IN STATIS

men like clouds

——

Early morning. The room in darkness. A scratch at the door. The bed cold underneath him, feeling disused. Joe in the space between sleep and waking – aware, but disinclined to move. Someone outside trying the door, quietly. He never dreamed any more. Something clicked the other side of the door. Joe’s hand throbbed, the pain reassuringly real. The door opened, softly, letting in a band of light. A dark shape in the doorway, face obscured by shadows, but he could see the black shoes, a short-sleeved chequered shirt, thought back to Vientiane – which seemed a life-time ago.

Electric light: the sudden brightness made him blink back tears. A shape moving with big easy steps, a hand on his face, holding him down, something put over his eyes. He didn’t resist, didn’t see the point. A voice murmuring in his ear, the hint of an accent: ‘You are blind, like worm.’ Joe let it pass.

‘Why you keep going?’ the voice said. ‘Even with your eyes open you are blind. Why grope in the dark, tap-tap-tap, like a blind person with a walking stick? I am sorry about your friend.’

His friend? He thought about Mo, the lingering scent of cheap cigars, ‘I mainly do divorces’, a name in a phone book made momentarily real, then cancelled with the sound of gunshots. ‘Why you not give up?’ the voice said, and it sounded perplexed. ‘You have good life, before. Drink coffee, sit in office, is peaceful, no?’

Somehow he wasn’t scared. It was like a dream, he thought: the closest to dreaming he could come. The words, ‘Are you going to kill me?’ came floating into his mind and stayed there, movie dialogue unspoken.

‘I am not wishing to kill you,’ the man said. ‘Death is merely a gateway to another place. I used to think it was paradise, but it isn’t.’ A short laugh like a cough, bitter like coffee. ‘I spit on it.’

Ambiguity. Spit on what? The bed was like hard clouds, and he was floating. The man above him had no face, he was convinced of it now. A man with no face. It made him laugh, but inside. Only inside. ‘You are brave,’ the man said. ‘But stupid, too. Yes, I think you are very stupid.’ One hand was still on his face. Cloth on his eyes, worms’ cocoons woven into silk and dyed black. ‘You stay here,’ the man said. ‘For you, paradise, now. All good, no? What you miss? Why you make trouble?’

No answer expected. The man speaking to himself, not to Joe. ‘When I was kid,’ the man said unexpectedly, ‘I look out window, I see clouds. All time, clouds are different. I see faces in clouds. Ears, eyes, mouths –’ he pronounced it mouthes – ‘eyes, I see eyes, many eyes. I see smiling faces. I see sad faces. In clouds. Outside bedroom window. You understand?’

But Joe didn’t.

The man’s other hand on Joe’s hair, stroking it. Sadness in the moving fingers. ‘Then wind comes. Clouds move, change. Sometimes make new faces. Sometimes gone. Men like clouds. You ever think of God?’

The hand stroking his hair. No answer expected. The man said, ‘Old man with long beard, yes? High up in clouds. God, for children it is God. Sometimes for grownups, too. You understand?’

Joe moved his head, an almost imperceptible shift. No. The man said, ‘You stay out of trouble. Go back to coffee, sunshine, walk to office and back. Is more good.’

More good than what?

‘Or you go other paradise,’ the man said. His hand was no longer on Joe’s head. ‘Stay, go, all the same. You make trouble, I send you. Ok?’

Joe felt like laughing. But the voice above him, fragile, was still dangerous. Joe moved his head, minutely, perhaps yes, perhaps no, and heard the man sigh. ‘All the same,’ he heard the man say, but quietly, and then the dark material was pulled gently from his eyes and he saw the back of the man as he moved towards the door, and the door shut behind him with a soft click and then the room was dark again.

a short history of dreams

——

When he woke up again it was morning proper, a part of it already gone. Of his early morning visitor there was no sign. His hand had stopped hurting. He flexed it and the fingers responded as if they had never been cut. He felt better than he had in some time. He showered, and dressed, and went down to the lobby, and nodded hello to my-name-is-Simon who seemed never to leave reception. Just outside the hotel he found a café and sat down to order breakfast. It was a hot humid morning but that didn’t disturb him. He had fried eggs and sausages and fresh bread and coffee and as he ate he thought about the day ahead.

There were leads to follow. There was detecting to be done. There was work. He didn’t think until his food was finished – it was a relief.

When he was done he found himself staring at the remains of his breakfast on the plate: the ruins of an ancient civilization etched in egg yolk and sausage grease. Where should he go first? He felt restless now; eager for movement. He made to leave when a shadow fell over him and he looked up and said, ‘Not you again.’ He noticed the waiter glancing their way then looking away. A voice with a distinct North American accent, continental United States, said, ‘Why are you here?’ and didn’t mean it in any sort of existential questioning. ‘Having breakfast,’ Joe said. ‘It’s the most important meal of the dead.’

‘Of the day,’ the man with grey hair said, sounding disgusted, and added, ‘And it’s a luxury you may not be entitled to for very long.’

‘Even more important to have it while I can, then,’ Joe said. Grey Hair sat down opposite. His two companions were nowhere to be seen. ‘Left your muscle at home today?’ Joe said. Grey Hair smiled, and Joe thought that, really, the man had a pleasant enough face when he made the effort. But the face felt as if it could slip off the smile as easily as it had put it on, and what would be left would not be nearly as pleasant. ‘I thought I told you to stay away.’

‘Refresh my memory.’

‘You wouldn’t like it if I did.’

Joe took out his packet of cigarettes and shook it, sliding a couple half-way out, offering them towards the man. To his surprise, the man took one. Joe took the other for himself, brought out his lighter, and Grey Hair leaned forward to accept the light. For a moment they were caught like that, two heads leaning towards each other, in stillness and secrecy, as if one was about to impart a great knowledge to the other. Then the tip of the man’s cigarette flamed red, he pulled back, and Joe lit his own cigarette and put the lighter away. Something had changed, subtly, between them. ‘You won’t,’ the man said, ‘find what you are looking for.’

‘What am I looking for?’

The man nodded, as if the question merited greater consideration than it perhaps seemed to suggest. He said, ‘What do you know about opium?’

It was not a question Joe was expecting. He said, echoing something half-heard the night before, ‘You can use it to finance wars or heal the sick.’

‘And which one would you choose?’

‘You didn’t come here to talk to me about opium.’

The man said, ignoring him, ‘It can’t be used to heal the sick.’

‘Oh?’

‘It can only relieve their pain.’

‘Better than re-living the pain.’

‘Don’t,’ the man said, ‘be a smartass.’

‘Sorry.’ The man nodded, acknowledging the apology. He signalled to the waiter. ‘Two coffees,’ he said. Joe shook his head. Why did he apologise?

‘Sertürner isolated morphine in eighteen oh five,’ the man said. ‘Named after Morpheus, the god of dreams. Robiquet isolated codeine in eighteen thirty-two. Heroin was first synthesised right here in London, by Wright in eighteen seventy-four. With me so far?’

‘Sure…’

‘But only became popular when Bayer re-synthesised it in eighteen ninety-seven. Heroin from the German heroisch. Do you feel heroic, Joe?’