The Fearsome Particles Part 5

She didn't hesitate. "They'll be translucent."

He scratched his chin. "Our furnace filters are too thick to install in windows."

"Compress them."

Here's where he had her. "But compressing the filters would diminish their filtering ability."

She smiled again. He was starting to not like it as much. "So, you agree," she said, "that you would want the best possible air quality protection covering your windows."

"I think "

"You accept that a high-density air filter, made of woven translucent fibres, would be a more effective safeguard against particle invasion than even the best window screen."

"What we "

"And you admit that without such protection, the family you love is vulnerable."

He put his hands up. "Okay, Sandy, this is a really interesting idea, all right? And I'm impressed with your willingness to, not just think outside the box but, you know, crush it."

Her heat subsided a little, and her expression turned demure. "Thank you."

"I think, though, as a product" he reached out and patted her papers lightly "it has some big issues."

"But "

"I just don't see the retailers and the contractors and the window manufacturers we work with accepting the principle that people are going to give up the ability to look out their windows in order to breathe cleaner air."

Sandy huffed. "I gave gave you the rationale. You make people choose health or beauty." She s.n.a.t.c.hed up a piece of paper and waved it in the air. "You show people enlarged pictures of the stuff that's coming into their houses. Humungous ugly alien-looking things. Then you say, 'Do you want your new baby breathing this just so you can watch the sunset?' Okay, so some people will choose the sunset, but you know what? If we do this right, they'll feel guilty about it." you the rationale. You make people choose health or beauty." She s.n.a.t.c.hed up a piece of paper and waved it in the air. "You show people enlarged pictures of the stuff that's coming into their houses. Humungous ugly alien-looking things. Then you say, 'Do you want your new baby breathing this just so you can watch the sunset?' Okay, so some people will choose the sunset, but you know what? If we do this right, they'll feel guilty about it."

Gerald sighed as he shook his head. "It's too out there. It's too big a risk."

She studied him for a moment, and then her gaze fell to the table. "Look, you're absolutely right" her voice had taken on the palliative texture of a cello "it would be a big gamble. I mean, it's an opportunity to take ownership of a value, like Ford tried to do with 'quality' and Smith Barney did with 'hard work.' Spent Materials could own 'protecting your family's health, above all.' But there's no doubt, it's the kind of risky, go-for-broke move that would only be made by a company with nothing to lose."

Sandy lifted her face toward him, and Gerald feared then that he knew what she was getting at. He feared that he had received exactly the message she intended to convey. He hadn't had a chance to finish his own a.n.a.lysis of the market share percentages, and now Sandy's expression told Gerald he didn't need to.

"We're at the bottom," he said.

She held up two fingers, then spread out her whole hand. Two...five. Two and a half per cent.

"You know this for a fact?"

She nodded solemnly. Two and a half per cent. Gerald felt the acid in his stomach foam up like beer in a warm bottle. He did everything he could, paid attention to every operational detail in order to keep the company running smoothly, and it galled him that it wasn't enough. It galled him that Trick Runiman would attempt to slip this leper of a number by him and imagine he could do it. But it galled him most of all that his instincts had warned him a problem like this was developing, and he hadn't done a d.a.m.n thing about it.

In his frustration Gerald pressed back in his chair and craned his neck so that he faced the suspended ceiling, and was not surprised to see, in the amber light of evening, a few, brazen motes of dust larking in the air. To be aware of a thing was, he well knew, to be plagued by it.

2.

The Lightenham Avenue house gave off whiffs of banking. Or perhaps more specifically, international finance. Vicki wanted to be sure, though, and she still had an opportunity to change her mind. Showings wouldn't begin for another ten days, and though she'd selected and had delivered many of the necessary furnishings based on her early banking/finance impressions, few of these pieces were in place. She could order back the movers tomorrow morning and make wholesale replacements if she deemed it necessary. If at the last moment she picked up something, say, insurancey.

For Vicki, staging a house was a process of graduating insights. It wasn't, as too many people believed, simply a matter of pushing around hunks of furniture according to some mythical decorator's code, distributing a few tasteful knick-knacks and calling it a day. Her work was more serious than that. She was dealing in the representation of ideal lives, creating precedents for contentment. And to do that, Vicki felt, she needed to understand whose happiness she was bringing to life.

Her first step was to suss out the character of the house she was staging, and thus the category of its likely buyer. In this case, she had already ruled out media ownership, which was a big one always to be considered, and anything to do with professional sports. No hockey players, in other words, would be buying the Lightenham Avenue house. There were two reasons for this: first, Avis Nye had few hockey players among her clientele (or, as Avis p.r.o.nounced it, "clee-on-tell"); hockey players were the province of Vanrey & Donlan's honey-haired Meredith Patrick. And second, Meredith would not be traipsing hockey players through the Lightenham Avenue house because it was not made of big blocks of stone. Hockey players might be content to let their wives rule over a home's interior, but they would drive their throbbing Humvees and Ram trucks past any house that from the outside failed to look sufficiently hewn. It was the sweet distinction of 146 Lightenham Avenue to be constructed from carefully aged Portuguese brick of a warm, mustardy hue and it was this, Vicki felt, that pointed toward ownership more rarefied than men who wielded long sticks or large satellite dishes. It said to her money, in one of its less adulterated forms.

She stood in the circular foyer, at the foot of the sweeping stairs, looked around at the conjoined hoops of the guilloche in the moulding above her and in the tile inlays beneath her feet, and tried to detect any hints of insurance (a predominance of greeny-greys, a slightly static flow, though the traces were generally less tangible). She walked from room to room, from dining to living to family, making her way around the chairs, tables, cabinets, and boxes that had been delivered earlier in the day. She briefly visited the library, with its wall of built-in cabinetry and its Crema Marfil fireplace surround, and wondered for a moment whether that was consultancy consultancy she was sensing. But by the time she had made it to the second level and spent a moment under the coffered ceiling of the master bedroom, she was confident that with international finance she had it accurately pinned. And she spun lightly on the b.a.l.l.s of her stocking feet and clapped her hands together, because she was free now to do the thing she most enjoyed, and the sound of her hand clap glanced off the polished woods around her. she was sensing. But by the time she had made it to the second level and spent a moment under the coffered ceiling of the master bedroom, she was confident that with international finance she had it accurately pinned. And she spun lightly on the b.a.l.l.s of her stocking feet and clapped her hands together, because she was free now to do the thing she most enjoyed, and the sound of her hand clap glanced off the polished woods around her.

She was free to create a happy, loving family.

Her gaze fell first on the Empire dressing table with its shaped kneehole drawer and conforming columns holding erect a large square mirror which was original and nearly unblemished. She'd bought this dressing table ten or eleven years ago in Quebec City, had used it half a dozen times a year in various installations, but now stood before it as if it were new to her. She drew her fingertips across its cool, gla.s.sy surface and let her eyes focus on the fine chocolate grains in the wood until a name...Margeaux...came to her. This was Margeaux's dressing table. She lingered in this thought for a while, in this idea of Margeaux, like a visitor in an anteroom, until she came to know some things. Margeaux, she decided, was forty-one years old. She was the owner of a small publishing company that specialized in fine art catalogues. She had dark, almost black hair that she wore in an abrupt 1920s bob that she had seen once in an early Robert Redford movie and found amusing. Vicki liked this about Margeaux, that even as an established woman, with a husband in international finance, she made impulsive choices about her personal appearance. And what else? She was well-educated in art history and philosophy. She was romantic but not to the point of losing her pragmatism. For instance, she had an affection for nature and a fierce determination to protect the environment around her the ravines, the Carolinian forest along the escarpment but considered efforts to preserve threatened habitats in third-world countries, however well-intentioned, sadly doomed. She enjoyed music, had years ago taken cello lessons, considered the operas of Rossini her particular favourites. L'Italiana in Algeri L'Italiana in Algeri. She had a lovely sense of humour.

As she stood next to the Empire dressing table, Vicki gathered and a.s.sembled the fragments of her understanding of Margeaux until she had a complete enough picture in her mind to know, without guesswork, that Margeaux would want the dressing table placed on the east wall of the master bedroom. It would be the east wall, because the morning sun coming through the windows would fall across the western half of the room, and that was where Margeaux would want the bed. Margeaux was a woman who rose early, Vicki realized, and enjoyed waking up to the feeling of sunlight on her face. And for this reason Vicki knew that the Victorian mahogany four-poster bed that lay in una.s.sembled pieces in the middle of the room would have to go back to the warehouse. The heavy canopy would make Margeaux feel too sheltered and so it would, instead, have to be the French rosewood bedstead.

She took up her clipboard and made a note.

The husband. Was named...nothing fancy. Was someone who fit snugly into the world of international finance and drew notice for only the right reasons his extreme competence, his integrity, his dignified bearing. He was a...Robert. Yes, he was indeed a Robert, and Vicki smiled to herself. She had never known a Robert before and she liked him instantly. He was a man of forty-six. Good natured he laughed a great deal, which caused small lines to fan out like spokes from the corners of his eyes. And she saw that he ran before breakfast, every morning, because he was very trim and had slightly recessed cheeks that accentuated his strong cheekbones and narrow jaw. His blond hair was faintly thinning at the top, and it didn't concern him because it wasn't a matter of health. It was good health that motivated Robert to get up at five-thirty every weekday, seven-thirty on weekends, and run an eight-kilometre loop through the tree-lined neighbourhood, even in winter. His father had probably died of a heart condition at a relatively early age, and Robert was determined not to let it happen to him. He was a man of decisive action.

His work? The specifics weren't important, but Vicki knew that Robert handled complex cross-border transactions in the hundreds of millions of dollars, that he enjoyed the interplay of different cultures, and that he was looking forward to making great strides in China. He was shrewd when it came to risk and he was deft with debt. He established clear plans of action and trusted his team to execute them. That was a good word for Robert trust. He hired the right people, and he delegated. And he did not let the small mistakes of others shake his confidence in them. Robert here was a good example would not be the sort to dwell on the inability of his wife to deliver the Heimlich manoeuvre if he was choking on an olive. First of all, Robert wouldn't put himself in the position of needing needing the Heimlich, because he would never walk through the house naked, his hands occupied with wine gla.s.ses and his mouth filled with kalamatas, presenting an open invitation to catastrophe. And if it so happened that he did find himself needing the Heimlich, he wouldn't expect his wife to have prepared for the occasion by taking lessons in the procedure. And he wouldn't hold it against her for reacting to the broken gla.s.s and red wine all over the Hamadan runner and not instantly noticing his hands around his neck and his face going purple. Robert let things go. He had balance in his life, and at six o'clock almost every evening he was on his way home, free from worry. Sometimes he called Margeaux from his car, just to hear her voice. And he left her blessed clocks alone. the Heimlich, because he would never walk through the house naked, his hands occupied with wine gla.s.ses and his mouth filled with kalamatas, presenting an open invitation to catastrophe. And if it so happened that he did find himself needing the Heimlich, he wouldn't expect his wife to have prepared for the occasion by taking lessons in the procedure. And he wouldn't hold it against her for reacting to the broken gla.s.s and red wine all over the Hamadan runner and not instantly noticing his hands around his neck and his face going purple. Robert let things go. He had balance in his life, and at six o'clock almost every evening he was on his way home, free from worry. Sometimes he called Margeaux from his car, just to hear her voice. And he left her blessed clocks alone.

When Vicki knew all this about Robert, and a few other things besides, she was able to relax about the Carlton House desk with satinwood inlay that was at this moment sitting in the library downstairs. She'd selected it on a whim and it had been a worry because it was not a very big desk, and with its narrow legs rather than pedestals, not terribly masculine. But Robert was too secure in his own skin for it to matter to him whether or not his desk was conventionally mannish. Robert was, in a phrase, at ease.

Vicki went to her purse and pulled out her phone. "h.e.l.la," she said when her a.s.sistant picked up, "would you be a dear and find the two Chinese folding chairs and put them out for me? I'm going to need one or perhaps both of them."

"You mean the curly-back chairs with the sort of footstep things at the bottom?"

h.e.l.la was so cute. "Yes," said Vicki, almost chuckling, "the curly-back curly-back chairs. We're going to need them for the library." chairs. We're going to need them for the library."

h.e.l.la hesitated. "I think one of them has a split in the seat."

"Oh?" Vicki pictured the pair of two-hundred-year-old Chinese folding chairs in her mind and tried to see the split h.e.l.la was referring to. The seat of a Chinese folding chair was little more than a wide leather sling and a split would render it unusable. One had to expect that on occasion a buyer would see one of her chairs or couches and find it irresistible and want to touch it or sit in it the Chinese folding chairs were particularly intriguing and one couldn't have prospective buyers crashing through the furniture. But a split in the seat was the sort of thing she'd remember. "No, I don't think so, h.e.l.la."

"Um, I'm pretty sure there is."

Vicki was still scanning the picture in her mind. "No. No. I think we're fine. Anyway just put them out for me. And also we're going to need the French rosewood bedstead so I'll have you get that ready as well if you would, and there may be one or two other things so are you at home now?"

"Yes."

"Well, be sure to keep your phone on." h.e.l.la had a habit of turning her phone off at inopportune times, which made it impossible for Vicki to get hold of her. "I'll see you at the warehouse about three."

"Sure, but, would four-thirty be okay?"

Vicki, making her way from one bedroom to another, smiled into the shiny emptiness of the corridor. "Of course," she said, and returned the phone to her purse.

And back to the Lightenham family. Having introduced herself to the wife and husband, it was time for Vicki to meet the child. There was always a child to be considered in a staging and frequently two, depending on the bedroom configuration. In the case of the Lightenham house there was one child the third and fourth bedrooms, lacking walk-in closets (unconscionable builder's mistake), were strictly for guests in Vicki's view and could be furnished generically with two nineteenth-century walnut suites that suited the purpose (one of these rooms would get the Ralph Lauren horsey treatment; the other, botanicals); the fifth bedroom, barely seventeen feet in length, was ideal for live-in staff and Vicki had already installed a lovely Victorian bra.s.s bedstead there with a very serviceable mahogany linen press and a nice caned-back bergere tucked in one corner. But the child demanded special attention. As children did.

It was a boy, obviously. As much as Vicki would have liked a girl, because her collection of fine girls' linens was more extensive, the room was a boy's and there was no avoiding it. It was a large room of awkward angles with a sloping ceiling that rose to an off-centre peak. And in the middle of the wall below this peak, at one end of the room, was an oeil-de-boeuf oeil-de-boeuf, which some people called a bull's-eye window, that looked out over the backyard and its nearly treeless landscaped plateaus (the treelessness made Vicki a little sad because she was fairly sure Robert would have enjoyed drinking his morning coffee in the summer on a patio shaded by a spreading burr oak. Perhaps Margeaux had insisted on unfettered sunlight and he had indulged her. Yes. He was generous that way). It was this window more than anything that said "boy" to Vicki. It was a concession, really, on her part. Boys were rabid about a bull's eye; depending on their age it became the portal of a submarine or a s.p.a.cecraft, or a time-travel conduit, or some other threshold into fantastic scenarios that invariably involved explosions and death. From the slightest provocation the minds of boys could conjure up horrifying things; they seemed to l.u.s.t after opportunities to imagine the worst. And as they grew older their fantasies evolved into grotesque adolescent hallucinations the s.p.a.ceship portal that looked out became an eye peeking in, the room became a display cabinet and the boys were the gruesome exhibit, something carved open, pinned, and observed which made them ecstatic in some unfathomable way, until it happened that, sooner or later, the boys became men, the fantasias dissolved and an oeil-de-boeuf oeil-de-boeuf returned to being merely a strange round window, an element in an architect's design. This, at least, was Vicki's understanding, from growing up with brothers and cousins who were disturbingly normal, and from Kyle. returned to being merely a strange round window, an element in an architect's design. This, at least, was Vicki's understanding, from growing up with brothers and cousins who were disturbingly normal, and from Kyle.

The afternoon sun warmed the southern face of 146 Lightenham Avenue, and the house creaked with the musical yearning of new wood. In the boy's bedroom, Vicki padded around in an aimless circle, letting her stocking heels thud against the new iroko flooring, and waited. Inspiration had usually rushed up to her by now. In all the years of doing stagings beginning that first summer in 1989 with the pile on Inglewood Drive that, even including the pieces from her mother's estate, she'd barely had enough furniture to fill she'd always managed to skirt the disquieting aspects of exuberant young boys and find expressions for their happier enthusiasms, which she could incorporate into the general scheme. What she did was think of Kyle (in 1989 he was already three) and equip these rooms for the childhood she wished for him: pennants and paraphernalia artfully mounted (a Cooper's hockey stick and a Louisville baseball bat, crossed like swords) to suggest his nascent love of sports; a bra.s.s refracting telescope at a window, pointed to the sky, to connote his searching mind. Even, occasionally (because pretending was something to be encouraged), a cowboy hat and a pair of cap-gun six-shooters in their holsters, draped over a bedpost (though she had not used the guns for years).

As Kyle grew older, the boys of Vicki's stagings grew with him, always keeping a few years ahead, to suggest the great times that were surely to come, when he would dive into mystery books with pristine jackets, when he would play a Martin acoustic guitar with an ebony fingerboard, when he would reel with his first crush, go on his first date, and kiss a girl with long, straight hair (estate sales often had a few pictures worth framing, and Vicki found the straight-haired girls prettiest). Every boy's room in Vicki's stagings offered the burnished life that Kyle or any boy should have wanted, a life of milk-white teeth and exercise, high spirits, and limitless possibility. It was easy to furnish this kind of happiness: she had most of it ready, in storage. And when she lacked some small thing, some final touch a crystal radio set the boy could have fashioned himself, a twin-lens Rolleiflex camera to showcase his developing artistic eye it was quickly found at one of the Yorkville antique shops she visited on Mondays, Thursdays, and Sat.u.r.days.

A very few times, as Kyle matured, Vicki felt her confidence waver. No one ever told her that a boy's life was not like this. Not once did Avis or any other agent suggest, in so many words, that clients found her boy's room stagings unrealistic. But every so often, Vicki could see a hint of doubt behind their eyes, and their muted approval seemed to insinuate that she was not taking certain grim realities into account. When that happened, when the uncertainty of others threatened to become hers, she reminded herself that her boy's rooms were as realistic, as possible, as any other room she created. The articles she used and the pleasures they represented were absolutely real; that her arrangements were precise and ideal made them no less true. When a woman and her husband admired the dining room she had summoned, complete with pooling drapes, a festooned sideboard, and a six-branch Viennese chandelier suspended over a Belleek tea service on a Gillington table, it never occurred to them her taste was unachievable this was exactly the life they imagined for themselves. When they looked in on the girl's room, they never thought Vicki's pastels and scalloped-edge sheets, her dolls and porcelain fixtures could not be things a girl, their daughter, would love. Why couldn't this be true for a boy? Why should a son be less deserving of a parent's best intentions?

Her responsibility, Vicki told herself, was to offer clients a vision of the life they wanted for their children. For wasn't this life, or the hope for it, one of the reasons they were house shopping at all?

Some of these thoughts came back to Vicki now in the Lightenham house, because although there was no doubt she knew what a happy boy's life was supposed to look like, just at the moment, the ideas weren't coming to her. That was strange. When her mind drifted to Kyle she saw the possible cause; it was because he'd just come home from abroad, a man of travels now, no longer the handy boyish reference he'd been. She would have to work harder. She would have to cast her mind back. Still, Vicki stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by the mahogany sleigh bed with scrolling at the head- and footboards, the matching dressing table with swinging mirror, the revolving Edwardian bookcase and the charming mahogany bonheur du jour bonheur du jour with its hinged front and padded writing surface. She saw these things, chosen by her and delivered only this morning, and felt troubled by them. The problem was she could not see the boy who belonged here, did not even know his name, and without a child to represent, these things were just furnishings. That was not the service she offered. with its hinged front and padded writing surface. She saw these things, chosen by her and delivered only this morning, and felt troubled by them. The problem was she could not see the boy who belonged here, did not even know his name, and without a child to represent, these things were just furnishings. That was not the service she offered.

As she paced around the room, touching the corners of antiques that provided no clues, a slight burning sensation made Vicki look down to where she had tucked her hand between the b.u.t.tons of her blouse. She undid two of these b.u.t.tons and found she had been rubbing the spot under her ribs so hard the skin was beginning to turn raw.

The sunlight drew her to the oeil-de-boeuf oeil-de-boeuf, and when she got close, she could see a faint layer of drywall dust clinging to the gla.s.s. Vicki placed her lips near to puff it away, but she had no breath to do it.

3.

The cat was obviously equa-mouse. Which won't make any sense, but I can explain. I'd been sticking to my room for about a week, mostly sitting in front of my computer, locked into this site I'd found, just watching the screen, listening to the blips, clicking when I was supposed to click. (After a few hours it kind of felt like floating, which was perfect.) When I wasn't looking at the screen I was watching this cat my parents got while I was away. Which was a weird thing in itself because my dad hates everything about cats ("sociopaths of the pet world" he calls them). But after watching it for a few days, it seemed to me this cat had the exact quality Legg used to call "equa-mouse." It was his version of "equanimous," which was a word he'd found in one of the reports they handed out to the guys in the D&S platoon (Defence and Security) on the state of relations between soldiers and the warlords that were carving up Balakhet, where the camp was located. ("After a period of hostility, exacerbated by the actions of Mullah Takhar Dashti, now under ISAF ISAF custody, the temper of interactions between custody, the temper of interactions between CF CF personnel and the local Afghan community appears, for the moment, to be equanimous.") personnel and the local Afghan community appears, for the moment, to be equanimous.") Legg made quick decisions on which things to take seriously and which to make fun of, and to him using "equanimous" in that report was mockable for two factors: (1) its total ignorance of the antagonism the D&S guys felt from some of the Afghan locals during the presence patrols they conducted around Balakhet; and (2) its "a.s.s-licking-lieutenant-typed f.u.c.k-headedness" (cla.s.sic Legg). But he liked the sound of "equamouse," I guess, and to him it came to identify a quality he valued pretty highly, which was the quality of not giving a s.h.i.t. As far as the future went, he told me, as far as having a career, having a family, worrying about anyone else or even about his own personal safety, he was equa-mouse. I didn't know what to make of it the first time I heard it, but I came to understand. I got the whole better-off-not-caring lesson.

The cat made me think of all this because the cat really seemed to be guided by the same principles. Food didn't interest it, or people; its behaviour seemed totally disconnected and arbitrary. One day it might jump from the top of the refrigerator onto Dad's neck, and the next day, not. It didn't seem to have any needs or aims, not even enough ambition to become a regular menace. And the more I watched it, the more I figured out it was this carelessness that gave it a kind of power in the house. And so I just figured Legg would've liked the cat, and would've thought it was okay that I used his word.

Legg's full name and t.i.tle was Corporal Marc Sebastien Leggado, rifleman, which he never allowed anyone to use. I met him just a few weeks after I'd arrived at Camp Laverne.

I knew zip about the military before I signed up for the COF-AP COF-AP program, but it turns out that in a few sensitive areas around the world they keep sustainment bases that hardly anyone knows about. When people talk about the Canadians in Afghanistan, they think of Camp Nathan Smith or Kandahar Airport, or before that Camp Julien. n.o.body ever mentions Camp Laverne because they don't know it exists. But it's there, unofficially I guess, sitting on the outskirts of a place called Balakhet, a really messed-up old city in the central Wardak province. Legg said we were there "killing two birds" the camp was about an hour away from Kabul, so it was close enough to get troops and supplies there fast if they needed to; and Wardak was also the site of the Taliban's last stand in 2001 and now, he said, "the s.h.i.t was bubbling again." Rival militias were fighting each other and the jihadists were getting noisy. He figured the coalition wanted to beef up its presence before Balakhet went all Kandahar on them. program, but it turns out that in a few sensitive areas around the world they keep sustainment bases that hardly anyone knows about. When people talk about the Canadians in Afghanistan, they think of Camp Nathan Smith or Kandahar Airport, or before that Camp Julien. n.o.body ever mentions Camp Laverne because they don't know it exists. But it's there, unofficially I guess, sitting on the outskirts of a place called Balakhet, a really messed-up old city in the central Wardak province. Legg said we were there "killing two birds" the camp was about an hour away from Kabul, so it was close enough to get troops and supplies there fast if they needed to; and Wardak was also the site of the Taliban's last stand in 2001 and now, he said, "the s.h.i.t was bubbling again." Rival militias were fighting each other and the jihadists were getting noisy. He figured the coalition wanted to beef up its presence before Balakhet went all Kandahar on them.

From what I understand about military camps, Camp Laverne is a sort of small-scale, necessities-only version, dug into the desert. It's ringed by tall, thick bastion walls, which are like stiff, ten-foot-high bags filled with sand and topped with razor wire, and it features all the usual flat-painted G-Wagons and LAVS LAVS (light armoured vehicles) that are either being driven or repaired. Most of the buildings are canvas Quonset huts called weather havens big ones for common areas like the kitchen and the messes, smaller ones for the sleeping quarters for officers and soldiers. (Civilian support staff like me generally slept in smaller tents that weren't as insulated from the heat.) There's also a bunch of (light armoured vehicles) that are either being driven or repaired. Most of the buildings are canvas Quonset huts called weather havens big ones for common areas like the kitchen and the messes, smaller ones for the sleeping quarters for officers and soldiers. (Civilian support staff like me generally slept in smaller tents that weren't as insulated from the heat.) There's also a bunch of ISO ISO units, which look like those long steel boxes that get loaded into ships, but they can be stacked or lined up and turned into offices or washrooms or storage units or, in my case, the portable water treatment facility I worked in. units, which look like those long steel boxes that get loaded into ships, but they can be stacked or lined up and turned into offices or washrooms or storage units or, in my case, the portable water treatment facility I worked in.

I spent the first few weeks in camp pretty much the way I'd spent most of my life up to that point: keeping to myself, eating whenever they let me, focusing on the work I had to do, and just watching other people go about their lives. I've never been too good at making friends; it's like there's a trick to it I couldn't figure out. Part of it, I think, is people consider my sense of humour a bit off, somehow. Obscure. I tend to say things that make them go "Huh?" And I guess "huh?" is hard to get past. The more trouble I had making friends the less work I put into it. By about grade six I decided it wasn't important.

Before I even met Legg, I heard him. There was this faint, high whine coming through the dead afternoon air as I walked through the compound, across silt the colour of milky tea. I was headed for the ambulance, the closest Camp Laverne ever got to a proper medical facility while I was there, parked under a big tarpaulin to try and keep it out of the August heat. (That heat the first time it hit me, when I stepped off the plane, it made me think of grade four recess when a big kid named Gary Millson used to sit on my stomach until I almost pa.s.sed out so he could watch my eyes roll back in my head.) I was going to the ambulance to get my hand treated for burns. Somebody had set a bunch of metal filter canisters down by the door at the treatment facility, right in the way. And when I came on duty, after they'd been sitting in direct Afghan sunlight for a few hours, I tried to pick one up, which it turns out is something only a fairly new arrival would do.

The whine was coming from the ambulance, and I knocked on the door and waited in the shade of the tarp so I could breathe. Finally a short female medic in white shirt and pants opened the door for me and I squeezed inside.

They had a generator running a small air conditioner, so it was instantly cooler in there. Once my pupils adjusted to the blueish light I saw there were three other people besides me: the medic, a doctor, and a soldier who was lying on a pad, gripping its edges and making a sound like the steam whistle of a kettle.

In the middle of pressing and prodding around the bubbled skin on my hand, the medic glanced up and saw me staring at the soldier. The doctor was bent over his face, so I couldn't see what was going on, but the guy was obviously in a lot of pain. "Sand devil," she said. "A little whirlwind, whipped sand into his eyes. Happens all the time here." She leaned toward the soldier. "Which is why soldiers on patrol are supposed to wear their goggles." goggles."

The soldier stopped whining and ground out a few words through a clenched jaw, which sounded like "Hate those f.u.c.king goggles." The doctor shifted and for a second I could see through a s.p.a.ce under his arm. He seemed to be prodding the solider's left eyeball with a Q-tip, which made the soldier stamp his foot on the platform.

"Don't!" said the doctor.

The medic seemed mildly amused. "Just try to breathe evenly, corporal."

"Can't stand s.h.i.t in my eye!"

I mentioned my sense of humour? As much as it seems to put people off, it's probably the only thing I like about myself. Generally, when it comes to my positive qualities, I prefer to reject someone else's list rather than come up with my own. At home I'd be heading through the foyer on my way out the door and my mother would introduce me to some client I'd never met as "our lovely, intelligent boy" with "a real pa.s.sion for the sciences." She'd push the hair off my forehead with her soft fingers and say, "We think there's medicine in Kyle's future." And through all this I'd have to chew on my tongue, literally crush my flesh between my molars until I tasted blood, to keep from screaming at my mother how f.u.c.king wrong she was, and how she sounded like she was writing a newspaper ad about some completely different person. She'd smile this proud little smile and I'd have to force my way past her and get out before I started yelling at her, "Who are you talking about? What's his name? Where does he live?"

But I do notice ironies, and absurd juxtapositions, like the professor with dandruff who talks about "precipitating insolubles," or the politician who stands behind bulletproof gla.s.s to tell viewers not to let the suicide bombers win. And I think it's good that I notice them, because somebody should. And since they always. .h.i.t me as funny, I usually can't stop myself from saying something about them.

So when the soldier on the pad talked about "s.h.i.t in my eye," I immediately said, "I think you mean 'mica shists.'" shists.'" The medic was spreading ointment around my palm and I was kind of hypnotized by that and not really thinking about what should or shouldn't be coming out of my mouth. "But that's an easy mistake," I said. Then I laughed. The medic was spreading ointment around my palm and I was kind of hypnotized by that and not really thinking about what should or shouldn't be coming out of my mouth. "But that's an easy mistake," I said. Then I laughed.

"Who's that?" breathed the soldier on the table.

I jerked up straight. "Um." Usually, after I say something that confuses people, I feel a wave as though I might throw up, and I was feeling that now "I'm the water tech. Kyle Woodlore. I run the water treatment "

"f.u.c.k you, a.s.shole."

The medic tsked tsked and shook her head. "'f.u.c.k me, f.u.c.k you.'" She winked at me. "How'd all this hostility squeeze in here?" and shook her head. "'f.u.c.k me, f.u.c.k you.'" She winked at me. "How'd all this hostility squeeze in here?"

The doctor straightened and tossed his Q-tip into a can, and I could see the white of the soldier's left eye was meat red, which made me feel worse. "All right," said the doctor, "I think we can try irrigating again." He held a hand out behind him. "Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sorry." The medic held my bandage in place with one hand, twisted around, and pa.s.sed a banana-sized syringe to the doctor with the other. He bent over the soldier again and soon I could hear a trickle of water hitting the metal floor. After a second I realized, hey, that's my water; I made that. Normally I wouldn't have thought anything of it, but I guess at that point, in terms of my self-image, I was in take-anything-I-could-get mode. So the idea went through my mind that maybe this was something good I'd done...maybe the only thing. Which made me feel good and bad at the same time. Which is sort of typical.

The canvas that covered the kitchen tent was the same aridregion beige that covered just about everything else in the camp - what my mother might have called "a drought motif." Inside it featured a steam table for hot food, a bread table, a couple of fountain dispensers with orange and purple pseudo-juice, a place where you could get coffee and hot water for tea (which I didn't see too many people drinking), a salad and fruit bar that was always stocked up, and enough long tables and chairs for ninety diners at a time to eat and not think about all the things they'd been told in the orientation briefings about the IEDS IEDS (improvised explosive devices) the jihadists were busy making and the disease-bearing sandflies everywhere and the Russian (improvised explosive devices) the jihadists were busy making and the disease-bearing sandflies everywhere and the Russian PMN PMN mines, Bouncing Bettys, and "green parrots" that were sitting out there just beyond the walls. mines, Bouncing Bettys, and "green parrots" that were sitting out there just beyond the walls.

I was in there taking my lunch hour early, and I saw Legg getting a gla.s.s of Tang. And maybe because it seemed weird, after we'd been in an ambulance together, to sit on opposite sides of the room, we ended up grabbing two chairs at the same table near the entrance. He told me his full name and said there'd be "negatory consequences" if he ever heard me use it.

"I was in B-H for Roto five," he said, rubbing the back of his neck hard as if sc.r.a.ping away dried sweat or boredom. He brought his hand up and through the cropped hair of his head and every movement he made seemed to carry a vehemence.

"B-H?" I still wasn't used to the whole military acronym thing.

"Bosnia-Herzegovina," he said, mocking me. "Stationed up at Camp Casa Berardi in Drvar, this old bread factory they cleaned out. 'Castle Greyskull' we called it. Looked f.u.c.kin' spooky in the fog. And they was all'ays moving us out into weather havens 'cause of the bedbugs." Legg brought his drink halfway to his mouth. "Roto five, that was pretty f.u.c.kin' hot." He took a noisy swig and gave a long gargley sigh of satisfaction. "Not as hot as this though."

I nodded and tried to think of something to say that he'd consider relevant. "How long have you been here?"

"We was prob'ly on the same flight, so, pretty much same as you," Legg said. "'Cept you get to stay a lot longer." This I knew; soldiers' rotations lasted six months, but support personnel were contracted for a year. Before I signed I was warned that a lot of people found it difficult being away from home and family that long; I told them I was looking forward to it.

"After that I had to wait a few years, got shipped around, and they sent me to V-K for Roto twelve." Legg gave me a glance. "That's Vel Velika-Kladusa. No patrols, nothin', just bureaucracy. Human resources and public relations." Legg shook his head. "Total f.u.c.kin' waste."

There was movement around us while he talked, soldiers in CADPAT CADPAT fatigues soaked in sweat and embossed with grit coming back from patrols, others heading off to drills or illegal weapons searches. Some of them would lift a hand to Legg or nod or say something and...it was weird. In chemistry there are certain molecules that like to cl.u.s.ter in the treatment facility we used a process called "flocculation," where we'd inject polymers into the water to pull the contaminant molecules together so they could be swept away and, when I was talking to Legg, I had this sense that these bodies moving around us were trying to catch him and drag him off somewhere, to pull us apart. I couldn't have explained why I didn't want that to happen just yet, but I didn't. Thinking about it, what I'd probably say is that talking to this soldier, who was so different from anybody I would normally have met or talked to in my life, felt like I'd won some sort of prize or something, like I'd graduated into a whole new level. And I felt this need to counteract the pulling action of all the soldiers walking around us, and the only thing I could think to do was ask questions. fatigues soaked in sweat and embossed with grit coming back from patrols, others heading off to drills or illegal weapons searches. Some of them would lift a hand to Legg or nod or say something and...it was weird. In chemistry there are certain molecules that like to cl.u.s.ter in the treatment facility we used a process called "flocculation," where we'd inject polymers into the water to pull the contaminant molecules together so they could be swept away and, when I was talking to Legg, I had this sense that these bodies moving around us were trying to catch him and drag him off somewhere, to pull us apart. I couldn't have explained why I didn't want that to happen just yet, but I didn't. Thinking about it, what I'd probably say is that talking to this soldier, who was so different from anybody I would normally have met or talked to in my life, felt like I'd won some sort of prize or something, like I'd graduated into a whole new level. And I felt this need to counteract the pulling action of all the soldiers walking around us, and the only thing I could think to do was ask questions.

"What do you mean, a waste?"

When Legg grinned, which he did just then, I couldn't help noticing his right eye. His face was already...I guess vivid is a good word. He was tanned, with curved creases around his mouth that looked whiter than the rest of his skin. He had a snub nose over a dense, dark moustache that looked like it might be hiding a faint hare lip scar (which I figured was not something I could ask about). And now over the left eye the doctor had taped a square patch of gauze, which Legg kept worrying with his blunt fingers. And it had the effect of making the right eye seem unnaturally big and round and alive, because it was doing the work of two.

"Waste of me me, for f.u.c.ksake. You got a guy who's equa-mouse, you should f.u.c.kin' use him properly, put him in the right situations. But these a.s.sholes don't know what they're doing." He glanced around, spreading scorn over the uniforms sitting nearby.

That was the first time I'd heard him use that word. "Sorry, what's that you said? Mouse something?"

Legg's eye lit up questions seemed to work for him and he explained the meaning and origins of equa-mouse. "A situation like up at V-K, you know, no s.h.i.t happening. Everything all f.u.c.kin' ruled out, planned out. This here, that there. Nothin' to worry about. That's f.u.c.kin' boring for a guy like me. That's actually dangerous. 'Cause, the thing is, the world moves random, right? It's the survivors that move with it. You can't stop the f.u.c.kin' storm from blowing, you know? It's gonna f.u.c.kin' blow. And if you try and stand still you're just gonna get hit with s.h.i.t. So you move with it. You with me so far?" He waited.

"Uh, yeah."