AND THE GHOST DANCES IN THE FLAMES
An extract from the novel: Memories of the Awakened Machine
[2]
“There was a border guard. From up where the old railway line crosses into Shenzhen. Into the Mainland. He stopped by the village on his way down to The Island. I can’t forget him, as he had a scar running from the corner of one eye all the way down his neck. It ended at his shoulder. It was like someone had gouged out a chunk of flesh from beneath his collarbone. And his ear, well, you know how the conscripted get those piercings? He said it had become infected, and they had to take off the whole thing. There was just a hole, all white and scarred, and it looked like a flower, but faded. Kind of rotten.” She looked down at the tips of her boots as she spoke, watching them rise and fall as the two continued to walk. “Anyway, when he took me out back, to the place the girls sometimes use when entertaining a customer, and it was morning when he said it, after we–”
“Just get to it, my dear. It will be morning by the time you finish your tale.”
Belle once more felt her cheeks tighten as her eyes widened. It was in response to Reuben’s outburst. Something new in his voice–an unspoken exclamation hiding in plain sight between each word. Was he jealous? She pushed the intrusive thought away. She continued.
“And the man, he said one of the other guards had seen tracks–not like anything he had come across before. And more. Remains. Maybe it had been a pig. But something had torn it apart, something big. And there wasn’t much left. He said it was probably a tiger. But that can’t be right? Not here?”
“Tigers? Ha, that’s a good one! No such thing sighted here in a hundred years.”
Reuben slapped his thigh with his left hand. The sound was hollow and loud in the night air, like waves smacking a sea wall. Despite herself–and in defiance of her fears–Belle allowed herself a smirk at the man’s bravado.
“So you don’t think there’s anything out there?”
He rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb. She felt the roughness of it; but there was comfort there, too.
“My dear, Belle, I’ve walked the Territories for more years than I care to share, and no sight nor sound nor trace of any tiger have I seen. Sure, there are snakes and boars, monkeys, and wandering packs of dogs gone feral, but nothing that could take down that cow. Maybe he fell into one of them goddam potholes. Poor bastard!” A few more steps of silence. “There’s nothing out there.”
Belle looked out toward the sea. Islands sat scattered throughout the bay; black mounds peering out from pools, their profiles lapped by indigo ink. She had observed the view so many times; yet that was the problem, wasn’t it? Beauty could become something taken for granted. Her gaze slipped back to the road, and the metronomic fall of her boots on the crumbling tarmac. Her legs were slim but for the faintest layer of excess flesh left over from her teens–that tumultuous period being only a year removed from her present. She took those legs for granted. The idea that she only had to step in front of a man and cross her smooth limbs at the ankle, and smile a big smile while handing out a few compliments–she took that for granted, too. But she knew it wouldn’t always be that way; all things would eventually fade. Or at least, change. Belle looked down at her hand–smooth and dark skin, firm and elastic–encircled by his; and that larger hand was tanned by the sun rather than fate of birth, and the skin was loose and wrinkled and coarse.
“How much farther?”
“Not far.”
More silence between footsteps–the sloshing of waves and self-conscious gossiping of crickets was not enough to push it away. Then music.
It was a hum: like the buzzing from inside a beehive, if the swarm could work in harmony to arrange each set of wings in tune. Reuben's dry lips were pursed but for a thin slit in the centre–a pencil-line opening that focused, yet distorted, the sound. And within that sound was melody. Belle's fear of the darkness became less. Distant. Only a memory of fear.
“What song is that?”
The music faded from his lips as he opened his mouth to speak, but its damaged beauty still hung in the air. The man’s eyes were shining as he looked down at her.
“It’s called Visions of Johanna. It’s a Bob Dylan song. You must have heard of him, right?”
She shook her head. They passed a rectangular concrete shell that had once been a public toilet. Cracked floor tiles were visible inside, though the night left their colour a mystery.
“Well, I guess you are young. Time was, before the bombs and whatnot, you could pluck any song out of the air and listen to it whenever you wanted. You know cell phones?”
A nod. Her mother had told her about them. She had even carried one around with her, though the battery was dead, and the air had been stripped of signal.
He continued. “Yeah. A marvel, really. All the knowledge of the world, in words and voices, at a man’s fingertips. Or a woman’s. Restricted now. At least in this neck of the woods. Anyway, the man in question, Mr Bob Dylan–God rest his soul–he was a singer, and a songwriter. A poet, too, I guess. Voice of a generation. When you sing someone else’s words, echo their songs, you keep them alive for a while longer. There’s a connection created, you see. Perhaps that’s my purpose.” An autumn leaf rustle from deep within his throat laid bare a relic of a laugh. “To keep the dead alive. For as long as I’m here, at least. All things pass, in a time. Ain’t that right?”
Belle parted her lips to agree, but no words came. Reuben saw. He smiled. The broken down toilet was behind them now; more empty road ahead. The hum vibrated from Reuben’s lips again, only this time his mouth opened fully and words, formed of memory and the smoke of ages, waltzed free. For the following few minutes, Belle was swept along the road purely by his voice; and the sea to one side and the trees and bushes on the other, they all disappeared, and it was just her, and him, and the track stretching ahead of them; and the voice of the past.
The song’s last words slipped away, with Reuben’s scratchy lisp wrapping each with subtle finality. Even the insects seemed to have been listening as they filled the air with a chirruping much louder than before; it was as if the man with the guitar strapped to his back had roused the mindless drones of the night into a soulful chorus.
“What was it about?”
“Lost love,” he said. “And the difficulty of moving on.”
She pushed the imitation red locks away from her eyes and readjusted her wig. It fit slightly loose and kept slipping to one side.
“The words sounded like they came from you. That you wrote them.”
“No, my dear, I cannot claim those as my own. All Mr Dylan’s work. Interesting thing is, he never clearly shared the meaning behind that particular tune. On the surface, you’ve got two women. There’s Louise–she’s present and available, if you know what I mean, and there’s some charm there. Sure. But on the flip side, there’s this other girl. Johanna. And she’s a vision, right? An idea. A dream of perfect love. Something ultimately untouchable. But in all actuality, I believe–”
“That there’s more.”
Her unintended completion of the man’s sentence surprised even Belle herself. In turn, Reuben chuckled. The sound was firewood crackling in a forest clearing.
“Exactly! You see, I’ve got this crazy theory that this Johanna is a woman he met way back down the road. So far back, she’s now little more than a dream. Or an afterimage, yeah, like the ones you see when you close your eyes after staring at the sun for too long. You understand?”
Belle did.
“Anyway,” he continued. “I reckon there are some in this world who possess such great passion within their souls that they force a connection with those they meet along the way. And that connection influences the thoughts and minds of us regular Joes and Jills, so much so that ill-fated son of a bitch who gets hooked ain’t able to shake that tune, you know? And when that happens, sure, that poor unfortunate may later on find a Louise. Shit, they may even call it love. Or something crazy, like fate. But somewhere deep in their brain, that song'll still linger, and they’ll never be able to shut down the rhythm. Erase that image of their Johanna. That connection. And then you can guess the rest, am I right? I mean, only the great sleep will cut that cord.”
“That sounds like a curse,” she said.
“Past, present. Future. A line through all. Echoes through time.” Reuben paused. She did the same. Two figures standing on an empty road. Hand in hand. “Sorry, young Belle. That’s a little heavy.”
“Then why do you sing those words? I mean, if they’re such a weight?”
He began walking again. She fell into echoing footfalls alongside him.
“My job is simply to honour them as best I can.” He blew a faint whistle through the gap between his two front teeth. “And also, because even the words of others can take on unintended meaning when looked at, or felt, through the prism of our own lives. Sometimes they sound as if they were born in your own heart. Make you remember your past. For good or ill.”
“Who was she?”
“Ha, you’re a sharp one despite your tender years.” He turned his head and looked out at the dark sea. “You know, before I came to Hong Kong, I wasn’t just a music man. I was a teacher. Oh, I travelled the world, taught in various places, countries; and then I came to what was at the time known simply as China–not the fractured rabble of territories that make up the land now, no, the entire nation as it was. It was a city called Qingdao. I don’t know how that place is doing today, but the first and worst of the bombings were in Korea, you know, just across the sea from that port town, so I hold little hope it resembles anything of the place I knew. Anyway, I met a girl there, a native of the city–worked with her, in fact–and it was quite a whirlwind, I tell ya. That girl was a force of nature in herself; hot passion one minute, the next, withering ice. But it was love, for what it was worth, and any time you feel that selective emotion grabbing you by the balls, you’re a slave to it.” He met her eyes with his. “Maybe you already felt it. Though maybe not yet. Anyway, that song, though composed by another man, took on its own meaning for me. It reminds me of her. Though I no longer recall the sound of her voice.”
“And some nights you buy the company of a girl like me just to dull the memory?”
His face took on a pained grimace. Belle regretted her words.
“Sorry, I–”
He gripped her hand tighter.
“No, that’s not it. Not at all. The truth is, I’m just a man like any other–and sometimes I desire some company. The kind of company only a woman can provide, if you understand. Well, of course you do.” He stopped walking, and she had no choice but to stop as well. “Plus, no doubt the girl I knew all those years ago is long since passed. The world can be cruel.”
Something in Reuben’s words hit Belle hard. A punch to the gut that thrust forth a memory of her own, best forgotten; though that was an impossibility. She pivoted on her boot heel and stood directly in front of Reuben. Her hand was still in his. The man’s eyes were dewy. A razor-thin film of moisture covered the curiously achromatic circles of his irises. New lines had drawn themselves from the corners of his lips and above the thirsty rise of his cheekbones. She raised on her toes and left a soft kiss on his mouth. As she lowered back to the ground, those lines disappeared, and the man appeared to have grown an inch in height. He nodded, then laughed.
“You taste like sweet sesame,” he said.
“You’re not the first to say that.” She hoped he could see the glint she knew shone in her eyes. Instead, there was a look of disappointment. That jealousy again? “Sorry, I just meant that some–”
“No, no, don’t humour an old man. You’ve no doubt entertained many a damn sight younger and easier on the eyes than me. But I tell you, my dear, there’s more to life than–”
The bushes to their left exploded. Reuben’s words tore apart even as they hung in the air. Two low-growing palms hacked outwards, leaving a dark space in between–a hole into another world. The bug chorus bolted into oblivion. Belle shrieked.
The thing was all motion. In the dark, and in the noise and panic, it appeared formless, as if the underworld had spat out some indigestible chunk of bone and gristle that any attempt to swallow would result in choking death. Shapeless, that was, but for two dwarfish black eyes setting fire to the night with their unfiltered rage. Teeth, or tusks, ragged and curved. It hurtled toward them. The screech emerging from deep inside the being sounded strangely human. If anything, that made it worse.
Belle turned to run–but Reuben’s hand still gripped hers, and she dangled from his arm like a kite caught in a gale. Her attempt to flee caused the flimsy material of her skirt to fan out and billow upwards, and for a moment she was a ballerina doll on plastic legs. Her imitation red hair reflected and sparked in the beast’s eyes.
“Hold still, you stupid girl!” Reuben hissed the command, yet that stole no power from his words.
Against her own will, she obeyed. She froze there, one hand in his, her other clutched across her chest as if fearing her shirt might be ripped away. She was on one leg. The other hovered above the ground–the dawning of a run struck back into twilight. An intention unfulfilled.
The thing’s breath was hot coals. Her hanging leg dangled above it, and she could feel the heat on her exposed thigh. She knew the tusks could rip through her flesh as if it were paper. For reasons unknown, she closed her eyes, and all that remained was the sound of its feet scrambling on the eroded tarmac, and the ravening gasps entwined within each burning breath. Thick bristles of shaved steel brushed past her standing leg. She opened her eyes.
The animal disappeared into the twisted tangle of roots and leaves capping the rocks piled above the shore.
“Shame I didn’t have a weapon on me. An animal like that would be a fine addition to tonight’s feast. A big boy. A big boy indeed.”
Reuben’s voice had taken on a lyrical air, even amidst the chaos. Belle half-expected him to break into song again. Both her feet were now back on the ground.
“I’ve never seen a pig that large. How can you sleep outdoors like this? It’s not safe.”
They were already walking again. The man was chuckling to himself.
“And you think you are safer around people? For all its bluster and rage, that pig is a much more noble and predictable beast than most men and women I know. It’s kinda funny, in a way.”
And as much as she hated to admit it, Belle knew the man spoke the truth. Knew only too well. She tried to shunt her thoughts back to the present.
“So, were you a musician before you were a teacher?”
“I’ve been a musician since I could first open my mouth to sing. Since I gained the dexterity to pick up a stick in my fist and bat it against the floor. It’s life, is what it is. The teaching, well, that was just a means to an end–a method of seeing the world and being a part of it, that’s all. But then I realised that the music was more a part of me than the world could ever be, and I made a promise to follow it wherever it led me. Here eventually, as it turns out.”
“And that’s why you left her?”
“Left who?” He seemed genuinely surprised by Belle’s question.
“The girl in the song. I mean, not the one your singer wrote about, but rather the one you left behind.”
As the final word, behind, left her tongue and swayed in the air as if suspended on a single bare thread, Belle thought she heard a sound besides the conversation and their footfalls and the sound of the sea and the insects. Like footsteps, but careful ones rather than the frenzied pounding hooves of the boar. She strained her ears to listen during the pause in conversation–between her words and his. Nothing. It was gone. Or had never been there to begin with.
“I guess so,” he said. “But at the time I felt there was little choice. Who’s to say what a man should do, and when he should do it? And who’s wise enough to know if it was the right choice? All I do know, all I’ve learned, is that a man is a fool if he spends his entire existence second-guessing himself. What’s done is done. The song’s already been sung.”
Belle's mind readied a reply, but she never spoke it. She was too busy listening to the bushes and the darkness. Listening for anything that might be out there. The moment for her unspoken question passed.
Were you able to love again?
Still, when the man next spoke, the young woman half-expected him to answer her unvoiced question. Reuben's talk of musical threads and lingering echoes had tilted Belle's reality on an unfamiliar axis. Instead, the singer followed up with a simple statement of fact.
“And there it is, Miss Belle.”
Reality flooded back into the night when she saw where Reuben pointed. Was it the camp? All she noted was a widening of the strip of land between the road and the sea; it expanded into a frayed rectangle of paved ground. The concrete was dirty and crumbling, like the road, and where there were cracks, weeds grew. In the far corner of the space, an entire tree had pushed through the rubble, stretching upward with its trunk twisted as if it were at pains to escape the underworld below. And in the centre of the area, as lonely as any of the islands far out in the bay, was a single motor vehicle. It had once been a van–and in some form still was–yet it sat on wheels long since stripped of tires. It was a dented and rusted thing lacking any true colour, and jagged lacerations streaked along the metal of its shell, grinning like open wounds on a discarded cadaver. How long it had been there, it was impossible to tell.
Reuben saw the confusion in Belle’s eyes. “I may have jumped the gun a little. Look past the car park and beyond the remains of the fence there. That’s the old camp. More a barbecue area, actually–or at least it was. Come with me.”
She followed, a step and a half behind him, still attached to his arm. Reuben’s guitar case bounced on his back noiselessly as he covered the ground with eager, looping strides. Then they were there, with the entrance to the grassy area marked as it was by the corroded skeleton of a gate attached to a fence by a single bent hinge.
“And here’s where we will spend the night,” he said, his back still to her. “But first, let’s eat.”
