Drifters

By Catalina Panoiu

Drifters is a collection of seven short stories born from the author’s travels; from Mexico to Malaysia and from Brussels to Sydney, a young woman drifts between skyscrapers and wild landscapes. Magic is sometimes to be found yet, at most times, elusive, as the weight of Europe is never too far behind.
These are not stories of leisure and of guided tours. These are portraits of men and women who choose to drift between beds, cities and boats. These are stories of love and of magic, of loss and of blood.
Drifters is not a book about growing up. It is a book about hunting for magic in the cracks, a book that acknowledges the confines of our 21st-century lives yet gives a glimmer of hope for those not afraid to seek it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley
• Release date: Sep 28, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463171295

Catalina Panoiu

Catalina spent the better part of the last 13 years travelling over 30 countries. The men and women she met, and sometimes loved, along the way inspired the short stories gathered in Drifters—her first published work. Now based in Sydney, Catalina remains true to her mixed European origins and takes as much inspiration from her discoveries of Shanghai, Sipadan and Bangkok as from her dearest Brussels cafés.

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Catalina spent the better part of the last 13 years travelling over 30 countries. The men and women she met, and sometimes loved, along the way inspired the short stories gathered in Drifters—her first published work. Now based in Sydney, Catalina remains true to her mixed European origins and takes as much inspiration from her discoveries of Shanghai, Sipadan and Bangkok as from her dearest Brussels cafés.

To my mother, Emanuela, for teaching me that freedom is the only thing we should never relinquish.

Catalina Panoiu

Drifters

Copyright © Catalina Panoiu (2018)

The right of Catalina Panoiu to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781788483681 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781788483698 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781788483704 (E-Book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2018)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd™

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‘There is a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go.’

Tennessee Williams

The Killing

The lizard lay unmoving, surrounded by waves of green stilled with the weight of the sun. Its skin seemed oddly matte in the glare, the charcoal taking in every shard of light, swallowing them all indiscriminately, never to relinquish them again. It was graceless, a meter and a half of heavy set body, short thick legs and dead tail, and as she stared at it she could feel its pride in the ownership of the island. Many men had passed through here, Malay and Chinese, waves of Dutch and British and Japanese that came with the tide. The lizard watched them come and go, faithfully moored to its territory. The weight of ancestors laying under the glaring sun and soaking in the monsoon seeped in the blood of each fish it tore with its sharp teeth, and the lizard thought itself eternal as the winds and the men came and went.

She watched it for a while, standing on the path to the dining hall, the only spot on the island connected to the outside world through a moody internet network. Depending on how the wind blew and how much rain fell, the signal was in good health or otherwise positively dead, and the tens of tourists struggling to capture it inflated its ego, making it even more unpredictable. The lizard didn’t move once, perfectly in tune with this place that seemed to stand still: tall palm trees unflinching, dusty grass and not a current in the blue.

Nua was already waiting for her in front of the dining hall, his skin a few shades lighter than the heavy teak blending into the drooping palm roof. He was smiling shyly, as if still wondering why this blond woman from another world wanted to visit the small village inside the island. The consensus across the two diving resorts was to keep tourists as far away from the village as possible, razzle-dazzle them with the beauty beneath the ripples and stuff them with food so no curiosity about the life of the island would cross their sunstruck heads. Yet this woman had announced her intention to go for a walk around the island that very afternoon, and he had immediately stepped in, announcing himself as her companion to make sure she didn’t get lost in the five square kilometres of the island, or worse, ended up giving money to the children.

The jungle had been corralled within the centre of the island, colourful chaos screeching and moaning, beating against patches of beach and holiday villas. It was cooler here, and as they followed the sand path the sun trickled down to trembling yellow geometry between the broad palm leaves. They passed the generators on their right, metal giants cutting through the tangle of vines.

Are there no solar panels here?

No. They have them on the main island, but not here. We bring in fuel by boat once a week, less off season. These generators are only for the resorts.

Why not install a few? I thought the government was subsidising solar energy.

I guess the owners of the resort don’t really care, so they haven’t asked for it. And the people in the village, well… You need to know someone to get money from the government.

Luxury takes on different shades. In most lands of glaring sun and endless beauty, luxury is electricity and working toilets. It is a faraway thought that seldom lingers in the minds of those who have only experienced it from afar, those who merely turn A/C units on and clean toilets for tourists. In worlds filled by cold and rain poisonous with traffic fumes luxury is branded into high design, folded into elegant cars and sewn into cashmere sweaters. That kind of luxury bites into those who only have electricity and working toilets.

Yet the metro was far from luxurious, that day and any day, until the end of time. Dirty tiles reached up to the ceiling, feeble attempts to fend off scratches of ‘Marie loves Freddie’, and the grey floors stooped under construction dust from a myriad of improvements always being planned, started and abandoned. Thousands of feet trod that dust day in and day out, fashionable feet in high heels, young feet in pink sneakers and heavy feet in cheap boots. Colourful feet and bureaucratic feet; fat feet and blistered ones. The floor didn’t care about them, minute weight shifting into train compartments and then out again, headed into the open.

They walked on through the jungle, the buzzing of insects heavier than the humid afternoon air. As she looked at him from the corner of her eye, he told her about his life earlier on. He’d been born on another island close by, where his people held on to their custom of hunting and cooking monkeys. He didn’t eat monkey, he made it clear to her, but she missed her cue to be dismayed, and instead said she’d like to try monkey stew. His eyes widened at this woman’s folly, travelling alone with her blond hair and diving gear, keen on eating monkeys in lands her people left off the Club Med map.

How come you became a diving instructor?

My best friend laughed at me. Back home I was guiding groups of snorkelers, and one time this guy couldn’t swim, and he held on to me and we almost drowned. I couldn’t swim either, and when I came out of the water my best friend stood there, laughing at me. So, I learned how to swim, and then how to dive. He’s still driving his taxi, and I’m an instructor.

It’s a good thing he laughed at you, then.

I never forgave him.

The sounds bobbed against the leaves, his accent as soft as his skin and the words pointed like forks. The first signs of human invasion peered from the edges of the jungle now, dirty plastic and cardboard walls. Smell and sound came back into the world, grilled something and stale water, children’s wails and metal banging. All of a sudden the village was upon them, houses floating on stilts in the glaring light, uncertain of their standing in the world. The strip of sand leading them through grew narrow with the commotion. Brown children chased each other around, women grilled dead things on an open barbecue, a man endeavoured to sell water from his living room while another slept on a porch in plain view.

Life stared at her from every corner, chickens in makeshift pens under the houses getting more shadow than humans hustling in the street. Ragged colours brightened the porches, ochre and yellow and green cloth against the mix of wood and cardboard and god knows what else had gone into building the shelters. The blue lay in the distance, as if unwilling to touch anything related to the village, snobbish Riviera whispers almost audible in the thick air.

You cannot give them money, he said sternly as she looked at the swarms of children buzzing around them.

I wouldn’t anyway. Won’t help them much, what’s there to buy here?

They pester the white people all the time. We don’t allow them in the resort, but they still show up on the beach.

Do they go to school here?

Yes, there is a school. Sometimes they go to high school on the mainland too, but not a lot of them.

As she looked around, it seemed as if the street was covered in them. Children in every direction, ragged waifs laughing and pulling at each other, playing with old bicycle tires and plastic bottles. She had never liked children, tireless sources of noise and chaos as they were. Looking at the hordes of them, fear and disgust dissolved into a sadness as scorching as it was pointless.

She saw the lives they would not live, those lives of comfort and of dusty books, lives of fast food and TV series, saw all the evils that would touch them, diseases bred by poverty, and those they would forever be immune to, the mal du siècle and the bottles of needless pills designed to soothe it. They had colours, these children, and sun and the endless sea, and dysentery and not enough food. They had smiles and make-believe toys, and no doctors to give them vaccines and explain to them how emptiness is a hormonal disease, and how easily it can be cured.

Many things can be plugged into emptiness. Pills, and sun and beaches. Penises and tits and organic food. Guns and bombs.

The metro station was just as blasé as ever that morning, rain greying against the buildings outside and the stench of rust and vomit inside. Cars rolled on the pavement above, hundreds and thousands of them headed to and from the city as the people who upheld the country’s stable, if static, economy rushed to work in dress suits and uniforms and other disguises.

The rhythm of the city was uninterrupted, a low hum seeping through the traffic, unabashedly mediocre. This was neither a place of futurism nor of arts; it had inspired few, if any, notable inventors and poets throughout its long existence. It was a place of compromise and contentment, where grey made a home. A place where dog shit thrived on the pavement as dogs themselves waddled around happily, a million canine languages mixing with just as many human ones.

It was a kind place, one that wrapped a warm blanket around you when it rained outside, and didn’t ask you where you were from, or how long you were staying. A place that steered clear of insults and conflict, the last place where life would explode in a flurry of colour, or where palm trees would thrive. Just a few horrifyingly ugly buildings and made-up names pulled it out of the multitude of half-dim European cities just like itself, and placed it on a makeshift pedestal. And yet the little city shun the paper glory, stood still under the heavy rain and occasional rainbow, watched as around it life swirled and acronyms grew. It thought itself eternal, its history carved in each grey corner and on every cobbled street, its soul preserved from the millions of men and dogs that came and went, laughed in its cafés and shat on its pavements. Those dogs and men wouldn’t make a dent in what it knew itself to be, mere flakes melting on its pavements, evaporating on the borders of its identity. They held no claim to it, their foreign tongues exotic music to be enjoyed in moderation.

The palm trees had stayed on the fringe