Текст книги "Wall of Days"

Автор книги: Alastair Bruce

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

6

I wake with a start. It is an hour after sunrise. I look around. Andalus is slumped against the wall a little way off. To my left I notice that now one of the gates is ajar. Only fractionally but open nonetheless. I did not hear this during the night, did not feel anyone creep past. I am surprised. I am usually a light sleeper.

I push it further open. The street opens before me. Shadows of the rooftops stretch across the dust in the street. I look down. There are footprints in the dust. The houses on one side in the shade are dark, the others bright, lit by the sun. All are grey. Old wood, weathered by years of sun, rain, wind and the occasional snowstorm. There is no one in the street.

I push the gate open and turn to call Andalus but he is right behind me, also looking into the town. I take him by the arm and we walk through the gates into the settlement of Bran.

I look to the right and left of me. The houses stand silent. My people have turned into late risers. The windows that have curtains have them drawn. Those that don’t are black. I see no one in the houses.

But I sense people. As I got used to speaking, perhaps so I have to get used to seeing people again. I sense them around me in their multitudes. If I reach out an arm suddenly I could touch one. They shift as I move down the street to avoid knocking me, a parting ocean.

They surround me, staring. I feel their breath on my neck. I cannot see them. When I pass they stare at my back.

And then I do see someone. She stands at the end of the street. A girl. She has her hands at her sides and is looking at the ground. She wears a red coat. Something about her startles me. I call out to her,

‘Hello.’ When she doesn’t answer I call again. She does not look up.

The second time she turns around and runs off, disappearing round a corner. I let her go. Again the streets are deserted.

I walk in the same direction. As I turn the corner I see it straight ahead, the complex housing the settlement’s administrative buildings.

The buildings grow taller as we approach. Two and three-storey wooden structures, which, though they look fragile, have withstood many a year. I can see that the gate to the complex is open.

My pace is quicker now. I have once more taken hold of Andalus and we march straight up to the gate and through it. We are in the courtyard. Around it are doors leading to various chambers, various places of appeal, boards, licensing departments. The doors have the same white plaques I remember but the yard is empty. Usually there are scores of people here on some or other business but nothing now. It is empty and every door is closed. I look around, letting go of Andalus’s arm.

It is not what I was expecting. It is early in the morning but the settlement wakes early and the hub of Bran can never afford to close down. I go up to the first door. The sign says Ministry of Agriculture.

I smile. It was me who insisted we give these departments grand names. They conveyed a sense of purpose. The only truly important office in this building was my own. That was where all the major decisions were made. Though it was called the Ministry of Agriculture, all that happened there was the counting of the crops we managed to grow and the monitoring of our small livestock herds. Next door the Farming Licensing Agency did not license farms or regulate the bigger providers. Instead it handed out licences to individual citizens to grow certain crops for public consumption on small areas of land.

Though this was all it did, it was important, for a licence was, for many, the difference between an a or b citizen’s grade and a c. There were often queues of supplicants outside its doors, mostly old women, a few old men. I remember standing in my offices, leaning out the window, looking down on these people. I saw Tora’s mother in the crowd. I sent down word that she was to be licensed. It was a reprieve, though inevitably not one that lasted forever. Like the Ministry of Agriculture the Farming Licensing Agency is closed.

The death of Tora’s mother was not a simple affair, not as simple as I may have intimated. She was well liked in our town. There was a silence, a darkening, when it became known what had happened to her. I had to walk to her home. I went unaccompanied and let myself in. I did this because I had taken on the task of deciding who would be classified c. I did this to spare others the task. It was not a pleasant thing and I do not lack compassion. I let myself in and went to her in her bed. Her eyes were closed. I brushed my fingers over her cheek.

The skin of old people can feel lifeless, like dry sand. Hers was cold too. An eye fluttered open. She looked at me with the one eye. It was open wide. She did not blink at all. I looked into it and waved my hand in front of her. She reached up to me with one arm. She seemed to be trying to move her mouth. Sound came out but it was nothing.

Not a word. A gurgle. It was fear. Fear of me, the bringer of death.

I knew she was paralysed on one side of her body. The rules were clear. She would have to hang.

I sent a cart for her. Or rather I went with it. Just me and the hangman. There was no need for a soldier this time as there was no chance she ’d be able to escape. I went with all of them. I wanted them all to see compassion before they died, to see that their hanging would not be in vain. It was my responsibility.

I lifted her from the bed. She was remarkably heavy. The tongue moving, gurgling again. The one eye open, her good arm and leg thrashing. I placed her in the cart and led her out through the town gates. It was after sunset but there was a full moon. The hangman drew the cart after him. There was a loud crack and the cart began to tip over.

An axle had snapped. I ran to it but was too late. It landed on its side and she slid out. The blanket fell off her and her legs were uncovered.

I saw the veins and the bruises in the moonlight. The body of an old woman. I lifted her to a sitting position. Her head lolled to one side and I took it in my hands. She was breathing quickly now. I felt a warm liquid on my hand. Her face was cut from the fall and bleeding heavily.

So much blood from someone half dead. I wiped my hand in the dirt.

I lifted her up, placed her over my shoulder. Through my clothes I felt her, I felt her heart beat. A broken woman but a heartbeat so powerful I could feel it through my coat.

On the way she vomited. I was covered in it. I felt myself gag. But I did not allow myself to let go. I carried her to the trees and set her down. ‘Do it,’ I said to the hangman. He did not move. I went up to him and slapped him across the face with the back of my hand. ‘This is your duty,’ I said to him. ‘This is what you contribute.’

From behind me I heard a whimpering. I knelt in front of her. I wiped the sick from her mouth, the blood from her face. I wanted to say something to her. I wanted to whisper something to her so that the hangman wouldn’t hear. I wanted to whisper something that would make her unafraid, that would make her understand, that would make her not see me there in front of her preparing her for death. I had something ready to say but I couldn’t say it. I cannot remember what it was. I couldn’t say it. I had to hold her up. Her legs wouldn’t support her. I held her up from behind while the noose was tightened around her neck. It was like she was already dead but I could feel her shaking. I held her tight, smelling her warm, old woman smell, then I let her go.

I can remember feeling grateful that Tora was not there, that she would never have to witness something like this.

When the act was done we released the body from the noose. We placed her in a sack. There were two bodies already in bags from the day before. They were to be buried the next morning. I did not see where she was buried.

Back in my office I stood at the window in the moonlight. I was naked. I had a damp cloth and wiped myself. I slowly wiped away the blood and the vomit. I stood there for an hour, cleaning myself.

I step back and look up at the windows for the first time since entering the courtyard. There, though I cannot be certain, I see a shadow, a figure slipping quickly back into the dark and out of sight. I stare up for a minute but I can see nothing more. It was no more than a flash.

I look round at Andalus. He stands in the middle of the courtyard. His pose mirrors that of the girl, hands at his side, head down, red coat.

I continue round the circle of doors. Each is looking older. If the paint is not peeling then the plaque is obscured, but the complex still appears to be in use as the settlement’s administrative offices. Why leave the names in place if not?

Two-thirds of the way round I come to my door, the entrance to my offices. I think I deliberately started on the far end, deliberately did not come to this door first. I wonder who will answer the door and who is Marshal. Will it still be Abel or would he have been replaced?

It has been only a decade though and he was a young man with ascetic habits. Unless he has died it will probably still be him. I wonder what his reaction will be.

Though it might seem strange, I did not, and do not resent him for going behind my back. We were both politicians and he was the quicker at sensing the change in sentiment. He sought to encourage it, while I attempted to change it. He had the arguments that appealed though. No doubt he had the easier path but I knew what I was doing.

I believed in what I was doing and I respected his belief too. Perhaps that made it difficult for him to shake hands with me when I left.

Perhaps there is nothing more powerful than a man who admits defeat graciously. It is not a power of this world though.

I shook his hand on the grey beach and his hand was wet and he would not look me in the eyes. Alongside him was Tora. Her hair flicked in the salty breeze.

Sometimes, I admit, I did not quite know what to make of Abel.

Though he was my second-in-command, he was difficult to read. Sometimes he appeared displeased when, probably, he was just being efficient.

I wonder what would have happened had I chosen someone else to be my successor. I have often wondered this.

This door at least is well kept. It gleams white and the plaque, this one made of brass, has been recently polished. It simply reads ‘Marshal’.

I lift my hand to knock but the door opens immediately, as if someone was waiting for me. The man standing before me is dressed in the same uniform I used to wear and has medals pinned to his chest.

He is about my age and grey. He looks at me. It is not Abel. I don’t know whether I am disappointed or not.

All the same he looks familiar. Perhaps it is just the uniform but I think he may have been one of my generals in the wars. I cannot place him immediately though. He says nothing, merely stands in the doorway with a blank expression, looking, unblinking, at me.

‘Good morning,’ I say.

Though not immediately, the man inclines his head in greeting.

I have been thinking of this moment for a long time, longer perhaps than I realise. I have planned it, planned what to say but the person I was talking to was Abel, not this man before me.

‘I am looking for the Marshal,’ I say. ‘Are you him?’

The man nods his head. ‘I am Marshal Jura.’ I feel disappointment but something else as well. I cannot put my finger on it.

‘I am…’ I begin, then stop. ‘I have brought this man here. I have brought him to you for your attention.’

The Marshal’s stare follows the direction of my gesture. ‘Yes?’ he asks. He is not rude but it is clear he wants me to get to the point and clear he does not immediately recognise either me or Andalus.

‘His name is General Andalus,’ I say. I watch closely for a reaction.

There is none. His eyes don’t blink.

‘He was once, perhaps still is, General of Axum. I found him within our limits. I have tried to interrogate him to find out his purpose but he has not spoken. Though I do not believe his intentions are hostile, he is nevertheless an alien and in breach of the peace agreement. Not only that but as it is Andalus himself, his presence outside Axum and in Bran is a worrying sign.’

I wait for the Marshal to say something. But he doesn’t. His face is impassive. He simply looks straight at me. I wonder briefly if he is consciously trying to appear as blank as possible.

‘He is a sign we must attempt to explain. His appearance is of great concern to me. If there has been a mutiny, we need to know. If, like here, there has been a peaceful regime change,’ I pause for effect but he gives no sign of noticing the irony, ‘then we need to know that as well. I have brought him here as befits my duty as a loyal subject of Bran.’

‘Andalus.’ It is not a question, simply a statement of the name.

‘Yes, Andalus.’ I stare back at him. There is a long pause and the Marshal breaks it first.

‘You have brought him?’

I wave my hand behind me without turning around and nod my head. ‘I have.’

He looks over my shoulder for what seems like a long time, then back at me, and says,

‘I see no one.’

I turn around this time and gesture towards Andalus who has moved off to the entrance to the courtyard. ‘Him,’ I say impatiently.

‘That man standing with his back to us.’

The Marshal looks towards the entrance, then at me. He pauses for some time. Finally he says, ‘You must go home, old man. We are due for rain.’

With that he steps back inside and makes to close the door. I am momentarily caught off-guard but I step forward before he can close it completely. I place my hand on the door and put my foot over the threshold. I am taller than he is. I speak slowly, evenly. ‘You do know who I am, don’t you?’

He pulls back from me. His expression changes, very briefly, to one of anger. He does not answer my question. Instead he simply says, ‘Go.’

‘I must speak to you about this man, about what he means.’ I still push against the door.

The Marshal looks to one side as if another was standing there out of sight. He seems to nod. After a slight pause he says, ‘Tomorrow.’

With that he moves my hand and closes the door. He does not do it in an irritable way. It is quite gentle in fact. All the same, I am annoyed at the lack of concern shown by the Marshal.

I stand staring at the door for a minute before banging on it with my fist. It does not open.

I have no option but to leave and return at the appointed time. If the Marshal will not see me now I will find Tora and perhaps Abel first. I fetch Andalus, who has wandered towards the first set of doors, and lead him out of the courtyard.

I see people outside. A man and a woman stand staring at the entrance to the courtyard, as if waiting for someone to come out. When they see me they turn away. They begin talking to each other.

There are others in the street too now. Not many and most are children. They run after each other kicking up dust that then seems to hang in the air. I look around for the girl I saw before but she is nowhere to be seen. Amongst the adults there is no one I remember.

No one looks at me.

This is not what I expected at all. Not recognised in the street, not recognised by the new Marshal, who registered no surprise or concern at the news of Andalus. No second glances. I have not been accosted or arrested. I have not planned for this.

The people start hurrying, almost running. Perhaps because I am so used to it on my island I do not notice immediately that it has begun to rain. I lift up my face to the rain and can feel drops begin to wash the dust from my skin. I feel something. I want to call it homesickness but it cannot be.

Once more I have the streets to myself. To myself and Andalus. I take him by the arm again and lead him deeper into the town. The rain makes it dark, stains the wood, turns the dust from white to brown.

I sniff the smell of baked earth released by the rain. I walk slowly past house after house. For some I can remember who lives, or lived, there. For others I cannot. I walk through a warren of streets. It is all so familiar but changed as well. All so long ago. There are some new buildings but only a few. Though the earth beyond the gates appears more fertile than before, within the walls the town still appears barren.

There are few plants, little colour. Here and there a door is painted red, yellow, green but little else.

I walk past the patch of ground where Tora’s mother had her garden.

The chair where she used to sit is gone. The orange tree is still there. In contrast to its surrounds, it is lush. I stop and stand under it. I feel the drops washed off its leaves land on my skin.

I have spent the greater part of my life walking these streets, smelling the rain, the wood, the dust, listening to the chatter of neigh bours in the streets. It is all the same, the buildings rising sometimes to three or four storeys, raised wooden porches, stairways on the outside, balconies. Each structure a masterpiece of engineering.

Nothing special to look at, seemingly flimsy and ramshackle but actually sturdy and each building a warren of flats and rooms. They are built close together, initially to provide a sense of security. The settlement grew from a few buildings huddled together as if for warmth into a sizeable town. But even in later years, when there was less need for security, when the town was well fortified and the wars were over, we carried on building in the same manner. It was a comfort, I suppose, in times of hardship.

As well as being the town’s Marshal, I was also its historian. I drew maps of its beginnings, of the positions of the first houses. I talked to the founding fathers before they died. I nailed a plaque to the door of the oldest building, another to the door of the first clinic, another to the building on the site of the first barn. I was, truly, the man who knew this town the best, who, I dare say, still knows it best.

The settlement and the island. Maps, notes, beginnings. My work here mirrored by my work on the island. Though, it is true, here it was with a greater sense of permanence.

Sometimes it is the things you know best that seem to change the most. Because you know them the best, in fact. You notice changes in your body – wrinkles, grey hair – before you note them on a lover’s, before you note them on a friend’s. This building with an extension, that with a new porch, another with different coloured curtains, yet another that used to be a ministerial house and is now an alms house.

That in itself a big difference.

Sometimes, admittedly, it is in the things you know best that you are the last to notice change. If I had had the signs pointed out to me earlier – the turning of a shoulder, the hush when I walked into a room, the hardening of smiles – perhaps I would have lasted longer.

Perhaps not a great politician after all.

Yet, would I have done things differently? Indeed, could I have done things differently? The townspeople, like dogs, followed my commands faithfully. Like curs they followed me because I led, because I showed them the way. I showed them how to live, how to survive. They came from everywhere and nowhere with nothing to live for, until they found someone to lead them out of the darkness and into a brave new world.

Because I showed them how to live they did not mind killing for me, because it was not killing for me, it was for them. And they were not stupid. Each and every one knew what he was doing. It was I who was stupid. I had not reckoned with the luxury of guilt. Once survival is ensured, guilt sets in. Only once survival is ensured can guilt set in.

And guilt motivates change. My fault. Not a very good politician at all.

Still, I love this town, these people. They have been my life too. I bear them no grudge.

The rain does not last for long. The sun comes out again. Steam begins to rise from the tops of the houses.

I breathe deeply. It has been a strange reception, perhaps even a slight setback but I am home and I am not hanging from the end of a rope. I put my arm around Andalus and squeeze his shoulders. He looks surprised.

I am hungry, not having eaten since a couple of oranges last night. I decide to try to find the old kitchens. I have no card or ration allocation and will have to gamble on the compassion of the cook. There is an additional reason for going to the kitchens of course. I hope to find Tora there.

As I walk the streets, I find myself scanning faces, searching for one familiar, searching for the brown curls hanging to her shoulders, the slim waist, the purposeful stride. I believe I would know her even if I could not see her face, even if, as in some children’s story, she has grown faceless. She is ingrained in me. I try to picture her face but I cannot. I could remember her on the island but here, where I am closer, it has gone. Her face was as familiar as my own but that too I cannot picture clearly, having not seen it in anything other than a pool of water for ten years. But I know her walk, the gait, the way of tossing her head so the curls would not hang over her eyes. I remember the eyes too, if not her whole face. I remember the smile. Her smile. It was never complete, never completely joyous but it had a power over me. I kept looking for it all those years I was with her, kept looking for the creases at the corner of her mouth, the one dimple, the shy look away from me when she did smile. All that I can remember but not her face.

Her smile was an obsession for me. It was something she held over me, whether on purpose I do not know. If I could not see it on one visit I nervously awaited the next and the next. Away from her I was a leader of men, with her, a boy.

There are more people out now but still I have not seen anyone I recognise and still I am not acknowledged. I cannot understand why this is. It is not possible for people to have forgotten.

I am a foreigner in my town. It is as if I am in my own home but after someone has come in and rearranged the furniture and upstairs in the bedroom is a woman asleep whom I have never seen before.

I do not have to walk very far to the kitchens. All the main buildings are very central. I wanted them arranged, as far as possible, close to the centre and close to the town hall. My own herding instinct I suppose.

I round a corner and there it is. It hasn’t changed at all. I can smell cooking even standing fifty metres away. I stand for a minute longer.

Though I am hungry, I know that this is the time Tora used to work. I think what to say. I decide not to plan the exact words. I decide to let her say the first words. I walk up to the building but do not go inside.

I walk around it, looking in the windows. Inside I can see benches and a few people sitting. There are women moving amongst them carrying platters of food and mugs of liquid. Very different to how it used to be done.

Some of the faces are familiar but again, there is no one whose name I know. And there is no sign of Tora. I do not know whether I am relieved or disappointed. Even if nothing else comes of this trip, for me to have seen her again is important. Yet, what will be behind the door if I open it? I have had years to forget her. I do not want to have to do it again. But I know I will seek her out. Indeed, if I am honest with myself, it is one of the main reasons I am back: to find the woman I love, to talk with her a while, to ask her questions, questions whose answers I have sought now for ten years. Perhaps to try to fix something broken, something that took up years of my life.

I push the door open and step inside with Andalus. I expect a silence to fall as I walk in but it does not. No one looks up from their meal. No one looks at all, except one of the serving women.

Behind the counter at the far end I see her looking at me. I don’t know what to do, whether the procedures are the same. I wonder whether I should confidently sit down and wait to be given food, whether I should explain at the outset why I might not be on the list of people to be given food, or whether I should simply wait here until someone comes to take me to a seat. In my day one formed a queue, had one’s name ticked off in a register, sat down at one of the long wooden benches and was given food. But there is no food queue here.

Suddenly the woman is in front of me.

‘Hello,’ she says. She smiles.

‘Would you like to sit?’ She points to an empty table. She looks at me but not at Andalus. It has been a while but the rituals come back to me now. The welcoming smile to a stranger, not an invitation but not a rebuttal either.

‘Thank you,’ I say. I sit down and she moves off. There are not many people in here. We are at a large table on our own. Two men are seated at the table on my left and are engaged in deep conversation. To my right are a woman and her child. She is feeding her. The child does not take her eyes off me.

I listen in on the conversation on my left. It is about nothing remarkable – weather and the harvest – on the surface at least. But these men seem to be expecting a plentiful crop and are arguing about the best way to trellis vines. This is the interesting aspect of it. The last time I was here there was only one way to trellis vines since we cared about quantity of fruit and nothing else. They argue about how growing methods affect the taste of the fruit.

I am pleased, proud in fact. The regulations I put into place, the strict laws, seem to have served their purpose. Rationing and farming controls and supervision, I am beginning to realise, are falling away, seemingly in response to improved production and increased quantity of food. My rules have rescued the settlement from starvation. It was a process you could see happening in my days as Marshal but I am surprised at how far it seems to have come, the fields of corn and wheat, the orange orchard and now this talk of abundant harvests of grapes.

Their conversation stops. They wait a few seconds before beginning another topic. I surmise they do not know each other very well.

I interrupt them. ‘Excuse me,’ I say. ‘Your conversation about vines.

I have been away for some time. When did you start caring about trellising?’

‘What do you mean?’ They answer me abruptly.

‘Ten years ago we only grew vines one way.’

‘We weren’t here ten years ago. He has been here seven years, me five.’

Refugees, I think. I nod at them to thank them. But then I ask another question. ‘Tell me about your Marshal. What’s his name?’

They both turn to me with stern expressions. ‘A good man,’ one says. With that they both get up and move off.

The woman appears behind me, and leaning over my shoulder so I can smell her, whispers, ‘Don’t worry about them. They’re not very talkative.’ She places a bowl of soup in front of me and a beaker of red liquid. Not wanting to appear surprised I thank her and she goes away. I take a sip of the liquid and it is indeed wine. It is something that has never been freely available in my lifetime. Every now and then we would discover a cache of bottles, buried somewhere in ruins. Most was undrinkable. Occasionally some tasted fine. It was sweet. I probably drank one bottle a year and it was never handed out in the kitchens. A few of the bottles had labels. They had words I didn’t know, pictures I couldn’t make out. Drinking the liquid was like drinking another world.

I realise Andalus has not been given food. I find it strange but am too distracted by the food in front of me to give it much thought. I do say to him though that he should ask for food if he wants some. He makes no sign of having heard.

The soup is hot and I finish it quickly. A plate then appears in front of me. It is piled high with meat and vegetables. I say nothing and just eat and drink. The wine brings a flush to my cheeks, the food warms me. I sit on the bench and I find myself smiling and I keep saying to myself you’re home, you’re home and I am grinning to myself while around me people eat, drink, talk and laugh.

When I finish I look around me to see what others do. I have not had my name taken. I notice other people getting up. They walk straight out the door, turning to wave goodbye at the servers. I too stand up. I walk past the woman on my way out. I stop opposite her. ‘Thank you,’

I say. I pause after the word ‘you’.

She answers with a smile, ‘Elba.’

I smile and nod. ‘Thank you, Elba.’

Outside I sit on a bench with Andalus and lean forward, my head in my hands.

People walk around us, going about their business. I am still surprised there are not more people about but perhaps everyone is working in the fields. Children play in the street. No one gives the two old men on the bench in the town square a second glance.

This town square has a history. It is wide and surrounded on all sides by wooden buildings, one of which is the kitchen. We used the space to hold public gatherings. At the far end is a stage. I remember standing there one day. The square was packed. I believe every able-bodied citizen had come to listen. There were so many people that the dust kicked up by thousands of feet hung in the air above their heads. I was above the cloud of dust looking down on my people. I paused for breath and to take a sip of water. No one stirred. There was not a sound. That was when I knew I had them. I smiled inwardly. By way of conclusion I said, ‘Once our kind was powerful, once we did not struggle. We will become strong again. It will not happen tomorrow, it will not happen next year but soon, soon we will become strong enough to ensure this will never happen again. There is no question of guilt here. No question at all. The most humane thing we can do is to ensure the survival of our children. The most humane thing we can do is to ensure the survival of a civilised way of life.’

There was no applause when I finished but I did not need it and it would have been inappropriate. My victory was inevitable. I had broken a barrier and I would now see out the plan for better or worse.

The audience would have known that many of them would end up hanged. Each would have known that either himself or the person standing next to him or behind him would end up dangling from a rope like a criminal. There was silence.