The Time Traveler's Almanac

Before long we’re north of the city and then into another Tower and the flight is over. Down in the eleven hundreds is Japantown and I find myself lying in a steaming bath, a sparse garden surrounding me and a pot of green tea just out of arm’s reach so I have to lift myself out of the bath to pour it. The roof is camouflaged and gives the impression of being sky. Thankfully there is no view of the city whatsoever. There are no sounds at all. Just silence – the Japanese really know how to do it.

“The silence is funny,” I say. “The Towers are almost all soundscaped.”

“Really.”

“Yep. That’s what I do. Soundscaping.”

“I see.”

“Yeah, wanted to be a musician, but you know. Soundscaping’s a good job. Keeps me afloat.”

“So you compromised.”

“No. I just, you know, you have to be realistic.”

“Christ, Marek.”

“What’s so fucking bad about that?”

“That sort of realism isn’t for me.”

I pull myself out of the bath to pour more tea and wonder, annoyed: why didn’t I pull the pot closer last time?

We sit in silence for quite a while and I don’t know, perhaps it’s the silence, or the beauty of the garden, or the heat of the bath, but suddenly I begin to cry.

“Hey buddy, what’s wrong?”

I don’t say anything for a while, and then manage to get out between the sobs: “I’ve made some terrible mistakes, in my life, Dad. I’ve made some bad mistakes.”

*   *   *

Leila lives at the crest of a hill, and her husband, George, is a fitness fanatic with a shaven head. George invested in the Towers, or his parents did, and now they live in a mansion overlooking the aqua sea. They have two boats and three cars and a swimming pool in a basement underneath their house. “The sea,” George always says, “is for looking at, not swimming in.” At those times I want to break his teeth, but I always nod and smile and say, “Hey, who would swim in the sea nowadays? I mean, with all that pollution.” George works out and has huge muscles. He and Leila have one child, about three years old, whose name I can’t remember. George and Leila have everything.

The dinner is tiny and served on gigantic white plates: a piece of unidentified meat with two red slivers of what I take to be capsicum on one side.

“A work of art,” I say.

“Don’t be rude,” says Leila.

“He’s not,” says George, “He said it was a work of art.”

“A pure work of art,” I say to annoy Leila.

The kid starts crying at the end of the table.

“Here sweetie,” says Leila, and she reaches over to give him a drink. He keeps crying.

“Listen to ’im,” says George.

“I am,” I say.

“All day,” says George.

“Oh, shut up,” says Leila.

“What’s his name?” I say.

But Leila continues at George, “Like you’d know. I’m the one here all bloody day.”

“What’s his name?”

Leila turns to me. “Families,” she says, “take a lot of energy. You’ll know—”

But I cut her off, “That’s because you had him when you were too old.”

She looks as if she’s been slapped and I turn to my meal with satisfaction.

A moment later she says to me, “So did you. You had Max too old.”

Now it’s my turn to look shocked. No matter how hard I try, I know I look crestfallen. I look back to Leila and she meets my eye. The side of her mouth twitches and suddenly we’re both laughing at ourselves.

“You really should meet up with Dany, you know,” I say.

“I can’t. I just can’t.”

I reach over and place my hand over hers. “You should face him. You know. Say what should be said.”

“Is that what you’re going to do?”

“Yes. I think so. Yes.”

*   *   *

Before Mum died she looked an impossible colour, a kind of composite grey-orange. She was swollen, but in her inimitable way acted as if it was all some kind of joke.

“Look at me,” she said, “I’m a fish from the deep sea,” and she opened and closed her mouth and we all laughed.

I want to tell Dany something about Mum now, as we head to the city, but some part of me holds back. I know, somehow, that he’s not equipped to cope with it. He is, after all, in his early twenties. He’s young, I tell myself.

A minute later and we’re off the monorail together and Dany turns to me and says, “Jesus, look at this place. What have they done to the city?” I keep my eyes focused on the refuse: empty packages, indeterminate plastic things, toilet paper, but Dany, of course, doesn’t know about the street-sellers and suddenly there are three kids around us.

“Bliss, bliss?”

“It’s not really bliss though, is it?” Dany says.

“It is, swear brother, purest I eva had meself. Look mister, look at me eyes.”

“You can get your eyes wide like that with all sorts of poisons,” says Dany, enjoying the debate.

When we arrive at the building I turn to the kid and say, “Okay, you can fuck off now.”

“Aw mister, it’s good stuff,” one of the little kids says but they leave us alone as we scale the stairs. Three sets of stairs, four doors along the walkway. I knock. Again there is shuffling behind the door and then it opens quicker than I expected. Genie stands there, disappointment written on her face.