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Poseidon's Wake

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‘You think about death too much,’ chided Mrs Al Asnam, placing a hand on her husband’s wrist. ‘It’s not a healthy preoccupation.’

‘I think about death to stare it in the eye,’ Mr Al Asnam replied, with a sudden fierce enthusiasm.

There was a formulaic quality to this exchange which led Kanu to suspect it had been aired before, perhaps many times. The Al Asnams appeared cosily settled in their routines, as comfortable with each other as a pair of gloves.

‘You must tell us again how you came to meet,’ said Mrs Al Asnam. ‘Nissa explained quickly, but I do not think I quite understood. You were married once, and now you have met again because of your mutual interest in Sunday?’

‘We met in Lisbon,’ Nissa said. ‘Accidentally. But had it not been for Sunday’s work, it wouldn’t have happened.’

‘And you were aware of Mrs Mbaye’s scholarship beforehand?’ Mr Al Asnam asked.

‘How could he not have been?’ asked Mrs Al Asnam, as if this was the silliest thing he had ever said.

‘Actually, I wasn’t,’ Kanu said, smiling. ‘It’s a terrible confession, I know, but I’ve really only developed an interest in Sunday since I got home. And it was a coincidence, our meeting again.’

‘The world still has the capacity to surprise us,’ said Mr Al Asnam, visibly pleased with himself at the expression of this sentiment. ‘This gives me hope.’

‘Sooner or later,’ Nissa said, ‘our paths would have crossed. In some ways, perhaps it’s not such a coincidence. I developed an interest in Sunday’s work because of our marriage, and it must always have been at the back of Kanu’s mind, something he meant to look into.’

‘I’m glad it happened, though,’ Kanu said. ‘I didn’t realise how much I’d missed a friend until I was back on Earth.’

With a certain inevitability they had become lovers again a week after their reunion in Lisbon. It was tentative at first, both of them recognising that their new-found friendship could just as easily be broken as reinforced. Equally, neither had much to lose. If they became lovers and then decided it was not working, no great hurt would have been done to either party. They could still part on good terms, better for the experience. In the meantime, as in all things, Kanu opted to trust the compass of his instincts and hope for the best.

Both had changed in the century since their marriage ended. Kanu was much older than Nissa — very old indeed even by the modern measure. He had benefited from his merfolk genetic transformation, which protected him against the worse effects of the Mechanism’s fall. Nissa was less advantaged, but as she approached the turn of her third century, it was clear she had made the wisest use of her wealth and contacts, seeking out the best prolongation therapies available in this harsher, simpler world. They both carried their allotment of scars, inside and out.

‘I have work to do,’ she said as they were lying next to each other in one of the guest bedrooms. ‘Too much work and not enough time. I’m not ready to give in just yet.’

‘I was thinking back to what Mr Al Asnam said. He had a point, didn’t he? What’s the sense in all this glory if Sunday’s not around to be a part of it?’ Kanu kept his voice low, not wanting to disturb the other sleepers in the household. It was late and the night silent. He felt himself at the epicentre of an almost perfect stillness, as if Tangiers was the unmoving pivot around which the rest of the universe revolved.

Perhaps it was the wine.

‘Half of all the great art and literature in existence went unrecognised during the lifetimes of its creators,’ Nissa answered in the same low murmur. ‘I know, it’s a terribly unfair state of affairs, but that’s just life. At least your grandmother wasn’t unhappy, or starving, or persecuted. That’s more than some of them managed.’

‘I’m not ungrateful. We’d both be poorer without her work.’

Nissa rolled over into his belly, straddling him. She began to draw lazy spiralling designs on his chest, circles within circles, wheels within wheels. ‘Reputation’s everything to you Akinyas, isn’t it? You’ve always got to push at the boundaries, looking to the horizon.’

‘Not all of us.’

She stroked his neck. ‘What happened to the gills?’

‘I didn’t need them on Mars and they’re a bother in a spacesuit.’ Kanu began to stroke the side of her face, testing the line of her jaw against his memory. ‘Perhaps I should grow them back. I think my space-travelling days are over.’

‘That’s a shame. I thought you might like to see my ship.’

‘You really have a ship?’

‘A terrible waste of money, most of the time — just sits up in orbit, depreciating.’

‘Then sell it.’

‘I would, except it’s not exactly a seller’s market right now. Hello, would you like to buy a spaceship? Nearly new, one careful owner? The only drawback is you’ll need to spend a month filing flight applications even if you only want to go to Venus and back. Oh, and there are huge alien things floating out there which might be about to kill us. Most people can’t be bothered.’ She was working her way down his abdomen, slowly and with care, as if mapping an alien territory. ‘Besides, I’m going to need it again. All I’m waiting on is the permission.’

She had been vague about her plans for the future. Kanu began to understand why.

‘You mean to go somewhere?’

‘Not far — just an exploratory expedition, following up a line of enquiry.’

‘To do with Sunday?’

‘From the right angle, everything is to do with Sunday. I’m serious, though — I thought you might like to see the ship.’

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Well, don’t overdo the enthusiasm.’

‘No, really — it would be nice. Where exactly are you going, anyway?’

‘You don’t get to learn all my secrets at once, Kanu Akinya.’

He smiled at her coyness. ‘Nor would I wish to.’

They fell into wordless, near-silent lovemaking, after which they lay back in their bed and tried to sleep.

But Kanu found it impossible. After a few restless hours he rose, dressed, left the room as quietly as possible and began to stroll the moonlit corridors, stairs and courtyard of the house. When the shutters were thrown wide, the windows turned out to be wooden carvings cut with tremendous skill into mesmerising Islamic patterns. By day, they cast interlocking designs across the courtyard’s tiles, developing across the hours like a slowly revealing mathematical argument. At night the same theorem repeated itself in the paler hues of moonlight.

But the absence of glass left Kanu oddly unsettled, as if it had been omitted purely to throw him off-kilter. On Mars, a thumb’s width of glass had stood between him and death. He had come to depend on the sanctity of glass, to sleep well in its care.

He tried not to disturb Nissa when he returned to their bed.

‘You can’t sleep?’

‘Still on Mars time,’ Kanu said.

‘You’ve been back on Earth for weeks.’

‘It takes a while. Perhaps it’s the Moon. It’s very high and full tonight and I’ve never slept well when it’s bright. I’m a marine organism — we live by the tides.’

‘You mean you’re a creature of water.’

‘Something like that.’

‘Then you should come with me when I take the ship. I’m going somewhere wet.’

He smiled. ‘There aren’t many wet places in the solar system.’

‘Do you like surprises or not?’

‘Sometimes.’ But after a silence, he added, ‘Surely not Europa? Don’t tell me you’re going there?’

‘You’re no fun. You guess too easily.’

‘It was just a guess.’

A cat shrieked across the night. Kanu knew that his chances of sleeping were now hopelessly lost. It would be best to resign himself to that. Before very long, from the telephone masts and solar towers of old Tangiers, the faithful would be called to prayer.

The Al Asnams had been marvellous hosts, but Kanu and Nissa had a world to see and limited time in which to do so. From Tangiers they took the coastal express to Dakar; from Dakar they crossed the Gulf of Guinea to Accra, riding a sleek old clipper ship that had once navigated autonomously but whose sails were now trimmed by a boisterous crew of sea-hardened merfolk. In the evening, as the ship cut through wine-dark waters, Nissa and Kanu sat on deck. They listened to happy shanties about foolhardy mariners and troublesome sirens and fell asleep under equatorial stars. Kanu slept better on the ship than he had in the household, even when they ran into heavy seas off Freetown.

In Accra there was a museum to visit, a modest public affair but nonetheless bright and well maintained. They had six Sunday pieces on permanent display — three paintings, two Maasai-inspired sculptures and a ceramic jug she had bought in a Lunar flea market and glazed with her own designs. Nissa patiently explained the various provenances of these pieces and their relatively minor significance within Sunday’s wider output.

‘Really,’ she said, when they were out of earshot of the museum’s hosts, ‘it’s just an excuse to visit Accra. It’s lovely at this time of year.’

It was, but since Tangiers a disquiet had settled over Kanu’s mood. It was with him at all hours of the day. If it began to slip away, the mere observation of its departure was enough to bring it scuttling back.

They had been married, but that was an earlier part of his life and for years Nissa had barely troubled his thoughts. He would never have wished harm upon her, but equally he had taken no interest in her day-to-day affairs. If she wished to place herself in peril for the sake of intellectual curiosity or academic reward, that was her right; he would have resented Nissa telling him he was taking an absurd risk by living on the surface of Mars. Now they were lovers and companions again, and it was natural that he should take a greater interest in her well-being. But he did not think this breezy affair would last for the rest of their lives. It would come to its natural conclusion, as their marriage had, and they would go their separate ways again. And in time there would be a day during which he did not think of Nissa, and eventually a week, and sooner or later what she did with herself would cease to concern him.