grahamwhittaker

 

Quite a few of you, (oh! You lovely people!) have asked me when the follow up novel to The Girl From Kosovo  will be published. Well, the good news is that it’s out of my hands and into the hands of the editor. Slated for July 2017 release.

I do enjoy your comments, and of course, the sales! But with those comments and sales comes a certain responsibility. I’m sure many authors experience the frustration of failing their faithful fans.

It’s a bit of a long book, rather like the other. Over half a million words to cut down to a mere hundred and forty thousand. Emotionally that’s not something I can do. So I’m happy to have the professionals shearing great chunks out of it.

Anyway, here is a LONG excerpt you might (I hope) enjoy. And if you do, please comment and/or BUY THE BOOK.

 

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

Escape was pointless. Even if she managed it, she knew she would return of her own volition. Already she would give anything, do anything; just as long as the needle followed.
They no longer bothered to shackle her. The heroin was shackles enough. Shivering, stomach cramping, she clutched at her belly and dry-heaved once more. Tasting the H at the back of her throat. Ashamed that she wanted to swallow back on it, feel the euphoria as the drug entered into her bloodstream.
She could smell it on her sweat, doubly ashamed that even in her filthy state the smell was a comfort. And a hunger.
A sweat-stained cotton shift, her only covering, clung to her body. Her hair — once blacker, more lustrous, than any raven’s wing — hung in wet hanks to her waist. Before, Sunguoshu would brush it for her each evening in the little Shenzhen apartment she once thought a place from which to run. Now, thinking of home and her big brother gave her a few seconds of respite from the hunger. But only for moments could she grasp and hold such love, before the Horse kicked at her guts again.
Soon a man would come. Perhaps he would bring another. Or others. Only a few infinitely long days ago, she had fought. Screamed and scratched until her fingernails broke one by one by one. Held her legs together with such desperation that her brain burned up. Then after the abuse, the blessed needle. Heaven and Hell. Reward and Punishment.
Lena would not be working in the Big House — not the Big House of her dreams anyway. Another big house. One of nightmares. Not saving her wages to send back to Sunguoshu so that one day… One day. She tried to think away the hunger.
She remembered the blind girl, Su Li, who tried to warn her at the airport. Thanking her, Lena crossed into London and propelled herself up the dark steps to a fate of her own making.
The red-haired woman. Friendly. Welcoming. Filling in the Model Release form. Smiling in encouragement, the woman turned the paper for Lena’s signature. Checked the false passport and grinned as a co-conspirator. Unfolded and, with a small curl of amusement on her thin lips, perused the leaflet tucked inside the faked document. Opened a desk drawer and deposited the papers. Closed and locked the drawer with a key hanging on a leather thong between her soft flabby breasts. The short telephone call.
‘Exceptional,’ was all the woman said to an unknown question.
Lena drank coffee. There was no tea, as would have been customary at home, while waiting for the photographer to arrive for her audition.
Shy, she giggled and posted her eyes to the floor, round face soft. Just how they like it. The photographer snapped away. ‘Just a little cleavage.’ Lena fisted her little hands against her breasts until the photographer pulled them away with less than encouraging fingers. When she baulked, the woman unbuttoned her blouse for her, exposing a pretty lace bra. And then the photographer was throwing up his hands. Shouting.

‘You want to leave?’ Grabbing her elbow. ‘You want to go? That it?’ Hissing into her face. ‘I’ll call them for you. Immigration, is it? Go back to China? You want that?’ She did not want that, but the questions were rhetorical anyway. ‘Forget it!’ Snarled. ‘You’re never going home, baby.’
And then she was clothed only in her bra and panties. The man got rough. The red-haired woman left, but not before extracting the documents from her drawer and stuffing them into her big black shoulder bag.
That was days ago. Days and nights. Some men came and spoke in Russian. Hauled her down the stairs naked. By then it was dark. Into a black van and into the black night.
Lena fought. Screamed. Cried. Begged. To no avail. And bled. Sore and humiliated, the blood streaming down her thighs. On the little cot in the dark room she wept. All ‘face’ expunged. Peeled away. Her last vestige of pride, pissed into a bucket. Urine and blood leaving her body in equal quantities. That night, for the first time, after another savage round of abuse, the man pushed a needle into her vein.
Blessed, and cursed, Lena slept.

 

Chapter two

 

Yesterday afternoon pewtered clouds swagged high. Snow fell like duck’s down. In the still air Nikki could catch the big feathered flakes on her tongue. She could spin around and make them dance. Her simple happiness had infected the household. And she felt safe. Loved.
Robbie perspired under his Fair Isle sweater and quilted anorak. Earlier, the wind had been razor sharp. By 3 o’clock the cottage glowed with heat from the Aga and ‘Billy’ whistled a sigh of contentment in the slot on the stove top. Ever full, ever ready with scalding water for tea.

Jilly draped her long legs over the arm of the couch and finger-picked a jumble-sale twelve string guitar. For a while the very idea of not going to study in London had seemed like the end of the world. As luck would have it Hull University had pretty fine tutoring in the instruments she really loved, and the extraordinary advantage of a Chinese tutor who had instantly taken to Jilly and offered to teach Mandarin in exchange for social interaction at the farmhouse.
The events of the past year when Robbie had ended up in plaster, and Nikki almost got herself killed now seemed like a dream. Now, if Nikki and Robbie could just begin to sort out their issues. Yesterday had been good. There had been no juvenile squabbling, and Phyllis had given thanks for small mercies. Late last night the weather had closed in again and slates rattled on the roof. This morning there was no sign of the drystone wall that bordered the cottage gardens. But there were worse things in heaven and earth than being snowed in.

Nikita, hunched over her laptop at the kitchen table squealed, clapping her hands. Seventeen and closing in on eighteen fast, Nikki had at last discovered childhood. And she wasn’t going to let it go for a while yet. No one, Robbie the least, begrudged the girl her youth. She had been grown up before she had had a childhood. Sometimes she thought she was growing up in reverse. She was working on her book.

Though the psychopath Max Lomax thought he had put an end to it, Robbie’s eidetic memory had not failed him. The ability to remember every word of a text, how something felt, smelled, even subtle differences in colour were both his blessing and his curse. This time, a blessing. They had spent hours and hours reconstructing every word, every full stop and apostrophe. Nikki, desperate to grasp it back, pushed and pushed, hammering away at the laptop keys while Robbie blinked and fidgeted. Then she saved the text onto her flash drive and backed it up with a printed copy. The print -out went off to Jock Mactavish as custodian of The Word. Jock preferred paper to pixels for reading. Not that he had let the grass grow under his feet technologically speaking. Pragmatic to a fault, Mactavish carried with him at all times a digital voice recorder and his trusty ebook reader loaded with The Classics. Given that he was now an international journalistic ‘star’, he was happy to carry an entire library with him on his regular flights to London where his friends Meegan Freegan, Pixie, and Mariya had ambitions to make Save The Planet documentaries. Thanks to Nikita and fate, Jock had become not just the local journalist, but an international name. Still, he stayed loyal to the Holderness Gazette. The once-defeated seaside town of Withernsea had stepped out of the shadows since the lighthouse had been woken from its long sleep.

Trinity House had come through, and the light, now run by a Local Light Authority had swept away the soul deep darkness that had wormed its way into the town.

‘Andy sent email!’ Nikki, underscored her excitement with a squeal and clap of delight, dedicated to the man she now respectfully called ‘daddy’.

Jilly took Billy off the boil, preparing the oversized teapot with big scoops of loose tea leaves.
‘Read it to us our Nikki.’ Robbie’s shoulder butted up to Nikita’s.
The months had changed Nikki. Older, of course. Wiser too. But best of all younger as well. Now she laughed a lot more.

‘I begin?’ She looked around, spending a few moments more gazing at Robbie than at Jilly. Phyllis took over the tea-making. ‘Go on luv. I’m listening.’ She said absently.

‘He says,’ Nikki read aloud, ‘My dear Nikita.. Time I think moves faster as we grow older. Or perhaps happiness shifts it along at a pitiless pace. Yesterday you were seven years old, now soon to be nineteen. Or is it twenty? . If time is passing quickly for you, then it is not age, but happiness the cause. Grace however, keeps me youthful.

Nikki giggled. ‘Always Grace! Grace this! Grace that! I think he loves Grace!’

Robbie laughed. ‘Jealous little Girl from Kosovo!’

Nikki elbowed him. Hard and without amusement. ‘Do not call me so! I am Withernea girl! Withernsea!’
Jilly glared at her brother who knew full well he had been bad. And then at Nikki for equal measure. Robbie bowed his head. He had overstepped a mark. It had been agreed between them. Nikita hated being The Girl From Kosovo. Hated it. Bowing her own head she called an undeclared truce and read on. ‘Grace is finally divorced from SO10 and the SIS. Her simple delights now revolve around my dear Ann, Ben, and of course yours truly. Just as Ann, when she was a little girl, referred to me as daddy, she now addresses Grace as mum. What a strange occidental/Caucasian family we have become.’

Nikki clapped her hands again. Commander Grace Kelly had done her job as a police officer with SO10- Special Branch, against the odds. Inducted into the SIS, the British Secret Intelligence Service by insidious means, Grace understood the need, but not the methodology by which the innocent were entrapped into deniable activities. Had she remained a serving officer there would have been another move sideways. Rank. Praise. And out of the way. The less than agreeable alternative might have been another kind of retirement. She no longer conformed to the philosophy of The Greater Good.

Nikki read ahead, her lips moving silently before she engaged her throat once more.

‘We are in constant contact with our friends in London. The foundation is in fine hands with Richard Deacon and his associates. How were we all so lucky amidst such tragedies? The Butterfly Effect appears ever likely to have value as a theory. I trust that Meegan, Maryija and Pixie will do it justice with their new documentary which I understand is to be narrated my Mr. Mactavish.’

‘Keeps ‘is finger on the pulse I reckon.’ Jilly spread a thick slice of toast with Very British Marmite, the taste of which resembled bird shite. At least as she imagined bird shite to taste. She handed it off to Robbie with a smirk of disgust. Robbie loved the stuff. ”E knows more about goin’s on than we do!’ He licked at the thick black smear with a gross look at Jilly. ‘Good job I saw it comin’ out the jar our Jilly. Looks like your undies!’

Nikki shoved in. Not before giving Robbie a sharp elbow to the ribcage. ‘He says; Soon I will have new legs. To be free from pain is a gift to be treasured. Meanwhile I am happy to endure Grace’s manhandling.’

Robbie hooted. ‘Woman handling I reckon.’

‘Behave our Robbie.’ Phyllis cut in, plunking mugs of scalding tea on the table. Gross-outs were no new thing to her, but decorum still had to maintained to some degree.

‘Go on our Nikki.’ He chose to ignore his mother’s admonishment.

‘That’s all really. He just says to say hello to all of Withernsea and to say that he is happy and hopes that we are also.’

No. Winter stood no chance in this household. Days filled with banter. With laughter. The letter from Andy filled each one of them with a sense of belonging to something bigger than themselves.

Daily life returned to the comfortable unspoken word. Nikki, hunched over laptop and lined exercise book. Typing, jotting, cutting and adding. Every now and then, when her brow furrowed and the eraser end of her HB pencil tapped her lip, Robbie ruffled her hair from behind. Though she shook her head in mock annoyance, she really did not mind. She minded even less when he wrapped his big arms around her shoulders and blew naughtily in her ear.

Phyllis bustled. Quietly unflustered by anything at all. These days every day was gold. A constant stream of tea mugs and platters of sandwiches. If no sandwiches, then scones, cakes, fresh hot bread rolls straight from the Aga oven. All Phyllis needed in her life was a brood to look after and a day in town with Mrs. Boulster playing bingo.
Later, the youths might take a hike out beyond the drystone wall.

 

 

 

chapter three

 

The girls were ready to be moved. Each to a new location. The Russians discouraged bonding. In this house each girl knew that others existed. They had never seen, only heard. And what they heard was never laughter or conversation. Only cries, pleading, begging and screams.

Lena stretched. Now empty of shame she invited the needle into her ankle. Careful to avoid pumping the same location the man released the rubber strap, dropping the syringe into a slotted container hooked over the side of the trolley. He pulled back a white hand-towel covering a stainless steel kidney shaped dish. Loaded syringes were lined up with military precision. Obsessive preparation.

He looked almost kind when he smiled down at her. From the bottom shelf of the trolley he lifted a bundle of clean linen. Towels. A dress. Underwear.

‘When you can, you must dress.’ Yes, there was a kindness in his voice. A schoolmaster’s voice after the corporal punishment. Accented, but not Russian.

Then Lena’s eyes dropped and she stopped caring. Warmth spread through her naked body. A million soft, fluttering wings eased the pain. Her eyes flickered. Head too heavy to lift. A beatific smile softened her lips.

The man touched her. His hand warm on her cold skin. It was not a predatory touch, more one of careful concern and she was grateful for it, this human contact that was not brutish and ugly.

When Lena opened her eyes he was gone. Her cell door was open and the sound of water shushing through shower sprinklers sounded like monsoon rain. Knowing, but still without knowing exactly what was expected of her she scooped up the pile of clothes. Freshly laundered. The smell, divine. She pressed her nose into the top folded towel, felt its softness, inhaled the scent of oranges.

Deep down a tiny spark, no more than a flicker invaded her shrunken soul. Not daring to think of the spark as hope, it became so. There was hope now of no more beatings. No more depraved, shaming rapes. No more shackles or invasions into her body. Only the needle. And submission. She must find the water and cleanse the stench of stale humanity from her body.

Everything until now had been schooling. Lessons. The Buddha taught acceptance, and through acceptance dharma-happiness. That was the way of the Buddah. Lena knew these things to be true. The Hong Fa temple in the Fairy Gardens at home in Shenzhen showed these things to be true. Ah, the temple. Just a tourist destination. The legend of a fairy coming down to the Xian Hu the Fairy Lake was for tourists. But not the thought. The meaning. Now, acceptance must come. Only through submission could dharma be sought. This, she could teach to the western girls down the hallway. Their voices, devoid of laughter soughed through the hallway, mingling with the shushing of water.

Naked in the shadowed hallway Lena took tiny steps. Longer steps would take her to her destination quickly. Faltering, she closed her eyes. If she delayed, courage would leave her and panic fill the void. She would not panic.

No door held back the sweet-scented steam. The odour inviting. Coursing through her veins, the skank had shed the cloak of misery and now she felt normal. As normal as the poison permitted. For the first time, out of her cell, Lena took in the surroundings.

The place was big, with many rooms. Lines of doors, each one barred with inch thick steel. No guards at the shower room door, and none within. The warm fog thick but not impenetrable. The open door drew away the bulk of it, wisps of steam dancing into the cold air in the hallway.

Five girls, four of them tall, blonde and milky-skinned. The fifth, a short, modestly plump girl, younger perhaps than the rest, washed herself separately from the others. Even under the circumstances, her posture cried ‘Outcast’. Her skin, counterpoint to the other girls, a dark-chocolate black. This girl faced the white-tiled wall, over-hot water cascading down her back.

The white girls were talking. Not in whispers, but subdued and listless. They too were stoned. Lena’s appearance in the doorway imbued the space with a momentary shock. The air sucked back into silence. The girl’s vocal cords snapped shut, conversation trapped at the back of their throats. Then, perceiving no threat the air opened up again and they began talking where they had left off as if Lena did not exist. Strangers might be captors.

The girls speech was not English. They conversed quietly in some European tongue unknown to Lena. Most Chinese understand the English language nuances even without speaking it. But few can determine European accents. The girls were not English. They were however, round-eyes. Gweipo the feminine of Gweilo ‘white devils’. Gweilo, once disparaging no longer bore its original stigma.

Lena placed her bundle on a nearby wooden bench and stepped up to a wide, fixed-in-place shower head. The build up of calcium and green copper from years of use and no cleaning blocked most of the water from the sprinkler. She turned the star shaped tap half a turn and instantly the water scalded. She turned the cold tap to regulate the heat and the sudden pressure blasted out the caked dirt and hammered like cold needles against her skin. Carefully she adjusted the taps until the spray was comfortable. For a few moments she luxuriated under the shower, but then the pipes rattled and banged and the pressure came and went, scalding and freezing.

There being no way to control the heat or force of water, Lena stepped away, gradually moving closer, using her hands, palms up. Soon the cleansing downpour comforted. She washed her filthy body in silence. Without warning a thick burst of fury and disgust overwhelmed her. She tore at her skin, wanting to rip away the flesh, to dig out what had crawled inside her. In her mind’s eye her body was full of worms. Tiny white revolting worms burrowed into her skin, through flesh, invading organs eating at her brain.

But as the water soothed, the feeling quelled and she used the basic yellow slab of carbolic soap to get inside every crease and crevice. Lena rubbed and scrubbed at her private parts with an awful sense of panic. But the worms inside her brain had eaten away all chastity. Nothing would return to her the ‘face’ that had been ripped so violently away. Something else had been planted inside her, Something foul and stinking. And it would grow in the darkness of her soul.

Where the racking sobs came from, only the Buddha, God, and Satan could know. They burst from her mouth and nose in an endless string, unheralded and unwelcome. Even the scalding water, the chilling water, neither one nor the other, with the force of a fire hose, could sluice away the fluids from her body and into the drain quickly enough.

She had come to wash. To dress in clean chaste clothing. To offer the wisdom of the Buddha. To soothe these other captive souls and give hope to the hopeless. To accept and counsel acceptance. Now the other girls gathered around her. Comforting her with their hands. On her shoulders, her face, arms, neck. Arms wrapped around her waist, her neck. Not a hand, nor a finger, not a single part of flesh touched her where they had. They knew, these girls, even as she knew without knowing that to touch her there would be further defilement. All they had between them, the shared experience. And compassion.

 

 

Dressed and clean the six girls waited, unsure of what came next. The drug thickening in their veins. At first they sat together on the wooden bench and talked in earnest quiet tones. They offered up their names. Where they had come from and how. In common they were all illegals. Each with a different story to tell. Each the same in its essence. Irina, Mariena, Chloe, Sondra, Rebecca. Lena.
No! With a burst of pride she tossed away that ghost of a name.
‘Guo Ya Na. That is my name. I am not Lena Guo. I am the sister of Sunguoshu. Lena Guo is only a passport. A fake. But I am real and I am Guo Ya Na.’
Lena Guo did not exist. Had never. She did not ask about the other girls, or if their names were truth or fiction. No matter. What harm small secrets now? The Buddah had spoken into her heart and mind. In order to accept, she must be who she was. Anything else was not acceptance, but denial.

Lena Guo had been a victim. Guo Ya Na, sister of Sungoushu was not a victim. This little thing she could choose. If all other choice had been ripped from her, this she could keep. Maybe it was not much. Not diamonds or gold, but precious beyond price.

The hours passed. The girls stood, walked, turned and paced. Sat. Squatted. And with the passage of time need slithered and sliced its way into their guts. Cold slipped into the tiles. What had been bright and white became yellow with age. Bare plumbing pipes, rusting tap fittings. The building shedding its comfort. Now shrouded in decay, it yawned and displayed its awful past. Sondra pointed to the horrible words arced above the door to the cavernous tiled room. Randall Asylum for the Insane. 1807.

The heroin that had made everything look bright and shiny now brought forth rats, and the smell of misery and decay. Irina began to shiver and the familiar clutching at her belly made the other girls nervous. Soon they too would succumb to the pain. And it would be terrible. The alternate constipation and diarrhoea, nausea and dry-heaving. They would begin to run their tongues around their gums, that chemical smell in their nostrils, the taste in their mouths. Sondra started to scratch under her arms, down her arms, her thighs, ankles. The itch was all over her. She gritted her teeth as red welts rose in lumps on her milky skin.

Guo Ya Na stared at the big-boned white girl, and called upon the Buddha for wisdom. She would pray quietly for her. One by one they were falling into the pit of need for the drug. In a short time all of them would become compliant, and would beg, would offer themselves to the humiliation, and be thankful for it. She must call upon the strength of the Buddah’s teachings to help them. For herself too. For Guo Ya Na sought the strength of humility.

‘They will come soon.’ She said softly in English, an edge of despair in her voice. She gulped it back and her words sounded more like a sob.

Irina looked up from the floor where she squatted. Snakes squeezed her guts. She swallowed the taste on her tongue. ‘Yes. With the drugs. I know this.’ She fell quiet. She did not want to think of the needle. The thought was like sustenance and she knew that if she thought, she would want to gobble it up.
Guo Ya Na wrung on the corner of a towel, twisting against the cramps, now too clutching at her belly. She too swallowed, forcing back the nausea.
Rebecca, the Sudanese girl, her teeth chattering, but seemingly strong, set her face at the others.

‘Men from my village came in the night. They came with machetes. And hammers. I do not want happiness. That happiness will kill me too slowly. They have my life because they hold me on a spike? No. They will take it the hard way. I will fight, and if I die I will die like a warrior woman.’

Guo Ya Na nodded, a small smile of respect for the black girl pulling at her lips. ‘I understand.’ She said in a small whisper. ‘Like the Shaolin of Henan. Warriors also.’

Mariena, jittery, sweating even as the cold seeped into their bones nodded. ‘I think soon we will beg. Now, we are still strong and brave. But soon they will put us to their use again. This is only a part of our torture. This is to make us soft and willing. Tomorrow, the day after, next week, they will turn us into play dolls, and then we will be for sale. I know this.’

‘We can escape’. Chloe, the Ukrainian girl. Tall, big boned and stunningly beautiful. But diminished.

Irina, deteriorating fast, gasped out. ‘I need it Chloe. So much I need it. I don’t know if I have will to do this, what you are thinking. Even if we can walk out, we will steal, sell our bodies. We will seek out the drug and when we find it they will find us. There is no escape for us.’

Sondra had remained silent. Listening to the others. All her energy locked into simply coping.

‘I came to study. Medicine. I think we can if we plan quickly and well. In three days the heroin will be leached from our bodies. I know some things we can do. Hot baths. Massage. We can help each other together. In a week, maybe two weeks we could die from heart failure. But we could also be free. Whichever way, heart failure or survive, we will be free. Not slaves. I do not want to be a slave.’ She bit down hard on her lower lip. Hard enough to draw blood. She too was fighting the pain as hard as anyone was. ‘Maybe we can try.’ She said. ‘If we can escape we can make hope for us.’

Guo Ya Na shifted from face to face. She had wanted to bring comfort. To talk about the Buddha and to accept. But what of acceptance? Of submission? Only now, of a sudden, she understood. Now she accepted. Now she submitted. She accepted the pain. Submitted to it. The Buddha was wise. He would say accept, submit. But to what? The inevitable?

This, a life of defilement and abuse. Of hunger and submission to the delicious euphoria. This was not inevitable. Only death was inevitable. ‘I have been wrong.’ She said quietly looking to Sondra. Then to Rebecca. ‘I will accept death if that is what the Buddha asks of me. I will not submit to life if life is one of submission to dishonour. My brother Sunguoshu told many stories when I was very little. Of opium. How the Chinese people became slaves to their masters who ruled an empire from Britain. To plunder our people. Until one day when the Righteous Harmony came to cast them from our land. Yes. I think we can escape. No masters. No submission to those who would make us slaves. I will honour my brother.’

All the girls had spoken. If they could stay together, just for a little while, maybe there would come an opportunity to fight. Hope stirred in them all. Hope infected them and Guo Ya Na knew that if she spoke with strength they would follow. Guo Ya Na was no leader. Her brother had always cared for her. But the Buddha had spoken into her head. Even now he spoke. They would fight, even maybe against each other as the disease raged. Maybe there would be betrayal. She must keep them strong and do what must be done. Not just against men, but against time and the poison that shackled them. They must do battle.

Down the hallway keys rattled. Wheels trundled over bare wooden boards. The man was coming.

 

Dimitri bore none of the hallmarks of the movie bad guy. His eyes though blue, were not iceberg blue but the blue of a summer sky. His smile even from corner to corner, rather than curling up on one side into a sneer. Teeth neither rotten nor film-star doctored. Above all Dimitri was polite, introducing himself with a slightly Teutonic bow, he apologised. With professorial demeanour he looked first at Rebecca, and then quickly and directly into the eyes of each girl. Even as he spoke six pairs of eyes scanned over, then lingered on the six syringes.
On a white napkin the syringes perfectly aligned and loaded with clear liquid bliss. At their head a stainless steel oblong dish. Cotton buds, white meth, rubber straps.
A banquet. The table laid perfectly. Precisely. An invitation to savour uncommon delights.
Irina, wound over-tight already, absently flicked her tongue around her plump lips. Clearly she wanted to rush the table and feed with both hands and no finesse.
Dimitri sat on the bench, drawing out the girl’s pain. Feeding himself on their need. ‘Your lesson is my lesson.’ He explained without using his hands to inflect. His body language entirely vested in his face. ‘Harsh treatment is a necessity in the understanding of subordination. Your basic training,’ He smiled, ‘you will be gratified to learn is complete. But I would like to explain. You must consider this time as a boot camp.’ He nodded at his own perfect analogy. Deciding that this route would hasten their understanding, he followed his own train of thought. Many texts had contributed to the knowledge he would now impart.
‘Conscripts are not the same as volunteers. You understand? A volunteer is appraised of the process which builds a unified force. So they quickly assimilate and accept the rules as they are laid down. The conscript however, is initially less malleable. There is need for a little extra incentive to ensure compliance.’
Dimitri by name, but this young man was educated with no trace of an accent. Highly educated. He would not defer to those of lesser vocabulary. Besides, the girls would quickly get the drift. He would brook no argument and expected attention while he spoke. There would be time set aside for questions later. After the lecture was over. ‘I have not been party to your experience. You understand. My role is academic. I am a student of medicine and neuro-psychology.’ Pausing, he let this sink in; that he personally had not been a part of the abuse in any physical sense. ‘Your lessons will form a part of my thesis of course.’ He said this with more than a hint of personal pride.
Sondra listened with as academic an ear as the girl’s situation allowed. Auschwitz. The doctors. Those men and women of kind demeanour and dead hearts. Auschwitz, Birkenau, Belsen. Though young, in her home village the old folk had talked about the gates above which the words Arbeit Macht Frei had been emblazoned. Work May Set You Free. Sondra had learnt at home near Kiev of the Babi Yar Ravine, not far away, where 33,000 souls, children and babies too, were hurled into the ravine.
The trolley. The table of delights. It’s display of succulence began to draw more greedy glances. Irina’s eyes locked. She scratched. Her chipped nails scraping off pieces of skin. Dimitri’s monotone coming from somewhere far away in another galaxy.
‘So that we can rebuild first we must destroy. That is the purpose of training. Everything you were has been removed and all that you are now is what you have been given. Today, you are graduates.’
Sondra with inspired will kept her eyes averted. Away from the trolley. She concentrated on the wall tiles, the detail of dirt in the grouting, flecks of red rust. The smell of over chlorinated water. The sound of Dimitri’s voice. His monologue. His cold evil intent. Dimitri, feeding off their agony. Tasting, savouring, enjoying this drawn-out soul pain.
He looked at Irina with a beneficent fatherliness. Just and only for her. His eyes clouded with momentary sadness. ‘Soon.’ He said, only to Irina, as she were alone in the company of a favourite uncle. ‘The final lesson is now. Patience.’
Sondra wanted to rush to Irina’s side. To comfort her, but knowing too that to do so would invite immediate punishment. She bit down on her lip and concentrated.
‘Religion.’ Dimitri said suddenly as if abandoning his original cliché ruled approach. ‘Some of you; most of you, I think, believe in a God. Or perhaps merely a concept of God. You may even believe that after such disciplined training that your God has gone on a vacation. Perhaps never to return. You think He has deserted you.’ Again he nodded at his own revelation, pleased with his choices.
‘Today, and for eternity you have a new God.’ he did not have to glance with such powerful meaning at the syringe laden trolley. Nor any meaning for that matter. Nevertheless, for effect he did so, even though it was self evident. ‘You have been instructed in obedience. You have learned that art of submission, and so long as you are compliant and work hard you will be treated well and rewarded.’
Dimitri put his hands on his knees, pushed himself to his feet. Leaving much unsaid, he approached the trolley.
‘Please?’ Sondra.
Dimitri smiled in a kindly manner. A college professor inviting discourse after a gruelling lecture.
‘May I speak? Sir?’ Sir. She even managed to make the monosyllable rich with respect. Sondra Swat, they had called her. Always with a book. Ever willing to learn. To study. Sondra prided herself in learning quickly and well. As a medical student she had already extracted blood a thousand times. She had volunteered at local surgeries and schools at home in Kiev, where university had been a dream. When she could no longer study after her first year, she had been devastated.
‘I would like to learn to inject myself.’ Eschewing eye contact, Sondra gazed shyly at her toes.
Dimitri, taken aback, paused. The wheels of thought processing the request. And then he smiled that smile again. ‘Yes! Yes, of course. You must learn.’ Without irony he looked around. All eyes had followed Sondra’s lead and were cast to the earth.
Rebecca glanced furtively with a flash of question at the big blonde girl. Then returned to her subservient posture. Nothing worse than what had already been visited upon them could happen now. Not even death. Right now, ten hours after the last administration of the drug, shooting up held no fear. Fear fell away like a lead shroud.
Mariena stepped forward. Her teeth chattering, shivering cold but by comparison, doing well.
‘Yes. Yes’ Dimitri waved a magnanimous hand, inviting. ‘Come. Gather around so that you may observe.’ He beckoned and the sorry troupe shuffled around the tall girl, tentative and shy.
He handed Sondra the rubber strapping. ‘To pump up your vein.’ He explained. ‘For ease of access we will select your arm? Right or left?’ Sondra held out her right arm, underside up. ‘You should wrap this around like so.’ Dimitri took her arm, his hands soft and unworked. ‘You should pull the strap tight around your arm. You may use your teeth. When you have it tight, this buckle,’ he pointed, ‘will lock. You can release it when you finish by pulling against the buckle. See? Easy. You now.’
Dimitri instructed with clarity, showing how to keep the syringe low, laying alongside the vein.
Sondra snagged the strap, pulling tight. She looked up into his benign face, the strap between her teeth.
Not much older than herself, she thought. A few years. Very handsome but for his overblown ego and cold heart. Very handsome.
With satisfaction she saw his eyes widen when he felt the sting in his backside. Mariena had plunged her syringe. Unloaded it directly into his left buttock. Guo Ya Na thrust hers into his belly. Rebecca, into his back. Irina, pausing regretfully only for a moment jabbed his muscled upper arm. And then Chloe.
Shocked by their own instinctive actions the girls stumbled back, fearful. Dimitri stood stock still. Surprised, but with no sign of panic. He looked instead a little disappointed. Other men, those who had previously tormented would have lashed out. Dimitri stood, not a trace of fear or concern floated across his features. The only change, an odd look of concern.
‘Intra muscular.’ He voiced this cryptic compound medical term twice, stressing each of the five syllables. And then. ‘Intra venous.’ Again twice, stressing each of the four syllables.
For once, Sondra was glad of her height. She knew what Dimitri was expressing. Intra venous. Intra muscular. Vastly different absorption rates. In the vein the rush is instantaneous. Dimitri turned, addressing the five anarchists, now huddled together, contrite. Defeated.
But before he opened his mouth to remonstrate, his eyes rolled up to red-veined white.
Sondra stood, trembling and empty handed. The syringe still embedded in Dimitri’s jugular vein, he crashed to the floor and was motionless in seconds.
Shock filled the void. Surely the hallway would pound with booted feet. The thousand thousand horrors already ingrained into these walls retreated into an awful silence. Frozen into an alabaster statue, Sondra stood, eyes wide, arms limp by her sides.
Rebecca, moving through space and time, faster than her own thoughts which too had jammed like an engine seized found herself at the tall girls side.
Adrenalin filled every molecule of her being, where heroin fought for supremacy. Fight or Flight. That nanosecond that fires the human body into superhuman acts.

A little girl, imagining herself as small as a chickpea. Machetes raining down. Oceans of blood. The sickening dull crunch of hammers. Brain matter, just snot, sticking to the walls of a crude shack in a razed Sudan village.
No God. Least of all heroin. Rebecca, all fear expunged, shook Sondra with such force that she rattled her own teeth. ‘It is done! We must go! Now!’ She raced back to the huddled mass of limbs. Without care she kicked. Barefoot, the impact did no harm but Mariena, taking the brunt of it, stirred.
Still there was no sound. No raised voices in the hallway. The old building as dead and decayed as an ancient corpse.
Rebecca pushed, shoved, hauled on dead weight. And slowly, synapses began to spark once more.
At the hallway’s end, a small office. Perhaps once a nurse’s station- or a guard’s. Dimitri’s lone lair. A small two-bar electric heater glowed. The only light, a table lamp which illuminated several thick books. One lay open. ‘The Psychology of Terror in Modern Warfare.’
Zombie girls followed the flying black banshee. Rebecca swept the books from the desk. Scrambled through drawers. Snatched at a stainless steel hoop crammed with keys. Scores of them, big, small. Jailers keys with long shanks to fit fat ancient locks.
The Sudanese girl alight with the fire of potential freedom bit down on the alluring after-taste of poison bliss. Acting only on screaming instinct she tossed the bunch of keys at Sondra, who caught them with the practised ease of the basket baller she had once been.
‘Go! I follow!’
Not wanting to leave this amazing black girl, Sondra hesitated.
‘Go!’ Rebecca turned away, tearing at pages, emptying drawers of stationery onto the floor. ‘Go!’ She repeated, refusing to look back to see if the Ukrainian girl still hovered.
Rebecca slammed open cupboards, a maelstrom of destruction. A cabinet held boxes of syringes, cotton buds, methylated spirit. Too impatient to open the childproof caps, she dropped each plastic bottle, stomping down hard with bare feet. Plastic splintered drawing blood.
Down the hallway Sondra’s voice herding. Guo Ya Na in concert. Two German Shepherds herding a tiny flock.
Their voices receding into the distance, Rebecca continued her assault, ransacking the obsessively neat office. Dimitri’s black medical bag, a fat, bulging antique by the side of the desk, reminiscent of a plump toad. She upended it, pouring out and sorting the contents. Repacking for her needs, she placed it by the door. The girls would need it.
Soon she had a bonfire piled up. Paper, wood, the naughyde office chair. Anything combustible she threw on top. Methylated spirit soaked paper she scattered around and on the mounting pile. She tossed several more unopened bottles into the mess, holding on to one.
The squat little electric fire burned her hand when she ripped off the flimsy wire guard. It didn’t matter. Rebecca was beyond minor burns and lacerations. She hurled it atop the bonfire. With growing satisfaction she surveyed her creation. Then, the final bottle of meth in her hand, she squeezed off the top, splashing and pouring until it was empty. A second thought, and she plucked another bottle from the floor, uncapping it with surprising ease.
She splashed and dashed every combustible surface as she fled down the hallway, hauling on the heavy doctor’s bag. Pelting down the echoing hall to catch up with her new found friends.

Dimitri died hard. The heroin little more than a show stopper. Had Sondra extended her medical knowledge, been able to study instead of dropping out she might have guessed. The hit to the vein in his neck sent him well and truly into noddy land. The others, after a conservative ten minutes or more were unlikely to stop a healthy heart. Sondra would never know the truth. Guilt settled on her spirit.
Had Dimitri attempted to suffocate the flames that engulfed the width of the hallway first, he might have lived. Instead, staggering with numbed brain through the flames towards the main door became his undoing.
Every exit required access through a secondary iron-barred door. The nineteenth century locks were fashioned to keep inmates in. Effective for nearly more than two centuries. Rebecca, in her measured retreat had remained conscientious. Her spirit bore no guilt.
Dimitri barged back through the spreading flames, gulping toxic black smoke. Long-banned chemicals hit his chest. Ragged coughing encouraged bigger breaths, and by the time he had the agony under control, he was dizzy and disoriented.
Like a horse trapped in a stable box, panic supplanted all reason. Dimitri began to beat at the flames with bare hands. Flesh melted away. Whinnying screams wheezed from his blistered lungs. His polyester shirt shrivelled, stuck to his body and burst into flame. And then his carefully groomed hair disintegrated. He died in agony. His body fat, heated beyond boiling, turned to molten wax. Muscle and sinew shrank, curled up, contorting his once lanky frame. Hands became claws, and his corpse an oversized blackened foetus.
Guo Ya Na, struggling on bleeding feet, fed her friends courage, keeping up a steady stream of encouragement she did not feel. It was all the sustenance the girls could take. Rebecca walked by her side. The Sudanese girl recognised a fellow traveller. Guo Ya Na had never witnessed the savagery of the human beast that Rebecca had. What unfathomable melding of spirit they shared was soul-deep.
An ancient lane way, all cobble-stones joined two wide thoroughfares. At the far end, traffic hummed by in a constant stream. The side from which Guo Ya Na entered, just a gloomy conglomeration of run down, boarded up terraced houses and empty store fronts. Sparse vehicles hunted slowly back and forth, most with only sidelights lit. Trolling.
They needed to be away from there. To the thoughtless mind this road offered places to hide. Shelter from the weather should it turn angry. The shadows might render them invisible from prying eyes. The reality Guo Ya Na knew was different. Shenzhen, a mighty city of over 20 million was scarred by many such places. Landscapes of shooting galleries, drug deals. Inside these desolate havens, the hopeless homeless. Fed on by the white worms who, in return delivered up misery and death. Sunguoshu had always protected her from the detritus. Now there was the possibility of becoming such. She had to reclaim face lost and left behind her.
The alternative choice, the busy lights, where, dressed identically in their cheap white wear they would be as obvious as Coca Cola.
The big shadow was what she had hoped it would be. She spun and hurried back to where Rebecca had halted the other four girls.
‘Here! I find! Good place. Only for rest. We can begin to consider!’ Though her English still needed some polish, the idea of rest and a place to think things out conveyed well to Rebecca, whose English was excellent. Without waiting, Guo Ya Na plunged back into the alley, running headlong towards the big shadow.
Either someone else had already hammered off the big brass padlock, or the Salvo’s had given up replacing them constantly. The lock hung open, as useless as a broken arm. Guo Ya Na unhooked it and slipped open the catch. Had the bin been already occupied the hasp would not have been closed and the padlock hung. Tonight they were lucky.
The bin was huge. Made of heavy steel. Easily ten feet long and seven or eight wide. In the dim light it appeared to be of a mid green colour. Surrounding the Salvation Army’s proclamation of ownership as a charity bin, lesser knowns had pasted their own stickers and flyers. Whether to advertise, or warn it was impossible to know, someone had written in thick black texter pen the messages ‘BASTARDS’ ‘DEALERS’ ‘PROSSIES’. All by the same hand.
Sondra reached up, the steel lid a few inches above her six foot height. Bracing herself, she gave it her best, but she was weak. Defeated. She had height, which none of the other girls had, but even had her strength not been so diminished, it would have made little or no difference. Greater still than the heavy steel lid of the bin, the emotional weight now betrayed her. So far, she had held fast. When the opportunity to escape had been granted, she had acted without hesitation. As had her friends. But she, Sondra, had emptied her syringe into the man’s neck. While they had been fleeing, Sondra had been justifying. Arguing with herself that no individual could be held solely responsible. That she was a victim. But straw by straw a simple charity bin now brought her to her knees. Riddled with guilt, I killed him! She could no longer keep pushing aside the thoughts which sapped her physical and emotional strength. All the pain, screams, blood. The rapes, smashed into nothing by a Salvation Army clothing receptacle.
No one else was in much better condition. They stood helpless. Too short, too frail, and intolerably helpless, they needed even a tiniest speck of hope.
Of the six Chloe stood out. Had she wanted to claim the role of pre-pubescent teenie, it would hold water. Certain men found ‘the waif’ irresistible. At that place, she already knew her future fate. There was no time to comfort Sondra. Standing around waiting for a knight in shining armour was not a choice. They did not inhabit these parts. Here they must stay, and in front of them was that speck of hope.
Deposits had to be made by pulling down on a handle, placing the donations into the chute, and closing the door to send the goods down into the body of the bin. Guo Ya Na tested the mechanics, opening and closing the door. She looked at Chloe, and at the door handle. ‘You try?’
The implication was to Chloe, obvious. She stared, then she nodded sharply. ‘I try. Yes.’ Pleased that she had at last an opportunity to perform some small heroic task. The idea gave her a biting courage. ‘I think I can do this. If I can get inside. Yes?’
Guo Ya Na dropped on all fours offering her back to stand on. Even as she did so a flash of remembrance of the man who has placed her in such a position snapped through her mind. Rebecca, of similar height to Guo Ya Na, twinned the position, head to head, and Chloe stepped carefully up onto their backs, one foot on each of the other girls.
Mariena squeezed her way between the awkward cluster and pulled down on the door handle. No choice makes anything possible. Guo Ya Na had once seen a street performer in Shenzhen, a tall string of a woman, wriggle and contort herself into an ordinary paper shopping bag without so much as a tear or a split seam. The woman had performed the feat for a few Yuan and a lot of applause from bystanders. Surely Chloe for a greater reward, the safety and gratitude of her friends, could replicate the performance. She did.
With the extra push from underneath. Chloe, standing on a thick pile of unstable garments and stuffed plastic garbage bags, pushed up with her shoulders. When the heavy steel lid moved, Sondra quickly recovered her poise and set to helping from the outside. The lid yawned open and Sondra boosted each of the girls up and over into the container. She heaved her own body wearily over the lip, falling onto a pile of bodies.
Mariena giggled. In spite of their immediate situation, in the pitch dark, like sardines in a tin, she found a bubble of joy. While sirens cut the night air, with the acrid smell of noxious smoke, Mariena giggled. At last, if only briefly they could swallow their fear and rest for a while.
‘Clothes.’ She exclaimed, jiggling up and down on the thick, warm pile. ‘And shoes!’
Irina, silent until now, began to cry. At first she had fought long and hard. They had punched the heroin into her day and night it seemed. Irina’s body, flawless and perfectly proportioned had been used often and without mercy. It had been Irina’s screams in the night, in the mornings, in the afternoons. The others, too full of shame to admit that while Irina screamed, they at least, remained untouched. Small comfort. Comfort nevertheless. They all wore the guilt of knowing that while Irina suffered, they had not. Sondra rested her head on Irina’s shoulder. She, among all of them now still suffered the most. The craving for the drug vibrating every molecule in her body.
Blessedly safe for the time being, the promise of inconspicuous clothing to be sorted and donned. With the coming of dawn something reminiscent of peace settled over the six girls. No one cared for the cries and whimpers that dogged each fitful sleep. They huddled, cuddled, and whispered comforting words. And when it was their turn to cry out, comfort came.
Thus, the girls endured.

 

Oh! Almost forgot! (Not really.) My memoir called Eats and Treats: Catering for Couch Potatoes is available now in paperback as well as ebook. I’d really like you to buy it. Then I can have bacon!

 

 

HOLLAND AMERICA CRASS AGAIN!

On Tuesday 11th April The Daily Navigator stated on the front cover “Happy Passover”. That evening they had a Passover Dinner. The Cantor did his thing. Our Jewish friends were all very complimentary about it.
After dinner that evening I sat outside and listened to their chat. There were cigars and laughter all around. The cuisine was apparently excellent.
Today, Friday 14th April, Good Friday, the cover of The Daily Navigator was little more than simply crass. “Friday April 14th 2017. Good Friday. AT SEA. Tonights dress. Gala attire”
Gala attire? This is the day our Christ was crucified. There was no mention in the Daily Navigator for those of the passengers who were Roman Catholic. They have mass EVERY Sunday. There was no other mention of any other service for our Catholic friends.
Nor was there any mention of any kind of service for our interdenominational friends. (Which includes ourselves.)
This, in spite of the statement in the WELCOME brochure that “An Interdenominational service is conducted each Sunday and on appropriate religious holidays.”
What did we get? We got “Tonights Dress, Gala Attire”.
There was mention of some kind of ‘Bible Study’ at 2.30pm. Not a single mention of any kind of service to commemorate the crucifixion of Our Lord.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m personally a Buddhist, but there are many many quite aged people on this ship who are not. They deserve better.
I took it upon myself to go to the front desk to issue a complaint on behalf of the many on this ship who commemorate Good Friday in contemplation and prayer. Could the company not have suggested instead of “Gala Dress” which is entirely offensive, “Formal Dress”. Crass is company policy on this shipping line.
I have to say that the young Filipino gentleman on the front desk, as I made my complaint made no attempt to hide his own shock and singular offense at this utterly crass attitude. He was a young Catholic, and fully understood my quiet ire at the company.
The Zaandam had a Rabbi/Cantor on board. A Volunteer and unpaid. There is a Chaplain. (Volunteers.) What is the problem? Can’t they even begin to understand that many many of the older people on board this ship commemorate the crucifixion or Our Lord?
It will be interesting to see what happens on Easter Sunday, when He was resurrected!
I will keep you posted.

This afternoon we sat and watched the lines of traditional C of E and ‘other’ traditionalists trying to find something to eat. There were some rather floppy fish fillets that looked entirely unappetizing. There were few takers. Most settled for an egg and lettuce sandwich and a bowl of fruit salad.
And so…. Bible studies at 2.30 in the Wajang Theatre on deck 4. Our Chaplains, Nathan and Cindy were nice people. Dedicated, but evangelical. Not the traditionalists we had hoped for. We stayed around and listened to a very interesting talk from Nathan, followed by prayers. It wasn’t what we needed, and there was a sense of emptiness even after talking for a good twenty minutes with Nathan. Cindy helped. Oh! Look! They were nice people. Very nice people, and completely dedicated. But tradition was not a part of their way. They were very Texan. Very American. Very evangelical.
We made our point. They apologized, but honestly there was really nothing they could do. Holland America has cut their staff numbers. There is no longer a traditional Chaplain on board to hold services.  Holland America has cut more than these simple services. The crew have been cut to the bone, and there is no longer any cohesion. Cindy and Nathan too, were shocked to hear that the C of E, Methodist, and Calathumpians were trotting from one side of the servery to the other in a constant line dance, looking for some worthy sustenance.
The problem now with Holland America is that crew are deserting a ‘sinking ship,’ pun intended, and going to the better quality cruise lines like Crystal etc. (Thirty six days on the Zaandam became Hell itself after day fourteen.)  It makes sense to them. They don’t have to work so hard because they are short-handed. (Some work a full seven days, though this would not be admitted officially.) The ships are smaller and this makes for smaller gratuities. Many of the other lines do not charge gratuities extra, but include them in the price of the cruise. Holland America charge for beverages, alcohol (expensive) and don’t forget the twelve dollars a day per person gratuities. (You can opt out and pay the people you want to later.) They charge a service charge for your wine in the restaurant. But that’s another blog!
On the whole, Good Friday was a dreadful disappointment. We looked forward to a few rousing choruses of “Immortal Invisible God Only Wise” and “He Who Would Valiant Be.” Finishing with a swaying “For Those In Peril On The Sea.” That, after a quiet sermon from Mark 23. (Look it up! Stop asking me to give you chapter and verse!)
Oh well, let’s just see what Easter Sunday brings.

Good Friday April 14th 2017 Graham Whittaker.

HOLLAND AMERICA: TAKING THE PISCO?

I’ll keep this short I promise. It’s not often that I advertise any company more than once (or twice maybe) in my blog. BUT. (Oh! Here we go again with another BUT…)
Here’s the rub. We are currently in Peru. Yesterday, before cruising overnight to Lima, we had a day at another port. The Daily Navigator, the information paper about what is going on and where we are going, was delivered the day before and it said we were going to a place called PISCO.
Come the morning, the first shuttle bus arrived, and the second, and the third, and the fourth, fifth and sixth. People were heading ashore from as early as 8am. We tend to be late wanderers. Being independent travellers we tend to wait until the markets and cafes are open, so it was about about 10.30am when we sauntered into the Ocean Lounge to get our shuttle tickets.
We sat waiting patiently and quietly until an American lady came to the counter and asked why we were being told we were heading for El Chaco, a twenty five minute drive away over stunning desert scenery. Then a second person, an Australian said “Look, you advertise that we are going to Pisco, and we are going to somewhere else. What’s the score?”
Fascinated, we watched the interchange and the increasing ire of the passengers, who mostly believed that they would be ferried by bus to Pisco. “Oh..” Said one of the girls, with a blithe wave of her arm. “We are going to El Chaco. If you want to go to Pisco, you will have to take a taxi from El Chaco. It’s about another thirty five minutes. It costs about twenty five dollars.” (US.)
OK, hey, that’s not right! I stood for the American and the Australian. “You advertise Pisco. You’ve said nothing to all those people who have already gone ashore, and now you say, when you are questioned about it that you are not going to Pisco. Not on!”
Things got a bit restless. Passengers began to drop their shuttle tickets on the counter in anger and decide not to go ashore.
Eventually a small mutiny was beginning, and the word quickly got around that no, we were not going to go to Pisco, but only to El Chaco. To be told that we would have to negotiate a taxi ride to Pisco was salt in the wound.
Some people (me included) were not going to let this little piece of misrepresentation go away easily.
Down came Ryan the location guide who tried to placate the muttering crowd, and doing a bad job of it. Our number, 27 was going to be another 40 minutes or so and the American lady with number 20 offered up her ticket and refused to go ashore. She had her heart set on Pisco, and already her day was ruined.
Ryan, glib as usual tried cover up. Holland America do a lot of covering up apparently. “Our shuttle schedule was changed this morning without us being informed.” He said. I laughed a little sarcastically. This cruise is booked many months ahead. The shuttle should have been locked in. But no, they made it even worse. Over the PA system dear little Mario the cruise director, his over happy Canadian DJ voice booming decided to make things worse. “ There is a need to provide some clarification.” He prattled. “Our shuttle bus will only be going to El Chaco today. This is because of Palm Sunday being a very busy day….” (It was Saturday, not Sunday.)
Oh dear, things went from bad to worse. There was much grumbling and many folk walked away from their expected run ashore. It seemed a bit late to be telling people now that the destination was being changed. Several hundred people had already been ferried ashore with nothing said! It took a multi-national mini mutiny to get any information from Holland America, and when they were questioned about the printed material being quite different from the destination, they were not very good at thinking on their feet.
Why do people lie and obfuscate? I don’t know the answer. Let me know in your comments. All Holland America staff needed to do was to say that there had been an error in the printing of the Daily Navigator and that the destination would in fact be a lovely little place called El Chaco. Simples!

People would have easily accepted that. The fact that they had hoped to just get away with it is a typical Holland America ruse. They did it on the MS Zuiderdam, and they did it on the MS Zaandam. It’s in their DNA to obfuscate and mislead and expect to get away with it.
OK. Let’s leave that. It’s over and done. The bus ride into El Chaco was over the most beautiful and desolate landscape, the desert changing hue, the massive dunes and ridges. Lots of adventurous cyclists riding the bumpy road.
The thing about deserts is that many folk would think that there is nothing there. Wrong! Not only is it hurtingly beautiful, but there is an abundance of life. But so little time for us. We had to be back on board before 5pm, and it would have been nice to get into the desert and take some photographs. It was positively stunning.
As we came into the town it was a delightful surprise. Full of backpackers and visitors, the many cafes and bars were overflowing along the sea shore, and the fishing fleet a blaze of colour. Pelicans, Inca terns and masses of birdlife buzzing the silky seals. Boys and girls swimming. And every place connected to wifi!
El Chaco is reminiscent of an old style gold town. Higgldy Piggeldy buildings made from adobe bricks and sticks and rushes. Stalls full of fantastic fossils and rocks and crystals brought in from the desert. For anyone interested in collecting such things, there is a magnificent variety of geological and biological fossils and stone. Giant sharks teeth millions of years old, turquoise, iron pyritees, quartz of all colours and shapes. Big pieces of beautiful pink quartz, all this taken from that magnificent arid desert.
Anyone who has not yet discovered El Chaco should put this on their ‘to do’ list. Already thousands of backpackers and casual tourists have discovered this amazing little town, that seems to have grown and spread from the seashore into the arid land.
It was one of the jewels we will never forget. Thanks to the lady who gave us her number 20 and got us on an early bus!
Eating is cheap, and the local Cristal beer comes in a big bottle. It’s a deceptively strong beer and two bottles will be enough to give any casual drinker the wobbles.
We wandered the markets, took pictures, and simply marvelled at the gorgeous ‘Hippiness’ of the place. The only difference between the hippies of my day and the new-age backpacking hippies is the fact that they are connected! Everywhere has wifi! And it’s cheap! Very cheap. We sat for an hour or two in a strange and ramshackle but busy little eatery on the shore. Two bottles of beer, a large plate of mixed seafood, and a sparkling mineral water later, we got change from twenty USD. A number of people, like us, wandered around El Chaco and sampled the famous Pisco Sour, a drink famous in the area. They ended up walking as if they were still on a rocking vessel!
Put El Chaco on your list before it gets too commercial. (Like Lima!)
And a little message to Holland America. We came on this cruise for the destinations. They have been well worth the problems caused by the shipping line. Under-crewed, obfuscating and misleading, but you can’t fault the destinations on this South American cruise. If only they would serve hot food, keep an eye out for the huge amount of chipped crocery, and just stop telling porkies to the passengers! People are basically very understanding of things. They don’t need to be treated like mushrooms… and if you don’t know the reference it is about being kept in the dark and fed bullshit!
El Chaco may not have been the expected destination, but if the company had been honest early in the morning and corrected their stuff up, there would be a lot more happy campers and a lot less mumbling and grumbling about being shafted!
Oh and just one more thing. If you are thinking of coming on a cruise with Holland America be prepared to suffer the indignity of being ‘sold to’ every minute of every day you spend on board. NO opportunity to sell you something at inflated prices, from art work to shore excursions is missed. It’s really annoying to pay twenty six dollars for a ten dollar bottle of wine and then a three dollar service charge on top. But (there is that big BUT again) that’s another blog.

10/04/2017

WHO OWNS THE HOLLAND AMERICA CRUISE LINE?

So you had a bad experience on a cruise? Never again, you say, will you book a cruise on that cruise line. Well, it’s not as easy as you might imagine to NOT put the money into the pockets of the people that upset you the first time.

Let’s have a look at ownership of the various brands, and build a ‘family tree’.

In a world where the watchword is ‘competition’ you would expect just that. Sadly, as in most things competition is little more than smoke and mirrors. Not just in cruise ships, but in most multi-billion dollar enterprises. Airlines have shares or full ownership of other airlines. Genuine competition is a rare bird indeed. Mining, banking, retail, insurance, entertainment, you name it, companies are so intertwined and part or wholly owned by a single entity that no matter what you do to try to extricate yourself from any one, you may find that your second, third or subsequent choice is simply another company owned and operated by some corporate monster.

It’s really no different with Holland America. So, for your edification here is a list of the cruise lines now owned by the great conglomerate.

https://www.quora.com/What-cruise-lines-does-Carnival-own

It’s a fascinating industry with conglomerates owning a number of cruise lines and subsidiary companies shooting off in all directions. (I can see a loophole here for some enormous tax dodges!) Anyway, that’s not my business. They can do what they like so long as they don’t bilk the customers. In my opinion Holland America are doing entirely the wrong thing insomuch as they

1. Have institutionalised the menu’s across their fleet, so even if you are paying twice as much to travel on the Prinsendam as you would on the Zaandam, you still get the same old stodge not fit for a one star hospital!

2. They work on the standard of “sell, sell, sell” with shore excursions costing an arm and two legs against what you could arrange for yourself when you go ashore.

3. While they claim that (say) between the Prinsendam and the Zaandam, there is a difference in crew ratio. (Crew on the Prinsendam is they say almost one to one), the cost for a 28 day cruise we enquired about was being sold to us on board for $16,000 per person by the cruise consultant on board the Zaandam, the same cruise had been offered to another passenger by being sent a flyer, for half that amount!

4. The crew on the Zaandam, and, we are told, on other Holland America cruise ships have been cut brutally. It’s all just too much!

5. Forget any kind of half way decent entertainment! There are talks given by volunteers who are given some perks for being there. The “Chaplain” on the Zaandam was a lovely couple who were sent by their evangelical ministry (volunteers again!) Cindy and Nathan. Neither had any real idea of traditional religion or traditional services.

6. On our particular cruise around South America it slowly dawned upon many of the passengers that we seemed to be always berthed in CONTAINER PORTS and bussed quite long distances into small towns. Cruise ship ports were available, but oh no! NOT another container port and a long trip to the nearest town! Cost cutting again. All in all this was a most unsatisfactory research trip around South America. By the time we all reached Vancouver the mutterings among the passengers were getting louder, but with no one to listen we grumbled and groaned amongt ourselves.

Glad to be off the Zaandam, and not planning on using ANY Holland America, OR Carnival Cruise ships again for at least a very long time! Most passengers spoken to agreed.

Here is another website to give you a guide for your next cruise.

http://www.beyondships2.com/faq—who-owns-the-various-cruise-lines.html Don’t be fooled by price when you make do your research. Look for a cruise which includes gratuities or at least most of the things you might expect in a long cruise. Otherwise you will find a hefty bill at the end of the trip!

It’s a controversial headline, but hold on. When Winston Churchill called for a United States of Europe I think his vision was of a division of countries into “states” with a governor and a state legislator. Of course De Gaulle knew it, and he knew why. He constantly said “no no no!”   http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/04/de-gaulle-knew-it-britain-does-not-belong-in-the-eu/

To create the kind of Europe Churchill wanted would require empathetic ideologies. This cannot be and will not be for a long time.

Why?

From earliest times England was an empire building nation. Castles were built surrounding Wales, and England fought constantly to defeat the Scots.

In the time of Elizabeth 1 we began our seafaring buccaneering. We fought for gold and possessions with Spain, Portugal. We pirated and overran countries to create an empire all the way up to the days of Queen Victoria. Our monarchy is of German descent, and changed from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the English Windsor in 1917 because of anti-German sentiment in the British Empire during World War I.

France too was a natural enemy. They still believe that they are superior to the English, and the English feel that they are the superior ones. It is just a natural deep-seated suspicion of each other.

We colonized India, and the West Indies, we controlled and owned many outposts of colonialism. Australia, New Zealand, Ceylon, {Sri Lanka} When we left India we gave the Indian people British passports, and brought on a massive influx of Indian and Pakistani people. They thrived, and the English deeply resented that. It is in their inbuilt racism, and even the least racist English person has the deep-seated suspicion of ‘foreigners’.

In 1973 Britain finally joined the “Common Market”. There were then nine countries.

Let me go back a little. The United States had little love for Britain before WW2. They were in fact big friends with Germany and funded Adolf Hitler with the reparation money to be paid to the nations they had ruined in the first war. https://www.sott.net/article/298259-The-Americans-who-funded-Hitler-Nazis-German-economic-miracle-and-World-War-II

Hitler built armaments and established a dictatorial state. Italy too had Mussolini and his fascist party. The United States turned a blind eye. Only Churchill saw the intention and during the ’20’s began to build the British fleet, and supply the air force with fighter planes. Britain was alone and Churchill knew this. Britain was almost spent by the time the US came in to help, and that only because of the Japanese and Pearl Harbour.

After the war Churchill wanted a United States of Europe. But his vision was not what the EU is today. Britons feel quite miffed that France and Germany are leaders in the EU. We do not share the same ideologies. Now, the original nine countries have become 28 and the idea of a United States of Europe is obsolete. It was a triumph over the French who had consistently blocked membership. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/1/newsid_2459000/2459167.stm

There are too many political ideologies for the EU to work as it is. I think many Brits feel that.

Britain is, and has always been little more than a small sceptered isle. It has only a fraction of the power it once held, and the people feel that. They want to be in control, and it’s in the genes. There is no changing it. The English are English, and everyone else in England is not really English even if they are! It’s just the way it is. Multiculturalism is a fine ideal, and it is admirable that as time has passed the racism has been modified and I really believe that most British folk believe that they are not racist. But they still have suspicions about Germany. The last war is still hard wired into their brains. The destruction was terrible, and there is still a lack of forgiveness. Why should the Germans be so rich? Why give the Germans control in they EU? They lost the war. It should be us.

Those feelings are not on the surface. They are deep seated and even to many not obvious. But they are there.

In the years since Britain joined the EU, those nine countries expanded to 28. Britain was paying a lot of money and there were a whole bunch of failing countries economies. Brits were getting a lot of poor immigrants from EU countries. {That is matter for dispute but it was the feeling of the British. Their jobs were being taken by cheap Polish labour etc.]

In the end it become more than political ideology. It is suspicion, jealousy, natural hatred. These countries are countries that Britain had so many issues with over so many centuries.

England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales can’t even agree and they share the same small piece of the planet. Britain is a small group of countries bound by a union when attacked, but unable to work together when there is peace.

The idea of a “Common Market” was good. To trade together, to travel together, and to make a united Europe. But this is not what the EU is today. It is an over regulated money wasting mish mash of political ideologies. In France the extreme right is replacing the socialist left. Politics is king. That is not what Churchill’s vision was of a United States of Europe. Only when one ideology of peace is extant will there be a chance for a genuine EU.  Britain should never have joined under the conditions that it did. It was desperate politics and it failed.