The Unknown Terrorist by Richard Flanagan

Author:Richard Flanagan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 2006-11-19T18:30:00+00:00

48

After her bad dream, the Doll summoned the energy to get out of the bath, dress in Wilder’s batik dressing gown and make her way down the dark, toy-littered hall to where Wilder was standing at the door of Max’s bedroom, gazing inwards.

“Sometimes I stand here for an hour or more,” Wilder said softly, without turning to the Doll. “Just looking and listening.” They both watched over Max lying curled up on his bed, his flesh the thinnest of coverings over a question mark of a body, the hush of the room occasionally broken by the snuffles and slight sounds, almost yelps, he made in his sleep. “It’s my happiest time of day,” Wilder said. “There’s a peace in it.”

The Doll said nothing. She put her arm in Wilder’s. As they stood together in the half-light of the hall, watching a child sleeping, the Doll hoped for this moment—that would soon be forgotten and unknown and mean nothing—never to end.

“They have no words for it,” said Wilder finally, still without turning to look at the Doll. “No one can name it and no one can take it from you.”

“They can take everything from you, Wilder,” the Doll said, sensing that for a second time she was going to consciously disagree with Wilder. She spoke in a hush, so that Max would not be woken. “They make these things up, they take something innocent about your life and say it proves you’re guilty, they take a truth and they turn it into a lie. How can they do that? Like, there’s this guy today at the ferry terminal, reading these lies about me in the paper, and he’s shaking his head and swearing about me. I knew he believed them because up until yesterday I was like him, just hanging around, waiting for this or that, swallowing all the crap I read and heard, and then just puking all the crap back up.”

And as parts of her day began coming back to her—the politician on the radio saying terrorists needed to be eliminated; the sight of Cody on the telly at Moretti’s saying he knew who she was; the way on the plasma screens at the shopping centre they made her look like something off a porn movie—the Doll’s voice began rising.

“But it’s not true, Wilder. It’s not true. And now, every hour, it’s growing, like slobbering dogs they are, and now it’s not even—”

The Doll was about to say Tariq’s name, but then it all came flooding back—the phone, the alley, the Corolla and the tinkly Chopin and the vibrating flies and the boot lid bouncing and the stench rising, that stench that seemed to be welling back up in her nostrils now, and she couldn’t bear to tell Wilder what she had seen. Once more, panic was gripping her.

“It’s all changed,” the Doll said. “Can’t you see? It’s me they’re after, Wilder.” And then she cried out, “They’re going to kill me!” and the Doll could no longer hold back her sobbing.

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