Temporary People

by Steven Gillis

  He moved from the window toward the door, his steps unsteady. He stumbled, righted himself, and determined to get downstairs, went into the kitchen where he searched the drawers for tools. The cast on his right foot ran up to the middle of his shin, the plaster thinner near the edge. He carried a screwdriver, pliers and hammer back into the front room and sat near the window where he tore away one small piece followed by another. The cast was thicker around his ankle and across the top of his foot. He applied the hammer and screwdriver, tapped until a crack appeared, used the pliers to separate the seam and split the seal.

  Inside the bones had healed with bumps buckling the skin. Emilo saw a pale paw covered with flakes of moist and pasty flesh. He brushed off the chalky white, moved his toes tentatively, then repeated the process. His left foot was red and gnarled, the toes oddly curved. He cleared the plaster, placed his hands on the arms of the chair and stood slowly. The tendon running from ball to heel had shrunk after so many weeks, and taking his first free step, a sharp pain sent Emilo crashing.

  “God fuck it!” He climbed to his knees, grabbed his canes and crossed them like swords before standing again, shifting his weight onto his heels and walking back to the bedroom where he sat and slipped on his pants, socks and boots. The support from his boots helped ease the pain in his feet. Still tender, he tested his stride, made in his way down the stairs, through the store and to the street where more people were marching, men and women and children together. Emilo stood at the curb and called for André, was told he was already up ahead. He tapped the ground with his canes, rolled his eyes at the nonsense, the idea of a rally. How long could a demonstration like this last anyway? No more than a few hours. If no one lingered and the streets were cleared in a timely fashion, there was no need to worry. All the rest would go on as planned.

  He adjusted his weight again, maneuvered against the pain in his feet, tried joining the march, but realizing he couldn’t keep up, held out hope some straggler in a car would stop for him. Toward the corner his luck changed, a military jeep with three of Teddy’s soldiers came quickly and insisted on giving Emilo a ride.

  “Come, come,” Teddy shouted from the water. “The sea is warm. Can you think of a better way to start your day than this?” Early still, not yet 6:00 a.m. and well before the time he typically crawled from bed, Teddy invited Doug Pashfeld, Erik Dukette and a few lady friends to splash about with him in the water. Colonel Pashfeld arrived in uniform, his dark boots sunk in the sands, the white foam rolling against hard leather. “Look at you,” Teddy laughed. “Where are your trunks? Why are you just standing there on this beautiful mor ning?”

  Pashfeld stared back at the water. “If there’s something you wish to talk about, General.”

  “Talk, talk, talk. Is that all you Americans can think of?” Teddy grabbed the nearest girl who squealed with false delight. “ I invited you to swim, ” he slipped down and bobbed back up again. “After breakfast, if you still feel a need, we can talk then. Maybe we’ll even have something to chat about later,” he shoved the girl away and floated on his back.

  Erik Dukette wore a baggy bathing suit, dark blue and pulled up beneath the underside of his belly. He entered the water hesitantly, forcing a smile while one of the girls came and took his hand, her breasts splashed with sea spray as she guided him fur ther from shore. “Relax! ” Teddy yelled, dunked his head and blew water from his mouth like a fountain. Doug Pashfeld studied the scene, observed the General, his instincts alerted, he tried gauging what didn’t add up. When his cell phone rang he answered it, turned hurriedly and trotted back to his jeep. Teddy in waist high waters, stood and waved after the Colonel in mock surprise. “Why Douglas, what is it? What ever’s the matter?”

  The day before our demonstration, I went to All Kings and delivered the money I promised Ali. We stood outside, behind the school, near a stone grass field where several children ran about in a ragtag game of soccer. The remains of a well worn ball was wound tightly in grey tape and passed back and forth. I watched the children play, thought about the urgency of our days, and feeling then suddenly within the eye of the storm, said as much to Ali. “If we could keep just this,” I told him.

  I left after arranging a time and place for us to meet tomorrow morning at the Port, went next to speak with Mical Delmont and Ryle Naceme, and afterward met again with Daniel before heading toward my father’s house. Halfway there, I passed the Bameritan Hyatt and saw a man get out of a black government car and walk inside. I recognized the man from his photograph in the papers, rode my bike around back, entered the hotel through the kitchen and used the in-house phone to track his room on the sixth floor. “Please, leave me be,” Leo Covings complained of too many disturbances when I knocked. I explained who I was, told him of my connection to the strike and that I had some news he might find of interest. After a few seconds, he let me in.

  I arrived at my father’s house an hour later. The plan to seize the main warehouse had come together and my father wanted to discuss moving women and children from the capital. Deceiving him was not anything I did well. Twice I found him staring at me and angled my face away in order to be only half-exposed.

  Just after 10 p.m. I said goodnight and came outside. I was eager to get back across town to Katima and Daniel and the others, but Don Pendar surprised me, was waiting with my bike already in the back of his car. “Come on, I’ll take you home.” He left the headlights dark for several blocks before bringing us out of the neighborhood and onto the numbered streets. While he drove, his fingers squeezed and released the wheel. I saw the line of his jaw, the bone and muscle in shadow as we passed under the moon. My first thought was that he’d heard about the rally, and I was prepared to deny any knowledge if he asked. He made no reference however, said only, “When all of this is over, André.”

  “We’ll have a drink.”

  “It’s a date,” he looked at me, then back at the road. His voice was pitched as always, his words rushed as if he couldn’t get them out fast enough. He started talking about Teddy, about necessity and sacrifice, all the cliched terms those who’d never been to war chattered on about. I let him continue for a minute, was staring at my hands when he said, “It’s a good plan.” He waited for me to reply, but I decided to let the comment pass. Never easily put off, Don Pendar persisted. “Don’t you think?”

  “Does it matter what I think?”

  “Of course.”

  “If you’re looking for reassurances.”

  He shook his head. “I know how it seems sometimes between us, André, but I’m always interested in what you have to say.”

  “Now that I’ve agreed to help,” I used my bluff. “You listen when its convenient, when it’s what you want to hear.”

  “It’s a perfect plan,” he ignored me, answered as he wanted. I grew annoyed and couldn’t keep from saying, “No, it’s not. It’s a risk at best. That’s all it is.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Don Pendar started in again, presented examples from history, revolutions that seemed on their face to support his claim. I started my dissent, but he interrupted and wanted to know, “Can I ask you something else?”

  “That depends.”

  “About the War of the Winds. Were you scared?”

  I turned on my seat, rubbed the sweat from the top of my head, nearly laughed but caught myself and answered, “You’re asking me this now?” “It doesn’t change anything,” he was quick to tell me. “I’m just curious.”

  “Every one of us was scared,” I let him know. “Every day. Emilo and Justin. All of us.”

  Don Pendar thought about this, then said, “Good.” Five minutes later he pulled the car onto my street and parked against the curb. We stayed silent for a time. I started getting out of the car then stopped myself and told him, “The worst fear a man can have is discovering what he believes in with all his heart is wrong.”

  There followed only the briefest pause before Don Pendar looked at me again. For just a second his features soft
ened, a sense of near concession before he stiffened, a defense drawn so tight the skin on his cheeks and around his mouth grew harder as he said, “And so we fight to make sure that never happens.” He wiped his face with both hands. When he glanced at me again his eyes had changed. I said nothing further. He came from the car, removed my bike from the trunk and pushed it toward me. I stood out front after he drove off, the lights on this side of the capital all shut down. After a minute I got on my bike and rode back across town to Daniel’s apartment. Our demonstration was set to begin in less than eight hours. Inside, Daniel found candles and we worked with what light we had.

  Early the next morning, before the first of our neighbors appeared on the street and began walking to the Port, I stood and looked out the bedroom window. The city was quiet still, the sky dark yet clear. Katima came and slipped her arms around me from behind. I relaxed just enough to not let her feel me shake, then went into the bathroom and washed in the bowl of yesterday’s water. Downstairs, I lit the stove and boiled tea. We ate the three remaining slices of bread and half an orange before going outside. Our plan was to have everyone approach the Port along a series of side roads, with separate groups coming from different directions, converging on Wenlafte Boulevard and then walking together to the main warehouse. All of our plotting these last three days was a blur. I worried no one would show, that in our haste we’d forgotten something and our effort would come crashing down on our heads. To my great relief, slowly, in small groups, students and neighbors, women in sandals and men in morning sweaters, friends and strangers appeared and began walking with us. Halfway to the Port, our number grew from fifty to a few hundred to over a thousand. Leo Covings sat on the roof of his black car, a cameraman beside him, the sedan gliding carefully around our perimeter, recording our march. The police kept their distance, watched without ordering us to disperse, just as the Chief Inspector promised.

  Daniel was waiting when we reached the Port and together we took a quick survey of the area. The space in front of the main warehouse was flat and open, covering some 800 square feet. To show our rally was peaceful and that we weren’t there to seize or damage government property, we stopped our march at the curb. I spoke with Cris, then started back through the crowd, on my way to see Bo, who’d set up our webcam in the apartment across the street.

  Within the hour more people arrived. Soldiers gathered off to the side. The sun was up, our number now at several thousand, I was ecstatic and stood on a wooden box, a portable microphone in hand as I recited Ghandi quotes I knew by heart: “Pure motives can never justify impure or violent action,” and “I believe that it is possible to introduce uncompromising truth and honesty in the political life of (any) country.” I recalled what Huxley wrote: “The law of the survival of the fittest is the law for the evolution of the brute, but the law of self-sacrifice is the law of evolution for the man.” The people in front of me cheered and encouraged me to go on. I laughed and raised my hands above my head, applauding in turn, confident and well pleased, though no sooner did I repeat the line from Huxley than something odd caught my eye.

  There on the south side of Wenlafte Boulevard, three men moved through the crowd. Each had short hair, their stride deliberate, their casual clothes identical to the rest of us except, instead of sandals or ordinary footwear, they had on thick black boots. I watched the tallest of the three men glance up at the window where Bo was filming, saw him look back and signal the others who reached then inside their shirts.

  The pop-pop-pop came a half second later. The men aimed their pistols over our heads, the first shots creating chaos. I heard more shots and then the screams. People ran while I waved my arms and shouted for Bo to stop transmitting. The soldiers waiting on the sidelines took their cue from the men dressed to look like us and unloaded into the crowd. Our webcam and Leo Covings’ camera recorded everything, exactly as Teddy planned, the headlines around the world tomorrow made to read: “Government Acts To Quash Bloody Coup.”

  Pushed back, I tried to find Katima and Ali. More soldiers appeared out of nowhere while everyone looked to escape. I came through a clearing in the crowd, hurried toward the front, shouted for Katima, turned and spotted Don Pendar standing there. “Run!” I yelled. “Go! Go!” but he paid no attention, was watching me, not angrily or in any sort of way I would have expected. I saw him roll his hands over, gently at first, his eyes going wide before turning his hands back around and balling his fingers into fists. I shouted again but he was already charging toward a group of soldiers, nearly reaching them only to have his body jerk and his arms fly out.

  The Port was filled by then with jeeps and trucks giving chase, cutting off exit routes, circling the main warehouse withsir ens and horns blaring. Don Pendar went down to his knees, his arms limp, the front of his shirt alive and wet. I dropped with him, held his head in my lap as a jeep flew past us then doubled back. The soldier in charge climbed out, called me by name, ordered me to, “Get up, Mafante!”

  I remained as before, ran my hand through Don Pendar’s hair, slowly and gently so. The hard warm stone of the road beneath us cut my knees. At that distance I couldn’t see my tower, though I imagined her rising behind me, the photographs of Tamina and old clippings. I pictured my children, Anita and Ali, saw Katima as she lay in bed that morning. The stain running onto my legs from Don Pendar’s chest was different from the blood as I bit at the sides of my mouth. My shaved head burned beneath the sun. In Jallianwalla Bagh, Gandhi’s mistake allowed British soldiers to slaughter hundreds of unarmed Indians who’d gathered peacefully in the gardens. Three years later, when Gandhi was arrested in Bardoli on new charges of sedition, he was kneeling in prayer with a group of Ashramites as the police came and took him away.

  “I would regard the observance of a perfect peace on my arrest as a mark of high honor paid to me by my countrymen,” Gandhi wrote of his time at Sabarmati prison. I tried to imagine the same happening now in Bamerita but already the men from the capital were rushing the Port. When I struggled to pray, none of the right words came out. I called for Katima while the soldiers pulled me to my feet, bound me hand and foot and tossed me into the rear of their jeep as penalty for my nonsense. I refused to curse them out loud, though in my heart everything was clear and for this, too,

  I was struck hard and briefly made to sleep.

  BOOK 2

  CHAPTER 9

  Anita Mafante reached the Madeira Islands a week after her father’s arrest. She sat at a table overlooking the ocean. In front of her was a sea bass cooked in a syrupy lemon sauce, the head and teeth still intact so that, laid out in the center of the serving plate, the fish stared up with an air of fierce surprise. Anita peeled the skin nearest the belly, cut through and ate the meat below.

  Nick Wyle sat facing the sun. The food on his plate was rice and corn and bits of tuna. Nick’s father, Charles, leaned in to pour more wine. A career consul to the region, assigned to minor ports, Charles had lived in Madeira twelve years. A plenipotentiary in an outpost requiring little by way of serious investment, he adopted to the lulls, followed developments in Bamerita from a distance, the war outside his jurisdiction yet close enough still for him to say, “The shit has hit.” He describe the fighting after the ambush at the Port, how the NBDF was a day’s march outside the capital when the shooting began. “Men with pistols.”

  “Soldiers.”

  “This isn’t how it looked on film.”

  “But we know who it was.”

  “What do we know?” Charles described other men with hunting rifles racing from their homes, while the rebels from the hills established strongholds, were overrun and fell back, reassembled and shifted positions again and again. “Your father,” Charles continued, apologized for having no further news. “The government has closed off all travel. Your grandfather is under house arrest, your brother missing. The kettle has blown. These are not conditions one should return to.” He wore a slightly rumpled suit, his brown hair combed back, the collar of his shirt uns
tarched, his jacket with an ancient shine. He glanced at his son, took another sip of wine before refocusing on Anita. “I’d advise you not to go.” Having already agreed to help, he felt he’d earned the right to offer his opinion. “What is it you hope to accomplish? What exactly are your plans?” His tone was firm. He raised his eyebrows in a way that let Anita know he held her accountable for involving Nick.

  Anita rolled her wrists so that her knife and fork stood straight. She tipped her head just enough so that the breeze from the sea caught her hair and moved it in waves beneath the moon. She had her mother’s features, Tamina’s eyes and chin given the slightest cleft, her cheeks cut in toward the corners of her mouth which was pink and softly shaded. Nick’s face was fuller, more round with light brown hair, his nose thick at the ridge yet other wise fine, his eyes deep and green. His skin was not as dark as Anita’s, though he spent much of his days outdoors. Peripatetic, raised in several ports of call and cities far removed from the States, he took up his mother’s career as a photo journalist, spent weeks in Nigeria, was in the Kashmiri Valley as the pilgrims hiked to Amarnath Cave and the shrine of Lord Shiva, had - by 28 - added film to his resume, hired by CAN - Cable America Network - to cover developments in Afghanistan, Iraq, Liberia, Somalia, Madrid and Iran.