After that, whenever I was not with Auntie Omar, or MaMa, I went to Grampa Horace. He was mostly in bed. We were on a warship. It was going very fast. Everyone got very heavy. Grampa Horace had to stay in the waterbed, so he would not squash completely. Uncle Kevin said that we would jump soon. I call him Uncle Kevin, because he was very close to Grampa Horace. But he was not one of Grandpa’s offspring. He was Grampa Horace’s pilot. A pilot is like an Engineer, but an Engineer who can talk. Grampa Horace and Uncle Kevin talked a lot. So Uncle Kevin was like a Master too. So that was like Auntie Omar, or me. Somebody who has a MaMa who is an Engineer, and a MaPa who is a Master, and can talk to anyone. So I called him Uncle. He called Auntie Omar a Mediator.
I did not know what jump was. It was something they had to make the ship do, to send this message about the wolves. Uncle Kevin was afraid Grampa Horace would die. Doctor Cynthia was afraid too. I told Auntie Omar that it was my Duty to stay with Grampa Horace if he was going to die. Auntie Omar was very proud.
Grampa was very warm. The bed was very soft. I fell asleep. And then! Oh, the horror! I wished that I would die! Everything went—silent! I could not hear MaMa! I could not hear MaPa! I could not hear Uncle Kevin, or Auntie Omar, or Doctor Cynthia, or anyone! I tried to hold Grampa Horace, but my arms could not hear my brain! I could not hear Grampa Horace! I was sure Grampa Horace had died!
And then, just a little, I could hear Uncle Kevin. He was making noises. They were not words, just noises. I crawled. I crawled and crawled. I thought I would die. I wished I would die. I crawled onto his chest. I grabbed his clothes and rocked and rocked. “Uncle Kevin!” I screamed and screamed. But he did not hear. And then I remembered that Uncle Kevin could not hear screams. I had to think in Anglic. I tried and tried. I had not spoken Anglic before. I had listened and listened, but I had not spoken. I tried again. And then the words came out. “Ali Baba is sick,” I said. “His Excellency is sick. So is, am I. Sick in the head, scrambled brains, wobbly eyes. Kevin?” It was very hard. But I made sure to say “His Excellency.” Uncle Kevin was just a pilot. Grampa Horace was a Great Master.
Uncle Kevin said it would be all right, but it was not. Everyone was sick. Everyone had died a little, inside. The ship was sick. Doctor Cynthia was sick. But she crawled to Grampa Horace’s side. She did things. She was his Doctor. He just lay there, on his back. But then I could hear him again. I thought: he is a very old Grampa. He should have died. It is too soon. I don’t know anything. What will I do, if my Grampa dies? What will I do without Doctor Cynthia beside his bed?
I went back to him. He did not speak. I just listened. I did my best, but I cried and cried. Uncle Kevin could not hear. Doctor Cynthia could not hear. But I thought MaMa could hear. And MaPa, and Auntie Omar, and Sir Eudoxus. I wanted them all to know: I am doing my Duty. I will do my Duty. Even this horrible sickness will not make me stop my Duty. I will not leave his side.
And then Uncle Kevin said he would do it again. Make the ship accelerate. Squash Grampa Horace down into his bed, so he could not even breathe. They were talking about the Eye. They were talking about a jump through the Eye. It would kill him! So I jumped first! I jumped as hard as I could, and hit Uncle Kevin in the chest, and said, “NO! Not Again!” But Grampa said “Here, Ali Baba,” so I went. And then the Engineers moved Doctor Cynthia’s travel couch right next to Grampa Horace’s bed. I hid my head under Grampa’s arm, and just listened. And then we jumped again.
This time, she was there. Doctor Cynthia. She was a Doctor, but she could talk to everyone too. And when the others were gone, she often talked to Grampa Horace. Uncle Kevin passed out, but she never did. I never did. She breathed for him. Breathed for Grampa. I heard her breath go into him, and come back out again. Again, and again. Again, and again. I thought there is a machine for this. But I also knew: she is doing her Duty. She is doing her Duty for him.
I could hear his heart. It never stopped. It boomed. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. On and on it pounded. I timed my breathing to it. I timed my breathing to her breathing for him. And then I heard his breath go into her. Again and again. Again and again. I was sick and afraid with joy. I thought: it is over now. It is done. He will be safe.
Even when Uncle Kevin said “Cynthia, how much can he stand.” Grampa answered. He said: “Anything. Kevin. Do what you must It is now in the hands of Allah.” I did not know who Allah was, but his heart was so strong. Grampa’s heart was strong. They all still listened to him. Whatever he said, they listened, and so did I.
3
Sanctum, Sanctus, Sancta
On the other hand, we shall expect to find that the influence of Calvinism was exerted more in the liberation of energy for private acquisition. For in spite of all the formal legalism of the elect, Goethe’s remark in fact applied often enough to the Calvinist: “The man of action is always ruthless; no one has a conscience but an observer.”
—Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Makassar
Asach stared out into the dusk, awaiting the first twinkling stars. People were clearly the problem, always and everywhere. People were unfixed, and needed fixing. Unfixed in place, in time, in purpose; unfixed in principle or intent. Unfixed in their aims or views or desires or even likes and dislikes.
Or, alternatively, entirely fixed, in all these things. People were, generally speaking, slippery and contrary things: saying one thing, doing another, and oblivious to the contradiction. Generally speaking, the only things truly fixed about them was rut and routine. Ruts so deep that they never peered out to any horizon.
And down there in their little ruts they stayed, bored and boring, changing aims and principles alike in a daily quest for the preferential familiar. Familiarity substituting for—Asach was going to write “character,” but stopped to ponder this presumption. A preference for the known defined character, rather than negating it. Familiarity was not a substitute for character at all. Merely for purposefulness. Familiarity was a substitute for purpose—or at least for purpose of the rut-busting sort.
Hence the need for fixing. Down there in the deep well of rut-ness, a few found true solace and contentment, but in Asach’s experience most found a deep well of resentment, and spent a good part of every waking day trying to affix this resentment on some blameworthy party.
Which was tough news for Asach, now fixed to a purpose, which the unfixed smelled like hot blood at a fresh kill. Asach the finally-motivated, the living contradiction of rut-ness, the past practitioner of constant movement, the perfect focus for veritable wellsprings of hostility. Asach, bearer of the unforgivable flaw: Asach, the different. Asach underlined different.
And yet, somehow, to Asach they trooped (and always had done) for fixing—hence the decades-long stream of reportage. At this juncture, some days Asach simply wanted to stand up and scream: go see for yourself! Open your eyes, open your ears, open your petrified, suburbanized, rut-encrusted brains and for once in your predictable life, think! But knowing better: knowing the sheltered [fill in class name here] class’s insatiable thirst for talking to itself about other people, out there, unseen beyond the rut, Asach, hermeneutic chronicler extraordinaire, donning keyboard and point-of-view, would set out once again to explain.