Burridge Unbound

by Alan Cumyn

  She opens the door. She’s wearing a long T-shirt too thin to hide much of the fullness of her body. Those long naked legs. “Listen,” she says. “How are you feeling?’

  “All right,” I say guardedly.

  “No, really,” she says. “You were losing it most of today. You collapsed in the bathroom yesterday. Bad things happen when you get overtired. Maybe you should rest.”

  “I’ll be fine. It feels all right. So far.” I knock on the wood of the doorframe. I don’t know where to look, she’s so beautiful. My life preserver. Here’s my safe thought: Joanne in this T-shirt. Finally I turn to go.

  In the hallway I find three hulking, grim, fit-looking men in island casual-dress loungewear. Their hair is military short, though, and they all wear the same style of pointy, polished brown or black leather shoes. The fourth man is Nito, grubby, small, and out of place beside them. Just for a second I imagine one of these elite guards lunging at me and me coiling forward with the dragon.

  Wordlessly down the elevator then through the lobby. The desk clerk looks on impassively. I can’t actually see any weapons on these men, but they look armed. How do I know? Maybe I’m just hoping they’ll be able to protect me. The five of us crowd into a white van that roars down the deserted avenue. I look back but no one is chasing us. Maybe they always drive this way. The rain has slackened but the streets are slick, the blackness even more profound. My guards smoke soundlessly as we rocket along.

  I know the smell of those cigarettes. It used to mean utter terror. But I’m oddly calm.

  We wheel around to a back entrance of the Pink Palace. I wasn’t sure that Suli would take this as her residence, but perhaps it makes sense: a symbolic seat of power, and it’s nicely guarded by a heavy wall, with room for a battalion of soldiers if it comes to that. In the darkness the pink is barely discernible, but for a moment I think of Minitzh and his faded regime. All those glittering parties, his own Versailles for the lumito. How ironic that their skins have been saved by the widow of an assassinated opposition leader.

  We walk up a back staircase, then along a hallway lined with carved teak panels. The lost art of the Watabi? The artist race wiped out by the British. It was Franja who offered to show Maryse and me his collection. Originally bought with blood. The carvings show scenes of village life revolving around rice cultivation and maintaining a fabled valley of terraced paddies that climb up the mountainsides in gleaming slivers of water. I’ve seen pictures of the terraces and of these carvings, but the effect in the hall is disconcerting, as if I’ve wandered into the valley floor and find myself surrounded by fragile layers of brown water and mud that could easily slide down to swallow me.

  Suli’s office is at the end, on the right. The three elite guards remain subdued, but little Nito, eyes wide, rubbernecks the whole way. They leave me at her imposing, solid-teak, half-opened door. My eyes have a hard time adjusting because of the low light – candles only, perhaps fifteen or twenty spread about the high-ceilinged room. They cast deep shadows on the shelved books, the stacks of files, newspapers, and letters, the large bamboo desk that seems naked without a computer perched on top. She blends in so completely I miss her at first, but there she is bent by a candle at the desk, quietly scratching with a fountain pen, one hand supporting her cheek, her short black hair sharply framing her face. She looks up.

  “Mr. Burridge – Bill, thank you so much for coming,” she says, rising but staying tiny, coming out from behind the desk in her famous blue saftori, her body lean and light and straight. “I’m sorry for all this cloak-and-dagger stuff. Sometimes the day’s schedule gets beyond me, and this is the only way I can meet people. Can I pour you some tea or supira?” Her voice, in person, at this late hour, is lower than I expect, not quite the same as on the phone, satiny somehow, unsettlingly familiar and intimate. She closes the door. No aides, no advisers. This must be the personal style that Suli is becoming known for.

  “Supira would be fine.” I don’t know why I ask for it, except that the situation seems to call for something stronger than tea.

  Clearly she wants to speak, to make this her meeting. But I blurt my piece nervously. “I feel I have to come forward, for the good of this commission,” I say. “I’ve put everything on the line to return here, to contribute. Yet communications within the commission are very poor. The first day no one informed me about the schedule. I had to read it in the newspaper – which was wrong, as it turned out. Now I find there’s no translation service, so I have no idea what anybody’s saying. We agreed I wouldn’t get buried in details, but this is preposterous.” I sputter on the word, deliver it like an actor who doesn’t know what’s coming next. Settle down, I think.

  She’s extraordinarily beautiful. Her cinnamon skin, ageless, her deep brown eyes, the stillness that surrounds her. Her thin shoulders that have borne so much, seem so ready to be embraced.

  “Please, sit down,” she says tranquilly, making me feel I’ve made a poor first impression. I try a low, carved teak double-seater by the window. It’s ornate and undoubtedly expensive, but straight and hard as a prison bench. All the seats are similar. I suppose guests are meant to be impressed, and not stay long.

  Suli walks into the shadows – even, measured, balanced steps – and emerges in a moment with two delicate, bulbous glasses half full of the golden-brown liquid. I take mine but put it down immediately.

  “You must understand what this means to me,” I sputter. “My time is limited. I cannot be days and days sitting in a hearing room understanding almost nothing of what’s going on. That’s a complete–”

  “I have ordered funds for a full translation service to be created,” she says.

  “–farce as far as I’m concerned. I’m sorry to be so blunt but … What did you say?”

  “A full translation service will be created. It will take a few more days, but please understand, you have my complete backing for this commission. We just aren’t quite ready for you yet. You weren’t expected to attend these first few meetings, since they are devoted to administering bureaucratic details. We’re happy that you’ve taken such an interest–”

  “But nobody told me!”

  “I think,” she says, “more from embarrassment than anything else.”

  It takes a moment for this to sink in, and for my own embarrassment to flush through my face and up my scalp.

  “I want to be involved in the details,” I say. “That’s what I’m here for. How are we choosing our witnesses, for example? What’s the scope of our inquiry? What powers of investigation and enforcement are we going to have? Will anybody be bound by our decisions?”

  Suli takes a deep breath, then a sip of her supira, and leans back against her desk. “Again,” she says, “there was going to be a proper briefing on this. We do things more slowly here. But you are quite right to ask. You have to understand, this commission is central to our national mourning. The commission will be our official means of examining the past, finding our way to justice, and of burying our dead. So it must be seen to be fair and thorough, and I do not want anyone to feel they are being excluded. So I have recommended to Justice Sin that you open the doors as wide as possible, in the beginning at least, simply allow anyone who feels the need to register and then testify. There will be a prescreen, of course – officials will take preliminary testimony and schedule the witnesses according to groups: whether they are from the same village, for example, or were affected by one particular atrocity.”

  “Just in the beginning?”

  “You will have to see what the reaction is,” she says. “I suspect there will be somewhat of a national outpouring, that for logistical reasons you may need to limit testimony later on. But for now it’s essential that no one feels excluded.”

  “Some commissions in other countries have been circumscribed as to what they can investigate, how far back they’re allowed to go,” I say.

  “Yes, and again, for logistical reasons, it might be prudent to do that at some point, when f
ocus becomes important. But for now the field is wide open, and you will have the freedom to investigate as you feel fit. You can call your own witnesses and they will be bound by law to testify. You will have what we call trilanto godin, the power to instruct the courts and government. It’s not the power to convict individuals or pass laws, but it can’t be ignored either. It’s a wide mandate, Bill. You can travel, you can investigate, and like all of us you could be shut down any moment by the military. But that would be a coup and all rules would change then anyway.” She smiles wanly. “There are some people, of course, who wish to derail this commission, and me as well. But not to worry. If there is anything you need, just tell me. I can’t be seen to be too close to the process, you understand that. This is not to be Suli’s vendetta against the murderer of her husband. But I am vitally interested. You must accept our apologies for not being better prepared. We are in many ways a backward country. I beg your patience.”

  She draws a chair from out of the gloom and sits near me. I think of liir, but she’s so gentle with it, just the slightest trace of irony.

  “I haven’t answered everything,” she says, “but perhaps that will help for now. What I should have said right away is thank you so much for changing your mind and agreeing to sit on the Truth Commission after all. I am overwhelmed by your dedication and courage. How are you feeling now? Are your accommodations up to standard?”

  “They’re fine. Luxurious. More than I expected.”

  “Good! Well, I’m glad about that!” she says. She looks at me too long, not at all overwhelmed.

  “I’m feeling well,” I say. “I was anxious about my return but I seem to be handling it. I’ve brought my personal assistant, Joanne Stoddart, to look after me.”

  “Yes, I know. Good!”

  Cautiously I sip the supira – one small taste races sharply across my tongue. I swallow, manage to avoid coughing. I should have more questions but my mind is suddenly in neutral. I’ve been raging about, when if I’d only stayed patient … The lull in the conversation stretches into my own discomfort. “Do you always work this late?” I finally ask inanely.

  “Usually,” she says, folding her legs up in the large chair in a feline motion. The movement is familiar, unofficial. “I never learned to sleep very well after Jono was killed. You know I was there when it happened. I turned to look at a red banner. Teriala kojinda Minizhi lundafilo. ‘The Minitzh airport wishes safe journeys.’ When I looked back Jono was on the floor beside me. Half his face was ripped away. There was blood on my stockings and bits of his teeth hung onto threads of skin. It was utterly silent. I didn’t hear a thing. But there was my husband and there was the banner: Teriala kojinda Minizhi lundafilo.”

  Her voice so quiet, flickering slightly as if with the candlelight. A strange and sudden intimacy. She has opened up completely, without any apparent hesitation, in a way that seems natural and effortless and stunningly human.

  “This happened in 1983?” I ask, trying the supira again. Much smoother this time.

  “April seventeenth,” she says. “I shouldn’t be functioning, I know. I should be in the asylum.” Her tired smile again, but sly as well, as if this is a private joke, meant mostly for herself. “I pray, I meditate, I sing, I rest. But sleep was no longer the safe place so I let it go. Maybe someday it will be all right again.”

  “Yes.”

  Maybe someday, but this is now and time has turned liquid, stretched itself and slowed with the quiet of the hour. She tells me about reading my book in a small country library in Kent, with a cold rain outside and tears washing down her face. “It was as if every bit of rage and sadness in my body was stored in those pages and written directly for me. I read by the window from ten in the morning until almost ten at night. The whole day I didn’t move except to turn the pages. I felt your captivity. I sat so still the staff forgot I was there and closed the building behind me. When I stood finally it was as though years had passed. I’d practised fasting before and been still through meditation, but this was different. It was being caught in someone else’s torment that bore the scent of my own. I thought about contacting you. Finally it boiled down to just one main thing. After reading your book I realized how thankful I could be that Jono’s death was so quick. He couldn’t have been in pain long, if at all. It’s not such a bad way to go. The Intelligence Service could have put him through agony.”

  She holds my gaze for too long, but it’s not uncomfortable. She connects with people, I think. This is where her genius lies. She’s the president of her country and yet she wins you through her vulnerability and willingness to open up, makes you feel like you could ask her anything and it would be all right.

  “Is that who killed Jono? The IS?”

  “Nothing is certain,” she says. “Maybe that’s something you’ll find out. There was never an inquiry, of course. I believe the man who pulled the trigger is either a wealthy landlord in the back country by now or else doslin terda.”

  “Doslin terda?”

  “Literally, ‘feeding maggots.’ ”

  A pause stretches into the shadows of the room.

  “You said there are people who want to derail this commission. Do you know who? What do I need to do?”

  “Nothing is certain,” she says again. “But it is possible that Barios is still in the country, and he has a lot of support among Minitzh’s old guard. Have you heard of Barios?”

  “The former vice-president?”

  “Yes. He should have stepped in when Minitzh was killed but disappeared instead. He has been seen in some of the villages. A large man, fat as a cow, it’s hard to mistake him. What we’ve learned – and nothing is confirmed – but it’s possible he has joined with some of the Kartouf groups. He also has extensive contacts with the djotkas.”

  “The drug lords?”

  “They have enormous money and grew very comfortable while Minitzh protected them.”

  “But why would the Kartouf join with Barios? They were mortal enemies.”

  “And sometimes the lion lies down with the lamb.” She pauses, looks briefly at her hands, then fully meets my gaze again. “There are things that you need to know. Many factions of the Kartouf are no more than armed thugs happy to work for the djotkas anyway. Whatever it takes to get rich. Only certain portions of the Kartouf want anything to do with helping peasants or overthrowing corrupt governments. Once you look closely at the pattern of villages destroyed by Minitzh you’ll see that it looks much more like a Kartouf turf war than any crackdown on an opposition group.”

  It takes time for the words to sink in. My mind feels webbed by her soft voice, the supira, the late hour.

  “There are army members who actively support certain Kartouf groups,” she says. “The few groups that wanted Minitzh out were never very powerful. Most of them desired a share of the drug profits. That’s what it was about. That’s what you fell into. And that’s what I now have to deal with.”

  She seems so candid, yet from her tone and the look in her eyes I suddenly feel that she’s keeping back important things. Things I didn’t want to know, and yet now that I’m here I must ask. If I didn’t it would be like coming to the edge of the water then turning back.

  “Do you know who kidnapped me?” I saw my keeper, Josef, and the others shot by the army helicopter during the rescue, but it was never clear exactly who was behind it all and what they wanted, or why they held me so long.

  “Nothing is certain,” she says.

  “No. But what do you know?”

  “I don’t know anything,” she says. “That’s what you’re here for, to find out as much as you can, as certainly as you can.”

  “But you’ve heard things.”

  “We’ve all heard things, Mr. Burridge.”

  The formality of the name seems to bring things near an end. Suddenly I feel the exhaustion of the day. She knows, but she won’t tell me. She’s been playing me, winning me over without giving anything away. But then just as I’m thinking this she
confides something else.

  “You must be careful of Justice Sin,” Suli says.

  “Why?”

  “He was close to Minitzh. I fought to keep him out of this, but I’m balancing between Tinto and Mende Kul and both insisted on him. He’ll try to protect his cronies, so I’m hoping you’ll be able to work with Mrs. Grakala. She has a strong record working behind the scenes for issues of social justice. I fought hard for her. And for you too.”

  I’m surprised, and pause before speaking. “Mrs. Grakala has been very reserved so far,” I say.

  “Appearances deceive.” She leans in to press her point. She’s playing me. The Angel of Kalindas Boulevard. She uses everything – her beauty, vulnerability, soft words, the steel hidden behind them. “Mrs. Grakala has a strong record. And Justice Sin can surprise us all. He is his own man, or I would never have finally agreed. And if I don’t agree, no one gets on the commission.”

  Then it’s as if a switch has flicked. Clearly the meeting is over. She rises and moves across the room to her desk. I find myself standing, not sure what to do with the remaining supira. It’s already weighing heavily in my head. I put my glass down on a side table and start to thank her for seeing me. She looks up from something at her desk as if surprised I’m still here.

  “Justice Sin will contact you when the translation service is available. You’ll have to watch him closely. But Mrs. Grakala will be your ally, I’m sure. And you will make a difference.”

  Suli and I say our goodbyes, then I walk down the hall, surrounded by my guards again. Outside it’s still night, although it feels as if many hours should have passed. The air is filled with mist, and a drowsiness enters me. We ride back in silence and I nod my head with fatigue, too tired to look out the window, too strained to really sleep.

  17

  Back at the commission meeting room in the Justico kampi, two days later, and the translation service is up and running. It comes through the headphones in the form of an unemotional female voice, in competent English, only slightly hurried, with most of the island singsong taken out of her accent. The room feels overflowing with staff, but there are no reporters allowed, only limited seating for the public. Most of the men in the room are smoking; the pall hangs over us as a visible, choking reminder of the gloom that enveloped this country for so many years.