David Mitchell - The Bone Clocks

Aoife, however, is awestruck. “Mr. Silverwind?”

He frowns and looks around before looking down. “I am he. And you are who, young lady?”

A Yank. Of bloody course. “Aoife Brubeck,” says Aoife.

“Aoife Brubeck. You’re up and about very early.”

“It’s my aunty Sharon’s wedding today. I’m a bridesmaid.”

“May you have an altogether sublime day. And this gentleman would be your father, I presume?”

“Yes,” says Aoife. “He’s a reporter in Bad Dad.”

“I’m sure Daddy tries to be good, Aoife Brubeck.”

“She means Baghdad,” I tell the joker.

“Then Daddy must be very … brave.” He looks at me. I stare back. I don’t like his way of talking and I don’t like him.

Aoife asks, “Can you really see the future, Mr. Silverwind?”

“I wouldn’t be much of a fortune-teller if I couldn’t.”

“Can you tell my future? Please?”

Enough of this. “Mr. Silverwind is busy, Aoife.”

“No, he isn’t, Daddy. He hasn’t got one customer even!”

“I usually ask for a donation of ten pounds for a reading,” says the old fraud, “but, off-peak, to special young ladies, five would suffice. Or ”—Dwight Silverwind reaches to a shelf behind him and produces a pair of books—“Daddy could purchase one of my books, either The Infinite Tether or Today Will Happen Only Once for the special rate of fifteen pounds each, or twenty pounds for both, and receive a complimentary reading.”

Daddy would like to kick Mr. Silverwind in his crystal balls. “We’ll pass on your generosity,” I tell him. “Thanks.”

“I’m open until sunset, if you change your mind.”

I tug at my daughter’s hand to tell her we’re moving on, but she flares up: “It’s not fair , Daddy! I want to know my future !”

Just bloody great. If I take back a tearful Aoife, Holly’ll be insufferable. “Come on — Aunty Sharon’s hairdresser will be waiting.”

“Oh dear.” Silverwind retreats into his booth. “I foresee trouble.” He shuts a door marked THE SANCTUM behind him.

“ No body knows the future, Aoife. These”—I aim this at the Sanctum—“ liars tell you whatever they think you want to hear.”

Aoife turns darker, redder, and shakier. “No!”

My own temper now wakes up. “No what?”

“No no no no no no no no no no.”

“Aoife! Nobody knows the future. That’s why it’s the future!”

My daughter turns red, shaky, and screeches: “Kurde!”

I’m about to flame her for bad language — but did my daughter just call me a Kurd? “What?”

“Aggie says it when she’s cross but Aggie’s a million times nicer than you and at least she’s there! You’re never even home!” She storms off back down the pier on her own. Okay, a mild Polish swearword, a mature dollop of emotional blackmail, picked up perhaps from Holly. I follow. “Aoife! Come back!”

Aoife turns, tugs the balloon string off and threatens to let it go.

“Go ahead.” I know how to handle Aoife. “But be warned, if you let go, I’ll never buy you a balloon again.”

Aoife twists her face up into a goblin’s and — to my surprise, and hurt — lets the balloon go. Off it flies, silver against blue, while Aoife dissolves into cascading sobs. “I hate you — I hate Dora the Explorer — I wish you were back — back in Bad Dad — forever and ever ! I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate your guts !”

Then Aoife’s eyes shut tight and her six-year-old lungs fill up.

Half of Sussex hears her shaken, sobbing scream.

Get me out of here. Anywhere.

Anywhere’s fine.

NASSER DROPPED ME near the Assassin’s Gate, but not too near; you never know who’s watching who’s giving lifts to foreigners, and the guards at the gate have the jumpiest trigger fingers, the poor bastards. “I’ll call you after the press conference,” I told Nasser, “or if the network’s down, just meet me here at eleven-thirty.”

“Perfect, Ed,” replied my fixer. “I get Aziz. Tell Klimt, all Iraqis love him. Seriously. We build big statue with big fat cock pointing to Washington.” I slapped the roof and Nasser drove off. Then I walked the fifty meters to the gate, past the lumps of concrete placed in a slalom arrangement, past the crater from January’s bomb, still visible; half a ton of plastic explosives, topped with a smattering of artillery shells, killing twenty and maiming sixty. Olive used five of Aziz’s photos, and the Washington Post paid him a reprint fee.

The queue for the Assassin’s Gate wasn’t too bad last Saturday; about fifty Iraqi staffers, ancillary workers, and preinvasion residents of the Green Zone were ahead of me, lining up to one side of the garish arch, topped by a large sandstone breast with an aroused nipple. An East Asian guy was ahead of me, so I struck up a conversation. Mr. Li, thirty-eight, was running one of the Chinese restaurants inside the zone — no Iraqi is allowed near the kitchens for fear of a mass poisoning. Li was returning from a meeting with a rice wholesaler, but when he found out my trade his English mysteriously worsened and my hopes for a “From Kowloon to Baghdad” story evaporated. So I turned my thoughts to the logistics of the day ahead until it was my turn to be ushered into the tunnel of dusty canvas and razor wire. “Blast Zone” security has been neo-liberalized, and the affable ex-Gurkhas who used to man Checkpoint One have been undercut by an agency recruiting Peruvian ex-cops, who are willing to risk their lives for four hundred dollars a month. I showed my press ID and British passport, got patted down, and had my two Dictaphones inspected by a captain with an epidermal complaint who left flakes of his skin on them.

Repeat the above three times at Checkpoints Two through Four and you find yourself inside the Emerald City — as the Green Zone has inevitably come to be known, a ten-square-kilometer fortress maintained by the U.S. Army and its contractors to keep out the reality of postinvasion Iraq and preserve the illusion of a kind of Tampa, Florida, in the Middle East. Barring the odd mortar round, the illusion is maintained, albeit it at a galactic cost to the U.S. taxpayer. Black GM Suburbans cruise at the thirty-five miles per hour speed limit on the smooth roads; electricity and gasoline flow 24/7; ice-cold Bud is served by bartenders from Mumbai who rename themselves Sam, Scooter, and Moe for the benefit of their clientele; the Filipino-run supermarket sells Mountain Dew, Skittles, and Cheetos.

The spotless hop-on, hop-off circuit bus was waiting at the Assassin’s Gate stop. I hopped on, relishing the air-conned air, and the bus pulled off at the very second the timetable promised. The smooth ride down Haifa Street passes much of the best real estate in the nation and the Ziggurat celebrating Iraq’s bloody stalemate against Iran — one of the ugliest memorials on Earth — and several large areas of white Halliburton trailers. Most of the CPA’s staff live in these trailer parks, eat in the chow halls, shit in portable cubicles, never set foot outside the Green Zone, and count the days until they can go home and put down a deposit on a real house in a nice neighborhood.

When I got off the bus at the Republican Palace, about twenty joggers came pounding down the sidewalk, all wearing wraparound sunglasses, holsters, and sweat-blotted T-shirts. Some of the T-shirts were emblazoned with the quip WHO’S YOUR BAGHDADDY NOW?; the remainder declared, BUSH-CHENEY 2004. To avoid a collision I had to jump out of their way. They sure as hell weren’t going to get out of mine.