Blue Shifting (21 page)

Except he had found himself on a park bench in Alexandria.

Curiously, he had acquitted himself well; rather than capitulating to despair, he found resolution in the face of adversity and went about attending to his requirements. He changed his New Zealand currency for US dollars, bought himself a hot meal on a terraced cafe in the commercial district of the city, and then booked into a comfortable hotel. Later he went out and bought a second-hand rucksack from a stall in the market, a change of clothes and necessities like razors and soap. He even considered trying to contact his embassy and explaining his bizarre situation, but decided against this. For one thing, he was not likely to be believed – his unstamped passport would prove nothing – and, for a second, he mistrusted all Governments. He had visions of becoming the victim of horrendous surgical experiments to locate the source of his strange, if involuntary, ability. Worse, he suspected that, rather than allow him to fall into the hands of those his country considered enemies – and if his country's leaders were be to believed, there were plenty of those – he would be quietly eradicated. So he returned to his hotel, cat-napped until the early hours, and then kept vigil – clutching his rucksack – until he was overtaken once again by the eerie phenomenon which presaged his shift.

La Paz, this time.

He'd materialised in a dusty street on the outskirts of the capital city, and his sudden arrival had at first startled a band of children and then provoked a hostile response. They'd hurled stones, bottles and Coke cans filled with mud, and he'd taken to his heels and lost himself in the sombre city of skyscrapers and wide, traffic-choked streets, like a down-at-heel, third-world version of New York.

Shaken by his reception, he booked into a hotel, ate paella in his room and slept fitfully, beset by elusive nightmares. He'd intended to remain awake during the next period of transition – asleep, who knew what dangers he might fall prey to? – but with his rucksack beneath his head as a pillow, exhaustion overwhelmed him and he slept, waking the following morning in Varanasi.

It had occurred to him, more than once, that he was suffering from an all-time great hallucination – that he was in hospital with terminal brain damage and this procession of cities was no more than his subconscious giving him the world tour he'd never got round to making himself.

~

Now he sat on a spur of rock and admired the view. Down below, beginning beyond the wall which bounded the Acropolis, a sea of grey roof-tops stretched in every direction for as far as the eye could see. To the south, on the horizon, the sea was a slim filament of blue steel, coruscating in the morning light. For the first time in days, Janner experienced a degree of contentment – or perhaps only a cessation of the fears that had beset him of late. How many hours had he worried himself to distraction over how he might cope when his fund of dollars ran out? Or when his passport was checked and he was exposed as an illegal alien? Well, the latter had occurred, and he had survived. And the former... The fact was that, if he was frugal, his money would last him for a while yet. He would worry about his day-to-day survival when it was under threat.

Of more concern to him was the actual fact of the phenomenon which had him in its grip. He might have enjoyed the experience had he known
why
he was undergoing it, how long it might last and in which city he would find himself next...

Psychologically, he was well prepared for what was happening to him. It was a corollary of his condition – for some reason, he thought of it as emanating from within him, rather than being caused by some exterior force – that the day to day details of his foreseeable future would be transient, ephemeral. He'd arrive in a city, make himself comfortable, and the very next day be gone. It seemed appropriate that for the past ten years he'd lived as a recluse, as if in preparation for what was happening to him now. More worrying was the fact that his life from now on would have no meaningful routine – other than the endless booking into hotels, eating, sleeping, and awaiting the shift in the mornings.

He climbed to his feet and set off down the hillside. His main priority today was to re-equip himself with a rucksack and supplies. He decided to find a quiet hotel, eat, then go for a stroll around the city.

The hillside flattened out. All around him were the remains of ancient structures, the overgrown, single-brick-high outlines of what thousands of years ago had been temples, theatres and other buildings in everyday use. Ahead, beside a gate in the wall, was a concrete kiosk from which an attendant sold tickets to tourists, mainly Americans and Europeans, and the occasional Japanese. Nearby was a stall selling food and drink. Janner decided to delay his search for a hotel. There was something peaceful and timeless – the former a quality lacking in all his other stopping places to date – about the ancient ruins, despite the growing number of tourists, that invited him to linger. He bought two feta cheese pastries and a styrofoam cup of coffee – paying over the odds in dollars – and wandered along a sandy path between bushes decorated with large magenta butterflies. He found a secluded tumble of stones surrounded by olive trees, sat on a truncated length of fluted column and enjoyed his breakfast.

He was finishing his coffee when he caught sight of the girl. She appeared between two trees to his left, breathing hard and looking about her as if in search of a place to hide. She might have been Chinese, was barefoot and wore only a soiled blue smock. As quickly as she'd appeared, she was gone, flitting lithely down a path away from the clearing. There was something so incongruous about the sight of her that Janner fancied he'd witnessed a scene displaced in time – a Cathay slave girl on the run from her Greek masters.

Then a women ran into the clearing and stopped dead between the olive trees where first the girl had stood. She stared at him, an expression of disbelief on her face.

The woman wore brown sandals, light blue slacks and a white blouse. "You..." she said, slowly shaking her head.

Janner just stared, unable to find an adequate reply.

The woman gathered herself. "Did you see a girl run through here one minute ago?" she asked in her heavily accented English. "Chinese, maybe?"

Janner pointed. "Through there-"

She started down the path, then stopped and turned to him. "Are you coming?" she asked, then said: "The girl is one of us."

Janner hesitated for what seemed like an eternity. Then he followed the women down the tunnel of overhanging foliage. Part of him felt a curious sense almost of jealousy that he was not alone in experiencing the phenomenon of translocation, while another part realised that the woman and the girl might hold the key to what was happening to him.

At least, they would be able to compare and contrast their experiences to date.

The path steepened, and up ahead Janner made out the blue the girl's frock as she darted between bushes into a cleared area occupied by tumbled columns and lintels. Seconds later they gained the clearing. It was bordered on two sides by a precipitous wall of rock, and to the right was a continuation of the pathway which followed the slope. The girl was nowhere to be seen on the exiting path. The woman halted, realising like Janner that their quarry had to be hiding somewhere within the clearing.

She walked towards two great blocks of masonry, knelt and held out a hand. Janner joined her. The girl was crouched in the narrow interstice, hugging her shins and staring at the woman in fright.

The woman glanced at Janner. "She must be terrified. We have to help her."

"How do you know-?" he began.

"I saw her on the first day, in Surabaya. Of course then I had no idea she was like us."

She turned to the girl, held out a placatory hand as if to soothe a frightened animal. "Come to me. We mean you no harm..." She continued in another language, which might have been Russian.

She mimed the action of eating. "You must be hungry? Eat, yes? Food?"

Staring at the woman, her big eyes filled with tears, the girl gave an almost imperceptible nod.

"Can you get her something to eat?" the woman asked Janner. "Maybe we can gain her trust this way?"

Janner nodded, set off towards the food stall by the entrance. He bought half a dozen pastries –
tirópetas
– and three cans of cola, and carried them back to the clearing. The girl was still wedged between the masonry, but her posture was less fraught. She had extended her legs and placed her hands on her knees, though her expression was still watchful, suspicious. Janner judged her to be anything between eight and twelve.

The woman passed a
tirópeta
to the girl, who took it and stared at it without attempting to take a bite. The woman sat down casually, cross-legged, smiled at the girl and bit into her own pastry. The girl raised the square of flaky pastry to her mouth, took the tiniest of bites. Finding it to her liking, she ate it quickly, then gestured for a second. They ate in silence, Janner watching the girl and, when she wasn't looking, the woman also. He snapped open the cola and offered the can to the girl. She drank, spilling rivulets over her chin and down her neck.

To Janner, the woman said, "I thought I saw you that day in La Paz, in the street. Then yesterday beside the Ganges – I was sure it was you. But when you said you had arrived from Delhi..."

Janner avoided her gaze. "I thought you were a tourist," he said. "I had no idea. I could hardly have told a perfect stranger that I'd materialised in the city out of thin air."

The women nodded in a sombre gesture of understanding.

The girl was on to her third
tirópeta
, washing bolted mouthfuls down with swallows of cola. The woman smiled at her, although the girl's only response was to close her eyes as she tipped the can and drank.

"Greg Janner, by the way. Pleased to meet you."

The woman smiled. "I am Katia Constantin, once from Leningrad."

"I wonder who your friend is, and where she's from?"

Katia brushed a strand of hair from her face, held a hand out to the girl. Hesitantly, the girl touched her fingers. Katia smiled. "Do you understand me? What is your name? From which country do you come?"

The girl just stared at Katia with large brown eyes set flush with the sheer fall of her cheeks.

Katia indicated Janner, then herself. "Greg, Katia." She pointed to the girl. "And you?"

"She doesn't understand a word," Janner said.

Katia smiled. "Okay – I'll call you... What name would suit her? Kim? Do you like that name?"

No response from the girl.

Katia shook her head, glanced up at Janner. "We three are not alone, Greg. In Surabaya I saw a tall man, I think an American – then I saw him again in Alexandria, but he didn't see me. I decided I would not approach him alone. He seemed angry and loud. Perhaps now the three of us..."

Janner let the silence lengthen. He'd been perfectly happy 'travelling' alone until now; he was not sure how to react at the thought of being part of a group.

Katia looked sideways at him, as if detecting his unease. She changed the subject. "So, what do we do now?"

"I don't know about you, but I'm bushed – tired," he amended. "I need a sleep."

"I too am tired." She looked at Kim, placed her hands together and mimed sleeping. Kim made no sign that she understood.

Katia looked about her, as if searching for a suitable place to bed down for the day. Janner sensed a certain tension in her manner.

"Where've you been sleeping the past few nights?" he asked.

Katia shrugged. "I have not. I was too afraid to sleep, in case..." She shrugged again. "I slept a little during the day, in parks and fields."

Janner hesitated, assessing the alternatives. "Look, I've a few hundred dollars left. Perhaps we can find a cheap hotel?"

Katia batted a strand of hair from her eyes, smiled nervously at him. Ordinarily, he suspected that she was not unattractive, but lack of sleep and food had left her looking pale and gaunt. She had a long face with high cheek-bones, elegantly hollowed cheeks and a large mouth much given to smiling.

"That would be nice," she said.

She stood, held out a hand to Kim. The girl obediently climbed to her feet, smoothing out her dirty blue dress, and took Katia's hand.

Tourists were out in force now – coachloads of well-dressed Germans and Americans filing through the entrance. The sun was climbing in a flawless cerulean sky, and with it the temperature. Janner realised what a disparate trio Katia, Kim and he presented to the oncoming tourists. He was aware of the glances, felt uneasy. At the same time, being seen by others with Katia and the girl gave him a curious sense of belonging. They passed through the gate and strolled along the street; on one side was a row of open-fronted shops selling curios and tourist trinkets: pottery, marble-work and cheap prints. Set up on the other side of the road was a line of tables heaped with junk: boxes full of clockwork parts, old shoes, brass ornaments; records and magazines and paperbacks in English and Greek.

They found a hotel after a walk of ten minutes, a
terracotta
-roofed building around a central courtyard shaded with olive trees. Janner paid for a double room for Katia and Kim, and a single for himself. If the woman who showed them up the marble stairs thought the couple curious – with no luggage and a tiny Oriental girl in tow – she gave no indication. The rooms were old-fashioned; high-ceilinged, marble-floored, stocked with old, varnished furniture and, after the heat outside, gloriously cool.

Janner escaped to his room, took a shower and wrapped himself in a towel. He lay on the bed, stared at the cream-painted ceiling and considered the fact that he was no longer alone in experiencing the bizarre transitions. And there was at least one other, according to Katia – the American she had seen for the second time in Alex. He wondered how many other people were undergoing the daily translations, and where it might end?

He was amazed, he admitted to himself, at how easily he had come to accept the situation. Had anyone told him a week ago that he would find himself shuttling back and forth across the face of the Earth, he would have considered that the only response in the circumstances would be to go mad – to refuse to believe what was happening.