“Elliot had a soju bender last night,” she told him in a stage whisper. “He’s not happy about the turnover. Were you looking for him?”
“I was, but I’ll check back later,” Siddhu whispered.
He realized that he could just leave. He didn’t need to explain himself. It had become a phenomenon in this city—occasioned by illness, death, and confinement—for people to ghost. If a friend stood you up for a walk in the park, you were left to wonder whether they were gravely ill or terrified of the outdoors. Horne-Bough, thought Siddhu, would be a lousy job reference anyhow.
Siddhu was turning toward the door when he heard Horne-Bough call out for him. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said from the steps to the rooftop. “Why did you turn up late?”
Horne-Bough was wearing a vintage bathrobe over an undershirt and pyjama pants. As usual, he suggested that he and Siddhu confer on the rooftop. The managing editor had made him a cup of tea that he took with him. For once, Siddhu was glad to be outside. It was a clear day, and the cold was on the right side of bracing. The rooftop allowed a view of the city from its ugly side: post-war buildings, railyards, and none of the cranes that imposed themselves on the skyline elsewhere. In this light, it seemed like a place that refused to be pulled under.
Horne-Bough shivered, teacup rattling in the saucer, as the heat lamp started to wake. “I was hoping to sleep off my disappointment,” he admitted. “For me, this site was a vehicle. I wanted to make a profit and redefine news. But I also wanted influence. We succeeded for a while—we had the best coverage, hits from around the world. We showed how news could be effective if we harnessed connections and dirtied our hands. But that turned out be the easy part. I don’t know how people can handle the disloyalty.” According to Horne-Bough, the other reporters had resigned over money. “They dressed it in procedural stuff, but it all boiled down to the bucks.”
Siddhu asked him about his sick colleague, expecting a remark about how put-upon he felt that an underling faced death.
“I was allowed to visit him,” Horne-Bough said, eyes shadowed in sadness. “We’re permitted to do that now.”
“I reported about that,” Siddhu said. Hospital administration had relaxed their policy on visitors because infection rates weren’t being reduced. They also wanted to encourage the infected who were afraid to die alone to seek treatment. Siddhu had noticed a complacency settle in on Vancouverites since late-November. Some of them decided not to wear their face masks. They were returning to buses and other indoor public spaces as the weather had become more unfriendly. He couldn’t tell whether they were being fatalistic about infection or whether they thought themselves, having survived this far, impervious to the disease.
“He doesn’t look too good,” Horne-Bough said about the sick employee. “I was there for five minutes, but he could barely acknowledge me. The kid’s parents were crying. I couldn’t get out of the hospital quickly enough. When I got out and into a taxi, I wanted to tell the cabbie to turn onto the highway and drive. It was the first time I wanted to leave. If there was only a way to get out of here.”
Siddhu interrupted him. “I might have an idea,” he said. He proposed a story: He would document, wearing a body camera, going through (or under or over) the barricades and patrols. “I met this guy who says he’s gotten people outside.”
“And are you going to turn back?” Horne-Bough asked slyly. He could see Siddhu’s end game. “Are you going to stop when freedom is in hand?”
Siddhu thought about it for a moment. “I don’t think so.”
“Is this your resignation?”
“Who knows if I get across?” Siddhu asked. He had been ready to quit. Now it seemed like he could delay. “Maybe I’ll get stopped. I’m going to write this story however it turns out. I could still write about the quarantine from the other side.”
Horne-Bough threw his hands in the air. “You’re the only reporter I have left. Do I have a choice?”
They went in search of a video recorder he could use on his trip, something that could be concealed from publicity-shy smugglers. They decided that Siddhu would have to buy one.
The rest of the day felt like a dream. He filed his piece about the advent of the late-night funerals. Occasionally he would emerge from his daze to panic. Crossing the streets, he worried he might get hit by a car before he could see his family again. Wouldn’t that be the crowning absurdity in his life story?
He went to a local store that specialized in surveillance equipment to buy a covert video camera. The store seemed busy that day, full of people looking for GPS trackers, night-vision goggles, and cameras hidden in lamps and grandfather clocks. Siddhu settled on a camera that was built into a pair of fake reading glasses.
Outsiders might presume that living in a quarantined city with a more visible police and military presence would have amplified security. How much theft occurs in an airport? In fact, the city had enough pockets for would-be criminals to hide. Confinement and idleness drove some Vancouverites into criminality—they were normally law-abiding people who, at worst, stole unattended goods and bought fenced items. The disease made other people desperate. They raised online donation campaigns for friends immobilized by grief and then pocketed the proceeds. The rate of infection was overshot by the rate at which people robbed and stabbed one another. These people were roughly equalled in number by do-gooders like Rieux.
In the evening, he Skyped with his wife from a coffee shop. “Why aren’t you in your hotel room?” Uma asked him as she rushed their sons through dinner. She seemed annoyed. He noticed that she was also wearing makeup for the first time in weeks. “Why are you calling so early?”
He lied and said that he was on his way to another funeral. He didn’t want to tell her about his escape. That would scare her. He asked to see the boys, but they were too preoccupied with their chicken and rice to notice him. He asked Uma to leave the phone on the table so he could just watch them eat for a few minutes.
Then he found a more comfortable armchair in the centrally located coffee shop favoured by international students studying in front of textbooks and glowing laptops that displayed web pages in foreign languages. He was prepared to wait.
The call from Khan came at ten. He gave his address and was told that “an associate” would pick him up in five minutes. Siddhu stood outside and shivered for half an hour until the white cube truck appeared. The driver had a stringy beard and looked Southeast Asian. He didn’t speak, but pointed to the cargo hold, which was empty. Siddhu climbed inside.
He sat on the floor. He typed a note for his wife, one for her to read in case something happened on the way home. He admitted to his affair. He told her the combination to the safe in the basement rec room where he kept three-thousand dollars in cash and some of his grandmother’s jewellery. When he was finished writing, he left the note in his drafts folder. She would find it eventually if he didn’t survive.
The car stopped, and the cargo-hold door rolled up. Before his eyes could adjust to the light outside, he could smell the trash in the transfer station. The odour that came at him was first sweet, then stomach-churning.
A garbage truck was idling at the gate of the transfer station. His driver stood outside the cube truck talking to the driver, who was sitting behind the wheel. Siddhu’s phone rang. “My friend will give you a suit to wear. Put it on,” Khan told him. “Then climb into the garbage truck. By then you will know what will come next.”