The Debt Collectors War

Chapter 6

Sydney had grown in the years Ellie had been away. It had grown in the last century, too, and was now a bowl of light between the mountains and the sea and home to thirty million people.

The old world was dying, and the new was growing, and Sydney had always been at the heart of that. Sydney and Lagos and Tashkent and Shanghai, and a dozen other places Ellie had flown over and passed through.

Ellie didn’t see her parents, or any other family. They hadn’t talked in ten or twelve years, so there was no reason to start now. They didn’t like Ellie, and they wouldn’t like Sameh, and if Ellie visited, there would just be screaming and blame and in the end Ellie would walk out. Like she did every other time. She and Sameh went to a hotel, and checked in, and when it was time they went to the church where the funeral was being held.

Ellie’s parents’ church, Ellie remembered, which was everything she’d forgotten she was running away from. They walked into the foyer, and looked around. Sameh was looking around at the walls, and it took Ellie a moment to realize why.

“Fuck,” Sameh said quietly. “Look at this place.”

There were bible quotes everywhere. There was cross-stitching in wooden frames, and wood-burned words, and even a poster with cats on one wall. Churches had suffered over the years, in this part of the world. They’d had to sell their cathedrals and buildings and gold and silver. Now all they had was small houses and plain walls.

“It’s like a hajji house,” Sameh said. “A really bad hajji house. Except in English. And cheap. And fucking tasteless.”

“Yeah,” Ellie said. “Fuck, sorry. I’d forgotten how bad they are.”

Sameh let go of her hand.

“Hey,” Ellie said, and grabbed it back.

“I don’t think they’re going to like us doing that,” Sameh said. “Like the mullah’s don’t.”

“Fuck that. And fuck them.”