The general finally sets down his paperwork. He takes off his glasses and looks me over. ‘Mr Kelvin,’ he says.
‘Sir.’
‘Your very first salvage as team manager.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Do you feel ready?’
My tongue stalls for an instant as images of horses and cellists and red lips on a wine glass flicker through my mind, trying to knock me off course. I burn them like old film. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. Here is your exit pass. See Colonel Rosso at the community centre for your team assignments.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ I take the paperwork and turn to leave. But I pause on the doorway threshold. ‘Sir?’ My voice cracks a little even though I swore I wouldn’t let it.
‘Yes, Perry?’
‘Permission to speak freely, sir?’
‘Go ahead.’
I moisten my dry lips. ‘Is there a reason for all this?’
‘Pardon me?’
‘Is there a reason for us to keep doing all these things? The salvages and . . . everything?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t understand your question, Perry. The supplies we salvage are keeping us alive.’
‘Are we trying to stay alive because we think the world will get better someday? Is that what we’re working towards?’
His expression is flat. ‘Perhaps.’
My voice becomes shaky and very undignified, but I can no longer control it. ‘What about right now? Is there anything right now that you love enough to keep living for?’
‘Perry—’
‘Will you tell me what it is, sir? Please?’
His eyes are marbles. A noise like the beginning of a word forms in his throat, then it stops. His mouth tightens. ‘This conversation is inappropriate.’ He lays his hands flat on his desk. ‘You should be on your way now. You have work to do.’
I swallow hard. ‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.’
‘See Colonel Rosso at the community centre for your team assignments.’
‘Yes, sir.’
I step through the door and shut it behind me.
In Colonel Rosso’s office I conduct myself with utmost professionalism. I request my team assignments and he gives them to me, handing over the envelope with warmth and pride in his squinty, failing eyes. He wishes me luck and I thank him; he invites me to dinner and I politely decline. My voice does not crack. I lose no composure.
Marching back through the community centre lobby I glance towards the gym and see Nora staring at me through the tall windows. She’s wearing snug black shorts and a white tank top, as are all the pre-teens on the volleyball court behind her. Nora’s ‘team’, her sad attempt to distract a few kids from reality for two hours a week. I walk past her without so much as a nod, and as I start to push the front doors open I hear her sneakers slapping the tile floor behind me.
‘Perry!’
I stop and let the doors swing shut. I turn around and face her. ‘Hey.’
She stands in front of me with her arms crossed, her eyes stony. ‘So today’s the big day, huh?’
‘I guess so.’
‘What area are you hitting? You got it all planned out?’
‘The old Pfizer building on Eighth Ave.’
She nods rapidly. ‘Good, that sounds like a good plan, Perry. And you’ll be all done and home by six, right? ’Cause remember we’re taking you to the Orchard tonight. We’re not letting you spend today moping alone like you did last year.’
I watch the kids in the gym, bumping-setting-spiking, laughing and cursing. ‘I don’t know if I’ll make it. This salvage might go a little later than usual.’
She keeps nodding. ‘Oh. Oh, okay. Because that building is crooked and full of cracks and dead ends and you have to be extra careful, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Yeah.’ She nods towards the envelope in my hand. ‘You checked that yet?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Well, you should probably check it, Perry.’ Her foot taps the floor; her body vibrates with restrained anger. ‘You need to make sure you know everyone’s profiles, strengths and weaknesses and all that. Mine, for instance, because I’m on there.’
My face goes blank. ‘What?’
‘Sure, I’m going, Rosso put me on yesterday. Do you know my strengths and weaknesses? Is there anything on your agenda you think might be too hard for me? ’Cause I’d hate to jeopardise your very first salvage as team manager.’
I rip the top off the envelope and start scanning the names.
‘Julie signed up, too, did she mention that?’
My eyes flash up from the page.
‘That’s right, f**ker, will that be a problem for you?’ Her voice is strained to breaking. There are tears in her eyes. ‘Is that a conflict at all?’
I shove open the front doors and burst out into the cold morning air. Birds overhead. Those blank-eyed pigeons, those shrieking gulls, all the flies and beetles that eat their shit – the gift of flight dumped on Earth’s most worthless creatures. What if it were mine instead? That perfect, weightless freedom. No fences, no walls, no borders; I would fly everywhere, over oceans and continents, mountains and jungles and endless open plains, and somewhere in the world, somewhere in all that distant untouched beauty, I would find a reason.
I am floating in Perry’s darkness. I am deep in the earth. Somewhere far above me are roots and worms and an inverted graveyard where the coffins are the markers and the headstones are what’s buried, piercing down into the airy blue emptiness, hiding all the names and pretty epitaphs and leaving me with the rot.