Текст книги "Wall of Days"

Автор книги: Alastair Bruce

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

I hugged her and felt my heart leap. But then I looked at my hands on her back. I remembered the blood, the blood of her mother on my hands, hands separated from Tora’s skin by just a thin dress. I let go of her with that hand, held on tighter with the other. I think though, it seemed as if I wanted to let her go. I did not. I wanted to carry on holding her. On and on. She looked hurt. I could not explain. She broke my grip, brushed past me and went to pour herself a glass of water.

For each one of the nine hundred and seventeen I gave to myself the task of pronouncing the c-grade. I took this on myself. For each I pronounced death. Some cried. Some tried to attack me. Most were too feeble. I have been cursed a thousand times.

I close the door and go outside and again walk round the back of the hut. It is overgrown, the trees unpruned. My feet bury themselves in rotting fruit, weeds, dead branches. Like mud. I kick at it. My boots dislodge something hard. I bend down to pick it up. It is a few centimetres long and caked in brown earth. It is not wood, it is much too hard for that. I wipe off some of the earth. I can see the pores now. It is bone, of that I’m sure. From what I do not know. It could be anything: dog, human. I kick away more of the earth and get down to my hands and knees and dig a little deeper. The digging is tough and I can only go a short way down, barely scratching the surface. With better implements I could, I know, uncover whole skeletons. But what would that prove? Without names it proves nothing. But I do find another. I pull it out. It is from the leg of a human. I wrench it out of the earth, stones and leaves scattering as I do. I stand there with it. I stand there with the bone of a man’s leg in my hand and I tilt my head back and my eyes shut against the light.

There are patterns on my eyelids made by the light. I open and close them, again and again, hoping the shapes will go away. They return brighter and brighter. I begin to see their faces. Their faces start to come back. I am surrounded by trees. From each branch hangs a corpse. Ants crawl over their skin. The corpses stretch back into the grove, back far into the dark of the orchard. The black bodies sway gently in the breeze. I can hear the ropes creak.

It is late afternoon when I get back to the town. I make my way to the shelter. Andalus has re-appeared. He is dozing in the late sun, leaning against a wall. I sit next to him, our shoulders touching. He wakes but does not move. I tilt my head towards him. In a way his bulk is comforting. Real. I pat him on the hand. ‘Andalus,’ I say. ‘Andalus. I am getting nowhere. I came here to save us but I am getting nowhere.’

He does not answer. He has his arms resting on his legs. An image crosses my mind. I saw this picture as a child. I found it in a ruin my group came across as we moved south. In the picture were creatures shaped like men but with bigger jaws and heavier foreheads. They were covered in black hair and standing in a forest of the lushest green. To my child’s mind they were both frightening and alluring. If I think back, perhaps that is what helped make me more curious about the past than others: a picture of strange beasts in a strange land. I showed it to no one. My parents had been dead a long time – I only ever had a vague idea of what they looked like – and I had few friends. But it was something I would not have shared even if things had been different.

I kept it for years. One of the animals was sitting in exactly the same position as Andalus is now. How has he come to this? I am beginning to believe he is not simply traumatised by whatever happened to him in Axum but has lost his reason as well. The possibility has to exist that nothing happened to him. No big trauma, no big event, no mutiny, uprising or trial. Perhaps he lost his reason and simply wandered off one day never to return. Kept alive by the colony as an indication of humanity to a once-great ruler, one day he simply slipped his velvet shackles and sloped off. A not entirely unreasonable explanation.

I think again of another possibility. He is cleverer than I am. He spies me on an island, begins an act, an elaborate ruse. I bring him back, he worms his way into favour here and leads an army back across the seas and the plains to re-conquer Axum, take it back from the mutineers, from the third force, and impose law and order. He is biding his time, waiting for the right moment to speak. In the end his play will out.

I wonder how it would be if the situation was reversed. If I had been exiled, sailed unknowing into Axum territory, encountered Andalus alone on an island, what would I have done?

I continue: ‘They are hiding from us, Andalus. Of that I am becoming convinced. What other explanation could there be? It has only been ten years. They have locked away Abel and Tora. Either that or Abel is directing it. His name is still on the wall. Anyone who knows me well remains out of sight while I wander the streets. While I am here their lives are in hiatus. The only people allowed on the street are children and the ones they know I won’t know.’

I lean my head against the wall.

‘Of course, I have no proof of this. It is merely a theory. And I don’t understand why. Why not put an arrow through me and be done with it? Why not face me and say, “No, you are not allowed. Be gone.” It seems weak. A mark of weakness.’

I look over to him. ‘I need your help, Andalus. I will get to the truth.

I will force it out of these people one way or the other. I will force them to acknowledge me, like I, like we in fact, forced them to face the truth of our situation all those years ago. But it will be quicker if you help.’

I turn to him. ‘Don’t you want to fix things? Don’t you want an end to all this? To all the thoughts, all the ghosts, the hundreds of ghosts?’

And then he shakes his head. It is so slight I might have imagined it. I wait but there is no further movement.

‘Is that your answer, Andalus? Is that your answer? No? Don’t you feel anything?’

His head is pointed away from me now. It is still. Perhaps he was just moving to get away. Not answering. His eyes are closed. I pull his face towards me and they open. ‘Did you give me an answer?’

His eyes have a vacant look. They remind me of the ocean we sailed across. Blue-grey. Lifeless. But somewhere in there, drowned perhaps, a sapphire city, a memorial to a great man, a memory, a history.

When I arrive at Elba’s later, Amhara opens the door. Before I can say anything she has run off leaving me to enter the flat on my own.

‘Hello?’

‘In here. In the kitchen.’

Elba is bent over a small stove.

‘I thought all those had long since been confiscated,’ I say, nodding in the direction of the stove.

She laughs. ‘No. We are allowed now.’

‘So you do acknowledge things have changed,’ I say.

She looks around, a puzzled expression on her face. ‘Of course. Things change all the time.’ It is as if she is challenging me. There is a smell in the kitchen that makes my stomach rumble. I have not eaten all day. Amhara rushes in and goes straight to her mother, whispering in her ear.

Elba turns around. ‘My daughter would like you to tell her a story.’

She smiles apologetically. Amhara turns sharply and looks angrily at her mother. It is only momentarily though and I might be mistaken. I decide to ignore it.

‘A story? Let me think. Would you like to hear more about the island?’

She nods her head but does not look at me.

‘Well then,’ I sit down at the table. ‘I lived in a cave on the island. It rained all the time. Not like here. I had not seen the sun for ten years, other than as a white disc through clouds. It was a dull world: grey, brown, pale green. These are not the colours of life. I might have given you the impression last time that the island was paradise. It was not.

It was a hard life. Not unbearable certainly. But not to feel the sun on your skin for ten years, only the rain, is not a good way to live. And the silence. I would see things.’ I stop abruptly. I had not meant to say that.

‘Who else was there?’ asks the child.

‘Who else? No one. No one else was there. It was just me. Me, the birds, the fish, the worms.’

‘What did you see?’

I look hard at her, then at Elba. ‘I saw people. I mean, I know they weren’t actually there but if you’re alone for a long time you start to imagine things. And part of me wanted them to be there, wanted them to come back.’

‘Did you miss your friends?’

I am glad she has slightly misunderstood. ‘There was a woman,’ I glance over at Elba. ‘There was a woman I missed. I hope she missed me a little. There was another man. He was once a friend of mine. I did not miss him much.’

‘Why not?’

‘He was the one who sent me away, who conspired with the townspeople to have me removed from power and banished to the edges of Bran.’

‘Why did he do that?’

I pause. ‘People felt a change was needed. I was no longer needed.’

Amhara thinks for a while. ‘So you were alone.’

‘Yes. But then one day I found someone. I was walking along the coast and I spied him from some distance off lying on the sand. He had been washed up. I nursed him back to health gave him food and shelter.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘I brought him back to Bran. He is a very important man. I knew I had to bring him back. Our future might depend on it. I left him where I am staying. He is not very talkative.’ I say this with a smile.

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose he had some kind of shock and is unable to speak for now. It happens sometimes. In war people see things they don’t like. It shocks them. Sometimes they become silent. I have seen it many times.’

‘Has it happened to you?’

‘No. I have been lucky.’

Her face down, she seems to be pondering what I have said.

‘How is he your friend if he doesn’t speak? He must speak for you to know him.’

‘That is a good question. I knew him years ago, years before he arrived on the island. His name is Andalus, General of Axum, a very powerful man. Years ago I was very powerful here too. You would have been born soon after I left and stopped being Marshal of this settlement. Between us we brought peace. We had known long years of war. But we ended it because we could see that it was of no use. We ended the senseless deaths of thousands of young people.’

I look at Elba to see if I am going too far but she has her back to me and does not turn around.

‘This was more than twenty years ago, twenty-two years in fact since I last saw him. Our two groups were at peace. We had promised to take care of our own and never to go to the other’s territory. Never. So I thought I would not see him again. And then he turns up on the island. It got me thinking.’

The girl asks, ‘What did you think?’

‘I began to wonder if we were about to go to war again. Don’t you think it’s strange that my friend should turn up in Bran territory after promising that neither he nor his kind would ever come near us again?’

At this point Elba turns around and says, ‘That’s enough stories.’

Amhara says, ‘I would like to hear more.’ She looks at Elba, who gives in easily.

‘Alright. A bit longer,’ she says.

I continue, ‘There was another reason I came back.’

‘What was that?’

‘He and I were powerful men, with ideas that suited the time. Some didn’t like them, said the ideas were barbaric. They tried to stop us.’

‘Were they right?’

I don’t answer. Instead I say, ‘I’ve come back to try and fix things.’ I look at her mother when I say this.

Elba puts down the plate she was holding. ‘She’s too young, Bran. Amhara, no more questions.’

The child stares at me from across the table, ignoring her mother.

After a few moments she says, ‘I would like to see your friend.’

‘Your mother has seen him,’ I say.

‘Have I?’ She seems to forget her instructions to Amhara.

‘Yes. At the kitchens. I came in with him.’

Elba furrows her brow. ‘I don’t remember him, sorry.’

‘He was sitting opposite me. You have also seen me with him in the town.’

She shakes her head. ‘I am sorry.’

I am surprised. He is not a forgettable sight.

Elba turns to Amhara and says, ‘Now it is bedtime. Say goodnight.’

The girl ignores her. She looks at me and says, ‘She’s not my mother, you know.’

Elba drops a pan and rounds on her. ‘You are not to say that.’ Her voice is a breathless whisper. ‘What did we say?’

Amhara looks at the table. She has a scowl on her face. ‘Well, you’re not. You just pretend to be.’

‘Off you go! Goodnight.’

Amhara walks away without a word.

I smile apologetically at Elba. For a moment I do not know what to say. I want to ask about what Amhara said, but Elba speaks first. ‘The child is overly imaginative. I wish you wouldn’t go putting ideas into her head. The story of Andalus and you is a good one, very creative, but should not be told to a little girl.’

‘It is not a story, Elba. It needs to be told. And people need to listen.

And I don’t believe someone can be overly imaginative. Without ideas, visions, we may as well be dogs.’ I surprise myself with this outburst.

Elba says nothing.

I cede, ‘But yes, perhaps a story of impending war is not one to be told to a child before bed.’

She nods her head. ‘I am going to dish up. I have some wine,’ inclining her head in the direction of a cupboard. ‘Would you pour some?’

We do not talk much after that and the silences are slightly uncomfortable. I want to talk about Amhara’s comments, about Elba not remembering Andalus, but I take care to avoid making her angry.

Towards the end of the evening though, I tell her about my earlier talk with the Marshal. I notice she does not look at me or pass comment throughout. ‘What do you think?’ I ask eventually.

She looks straight at me. ‘I think the Marshal is right. And I don’t think you should concern yourself with these stories anymore.’

This takes me aback. ‘Right? Right about what?’

‘Just right. Right about everything. Our first Marshal was Madara.

A great man, albeit a violent one. He was a saviour to some, a beast to others. But whatever he was, he is dead to us. We have moved on. You should not concern yourself with altering names.’

I do not know what she means. ‘No. You are incorrect. We have to acknowledge these alterations. We have to find the persons responsible.

I can see that the torpor of life here means that people seem to accept whatever stories they are told because not to would be too much trouble.’ I have been banging my fork on the table. She covers my hand with hers and holds a finger to her lips.

‘You’ll wake the child.’

I nod. ‘I apologise. But Madara is a fiction, a made-up person, a character in a play.’

Elba gets up, just as she did last night and goes to stand by the window. ‘Have you heard of the legend of Bran? You must have since your name is Bran. We tend to know things that are close to us.’

‘I have.’

‘Then you will know Bran too was once a great king. He ruled in a time when no one can remember, when no one can remember having been told of. He ruled a kingdom located somewhere in the east. Somewhere. Head east and as soon as you see the flowing rivers, soaring mountains and fruit falling off trees, you will know you are there. They say strange creatures live there.’

She pauses. ‘He came to power at a dangerous time for his people.

They were weak. But he defeated all who came before him. He went looking for neighbours to destroy. He protected his people, made them strong, made them rulers of all others. Then one day he died. He was shot in the back by one of his own marksmen. An accident. They pulled the arrow out but that was what killed him. He bled to death and his blood soaked into the ground of his beloved land.’

She talks as if reciting something memorised.

‘The people were frightened. Their saviour was gone. They took a knife and cut off his head. They took it to the edge of the kingdom, the shoreline. They placed it on a stake facing out to sea. The glare was so terrible, so frightening, it warned off all invaders. His country was never conquered and it became a peaceful place without him, with just the memory of him.’

‘Are you saying that is what has happened to me?’

Elba scoffs. ‘No. It is just a story. Something that happened. That might have happened.’

I go over to join her at the window. I hesitate, then put my hand on her shoulder. To my surprise she tilts her head, so her cheek is resting on my fingers.

‘What did she mean?’

‘Who?’

‘Amhara. What did she mean when she said you weren’t her mother?’

She stiffens beneath my touch.

‘She is approaching a difficult age.’

‘Still, what did she mean?’ I am aware I risk antagonising the only person who has taken an interest in me but the truth is more important.

Elba pulls away and turns to face me. ‘She meant nothing. What do you mean asking such a question?’

‘Who is the father?’

‘I told you.’

‘Is she mine?’

Elba hesitates, then laughs. She steps back. She laughs again. It is a shallow laugh.

I continue. ‘She isn’t your daughter, is she?’

The smile disappears.

‘She ’s Tora’s daughter. When I first arrived I noticed it but I’ve only just realised I did. I saw Tora in her. I see myself in her too.’

Elba’s eyes flicker. Her lips move but she says nothing. She simply stares.

I reach out and take hold of her arms. ‘Tell me what is going on.

Tell me why no one claims to recognise me. Tell me why no one will acknowledge me.’ I am bending slightly, as if about to kneel.

‘Tell me what game is being played. Why are you all pretending not to know me?’

She does not answer.

‘I will not let this go. I could slip back into life here, settle down, maybe even with you.’ She does not look up. ‘But I cannot do that yet. I mean to find out what has happened to this town since I left, what has happened to Abel, to Tora. It is for your good. Our good. How can you progress if you do not remember?’

She looks at me now, more composed. ‘Why do you presume to know what is in our best interests? You turn up here out of the blue, the dust of the mountains on your coat, a strange old-fashioned way of talking and you claim to have been Marshal here, to have started this settlement even. You have all these stories. I am not afraid of you. I put your eccentricities down to, well, an eccentric nature, which, it is true, this town lacks. We have solid burghers who go about their business but no one who loves telling stories. That is what I like about you. But you go on so. Can you not admit defeat, say you are wrong, say that during these ten years you say you were away, something happened to you that you cannot remember, something that changed who you are? You say you were banished but is it not possible you are simply a sailor who got lost, who came close to drowning in a shipwreck and when he woke up, though sane in every other way, believed that he was once a warrior, once a great man, once a killer?’ She stops, slightly out of breath.

‘Bran – you even have a name that may as well be made up. The same as the town. Are you a foundling? Perhaps you were brought here, devoid of all memories and stories, kept to the shadows and waited until a story weaved its way into you, until you knew who you were. Bran, the townsman. Man of the town. You say we are the ones deliberately forgetting you, wiping you out but can you really be sure it is not you who is making all this up? Are you certain the story you tell is true?’

‘Now you are being ridiculous,’ I say.

‘Yes. Perhaps.’ She pauses. ‘But you cannot reasonably explain why a whole town would have conspired to cover up the existence of two men, a woman and an entire history.’

‘I cannot explain yet why you have chosen this path. That is why I would like your help.’

‘What answer do you want, Bran? What answer is there to give?

You can never know us again.’ She closes her eyes for a second, as if she has said something wrong.

‘You said again. You do know me.’

‘That is not what I meant. I do not know you.’

‘I am Bran, your first Marshal.’

‘I do not know you.’

‘I am Bran.’

She shakes her head. ‘No.’

I give her a push when I loosen my grip and turn away.

‘Perhaps you should go.’

I walk out the door. I do not look back.

I make my way to Abel’s house. I walk through the dark streets.

There are few lights on. It is later than I thought. Moonlight makes shadows from the rooftops. Something moves on the edge of one.

I look up quickly. I can see nothing. I turn full circle. Still nothing.

I think back to the island, the heads staring at me from the top of the cliffs.

When I look down I see him. A figure, I cannot see a face. He presses back into a doorway. I call out. I begin to run up to him. A door opens behind him and he is gone.

I hurl myself at the door. I beat on it with both my hands. I step back and kick.

Mouse people. They keep to the shadows. They run from that which they don’t understand.

This time I have my knife. It slips in easily. I give it a twist and feel the metal give way. It is easily done. The lock is smooth. It is not one that hasn’t been opened for ages. I step into Abel’s house and wait for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. The dust is everywhere. The whole room is grey with it, made greyer by the moonlight.

I hear myself calling out, ‘Hello?’ I do not know whether I expect an answer.

As I become more used to the dark I begin to make out objects, objects I recognise. There on the wall hangs a scabbard that belonged to Abel. I presented it to him after a battle in which he distinguished himself. Behind enemy lines, he led a small party of soldiers back to safety, capturing a watch post along the way. A most noble act in a time when one more defeat could have meant the end for us. I remember him accepting it. He was unsmiling. He looked at me as I handed it over. The expression in his eyes was almost hostile but more likely to have been determination. He was not one for smiles at the best of times.

I sense something has happened in this room. Things are out of place. A drawer is open. Abel was a very ordered man. It was why we worked well together. We were similar in that way. Nothing escaped his attention. For this to be Abel’s house something must have happened.

It is a mess. But it is Abel’s house. With Abel’s belongings.

There on the table a ledger of the type I had produced. I open it.

It is blank save for the inscription, ‘Property of Bran. To be returned to the office of the Marshal of Bran on demand.’ I had asked for that inscription. It meant little in real terms but it was one of the building blocks of the settlement, one of the ways we clawed back the rule of law. As a gesture it meant everything. I close the cover. My fingers leave marks in the dust. I regret the absence of a date in the ledger, which would have given some clue as to the time of Abel’s disappearance and the absence of any handwriting, either mine or Abel’s, which would have helped prove my story.

I go into the kitchen. Here the cupboards are bare, the room empty save for a small table and the chair lying on its side. The bedroom leads off the kitchen. Inside it is almost completely black, the one window with blinds drawn. The only light comes from cracks between the planks. There is a wooden bed frame in the middle of the room and a chest at the foot of the bed. I open the lid. Inside, scrunched in a corner, is a jacket. My heart quickens. I shake it out. It is a military jacket. The insignia have been stripped off but from the number of tears I can tell it belonged to my deputy. I can picture it as it used to be. I look at the front pocket for the name. That too has been ripped off.

The bed is unmade. The sheets are crumpled. I lift them up, shake them out. I hold a blanket to my face. I can smell her. I breathe deeply.

It smells of her. Like the soap on her hands. Like her hair. I lie down.

I sleep as if drugged. When I wake it is getting light. I take the jacket and walk through to the kitchen. There on the floor something catches my eye. Something half hidden under the dresser. A piece of paper folded in half. I open it.

And this is her.

Not just a smell, a scent, something a ghost might leave behind.

It is her handwriting. Though it has been ten years I can tell. I know her. It reads – there are only a few words – ‘Dear Bran, You should understand.’ That line has been crossed out. It continues: ‘There is a chasm between what we have been and what we want to be.’

I turn it over. There is nothing else. It ends there.

I stand and read it again. And again. Each time the words form the same sentences. Each time they end too soon.

I leave the house, emerging into early morning sunlight and close the door behind me. I do not attempt to lock it.