babble of the shopping centre. Somewhere achild was crying. A reporter came on, a young woman, but what the reporter was saying the Doll didn’t know. Then a blurry photograph of a bearded man in Arabic dress was being shown, beneath which ran a banner saying, again and again:
‘SUSPECTED TERRORIST ELUDES POLICE DRAGNET.’
A salesman came out from the shop with a remote control, looked at the rear projection screen, saw the Doll staring at it, and apologised. The screen momentarily went black and returned to life with Toy Story . Buzz Lightyear ran offscreen and the Doll came to her senses.
So that was it! A terrorist in the same block that she had spent the night in. It would make for a good story to tell Wilder, but it was nothing much really, thought the Doll. Yet some feeling so vague she didn’t know what it was unsettled her. Her stomach felt tight. Her mouth seemed suddenly full of saliva. She put it down to the drink and the drugs and the late night.
For the second time she rang Tariq, and for the second time his phone rang out to a messageless voicemail, and for the second time she felt foolish and left no message.
How she wished Tariq had been there when she woke. How she wished he hadn’t left, or, having left, that he had managed to make it back before she left. And his disappearance now seemed to her strange rather than unfortunate; and his apartment now seemed creepy and unpleasant rather than cool; and all she could think of was the sun filling and burning its rooms. Last night she had felt so happy in his arms, and now she suddenly felt like crying.
The Doll abruptly turned around to leave. A woman in a black burkah walked straight into her, her elbow hitting the Doll.
The Doll’s mind leapt back to the police with their guns and black uniforms looking like death, to the television report the day before about the Homebush bombs, and then the woman appeared to the Doll not as another woman, but as something terrifying and unknown, an evil spectre she had seen so often in films, a short, stubby Darth Vader.
The woman, for her part, seemed to be saying it was the Doll’s fault, though exactly what she was saying the Doll couldn’t understand because she was talking in a strange language. Maybe it was an accusation or maybe it wasn’t. It was impossible to say. Later, the Doll wondered if she hadn’t actually been apologising. But that was much later.
Perhaps it was the accumulation of the events of the past few days, or the heat, or not taking her pills as she was supposed to, or just a lack of sleep, but the Doll felt strung out, her nerves jagged: the police that morning, the bombs the day before, the way she had worked hard for a Louis Vuitton bag and how there had then been no Louis Vuitton bag; whatever, she snapped.
“Fuck off!” the Doll yelled. “Just fuck off back to wherever you’re from.”
A few people halted to watch what might happen next, but nothing did. The woman in the black burkah stopped talking, turned, and hurried away.
“Good on you,” a middle-aged man in a canary yellow shirt said in a slightly trembling but loud voice. “They won’t integrate, you know,” he said even more loudly, perhapsintended for the woman in the burkah to hear, though she had already vanished. A large woman clapped. A kid in a Microsoft baseball cap yelled,
“They flew here. We grew here.”
The Doll didn’t know whether to be buoyed or depressed by this response. No one else said or did anything and, the confrontation ended, they drifted away as if it had been just one more piece of poor plaza entertainment. As she walked towards the main entrance the Doll found herself shaking. She felt ashamed at having lost her temper and unsure as to why she had erupted in such a rage. And yet she was still angry with the woman in the burkah.
‘How stupid in this heat!’ thought the Doll. ‘Why can’t they just be like us?’ She decided to pity her, and her pity felt a kind of necessary
‘SUSPECTED TERRORIST ELUDES POLICE DRAGNET.’
A salesman came out from the shop with a remote control, looked at the rear projection screen, saw the Doll staring at it, and apologised. The screen momentarily went black and returned to life with Toy Story . Buzz Lightyear ran offscreen and the Doll came to her senses.
So that was it! A terrorist in the same block that she had spent the night in. It would make for a good story to tell Wilder, but it was nothing much really, thought the Doll. Yet some feeling so vague she didn’t know what it was unsettled her. Her stomach felt tight. Her mouth seemed suddenly full of saliva. She put it down to the drink and the drugs and the late night.
For the second time she rang Tariq, and for the second time his phone rang out to a messageless voicemail, and for the second time she felt foolish and left no message.
How she wished Tariq had been there when she woke. How she wished he hadn’t left, or, having left, that he had managed to make it back before she left. And his disappearance now seemed to her strange rather than unfortunate; and his apartment now seemed creepy and unpleasant rather than cool; and all she could think of was the sun filling and burning its rooms. Last night she had felt so happy in his arms, and now she suddenly felt like crying.
The Doll abruptly turned around to leave. A woman in a black burkah walked straight into her, her elbow hitting the Doll.
The Doll’s mind leapt back to the police with their guns and black uniforms looking like death, to the television report the day before about the Homebush bombs, and then the woman appeared to the Doll not as another woman, but as something terrifying and unknown, an evil spectre she had seen so often in films, a short, stubby Darth Vader.
The woman, for her part, seemed to be saying it was the Doll’s fault, though exactly what she was saying the Doll couldn’t understand because she was talking in a strange language. Maybe it was an accusation or maybe it wasn’t. It was impossible to say. Later, the Doll wondered if she hadn’t actually been apologising. But that was much later.
Perhaps it was the accumulation of the events of the past few days, or the heat, or not taking her pills as she was supposed to, or just a lack of sleep, but the Doll felt strung out, her nerves jagged: the police that morning, the bombs the day before, the way she had worked hard for a Louis Vuitton bag and how there had then been no Louis Vuitton bag; whatever, she snapped.
“Fuck off!” the Doll yelled. “Just fuck off back to wherever you’re from.”
A few people halted to watch what might happen next, but nothing did. The woman in the black burkah stopped talking, turned, and hurried away.
“Good on you,” a middle-aged man in a canary yellow shirt said in a slightly trembling but loud voice. “They won’t integrate, you know,” he said even more loudly, perhapsintended for the woman in the burkah to hear, though she had already vanished. A large woman clapped. A kid in a Microsoft baseball cap yelled,
“They flew here. We grew here.”
The Doll didn’t know whether to be buoyed or depressed by this response. No one else said or did anything and, the confrontation ended, they drifted away as if it had been just one more piece of poor plaza entertainment. As she walked towards the main entrance the Doll found herself shaking. She felt ashamed at having lost her temper and unsure as to why she had erupted in such a rage. And yet she was still angry with the woman in the burkah.
‘How stupid in this heat!’ thought the Doll. ‘Why can’t they just be like us?’ She decided to pity her, and her pity felt a kind of necessary
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