Mark Lee - The Canal House

“You’re an American, Mr. Bettencourt?”

“I guess so.”

“Could you talk to the United States Army? Perhaps the Americans would go down to my village.”

“Our army’s not involved in this. The only Americans here are UN officials and the pilots flying the planes.”

Sister Xavier looked at me. “Then we need British soldiers.”

“The British are part of the Interfet forces,” I said. “General Bates is officially their commander.”

Nicky lowered his camera. “I’ve met the man in charge of the Gurkhas. He’s all right. Maybe you can talk to him.”

He led us back to the hotel. A British army captain was sitting on the grass in the overgrown courtyard, eating rations with some of his men. All I wanted was a few words from Nicky, perhaps a suggestion that going to Liquica was a good idea, but he acted as neutral and uncommitted as ever. Nicky was always the man watching, no matter what was going on. He made the introduction, then stepped back and fingered his camera.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Captain Jenkins. Where are you from in Britain?”

“Dorset,” he said. “But I don’t give a damn about the place. I’m here, doing my job. That’s good enough for me.”

I began talking, but I could see that Jenkins didn’t care if all the people in Liquica died. Their lives were an abstraction to him, a useless number. He ate a spoonful of canned peaches, then scratched a mosquito bite on his hand.

“Perhaps this isn’t your direct responsibility,” I said. “But nobody else wants to get involved.”

Jenkins nodded politely to show that he was listening. Then he scratched his neck.

“You know that protecting these people is the right thing to do. That’s why we’ve been sent to this country.”

I looked hard at Jenkins, willing him to listen to me. The captain nodded again, but this time he appeared a bit more interested. Doing the right thing was something he could understand.

“I’m sorry to put this in your hands,” I said. “But I can’t travel to the village alone. You can stay here and do—whatever. Or go down the coast road with us and save some lives.”

Jenkins didn’t look at the grass or the trees or the canned peaches anymore. He faced me directly and I knew that he had made a decision. “All right. You’ve made your point, Dr. Cadell. Let me go talk to our senior officers. There aren’t a lot of British here so the chain of command is a bit more informal.”

“Thank you, Captain. You can find me at the Seria on the wharf or …” I glanced at Nicky.

“Or at the Resende Inn. Room 212.”

“I can’t promise anything of course, but I’ll give it a try. My men feel a bit useless guarding the people at this hotel.”

Sister Xavier was still worried as we left the hotel. “Perhaps the British will also say no,” she said.

“It’s possible.”

“Maybe we should talk to the Portuguese.”

“Forget about that,” Nicky said. “It’s late. We need to get off the street.”

Sister Xavier went to the bishop’s compound to search for some nuns from her order. Nicky and I turned toward the wharf. The sun was dropping toward the mountains and orange clouds glowed on the horizon. Night was coming and I could feel a wave of fear spreading through the city. Everyone started walking a little faster. Tires whipped through the trash scattered across the pavement as a Land Rover raced back to the airport. People wanted to find shelter before the sun went down.

Nicky stopped to take a photograph of the Igreja Motael. “The first day we arrived, Daniel and I went to this church together.” As he switched lenses on one of his cameras, he told me how Daniel had given all of his water to a sick woman.

“You make it sound like a mistake,” I said.

“He shouldn’t do things like that.”

“You won’t lose your license if you occasionally got involved, Nicky.”

“Helping people is your job, but that’s not what we do. If Daniel keeps crossing the line, he’s going to get into trouble.”

The food line on the wharf had disappeared. Richard was back on the ship and Collins was standing guard with his rifle. I paid my helpers with triple rations and was just about to leave when Billy came down the wharf carrying his rifle. “Where’d you go with that nun?” he asked.

“Out to the airport and back. Then we saw General Bates. Sister Xavier needs some soldiers to take control of her village.”

Billy rolled his eyes as if I’d told a bad joke. “You’re a very helpful person, Julia. Too bad you weren’t wearing the Hand-to-Hand shirt.”

“Where’s Richard?”

“He’s giving an interview up in his cabin, talking to reporters from the Guardian and the Times . Daniel’s going to miss out on the big story and that’s us. Everything’s working out perfectly.”

DANIEL, NICKY, AND I ate dinner that night at their hotel with Tristram Müller and a journalist named Peter who worked for a French wire service. Tristram had bought two large pineapples and Nicky cored them with his Swiss Army knife, the juice dripping onto the floor. The hotel manager served us pancakes for fifty Australian dollars each and I ate two of them before I realized that I was dining on food made from Hand-to-Hand supplies. Someone had already sold his cornmeal and cooking oil to the manager. I had to smile. One way or another, we had helped restart the local economy. Tristram produced a tin of strawberry jam and this was smeared across the pancakes. There wasn’t any alcohol for dinner, but the sugary meal surged into our bloodstreams and made everyone feel giddy.

Tristram insisted that Peter tell us about his hobby. It turned out that he spent his spare time taking photographs of different women baring their breasts in famous locations. He had scrapbooks of photos back at his apartment in Paris, the nipples appearing at the White House, the Kremlin, and Buckingham Palace. Daniel had once gotten Peter and his girlfriend into the Vatican garden and now he wanted Daniel to sneak him into the pope’s bedroom. For an hour or so, I forgot about Sister Xavier and her villagers. I sat on the floor next to Daniel, his arm wrapped around me, and laughed when Peter described bare breasts at Napoleon’s tomb.

We left them as Tristram ordered another round of pancakes. Nicky was talking about a Florida millionaire who had offered a hundred thousand dollars to anyone who could take a photograph of a soul leaving the human body.

Peter looked amused. “That’s very American.”

“Hey, the money’s real. So how we going to get it?”

“I don’t believe in soul or spirit or inneres Licht .” Tristram said. “It’s all just flesh and Coca-Cola. Isn’t that right, Julia? We need a medical opinion.”

I could have easily sat down and resumed the conversation, but now I wanted to be alone with Daniel. “I’ll give my prognosis tomorrow,” I said, slipping out the door.

We stumbled upstairs in the dark, fumbled with the key, and finally got into the room. Daniel closed the door and locked it. A breeze came through the open window and the curtains flapped like tattered flags.

“I missed you,” Daniel said and put his arms around me. I closed my eyes and felt his body pressing against mine. Lying down on the bare mattress, we kissed each other and then I touched his face. I had thought about Daniel so often, his nose and mouth and eyes; now that we were back together I had to make sure that he was real.

“You look tired,” I said.

“And you look beautiful.”

“I don’t quite believe that. I thought journalists were supposed to tell the truth.”

“I am telling the truth.” Daniel embraced me and I felt the muscles of his back and shoulders. Both of us moved slowly, lingering on each sensation, as if we were back at the Canal House, with all the time in the world.