Skylights
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 30: The Annual Fiction Edition
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Patrick Allington
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Gordon never runs his own errands but he banged on my door at 4 am and ordered me to catch the under-the-radar dawn flight to Emergent.
‘I don't know if you've heard,' I said, standing in the doorway in my underpants, ‘but there’s a civil war going on over there.’
‘You’ll thank me later. This is the job of your life.’
‘But I don’t even have a passport.’
‘Good. That’ll prove that you were never there. Hurry up, I’ll give you a lift.’
He drove like a maniac and dropped me with minutes to spare at an airfield I didn’t know existed. It was a place I’d driven past once or twice, out near the abattoirs, but I’d always assumed that the twenty-foot stone wall hid a housing estate.
THE STORM STOPPED and the menacing cloud retreated over a hill. Steam rose from the drenched ground and fogged up my glasses. I took them off, wiped them, and when I put them back on I saw that a dirty old woman had stepped out of a hut.
‘There she is,’ the bloke in charge said. He’d been friendly, solicitous even, since he’d collected me from the tarmac of a base that didn’t officially exist, but he refused to tell me his name. ‘Spread out, you lot. Except you, doc. You know the drill, guys: no sudden moves, no loud noises. There’s minefields everywhere and we don’t want a stampede on our hands.’
‘But...excuse me?’ I said.
‘Yes, doc?’
‘That’s not Dr Penn.’
‘Mate, I’ve been tracking her for weeks. That’s her.’
I looked again. The woman’s hair was bone white. It set off in every direction, as if each strand was lashing out at the world. Her eyes bulged. The right one was bloodshot, and a rivulet of golden pus ran from it down her nose to her cracked upper lip. Her cheekbones were sunken. Veins criss-crossed her forehead. Her nose looked as if somebody had cut it up and glued the pieces back in random order. From the look of her, she might have done it herself.
I took a step forward.
‘Whoa there, doc. She’s not stable.’
‘Isn’t that why I’m here?’
‘You just gotta let me neutralise the target first.’
‘Neutralise her? What does that mean, exactly?’
‘Nothing too awful, mate. I’m just gonna assist her to decide all by herself to come quietly.’
‘Well, try not to hurt her.’
He looked pained. ‘Mate, I’m a Cultural Liaison Officer. I...’
‘I know what you are.’
‘Our government operates under a strict non-aggression policy. I’ve got no jurisdiction to hurt her, even if I wanted to, which I don’t. Not unless she tries to kill me.’
‘Any idea what happened to her nose?’
‘I didn’t do it. Is that what you’re asking me?’
‘No, I...sorry.’
‘First time in a warzone, eh? So let’s do this quick, and get you home for dinner.’ He took several steps forward, arms outstretched. ‘Dr Penn, don’t be scared. I’m here to help. I’m entirely unarmed.’
‘You should strip off,’ I said. ‘Then she’d trust you.’
‘Trust? She trusts nobody. That’s why we need you to get her out of here.’
Dr Penn opened her mouth. Her breath turned to a sigh, then a sob, then a scream. But although her mouth was open so wide I thought her cheeks might split, she stood perfectly still, her face a mask, arms limp by her side.
‘Dr Penn, this is Dr James Gass. He’s come especially to look after you. If you’d care to come with us, Dr Gass can fix you up.’
She stepped back into the doorway of the hut. Her bloodshot eye lit up the gloom enough for me to see that her shoulders were heaving. ‘Careful,’ I said. ‘She’s crying.’
‘Dr Penn, I must formally advise you that we are taking you into non-military custody. Your government-in-exile agrees, our government agrees, the Americans agree, and I’m sure deep down you agree that you need a rest. Best to get away from all this.’
She launched herself forward and in an instant she had the Cultural Liaison Officer pinned. She clawed at his face but, one by one, her fingernails snapped and flew harmlessly about. The tips of her fingers began to bleed. She groaned, rolled onto her back, closed her eyes and allowed herself to sink into the muddy ground.
The officer quickly freed his arms and wrapped them tight around her. The others gathered around and chanted in unison, ‘Desist and stand down. Desist and stand down. If you persist in being violent and aggressive, I am authorised to act in lethal self-defence. Desist and stand down. Desist and stand down.’
They picked her up by the legs and arms, and carried her to the chopper. I trailed along behind, still not really believing it was her.