High by Andrew Osmond
Chapter Eighteen
“Do you know what a Tom Collins is?”
Martin answered, his voice full of suspicion, wondering if this was a trick question of some kind on the part of his employer, “You mean the drink?”
“Yes. What is it? What’s it made from?”
“Gin, lemon juice, sugar, dash of soda water. I couldn’t tell you the exact quantities, if you wanted to know.” Martin was conscious that he was catching his breath as he said each word; the power of speech was proving difficult on top of his other exertions. He was still mystified enough to ask, “Why do you want to know? And why now of all times?”
“Oh, no reason,” said Garnet airily, waving an imperious hand backwards in the general direction of his carer, “It’s just one of those things that I have never known and have always thought that I should know, but have been too embarrassed to ask. You know how it is, it is like when you greet someone in the street everyday without knowing their name, and then when you actually stop and get in conversation it is somehow too late to ask them.”
“And when have you ever greeted someone in the street,” said Martin, amused by the particular example that the old man should choose to illustrate his point.
“Now at my age, all those kind of silly embarrassments over etiquette or appearance, that would have had me blushing with shame when I was a young man, don’t really seem to matter anymore. Just as well really.”
“You sound unusually pessimistic,” said Martin, “And on this day of all days, I would have thought that you would have been filled with all the joys in the world.”
“Fatalistic,” corrected Garnet. “No, not really. Realistic perhaps.”
They carried on their slow ascent in silence for several minutes, the one sitting in his wheelchair, hands folded in his lap, the other pushing the chair like an automaton, maintaining a steady, rhythmic forward progression. It was Garnet who eventually spoke, “Do you know that quotation about an unexamined life?”
“Not being worth living. Yes,” said Martin, “Socrates.”
“Quite so. During more than half a century of life confined to this chair I have had plenty of opportunity for examining my life.”
“And has...”
“No, please, don’t interrupt me.” Garnet continued, “By Socrates’ philosophy, I should be feeling especially blessed to have had so much time just to sit and to think. I have often considered that it is what is wrong with the modern world today. Not enough time just to think. It should be a paid labour in its own right. If I ran a company...”
“But...” Martin could not resist the desire to interrupt in order to contradict his employer and to remind him that he was still the owner of one of the most successful corporations on the East Coast.
“Okay, I know. Thinking doesn’t equate with a healthy balance sheet. How much greater mankind could be, though, if it was given the freedom to use all of its own resources, rather than the knee jerk reaction which appears to be our most typical evolutionary driving force. We are a race of passive reactors, ripe for the plucking by a hostile take-over.”
“By whom?” Martin was intrigued by the direction that Garnet’s seemingly erratic conversation was taking. He had seldom heard his employer talk about matters other than day-to-day routine; he was amused to discover that there might be a lurking spirituality in the old tycoon.
“The machine, of course. Stands to reason. The day of the carbon based life form is coming to end. It will be the silicon chip that inherits the earth.”
Martin decided to play Devil’s advocate, “Isn’t that all a bit too much like science fiction, and old science fiction at that. Even Star Trek...”
Garnet carried on as though he had not heard Martin, “Bill Gates would tell you that it has already happened.”
The thought appeared to depress Garnet and his earlier loquaciousness vanished as quickly as it had appeared. The only noise was the sound of Martin’s increasingly laboured breathing, and the occasional faint rattle as a gust of wind took out its angst on the darkened glass windows of the offices which faced out on to the spiral ramp. Sixty storeys above the ground and the sounds of the earth and the city below were already negligible; the criss-cross pattern of roads, the cars and tiny people, and the boats cruising along the river, all part of a completely different world to this walkway to the heavens.
Several circuits later and several hundred feet higher and this time it was Martin who felt compelled to speak, “Is that the plaque you are holding?”
Garnet instinctively looked down to the small object, wrapped in a thin layer of tissue paper, that he cradled on his lap, “Yes, that’s right.”
“Do you mind,” said Martin, slightly hesitantly, “if I ask what you finally decided to write.”
“On the plaque?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing fancy,” answered Garnet, “It says, ‘To commemorate the opening of the Wendelson Building by Garnet G. Wendelson this day of 1st May 2009’.”
“And you intend to fix it in place yourself?”
“That’s right. The construction manager has shown me a photograph of the plinth it is to go on and the dimensions are apparently all correct. I’ve got the four screws right here for the job. You did pack a screwdriver in my pannier, like I instructed, didn’t you?”
“Don’t panic. There’s one right here.”
“And you’ve got my camera to record the moment?”
Martin idly cast his gaze downwards to the city streets far below. He murmured to himself, “Well if I didn’t, I’m damned if I’m going back now to collect it.”
In almost any other country in the world, the open air, spiral walkway, which wound its course up and around the outside of the Wendelson Building, would never have passed the necessary health and safety checks in order to gain a certificate of safety. Despite its exterior makeover, New Korea still managed to cling to a few of the more ‘relaxed’ attitudes of its predecessor when it came to human considerations: life in New Korea was still valued fairly cheap, and the buildings’ inspector, with a phrase that could have come straight from a Juche textbook, such were its sentiments based on self-reliance, and which would have had the Great Leader smiling in his grave, proclaimed, “that it was the responsibility of the individual to ensure that they did not fall from any of the external decorative features of the Wendelson Building”. The fact that ‘decorative features’ had come to include not only the spiral ramp, which stretched from ground level to the very summit of the building, 555 metres in the sky, but also the novel slanting terrace roof and viewing gallery, possibly had required a substantial exchange of casino chips in negotiations at some managerial level, but no amount of sordid speculation could take away the fact that the walkway, like the internal spirals of a nautilus shell, was a spectacular creation of wonder and beauty, which could have only been lessened by any concessions towards safety. Garnet, the old aesthete, had won the day. At some point in the design stage of the walkway it had been suggested that a system of electronic sensors and automatic barriers might possibly be installed, the idea being that should the sensor detect the presence of a large - or small - body, in a position considered too perilously close to the exposed sheer drop at the edge of the high ramp, then a protective barrier rose from its concealed position beneath the walkway preventing the object from placing itself in a position of further harm. On paper the scheme looked achievable if expensive; in practice the idea proved unworkable and expensive. After several trials, at a position on the walkway close to the ground, during which time the barriers either raised too slowly to prevent a potential fatality, or sprang up so rapidly that they would contribute to making their unwary perambulator lose their footing, the plan was scrapped entirely, in favour of the current unregulated ‘death slide’, as the pedestrian path was described by one international newspaper. Garnet displayed typically little sympathy with the potential plight of future visitors to his building, ha
Another circuit completed, and finding himself on the south side of the building, facing towards the larger expanse of Yanggak Island, the Yanggak Bridge and the railway line - the Wendelson Building having been constructed on the northern end of the island - Martin momentarily strayed away from the ‘racing line’ that he had been religiously maintaining - sticking as close as possible to the reassuring solidity of the building’s external wall - and edged towards the parapet of the ramp, in order to look directly down at the ground at the base of the massive tower. An area of tastefully landscaped gardens framed a central piazza in front of the front entrance of the building, the main square looking ever more like a checkerboard of small white and black tiles the higher that Martin and Garnet climbed. To the east of the gardens several white marquees had been assembled in order to accommodate the dining needs of the various invited guests on this inauguration day, the canvas tents looking like small, neat napkins orderly placed on a large, colourful dining cloth from the viewer’s lofty vantage point. And beyond the marquees was a tiered platform of wooden seating, giving the impression of looking vaguely uncomfortable even from this great distance, so that the good and the great could enjoy the planned spectacle of a late-night fireworks display and the promised heroic acrobatics of a troupe of base jumpers who were intending to throw themselves off the top of the new building and parachute safely back down to earth. The terracing also afforded a prime position from which to see the first flood gates open on the Chin Cascade. Martin could already perceive that several of the seats were already occupied, even though the official speeches were not due to take place until later on in the afternoon. Nothing better to do with their time, he imagined. He pictured one or two of the seated dignitaries, binoculars focussed, attempting to follow the progress of his and Garnet’s assault on the outside of the building: even as he had the thought he noticed the brilliant glint of sunlight reflected off a trained lens from the direction of the wooden seats. He waved nonchalantly at the seated specks, and wondered whether he would appear on television, presuming that the opening of the Wendelson Building was newsworthy enough to have media crews from around the globe assembled to capture the occasion on celluloid. CNN were certain to be there. Fox, too, no doubt. He should have arranged for someone to video the event for him. He hadn’t thought about it. Then again, he didn’t have anyone that he could have asked. Martin wondered who else might be present at the official reception. Unusually, Garnet had kept the guest list a fairly closely-guarded secret and had not asked for Martin’s assistance with any of the administration to do with it. The only person that he was fairly certain had been invited was Garnet’s American lawyer, Leyton Drisdale, as he had overheard a brief telephone exchange between the two of them only a few days beforehand, not that he had ever met the advocate, but he knew that Garnet thought favourably of the man. There were rumours that there would be some fairly big name celebrities attending the event too, although in all his association with Garnet Wendelson, Martin was unsure just who he would have been either in a position to, or, more to the point, would have wanted to, invite to a day of such personal importance.
“Are you going to rest all day? At this rate we shall never reach the top.”
Martin was brought back from his speculation by the aggrieved voice of his employer. He answered, “It’s all right for you sitting in your wheelchair. My legs are killing me.” He regretted the words the instant that he had said them. He didn’t fully manage to catch the words that Garnet said to himself sotto voce, but he knew his employer well enough to know that they would have been something like an ironic, “Poor you.”
The slow climb to the summit of the Wendelson Building continued in silence, the clear blue sky and warming sun quickly converting any quiet frigidity caused by Martin’s thoughtless words to an air of companionable calm. Eventually Garnet said, “I’ve been thinking about changing my will.”
“Oh?” Martin was unsure as to whether any input from him was to be required during this particular muse by his employer.
“I made it many years ago, after a particularly depressing phase of my life, and when I was not thinking particularly clearly. Do you know how bitterness and disappointment can eat up a man?”
“I think so.”
“Well it was at a low point when I was all but consumed. Things are different now. I can’t remember how I must have been feeling to have authorised such a document. I was a different man. This,” Garnet extended his arms in a show of embracing the white walls of his creation, “has changed everything, and yet it is ironic, really, because the very fact that this building has been completed is the simple trigger that validates that wicked will I made all those years ago.”
“Wicked?” Martin was puzzled by the unusual choice of words.
“I can think of no other word for it. Remind me, Martin, when we get back down to earth, that I must speak to Drisdale immediately. I want to change my will, today, even, if it is possible.”
“Won’t you have other more important...”
“There is nothing more important.” Garnet’s voice sounded particularly grave, “I should have done it long ago, and yet, with all the problems in the past, this...” again he pointed to his building, “...well, I just never thought that it would happen.”
The final word caught in Garnet’s throat, and glancing down at the elderly, disabled man, who for so long he had wheeled before him, Martin realised that his employer was crying. Martin looked away, embarrassed, and then realised that his own lip was quivering slightly with emotion and that he, too, was fighting back a welling tear. He rubbed his own eye quickly and, his voice sounding artificially deep, said rather inadequately, “You must be very proud.”
Garnet wiped a sleeve across his own face, “Forgive me. I don’t know what came over me. How stupid. Still, better that I blub to myself up here, than reveal any weakness to those suited sharks and idiots down there.” He pointed towards the gathering crowds and TV crews far below. “Do you believe in God?”
It was a question from out of the blue and, despite discovering Garnet’s apparent proclivity for philosophical discussion the higher the altitude he rose, it took Martin by surprise. “I’m sorry?”
Fortunately it did not appear that Garnet was expecting to receive any kind of lucid answer. He continued, “And the afterlife. Do you believe in life after death?”
Martin attempted to derail the course of Garnet’s conversation, “What is it with you today? You sound very morbid.”
“I don’t know. Perhaps it is inevitable. I am not a young man. I had always seen this building as somehow being my monument to posterity. All my adult life seems to have been spent working towards this day. And now it is here? I don’t know. I suppose it has all just made me wonder what awaits me on the other side of today.”
“You mean tomorrow?”
Garnet realised that he was being gently mocked by his carer, “Yes, you are right, of course. Life goes on like any other day. I suppose I will enjoy the views from the top of my magnificent building and quietly disappear back into obscurity.”
“I doubt that,” said Martin, unconsciously lapsing into the habit of massaging his employer’s ego, still respectful of a master-servant relationship established many centuries before.
The pinnacle of their epic climb was now within sight: one more circuit of the building and Martin would be level with the corner of the sloping rooftop terrace, from where he would be able to push Garnet up the last few feet to allow him to sit beside the plinth on which he would screw his commemorative plaque, and in so doing add the final touch to the Wendelson Building. The wind which had occasionally plagued them at moments during the ascent had now died away to a respectful breeze, and the sun was beating warm and bright from a cloudless, blue sky. There would be other times, Martin imagined, when the city was shrouded in rain clo
It was with the rooftop finally in sight, that Garnet returned to his earlier question, “You never did answer me. Do you believe in God? I realise now, Martin, that I actually know very little about you as a person, beyond being my legs that is. What is it that you believe? I have never noticed you asking for time off to go to church, but I suppose that doesn’t make anyone the lesser believer, does it? Come on now, quickly, before we reach the top, tell me what is it that you keep faith with.”
For Martin it had always been a dilemma whether or not to reveal his faith in the Church of the Higher We. He was as conscious as were all his fellow believers that an open admission was normally greeted with hoots of derision, if not outright ridicule and abuse. Martin was particularly pleased that Garnet had apparently never suspected his religious inclination, most especially when, with the numerous aeroplane trips they had shared together, all of which Higher We doctrine demands are accompanied by a degree of ritual pantomime, his faith had passed unobserved. Ironic really, that Garnet should say that he had never been to church, when for Martin, whose preferred place of worship was the airport terminal building, Garnet had been the principle conduit that had allowed him access to so many of these holy places in so many different countries around the world. In Higher We circles, Martin was a global believer. So, what should he say now to his employer, who had been so frank to him, during this climb that they had shared together? It would be so easy just to say that he was an atheist, or a baptist, or name one of a numerous list of ‘off the peg’ religions, that had a readily available morality, code of conduct and belief system already predetermined, relieving the believer of the necessity of doing any spiritual soul searching for themselves, any of which would have left Garnet satisfied so that he could then pigeonhole that aspect of his attendant’s character into a small, neat box within his mind: or should he tell the truth? Should he tell Garnet precisely what was required of a follower of the Church of the Higher We?
Interlude
I had come to something of a crisis point in my life, I don’t mind admitting it. Not in the way that it perhaps happens for other people: I hadn’t just been dumped by my boyfriend; I hadn’t suddenly lost my job; indeed, viewed purely superficially, from the outside, I am sure that I would have appeared to most people, not entirely unlike so many of the other young, successful, independent-minded, beautiful, business women who donned their Armani and Donna Karan suits each morning and disappeared into one of the many buildings that make up the financial metropolis of Wall Street. I had plenty of friends; I had a great apartment; I had more money than I could spend in an average week: I was twenty-six. Life should have been great. But there was something missing. I have heard cases of people who have committed suicide at a young age, not because there was anything so very wrong with their lives, but precisely because they had achieved so much and realised all of their early dreams, that there appeared to be nothing left that was worth attaining: without a goal there is nothing left to live for. I can not profess to having reached quite such a low point of despair that I ever considered taking my own life, but, at the same time, it would be immodest of me not to admit that I had been sufficiently successful in the pursuit of my own career and life-plan, that I could identify, to some degree, with the way in which these fellow travellers must have felt. If I wished to consider myself purely as a material girl, then both my closet and my bank account were full. So why didn’t I wake up each morning feeling full of life, excited at the prospect of what the new day would bring? It was a question I had been asking myself for several months, and not finding any satisfactory answers.
In the end it was my analyst who came up with a suggestion which justified the exorbitant amount of money I had been paying him for the past three years: bored of hearing my “rich girl” angst, and tired of reminding me that “he was only paid to listen, not to offer any advice”, he eventually departed from this personal maxim and suggested that I should “discover religion”, adding that it was a “kill or cure” solution. It was apparently a suggestion that he had exercised on others before me, since when I expressed curiosity at the idea, he momentarily withdrew to an adjoining room, returning carrying a large, plastic container, literally overflowing with business cards, handbills, leaflets, and assorted other scraps of paper. “Delve in,” he said. “Lucky dip, take your pick. Take two, three. If you don’t like the first, perhaps the next will be more suitable.” I felt like a child being offered a bowl of sweets, not knowing how many I should take without appearing ill-mannered. I remember leaving his office that fateful morning, carrying four tickets to a potential new life. I recall trying to book up my next routine appointment with his receptionist on the way out - in the same way that I had done every fortnight for so long - but when she noticed the leaflets I was carrying she simply said, “You won’t be back” and she was right.
I read the pamphlet distributed by the local branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from cover to cover on the metro on the way home, and happily left it on my seat on the train when I got off: it all sounded very worthy but I couldn’t help but read between the lines and think that somehow women were getting a rather raw deal here. I remembered, once, long before, being stopped in the street, by two fresh-faced, smartly suited, young men who introduced themselves as the Elders Simpson and McVie, just arrived from Seattle, and eager to make me their friend and introduce me to the ways of Mormon worship. It was a time when I was still naive and aspiring, and I told them where to go in no uncertain terms, as I’m sure did the vast majority of my fellow citizens, witness the expressions of dejection on the same two faces when I bumped into them again only two weeks later: Elder McVie’s wide, innocent face had broken out in a multitude of angry-looking spots, and Elder Simpson looked as though he was regretting ever leaving the west coast for this hostile enclave in the east. The way of the Latter Day Saints appeared to require a greater deal of commitment on the part of its followers than I was currently prepared to put in - it was quick fix religion that I was after, not a lifetime of futile proselytising. Similarly, I discarded a flyer which I am assuming was promoting a particular branch of Islam: the text was entirely written in Arabic, except for a telephone number at the bottom of the sheet in Roman script, and I freely admit that I felt too nervous to dial the quoted number. Which left just two alternatives. Of these two, the most instantly appealing was the colourful, A5 leaflet welcoming new members to join a class of exercise and meditation, brought together under a general banner heading of Falun Dafa, or was it Falun Gong, I am afraid that I never did quite grasp the distinction between the two terms. I learnt that Falun Dafa had been introduced to the world in May 1992 and that its founder and chief teacher was Mr. Li Hongzhi, a presentable and honest-looking businessman, judging by nothing more than his small photograph which appeared in the bottom right-hand corner of the promotional pamphlet. The text went on to proudly proclaim that over 100 million practitioners in over 40 different countries had discovered Falun Dafa since its establishment - impressive stuff, I thought - and a regular gathering of a Downtown branch of Falun Dafa took place in Roosevelt Park, only a stone’s throw away from my own apartment. If I ever believed in divine providence it was then: this seemed like too much of a coincidence to be true.
I have perhaps slightly inaccurately misrepresented my susceptibility to a religious conversion at this stage, re-reading my words it sounds as though I was pro-actively seeking for some kind of enlightenment and desperately searching in the spiritual wilderness, happy to be guided by any promise of direction that was offered to me, when if anything the reverse was actually the case. At this time, I would have felt greater satisfaction in dismissing all of the literature I had
Several days passed, my life continued as it always had, the seemingly endless treadmill of wake, work, play and sleep; and everything was perfectly fine, and yet then again nothing was quite fine at all. I know it sounds like I was the classic example of the poor little rich girl, the spoilt child who possessed everything and yet still wasn’t content, and I am totally aware that in comparison to some people’s lives I had it very easy, but this kind of rational thought was not the answer to my current modern urban malaise. It was while paying for a mocha lite frappuccino in my local Starbucks that I noticed the card with the bird emblem once again. There was a pay-phone across the street from the coffee shop: I made the call there and then. I had had a chance to think about what it was that was missing from my life, and also to consider what it was that I wanted out of any religion that I chose. The kindly voice I spoke to that day, at the other end of the phone line, reassured me that at the Church of the Higher We I had found a perfect match.
Religion as a crutch? It is an old chestnut, isn’t it? Problems in your personal life, difficulties to face on the road ahead, the world all seeming a little too terrifying, and what happens? Wham! Out of the blue, you discover religion, and it makes everything better again. The responsibility for your problems no longer lies with you, it is conveniently taken away, because it is now God’s will, or it is Allah’s way, or it is because Mr Li. says so. Fantastic. And also phoney? I am not here to judge, all I can say is that for me and Higher We it was not like that. It may be true that I needed some kind of a crutch, but Higher We did not just hand it out to me indiscriminately: if I may be allowed to extend my analogy, I consider that Higher We provided me with the timber and the nails and a book on practical carpentry, and so gave me the tools to build my own crutch for myself.
Let me tell you a little bit about what the Church of the Higher We is all about, and specifically how it helped me come to terms with all the mental anomalies of the modern world which, without me being aware of it, were the causes of my unhappiness. The Church of the Higher We - or the aeroplane religion, as some of its followers describe it - combines elements of routine and security - important tenets of most people’s everyday life, I am sure you would agree - with an aspect of ‘visible’ faith, which is largely missing from so many Western city-dweller’s lives. The distinction between ‘visible’ faith and ‘blind’ faith - the term by which Higher We members describe most conventional religious belief - is important and is worthy of further description. The kind of faith that the Church of the Higher We is concerned with is the everyday faith which surrounds us in our ordinary lives, but which we largely take for granted - it is the faith that when we go to sleep we are actually going to wake up the next morning; the faith that when we put an electric plug in a socket in the wall that the TV will actually come on; the faith that when we drink a glass of water from the tap it will be pure(ish) and that it will not kill us; and perhaps most specifically, it is the faith that aeroplanes fly.
The aeroplane is one of the most powerful symbols of the modern, technological world. The majority of people in the larger, industrial countries will have travelled on board an aircraft at least once in their lifetime, many will have travelled on numerous occasions, thinking no more of each journey than their forebears would have thought about a simple stroll around their own neighbourhood. Mechanically, every part of every aircraft has been designed to a precise specification; scientifically, the principles and dynamics of power-assisted flight are well-documented and relatively simple to understand even for the layman, but nevertheless, no amount of rational comprehension can take away the sense of awe and suspension of belief when one looks up towards the heavens and sees a soaring passenger jet flying high overhead. Who needs to complicate their lives with the invention of additional unproven deities when there is a real-life, metallic God cruising past every few minutes at seven hundred miles per hour?
(Extract from the introduction of We Can All Fly Together: How The Church of the Higher We Changed My Life by Amanda de Boek.)