sum pastry is a difficult thing,’ said the Chinese man. ‘It’s fragile. The dough. But it’s gotta be thin or it’s not dim sum. Tricky. But she’s good at it. We can always tell when she’s been on kitchen duty.’
Peter moved to a vacant chair next to the Chinese man.
‘I’m Peter,’ he said.
‘Werner,’ said the Chinese man. His hand was five-fingered and pudgy, and exerted a carefully measured firmness in the handshake. ‘So, you’ve been exploring.’
‘Not much yet. I’m still very tired. Just got here.’
‘Takes a while to adjust. Those molecules in you gotta calm down. When’s your first shift?’
‘Uh . . . I don’t really . . . I’m here as a pastor. I suppose I expect to be on duty all the time.’
Werner nodded, but there was a hint of bemusement on his face, as though Peter had just confessed to signing a shonky contract without proper legal advice.
‘Doing God’s work is a privilege and a joy,’ said Peter. ‘I don’t need any breaks from it.’
Werner nodded again. Peter noted at a glance that the magazine he’d been reading was Pneumatics & Hydraulics Informatics, with a full-colour cover photo of machine innards and the snappy headline MAKING GEAR PUMPS MORE VERSATILE.
‘This pastor thing . . . ’ said Werner. ‘What are you gonna be doing, exactly? On a day-to-day basis?’
Peter smiled. ‘I’ll have to wait and see.’
‘See how the land lays,’ suggested Werner.
‘Exactly,’ said Peter. Tiredness was swamping him again. He felt as if he might pass out right there in his chair, slide onto the floor for Stanko to mop up.
‘I gotta admit,’ said Werner, ‘I don’t know much about religion.’
‘And I don’t know much about pneumatics and hydraulics,’ said Peter.
‘Not my line, either,’ said Werner, reaching over with some effort to replace the magazine in the racks. ‘I just picked it up out of curiosity.’ He faced Peter again. There was something he wanted to clarify. ‘China didn’t even have religion for a long time, under, like, one of the dynasties.’
‘What dynasty was that?’ For some reason, the word ‘Tokugawa’ popped into Peter’s mind, but then he realised he was confusing Japanese and Chinese history.
‘The Mao dynasty,’ said Werner. ‘It was bad, man. People getting killed left, right and centre. Then things loosened up. People could do what they liked. If you wanted to believe in God, fine. Buddha, too. Shinto. Whatever.’
‘What about you? Were you ever interested in any faith?’
Werner peered up at the ceiling. ‘I read this huge book once. Must’ve been four hundred pages. Scientology. Interesting. Food for thought.’
Oh, Bea, thought Peter, I need you here by my side.
‘You gotta understand,’ Werner went on, ‘I’ve read a lot of books. I learn words from them. Vocabulary building. So if I ever come across a weird word one day, in a situation where it matters, I’m, like, ready for it.’
The saxophone hazarded a squawk that might almost have been considered raucous, but immediately resolved itself into sweet melody.
‘There are lots of Christians in China nowadays,’ Peter observed. ‘Millions.’
‘Yeah, but out of the total population it’s, like, one per cent, half of one per cent, whatever. Growing up, I hardly ever met one. Exotic.’
Peter drew a deep breath, fighting nausea. He hoped he was only imagining the sensation in his head, of his brain shifting position, adjusting its fit against the lubricated shell of his skull. ‘The Chinese . . . the Chinese are very focused on family, yes?’
Werner looked pensive. ‘So they say.’
‘Not you?’
‘I was fostered. To a German military couple based in Chengdu. Then when I was fourteen they moved to Singapore.’ He paused; then, in case there might be doubt, he added: ‘With me.’
‘That must be a very unusual story for China.’
‘I couldn’t give you stats. But, yeah. Very unusual, I’m sure. Nice folks, too.’
‘How do they feel about you being here?’
‘They died,’ said Werner, with no change of expression. ‘Not long before I was selected.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
Werner nodded, to confirm agreement that his step-parents’ demise was, in the final analysis, a regrettable event. ‘They were good folks. Supportive. A lot of the guys here didn’t have that. I had that. Lucky.’
‘Are you in touch with anyone else back home?’
‘There’s a lot of folks I’d like to touch base with. Fine people.’
‘Any one special person?’
Werner shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t rate them one over the other. All unique, you know. Talented. Some of them, I really owe. Like, they helped me. Gave me pointers, introduced me to . . . opportunities.’ His eyes went glassy as he reconnected, momentarily, with a distant past.
‘When do you go back?’ said Peter.
‘Go back?’ Werner took a second or two to decode the question, as though Peter had voiced it in an impenetrably thick accent. ‘Nothing scheduled for the foreseeable. Some guys, like Severin for instance, have been back and forth, back and forth, every few years. I’m like, why? It takes you three, four years to hit your stride. Acclimatisation-wise, expertise-wise, focus-wise. It’s a big project. After a while you get to the point where you can see how everything joins up with everything else. How the work of an engineer ties in with the work of a plumber and an electrician and a cook and a . . . a horticulturalist.’ His pudgy hands cupped an invisible sphere, to indicate some sort of holistic concept.
Suddenly, Werner’s hands appeared to swell in size, each finger ballooning to the thickness of a baby’s arm. His face changed shape, too, sprouting multiple eyes and mouths that swarmed loose from the flesh and swirled around the room. Then something hit Peter smack on the forehead. It was the floor.
A few seconds or minutes later, strong hands hooked under his shoulders and heaved him onto his back.
‘Are you OK?’ said Stanko, strangely unfazed by the delirious see-sawing of the walls and ceiling all around him. Werner, whose face and hands were back to normal, was likewise unaware of any problem – except the problem of a sweat-soaked, foolishly overdressed missionary sprawled insensible on the floor. ‘Are you with us, bro?’
Peter blinked hard. The room turned slower. ‘I’m with you.’
‘You need to be in bed,’ said Stanko.
‘I think you’re right,’ said Peter. ‘But I . . . I don’t know where . . . ’
‘It’ll be in the directory,’ said Stanko, and went off to check.
Within sixty seconds, Peter was being carried out of the mess hall and into the dim blue corridor by Stanko and Werner. Neither man was as strong as BG so they made slow and lurching progress, pausing every few metres to adjust their grip. Stanko’s bony fingers dug into Peter’s armpits and shoulders, sure to leave bruises, while Werner had the easy job, the ankles.
‘I can walk, I can walk,’ said Peter, but he wasn’t sure if that was true and his two Samaritans ignored him anyway. In any case, his quarters weren’t far from the mess hall. Before he knew it, he was being laid down – or rather, dumped – on his bed.
‘Nice