The market didn't care about physics. It cared about perception.
I stood in front of Pa Mathew's repair stall. Collins stood behind me, acting as the bodyguard. On the wooden table, laid out on a clean piece of cloth, were one hundred screws.
Yesterday, they had been rusty, pitted artifacts of the rainy season. Today, they were a dull, industrial silver. They weren't chrome they didn't sparkle like jewelry but they looked clean. They looked serviced.
Mathew picked one up. He rubbed it with his thumb. "Wonders," Mathew muttered. "You paint am?"
"Galvanized," I said. "Chemical bonding. The rust is gone, Pa. It won't come back for years."
Mathew looked at the Panasonic radio on his bench. He picked up a screwdriver. He drove one of my screws into the backplate. It looked crisp against the black plastic.
"E fine," Mathew admitted.
He reached into his pocket. He counted out ten coins. 100-franc pieces. 1,000 Francs.
He pushed them across the table. "I get another bag," Mathew said, kicking a box under his table. "Rusty washers. You fit do am?"
"Bring them," I said.
I took the money. It felt heavy. Heavier than the copper money, because we hadn't scavenged this. We had manufactured it.
We walked back to the shop. Tashi was waiting. He saw the coins in my hand. He saw the empty bag.
"He bought them?" Tashi asked.
"1,000 francs," I said. I put the coins on the glass counter. Clink. Clink.
Tashi looked at the money. Then he looked at the pile of scrap metal in the corner—the rusty bolts, the brackets, the washers. He looked at Collins, whose hands were raw from polishing sand.
"This is not a hobby," Tashi said. He straightened his tie. "1,000 francs is lunch money. If we want rent money, we need scale."
He grabbed a plastic bag. He filled it with samples a brake lever, a bolt, a washer.
"Come," Tashi commanded.
"Where?"
"To the Motor Park," Tashi said. "Radio repairmen buy screws. Mechanics buy buckets."
Massa Joe's Workshop was a chaotic kingdom of oil, mud, and shouting. It was located behind the stadium. Cars were propped up on logs. Apprentices ran around with spanners, covered in grease from head to toe.
Tashi walked in like he owned the place. He found Massa Joe a giant of a man with a belly that strained his overalls drinking a Guinness on a car seat.
"Joe," Tashi greeted him.
"Tashi," Joe belched. "I hear say you sell your German truck. You walk foot now?"
"I am lighter," Tashi said smoothly. "Strategy."
He put the sample bag on a rusted oil drum. "I have a new service. Refurbishment."
Joe picked up the brake lever. He squinted at it. "You buy new one?"
"This is the one from your scrap pile," Tashi lied (it wasn't, but the lie was the pitch). "My boys treated it. Removed the rust. Plated it with zinc. It is better than new. It is German Spec."
Joe scratched his chin with a greasy finger. He looked at the mountain of rusty parts in the corner of his yard. Alternators, calipers, bolts worthless junk waiting to be melted down.
"How much?" Joe asked.
"100 francs for small parts. 500 for big parts," Tashi said.
Joe laughed. "Expensive."
"Cheaper than buying new," Tashi countered. "You plate it, you put it on the car, you tell the customer: 'I installed a refurbished part.' You charge them 2,000 extra."
Joe stopped laughing. He did the math. He pointed to a yellow bucket near the tire machine. It was full of wheel nuts. Rusty, ugly wheel nuts.
"Do that bucket," Joe said. "Fifty nuts. If they come out clean, I pay 2,500. If they spoil, you pay me."
Tashi didn't blink. "Done."
Collins stepped forward and grabbed the heavy bucket. He grunted. It was twenty kilos of steel.
07:00 PM
We were back in the shop. The bucket of wheel nuts sat on the floor of the Lab. It was a monster job. Fifty nuts. Each one needed to be scrubbed, dipped, and polished.
I looked at the battery bank. 9.8 Volts.
I looked at the lights. They were dim, flickering like candles in a draft.
"Gemini," I whispered. "Energy analysis."
< Warning: Deep discharge imminent. Electrolysis requires current. To plate this mass of steel, we need approximately 15 Amp-hours. >
I looked at the batteries. We had maybe 20 Amp-hours left total. Before they died forever.
"Papa," I said.
Tashi was sitting at the counter, calculating potential profits in the ledger.
"We have a problem."
"What?"
"The power," I said. "The plating tank needs electricity. It pulls amps to move the zinc. If we run the tank... we can't run the lights."
Tashi looked up. The shop was already gloomy. Outside, the street was dark.
"We can't do both?"
"No," I said. "The voltage is too low. If I turn on the lights, the tank stops bubbling. If I run the tank, the lights die."
It was the choice. Light (Comfort) or Current (Money).
Tashi looked at the bucket of wheel nuts. 2,500 francs. He looked at the flickering fluorescent tube above his head.
He stood up. He walked to the wall switch.
"Collins," Tashi said. "Light the kerosene lamp."
"Yes, Boss."
Tashi flipped the switch. Click. The shop plunged into darkness.
The only light came from the Bookman's kiosk down the street, casting long, twisted shadows through our window.
"We work in the dark," Tashi said. "The money is more important than the eyes."
We worked.
The Lab became a sweatbox. Tashi held the kerosene lamp. Collins scrubbed the nuts with sand and vinegar, his hands bleeding. I managed the tank.
Fizzzz.
In the silence of the dark shop, the sound of the electrolysis was loud. I watched the bubbles rise in the dim yellow light. We were dissolving zinc from old roofing sheets and forcing it onto the steel.
It was slow. One nut took 20 minutes. We had fifty.
"My hand di burn," Collins whispered, dipping a rag into the vinegar.
"The salt is getting in the cuts," I said. "Use the pliers."
"Pliers slow me down," Collins said. He kept scrubbing.
Tashi watched us. He didn't help with the dipping he was the Manager but he didn't leave. He sat on a crate, holding the light steady, swatting mosquitoes.
"2,500 francs," Tashi murmured. "Plus the 1,000 from Mathew. That is 3,500."
"Enough for a bag of rice," Liyen said from the doorway. She had come down from the house. She looked at us three shadows huddled around a bubbling tub of vinegar.
"It is like witchcraft," she whispered.
"It is industry," Tashi corrected.
Wednesday, September 9, 1999 Government School Atuakom 07:30 AM
I fell asleep in Assembly. I didn't mean to. I was standing in line, singing the anthem, and my eyes just closed. My knees buckled.
Jean caught me. "Steady, Solar Boy," Jean whispered, holding me up by my good arm. "You sleep, Ngu go kill you."
I shook my head. "I'm awake."
My hands were stained grey from the zinc sludge. I had scrubbed them, but the metal had worked its way into the pores. Collins was worse. His hands were raw, covered in small cuts from the steel wool. He hid them in his pockets.
We marched into class. Mr. Ngu was writing on the board. General Science.
"Energy," Ngu wrote. "Forms of Energy."
He turned to the class. "What is the primary source of energy for the earth?"
"The Sun!" the class shouted.
"Correct. And what device converts chemical energy into electrical energy?"
I knew the answer. A Battery. I looked at my grey hands. I thought about the 9.6 Volts left in our bank. I thought about the darkness in the shop.
I didn't raise my hand. I was too tired to show off.
"Junior," Ngu called.
Junior stood up. "A Battery, Sir."
"Correct."
I looked at Junior. He looked fresh. Rested. He probably had electric lights at home. He probably did his homework at a desk, not on a crate by a kerosene lamp.
That evening, we delivered the bucket. Massa Joe inspected the nuts. He scratched one with a key. The plating held.
"German Spec," Joe laughed. "Tashi, you be devil."
He paid. 2,500 Francs.
We walked home. We had 3,500 francs in the "Operational Cash" tin. We bought rice (2,500). We bought oil (800). We bought painkiller (200).
Balance: Zero.
We sat in the shop. The lights were off forever now. The batteries were too drained to fire the inverter. Even the "Ghost Charge" was gone. We were dark.
But we had rice. Liyen cooked it. Real rice, with oil and salt.
We ate in the flickering light of the kerosene lamp fuel bought from the Bookman.
"We are eating the enemy's oil," I said, chewing slowly.
"We are burning his oil to make our money," Tashi corrected. He pointed to the empty bucket in the corner. "Tomorrow, we go back to Joe. We ask for two buckets."
I looked at my grey hands. I looked at Collins' bandaged fingers. We were eating. But the lights were out.
And the Siege was still holding.