Free Arms Race by Nic Low Page B

ground. Your daughter’s been reading too many books.
    I could feel fury shimmering off Christie like heat from the Pilbara at noon. I found
her hand.
    She’s not my daughter, I called back.
    Two men along the bar turned to look, and I saw their gaze slide from me to Christie.
    We’re partners, I said, as loudly as I dared.

THE LOTUS EATERS
    On the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotus-eater, who live on a food that
comes from a kind of flower… I sent two of my company to see what manner of men the
people of the place might be, and they had a third man under them. They started at
once, and went about among the Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them
to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring
about home.
    â€”Homer, THE ODYSSEY
    IT WAS tourist season when I arrived. Resorts gleamed among the jungle. Backpackers
filled the bars. I crossed the steel bridge at Nong Khiaw in suffocating heat. The
locals lay sleeping in the shade. Ahead on the road I heard a mocking singsong voice
cry out in French.
    I am so layyyy-zeee !
    In a roadside clearing, four of my compatriots sat slumped beside a bamboo shack.
They wore the red-eyed smirks of the drunk-for-weeks. Empty bottles covered the table
in front of them.
    The man who had spoken was handsome and skeletal. Against the deep tough brown of
his skin, his singlet was shockingly white. He threw up his hands. Every day I say Enough! I’m going! But every day they get me. They say Laos-laos! I drink and the
day is gone. So I say Tomorrow! Tomorrow, I’ll go. But every day’s the same. I am
so layyyy-zeee !
    The man sounded delighted. He pronounced the word like he was diving into a deep
azure pool.
    Friends, I called. Room for one more?
    They looked up at my approach. A woman rose immediately. She seemed relieved.
    Take my place, she said. It’s time for me to go.
    She kissed them each in turn and said goodbye and went on up the road. I dropped
my pack and took her seat.
    Back in Paris I was a musician, said the man in the white singlet. I love music!
But there was no rest. Life was work, work, work. A beautiful thing became a curse,
and so I ran away. Here there is only one thing to do: nothing.
    His hand went among the slum of bottles, toppling them in search of drink. He poured
a thick clear spirit into dirty glasses, and set one before each of us.
    Laos-laos , he said. Rice whisky, aged in a bucket. France makes the wine of the gods.
Laos makes the liquor of ghosts. To laziness!
    To laziness, a lithe pale woman said. To laziness and idleness and cant.
    We threw
it down, and I felt it crawl back up my spine.
    I’m Louis, the man said. This is Céline. She’s a lawyer. She was a partner in Casteaux
et fils, no less. But of course, she prefers ooooo-pium !
    The woman turned to me. She had an exquisite, intelligent face cratered with orange-red
sores: no doubt some obscure tropical disease, expensive to catch. I thought I would
like to sleep with her.
    The more I learned of the law? she said, and gave the barest amused shrug, as if
the air itself was too heavy.
    And this is Maxime, Louis said. He’s a chef. He drinks like a chef. But he hates
to cook!
    The man had a heavy beard, and the kind of morose gravity that makes talkative people
act like fools. Filling his silence would be like shovelling sand into the sea. He
laid a possessive paw across Céline’s shoulders, and tilted his head at me. Salut.
    We drank a hole in the afternoon, and I saw that we would be friends. They were armchair
nihilists, obsessed with escape and, once escaped, obsessed with looking back.
    Why did you leave France? Louis said. Please, it’s our favourite game.
    You want to know the truth? I said.
    Tell us, Louis said. Why?
    Because the world is ending.
    Oh-ho, Louis cried. Now I know we will be friends! But why will it end?
    Because the planet will throw us off, I said. The polar caps are going,