Peter Carey - The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith

It takes ten to fifteen hours to become a POW. *Almost all of this time you spend in line. I had a wheelchair. I went straight to sleep.

When I woke at two in the morning, an hour when the kanal fog has already rolled out across the turbulent streets, I found Wally on a sheet of cardboard, wide awake and grinning. God damn — his eyes were all creased up — he was happy to be just where he was, sitting on the banks of a river which was flowing with small-time crime.

Not five feet from where we sat there were three pretty little spin driers with tight skirts and fuck-me heels. By the news stand there were musicos, jugglers, riveters. Between the traffic lights, on the busy street crossings, there were young gypsy pick-pockets with dark brown blameful eyes and tatty sheets of corrugated board which they pressed against the bodies of their marks.

Everything that threatened me seemed to sustain my companions.

‘We’ll do just fine,’ the old turtle said to me. ‘You just breathe, the way the doctor said. Don’t worry about nothing.’

He rocked forward on his heels. He seemed to me to be like a retired footballer called down from the grandstand ready to thread fresh white laces through his dusty boots, to don the jersey with the old number sewn on the back, to climb the picket fence, to make that famous stab pass, low, spinning fast, down to the forward line.

‘Forget … it,’ I said.

‘We need money.’

‘Please … I … don’t … want … you … in … jail.’

Wally smiled. He retied his shoelace. He relit his soggy cigarette. He squinted through the acrid smoke. He had romanced so often about his days as a facheur that now it was easy for me to imagine what he was doing: studying the form, analysing how the money moved, locating the runners , the soldiers , the post-boxes , the whole secret mechanisms, social and structural, of the street.

A swarm of pick-pockets began working the crowd not three feet from the queue. They were ten, twelve years old.

I saw how he looked at them, the smile on his face. I could not do the things they did, not ever — I could not duplicate their normal faces, their bitter freedom, the light, careless way they split the scene, like a firework blasting apart — brown lithe legs flying through the alarm of horns and klaxons on the Grand Concourse.

‘You can’t … run … like … that … please … leave … it … be.’

‘Come on.’ He touched my hair. ‘Don’t fret.’

‘You’re … up … to … something.’

‘Sleep,’ he said. ‘Breathe proper.’

Finally I did sleep. When I woke up Leona, who was always appearing and disappearing, had gone again. The Simi — this was Jacques’ idea of humour-was now sitting on the sidewalk on its own sheet of cardboard. He had arranged it so it sat cross-legged, had cupped its gloved hands open in its lap, pointed its bright blind eyes so they looked upwards at the passing crowd.

And as I watched a middle-aged man in one of those tight-fitting sixteen-button suits which marks the business-gjent in Saarlim City stooped and squatted right in front of Jacques. He folded a Guilder and tucked it in the Mouse’s paw.

‘Where you from, Bruder?’ he asked Jacques.

I looked to Wally but he was asleep with his chin on his chest.

When I looked back the business-gjent was holding the Simi’s hand, his slightly wet alcoholic eye looking directly at the Simi’s dysfunctional electronic one.

‘Where you from?’ he repeated.

‘Efica,’ said Jacques.

The man shook his head, squinched shut his eyes. That is the paradox: we are important enough for you to bring down our government, but you have never heard of us. You could see this gjent had no damn idea where Efica was. ‘You know how long it is since I saw this fellow on a Saarlim street?’ he said at last. ‘Ten, fifteen years. Do you know who he is?’

‘One mo nothing,’ Jacques said. ‘Next mo there he was.’

‘It was a different country then, a different country entirely,’ the man said. ‘Parks were safe. Streets were clean. You never saw a street like this.’ He nodded towards the POWs. ‘It was a different country then.’

‘My friends are culture-shocked,’ Jacques said. ‘They never saw anything like this before.’

‘And you … you’re unshockable, huh?’

‘This is a great city,’ Jacques said.

‘It feels a great city to you?’

‘Look at all these people in this line … they’re in love with Saarlim City. It’s why they’re here. They love you.’ Jacques clicked his tongue. ‘How about that?’

The man looked at Jacques and frowned. He dug in his pocket and dug out a fist of crumpled Guilders. He pressed them into Meneer Mouse’s lifeless hand and, as the coins dropped to the sidewalk and the notes fluttered in the air, he turned and walked away into the crowd.

Jacques gathered up the money, grinning. I did not grin back, but I saw then, straight away — it was very clear to me what had to happen now.

*

‘The aforesaid Simulacrum design is approved for manufacture as a free agent WITH THE PROVISO that no model, whether working model, prototype or branded product, shall exceed the height limitations contained in Codicil CXVIII, amendment 6, to-wit no variant shall exceed forty-two inches in height. Infringement of these restrictions will incur automatic suspension of Manufacturer’s Licence and a fine of 10,000 Guilders.’ Approval Certificate of the Opus 3a Simulacrum.

*

The official paperwork indicates that a much longer delay was once the rule: ‘Please wait at least 90 days after application before inquiring. If this form is folded at the lines in the margins, the address of the POW facility, or the address of the applicant, will show through a standard letter size (Type C1) envelope. All information should be typed or clearly printed in the English language, using ballpoint pen.’ Inquiry about Status of POW 531 Form.

How we got our POW papers was as follows. We came to the head of the line. I was nervous. There was a rope. A man undid the rope. We passed through: the four of us. There was a woman behind a metal desk. She had a big chest with many medals on it. She took the papers Leona gave her. She stamped them. She signed them. She then filled out forms for half an hour. She would not speak to Jacques. She looked at me, but did not react to my appearance in any way at all. She did not once speak to any of us except Leona.

When she was done with us, she sent us to another queue. This queue was inside the building with black and white tiles on the floor and peeling paint on the walls. We were in this queue for two hours thirteen minutes. At the end of this time we were taken into a room where we were given a pink slip of paper *and instructed to place our right hand, underside upwards, on a silver cuff which was set into a wooden block. A machine was then clamped across the wrist. The wrist felt hot. When the machine was removed we had a number. Mine was A034571. My maman was born in Saarlim, but this was my status — a ‘Guest’ number — it gave no guarantee of residency or protection of the law but it was, just the same, there for life.

*

‘You have come in chains and the Republic has cast off those chains. You come defeated and the Republic grants you the spoils of the victors. You come without home and the Republic offers you shelter. You are, at all times, a guest of the Republic.’ The pink slip.

Using the Guilders the business-gjent had donated to the Simi, we purchased two nights at an hotel — the Marco Polo — in one of the rougher parts of Kakdorp. The room was large, but gloomy, backing on to a wide balcony on which robed men with blue-black skin and yellow eyes — landlopers — were living.