Curious about the pack, Cathy asked what was going on. Was this some agency? Had he registered for work? Did this have anything to do with their loans? Rem shuffled through the papers, which asked for insurance details, health, and next of kin.
‘Is this a job? Induction. That sounds a lot like work?’ Cathy took the papers out of his hands. Sat down as she read, assumed a slow bending stoop, her expression becoming tighter. ‘What is this?’ she asked, serious, confused. ‘I don’t understand. Why do they want details about your health? These are questions about your family, about diseases? I don’t understand. She read on. ‘What’s Headspring? Who are these people?’
Rem said he didn’t know, he’d sent an application to Manpower Recruitment who managed civil-engineering contracts, so he had no idea about these Headspring people.
‘Engineering? So this is work?’ She sounded surprised. Rem didn’t like this reaction. ‘You found work? Where?’
‘It’s a recruitment agency.’
‘I don’t know that I like the idea of you working on construction sites.’ Cathy turned the papers over. ‘It says region three. What does that mean?’
‘Region three means places like Saudi.’
‘Saudi?’
‘Like Saudi.’
‘Like Saudi? Where else is like Saudi?’ She gave a short laugh. ‘I don’t know what that means.’
‘Like the Middle East. Like Jordan. Syria. Dubai. Like Iraq.’
It took a while to penetrate. Iraq. He could have counted the seconds.
‘Iraq?’ She spoke as if absorbing some mighty concept. ‘Iraq?’ And then she appeared to disassemble, her hands descending to her lap, her shoulders, her face even, taking on weight. When she did speak, her voice came considered and final. ‘I’m not doing this again.’
‘It isn’t the same. I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Rem, when I said somewhere else, I meant Iowa or Indiana, or maybe, I don’t know, someplace like California, but Iraq?’ A small pry cut through her voice. ‘Iraq? Rem? You paint rooms. In houses. In hotels.’ She held the papers to her chest and shook her head, and her expression became so sorrowful, so lost. This wasn’t going to happen again. Kuwait had been bad enough. Iraq was out of the question.
After some moments she softly asked if he had signed anything. ‘You have to call. You have to tell them there’s been a mistake.’
Rem leaned forward, set his hands on her knees to reassure her. ‘It’s information,’ he said, ‘that’s all. Something I found. I sent off an application and they sent this back. It’s nothing.’
‘This isn’t nothing.’ Cathy held up the papers. ‘This doesn’t just happen. You’ve already applied. I don’t understand why we’re talking about this.’ She twisted free of his grasp then set the papers carefully on the table. ‘You’ve done this deliberately.’
Cathy left the room and Rem considered how to clarify his arrangement with Geezler without breaking his word. Cathy returned from the bedroom with more papers.
‘You see these. This is on top of what we owe. You understand? You need a job, Rem. Something that has healthcare. Insurance. A job. A stable job. Here.’ She shook the papers at him before dropping them on the table. Bills for scans, blood tests, X-rays. ‘That’s what we owe, and they haven’t even got started. We don’t qualify for anything, Rem, we don’t get assistance. No one else is going to look after these. Do you understand the problem? How is this going to work if you go to Iraq?’
Rem separated his papers from the pile on the table. ‘It isn’t what you think. I’m not going to work in Iraq. It isn’t what you think.’
‘When is it ever about what I think, Rem? It has to be something more complicated, doesn’t it? It’s always something else with you. That is an application for a job. It’s in your name.’
Rem straightened the papers on his knee. Let her do this, leave her alone. Explain some other time.
* * *
When Cathy returned from work that evening she took a cup of hot water with her to bed, and complained of a migraine, her mood too dangerous to confront.
Rem called Geezler and explained about Cathy. He wanted to tell her, he said. This past month hasn’t been easy. She needs to know. She hasn’t been well. This isn’t helping.
‘You’re not going anywhere except O’Hare,’ Geezler soothed. ‘You go to the induction. You call me. We speak, and then you explain everything to her.’
‘She made a point about the application being real, being in my name.’
Geezler appeared to give this some thought. ‘You’re right. We should have used another name. You’re still going?’
‘I’m still going.’
‘I’d like to send you to the training camp in Austin. I could use you out in the field.’
The idea had its own logic.
‘You know I can’t do that.’
‘I know. I’d pay a bonus. A straight fifty, no questions. However you wanted it. Fifty thousand on top of anything you earn. No tax. No questions.’
‘You’re talking Austin?’
‘Two for Austin but fifty for both Austin and Iraq.’
‘Nice numbers, but not possible.’
‘I wish it was. She already thinks you’re going.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Think about Austin then. Will you do that?’
‘I know I can’t do it.’
‘One week at the training camp.’ Geezler backed off. ‘It’s just a thought,’ he said, ‘it would be useful.’
* * *
They agreed to speak after the induction.
* * *
On the last day in May, Unit 409 were sent to Jalla Road to lay the final section of blacktop. On this night, the people who had lived in the neighbourhood gathered at a squatter camp in an archaeological park bordering the highway. It wasn’t that their tents and campfires hadn’t been noticed, but everyone assumed that these people were part of the influx of refugees from Basrah, Nasiriyah, even Baghdad. A mistake with serious consequences. The highway, nearly complete, with its steep walls, was little more than a deep concrete trench. As the long convoy of vehicles approached, none of the crew of Unit 409 noticed the refugees beginning to congregate on the walls above them. By the time they did notice, and stop, the angry former residents, raised above the convoy, were able to pelt them with stones and bottles loaded with gasoline.
The crews, expecting back-up, withstood the first barrage. A second wave brought a hail of bottles which burst into fire on impact. They watched the front vehicles burn, their companions scuttle from one vehicle to the next seeking refuge. When security did not show the convoy steadily reversed down the unpaved highway and abandoned the stricken vehicles. As they retreated, the bolder citizens came down the concrete banks as a wave. Rem watched the mob fill the roadway. As the contractors made their way back to ACSB they passed the security forces, a pack of armoured trucks with helicopters riding overhead. The zone behind them strafed with streams of tear gas.
The next morning the highway was blasted to pieces. IEDs planted every twenty metres uprooted hanks of concrete, pitched holes, spoiled a road which had never been used.
* * *
Rem arrived an hour early for the sessions at the Premier Suite, and sat in the parking lot facing the white front of the motel. A few cars on either side. Cathy’s ‘don’t commit’ hung with him, and he regretted not explaining the situation to her. ‘Why are you even going? What are you trying to prove?’