Michel Faber - The Book of Strange New Things

‘Flabbits.’

‘Lunch!’

There was a flurry of laughter but someone immediately hollered: ‘Forget it, Powell.’

‘Couldn’t we try just one?’ protested Powell.

‘They may be highly intelligent.’

‘You’re kidding me.’

‘They may be considered sacred. By the natives.’

‘Who says they’re edible?’ called a woman’s voice. ‘They could be poisonous as hell.’

‘They’re headed in the direction of Freaktown,’ Stanko pointed out. ‘If they’re edible and if it’s OK to eat them, we’ll probably get some eventually. Like, given to us. And it’ll be kosher.’

‘What do you mean, kosher?’

‘I didn’t mean… I meant, nothing sneaky about it. Just part of the regular deal.’

‘You’re all being disgusting,’ another woman’s voice remarked. ‘How could anyone even think of eating these? They’re so adorable.’

‘Adorable as a vegetable. Look at those eyes. Three brain cells, max.’

‘Maybe they bite.’

And so they stood there, bantering, happy as children, while the exotic procession shuffled past.

‘Hey, Peter! How’s tricks, bro?’ It was BG. He was in a jovial mood, if somewhat in need of a washcloth. This outing had evidently interrupted him in the middle of eating or drinking something white and frothy, judging from the creamy moustache haloing his upper lip.

‘I’m fine, BG,’ said Peter. ‘A bit tired. And you?’

‘On top of it, man, on top of it. Ain’t these guys great?’ He indicated the horde of animals, whose hundred hefty backsides swayed in formation as they shuffled by.

‘A real thrill to see,’ Peter agreed. ‘I’m glad I didn’t miss them. Nobody told me.’

‘It was on the PA system, bro. Loud and clear.’

‘Not in my room.’

‘Ah, they must’ve switched it off for you, man. Out of respect. You got your private spiritual stuff to concentrate on. You don’t want somebody naggin’ in your ear fifty times a day, “Could So-And-So come to Room 25, please”, “Could all available personnel report to the loading bay”, “Haircuts available in one hour in Room 9”, “Hey everybody, get your asses out of the East Wing entrance, ’cause there’s a huge posse of funny-lookin’ little motherfuckers headed this way!”’

Peter smiled, but the news of his exclusion from the public address system bothered him. He was disconnected enough from the lives of the USIC personnel as it was. ‘Well,’ he sighed, ‘I would hate to have missed this.’

‘But you didn’t, bro,’ beamed BG. ‘You didn’t.’ He wiggled his eyebrows upwards at the heavens. ‘You must’ve got a tip-off, am I right?’

‘Maybe I did.’ Peter was exhausted all of a sudden, weighed down by his sweat-sodden clothing and his undischarged sense of inadequacy. God’s enigmatic instruction about the need for further study and making full proof of his ministry rematerialised in his mind.

BG got down to business: the reason he’d pushed through his colleagues to reach Peter. ‘So, what would you call ’em?’

‘Call them?’

‘Our cute little pals there,’ said BG, waving his hand at the retreating army.

Peter thought for a moment. ‘The Oasans must have a word for them.’

‘No use to us, bro.’ BG contorted his face and flapped his tongue idiotically in and out of his lips, emitting a blubbering sound. A second later, with the aplomb of a professional comedian, he composed his features into a mask of dignity. ‘With Tartaglione gone,’ he said, ‘there ain’t nobody here can understand the noises those guys make. You heard the old story of the kangaroo, Peter?’

‘No, BG: tell me the old story of the kangaroo.’

The animal horde was fully past now, making incremental headway towards their destination. Some of the USIC staff stood peering at the dwindling swarm of bodies, but most started ambling back towards the base. BG laid an arm around Peter’s shoulder, indicating that they should walk together. ‘There was this explorer guy,’ he said, ‘way back in the day, called Captain Cook. His specialty was landing on brand new pieces of real estate across the ocean, and swiping them off of the black folks that lived there. Anyway, he went all the way down to Australia. You know where that is?’

Peter nodded.

‘A lot of folks here get kinda hazy on geography,’ said BG. ‘Specially if they never been there. Anyway, Captain Cook landed in Australia and he saw these a maaa zing animals jumpin’ around. Big furry motherfuckers with gigantic rabbit legs and a pouch on their stomach and standin’ upright and shit. And he asked the black folks, “What do you guys call this creature?”, and the black folks said “Kangaroo”.’

‘Uh-huh,’ said Peter, sensing that some sort of punchline was coming.

‘Years later, some dude studied the black folks’ language, and guess what? “Kangaroo” meant “What you sayin’, bro?”’

BG bellowed with laughter, his massive body quaking with mirth as he escorted the pastor back to civilisation. Peter laughed too, but even as his mouth made the correct shape and his throat produced the appropriate sounds, he knew what God wanted him to do. He would learn the Oasans’ language. He would learn it if it killed him.

And so they began. Pressed close together, Peter and Beatrice could no longer see each other. Their mouths were joined, their eyes clasped shut, their bodies could have been anyone’s bodies since the world was created.

A few minutes later, he was wide awake. Bea was a billion miles removed from him, and he was shuffling to the washing machine, holding his soiled bedsheets bundled in his arms. Outside the window, it was the same sunny afternoon as it had been when he’d fallen asleep. The room was bathed in golden light just as before, as though time itself had been baked by the sun, while somewhere far away, his wife’s days and nights were flickering unseen.

Peter fed the bedsheets into the metallic drum. The CONSERVE WATER — COULD THIS LOAD BE HAND-WASHED? placard teased at his conscience, but he couldn’t recall his semen ever smelling so pungent and he was worried that if he tried to hand-wash the sheets, the odour might permeate his quarters and be instantly noticeable if a visitor walked in. Grainger, for instance.

He scooped some soap flakes into the washing machine from the plastic tub provided. The flakes were waxy, as if shaved from a block of real old-fashioned soap. They certainly weren’t any kind of chemical detergent. Might they be whiteflower in one of its myriad forms? He lowered his nose to the tub and sniffed, but the smell of his own body was distracting. He shut the machine and set it going.

Funny, when he was among the Oasans, he never masturbated or had wet dreams. It was as though his sexual nature went into hibernation. He was male, and male equipment hung from his pelvis, but it was just there , irrelevant as an earlobe. Only when he returned to the USIC base did his sexuality revive. Likewise, it was only when he was in the USIC base that he felt the full weight of loneliness.

He stood naked next to the Shoot. Its screen was cold and dark, though he couldn’t recall switching it off. It must have switched itself off sometime during his sleep, to conserve energy. He hoped he’d managed, before exhaustion overtook him, to send whatever messages he’d been writing to Bea. It was all a bit of a blur. What he’d said; what she’d said. He vaguely remembered something about the carpets in the living room having to be removed and thrown away. Or maybe it was the curtains. And rats. Something about rats. Oh yes: Bea had walked to the kerbside to add a garbage bag to the already overflowing wheelie bin there (collections were irregular these days) and she’d got the shock of her life when a rat leapt out, narrowly missing her face.