubber soles. My daytime job was for an agency which supplied me with dark green overalls and sent me to the university, where I worked my way around the corridors, lecture theatres and seminar rooms, wielding long-handled pincers and pushing a cart stocked with cleaning products and refuse bags.

  The students drank coffee from tall paper cups and had a lot to say. The girls’ hands flashed and the boys squared up to each other jokily with their chins raised. I trundled along the edge of the hall. This, I had realised, was where I had seen her before, and since that snowy night I had glimpsed her almost every day, arguing eagerly with other students, carrying books out of the library or, often, quarrelling in public with one tall youth or another – it pleased her to embarrass her admirers. As I caught sight of her now, though, she was glancing around, fiddling with an unlit cigarette, not quite listening to her friends.

  Without warning she turned her back on them and strode towards me. I fumbled hastily in my cart.

  ‘You can’t keep staring,’ she said, ‘and then have nothing to say to me.’

  Her friends, their circle still open from where she had broken away, watched us. I was at a loss and said nothing. Her eyes looked sore, as if she’d been out late somewhere smoky, but they remained fixed on me, insisting on an answer.

  ‘What are you going to do, then?’

  * * *

  Her bedroom was up in the roof of one of the grand old Cento Hill tenements. Lying tangled in a sheet, watching the snow dot the pane above my face, I thought about the daft bounty of the universe. This warm, shambolic nest, with her paperbacks heaped on the mantelpiece, photos of her family tacked to the walls, her guitar leaning in the corner, drawings her friends had made for her and postcards they’d sent, many-coloured underthings trailing from the dresser drawer: yesterday I couldn’t have begun to imagine it. A stray hair on the pillow tickled my cheek: it was crimson with a dark inch at the root. The toothpaste-streaked sink was lined with lipsticks, mascara tubes and contact lens paraphernalia. Her eyes troubled her, I had learnt, but she refused to wear her glasses.

  I struggled among the sheets until I was propped up on my elbows, and let my laughter pass as a silent shudder. A wave of sleepiness followed, and I considered giving into it. I breathed in the spicy fug. The city lay outside like a vast gift for which I had always only needed to ask. A song was playing. I’d never heard anything like it, but the twangling music was just another miracle of the afternoon, and I let it run through me, the singer drawling about silver saxophones, the Queen of Spades and a dancing child with a flute.

  Bitter smoke had been on her breath. My mouth had never tasted like this before, so sugary and rank. My head never ached so dashingly. The sight of her buttoning an oversized old shirt, five minutes ago, standing on tiptoe to see across the rooftops, had rinsed my memory clean. She was making tea and I had no idea what would happen when she came back.

  * * *

  Up in her room, we listened to more old songs. A woman made her acoustic guitar buzz and thrum, and sang in a warbling contralto about romantics and idealists, poets and artists. Silvertongue, you have placed your plans In your sweet, sweet nature and your hard hands …

  When the album had finished, I lay in silence, lingering at the edge of that world. It was late. She was dozing, her face hidden by her hair. The only light came from a decorative jar of red glass in which she had lit a candle-stub. Soft shadows pitched on the wall. My glasses lay on her bedside table, my jeans on the floor.

  Without much thought I sat up and leant over for her guitar. I had never held one before now, and its lightness surprised me. Cross-legged on the bed, I tried how its curve lay in my lap and how I needed to support the neck. I touched the strings, one by one, then together. It hadn’t been played in a while, I thought. I turned the screws, as I’d seen the buskers do at the galleria, until the notes sounded right. I fitted my fingers to the fretboard and let the strings speak softly, then strummed, as quiet as I could, with the pad of my thumb. I didn’t know how to play, but my fingertips began to move up and down the frets, exploring.

  After some experiment I found a clean chord, and then another. I adjusted a finger and the chord opened up, suspending itself; then I lifted the finger entirely and discovered the minor.

  Still quietly, very slowly, cautious not to damage the delicate find, I strummed a sequence of shapes. A tune was buried there. I hummed along with the chords, picking it out. It was a simple song, one I must have heard recently – I didn’t know where or when. I felt my way through, learning how its simple phrases went around, and how they changed in the middle, then changed back. I played it again, and instead of humming, I sang, letting the small sound vibrate in my sinuses and the top of my throat. I didn’t really know the words but I sang the syllables that seemed to fit. My tongue had never stepped so well around my teeth and palate.

  My palm stilled the strings. She shifted drowsily.

  ‘Keep playing.’

  The next time I stayed over she went out early and left me sleeping. Later in the morning I found myself in her kitchen with the two girls who shared the flat, old friends from back home. They brewed coffee and insisted on cooking me pancakes, then swapped indulgent smiles as they watched me eat. The flat smelled of cigarettes and perfume. They lolled on the kitchen chairs, clasping their bare feet in their hands to touch up the polish on their toenails, and tugging their fingers through their tangled hair. They didn’t seem to mind discussing their private lives in my company.

  ‘… still in love wit
h me.’

  ‘Oh, yuck.’

  ‘So that’s … fun. Yeah.’

  ‘And this was the one …’

  ‘Cried when I said I didn’t like him that way.’

  ‘Not awkward at all.’

  ‘He keeps sending messages saying I think about you every day. You know.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘So I’m quite glad I’ll be away in the summer. Give him a chance to maybe find someone, you know?’

  ‘You poor thing.’

  As they talked, a new way of life revealed itself. Theirs was a complicated youth, a fine game: they were free to do as they liked yet they lived at the mercy of lawless passions. Their relationships were troubled with their fathers and mothers, their sisters and boyfriends. They knew how to trade just a kiss for a kiss. They named strange nightclubs. They were jaded and sweet-natured, in and out of love, adventuring in the contradictions of their own emotions. No love affair could last, but what beautiful, bruised hearts they had. I took it all in, stirred to find I was capable of such sophistication. They knocked their cigarettes on the rim of a saucer and poured me more coffee, which I did my best to drink.

  Later the doorbell buzzed and two young men arrived, beefy types in striped scarves and good coats who walked in without breaking their conversation, their voices ringing importantly through the flat. They looked like members of the same sports team. One of them went to one of the flatmates, sliding a thumb into the waist of her jeans, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. When they caught sight of me both men stopped in their tracks just long enough to assess the situation; then they relaxed, and their eyes slid past me. I left soon after.