Djinn City, page 28
Indelbed, of course, watched these activities from the sideline, further irritated by not being able to take part. Things continued to go awry inside him, bringing fever, aches, and sometimes episodes of searing agony that inevitably caused blackouts. His memory was patchy, and sometimes he forgot words. He eyed Givaras suspiciously and tried to avoid him for a time, before relenting out of sheer boredom. It was difficult to give your nemesis the silent treatment when there were only the two of you. For his part the djinn chattered on, having one-sided conversations and continually monitoring Indelbed, poking, prodding, even bleeding him on one occasion.
“You know what your problem is?” Givaras said, on day fourteen of the great sulk. “You’ve never been loved.”
“Yes, yes, you’ve mentioned this before.”
“No, just think about it. Your father blamed you for your mother’s death; he certainly didn’t love you. You had no siblings. The Ambassador and Sikkim, they sold you out. Your Aunty Juny, Rais, they never loved you. Think about it. They must have all known. Imagine them sitting around their dining table, deciding your fate. They let you, a little boy, go away with a stranger. They sold you to Matteras. Even your mother didn’t love you. She was djinn, and let me tell you, we have no familial feelings whatsoever.”
Indelbed had no clear picture of his mother, but he was moved to object. Surely all mothers loved their offspring! And his father? He had cared for him. He had tried, at least, to protect him.
“I can’t say about your father, but djinn aren’t like humans,” Givaras said. “I mean, we are fundamentally different. We aren’t pack animals like you. I suspect we were solitary hunters in an evolutionary sense. It makes a huge difference, you know. Society for us is a burden, a continuous series of transactions. You see, we don’t have families or tribes. Djinn do not have children often, and they do not require such an enormous amount of care. It is rare for parents to raise children.”
“So what, you just throw them back into the ocean?”
“Often they are entered into patron-client relationships,” Givaras said. “Or master-apprentice, if they show aptitude in something. The point is that concepts such as love, loyalty, familial bonds, do not work very strongly with us.”
“So even my mother didn’t love me—that’s your whole point?”
“My point is you’re thinking like a human. But you’re half djinn, so you must be capable of thinking like a djinn. I am trying to help you do that.”
“And how would that help me? You all sound mentally disturbed. No offense.”
“Well, it would stop this prolonged bout of sulking, for starters.”
“It hurts, Master.”
“Pain can be borne, every djinn knows that. And it has not been wasted.”
“Was it worth it? I’m a freak.”
“You already were one, half man,” Givaras said. “You are unloved, unwanted, and no one will ever, ever help you.”
“Thanks.”
“Except for me.”
“Yeah, being the recent recipient of your help, I can safely say that—”
“What I’m showing you is that the world has characterized you as a loser, and you will never be permitted to rise. It is a valuable lesson I learned long ago.”
“We’re both in a cave, left for dead, on the constant verge of being eaten by wyrms,” Indelbed said. “I don’t think you’ve actually learned any lessons at all.”
“I am alive, when the world thinks that I am dead,” Givaras said. “That is enough for me. And I kept you alive, you ingrate.”
“Yeah, thanks for that. So what’s the big life lesson?”
“You see, it’s quite simple. To win, you must cheat.”
“Cheat? That’s your big revelation?”
“Cheat.”
“Like in a game?”
“In everything! Cheating is the secret! Understand that every rule, every law, has been made by someone to keep you in line. You cannot win. The world is designed to keep you in one place, to maintain the status quo. To overturn everything, to get out of your spot, the only answer is to cheat.” Givaras was more animated than normal now. “I have already set you on this path. You have cheated death twice already, for neither the wyrms nor I have killed you.”
“Yay.”
“You have cheated your fate. You were destined to die ignorant and weak, whereas I have made you enlightened and strong.”
“Ahem, I’m actually a blind, vomiting cripple who couldn’t light a candle.” And I’m beginning to wonder whether there ever really was a plan to escape. Maybe you just wanted to experiment on me to pass the time…
“Yes, well, you might recover, you know, no need to be so pessimistic.”
“Sure,” said Indelbed. “You know, Master, what I really like about our chats is how wildly flexible you are with the truth.”
“See? Cheating…” Givaras beamed. “Now, back to our lessons. Matteras isn’t going to off himself, you know.”
Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, about five hundred miles off the California coast, the Sephiroth started to lose power. Tiny iron shavings suspended in the engine lubricant had been eating into the seals, shafts, and bearings, constant friction chewing holes into the parts, allowing fuel and lubricant to spread throughout the two main engines. Normally the magnet under the oil pan would have prevented the larger shavings from moving around, but this had been removed, and curiously, the Ghuls had not noticed. In fact they had not checked a lot of things, a gross and unusual dereliction of duty.
When the engines started slowing down above the Pacific, several other things happened as well. A minuscule tear next to the heavy air intake valve on the right side of the main envelope spread far enough that the valve began to malfunction. The Sephiroth’s outer envelope was essentially an airtight composite skin laid upon a lightweight skeletal frame. Inside this vast space was a complicated array of smaller envelopes and balloons. At the base were reinforced tanks where the helium was kept in a compressed state. When the helium was released into the lift envelope, the Sephiroth would rise, as the air inside of the envelope became considerably lighter than the atmospheric air outside. To lower the Sephiroth, the helium was compressed back into the tanks, and the two heavy air valves on the outside of the envelope were opened, to let normal air into the ballast envelopes, thereby making the inside of the Sephiroth heavier in comparison to the outside. Descent was controlled by the ratio of heavy air to helium.
When one of the heavy air valves began to malfunction, it started leaking in air at an uncontrolled rate. This, coupled with sluggish engines, caused a serious imbalance in the Sephiroth, making it list and lose altitude at the same time. The strain caused the fabric around the valve to open farther, letting in more and more ballast. Increasing the humiliation for Golgoras, the Sephiroth began to spin as it fell, due to one side of the airship now being considerably heavier than the other. He could have stopped all of this with the use of his engines, but as they continued to fail, he could not get enough power to the compressors to inflate the inner helium envelopes, nor could he straighten course as his propellers were now useless.
Being a fair way up, he could still have rectified this problem by physically patching the valve and then rigging a smaller spare engine for limited movement, but the Ghuls were being remarkably inefficient. Golgoras sent two of them to fix the critical leak by climbing the maintenance struts deep inside the envelope. He waited in vain for an hour. The leak did not lessen, and the Ghuls never returned to deck. The third Ghul, in charge of engine maintenance, was sent to bring the spare machine online, but he never returned either, despite repeated calls to the engine room. Golgoras, unable to leave the cockpit, was forced to fight the spin and attempt a controlled descent.
The hull and substructure being designed for water landings, the airship was effectively a sea-worthy vessel. While there was some damage to the hull during the crash, neither Golgoras or Beltrex was hurt, except for the former’s pride. By the time Golgoras had steadied the ship, ensured it was holding watertight, and started fully deflating the envelope, the three errant Ghuls had decamped with the lifeboat. He couldn’t even hold them for breach of contract, let alone mutiny and obvious sabotage, for they had left him a note citing the primary rule of maritime landings, the gist of which was “every djinn for himself.” Thus, bruised and humiliated, he and Beltrex limped into an abandoned part of the California coast several days later, where Golgoras was forced to physically pull the Sephiroth ashore over rough sand and rock, splintering the beautiful wooden hull, a final fuck you from the saboteurs, which was enough to make the djinn roar and shake with apoplectic rage.
To make things worse for the pilot, once safely onshore, Beltrex promptly abandoned him, saying, “Thanks for the ride. Good luck with your ship. Fortune is clearly against you—kindly inform everyone that I have seen the error of my ways and will not be opposing any future motions brought forth by Matteras.”
In the darkness he could hardly see her. She had not aged. Oh, there were wrinkles on her face, around her eyes and the corners of her mouth, smile lines, although he could hardly remember her smiling much over the past twenty years. Perhaps they were sarcasm lines, etched into her skin by the acid of her words. Her hair was immaculately dyed—she had grayed early, and his father had teased her mercilessly about it, one of the few instances, he suspected, that the hapless Ambassador had scored a point.
He missed his father with a sharp pang, moments of yearning so heavy, it seemed impossible that the seconds would pass, would put the corpse back into the dull safety of the past. Hapless Ambassador: the man had been mocked in his inner circle, where everyone assumed that Juny had run his life. It was not that he had been incompetent or particularly comical. Left alone, he would likely have succeeded on his own, for he too had had an ironic wit, a distinguished manner, and a degree of drive. It was just that in every category, for every merit, his wife surpassed him by a measurable quantity.
They had been natural allies, Rais and his dad, forged from a very young age, when it quickly became apparent to both father and toddler that to preserve a measure of independence, to enjoy some illicit pleasures, they would have to join forces. When Juny was going through her dental hygiene phase, his father would smuggle him big triangles of Toblerone chocolate, purchased in secret from airports and smuggled back in his briefcase with the same diligence he normally reserved for bringing back duty-free liquor. They would eat it in the guest room and then gargle with mouthwash to prevent detection.
When she had ruthlessly fixed him to be an engineer at age twelve, and enforced this dictum by buying him only Lego Technic toys meant for sixteen-year-olds, the Ambassador had quietly bought him a guitar and hidden it in the garage. On Wednesday nights when she used to play bridge with other Foreign Service wives, they used to sneak out there with plastic chairs and his cigars, and Rais would practice chords.
The Ambassador hadn’t been a bad man, hadn’t even been greedy or vainglorious. His ambitions had been reasonable, given his starting position, and he had more or less achieved his wins fairly. One mistake, so many years ago, had cost him dearly: his conscience, his luck, most probably the love and respect of his wife. But it had never cost him his son.
They had not been demonstrative. The natural awkwardness between father and son had risen up between them too, some imperceptible curtain of reserve, during the teenage years and beyond, until Rais had returned from college, aimless, to live at home, and they had once again fallen into gentler routines. There were no special memories; they had not climbed a mountain together or gone fishing. It was more an accumulation: five thousand cups of tea drunk together, the wordless division of the morning newspaper, heated political debates over minutiae, exchanged glances whenever Juny did something particularly funny.
Then there were the annual shoe-shopping expeditions during summer holidays, because the Ambassador insisted every man should have a pair of polished oxford brogues, and since his son could not be trusted to not stray instead into loafers or Nikes or whatever atrocity was being peddled as footwear these days, it behooved him to ensure this one thing. It had been a point of pride for him to be well shod. He had also taken Rais every two years to his tailor, so that whatever else, he would always have at least one good suit. He had taught him to buy cuff links and bow ties, even though Rais had never worn either.
This haze of memories was powerful by dint of their very vagueness, for Rais couldn’t take one down and relive it with any great depth. He couldn’t remember what words were said, or any particular action. They were ephemeral; they disintegrated into nothing upon examination, only to re-form in the back of his mind as a mental clutter of half-snatched conversation, a grunted exchange, some unfunny joke. He stared at the jasmine tea in his mug, thrust there by Butloo not five minutes ago, and wondered if it was the aroma triggering olfactory memories, these half dreams of nothing. His eyes were full of tears, so he wiped them, drank his tea, and waited, as his mother finished her prayers in the dark part of the room.
“You wonder that I don’t grieve,” she said after several minutes, still sitting in the shadows. She had noticed his tears, as she did every little thing. Only the lamp next to Rais cast a cone of light. Juny hated the overhead bulbs; she rarely turned them on.
“I miss him,” Rais said.
“I miss him too, truthfully,” Juny said. “How can you not miss someone you’ve spent thirty-five years with? But I never knew what good crying ever did anyone.”
He stared at her. She seemed more vital somehow, as if some psychic burkha had been lifted from her form. “No, Mother, crying never helped anyone.” What else could he say? There was only one right answer with Juny.
“All my life, I worked in proxy,” Juny said. “Around him, through him. It feels strange to come out of that.”
“It must be refreshing, to stop having to maintain that fiction.”
“He wasn’t an empty fiction. He was a shield, a buffer, a filter. He had a thick skin. Insults, slights… they just rolled off him, he was impossible to puncture. I would be howling in rage, but he’d just keep rolling on, amused by the uncouth peasants. Khan Rahmans breathe rarified air, because their noses are tilted so high up—isn’t that the old joke? He sheltered you too, you know, cocooned you in money and privilege,” Juny said. “And I followed his lead in that. It was not always one-sided between us.”
“I know that.”
“You were always like him. When you were little, you used to sit like him, pretend to read the paper like him. Your mannerisms, your words, he was so proud of those little things,” Juny said. “You have to be stronger now, Rais. You have to be more like me.”
“I feel hollow. And skinless.”
“That’s the feeling of childhood falling away.”
Later on, Barabas came to offer his condolences.
“Listen, we’re seriously outgunned here,” Rais told him. “If you guys want to help, how about pumping in some cash and muscle?”
Barabas balked. “Ahem, I suppose I could return some of the loans…”
“What loans?” Rais asked.
“Your mother…”
“What about her?”
“You don’t know?”
“Obviously not.”
“She’s the Black Banker. We all owe her money.”
“What?”
“Look, I don’t know if you realize it, but it’s quite expensive getting around town these days. And things like trains and buses don’t accept dignatas.”
“Of course I realize it, you fuckers don’t pay me a damn cent.”
“Well, we had a network in place, but after Kaikobad got in the coma, and Dargoman switched sides, all the credit started to dry up. It got pretty embarrassing.” Barabas shuddered. “I mean, I’ve blasted quite a few Humes in my time, don’t get me wrong, we all have, but you can’t go around doing that for rickshaw rides and restaurant bills, eh?”
“I suppose that would be awkward,” Rais said. “Plus you’d run out of restaurants pretty soon if you killed the owner every time you had to pay a bill.”
“Precisely. And then there’s Seclusion, you know.” Barabas tapped his head. “Long story short, turns out many of Kaikobad’s contacts were approaching her to find out what to do, and she just sort of… took over. She set up a bank, started lending us money. Microcredit, apparently, because we don’t have collateral. Community policing. If anyone slips up, well, everyone pays.”
“She made a Grameen Bank for djinns.” Rais smiled. “Didn’t breathe a word of it to me…”
“It’s all small amounts, but it adds up, I tell you. She’s sitting on a huge pile of dignatas right now, believe me,” Barabas said bitterly.
“I can imagine. Where’s Golgoras? He was supposed to do a deal for me. Plus I was hoping to borrow a Ghul or two, set up some protection for my mother.”
“You didn’t hear?”
“Um, I’ve been busy.”
“He and Beltrex crashed over the Pacific. Sabotage.”
“Damn. Where’s Golgoras now?”
“Just got back. He’s fixing the Sephiroth in the hangar. Pretty pissed off. Serves him right. I offered to help if he’d make me first mate, but he told me to eff off.”
