Нил Стивенсон - Termination Shock

“It has a real low melting point. Like, you can melt it on your stove. Like wax almost. So they would just pour it into big, like, ice cube trays, let it set up, stack ’em like blocks at the water’s edge, load ’em on ships goin’ to . . . wherever the hell folks need sulfur.”

“Why’d it stop? Mine ran out?”

“It’s cheaper nowadays to get sulfur from sour crude.”

“So it’s just a by-product of all these refineries.”

“Used to be,” Jules agreed. “Then Alberta got into the act and the bottom dropped out.”

“Because . . . oil from Alberta has a lot of sulfur?”

“Sour as can be,” Jules confirmed. “Or so they say. Never been. Not a lot of work for divers there.”

Willem nodded. “So Port Sulphur needs to get busy diversifying its economy.”

“You work for Shell?” Jules asked. Then, feeling some need to explain himself: “They said you was from Holland.”

“The Netherlands,” Willem corrected him. “I guess you could say I have a professional connection to Royal Dutch Shell.”

“HR? Media Relations?” Jules guessed.

Willem perceived the nature of Jules’s problem. Jules was trying to figure out the riddle of Willem. Not necessarily to be nosy; it’s just that the two of them were going to be in the truck together for quite a few hours, and he was trying to find some basis for friendly conversation. The only conceivable reason a Dutchman would be in this part of the world would be to work for Shell. And yet Willem didn’t know basic facts about sulfur and its status as a by-product of sour crude oil refinement. The only way that this could make sense was if Willem’s role at Shell was something completely impractical in nature.

“I don’t actually work for Shell,” Willem explained. “It’s more of an indirect connection. I’m a logistics guy, you might say. Some of my group got stranded in Waco because of the weather. Your friends have been very generous in helping us out.”

“It’s gonna be real interesting.”

“What do you mean?”

“Houston.”

“Yes. Yes. Houston is going to be interesting.”

AMRITSAR

He’d been getting by with a keski, a simple house turban, such as might be worn by children or by men taking part in athletic competitions. In America it might be mistaken for a do-rag.

Now, following instructions on YouTube, he wrapped a proper turban over the keski. On his third try he ended up with something that was not completely embarrassing. He then ventured out of the hotel to take a meal at a large and well-situated gurdwara.

The word meant “door to the guru,” which in some people’s minds conjured up a hokey image of an old holy man sitting cross-legged and spouting pithy wisdom. But they’d given up on gurus of that type hundreds of years ago, and put everything those guys had to say into a book. The book was the guru now. “Door to the body of written material serving in place of a human spiritual leader” was a bit of a mouthful and so the word was commonly translated into English as “temple.” But this conjured up all manner of wrong ideas in the minds of Westerners, who tended to imagine something more in the Hindu or Roman Catholic vein. Sikhs didn’t have priests and they didn’t revere idols. So most gurdwaras, though they might have a few fancy decorative bits on the exterior, had more in common, on the inside, with Methodist church basements. Dining in the langar involved sitting on the floor in a long row of fellow diners, waiting as certain prayers were said, and then eating a simple vegetarian meal heavy on starches. Not that his people were vegetarians. But they wanted Hindus and Muslims to feel welcome without having to ask all kinds of questions about what animals were being eaten and how exactly they had been slaughtered. Feeling more self-conscious than he ever had in his life, Laks kept his eyes on his plate, ignored the stares that he assumed were coming at him from all directions, and refused to speak English.

Then he came back the next day and did it again.

The whole process—which lasted no more than a week—reminded him of experiences he’d had up in the Rockies, trying to get a campfire lit on a cold day with wet wood: it persistently failed until it didn’t, and then it caught fire and he wondered why it had ever seemed difficult. In short order he was volunteering at the langar. The ladies who did the cooking wouldn’t let him anywhere near actual food prep, of course; they were hygiene fanatics, and Laks didn’t know the procedures. But they were glad of his help unloading big sacks of flour and rice and lentils from the trunks of cars.

Once he had earned a bit of social capital that way, a bit of asking around pointed him in the direction of an akhara. Without specific directions, he’d never have found the place. It was at the end of a maze of ancient alleyways. Newer and taller buildings huddled around it, as if trying to shield it from view.

He’d heard that some of these things were quite old, but this one seemed beyond ancient. Oh, around the edges it did have accretions of new tech such as weight benches and barbells. But the core of it was a pit of loose earth, protected from rains by a roof on stilts. For it had been the practice in these parts for thousands of years that wrestlers used the earth as Western wrestlers used foam mats and Japanese used tatamis. That didn’t work unless the ground was prepared just so. Over time it would get tamped down hard by the probing feet and the thudding bodies of the athletes. Then it had to be refreshed. This work was performed daily.

Laks, at least, knew better than to waltz in during broad daylight. He set his alarm for five in the morning, laced on his trainers, ran to the akhara, and found that he was much too late. The next day he set the alarm for four but was late again. Three o’clock in the morning turned out to be the right time. He reached the akhara just as some of the younger boys were wandering in. He picked up an implement that looked somewhere between a hoe and an adze, hoisted it above his head, and drove its blade into the earth between his now bare feet. Then he pried it up to loosen soil that had been packed hard yesterday. Then again. Then again. All around him boys half his weight and age were doing likewise. For the first time since he had entered India, Laks lost track of time and just did something.

An hour’s hard labor sufficed to loosen all the earth. Now it was soft but uneven. The next step was to level it out and tamp it down, but not too much, by dragging weighted logs across it. The logs appeared to have been salvaged from the wreck of Noah’s Ark. The weights were the smaller boys; they stood on the logs three or four abreast, hanging on to each other and giggling, as Laks served in the role of draft animal, pulling them around the floor of the akhara until the ground was level, and firm enough to afford traction to the bare feet of the wrestlers but soft enough to cushion the impact of throws and takedowns.

By that point, day was beginning to break and it was threatening to get hot. A few of the senior members of the akhara had drifted in to perform their workouts before going off to their jobs. They looked at Laks quizzically. Some were friendly, and in a laconic way showed gratitude for his efforts. Some were standoffish. A couple of them might have been hostile. But he had expected that. They would see him as a potential rival. Every gym in the world had some of that. The best he could do was show humility and presume nothing.

He was not here to work out today. He was too tired anyway. The digging had exhausted his upper body and dragging the log had done his legs in. He hobbled back to his rooming house before it got too hot—for this was spring, before the monsoon, when it could get above 45 Celsius during the afternoon—and bathed and went back to bed.