What a strange feeling, waking up to that awareness. All my life I have battled the alarm clock, pummelling the snooze button over and over with mounting self-loathing until the shame is finally strong enough to lever me upright. It was only on the brightest of mornings, those rare days of verve and purpose and clear reasons to live that I ever sprang awake easily. How strange, then, that I do today.
Julie whimpers as I extract myself from her goosebumped arms and slip out of bed. She gathers my half of the blankets around her and curls up against the wall. She will sleep for hours more, dreaming endless landscapes and novas of colour both gorgeous and frightening. If I stayed she would wake up and describe them to me. All the mad plot twists and surrealist imagery, so vivid to her while so meaningless to me. There was a time when I treasured listening to her, when I found the commotion in her soul bitter-sweet and lovely, but I can no longer bear it. I lean over to kiss her goodbye, but my lips stiffen and I cringe away from her. I can’t. I can’t. I’ll collapse. I pull back and leave without touching her.
Two years ago today my father was crushed under the wall he was building, and I became an orphan. I have missed him for seven hundred and thirty days, my mother for even longer, but tomorrow I will not miss anyone. I think about this as I descend the winding stairs of my foster home, this wretched house of discards, and emerge into the city. Dad, Mom, Grandma, my friends . . . tomorrow I won’t miss anyone.
It’s early and the sun is barely over the mountains, but the city is already wide awake. The streets are crawling with labourers, repair crews, moms pushing knobby-tyred strollers and foster-moms herding lines of kids like cattle. Somewhere in the distance someone is playing a clarinet; its quavery notes drift through the morning air like birdsong, and I try to shut it out. I don’t want to hear music, I don’t want the sunrise to be pink. The world is a liar. Its ugliness is overwhelming; the scraps of beauty make it worse.
I make my way to the Island Street administrative building and tell the receptionist I’m here for my seven o’clock with General Grigio. She walks me back to his office and shuts the door behind me. The general doesn’t look up from the paperwork on his desk. He raises one finger at me. I stand and wait, letting my eyes roam the contents of his walls. A picture of Julie. A picture of Julie’s mother. A faded picture of himself and a younger Colonel Rosso in proper US Army uniforms, smoking cigarettes in front of a flooded New York skyline. Next to this, another shot of the two men smoking cigarettes, this time overlooking a crumbled London. Then bombed-out Paris. Then smouldering Rome.
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.
