Bruce Sterling - Islands in the Net

"It's not the same Government," Laura said. "East

Lagoon-that whole area's a riot zone now. They're killing each other down there. I saw it happen. The Air Force just fired a missile into our property. Maybe killed some of my people too, I don't know."

Mrs. Singh went pale. "I heard the explosion-but it's not on the television She turned to her husband, who stared morosely at the throw rug. They began talking again, and Laura broke in.

"I have no right to get y'all in trouble." She stood up.

"Where are my sandals?"

Singh stood up too. "I am escorting you, madam."

"No," Laura said, "you'd better stay here and guard your own home. Look, the doors are broken in downstairs, if you haven't noticed. Those Anti-Labourites took over our godown- they might wander into this place too, any time they like, and take everybody hostage. They mean business, or antibusiness, or whatever the hell they believe in. And they're not afraid to die, either."

"I'm not afraid to die," Singh insisted stoutly. His wife began shouting at him. Laura found her sandals-the toddler was playing with them behind the couch. She slipped them on.

Singh, red-faced, stormed out of the flat. Laura heard him in the hall, shouting and whacking doors with his lathi stick.

"What's going on?" she said.

The two older children rushed Mrs. Singh and grabbed her, burying their faces in her tunic. "My husband says, that it was he who rescued you, a famous woman from television, who looked like a lost wet cat. And that you have broken bread in his house. And he will not send a helpless foreign woman to be killed in the streets like some kind of pariah dog."

"He's got quite a way with words, in his own language."

"Maybe that explains it," said Mrs. Singh and smiled.

"I don't think a can of guava juice really qualifies as

`breaking bread.'',

"Not guava. Soursop." She patted her little girl's head.

"He's a good man. He's honest, and works very hard, and is not stupid, or mean. And never hits me or the children. "

"That's very nice," Laura said.

Mrs. Singh locked eyes with her. "I tell you this, Laura

Webster, because I don't want you to throw my man's life away. Just because you're a political, and he doesn't count for much."

"I'm not a political," Laura protested. "I'm just a person, like you."

"If you were like me, you'd be home with your family."

Singh burst in suddenly, grabbed Laura by the arm, and hauled her out into the hall. Doors were open up and down the corridor, and it was crowded with confused and angry

Indian men in their undershirts. When they saw her they roared in amazement.

In seconds they were all around her. "Namaste, Namaste,"

the Indian greeting, nodding over hands pressed together, palm to palm. Some touched the trailing edge of the sari, respectfully. Uproar of voices. "My son, my son," a fat man kept shouting in English. "He's A-L.P., my son!"

The elevator opened and they hustled her inside. They crowded it to the limit, and other men ran for the stairs. The elevator sank slowly, its cables groaning, jammed like an overloaded bus.

Minutes later they had hustled her out into the street. Laura wasn't sure how the decision had been made or even if anyone had consciously made one. Windows had been flung open on every floor and people were shouting up and down in the soggy midafternoon heat. More and more were pouring out -a human tide. Not angry, but manic, like soldiers on furlough, or kids out of school-milling, shouting, slapping each other on the shoulders.

Laura grabbed Singh's khaki sleeve. "Look, I don't need all this-"

"It is the people," Singh mumbled. His eyes looked glazed and ecstatic.

"Let her speak," yelled a guy in a striped jubbah. "Let her speak!"

The shout spread. Two kids rolled a topped trash can into the street and set it down like a pedestal. They raised her onto it. There was frenzied applause. "Quiet, quiet ..."

Suddenly they were all looking at her.

Laura felt a terror so absolute that she felt like fainting. Say something, idiot-quick, before they kill you. "Thank you for trying to protect me," she squeaked. They cheered, not catching her words, just pleased that she could talk, like a real person.

Her voice came back. "No violence!" she shouted. "Sin- gapore is a modern city. " Men around her muttered transla- tions in an undertone. The crowd continued to grow and thicken around her. "Modem people don't kill each other,"

she shouted. The sari was slipping off her shoulder. She tugged it back into place. They applauded, jostling each other, whites showing around their eyes.

It was the damned sari, she thought dazedly. They loved it.

A tall foreign blonde on a pedestal, wrapped in gold and green, some kind of demented Kali juggernaut thing .. .

"I'm just a stupid foreigner!" she screeched. A few mo- ments before they decided to believe her-then they laughed, and clapped. "But I know better than to hurt anyone! So I want to go to jail!"

Blank looks. She had lost them. Inspiration saved her.

"Like Gandhi!" she shouted. "The Mahatma. Gandhiji:"

A sudden awesome silence.

"So just a few of you, very calmly, please, take me to a jail. Thank you very much." She jumped down.

Singh steadied her. "That was good!"

"You know the way," she said urgently. "You lead us, okay?"

"Okay!" Singh swung his lathi stick over his head. "Everyone, we are marching, la! To the jail!"

He offered Laura his arm. They moved quickly through the crowd, which melted away before them and re-formed behind.

"To the jail!" shouted Striped Jubbah, leaping up and down, striped arms flapping. "To Changi!"

Others took up the yell. "Changi, Changi." The destina- tion seemed to channel their energies. The giddy sense of explosiveness leached out of the situation, like a blowtorch settling to a steady burn. Children ran ahead of them, to turn and marvel at the advancing crowd. They gawked, and ca- pered, and punched each other. People watched from street- side buildings. Windows opened, and doors.

After three blocks, the crowd was still growing. They marched north, onto South Bridge Road. Ahead of them loomed the, cyclopean buildings downtown. A lean Chinese with slicked-back hair and a schoolteacherish look appeared at Laura's elbow: "Mrs. Webster?"

"Yes?"

"I am pleased to march with you on Changi! Amnesty

International was morally right!"

Laura blinked. "Huh?"

"The political prisoners..." The crowd surged suddenly and he was swept away. The crowd had an escort now-two police choppers, hissing above the street. Laura quailed, her eyes burning with remembrance, but the crowd waved and cheered, as if the choppers were some kind of party favor.

It dawned on her, then. She grabbed Singh's elbow. "Hey!

I just want to go to a police station. Not march on the goddamned Bastille!"

"What, madam?" Singh shouted, grinning dazedly. "What steel?"

Oh, God. If only she could make a break for it. She looked about wildly, and people waved at her and smiled. What an idiot she'd been to put on this sari. It was like being wrapped in green neon.

Now they were marching through the thick of Singapore's

Chinatown. Temple Street, Pagoda Street. The psychedelic, statue-covered stupa of a Hindu temple rose to her left. "Sri

Mariamman," it read. Polychrome goddesses leered at each other as if they'd planned all this, just for grins. There were sirens wailing ahead, at a major intersection. The sound of bullhorns. They were going to walk right into it. A thousand angry cops. A massacre.

And then it came into sight. Not cops at all, but another crowd of civilians. Pouring headlong into the intersection, men, women, children. Above them a banner, somebody's bed sheet stretched between bamboo poles. Hasty daubed lettering: LONG LIVE CHANNEL THREE ...