Burridge Unbound

by Alan Cumyn

  Our first witness is a villager with only one name, Tangul, who survived the Lorumptindu massacre of three years ago. He sits in the middle of the room surrounded by the rectangle of our tables, telling his story. His hair is grey and dishevelled, his clothes ratty, still bearing mud from the fields.

  “And when we came to the checkpoint at Lorumptindu,” the voice in my headphones says, “soldiers boarded the bus. They had guns and ordered us all out of the bus, and separated the men and the women. We were the men, we were on one side and we could hear the soldiers yelling and saying abusive things to the women but we couldn’t see because the bus was in the way. They made us cross over the ditch and then walk into the jungle, it wasn’t very far, there was a clearing where some men had been digging. I asked where they were taking us and one of the soldiers took his waloo rod and slashed it across my ankle. I fell in the mud and then he hit me three or four more times and told me to get up or he was going to shoot me right there. I got up and limped a bit further and then they gave us all spades and said we had to clear the land by digging a large hole. Someone asked why should we clear this land and the soldier said it was a special peasant tax, this was our labour. But we knew there was no peasant tax, they just wanted us to dig our own graves and then they were going to shoot us.”

  Tangul pauses to elaborately sip from a mug of tea, his hands shaking badly. Sin Vello asks him to continue.

  “We could hear also some wailing and commotion from the other side of the road by the bus. There were no shots yet but it seemed clear that soldiers were raping the women. I considered then that I was a dead man and I thought, do I want to dig my own grave first and let these jiroptas rape our women or do I want to bring some soldiers with me while I die? For others, I could see they were afraid and wanted to hope that really we were just clearing land and the commotion from the other side of the bus was not soldiers raping our women. I whispered to one or two of the others we must die like men and then there were shots. I didn’t know what was happening. I thought they’d started killing the women, and so I turned and swung my spade at the nearest soldier. He saw me coming and pointed his gun, but he was very young, perhaps only fifteen, and scared by the shots, he froze and my spade caught him on the side of the head. As he fell I grabbed for his weapon. I don’t know how I thought what to do. I’m a farmer, not a fighter. But now shots were coming from everywhere and I ran as fast as I could into the jungle. I believed any moment I would get hit, but I guess no one followed me in the confusion.”

  “How long did you spend in the jungle?” Sin Vello asks.

  “Two nights. I climbed a rinko tree and waited in the leaves. I had the soldier’s gun ready in case anyone came for me and I slept only in small … only in little bits.”

  “What happened when you got down?” Mrs. Grakala asks. Her voice in Kuantij above the headphones is broken and faint.

  “I started to feel weak from hunger and thirst, and there had been no sounds, so I got down from the tree and walked carefully back to the bus.”

  “What did you see?” Sin Vello asks.

  “Where we had started digging the grave there were many bodies. They smelled like dead animals and were covered in insects and maggots. They were only partly in the ground.”

  “Were they your companions on the bus?” Sin Vello again. He clearly wants to play the lead. Tangul turns in his chair to speak directly to him.

  “Some of them were, and some were the soldiers who had ordered us off the bus.”

  “What about the boy you hit with the spade?”

  “His body was there. It was right where I had hit him.”

  “Was anyone alive?”

  “No.”

  “Was the bus still there?”

  “No.”

  “Did you look on the other side of the road where the women were taken?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “When I first saw and smelled the bodies of the men I fainted.”

  “And that’s how the soldiers found you?”

  “Yes.”

  “They thought you were dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened when you woke up?”

  Tangul looks away, rummages in his pockets and pulls out a stained blue cloth, wipes his sweat-soaked face, then sips his tea again.

  “The soldiers were sprinkling lye and gasoline on my body. I was on top of several other bodies and they were going to burn all of us. I cried out and tried to get up. The soldiers were so afraid one of them shot at me but missed. Some others ran away. They thought I was a huloika come back to revenge them. But the commander told them to help me out. They washed off the lye and gasoline.”

  “I’m sorry!” I say, waving my hand to Sin. “What’s a huloika?”

  Sin puts on his headphones, whispers something to an aide, writes on a piece of paper. Tangul looks at me in real fear – imagining I’ve asked something serious, no doubt. Finally the translator’s voice comes through in my ear: “A huloika is a spirit. A ghost.”

  I nod my thanks, wave okay to Justice Sin and Tangul.

  “Where did they take you?” Sin asks.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You were unfamiliar with the area?”

  “I was blindfolded.”

  “Was it a military base?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But the men who interrogated you were soldiers?”

  “They wore black. I didn’t recognize them.”

  “Where were you kept?”

  “It was a small room. Very cold at night but hot in the day.”

  “Were there windows?”

  “No.”

  “Was there a cot? A toilet?”

  “No.”

  “Did they keep you blindfolded?”

  “Most of the time.”

  “What did they ask you?”

  “Who killed the soldiers. What happened to the bus. How I survived. Whether I was part of the Kartouf. They thought I’d told the Kartouf where the soldiers would be. I said how could I know where the soldiers would be? I didn’t know I was going to be pulled off the bus. They said I was lying and …”

  “Yes?”

  “And beat me.”

  “How did they beat you?”

  “With waloos, with their hands and feet. There was also …”

  “Also what?”

  “A black box. They attached me and gave me electric shocks.”

  “Were you naked?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did they sexually molest you?”

  Silence.

  “What else did they do?”

  Silence.

  “Do you want to take a break?”

  Silence.

  Silence.

  Tangul stares at the floor, his eyes swollen with tears. Sin Vello asks him several more questions, but he has stopped responding. Finally a dignified elderly woman in a red and blue saftori – his wife? – walks slowly to his chair and touches his shoulder, brings him out of his trance. He lights a cigarette distractedly. Together they walk out, his eyes on the floor, hers ratcheted on Justice Sin’s.

  They take the air with them – swoosh! – and suddenly I’m gripping the table, trying to breathe. It’s as quick as that: while the words were coming out I was fine, but his halting, agonized gait has taken all the air. I know about the black box. I know about being raped. I gasp, feel the choke-rope at my throat, God. There’s something I can do, I think, but the darkness is coming, it’s too late, they’ll get her if I think of her, I can’t, I won’t, it wouldn’t work …

  “Bill!” Joanne says, puts her warm hand on my shoulder. “Breathe!” she says in my ear. And then there’s just a glimpse – Joanne in the doorframe that night. She turns into Joanne in the rain, soaked and laughing. I’m dizzy, but in a minute I feel the spell passing, a lucky near-collision. Hundreds of eyes are on me but it could be worse. The table is still there, the air isn’t oily black, the footsteps and the cigarettes bel
ong to now, not then.

  “It’s all right. It’s fine!” I say. Sin Vello calls a break anyway and Joanne walks me to the grand lobby and fresher air. A large crowd has begun to assemble on the lawn of the Justico kampi. Not locals but people from the villages, arriving with bags and sacks of belongings, with food and umbrellas against the rains that will come later in the day. Come to testify.

  “That could have been horrendous,” I say to Joanne.

  “Did you use your safe thought?” she asks.

  “I did. Eventually. Yes, I think it helped. You helped.”

  “The next time will be easier,” she says.

  Three different officials, including Sin Vello, inquire about me, but I assure them I’m fine, I want the hearings to continue.

  When we are reassembled a young, quite fair-skinned man in a blue suit is ushered in. Again Sin Vello takes the lead in the questioning, and asks him to state his name and occupation.

  “My name is Dorut Kul, I work as a reporter for the Islander newspaper.”

  “When was the first time you heard of Lorumptindu?”

  “It was in March 1995.”

  “How did you hear of it?”

  “I was told by some contacts that something had gone very wrong at the checkpoint.”

  “What contacts?”

  “I cannot say.”

  “You cannot say or you will not say?” Sin Vello presses.

  Silence. Dorut Kul looks at the chief justice with an odd mixture of defiance and equanimity.

  “Mr. Kul, if we are to weigh your evidence we must be able to evaluate the source.”

  “And Justice Sin, I must be able to close my eyes at night.”

  “So you will not co-operate with this commission?”

  “I will tell you what I saw, not what I heard or from whom.”

  The thin young man and the corpulent chief justice staring one another down.

  “Then tell us what you saw.”

  “I went to the area called Lorumptindu. My photographer was with me. We had not received military clearance.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if I waited for military clearance I would never make it out of my office.”

  “So you proceeded illegally to Lorumptindu?”

  “I went with my photographer, Davu. I did not expect to be let in, but the soldiers were in a state of panic. There was confusion, no one stopped us. We drove right to the site.”

  “In a military Jeep?”

  “Yes, I had access through a contact.”

  “Whose name you cannot reveal.”

  “I see no need to endanger him, Justice Sin. I have seen too many bodies already.”

  I watch Sin Vello closely. There seems to be a history between these two – Sin is much more antagonistic towards him than towards Tangul. Perhaps Dorut Kul wrote about the chief justice at some point? The reporter does not seem overly awed or out of his league, but remains composed, focused.

  “Were you wearing military uniforms?”

  “Not regulation, Justice Sin.”

  “Where did you get them?”

  “My friend had extras in the theatre where he works.”

  “So you impersonated members of the armed forces?”

  “They were not regulation uniforms. We bore no insignia.”

  “And nobody stopped you?”

  “There was great confusion. We drove straight to Lorumptindu and found about twenty soldiers carrying limbs and pieces of bodies, digging in the ground, preparing to burn them. Davu started taking pictures immediately and no one stopped him.”

  “They thought he was a military photographer?”

  “No one stopped him. I took out my notebook and asked a soldier what had happened.”

  “And the soldier talked to you?”

  “He said there had been an ambush on the checkpoint by the Kartouf, that thirty-one people had been killed, mostly civilians from the bus.”

  “Was the bus still there?”

  “It was blocking the road. Yes.”

  “We heard testimony earlier that the bus was gone. How do you account for that?”

  “Davu took pictures of the bus. There were bullet holes in the side.”

  “Did you ask how the people got off the bus?”

  “The soldier said the Kartouf had stopped the bus and taken the people off, that the soldiers from the checkpoint had been shot right away. He said the Kartouf executed all those people.”

  “Were there any Kartouf bodies?”

  “I couldn’t tell.”

  “In the article you wrote on this incident you said that the soldiers seemed to be proficient at disposing of bodies. How did you come to that conclusion?”

  “It was just an observation.”

  “An observation based on what?”

  “I was surprised that the soldiers were burning the bodies, making no attempt to get in touch with the relatives of the dead. It also seemed to me that they were working very efficiently.”

  “But you said earlier that they were in a panic, that there was confusion?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it efficient confusion?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “In the middle of the confusion they seemed to be working efficiently, as if they’d had a great deal of practice already at this sort of thing.”

  “At disposing of bodies?”

  “Yes.”

  Sin Vello pauses to write some notes, and I take the opportunity to speak up. I can see myself relegated to window dressing if I don’t.

  “What happened to the females?” I ask. Dorut Kul turns to me and answers in perfect English, while around our rectangle of tables people scramble to pull on their headphones.

  “Davu and I noticed across the road that part of the ground had been dug up recently. So we scraped with our boots and found bits of bodies and clothing, some only a few centimetres under the dirt.”

  “Female bodies and clothing?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “There were brighter colours. There were some … other parts.”

  Sin Vello interjects. “You are very composed giving this testimony, young man.”

  “I’m trying my best, Justice Sin.”

  “You have written a book, is that right, Mr. Kul?” Sin continues.

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of book is it?”

  “A novel.”

  “Fiction?”

  “Yes, Justice Sin.”

  “Stories you simply dreamed up, fabricated, is that right?”

  “I suppose …”

  “But this story you have told us about Lorumptindu, this is not a fabrication, is it, Mr. Kul?”

  “No.”

  “What happened the day you filed your story?”

  “Several agents came to my office after I gave the story to my editor.”

  “Who is your editor?”

  “It is – was Kali Jukmahindza.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “I do not know.”

  “He disappeared?”

  “His wife says he was taken from their home at two o’clock in the morning by special agents. She has not seen or heard from him since.”

  “This was the day after you filed your story?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened to your photographer?”

  “They found Davu’s body on the beach in the harbour two weeks later. His hands and feet were bound in barbed wire and his eye sockets had been burned black.”

  “You don’t know who did this?”

  “There was no investigation.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “The agents took me from my office and shoved me in the back of a white van. It’s the kind of van everyone knows is used by the IS. They pushed my head to the floor and pulled black tape over my eyes.”

  “So you don’t know where they took you?”

/>   “It was a secret detention centre.”

  “Were there others there?”

  “I could hear screaming sometimes.”

  “Describe the room where they held you.”

  “It was small, dark, entirely concrete. There was no furniture, nothing to sit or lie on, no windows. It got very hot during the day and cold at night. It’s the only way I could tell the difference.”

  “How long were you held?”

  “I think only three days.”

  “Were you tortured?”

  “No.”

  “Not tortured?”

  “I was mistreated, but I can’t call it torture. They interrogated me but I was never hit, burned, or the like. I was scared witless, but not tortured.”

  “Do you know why you were released?”

  “I think so. Because of my family connections. Someone must have gotten word through and the agents thought twice before harming me.”

  “For the record – your family connections?”

  “My great-uncle is Mende Kul, the chief of the armed forces.”

  “Do you get along well with Mende Kul?”

  “No.”

  “But you think he stepped in on your behalf?”

  “I think the agents were afraid to harm me.”

  “Did you ever publish an account of your treatment?”

  “In the U.K., yes, and in Germany.”

  “But not in Santa Irene?”

  “No.”

  “Not in Kuantij?”

  “No.”

  We break for a short lunch, then listen to testimony through the afternoon and into the early evening. Back at the hotel room we order in and read over the morning’s testimony, which has been translated and word-processed already. It comes in faint blue dot-matrix type, complete with pauses, strange spellings, and bracketed inaudible patches. I take my meds and read through the flurry of e-mails that Derrick has sent on – other business, which somehow now seems remote and unimportant. Except for one item: the initial ten thousand dollars that the government of Santa Irene was supposed to deposit in our bank account at the beginning of my contract has not yet arrived. Could I check on that and get it expedited?