I lift my key card to the door, unlock it.
Manners, Malachi. Hamri had a way of saying it so sweetly.
I turn to face the prisoners. I nod like a manservant, smile my unpractised smile for the second time since I told the whole truth.
Thank you.
* * *
I drink water from the bathroom tap, point my penis gently at the porcelain. I have finally found some friends.
The thought jolts my body. Malachi, are you mad?
I flick my penis roughly back inside my zip. I must be shell-shocked, my limbic brain veering between love and desperation. As moody as a bus driver, my mother used to say. I pull my belt too tight. The prisoners will be back in their old jails in six months. In six months I will have a tongue, dress up in the lie that I never lost it. I will wear it like a cool, classic shirt and tie, buy a matric certificate, get a briefcase like Hamri’s, but with new, smooth straps. I will change my name in case my grandfather from Kattra hears I am still living.
I rinse my face. Smother myself briefly with my hand towel. No. I will carry my history like children buried in cement.
Right now, I’d rather die.
This is a sentiment I go to lunch with.
* * *
I sit on the bench with Shikorina’s children pulling on my ears. This is how audacious my imagination has become. Janeé is slapping down beige soup with shattered bits floating in it. They slip like tiny fish down my throat. I try to catch and chew, but they are too slimy.
‘Leek soup,’ Janeé explains.
Ah, leeks. Those long pale fingers with hairy ends.
Tamba picks up his spoon, sighs. ‘We’re lucky to get vegetables this far out.’
I have never knowingly eaten a leek. I have seen them in the mega market, trying to climb off the shelf and scuttle away on legs that look a lot like nasal hairs. As I scoop the swimming pieces into my mouth, Janeé slams down another plate. The first half of lunch is innocent. But this? A chicken’s breast with a sprig of parsley tucked like a flower behind a dead woman’s ear. The breast is dusted with light brown spice, but is a victim of murder nonetheless.
Olivia notices my consternation. ‘Good protein,’ she warns me.
There is something of the murderess in Olivia under pressure. I can’t suppress a sigh. Smothering child soldiers. Poisoning prime ministers’ wives. Torturing chickens for eating pleasure. These are some of the things broken humans get up to.
Stop joking, Malachi. It’s really not funny. I am like Shakespeare’s Earl of Gloucester, living in a ditch with his eyes plucked out, still making dark jokes. Where will it get me?
I swallow. Some damned relief.
I cut into my breast. Oh, no. I swing my eyes from my plate, fix them on some static lifting Olivia’s fringe.
Olivia turns to check the wall behind her head. She hits her fringe like there might be a beetle crawling in it. ‘What is it?’ she demands.
Tamba saves me from the awkward situation. ‘Urgh. I can’t eat this. It’s still pink.’ He pushes his plate away.
I can’t help smiling. Yes! My comrade.
My approval lends grist to Tamba’s whining. ‘I need a microwave.’
Janeé frowns, insulted. ‘You’re not allowed in that wing.’ ‘You take it, then.’
Meirong drops her spoon so her leek soup spatters. ‘Tamba, there are more important things to worry about right now.’ She stands up. ‘Malachi. Come with me.’ She lifts the solo sailor’s lunch from the trolley.
I stand up, sidle away from my plate. Meirong plants the tray in my hands. ‘Can you do this without spilling?’
I stare down at it. The solo sailor has survived a storm at sea to eat leek soup. I reach for a clean plate, cover her chicken.
‘Wait,’ Janeé says. She pours red raspberry juice into a polystyrene cup and fixes on a lid.
* * *
I balance the solo sailor’s lunch, follow Meirong through the noisy door to the centre of the rig. I pant up the stairs after her. Eight days without working out, and now I must carry leeks to a stow-away up fifty flights of stairs. It’s time to start running on the spot. Meirong’s bum is beautiful, I know this from the fleshy things that normal men appreciate. Two papayas rubbing together, joined by a bridge of skin. Two halves of the brain, it might as well be, joined by the corpus callosum.
Meirong pulls ahead. ‘Malachi, don’t tell me you’re not fit.’
I give her a disdainful look, skip up the next flight of stairs. Even with her hands free, I breathe against her back, force her to go faster as we climb the steel jungle gym towards the sun. At the door to the deck, I stand casually, as if the sweat is not making dark patches on my purple shirt. Meirong shines delicately, refuses to pant in front of me. She lifts a pink lanyard from her neck. Unlocks the aperture to the sky.
* * *
The sun pours through my crown, shines into my eyes like I am its long-lost son. The sea air is lightly salted, cool. Beautiful. It floods my blood vessels, makes them rich, rich, rich as I follow Meirong along the deck. I breathe in, almost dizzy. But as I walk past the helicraft landing pad, the sun starts to beat my head with a stick. I walk after Meirong’s papayas swinging one-two, one-two towards a storeroom with three old-fashioned padlocks and a manual key slot.
Meirong unhooks a bunch of metal keys from her waist. ‘Lock the door behind you when you go in. Lock every one of these padlocks on the way out.’ She points at the old orange lifeboat held by a steel A-frame. ‘Hang these keys on the first engine. Do you see it?’
I nod at Meirong, set the tray down at my feet.
She points back at the door to the jungle gym. ‘I’ve
