The Empire of Souls and Other Stories

By Stuart Luijerink

The empire of souls and other stories is a collection of stories set in various cultures around the world. Starting with the plight of an individual surviving in the challenging environment of Zambia, the collection broadens to a Chinese family in a remote village hiding the existence of their offspring from the authorities and from one another, and then to the subtle struggle of nations vying for the international vote of a small tropical paradise. From a young woman of Indian descent making her way amidst the multicultural carnival of London, to avoiding crocodiles in outback Australia, dining in southern France, starting a new life amidst the rubbish tips of Central America, an emerging composer in Uzbekistan who strives to carve out an empire of souls for his original music amidst the turmoil of the collapsing Soviet Union, engaging the tug of war in Israel, surviving the Russian winter, hitch-hiking through the Sahara Desert, navigating the crowded streets of India, walking up the aisle of a gold encrusted church in Ecuador, cracking the polite etiquette of Tokyo, and fishing for something big amidst the fjords of Norway, the various cultures glimpsed in these fictional moments combine to sing the resonance of our multi-layered empires.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781626758667

Book preview

idea.

The money changer.

First published in Australian Short Stories. Issue 42 (Pascoe Publishing) 1993

A westerner walks upon the dusty main street of Lusaka, Zambia. He is discreet in manner, but conspicuous for his white skin and therefore, even if only with passing interest, is watched by many pairs of eyes.

‘Scuzze me bozz,’ an old man hisses, his dark skin visible beneath torn clothing, his feet bare, his black hair fizzing into grey.

The toss of a coin affords the two a momentary coalition and the westerner has passed on. He appreciates the hopeless definition of dispossessed in Africa, but he dares not be seen to linger. Always that latent suspicion in each casual gaze, begging the question - ‘What are you doing here?’ And always the convoys, the ubiquitous khaki.

Our westerner is a curious fellow; small, wizened, but hardy, a survivor. Something in the colour and texture of his skin, the bluntness of his features, gives him the semblance of a walnut. He exists in the niche of chance between the law and the marketplace, inspired by a world where ailing currencies are officially fixed at levels well above their real world value. To be caught circumventing the system is not a pleasant prospect.

He makes his way now past the relics of western domination which decay all about him. Barren concrete walls, barred windows, rattling cars devoid of windscreens and shaped by collision. Tarmac dissipates into dust. He strides on without giving it a thought, having seen far better and far worse.

Some way in the dust before him there is a road block. Soldiers. Zealous and mean. Their presence long since integrated into his calculations, he turns off into a deserted lane and approaches the enclosure of the Salvation Army headquarters.

He stops at the guardhouse, slips a ten cent equivalent to the boy on watch and secures his registration for the night. Entering the walled sanctuary, he passes the row of whitewashed rocks and skirts the whitewashed church to arrive at an obscure corner where stands the travellers shed.

A head high roof of corrugated iron and knee high walls, lend their shelter to twelve square yards of cement floor. Several backpacks lie strewn about and a handful of travel-stained youths congregate within, conferring in a smorgasbord of different languages. He approaches the group and smiles glibly with his darkly glittering, snake-like gaze.

‘Good afternoon gentlemen, you may be aware of our little conspiracy,’ he begins through thin lips. His accent carries the faint germanic slew of Africaan.

‘If you require any local currency, or Zimbabwe dollars, I would be happy to accommodate you.’

‘What kind of rate?’

‘For dollars, four times the official exchange, it is a very good rate,’ he commends himself.

A number of the company evidently share his view, as they rummage through person and property to extract hard currency from all manner of subtle recesses.

As dusk settles, a fire is revived from the ashes beside the shed. Travel stories entwine with the smoke to waft through the evening.

Our money changer cannot waste the darkness. He is slipping out with his modest pack, shying from light, careful not to be seen by watchful soldiers who hunger for foreign spies. He avoids the post office where they are sure to loiter. With each measured pace he is fortified by the promise of his future. Tucked away next to his skin he can feel its secret presence. It is a precious presence indeed, one which warms his spirits in the coldest of circumstances. One that equates his ceaseless calculation with its solution. One that justifies his every action.

‘Oh my precious beauties...,’ he muses as he walks. He longs to draw them out. To pour them out into the tender palm of his loving hand. To hold them with fervent gaze and bathe with infinite elation in their perfect light.

The tightly knotted muscles of his sinewy legs carry him over his familiar course, but he begins to feel his age and ponders, ‘Am I slowing down? One must be quick and shrewd to survive...’

Arriving at his back street destination, he pauses before a shop door.

The shop is shut up, its window dark and heavily fortified with laced curtains of iron. He taps upon the door with a slight, brief rap, his gaze darting about the surrounding shadows as he waits.

No answer.

Instinctively, alarm tickles his senses. Again he knocks -lightly, briskly.

It takes an age for some sign of stirrings within.

A lock rattles from behind the door and a bolt drawn back. The door is meanly pulled ajar so as to bar his entry.

‘Be quick!’ He hisses. ‘We cannot do business in the street.’

The unexpected upper register of a hushed woman’s voice greets his ears. The accent clipped in a familiar Indian manner.

‘Go-way. There is no business,’ comes an urgent whisper.

‘Where is he?’ he demands softly. He can see one beady eye.

‘He cannot come.’

The door is shut as a punctuation of finality.

To loiter would be pointless. Dangerous.

Now he is returning to the whitewashed sanctuary, varying his route.

Most of the travellers are tucked up in their sleeping bags and stretch out upon the concrete floor, some on sleeping mats, some without. Quietly he follows their cue, prompted by the chill of the African night.

Two Antipodeans remain out by the fire, talking in low voices. Instinctively, he listens. Nothing is gleaned from their conversation. Nothing of which he is not aware. The murmurs subside, shufflings of weary feet keep the silence at bay. Close by, a tap runs, teeth are being scrubbed, water gurgled. Now the duller sound of liquid falling upon ashen dust and a hissing as somebody pisses on the fire.

The presence of the two strangers is keen as they step into the shed, wary in the darkness.

‘Money changer,’ one of them whispers as he crawls into his sleeping bag. ‘Some guy came looking for you. Had an official air about him. Zambian bloke. He’ll be back tomorrow.’

The information passes unacknowledged, entering directly into the little man’s calculations.

Before 4 am the muted rustle of cloth being squeezed into containment stirs in the darkness. There is a brief shuffle of rubber-soled shoes before the silence resettles.

Out into the unlit morning the money changer steals, setting off toward the railway station. If he is quick, the morning train will take him to the border and he will have lost nothing.

He stops. Stiffens. Alien headlights sweep through the darkness and disappear. He waits. Above all else he fears the military and their hunger for spies. Suspicion is indeed a damning weight. Remaining unchallenged, he moves on.

As he approaches the station, a growing number of locals appear, sharing his destination. Already a sizeable congregation has massed at the station, all intent upon securing a ticket for the morning train. He takes his place in line uneasily. To vie for a ticket uncertainly, in such a fashion, is against his instinct. However, the sudden urgency of his departure could not be foreseen, so he takes his place amidst the locals, their cases and baskets stuffed with unworldly possessions, the serious, ebon featured men, the robust women and their drowsy, snotty infants. They were all accepting of the crush, the absence of personal space, of sovereignty. It was endemic of their lot.

He endures the wait. He feels superior to those about him, not because of colour or class, but because of the secret store of latent discretion tucked against his skin. And so he stands, pressed against the large, Negro woman before him by the queue behind.

As the ticket window opens the push intensifies, driven by an air of anticipation, peppered by the scarcity of seats available. Finally he gains the ticket window, only to be advised that the morning train is full. Even after much persuasion he is fortunate to secure a place on the evening express and is resigned to wait.

Having purchased the ticket he ponders the situation. He cannot return to the whitewashed sanctuary from which he has ventured, for though the dawn is just breaking, there is no telling who may come asking for him. He would be caught within those walls like a rat in a trap. To return to the premises of his colleague after the developments of the previous evening would be even more ill-considered. It is best to stay put until late afternoon when the second train is due to arrive.

He finds an obscure position upon the end of the platform, behind a row of stacked containers waiting to be shunted off to their destination. From this subtle vantage point he watches the morning train pull in and the anxious crowds who engulf its compartments.

Now it should depart. There it stands, as if drawing upon its last breath, belching filth into the air. Still it stands, without reason.

Small black heads protrude from the windows of the stationary train, inquisitively. The platform is all but deserted. So it stands for forty minutes at which point an officer of the law strides out onto the platform from the station gate.

Instinctively our money changer stiffens, peering out watchfully like a cat observing the appearance of a dog. The officer boards the train at the far end, but still it does not depart. It remains motionless for a numbingly long period. The little man calculates as he waits. He can envisage three possible passages of retreat, none so subtle that he would favour them unless forced to do so.

Still he waits.

Suddenly, abruptly, a door swings open at the end of the carriage closest to himself. Down steps the officer, tall and forbidding, still conversing with some person within. A guard perhaps. It is impossible to discern the meaning of his words, but the deep resonance of his tone carries easily to our money changer’s ears.

Now the train heaves a vaporous sigh and begins to shunt off whilst the officer strides from the platform.

There is much to be considered.

Nothing lures our money changer out of his subtle recess until the expected express arrives, late in the afternoon. He is quick to merge amidst the alighting passengers and locates his berth promptly. Two travel-stained youths already occupy the compartment. Our money changer weighs them in his glance as he takes his seat. To his relief the train begins to shunt forward and the station slides away.

‘How much longer now do you suppose?’ one of the travellers addresses the other in a North American accent. His friend shrugs.

‘You have approximately ten hours to Livingstone which is the end of the line,’ volunteers the money changer.

‘You’ve done this before right?’ He is a slim, lanky character with loose, blonde curls and a sunburnt face. His lips never quite meet and his eyes possess an aquatic, protrusive quality.

‘Many times. You are from the US I presume?’

‘Canadian,’ the youth corrects him, ‘do you know where you can get a plane to fly over Victoria Falls? I’ve heard there’s some kinda plane...

‘That would be at the Victoria Falls township on the Zimbabwe side of the border.’

‘And what about the falls themselves? Can you see them alright through the mist at this time of year?’ The eyes bulge in the appeal.

‘I think you will not leave disappointed.’

‘Is it true you can see a lunar rainbow at night when the moon’s up? I figure it’s the right time of month.’

‘My friend, I have only had the briefest glimpse of the falls,’ replies the entrepreneur apologetically.

The poppy-eyed traveller falls silent, unable to digest this last remark. He looks across at his companion, who is broader, dark haired and uncommunicative.

Conversation evaporates.

Presently the two travellers go off in search of the dining car. Once alone our money changer slides the latch home and sits revelling in his privacy.

Untucking the garments from his waist he reaches below his money belt to a thin cloth strap, laced with a single piano wire. Drawing the strap above his navel with his right hand, he takes the small leather pouch, which appears above the waistline of his trousers, in his left. With steady, nimble fingers he unbuckles the pouch, withdrawing a tiny, green, felt bag from its interior. It is tied at the top with a thin, blue ribbon, which he tugs gently until the bow dissipates. Carefully cupping his left hand, as if catching liquid, he tilts the green felt bag slowly with his right. The motion is cautious, applying the concentration of one threading a needle.

Out they spill into his awaiting palm. First one, now half a dozen and a dozen still, until seventeen small, perfect diamonds fill his loving gaze.

He counts them in a reflex action, quick and precise.

‘Three, seven, ten...., fifteen, seventeen.’

How they sparkle! And how their flickering splendour touches his soul, lifting his spirits high into some weightless dimension of immeasurable joy.

‘My precious beauties!’ He smiles.

And yet his joy is tainted by every sound reaching his ears from the passage outside.

‘Who is coming? Who threatens to interrupt? What steps are those which approach..., which pass?’

It is more than he can bear. He clasps the diamonds defensively in his bony hand and begins to replace them back into their tiny chamber of darkness, jealously counting each one as it drops that half inch into the felt mouth below. He reties, refastens, replaces and retucks, regaining his peace of mind, which immediately induces him to pay heed to his appetite.

Taking the modest pack down from its resting place, he places it upon the seat before him. He unzips a side pocket, extracting a small loaf of bread, a chunk of cheese, a ripe tomato and a serrated metal knife. Now he can settle down to feast upon a series of modestly carved sandwiches, taking small bites and chewing each mouthful carefully. Eating such simple fare gives him the greatest satisfaction.

He has finished his meal long before his fellow travellers return, having packed away his supplies and calculated for how many more meals the bread would last and for how long the cheese. The travellers are in good humour, a feeling that permeates throughout the compartment.

‘Gentlemen,’ he addresses his companions, ‘if you should need any Zimbabwe dollars I can give you a very good rate.’

‘Like what?’ asks the darker youth who, until now, has remained silent.

‘Twice the official rate.’

‘What’s the official rate?’ The dark haired Canadian eyes him coldly.

‘Little over two Zimbabwe dollars for one American dollar.’

‘We’ll bear it in mind,’ replies the youth, pulling his sleeping bag from his pack and rolling it onto an upper berth.

‘We haven’t heard any other rates yet, thanks all the same,’ the slighter youth adds so as to soften the rejection, whilst taking out his own sleeping bag. No sooner has he kicked off his shoes than the tiny compartment is filled with an odour of intense pungency.

His swarthy companion swears. ‘Throw those things out the window!’

‘Sorry about the shoes,’ the other says to the money changer sheepishly, ‘they’ve got me through every customs post this far.’

‘When we get across the border the first thing you’re gonna do is chuck those things away!’ his friend warns adamantly.

The lanky youth picks up his right shoe to show the money changer. It was the sweaty, soiled remnant of a running shoe, its toe having worn through where the once white leather met a haggard rubber sole. It was the fat, crumpled tongue of the shoe to which he drew attention, particularly the two slits which ran down its upper edge and were obviously part of the original design.

With a dexterity appreciated by the attentive money changer, the Canadian pushes his pinched index finger and thumb into one of these slits and proceeds to pull out a long, thin straw-like object, instantly recognisable to his audience as a tightly rolled up note, one hundred US dollars. He unrolls the tightly wound paper and thoughtfully tucks the money into his money belt.

Fascination overwhelms sense of smell. The money changer takes the shoe in his hands.

‘Even when we were strip searched...,’ the Canadian exclaims triumphantly, ‘they didn’t touch these babies! If they had, the notes were lost in the padding.’

Our industrious friend is always interested in methods of concealment, having painstakingly devised many for himself before approaching a border. He takes the tongue in his fingers and manipulates it searchingly. The padding is indeed adequate.

‘Ingenious,’ he remarks with genuine appreciation.

‘Get rid of them!’ a voice calls from the top bunk.

The shoes spend the night on the floor with the compartment’s occupants gradually becoming accustomed to their aroma until it is no longer noticeable. Well contented, the money changer settles into his sleeping bag and relaxes for the evening. He particularly enjoys night travel, revelling in the thought of making ground while he sleeps.

He wakes at dawn, rolls up his bedding and sits, eating a small apple and peering outside.

The train is stationary and well short of its destination. It is not unusual, but he is uneasy. He looks down upon the floor at the pair of battered running shoes soon to be shunned by a once appreciative owner.

‘One has to remain of use simply to avoid being discarded,’ he reflects, ‘were I to retire, who would have anything to do with me?’

He sits in silence with his thoughts.

Shortly before nine a pair of thick, red, woolly socks appear near his head, followed by a soiled pair of jeans as the lanky Canadian in the bunk above swings down to land softly upon the floor.

‘Where are we?’

‘We are still some hours away,’ the money changer replies. The youth wakes his companion and the disgruntled pair go off in search of breakfast.

Now the train resumes motion, much to the relief of our anxious entrepreneur. He thinks of preparing his breakfast.

Out in the corridor there is a knocking on the door some way up and then silence. Now a wisp of muffled speech. He sits rigidly, listening. Silence again, but that wisp..., that tone.

He sits, intensely focussed upon catching any sound.

A door closes.

Footsteps advance. Thick, firm footsteps.

Knocking. Perhaps the next compartment.

A lock moves. The next compartment. The voice. Unmistakable. Deep and resonant.

He fights the panic flooding his system. ‘Jump!... No! .. .’ The thought of being searched is jamming his calculations.

‘I’m not prepared!’

He snatches his pack from the rack above the door, pulling it down in haste, dropping it upon the seat. Outside a door is closing. A latch slip-slaps home. Quickly he pushes his own latch shut.

He has his pack open, drawing out a small leather satchel he peers about the room desperately. Here in his hands are his damning cash resources.

‘Nowhere suitable ...,’ he thinks, looking for some method of concealment.

‘One of their packs? No...,’ There are those heavy steps. Now the door.

RAP! RAP! RAP!

‘.... no alternative,’

Like a trapped animal, hunted, gnawing through its own limb for want of freedom, he wrenches the window open. The cursed satchel is flung out and the window dragged shut.

‘Open up please,’ the commanding voice resounds through the compartment.

He stands by the window for a moment feeling unappeased.

‘It is not enough!’

His precious diamonds sit, vulnerable against his palpitating skin.

Casting his gaze over the compartment once more his eyes come to rest upon the idle running shoes sitting innocently upon the floor. Again he stands in silence, unable to part with his future, even for a moment.

‘Perhaps they will move on.’

RAP! RAP! RAP!

‘I will be forced to advise the conductor to open this door.’

Unfastening his trousers, he snatches the small leather pouch from beneath his clothing, flicks open the buckle and whips out the tiny, felt bag. He tears at the ribbon aggressively before snatching up the left running shoe from the floor.

The rattle of keys sound from outside.

A tremor runs through his spirit but he is of steady hand, demanding from himself utmost concentration. Plucking a single stone from the soft, dark recess of the bag, he begins his task -inserting it into the split lips of the awaiting tongue.

‘One.’ He must count them. ‘Two. Three. Four.’ Metal scrapes metal.

‘Seven. Eight.’

The key rattles home.

‘Ten. Eleven. Twelve.’

The latch is drawn from its slot.

‘Fourteen. Fifteen.’

He stabs at the door with his foot, so as to momentarily prevent its opening. The last diamond is inserted. Now the shoe falls to the floor as he spins about, wrenching the moving door open with his left hand like a man possessed, whilst tucking himself in with his right.

‘Ah! You have woken me!’ he cries with anger, depositing the felt bag in his underpants and withdrawing a guiltless, empty hand.

A dark face looks down upon him, heavy in silence, stern in sentiment.

‘Thank you,’ the bewildered conductor is dismissed but remains, peering at the reddened, wily old figure within the compartment.

The officer steps within, shuts the door and is proceeding to scan the interior. He lifts the compact backpack from the seat.

‘Yours?’

Our money changer nods.

The pack is turned upside down, its contents spilling on to the seat below, watched by both men in silence.

The officer fingers every item thoroughly, maintaining a stern, watchful expression whilst pushing at his inner cheek with his tongue. He searches the side pockets, feels his way around the nylon lining of the pack, pulls apart the bread, carves the cheese and