A Prison in the Sun

by Isobel Blackthorn

  We were all animals here. Mistreated animals. If not me, then Jorge or Ruben or Manuel or Rafael – my friends – or any of the other men who would have to push this beam, push and push, each footfall heavy on the gritty ground.

  The guard scratched his crotch with his free hand, the other grasped the barrel of his rifle. Across his lap, the lash.

  Behind the guard, some distance away, a villager awaited her turn beside her camel, watching. Who was she? Which house was hers? Could she smell me? Did she, like the others, think me no better than the animal she restrained? Worse, unclean?

  Men filed by and deposited empty buckets and collected the full ones to take back to the compound. I avoided their gazes, and they avoided mine. None of us was keen to stir the wrath of the guard.

  Thirst built, my mouth as parched as the earth I trod. It was a thirst not slaked by the water I pumped, water strongly tainted by salt.

  What did the girl use the water for? She must filter it if she drank it.

  I maintained the rhythm, keening, my muscles in my arms and legs clenching in dull pain, each footfall an effort. And as fatigue washed through me, I steeled myself, in case I slipped and fell on the gravelly earth. I did not relish giving that guard another excuse to lash my back.

  The girl looked content to wait. Maybe, like me, she had no choice. How old was she? Had her mother sent her? Did she have sisters? A brother? A sibling like me? But not like me – no, no – not a shameful outcast, a young man unable to control the deviant beast inside.

  * * *

  I resumed my seat at my patio workstation and read over the paragraphs. My immediate thought was, poor bloke. A prisoner? Slave, more like. Getting lashed like that and forced to trudge around and around like a camel or a mule, all the while being gawped at by some village girl. It was all horribly depressing, and I wasn't sure I wanted to continue with the translation. The writing might be gold, but it might just as well be fool's gold. Then again, maybe not, I thought as my mind started joining the dots.

  If the narrator was the same man, the same gay man, and in this latest scene, he refers to drawing water from a well in a field of rock, then there could be little doubt the story was about the hostel. Or rather, the concentration camp. I couldn't be absolutely certain, and I might well be leaping to conclusions. I felt weird just thinking about it, and I wasn't sure I wanted to continue. I wasn't sure I wanted to take on the translation if it was about to lead me into those depths.

  The farmhouse, Tefía, the entire holiday retreat was beginning to feel like a curse, as though I was being punished for something that had nothing whatsoever to do with me. As though I had been branded somehow, required by God or fate to take on a project that was my idea of a writer's hell. The farmhouse and its proximity to the hostel, my chance discovery of the rucksack, and those pages hidden in the stash – what a convoluted set of circumstances. And, I noted with wry irony, I was directed to the hostel and that cave by Luis. If it hadn't been for my buff-looking, beaming personal trainer, acting as fate or God's instrument, I wouldn't be in this quandary.

  The only mistake I made was deciding to get fit.

  Maybe that was the story I should tell, or something like it, and not the story contained in those pages. I should tuck them back where I found them and go and hand in the rucksack like I pretended I had, and be done with the entire affair. Fate can go find another sucker.

  Even so, I wasn't quite ready to delete my efforts. I hit save, closed the document, and made a tiny mark on the page of Spanish to denote my place in case I decided to go back to it. Then, I folded up the draft.

  It was getting on for four o'clock. I tidied the kitchen, leaving the remains of the macaroni cheese I had made for lunch in the fridge along with what was left of the cauliflower I had steamed to go with it. Simple fare, but tasty. Long-life milk, cheese, eggs, half a loaf of stale bread – I would return here if I felt confident enough or if things at Paco and Claire's grew any weirder.

  Before I left, I watered the plants in the patio. Then I wandered into my old bedroom with its four-poster bed and stood at the window and looked out at the plain, at the windmill in the distance, at the low mountains scattered around.

  In minutes, I was pulling up outside the windmill, eyeing the driveway to the hostel with cool hostility, feeling I had plenty of time on my hands, curious to discover the parachutist monument Paco had mentioned.

  There was a dirt track, little more than a scratch in the ground, leading around the front of the old military air base, on past a house and from there into a flat and open field. Less a field, more a swathe of grit and stone. When I spotted what looked like the monument off in the near distance, I left the car on the track and picked my way to the centre of the field.

  Aligned in a row inside a walled rectangle of gravel were three monuments, one a boulder with an inscription of the names of those who had lost their lives mounted on a plaque on its face, another a sculpture of an angel – Dios Victoria – covered in a shroud. More boulders and a large crucifix completed the monument. Situated as it was with not even a road sign to point the way, the memorial indicated a private tragedy. The effect was powerful and deeply private, and I felt I had no right to stand on the rectangle of gravel, a gawping tourist.

  On the journey back to Tiscamanita, I took a second detour through the village of Llanos de la Concepción and then on up to Valle de Santa Inés, where I pulled over to look back at the view of the mountains I had glimpsed in the rear-view mirror. With plenty of time to kill, I stood by the roadside, feeling the wind on my face, beholding the naked earth that was Fuerteventura. The view was a sculpture, like that of a naked body. I wondered if the island would ever again be clothed in trees. It really was so astonishingly dry. Perhaps another monument was needed, one in memory of all those lost species.

  I soon tired of being blasted by the wind and took refuge in my car.

  From there I kept driving on the same road until I reached an intersection. I was tempted to turn right and head up to Betancuria, but it was getting late in the day for sightseeing. Instead, I drove down through the rocky undulations to Antigua. Here and there, a property owner broke the monotony of the landscape, a planting of trees sheltering a dwelling or lining a drive. Such owners were few. For the most part, the land looked abandoned. What I did notice of interest was the way farmers banked up ridges of earth around their small fields, creating flat-bed basins to trap the water when it rained. I read somewhere that when the rain came here, it was torrential. Needs must, but what an effort.

  Another ten minutes and I slowed for the approach to Tiscamanita.

  As I crawled down Calle Cabrera and caught sight of all the cars parked out the front of Paco and Claire's, I wanted to do a three-point turn and head off somewhere, anywhere else, but people had seen me, and Claire was standing on the pavement looking my way. She waved, and I cringed. There was nothing I could do other than find a place to park.

  The closer I got, the more interest Claire took in my presence, waving me on and pointing to where a car was pulling away from the kerb. Looked like guests were leaving. Thank goodness!

  I was fortunate the parking space was almost by the side gate, which hopefully wasn't bolted on the inside. Looked like I could make an easy dash after a quick wave of acknowledgement. Before leaving the car, I fumbled my laptop into a tote bag and stuffed the Spanish scribblings into my pocket and plastered an appropriate expression of good cheer and sympathy on my face.

  My plan to escape to my quarters was scuppered the moment my feet hit the pavement when Claire hurried over.

  'Where did you get to?' she asked.

  'I went for a drive to clear my head.'

  'Anywhere special?'

  'Just around.'

  She didn't quiz me, for which I was grateful. But I had no choice other than to follow her to the main entrance where some of the funeral party were gathered. Suddenly, I found myself doing the rounds of introductions, Claire leading me first here, then
there, on the pavement, in the front garden, through a vestibule and on to various spots around the interior patio. I adjusted the tote bag on my shoulder as I shook hands and offered sympathetic smiles to all and sundry. No one seemed keen to engage me in conversation, which came as a relief. The atmosphere was subdued, the predominant colour of apparel black, but people chatted amongst themselves and occasionally laughed. No sign of the dog.

  I had no idea why Claire was bent on having me meet everyone, but eventually, she left me to it, and I found myself standing alone near the living room. I thought to disappear, a desire inflamed when I spotted Juan's uncle emerging from the kitchen with Paco beside him, but it was too late.

  'Trevor,' Paco said, beckoning me over. 'Come and meet Mario.'

  There was no choice. I walked towards the two men as my instincts headed off screaming in the other direction. The two men exchanged a few words as I approached. Mario was grinning.

  'Mario tells me he recognises you from the gym. I had no idea you keep fit.'

  'I try,' I said laughing and turning to shake Mario's outstretched hand with my own, clammy one. 'I am sorry for your loss,' I said, almost mechanically, holding Mario's gaze, hoping Paco would translate. He did.

  There was a long moment of silence. I had no idea how to fill it. My expectation that Mario would throttle me or make wild, or perhaps not so wild accusations vanished in his presence. There was no sign he harboured any suspicions or animosity towards me whatsoever. My mind flitted back to that moment in the toilets when I had overheard his conversation and then the look of disgust on his face when I emerged from the cubicle. That look really was because he thought I was about to leave the men's without washing my hands. He could have had no idea I had cottoned on to a thing he had said.

  He had no idea about the rucksack either, or he really would have throttled me by now. It looked as though I was in the clear. Yet I could not slow my heartrate in his presence. He was, as far as I knew, a dangerous man, a drug dealer of some kind, mafia most likely. I didn't want to be anywhere near him, but I lacked a cue to walk away.

  'How's the writing?' Paco asked, which had to be the worst possible question in the worst possible moment.

  'Fine,' I said, knowing I had to say more. The situation demanded it, if only because there was no other topic of conversation to be found. 'I am finding the island is filled with inspiration. Fuerteventura is very beautiful.'

  'You think so? Most tourists complain it is too dry.'

  Paco offered Mario a quick translation.

  'Yes, dry,' I said, feeling like an automaton.

  'When it rains, the land turns green.'

  'Will it rain soon?' I said, relieved to be talking about the weather.

  Paco laughed.

  'Not until winter. Will you be here then?'

  'No. I will be in England.'

  We were interrupted by a sudden rise of chatter at the front door. A late arrival, it seemed, and I caught a glimpse of the behemoth's back. Fresh fear invaded my being and yet again I repressed an impulse to bolt.

  'Mateo,' Mario said.

  Mario had seen his friend, too. He headed for the vestibule, and I seized the chance to ease away, making it across the patio and out of their line of sight.

  Once I was certain I was out of view, I darted across the living room, ignoring the couple seated on the couch, and made my way through the patio door and on to my apartment, ferreting inside my pocket for my key as Zeus cornered the side wall and bounded in my direction.

  I managed to get the door open and myself inside before the mongrel reached me.

  With the door safely closed and locked behind me, I exhaled. Keen to get as far from the reception as I could, I bolted upstairs.

  Even up there, safely ensconced by thick stone walls, I could hear voices drifting on the wind, the odd burst of laughter. I went and stood by the window, opening it a crack. Below, Claire was chatting to a squat and swarthy looking local in dark blue pants and a white shirt who I thought I had seen at the gym. She pointed at this and that in the garden, and I thought she must be explaining the layout or future plans.

  Then I overheard, 'He was staying in Tefía, but the place had a rat infestation.'

  'Rats?'

  'Apparently.'

  'Be careful, Claire,' the man said in heavily accented Spanish. 'You don't know a thing about him.'

  I held my breath, convinced she was about to tell him how we met. I pictured the scene, me frantic on the beach, approaching all and sundry, trying to offload the rucksack.

  Thankfully, all she said was, 'I am sure he is harmless. He's a writer.'

  It was a close shave, and the fact remained I had no idea what Claire, or Paco for that matter, had told the other guests. Worse, I could hardly ask. There was nothing for it but to trust that neither of them had mentioned the rucksack and if they had, then they had also told the interested party I had handed the whole thing over to the police.

  My guts churned and my bowels clenched and I rushed to the bathroom.

  I had no reason to fear Mateo other than he had followed me home from the gym. I didn't even know if he had been following me. I did know I couldn't shake the terror I felt, and it was making me bilious.

  The room darkened, and the sunset filtering in through the patio window bathed the little corridor in pink. It was dinner time, but I had no appetite. I needed a distraction, something to occupy my harried mind. Hoping to find a new ghost-writing assignment, I opened my laptop and checked my emails. There were none. With much reluctance, I turned to the only project I had on my desktop, the Spanish translation.

  As I typed in the next section of the tiny Spanish script, I anticipated being thrust back into the scene at the well, but instead, the story changed, and I found myself immersed in a story of a child growing up in Tenerife. Was this the same guy? Had to be. As soon as I was sure, I took the liberty of inserting the raven at the beginning. If the author was employing a motif, then it needed to appear throughout and not slip from the reader's view.

  Growing up in Tenerife

  I have a sister, dear bird. A woman with hair as black as your plumage, although I have only known her as a child and must conjure the woman she is, the woman she has become.

  Maria is two years my senior, and she was a little matriarch, even at seven.

  When I was a young man, women in my society were expected to blend in with the background. They were to be meek and mild, obedient to all male authority. They were to keep house and have babies and more babies and nurture them all.

  My mother was the exemplar of the perfect woman, a carbon copy of the immaculate Mother herself, and in naming her firstborn “Maria”, I suppose she was hoping to hand down her goodliness and obedience like a pretty pink bonnet. Alas for my mother, Maria didn't turn out like that.

  José squirmed in his seat. 'You're hurting me!'

  'Sit still while I fix your hair.' Maria tapped José's head with the back of her brush, leaving behind a sharp sting to go with all the tugging and tying she'd subjected his hair to this last hour. Her own hair was pulled back, neat and tidy and parted in the middle, two long plaits that began behind her ears and ended somewhere below her shoulders in pretty white bows. She had a round, almost angelic face, the determined set to her jaw betraying the force of her inner nature.

  Maria forced her brush through José's hair, matted now through some vigorous back combing. He let out a piercing scream and received a slap on his thigh for his trouble.

  'Shush. Mama will hear you.'

  She primped his hair some more, until it was all but standing straight up on his head. Seeing his startling visage in the mirror, he giggled, and she giggled along with him.

  'That's silly,' she said, forcing him into the large blue dress their mother gave Maria for dress ups.

  'I don't want to wear this dress.'

  'Nonsense. You must, because you are the bride and I am going to marry you.'

  'I can't be a bride. I'm a boy.'


  'You have to be the bride because I don't have a sister, and Dolores is busy.'

  Dolores was Maria's best friend. On Saturdays, Dolores visited, and the girls played dress ups, and José was left alone. Sometimes, Dolores couldn't visit, and Maria faced the choice of boredom or playing games with her younger brother. She had to choose José for Jesús was younger still, and only three and perfectly useless to play with.

  Normally, José didn't mind his older sister's games. Sometimes, they played with her dolls in the courtyard, or he was required to sit at a small desk and receive instructions from teacher Maria. She could be nasty with her ruler, but otherwise, she was comical and made him laugh. There were times she insisted he be a baby, and she tucked him up in bed and tried to feed him sloppy food with a spoon. He was passive. He opened his mouth when instructed, happy to accept more.

  One day some months before, their mother had given Maria a soft dress of the palest blue, a dress too big for them all, and Maria soon developed a fixation with imaginary weddings in which she lorded it over proceedings as the priest.

  José hoped she would tire of her game and invent another one, and he no longer had to have his hair groomed and don a flouncy dress which he did not care for at all. He was a boy, after all, and boys didn't wear dresses, and even at the tender age of five, he was aware of the ridicule should another boy in his neighbourhood ever find him in a fine, blue dress.

  Another change came later that year as Maria prepared for her first communion. As it dawned on her that she was to become a bride of Christ, the blue dress was deposited at the bottom of an old trunk and forgotten.

  Oh, raven, you who will wear the same black suit your whole life. Yet if you were to dye your feathers – let's say pink – would you change on the inside? Or would you dye your feathers pink because you have changed on the inside? Besides, I didn't choose to wear the blue dress. It was thrust over my head. But it came to symbolise all that I am.