My Friend Matt and Hena The Whore

by Adam Zameenzad

  There is a bright shaft of light coming in from the hole in the roof.

  It is making one part of the cave, where I was lying when Matt found me, very bright. The rest of the cave looks strangely dark.

  Once our eyes get used to it, we try to see what we can see.

  It is hard to look at the bodies. It is hard to look away from the bodies.

  Bodies with arms. Bodies without arms. Bodies with legs. Bodies without legs. Bodies with heads. Bodies without heads. Bodies with burns all over. Bodies without burns all over. Bodies with holes in them. Bodies without holes in them. Bodies with their insides out. Bodies with their outsides in. Bodies without flesh. Bodies without bones.

  We manage to force ourselves to look at the walls of the cave in the hope of finding a way out.

  Leastwise Matt and I do.

  Golam just stares ahead of him. I don’t think he’s seeing. I think he’s just staring.

  There are old tree-roots sticking out here and there; there are sharp or blunt edges of rocks everywhere; there are even a few cracks and holes about.

  We can haul ourselves up by any or all of these.

  We try.

  It is cold and damp. Our hands are either too stiff to hold on to anything firmly, or they just slip off on account of sweat.

  I wonder why we’re sweating when we’re so cold.

  We’ve to keep pushing Golam ahead of us, and tell him to do this or not to do that. It don’t seem like he’s listening, but he must be for he does do what we tell him – even if we have to tell him it more than once.

  We go up from here, and fall down.

  We claw our way up from there, and come crashing down.

  We end up more bloodied than we started.

  We don’t give up.

  But we don’t get anywhere either.

  Matt is the only one who seems to clamber up, but he won’t go without us.

  I say maybe he should get out on his own, if he can; and then maybe try to get help for us. But he don’t want to take the chance on account there may not be no one outside – except maybe BASTOs, and we know the help we’ll get from them.

  I am glad he don’t leave us, though I suppose he should go, if he can.

  We sit down for a rest, taking care not to put our asses on any faces, or balls and thingies. Not that there is much left of people’s faces or balls and thingies. But we’re still careful.

  Another thing to avoid sitting on is sharp bones. There are plenty of these about.

  While we’re deciding where to sit, Matt has an idea.

  Some of the bodies are naked. Some are not.

  If we take the robes off of the not naked ones, and tie them together, we’ll make a sort of rope. Matt can then clamber up and lower this rope down for us to pull ourselves up.

  We try this.

  Unfortunately most of the robes are too tattered or mouldy to be of any use.

  Then we think of jeans. They are made of a tougher material, and it looks like some of the new dead ones have quite strong ones on.

  It is not easy to pull them off. They are sticking to the bodies – either because of the cold and the damp, or dried blood.

  After a great deal of search and struggle we get a few good strong ones.

  When I say we, I mean Matt and me, Golam just stands and stares.

  With jeans it is easy as we can use one of the legs to tie a knot, while the other leg hangs to form the rope.

  When we’ve got a long enough stretch we put the plan into action.

  Matt ties one end of a leg round his waist with a belt we found round someone’s neck.

  He begins to climb up.

  It’s not easy and many times he slithers down, but he carries on.

  When he gets to a little ledge on which he can sit he ties the rope round a jutting bit of rock and tells Golam to come up.

  To my surprise Golam listens to him the first time and starts up.

  I shut my eyes for I can’t bear to look.

  It seems years after when I hear Matt shout, ‘Now you, Kimo.’

  I look up. Golam is sitting next to Matt on the ledge.

  It is my turn.

  I’m so nervous I keep slipping down each time I’m anywhere near the ledge.

  I am close to crying.

  Matt tells me to stop a while, shut my eyes, and breathe slowly and deep.

  I try that.

  I then try climbing up.

  I make it this time.

  The ledge is bigger than it looked from below. We all rest on it for some time.

  Makes a change from sitting on dead bodies.

  Matt starts off again.

  He hasn’t gone too far up when he gives a shout of happiness.

  There is a crack up in the wall. Like the ledge it is much bigger close up than we thought it would be.

  Matt shouts to us and says if he can squeeze through it we may not have to haul ourselves all the way up to the top.

  But first he has to see what lies outside the crack. If there’s nothing but a long drop it’s of no use. If there’s another rock or a ledge nearby, we’ll be free.

  He leans out of the crack and looks.

  There is a ledge running on the outside leading to some flat rocks leading to the main hills. There are even some trees and bushes to cling to or hide in, if necessary.

  I’m afraid once again I don’t remember much what happened after that.

  I think we dropped off to sleep, somewhere among the bushes, half way between the cave of the dead and the main hills.

  When we wake up next it is another night.

  We go back to sleep.

  When we wake up next we don’t want to wake up.

  Leastwise I don’t. Nor does Golam.

  We just want to lie down and go back to sleep again.

  I don’t so much as want to move the little finger of my right hand.

  I’m sure Golam feels the same.

  But Matt won’t let us rest.

  ‘Rest?’ he says. ‘You’ve done nothing but rest much too long as it is.’

  He pushes us and pulls us and shouts at us till we are fully awake.

  He says he’s found a place where there’s some water, and we should wash ourselves.

  He’s also collected some roots and leaves, and even some sort of fruit, which he says we must eat.

  We don’t feel like opening our mouths, much less swallow; but Matt forces us to.

  We’re feeling much better.

  Tired, but better.

  Golam is still not saying a word, though even he’s looking a little less wild.

  Matt has given up trying to make him talk. He just holds his hand every now and then, and puts his arms round him and gives him a hug.

  We keep on walking for many a day. Or rather night, as we sleep during the day.

  At last we’re out of the hills, and out of the BASTO area.

  Leastwise that’s what we hope.

  It’ll be even more dangerous for us if they are here as now we are in the sandy plains we’ve nowhere to hide.

  Our only cover is darkness.

  Our supply of food and water is no longer sure.

  Water specially, as there are still some roots and bushes we can eat.

  We gather leaves of thick juicy desert cactus-like plant which hoards some water in it and hope for the best.

  There is not much else we can do.

  It is just another night.

  We started walking not long after sunset, rested for some time around midnight, and are now on the march again.

  The thought of our village and families keeps Matt and me going.

  Matt and me keep Golam going.

  Suddenly we find the sandy even land under our feet become a bit lumpy, hard and roundish.

  We look down.

  In the dark before dawn we can just about make out logs of tree trunks under our feet.

  We’re a bit surprised to see logs in the plains, but then we’re still quite close to the hi
lls so we think someone’s been cutting timber and storing it away till the river is full again and it can be floated off.

  As we walk on we see logs everywhere. All around us and as far as the eye can see.

  They are hard and shaky to walk on. We try to look for some open space but can’t find any.

  So we just grit our teeth and walk on, on account we don’t want to turn back.

  Soon the dawn light begins to filter through the desert haze.

  Just then I nearly fall over as a log moves beneath my feet.

  I hear a sort of a moan, like a wind through the trees.

  We look around. There are no trees, except dead ones.

  Nor is there any wind.

  But there is a moaning sound.

  It seems to increase and starts to come at us from all different angles.

  Gradually it develops a broken rhythm of its own.

  Above the weird sounds rises a piercing scream.

  A hollow scream.

  A scream of pain.

  A scream of such pain that even the dead trees come to life and move restlessly.

  The scream rises again.

  It is Golam.

  His face is all twisted up.

  ‘I see them,’ he cries, ‘I see them, I see them.’

  ‘See who?’ I say, happy that he speaks but worried at the way he speaks.

  ‘Spirits,’ screams Golam, ‘I see Spirits. The Spirits of Shit.’

  As his words cut through the air some of the moving trees sit up.

  They are not trees after all, but bodies.

  We’ve been walking on bodies again. Only this time on dying bodies rather than dead ones.

  Matt says, ‘It would have been good if they had followed.’

  Golam starts to run.

  As he runs his body bends forward sharply: his arms bend sharply at the elbows, his legs bend sharply at the knees; his stickly bum sticks out sharply.

  He looks utterly ridiculous.

  He screams as he runs.

  He runs and screams, screams and runs, runs and screams; running and screaming all over bodies; bodies of men and women and children, bodies dead living and dying.

  We run after Golam.

  We are all running. Golam screaming, I shouting, Matt saying, ‘Oh God, my God, why have you left us and gone away?’

  It’s like the camp at Gonta, but nothing like the camp at Gonta.

  It stretches all round the belt of the world, over and over and over again.

  Everywhere are ugly twisted bodies making fun of human beings.

  Golam keeps running and screaming.

  I keep running and shouting.

  Matt is running and weeping.

  We make so much racket that some real people come out of nowhere to see what’s going on.

  They are somewhere in the distance, in the centre of the rotting wounds of the self cut world.

  The real people come towards us, picking their way delicately between the bodies.

  Part V

  MY FRIEND MATT

  (a beginning of another sort)

  One

  An Old Friend and Some New Plans

  We all get taken quite ill after we’re found by the people who look after the refugee camp.

  They clean and bandage our wounds and burns, give us some medicine for our fever, and make us rest.

  They also give us some porridge and milk.

  It seems they have ‘limited supplies’, and if we don’t ‘respond’ pretty soon, they’ll just let us ‘live out our time’. They can’t ‘afford’ to do more than that, even for ‘special cases’ and ‘excellent examples’.

  We’re not sure what it all means, but we sure are grateful to them. They make lots of pictures of us, especially of our cut and burnt parts.

  They also ‘record’ a talk along with the pictures, which ends ‘…by the time you see these pictures, these children will almost certainly have died…’

  They are quite upset when they find out we understand English, but Matt tells them not to worry. If we have to die, then we have to die.

  That’s what Grandma Toughtits always said.

  We’ve been lying around for a week or so, sometimes knowing what’s going on around us, sometimes not knowing what’s going on around us.

  They seem to have given up hope on us. Leastwise on Golam and me.

  They are puzzled about Matt. One minute he looks the weakest, one minute he looks the strongest.

  I’m whirling and swirling downwards when I feel this cool gentle hand on my forehead.

  I recognize it at once.

  When I say I recognize it, I don’t mean I recognize whose hand it is. I mean I recognize it is a hand I know, even if I don’t exactly know who it is who has this hand.

  But I do know it is a good hand. The hand of a friend.

  Suddenly I feel better.

  But I’m still not sure who it is.

  I hear Matt’s voice. ‘Hello, Alberto.’

  Even then it takes me a while to figure out who Alberto is.

  Of course now that I know it seems unbelievable that I didn’t know at once who Alberto is, but when I didn’t know it didn’t seem unbelievable that I didn’t know.

  Anyway that don’t matter.

  What matters is we are truly happy to see Alberto.

  We soon start feeling all right too.

  Everyone is surprised.

  Golam is still not himself, though.

  His fever is gone and his wounds are better, but he is still not himself.

  Alberto asks how we happen to be here, and in such a state.

  We tell him.

  We ask him if he knows if the BASTOs have found out where the RAFFs’ hide-out is.

  We truly don’t remember what we told the BASTOs when they were making us talk about it.

  He says he don’t know anything about that, but he does know that there is something big going on among the soldiers.

  There are many rumours going about, and they can’t all be wrong.

  He says he’s visiting different camps, big and small, and will soon be going to Gonta. He says he’ll take us there with him, and if we’re willing to wait here for a couple of days he’ll drop us at our village before going onto the next camp.

  We’re full of joy to hear this.

  Matt asks him if he knows anything about Tom and his miserable wife.

  Alberto says they are in Pasadena, California, USA.

  I am truly shocked to hear this.

  Matt is not.

  He says he always knew that.

  Smart-ass.

  The next day Alberto goes to visit the sick and hungry to see if he can help in any way. He takes Matt with him.

  Alberto comes back alone.

  We don’t see Matt again even though we look for him everywhere, tripping over bodies and slipping over shit.

  Many days go like this for it is a big camp with more people in it than I’ve ever seen in my whole life; and Alberto wants to spend as much time with them as he can. He is pleased that more of the sick are getting better than he had hoped.

  When the time comes for us to leave, Matt comes back and says, ‘The time has come for us to leave.’

  He says this with tears in his eyes and a strange look on his face the like of which I’ve never seen before and which I’ve never forgotten since.

  We sit down and have our last meal together.

  While scooping my last bit of porridge I ask Matt how he knew it was time for us to leave.

  He says, ‘I know what I know.’

  I look at him, then I look at Golam and his face with the lost smile and his once dancing hair which now lies more on where he rests his head than on his head; and I ask Matt if he’s such a smart-ass how come he don’t know how to help Golam.

  Matt says, ‘I am not the sun, but the Earth. I shine only when it shines. I have no light of my own. I can’t make it bright just because I want to, no matter how much I want to. He has to want it too.
He has to want it first.’

  I can see it’s not easy for him to say this.

  Alberto is quite taken aback at Matt’s words and calls on Mother Mary to help us all.

  Then he says to Matt, ‘Make of it what you will. You are older and wiser than I am. I only shine when it shines.’

  All the while Golam stares straight ahead, eating only a little, not seeing what he’s eating.

  Two

  Hena Rules

  We say our thank yous to all for their food, medicine and robes, and walk out of the camp with Alberto.

  We haven’t gone far when Golam suddenly turns into a tree and refuses to walk any more.

  His feet are rigid, his eyes are fixed; his body is shaking like a rattlesnake’s tail.

  We follow his gaze.

  There is a khaki jeep standing there.

  We know that if Alberto is planning to take us in that we’ll never be able to get Golam into it.

  Golam thinks it’s the BASTOs.

  Luckily the jeep belongs to the camp.

  Alberto says he likes to travel in a van on account he has to carry sick people in it sometimes. Also, he says, Golam is not the only one with a horror of BASTOs and their jeeps. So he avoids all jeeps.

  So into the van we get and on to Gonta we go.

  All along the way we see lines of people dragging their feet, their children and their few belongings in search of food and water.

  We keep driving off and on for more than a day and a night.

  At last we are within sight of Gonta.

  What we see makes us come to a sudden stop.

  The road is blocked by many jeeps and a number of soldiers are standing around checking everyone going in or out.

  It is lucky that Golam is in the back of the van with the sunblinds drawn to stop his fever coming back. So he doesn’t see the soldiers. To tell the truth Matt and me are scared stiff too, but we can handle it.

  Leastwise I hope we can.

  Alberto don’t want to take the chance. He quickly makes both of us get into the back as well. Then he carries on. He thinks it will be worse if we turn back now and they decide to follow us.

  Soon we are stopped by the soldiers.

  My own heart is going ding-dong, but I’m more worried about Golam. For his sake as well as our own. If he starts screaming we may get into more trouble than otherwise.

  Matt puts his arms around him and holds him down.