Dead Again

Date: 12 September 200316.47 PST
From: “Jenny MacIonnractaigh”
To: “Socrates”
Subject: Will I ever c u again?

Im glad d@ cost f livin s so much less dan u taut t wud b s tings wud hav bin really tite otherwise, it seems d@ dere’s no end 2 d infl8n here. Im sorry it took me a few days 2 get bak 2 u, paradoxically twas cause I was going thru 1 f dose fases where I was despairin f ever bein able 2 c u again & was moping round d house n a really languid torpor. I havent really bin up 2 much otherwise, when I can b arsed I go n d www r go in2 town & buy sum boox, otherwise I sit around & watch TV. Are u gonna hav a TV @ ur farm? I tink otherwise I wud get v bored, esp n winter when I dont tink dere’d b much else 2 do. Are dere clubs dere? I mis goin out dancing with u so much. I wud go in2 Galway but Im afraid I’d get cracked on2 left, right & centre, mayB I shud do like St. Bridgid & ask God 4 sum ugly pills. Do u feel d same way about me? Do u wake up @ nite & turn over 2 me 4 comfort but find only a space where I used 2 be & den cry? Please say yes, Seamus, I dont even care if u hav bin with other women as long as u still long 2 B with me. I’ll wire u d £ 2 1st ting 2moro.
I Luv u 2 Death.
Jenny.

That was about as despairing as she’d ever been, and Seamus, who’d been caught up in everything that had been going on in his own life, realised that he might have ruined another woman’s life. But he hoped that it wouldn't last long, if the worst came to the worst, he could think of some way for her to fake her own death and they could live in Venezuela together, dead green doppelgangers in the Underworld.
He got a cab to the western union office the next day and took all the money in cash, so much so that he needed a case to carry it in. He cursed the Yankees for not having a $500 denomination, as his compatriots had in the enlightened Eurozone. He sweated all the way to the government buildings, fearing that any moment he could be taken on a detour and end up in some dark alley. He was so relieved when he got there that he gave the driver a generous tip, which was returned with a smile that showed a mixture of condescension and curiosity.
By now his face was a familiar one and he was shown right up to the office and let straight in, and greeted by his Hellenic pseudonym and hugged, though he could sense that the official was eager to see the money. Seamus was tempted to toy with him for a while, opening the zip tantalisingly like a stripper but thought better of it. When the official saw the money he seemed more relieved that anything else, it seemed that he’d risked a lot to get Seamus this farm and was unsure of his credentials. He was shown what appeared to be the deeds to his land, and, much as he despised the idea of either owning or mapping land he felt eager to get them into his hands. Then he was told that he was going to be given a lift up there and asked how his driving lessons were coming on.
“I haven’t really given the whole thing much effort”, he confessed.
The official scratched his moustache and asked about his Spanish.
“Muchos Beunos, Grasias.” He cursed himself for saying Grat-ee-ass as they did in Spain. Then he was told that someone was going to pick him up at his hotel the following morning. That caused another night of painful, agonised waiting as he wondered if this was all too good to be true, that if he was being taken for a ride that there was little he could do, as a fugitive living abroad on a false passport to get the money back. But the next morning there was a knock on his hotel door and Mr. Angelopolous was called. He hurriedly got all his things together and and rushed down to the reception, where he settled his bills, had a quick cup of tea and a bread roll and thanked everyone effusively.
Though he was still far from fluent in Spanish, he understood that this man was going to take him all the way to the coast, introduce him to the people who would be working for him and whom he would be teaching. They talked a little as the truck made it’s way through the city streets but as crowded city streets became suburban roads and they became dirt tracks his fatigue and his lack of Spanish caused the conversation to dry up like the mighty Angel Falls did during the dry season. It seemed that the wealth that was generated by the black gold that lay under the Country’s seas still hadn't percolated out here, as most people were still living in the sort of straw huts that Columbus must’ve seen half a Millennium earlier. He passed many young children on the road, wearing cast-off clothing from the west, premiership replica shirts from the nineties being common. They seemed rootless and aimless, and the idea that, but for a few random differences the positions could be reversed was never far from his mind.
After a few exhausting hours driving into the scorching sun, they finally reached their destination, where it seemed like he was being greeted like the man from Del Monte, though the analogy was one he tried to erase from his mind. He was a little surprised at this, he thought that they would have been tired of working for someone else, but he reasoned that if his appointment bore Chavez’ imprimatur then the peasants would welcome it. He looked around at their faces and saw a little of both native and European in them, figuring that this land was relatively remote yet near the coast, this made sense. He was told that the English classes would begin the following day, and that he would be allowed to run the farm as he saw fit, as long as he provided labour for a certain amount of locals, and allowed all of them their own private patch; though he would get regular visits from local officials to check on his progress. It was strange, but the arrangement seemed almost feudal, as if he was on the second last rung from the bottom on the ladder. After he’d met and greeted everyone and tried to remember all of their names, he said that he hoped to see them all for English lessons the next day. Then he took a look around the farm, and saw that the harvest had just happened, that the previous owners had been squeezing every last drop of nutrition out of the soil, the lack of any weeds suggested that they used weedkillers. It seemed that the soil was crying out for something to be put back into it.
He thought more about this as he looked around his house. It was relatively modest, concrete and functional, he figured it hadn't belonged to the people who owned the land, but to one of their hired hands, the people who kept the peasants in order. He figured out where he was going to put all of his stuff, but first he was going to go to the beach.
It was about a miles walk away, and as he made his way up there he got some strange looks from passers-by, many of whom, he realised had probably never seen someone that white before. He was the only person on the beach, presumably because the locals regarded the idea of swimming as an eccentric western indulgence. The water was warm but still refreshing. He swam for a while, always remaining on the look-out for poisonous fish. He noticed when he got out that there was plenty of seaweed on the beach and that it would be a good idea to use it to fertilise his famished land.
When he got back it was evening. He turned on the TV and found the sort of gaudy game shows that Europeans like to take the piss out of, and figured that if he had enough spare time, he’d have to see about getting cable. Then he listened to some music on his discman and then fell asleep.
The next morning he made his way to the schoolroom. It was rudimentary, with a blackboard and chalk as his only accessories. He felt his way around to see how much English his students, who were of wildly mixed ages, had and realised that it wasn't very much. He would have to go back to first principals, like Gulliver in a strange land or Tarzan with Jane. When the first class was over he found out who had been designated to work for him and asked them to come to the beach with him. They were puzzled and wondered why, and as he didn't know the word for seaweed in Spanish he couldn't really explain. As they followed him up, he pointed to everything he saw and told his students the name, so that the more advanced learners would have known the English words for birds, dogs, cats, children, trees, sand, the sea, water, and seaweed. He led by example by filling a bag with the stuff and carrying on his back. Some of the students were amazed that he was working with them instead of just telling them what to do, as if this was an aberration in their world. When they got back he started to spread it all over the soil and beckoned them to follow, though they couldn't seem to understand why.
When he got home that evening he set about connecting his laptop to the phone line, which, as he was inept at this sort of thing, took quite a while. When he did get it sorted out, he emailed Jenny and told her about all his hopes and dreams, though when he read over it he realised what a small part she was playing in them and had to revise it a little. He set about finding some new music on mp3, and though his connection was slow it was cheap and it wasn't a problem leaving it on all night. He realised that he had totally lost touch with what was going on at home.
In the following weeks he set about planning for the spring. He built small walls to delineate the spaces allocated for each local, hoping that in time they’d grow to be hedgerows. He fertilised them with more seaweed and some leafmould, he made compost heaps and went on the internet to find out about utilising human waste as well. The children soaked up the English he had to teach them in much the same way the land was soaking up these organic nutrients, so much so that after a month they were asking him about himself in his own language. He would have loved to have told them the truth, that he too was a victim of oppression, but he realised the risks involved and perpetuated the fallacy that he was Greek instead.
By spring he’d evolved a routine. He was spending around two hours a day teaching and around three farming. He learned to drive easily enough but went into the city as little as possible. He spent his spare time watching soccer on the TV or on the beach downloading music from the internet and reading about what was going on at home and in the rest of the small little planet that he was sharing with so many others. Thankfully for him there was still no link established between Sinn Fein, the IRA and the people who were committing the acts of ecoterror, of which there seemed to be more and more, though he was still waiting for another big one, the way that Hassidic Jews waited for the tenth red heifer to be born. He wondered why no-one had tried to kill any of the Belgians who were trying to build a waste incinerator near his home, or the politicians who were facilitating it - how hard would that be?
He contacted Jenny almost every day, she’d gotten a digital camera and was sending photos of herself, and he noticed that while she looked as beautiful as ever, she seemed to have acquired the sort of melancholy that he associated with Parisian cafe women in impressionist paintings, though the landscape was the more roughly beautiful west of Ireland for which he often yearned, though he’d always rationalise and tell himself that the worst fate that could befall a man in this day and age was to live in the same place all his life. Anyway, if he lived long enough no-one would recognise him any more and he could return like Oisin to the place of his youth.
He brooded like a prisoner on Devil’s island or a member of the French foreign legion about the events that brought him here. He wished there was some way that he could find out about his family and about the band of gypsies that he called friends at home, though he knew he’d have to wait till he was older, a dishevelled, decrepit Oedipus at Colonus. He feared that, paradoxically, the movement that he had catalysed would prevent this from ever happening, that the fear that there would be an ecoterror attack on a plane, combined with the rising cost of fuel would make it impossible for him to ever fly home, that if he wanted to return to Tir na Nog that he might have to build his own boat and make his own Columbus-in-reverse journey, hoping that the offerings he made to Gaia would bring forth some favourable winds.
With the spring months he started to see his plants grow and became reacquainted with a thrill that he hadn't known for some years, feeling that he had once more become a participant in nature’s cycle instead of just a passive recipient of it’s bounty. The locals who worked for him, or with him as he preferred to say, wondered how this westerner who had so much could be so enchanted by something so mundane as a few plants growing, yet Seamus seemed to will them on, stroking them as if they were women’s nipples.
And then finally the day came when the quinoa was ready to harvest. It was possible that the locals already knew how to harvest such an ancient crop, but Seamus was determined to begin the harvest himself and cook a meal for everyone that he worked for and taught. In a cauldron he cooked a pilau, enough for the two dozen or so people he had invited. And they all agreed that it was good, not too spicy for Seamus nor too mild for their fiery Latin American palettes. When the meal was over they danced until the sun the sun kissed the fields in the distance. Though he put on a show of enjoying himself and danced with all the young women who probably harboured fantasies that he would want to marry them, he secretly wished that Jenny could be there, or even to have the certainty that she’d be there the year after, or even the year after that.
He resisted the temptation to take advantage of any of the local girls, going quietly back to his room and downloading pictures of Jenny from the internet and putting on some music by Miles Davis and masturbating instead. He worked hard in the following weeks until the nights started to draw in early and the harvest was over. And then there was some time for both himself and the locals and the land they worked on to rest.
It was still warm - it never really gets cold in Venezuela - and he spent much time on the beach reading second-hand books he got in Caracas and some that in fits of extravagance he bought over the internet. And then, one day, he found out he was dead.