Flood

57

Chosica, a thousand meters above the old sea-level datum, had once been an inland resort town for the residents of Lima. The Rimac river ran through it, but the landscape away from an irrigated valley floor was desert, the mountain slopes bare sun-bleached rock. To put up Nathan’s workers, a rough community of shacks had grown up around the heart of the old town. Lily and Sanjay walked through the shantytown, guided by a sat-nav patch sewn into Lily’s jumpsuit, seeking the hut Kristie shared with Ollantay. It was late afternoon now.

This was just another slum in a world of slums, where, in the roughly built shacks, pots boiled, children played, and dogs slept in the heat. There was a persistent stink of sewage. But above all this loomed the outline of a ship, the slim lines of a vessel big enough to be an ocean-going liner, covered in a bristle of scaffolding.

“I don’t believe it,” Sanjay said. “That thing must be three hundred meters long! I know you called this project ‘Ark Three’ but that could have meant anything-something metaphorical-a seed bank, maybe, a vault of frozen zygotes. I didn’t think it would be an actual damn ship. We’re a kilometer above the old sea-level datum! How’s Nathan planning to launch the thing?”

Lily had no idea. “Whether the ship goes to the sea or the sea comes to the ship, it’s going to be a spectacular sight, isn’t it?”

“There’s something about the lines of that tub that remind me of something. I’m no marine engineer. Maybe I’ll think of it.” He took out his old phone and paged through its memory.

“Actually Nathan is building it in conjunction with a consortium.”

“A consortium of who? People like him?”

“Nathan isn’t saying,” she admitted.“But I think that’s the idea. Even the super-rich have run out of places to build Green Zones. So they’re looking for other solutions.”

“I guess if this is number three, there must be other arks.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

He couldn’t take his eyes off the boat. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing. A ship, halfway up the Andes! The man has to be crazy after all.”

Lily’s GPS patch bleeped. They came upon the shack Kristie shared with Ollantay. Amanda must have been here already, for, remarkably, Jorge, Amanda’s butler, was standing outside in a suit and tie; he looked entirely unaffected by the dirt around him.

Lily glanced at Sanjay. “This might be bloody.”

“Families.”

“Yes. Come on, let’s get it over with.”

The shack was a box, with plastic sheets for walls and roof, cluttered with junk, heaps of clothes, a bed, a table, cupboards. There were vents and windows, and a fan was running from some power source, but it was ferociously hot. The teddy bear stuck on top of a cupboard was a small reminder of a lost past.

In this tiny one-room hut, four people were pressed into the corners, sitting as far from each other as they could get: Piers, Amanda, Ollantay and Kristie. Amanda was wearing her black trouser suit, and Kristie a grubby but colorful dress of woven wool. Piers and Ollantay wore AxysCorp coveralls, and looked oddly alike as they faced each other, separated by the diagonal of the room. Nobody spoke as Lily and Sanjay walked in.

“So,” Lily said. “You remember Sanjay McDonald, from London?”

Nobody responded.

Sanjay seemed unperturbed. He nodded at them all, and sat on an upturned plastic crate in a corner, flicking through images of classic ships on his phone.

Lily said, “I have the feeling we walked into the middle of a row.”

“You could say that,” Amanda snapped. “Or a joke.”

“Oh, Mum-” Kristie said.

“Of course you missed the punchline,” Amanda said. “Why don’t you tell Lily what you just told me?”

Uncertain, distressed, stubborn, Kristie glanced at Lily. “We’re getting married,” she said. “According to the traditions of Ollantay’s people-”

“She’s pregnant,” Piers said. “That’s what she’s told us. Pregnant. By this man.” He couldn’t bear to look at Ollantay, evidently, or even to speak his name. Stiff, immobile, Piers looked more brittle than ever, Lily thought, desiccated and fragile. And now she saw how heavy Kristie looked, gravid beneath her loose woolen clothes.

Ollantay was thirty now; his neck was thicker, his skin heavier, his boyish looks gone, but he was as cocky as he had ever been. He smiled.

Lily blew her cheeks out, and sat down herself. “So that’s why you called us here, Kris.”

“You’re family,” Kristie said. “You’re my aunt.” She took a breath. “ She’s my mother. I wanted to tell you in person. I hoped you might be happy for me.”

“Happy!” Amanda snapped. “Oh, you bloody little fool.”

“Ollantay’s family are happy. His mother-”

“For God’s sake, Kristie, I couldn’t care less about a pack of flea-ridden alpaca herders.”

Ollantay glared at Amanda. “In my culture,” he said, “lovers live together before the wedding. It is a period we call sirvinakuy, which means ‘to serve each other.’ We marry only when we conceive, and have demonstrated we will bear strong children. Everything about our relationship has been honorable, in my tradition.”

Piers stood up. “Oh, this is all-it’s not to be tolerated.” He stalked out, ducking to get through the low doorway.

Amanda glared at Kristie. “What’s it going to take to make you give this up? Shall I speak to Juan, or Nathan? Shall I have this clown who’s knocked you up arrested?”

“Oh, Mum-”

Amanda stood and closed on her daughter. “How about a forcible abortion? I could do it, you know.”

“Mum, I’m seven months gone!”

“You think that matters? I’m not talking about an NHS hospital. It would only take a word to Nathan. Is that what you want?”

Kristie turned her face away. Ollantay stood up to protect her. Lily got up quickly, trying to get between them before it turned to violence.

And Sanjay, in his corner, peering into his phone’s screen, was laughing. “I knew I’d seen that profile before. It’s the Queen Mary. Nathan Lammockson is rebuilding the Queen Mary halfway up the bloody Andes! Oh, thank you, Ganesh, for keeping me alive long enough to see this!”