by PW Cooper
“I have to.”
“Why?”
She smiles. “You know why.”
Mucus is running down your face. You are ashamed of your body. You sniff and wipe at yourself with the back of your hand. You turn away from her. You do not want her to see you like this.
She will not let you look away. “You know why.”
You nod.
Nazmiya's face is glowing in the rose light of the sinking sun. She presses her shawl into your hands. The marks which she made there about the escape plan have all be wiped away, smeared to a dirty black haze, and there is only the poem left at the center, luminescent in the midst of that dark. It runs in twisted stanzas along the folds of cloth, a flow of words like water. She points to the last written lines. “I've not finished it, you see?”
You nod. The cloth is warm in your hands. Her warmth. Her scent. You want to wrap it around yourself, to bury your face in the shawl and never come back. Your eyes snatch at some of the words, and they seem to you beautiful.
She gathers the cloth again into her fist and she presses it to your breast. “We will finish it together, alright? After this is all over, the two of us will finish it.” She reaches into her pocket and takes out the little pencil. “Will you hold this for me?”
You nod. The sun is bursting outside, so huge and red that you think it must be the end of the world out there.
Daniyal looks back over the top of the seat towards you both. He inclines his chin. “It's time,” he says.
* * *
And now things are in motion. Like a ball let go at the top of a hill, something has begun which cannot be stopped.
The sunset is a blood-smeared pink.
You know the plan like breathing. You have carried it in whispers across the whole of the train car. You curl up in your seat and you shut your eyes and you put your hands tight over your ears. You know exactly how it will happen. You do not need to watch.
There are six guards onboard, and Captain Brighten. They are all armed. They will all be killed, and then the engineers will be overpowered. Daniyal and Nazmiya and Raheel will take control of the train, and you will escape into the woods under cover of darkness. You will travel north until you reach the border.
The plan relies on perfect timing. They need darkness and silence and luck. A dozen or so passengers have specific roles to play if the ruse is to be pulled off. Not you. All you have to do is wait.
And so you wait. Your hands over your ears, your eyes screwed shut. Shutting out the world.
You wait.
Cannot hear. Cannot see. Cannot touch.
Cut off from everything.
You cannot see.
How long has it been? Fifteen minutes? If all has gone to plain then the soldiers will all be dead by now. You curl up in your seat, wanting to be so small that nothing in the world can see you.
You feel something. The slowing of the train. The gradual decrease in speed. Is it only in your mind? The train cannot be stopping. This train does not stop.
You cannot be sure how much time has passed. A minute? An hour?
For a moment your eyes open. The sun has set and a blue dusk taken the place of the day. The sky is faintly lit by the last fingers of sunlight, now reaching towards the far side of the world and trailing behind a glow on the horizon like the aftermath of an atomic bomb. You saw a filmstrip about the bomb in school once. A bit of grainy black and white footage. The swelling cloud, bulbous and misshapen, rising over the earth like a living thing. They taught you to hide under your desk, hands on your head while the world came apart.
The train is not moving any longer.
You are pressed up against the window-glass. The forest is dark and deep outside, endlessly deep. The tree fingers shiver in a faint wind, scraping their needle-nails against the side of the train car. There is a little clearing past the trees, awash in moonlight.
You uncover your ears. The silence is horrible. There is nothing, absolutely nothing. You think that you may have gone deaf. The stillness of the train is alien and unnerving in a way which you did not expect.
You look out the window. There are people in the woods, in the small clearing beside the track. You know them, you recognize their faces. They are the passengers of the train, wandering out into the soft grasp of the woods. Their steps are slow and hesitant, like those of infants finding their first feet. It has been a lifetime since they last stood erect. They are like animals returning to the wild world.
You feel a terrible hope rising in your chest, filling your throat. They look almost free.
You glance down the aisle of the train car. The train is empty. Almost empty. One man remains:
A soldier in a red coat, standing over you with his thumbs hooked into his belt. Captain Brighten. He smiles. It is a cold smile. There is a bruise on his cheek and the sleeve of his uniform is torn. Blood is welling up on his swollen lip. He sucks at the blood and swallows to keep it from running down his chin.
“Come along then,” he says, “everyone else is outside. Time to stretch your legs, girl.”
You cannot resist. Cannot struggle. All you can do is follow, and so you follow, feeling like a made thing.
The night chill is like a knife blade pressed flat against your skin. The Captain steps down behind you, forcing you onward with the weight of his presence, like falling water which stops for nothing.
The passengers shuffle aimlessly on a carpet of fallen needles, animals in a cage. They move as though lost, moving in a daze of confusion and fear, aimless and restless. They are like black ghosts in the darkness. The shadow of the wood erases them, turns them to nothing but the wet gleam of the eye and the tooth and the fluttering of whispered voices.
Five of the guards stand in a loose ring against the train, a half-circle following the treeline.
Behind like a wall is the great vehicle, the beautiful machine standing against the night blue sky, gleaming with a sooty effulgence. It waits, tense and straining like a dog on the leash. Smoke spits upward, wrapping gauzy gray fingers around the treetops as angry sparks sputter out at the dry tinder branches.
The crowd of prisoners is aimlessly amorphous and shambolic. Their faces are gaunt and hopeless, eyes sunken deep. They are sinking inside themselves, withdrawing from the cruel nature of man. They lick their lips with nervous excitement, with fear. They drink in deep the chill air, the free air; air which has not been contained in that train car, polluted with the stench of their waste and breathed again and again until it turned stale and caustic.
They stretch aching limbs, and on some of their faces are the last flickers of a wan joy. The faces, you think, of inmates sitting down for a last meal before their execution.
You search the crowd for Daniyal and Raheel, for Nazmiya, but you cannot find them. Perhaps your gaze slipped by them, glided past their faces without recognition.
The guards are all holding flashlights. Smooth silver metal gleaming in black-gloved hands; their light scorches. The towering pines loom large in false light and the arms of the trees thrash wildly in a fierce animating wind. You look to the train. Captain Brighten stands shrouded at the foot of the stair, his coat torn at by the gusts, his perfectly groomed hair ravaged. His hands are deep in the pockets of his coat. He is not smiling.
There is no hope anymore.
A murmur of low conversation rises from the crowd of passengers. You catch snatches of it but cannot piece it together. The guards say nothing. Their guns are cold across their chests.
You walk to the center of the clearing and you sit there. The cool grass tickles at your bare skin. You reach down and you tug up a fistful of it. How easily it dies in your hands. You let it fall, sprinkle down all the dark blades severed from their shallow roots. There is a single mournful flower there in the grass. You touch it, cup it with your fingers. It seems to arch towards you, aching to be torn from the earth. You cannot bear to do it. The violet blue face pleading, the yellow eye wide and desperate. You cannot do it. You le
ave the flower in the ground.
Captain Brighten speaks:
“Do you wish to remain here?”
All eyes turn to him. Backs arched with hope. Disbelief and suspicion in their hesitation.
He speaks again: “Make your choice. The train is leaving. Stay if that is what you want.”
The sixth guard makes himself known. He stands beside the train holding a cruel black machine gun in his hands, its snout pointed out towards the people in the clearing. He clicks off the safety and wraps his black-leather hands around the handle, first finger resting against the trigger.
Captain Brighten smiles softly. He shrugs, as though the outcome of the next few moments is meaningless to him. His slick blond hair shines. In his red coat and his black gloves and gleaming boots he is like the demented ringmaster of a circus of horrors. He beckons extravagantly towards the open door of the train, his eyes furious as a hypnotist's.
One by one the people in the clearing move towards the train. You think back to the train station, when the young man in the slate gray scarf broke free and ran and was shot dead by the track. You think that you cannot be the only one who remembers this. There is a single expression which crosses the features of the passengers as they come back aboard the train. A shamed look, the look of a child who has been reprimanded for some selfish and petty crime. A look which is all too aware, and melts away to nothing, to a subdued surrender as they return to their seats and wait quietly.
You are still there in the grass. You cannot move. You cannot rise. Your fingers are still wrapped around the throat of the flower, it is like an anchor holding you down.
You look up and your eyes are caught in Captain Brighten's gaze. His expression does not change and he says nothing, but you feel the command all the same, as though spoken directly into your mind. Come.
Your finger throbs where he burned you. You stand and the flower is torn from the ground. You walk towards him. He stops you at the foot of the stair. His hand is heavy on your shoulder. “I want the two of you to see this,” he says, and you see that there is another person present, a man standing in the shadow of the train, his face streaked with silver tears. Waa'il. The forger's cousin. The man who betrayed Raheel once before, sent the red soldiers to his turnip boat. He weeps for his own weakness.
You look away. Your stomach is dropping, your throat closing. There are three figures still in the clearing, propped up with their hands bound before them.
You cannot see their faces, but you know who they are. Who else could they be? They do not speak. The five guards in red move away, detaching themselves from the shadows and returning one by one to the train.
Captain Brighten studies the three. He cocks his head. He turns to you. “What shall I do with them, child?”
You cannot move, cannot look away. You hear the soft sound of the Captain's pistol sliding free of its holster, just by your ear. You try to speak but the words die in your throat. All you can do is shake your head, and even that is almost more than you can bear.
The Captain laughs. He pulls the trigger. The sound is beyond what you can understand and give shape to. It is only noise, a white heat of noise bursting in your ear. One of the faceless figures crumbles to the ground. Your fingers close, crush the broken flower in your hand.
The second figure falls with a cry to the side of the first. You recognize the voice: Nazmiya. The third one runs, his hands held awkwardly before him. He runs for the treeline. You think it is Daniyal.
The machine gun fires, and it is the most horrible sound imaginable. The trees spark with fire. Nazmiya falls, thrown back as though lifted up and pushed by an invisible hand. In the heat-light of the gunfire you can see Daniyal spasm and jolt as his body is riddled with bullets. And yet he still runs, runs with a desperation beyond life. He reaches the trees before he collapses against the pines. He is held up in their needled arms, embraced as the life shudders from him.
The machine gun stops, but the sound of it remains, a growling and booming that reverberates in your head. Smoke rises from the barrel like a gross parody of the train's smokestack.
The Captain sighs. He seems relived to have set things once again in order. He holsters his gun and guides you back onto the train.
Waa'il, still sniffling, slumps after. The Captain turns, his foot on the top step. He seems surprised. He says nothing, only shakes his head.
Waa'il's eyes find yours, searching in sudden wide-eyed fear for some flicker of sympathy. You cannot bear to look upon him. You feel your lip twist.
His mouth opens, he says, “But... You said... you promised. Remember? I'm Waa'il... you promised me. I'm Waa'il.”
The Captain's face is blank. He motions for one of the guards to unhook the long chain which runs beneath the windows. He loops its end into a rough collar. “You have no name,” he says.
Waa'il looks at the collar. His throat bobs. “Y-you... you swore I would be free.” He looks at you then and there is a desperate apology in his face, a misery.
The Captain cocks his head. “Is this not freedom?”
Quick as anything the guards are behind Waa'il. They hold him. He screams, struggling. He looks like a fish, you think, wriggling on the hook. The Captain wraps the collar around Waa'il's throat. You look. The chain is not long. It is still attached to the train by one great steel hook. The Captain slides a lock through the links of the chain and clicks it shut.
“Go where you will,” the Captain says, and pulls himself back up into the train car.
You hurry after, scurrying into your seat. You cover your ears again. You shut your eyes again. You know that when you open them, things will only be worse.
You wonder how long Waa'il will be able to keep up with the train, running on foot as he is, and his leg injured. How long can he keep pace? You wonder if you will be able to feel it when, finally, he cannot.
* * *
You feel nothing.
You sit with your hands over your head, crumpled in your seat. All the bones in your body have turned rubber. The train feels empty now. Thoughts echo in the space they left behind. A recriminating weight.
Outside your window it is so very dark. How much longer now until morning?
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow the journey will be over. You have no concept of ending anymore, only the going on. In your mind you are still standing at that cold station down the long hill from the boarding school. Your teeth still chattering from the cold; you are still standing up on the tips of your toes trying to see over the heads of the crowd. This is not real, you are not this person, not in this skin. You are leaving the station by the door, leaving the train behind on the platform. Nobody tries to stop you, not the headmistress, not Captain Brighten, not the conductor with his clean white gloves, not the soldiers in red, not the other passengers waiting to go to their fate. You pass through them all, like a ghost. Their hands reach out for you and slip away. Your flesh is smoke and ash. You are standing in the dirt at the foot of the long hill. The sky is heavy with bleak cloud. A light rain dribbles out of heaven. You take a step up the hill. You stop. You cannot go that way. It is not for you. You hold out your hand. Rain strikes your skin, and where the rain touches you it leaves pale marks behind. You touch your palm, you rub the spots and they do not come away. The rain falls. The rain is cleansing you. Where the rain falls on you it washes away your stain. You step out of your clothes and leave them rumpled in the dirt road. You are like a snake writhing out of its skin. Your bare feet squish in the mud. You shiver, you hold your nakedness tight. You stare up into the rain. The rain is purification. Every drop is a deliverance.
They will not look at you and see that which is foul and unclean.
They will not point at you and whisper together of your inadequacy.
They will not see ugliness in you, not when you are like them.
You want so dearly to be like them.
You start walking up the hill, up the long and winding road. The rain washes you. You stumble and
fall into the mud and it clings to your body. The rain washes away the mud and along with it runs your color down your legs like a sheen of filth. The color washes out of your hair and it flows long and yellow and straight about your pale shoulders. The dark washes from your eyes and falls away like scales and you can see the world through clear blue, true and beautiful and new as it was always meant to be. Your skin is white and gleaming. You are beautiful.
You are near the top of the hill. You think that you are dying of the cold. Snow whispers in the Autumn air.
The door of the boarding school opens. They are all waiting for you, their hair up in ribbons – bright red bows behind their ears. Their skin is soft pink, creamy smooth and pure. They reach out to touch you. They embrace you. They touch their cheeks against your cheek. They weep for joy that they have found you. They dry you and they clothe you and they love you. You are one of them, you can feel yourself sinking into the crowd, becoming one, becoming a creature of light, an angel out of some primeval misery.
They love you now. You love yourself. You love your beauty. You love everything in the world which is clean and pure and white. The stories have all come true. You are the princess. The fairy tale. There is a tall white man waiting for you. He holds out his hand and he smiles. Your sisters push you towards him; you go blushing, cheeks rosy red. Your lips are strawberries, your skin cream, your hair corn-silk. He takes your hand and kisses it and he holds you, devours you. You float. And you are at last so happy.
* * *
The train does not stop. The train will never stop. You are bound to it. The skin of the train is as heavy and colorless as the blackout curtains they hang in all the windows of the city. You remember sitting there bathed in light looking up at the curtain like a void wall, a doorway into nothing, and wondering what was going on behind it. What are they hiding from you?
You turn in your seat.
There is a woman beside you, watching you. You know her face, she was in the arms of the man with the broken teeth. Jamil. You know that you have heard her name before.
She smiles at you, and it is such a sad smile that you think your heart will break. She pities you. She loves you. How can she love you?
“Are you alright?” she asks, and she shakes her head. “I'm sorry. Of course you aren't. None of us are.” She sighs. The heads of the people sitting in their seats, their functional death. “What were you thinking about?”
