Anticipation Is

Anticipation Is

Will is half asleep and doesn’t brace himself against the impact. It is his good fortune. The driver is thrown against the steering wheel and it is now pressing on his chest and restricting his breathing. Ian’s head is whipped sideways and cracks the passenger window, knocking him out. The Range Rover comes to a stop with its front wheels dangling over the edge of a rock wall. A hundred feet below runs the Bartang River, a pearlescent ribbon of water and ice that has traveled from the Alai Range.

“Holy shit,” Will cries out.

The Range Rover cracks and hisses and the bearings in one of its wheels grind slowly to a halt. Then nothing.

Will feels a pain shoot up his thigh. The driver’s seat has run up on his shin and pinned his ankle. Sharp, pointed tentacles grab hold of his lower intestines and he hunches over to relieve the cramping. The Range Rover creaks and lets out a slow pained murmur of its own.

“God damn it, move your seat up,” Will yells.

Will might have chosen different words if he had known that the driver, a Tajik from a small village near the Afghan border, was dying. Still, the driver would have forgiven him. He knows that Westerns react harshly and abruptly when attacked and it was his culture to forgive them. Either way, it was moot.

Will turns towards his partner. “Ian, you there? I think we had an accident.”

Ian is leaning forward in his seat as if he was tying his shoes. He is held in position by his safety belt, but, otherwise, he’s not moving.

Will jabs him in the shoulder with his index finger. Ian’s shakes then turn to Will. There is a line of blood dripping down his cheek and into the plaid scarf he has wrapped over the collar of his shirt. He inhales once as if he’d just come up from a deep, deep dive.

“Hey, you’re bleeding, mate. You look like shit.” Ian grins. It’s a quirky, mocking grin that Brits do. Then he drops his head and dives down somewhere even deeper this time.

Will is gripped in pain again. He convulses forward then bounces up and back against his seat. He is flush with anger and agony and throws his arms forward and his palms into the back of the driver’s seat. The Range Rover slips forward again. Will can see Pik Abu Ali Ibn Sino, a snow-laden peak standing tall and noble on the horizon, through the windshield. It looks like any other mountain from a distance. But Tajikistan is quieter, emptier than Will had expected. Ana would be impressed. She imagines that the work he does in the name of development is an adventure and the more remote the greater the experience. He lets her believe what she will. If she knew how it was and the worlds that he entered into when he took these assignments she would fight against him going. But he feels ennobled by the hardships like so many expatriates before him.

Clouds appear on the horizon and Will feels a chill drip down his spine. The corduroy shirt he bought on his lay-over in Berlin feels transparent. Everything else is in the back of the Range Rover. His parka and gloves. Passport and emergency contact numbers. There is even a satellite phone wrapped in a pair of warm, insulated pants with matching suspenders.

Little puffs of air come out of Ian’s mouth, like a kitten still learning how to call for its mother’s milk.

“Ian,” Will yell over to him. “I’m stuck or I’d help you. You need to wake up. Wake the fuck up!”

His sense of time is off and a rush of things that he can’t control comes to him, one-after-the-other: He can’t free his foot, his door won’t open, Ian is unconscious, he can’t remember the driver’s name and the only thing within his reach, the only thing that he can take a hold of and use is The Lonely Planet travel guide to Central Asia. He takes it and jams it into the gap between the door and the car to block the wind and cold that is beginning to seep through the opening.

Each time he moves, the Range Rover gives way just a bit and the length of its torn metal hull screams and shutters. It is noticeable now. The balance is more forward than it had been. The horizon has risen and he can’t see Pik Abu Ali Ibn Sino any longer. Now, over the hood, he sees a long valley and a river flowing purposefully through it. Nothing else. No cities, no villages, just the empty landscape of the Steppes.

Clouds envelope the Range Rover. In the Alai mountains, in the waning moments of winter, weather can be unwelcome and grey.

The Range Rover shifts again, inching forward.

“What? I’m not moving,” Will appeals. “Why are you? Just stay where you are.”

He was like that with Ana. He asked and she provided. It had never been a matter of what she wanted, what made her feel safe and loved and beautiful.

A family of long-tailed marmots climbs from out from under the Range Rover. Will watches as they move furtively about, protected from predators by the clouds. They look like small beavers with flat heads and brown coats daubed with flakes of gold down their sides. Small, friendly beavers who want his attention.

“Hey, you. You looking at me? You looking at me? Nobody else here.” Then, “What’s your name? I need your name. I’m making a list of the screw-ups on this trip. The driver’s on it, now you. Hey, I’m not messing around. I was hired by the Minister of something or another to do a job here. I’m late and there’ll be shit to pay, buddy. Mark my words.”

Hope is followed by fatalism and between them lies sarcasm. The British had taught him that.

“Ian, how long you gonna sit there? I’m losing it. You can see that, can’t you? Worst of all, I’m beginning to sound like one of you.”

Ian falls back in his seat. The Range Rover slips further. The marmots disappear under the Range Rover.

“Don’t move. Just stay where you are. Easy, buddy. Easy.”

A black, bristled fly, large enough to carry luggage, has been a passenger in the Range Rover since they left Dushanbe. He had been attracted by the smell of the driver’s lunch, rice cooked in lamb and vegetables. Sweet and oily. Now the blood and citrus smell coming from the driver gave it new life. Will waves at it as it flies past him. The Range Rover bucks. He blows air through his parched lips, but it is unaffected. He spits at it and remembers how thirsty he is. He resorts to negotiations, always the last resort.

“You piece of shit fly. I will kill you and all your children if you don’t get out of here.”

The fly lands on the seat, just out of reach, and stares at the back of the driver’s head.

The clouds have thickened and Will shivers and realizes how tired he is feeling. He whispers to Ana as if she is sitting next to him and he doesn’t want the others to hear. “I am sorry. I should have told you where I was going. I should have asked you if it was okay.”

He dozes off. When he awakens, it’s dark. He reaches up and switches on the cabin light. Ian’s skin looks yellow, but so does his. It must be the light, he thinks. He can see his breath in front of him and he lifts his hand and washes it in the warmth.

He sees Ana in the dimness. She is wearing a woolen sweater with ear muffs and she is cutting a steak with a knife and fork that she is holding in her gloved hands. She gestures with them as she lift her wine glass, feigning a sophisticate’s charms.

“You are so beautiful. So warm,” he says.

She smiles and it fills him with remorse.

“I am sorry. But I have a break, in six months. We can go somewhere. Meet up and be together. Greece, perhaps. Have you ever been there? The beaches are beautiful. Hot and sunny. Or we could go to Cairo, up the Suez to one of the resorts. They have pools and we can lay in the sun and bake ourselves and take long showers, hot showers, together to wash off the dust and sweat.” She doesn’t answer.

Ian’s skin is orange and textured. Is the cabin light fading, Will wonders.

Will reaches out and takes Ana’s hand. It is cold. She lets him hold it without answer, loose and impersonal. He runs his thumb up the line between her thumb and index finger and imagines he can feel her heartbeat and hear her thoughts. He transfers the remaining warmth in his body to her and she responds.

“If I we were home now, what would we be doing?” he asks. “Is it morning there? Would we still be in bed? Under the comforter?” Will wiggles the toes in his free foot and wraps his feet around her. The pain is gone.

The light in the Range Rover is nearly out. There is just enough for Will to see how thick the clouds are now and how they fill the space within the Range Rover. They are wet and invasive.

Ana is now sitting under a lamp, reading. She is wrapped in a blanket made of thick cashmere. There is a fire somewhere. The light flickers and throws shadows dancing across the floor. He touches her shoulder and she leans forward. He now knows what this means. He reaches out, places his fingers at the nape of her neck and massages with a slow, rhythmic drumming. He hears the sound of car keys rattle.

There is a moon somewhere in the sky, but it is behind the drape of clouds and too far away for Will to see what he is doing. The weight on his foot has lifted and he pulls his boot out. Then he rubs his hands against the fabric on the seat in front of him, caressing the lines of stitching and the curve of its shoulders. He moves gently so as not to impose upon her, slides across the seat and she is still, yielding to his touch. He opens the door, his fingers laced around the latch, listening for its response. His moves with intention and intuition. He knows where force is needed and where it is not, he avoids, leaving a zone of anticipation and a place for future gratification.

Ana lies in a hot bath and he sprinkles red rose petals around her. The candles are the only light and he is outside the halo of illumination. Steam rises and disappears into the darkness. He leaves her there.

He has the keys in his hand and he adjusts the driver’s seat to fit his larger frame. He slides the keys into the ignition.

Ana’s eyes open wide. Her face is an expression of time stopped.

The Range Rover ignites. Gas and oil and hydraulic fluids flow.

Ana moans.

The Range Rover screams.

Will is the master of his universe because he understands now how to please her. “It’s all in the fingers,” he says to himself as he falls asleep finally.