Temporary People

by Steven Gillis

  I’m shouted at to run faster and faster until my body shakes and I fall to my knees. Each time I do this, I’m yanked up, told to keep running, only to stumble again. The guards swear and slap me hard with their rifles, kick me with their boots and drag me to my feet. After, I’m told to strip and allowed to wash with dirty water poured inside a wooden bowl. On days I’m brought outside, I also try to defecate so as not to keep filling my cell with waste, though mostly this, too, is refused me.

  When my time is over, I’m marched back down the stairs, shoved from behind and returned underground. For several seconds in the dark the sensation of the sunlight in the yard lingers. I try holding on for as long as I can but she fades regardless. My ribs ache as I sink and sit on the floor. The pain in my right hip is sharp and shoots violent charges down my leg and through my feet. My toenails are thick and black and curl inward like nervous animals looking for a place to burrow. I calm my breathing with thoughts of Katima, imagine her safe and unharmed, remind myself that she’s resilient, resourceful and clever, and still I worry, know from experience all that can happen.

  By late afternoon I receive my only food of the day, a brownish stew with lumps of cornmeal, meat fat, a few cubes of vegetable and insects which have invaded the mix. of Despite the contents, I eat hungrily. A new prisoner is brought down soon after I finish eating. This man is small, all elbows and knees. He pounces like a snake off its coil, hits my chest, pulls and twists my arms, grabs my ears and scratches my cheek. “Brarr!” he shoves me back, curses because I’ve no shoes for him to steal, snatches up my empty food bowl and flings it at my head. I duck, turn and stare at his face. Although his cheeks are covered with flecks of black whiskers, and his mouth is filled with worn brown teeth, he appears boyish, if not youthful then troll-like. His eyes are dark, his skin yellow-grey. I raise my hands in defense as he moves toward me again. “Wait, please.” I ask, “What have they told you? Do you know who I am?”

  The man slaps me hard before asking, “Why should I care?”

  I tell him my name nonetheless and the man looks at me in disbelief. “The tower guy?”

  “That’s right.”

  He spits. “Mafante’s dead,” he says. “They tore his tower down,” and finding the softness beneath my ribs, he punches me again, tells me to, “Shut the fuck up!”

  I accuse him of being the guards’ stooge and he hits me harder still, stopping only when he tires and orders me to, “Stay here!” He shoves me against the bars, looks at me strangely for a moment, appears on the verge of saying something, only to curse again and slip off to sleep. I watch him then, want to forgive the troll-man. Gandhi says mercy is the key to Satyagrahi, but somehow my extending pardon seems misplaced. Who am I to absolve anyone? When the guards return later the man is still sleeping. I hear them coming but don’t call out. The guards drag the troll-man off and he shrieks in horror. I listen above me to the sounds behind the heavy door locking, immediately regret what I’ve done and ask forgiveness but there’s no one here.

  More time passes. The minor light through my window fades until all is dark with just a hint of stars shining in the distance. I doze until something wakes me. Whistles are blown, alarms ring in the cells above my head, a stampede of boots and soldiers shouting. The door at the top of the stairs is thrown open and more than a dozen prisoners are brought down. An equal number of guards follows close behind. The space outside my cell is crammed, the prisoners shoved against the north wall, the guards punching and shouting at them to, “Shut up! Shut up!”

  The sound of pop and fire comes from the yard. Half the men fall silent while the others shake and weep. A tense confusion lasts until a new alarm goes off and the prisoners are ordered back upstairs. They exhale collectively with great relief. The guards laugh, as if every thing has been a game they’ve played together. I remain pressed against the front of my cage, stare up at the small window where starlight shows a series of feet moving by. The men huddled in front of me not three minutes before realize now and dance in the yard as a new crack and echo takes them down.

  Everything goes quiet after this. Even the guards are silent. The prisoners have fallen so that I can see only the soles of their feet. I stand with my face pressed against the bars. A minute later I sink and reach for my blanket, stay this way until morning. More time passes. I imagine the prison empty, the soldiers told to leave me behind, my final days spent alone in the dark, starving until the rats finish me off. The idea creates something outside of panic. My hunger is sour, I breathe hard, fill my belly with air. I think again of the men last night, remember Brahmacharya and an essay by Ghandi which began, “During these days I walked up and down the streets of Calcutta,” and included a description of sacrificial sheep’s blood flowing in a stream after their offering at a temple in Kali. I want to convince myself the men are this, all innocent sheep, but know their innocence is irrelevant. Suddenly the door at the top of the stairs opens and two guards come down.

  Instead of being brought into the yard and forced to run, my hands are cuffed this time, my ankles shackled as I’m lead inside the main floor of the prison. The space is vast with dozens of cages set around the perimeter of what was once the ballroom and dining area of the Moulane Estate. I’ve never seen this part of the prison. Wooden planks are placed across the top of the lower cells and a second row added over them. A narrow scaffolding built in the interior creates a catwalk on which the guards patrol. The light upstairs causes me to squint. I’m pushed from behind, told to keep moving, the weight of the chains slowing my walk. I see men from the demonstration, students and others, crowded three and four inside each cage. The smell is of sweat and waste, the floors damp, the air nearly as stale as below.

  The Captain of the Guards stands at the front of the main hall. Thin and tall, with pale cheeks and dark hair beneath his military cap, his uniform is clean and well tailored, yet sags on him slightly like a loose second skin. He holds a faded blue cloth up in front of his face and stares at me over the top of his hand. I look away, focus on the cages.

  I suspect, after last night, the Captain plans to parade me about as proof to the others that any further fighting is futile, the revolt inside the prison having failed, our revolution outside lost, my capture evidence of this. I regret being used for such a purpose, hope my whiskered face, torn and soiled clothes, hunched shoulders and wild hair make me unrecognizable. The men stare through their bars just the same, curious and eager to get a better look, first one and then another saying, “Mafante? André Mafante?” until everyone is stirring and the guards leave me to walk on my own.

  I slump my shoulders that much more, become smaller, shake my head and wish to hide. Those who know me continue to chant, encourage the others. The cages allow them to see me from all sides. Their voices roll together, merge from sporadic bursts into a united and rhythmic cadence. “Ma-fant-e!” Hands begin to clap and beat against the bars as more men join in. “Ma-fant-e! Ma-fant-e!” The Captain stiffens and readies his guards.

  The men do not cheer for me, of course, but for who they think I am. My reputation unifies us. Those who supported our strike and the rally, and others who care for nothing but revolution and are convinced the demonstration was intended to kick start the war, all together cheer, “Ma-fant-e!” If I’m blamed for the disaster at the Port no one says a word. The reaction is much different than what the Captain expected, the spirit of the caged men causing me to forget myself briefly and I raise my chained arms, moved by their sentiment. Instead of quieting them, I encourage them to change their chant to, “NBDF! NBDF!” Immediately the prisoners echo my shouts. The Captain signals and the guards rush in and drag me off.

  Katima near the coves, collects driftwood and seaweed strong enough to use as twine. The foundation of the tower she is making is buried deep and away from the tide, close to the rocks where she can climb above the sand and attach one piece of wood to another. She shifts from dune to rock to standing atop the coves, climbing higher on the lip of the
cliff and building upward.

  on Once the rally collapsed into riot, as the soldiers drove André off and Katima saw only his legs in the rear of the jeep, she ran from the Port up and down the streets, trying to follow. By evening she’d attempted to reach Davi, Josh Durret, Dr. Bernarr and Ali, had gone to the Plaza where raw footage from the morning appeared on Teddy’s movie screen, spliced together with new scenes shot in documentary fashion; a thriller culled with flashpoints and characters Leo Covings created to give backdrop to the latest rebellion, the War of the Cameras.

  The idea for the film came to Leo after André Mafante showed up and asked for help recording the rally. Cinema verite. Flesh on the screen. There was something to be said for the integrity of the extemporaneous. Of course, to make a great movie Leo knew the action must be directed. Even the brilliant Albert Maysles turned and twisted subject and setting to get exactly what he wanted in his seminal film ‘Salesman.’ To mix fact and fiction, real time and staged, required a certain degree of scripting. Truth couldn’t be allowed to unfold on its own without everything getting messy. “What if?” Leo called the States before passing his ideas on to Teddy who danced a spirited two-step and thought the idea genius.

  Each morning Katima went to stand outside Moulane Prison where other women in black dress arrived on buses, in cars and by foot. They held up pictures of their missing sons, brothers and husbands, their heads covered by scarves and veils as if already grieving the dead. Katima refused to wear the same, showed up instead in what she knew André liked: t-shirts and shorts, cotton skirts and soft blue jeans. By 9:00 a.m. she’d leave Moulane in André’s car and go to the train station near Verone. Teddy assigned soldiers to monitor her movements, while Katima in turn spent much of her days in a series of misdirection.

  From Verone she took the train inland to Duratchi, a small trading post founded years ago by local farmers. The corporal assigned to follow her from the train kept six paces behind as she went to a nearby restaurant and had tea. Afterward she bought stamps and mailed two letters at the post office. The letters were sent to unoccupied addresses, messages for presumed NBDF supporters meant to be intercepted by Teddy. Each missive contained erroneous reference to plans and movements by the rebels. Two and three times a week she posted the letters, lead soldiers through the capital, stopped outside the city at deserted farms and back again at empty houses the government would later raid and find nothing.

  The same corporal follows Katima from Duratchi, drives behind as she heads east to the coast where the scent of salt water fills the air and the sight of gulls can be seen dipping and gliding in the horizon. The corporal sits in the open sand, some thirty yards away from where Katima is working. He waits and watches. From the cliff Katima’s climbed, braced out over the edge, she attaches another piece of driftwood, using seaweed and twine she has brought from the car. Her tower is a precarious makeshift construct, more of a rod pointing skyward from the sands, wavering in the wind and unlikely to withstand the winter. Still she continues, the exercise a therapy. When the soldiers first arrived at the house, not ten hours after the attack at the Port, wielding saws and chains and hand axes to tear André’s tower down, Katima stood in the yard howling. Held back by friends, she expected to be arrested but the soldiers ignored her, left her standing among the ruins as the tower crashed and was cut into smaller pieces, hacked again and again until little more than memory remained.

  A breeze from the sea catches the latest clipping Katima is trying to attach, a piece on Chakufwa Chihana, Malawi’s leading pro-democracy campaigner whose underground political movement ousted Malawi’s long standing dictator, Kamuza Banda, in 1994. Katima has the top of the steeple bowed, grabs for the paper as it floats from her hand, finds herself lifted and drawn forward, dangling for a moment above the cliff, raised as light and effortless as if she doesn’t exist at all. The strength of the rod surprises her, that it can carry her this way, up and out from the cliff and toward the water.

  The corporal on the sand stands and moves toward the rocks. The paper blowing down glides and lands at his feet. Katima kicks her legs, hangs then lands back on the cliff. In the moment before, sailing above, André’s voice kept her from releasing prematurely. She stares down, the shaft straight again, the corporal beneath her clutching the paper, raising it up and showing it to her as if he has found something valuable they both have been searching for. He walks toward the base of the tower, reads then places the clipping in among the others, tucks it behind an older piece, turns and walks back to where he was sitting. Katima on top of the cove, retraces her steps across the cliff, lifts her head and examines the wood, looks toward the soldier and once more at the tower, wondering in a way she hasn’t until that very second how high must she build and how far will it go?

  The house Kart brought Anita and Nick to was owned by Verne Odete. Odete was a chemist, researching uses for hypnotics in surgical procedures, diethylmalonyl urea - or diethylbarbituric acid (C2H5)2C-Co NH/1CO - mixed with sodium ethylate, ethyl iodide, or the silver salt of malonyl urea. Under Teddy, all Verne’s research was shut down, the new government interested only in drugs which brought immediate profit. (“Give us Viagra! Phenodal! Vicadin! Prozac!”) The day Emilo had his feet crushed in the Plaza, Verne offered his house as a safe haven for the NBDF. Kart came to Verne after the soldiers arrested Kara and Angeline, kicked two holes in the drywall off the kitchen, drank half a bottle of cheap mescal and was only prevented from heading back out by the veronal Verne put in his glass.

  On the porch was a blue rubber welcome mat. Tobias unloaded a box of canned goods from the trunk of the car, spoke with Kart then disappeared back outside. In each of the three bedrooms, mattresses were laid out among boxes, books and clothes. Nick carried their duffle upstairs, while Anita remained in the front room. Kart sat on the grey couch, hunched over the low table where a map and several large diagrams were spread out. “This is where we are,” he said, and pointing to three more streets where the NBDF had safe houses, waved his hand and told her, “The rest is open water.”

  Anita asked about her father, about Ali and her grandfather, the information Kart provided not so much more than what Charles Wyle had gathered in Madeira. “Not to worry,” he tapped the pile of diagrams. “We have plans.” When Anita wondered what specifically, Kart flipped to the diagrams’ middle pages which contained detailed schematics for several of the ministries. “These are the end game,” he gave her a moment to understand, then turned the diagrams over and said, “Come on.”

  In the basement Avene Delu and Maria Masombi sat working at a long metal table. The chairs were wood, the light overhead bright. A heater in the corner was used to keep the room dry. Kart introduced Anita to the others. Spread across the table were supplies of gunpowder, fuses and wires, metal and cardboard cylinders, potassium nitrate, charcoal and sulfur, nitro cellulose in a separate box. Avene worked with the wires of what once appeared to be the inside of a clock, attaching tiny transmitters and a square battery to create a timed charge.

  Kart picked up a freshly finished stick of dynamite and pointed for Anita to sit in the chair beside Maria. “If you’re looking to help,” he had Maria show her what to do. Nick came down and stood at the bottom of the stairs. Kart took a toothpick from his pocket, turned it with his tongue, brought it completely inside his mouth and out again. “What about you, boyfriend?” he gestured toward the table. “You ready to get your hands dirty?”

  Nick listened to the others talk. (“What are your plans?” his father had asked.) He heard Maria laugh as she told of Avene’s teaching her how to build a timer. “I kept setting off the alarm and everyone was sure I’d blow up the house.” All their chatter was informal. They seemed quite clearly to be enjoying themselves. Nick felt his shoulders knot. He looked at Anita again, waited until she glanced up at him, smiled and resumed working. He remained standing back at the stairs. Kart saw and slid closer to Anita’s chair.

  CHAPTER 11

  Davi Suntu sat in
buddha pose, on cool grass and briar, his legs folded with knees arched to the sides. His belly perfectly centered, his shirt torn in front, exposed soft brown flesh. An hour before the rally, the soldiers came and removed him from bed. If not for his wrists tied tight and secured behind his back, his position would have seemed serene. The soldiers stood together, some fifteen feet away, a man and boy in faded green uniforms and black boots damp with dew. Each finished a cigarette, their rifles resting against their legs. The old soldier told a joke about a woman and a three-legged German shepherd. The boy kicked at the dirt, embarrassed. Davi looked past them, toward trees in the distance and birds darting curious through branches deep in the woods.

  A third man with a camera stationed himself off to the side, unobtrusive. The older soldier crushed out his cigarette, said something to the younger one. Davi kept his focus elsewhere, on the sun and shadows, how the breeze through the branches made both light and dark dance across the ground. His legs beneath him were nearly numb, he shifted his hips, wobbling with his hands behind him like a wooden toy. On a nearby branch, a white winged moth or perhaps a butterfly landed on a solitary orange leaf. Davi stared. The way of a buddha is to stay present and be love. The younger soldier moved forward. Davi saw this and did his best to smile. There was in the boy’s face such youth and promise. The four noble truths of Buddhism were that life meant suffering; the origin of suffering was attachment; the cessation of suffering was attainable; and the path to the cessation of suffering required sacrifice and personal change. The young soldier measured his distance. Davi offered encouragement, said his first words in more than an hour. “Perhaps closer will make things easier.” He looked at the boy, then over at the white moth inside the orange leaf, shuddering and disappearing in a pearl and ivory flash.