I place the fish on the ground, take his hand and wrap his fingers round the knife handle. He grips it tightly but makes no move to take the fish. I notice his knuckles grow whiter. I step away from him. I am not afraid. Though he is bigger than I am, he is slow and weak and as a former soldier I am used to hand-to-hand combat. I am in fact intrigued to see what he will do. But he makes no effort to get up and after a minute loosens his grip. The knife slips to the floor. As he drops it the blade slices one of his fingers. A drop of blood falls onto the fish.
‘Hold it up,’ I say. ‘It will stop soon enough.’ He obeys. As I sit in the entrance to the cave gutting the fish I am aware he does not lower it.
He looks as if he is frozen mid-sentence emphasising a point. I smile to myself.
Tora’s mother was sixty-eight when she died. It is a good age. She kept working until the end, maintaining a small garden adjacent to the city walls. One day she did not get out of bed. When Tora found her later that evening she was barely able to move or talk. It was a death sentence. Her garden was taken over, she said her goodbyes and Tora moved on. There was little time to grieve.
I knew her mother quite well. I assigned her the garden, which she loved. It was a tiny patch but was managed efficiently and everyone had to do something. She grew potatoes, squash and had a small orange tree. She would sit out of the sun under the tree at the end of the day talking to her neighbours, her fellow gardeners. I would pass by on occasion and exchange pleasantries. I suspect she did not like me very much. She was always polite, given I had procured this work for her, I was seeing her daughter and I was Marshal, but we never progressed beyond conversations about her vegetables and the weather. We never spoke about Tora.
I miss her more than some of the others, it must be said. I think of her often. She is a symbol of what I might have become. I would have enjoyed retiring, spending my afternoons in the sun, tending my vegetable patch and thinking of the past only to reminisce with acquaintances. It is the sun I miss most, falling asleep in the late afternoon to the sound of bees in the orange blossoms. An idyll I was denied. Still, I could have chosen worse places to be exiled. It has been a struggle here but with hard work and careful planning I have made a go of it. Sent away as a disgraced leader and now, ten years later, once again I have shown them how to survive in a world where survival might not seem possible at first. But they are not here to see that.
Over the meal at night I fix him in my gaze, which he does not return. Again he eats hungrily, quickly. It reminds me of how we all used to be. We all ate quickly out of necessity. I remember him eating like that before. I watched him over a meal. He did not look up once, only when he had finished every last scrap. He even licked his fingers, which I found distasteful.
‘Tomorrow you will come with me to the forest,’ I say. ‘You can help me bring back some wood.’ I do not think he will be of much use but I’m sure by now he can walk properly and he has to start getting his strength back if he is to earn his keep.
In the morning after I’ve returned from the beach and we’ve finished breakfast I throw him the coat I found. He grabs it. I’m certain now it belonged to him. He fingers the cloth, the brass buttons, his lips open slightly as if in surprise. He looks like a boy. ‘Put it on,’ I say. ‘It is yours, is it not? The coat of a General.’ I do not put this as a question. He shows no reaction. Instead he removes my coat, stands up and puts the other on. It fits perfectly. He adjusts the collar and straightens his back.
I watch with interest; he is like a soldier preparing for battle.
‘Come.’ I say, ‘We’re going to fetch wood,’ and set off down the hill. He follows me but leaves a distance of around ten paces. He has recovered some of his strength but still shuffles along as if each step is a great effort. I listen to his steps in the mud, the soft sucking sound they make. Every time I stop to wait for him the noise stops too. He never approaches closer than the ten paces.
In the forest, without a word I throw him the bag I use for wood, which he catches, and I unhook the axe from my belt. He walks round me in a circle, watching me all the time. He comes to stand in front of me. He’s on a little mound, the bag over his shoulder, his head held high, the coat like blood against his pale skin. As I chop down the tree and trim the branches he simply stands there, watching.
When I get out of breath I stop, bending over with my hands on my knees. I say, ‘Your turn,’ and hold out the axe. ‘You can take over for a bit. I am tired.’ I straighten up and walk towards him, holding out the axe, blade first. He drops the bag and shuffles away from me, holding up his arms slightly. His feet make furrows in the pine needles. I stop.
‘What are you doing?’ I am curt. ‘What are you doing?’ I repeat. ‘Do you think I’m going to hurt you? Do you not think I would have done something by now if I was going to?’ He says nothing. ‘I rescued you, I have fed you, clothed you, why would I kill you now?’ I have raised my voice. It sounds strange in the silence. I think I can hear an echo.
I wave the axe in exasperation and turn back to the tree. He cowers, crouched down, his hands still over his head. Maybe I expect too much too soon.
The rain falls again now. I chop the tree into logs at a slow but steady pace. I can keep my breathing under control and still make good progress. Water drips from the end of my nose. I can also feel it running down my back. Steam rises from my body. The scent of wet pine chips fills the air. Andalus sits crouched under a tree, sheltering from the rain. He seems calmer now. In fact he might be asleep. From panic to sleep in a matter of minutes. I do not understand this person.
I wish he would talk.
Andalus used to talk all the time. In fact I often wished he spoke less.
We had different negotiating styles. He was all bluster, all promises, all camaraderie. This, however, overlay stubbornness and a determination to get his way. He came across as a fool but was far from it. He was a tough opponent and I came to respect him greatly. By the end of it, the time of the signing of the accord and the last official contact between the two groups, we formed something of a friendship. True, it was based on grudging respect on both sides and not on any deep emotional bond but by the end I began to know the man behind the talk, the man who, like me, cared deeply for his people, cared deeply enough to stop the war, at any cost.
There was a moment in which he let his guard down. He sat across the table from me, his head in his hands. Our aides had left the room.
He did not move for ages. I thought he was asleep and was just about to get up from the table when he said to me, ‘What have we done, Bran?’ His voice was quivering. For a second I did not know what to say. ‘At what price?’ he went on. ‘At what price does a thing become a luxury we should not have?’
‘This is not a thing,’ I said. ‘This is not a luxury. This is peace.’
‘We’ve ended the war, Bran, we have not brought peace. There will come a time when the world will not be able to forgive itself, or us.
There will never be peace now.’
I said nothing. Instead I got up, went round to him, stood behind his left shoulder. His head was in his hands. I reached out my right hand and placed it on his shoulder. He gripped my hand. I felt his shoulder heave. I think he might have been crying. I could not tell. I was certain he was in turmoil though. I squeezed his shoulder, patted him on the back and said, ‘We have done a good job, Andalus. We have fought for our people, for our interests. And now we have secured a future for them. Do not fear the future. Once we were enemies, once we were warriors. Now we are friends and statesmen. We have earned our sleep tonight.’
With that I left the room. It was a brief moment of intimacy but one that I appreciated. Several hours later we met for the celebratory dinner and he was again his jovial self, though he avoided eye contact with me.
I walk over to Andalus and prod him with my toe. He looks up sleepily.
I give him a small bundle of wood to carry. He gets up and follows a few paces behind. Like a dog.
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br /> Later I collect some of the tubers and some grasses for a second bed, keeping their seeds to eat. I leave him in the cave when I do this.
As I walk out I ask him to build up the fire. He gives no indication of having heard. I do not ask again.
In the grasslands I start to feel out of breath. My arms also ache from chopping down the tree. I sit down on a rock. Providing for two has taken it out of me and I am beginning to feel my age. Still a fit man but there is only so much one can do. One man, flesh and blood, set against the rising waters, the creep of the oceans, the clutch of the mud. If I look too far into the future it can be daunting. Nevertheless, that is what I must do. I keep track of the loss of the island so I will know exactly when the time is up so I can be awake, so I can stand facing the wall of water when it comes. So I can die proud. Now that I have to work more on collecting food and fuel I have less time to work on my map, on my calculations, my annotations. I used to know exactly when the time would be up but now I am less certain. It has only been a few days and this man is my responsibility but he is a burden. Duty was never a burden to me until now. There is nothing to say I have to take care of Andalus, nothing to stop me sending him on his way. Though since he has nowhere to go that would involve killing him. There is no one to judge here, nothing to stop me getting rid of my burden. Nothing but a sense of duty, not born out of any trivial sentiment – long ago we did away with that – but out of necessity. We were dutiful because we had to be, because that was how we survived.
Survivors obeyed.
Duty is something I will never abandon. It carries me through, connecting my past with my future.
I have never planned a return to Bran. Surviving the voyage is not the issue. I have become adept at the tricks of survival. But I have been banished and respect that. It would be disrespectful of the laws I created. Andalus however, is a puzzle. What is the leader of the Axumite settlement doing in Bran territory? Either they have begun expanding or the old order has been overthrown. Mavericks may have taken over and begun to plan a resumption of the wars in an effort to win control of Bran and its resources. Though maybe he was simply sailing between islands and was blown off course in a freak storm. The stories can be made up in a number of ways. Whatever the stories though, the rules of the Programme have been broken and it should be my duty to report this. I need to try to find out more about him, more about why he is here. But it’s impossible if he doesn’t speak.
There is a myth in my land. One of the ancient gods – we no longer believe in gods – was banished by the council of the Heavens. His crime dissent. He sailed for weeks to the ends of the earth. When he finally found land he remained there for the rest of his days, hurling thunderbolts and storms at passing ships. When he died his petrified remains became a mountain on whose peak was engraved the visage of the god, serving as a warning, a curse, that all who gaze on it will too become stone in an unfamiliar land.
Another tells the story of a legendary king with the same name as mine. Fierce and always victorious in battle, at his death his countrymen cut off his head, drove a stake through it and placed it staring out to sea. Thus they cast a protective spell over the country against invading armies.
Myths are made of memories and memories are fallible but these two were pillars of Bran. Though we had no religion and little sentimentality, these stories, still told sometimes, are indicative of who we are as a people; both our sense of duty and respect and our pride and determination never to be defeated.
They mean a bit more than that to me though. I’m aware of some parallels. They speak of rejection and of veneration, of how easily things can turn. Two faces staring out to sea. One will avenge, the other protect.
Perhaps the presence of Andalus means that I, once more, have a duty to protect. His presence might mean I need to leave the island.
When I get back to the cave the fire has died out. Andalus is lying on the bed with his back to me. He turns around only when I give him food some time later. I call him General again. I ask him about Axum.
But he does not look at me.
At first light I wake and look over and see Andalus has disappeared.
I jump up.
Outside the cave a warm breeze is blowing and the clouds are thin.
I cannot see him. I climb on top of the cave from where I can see more and scan the grasslands. But there is no sign of him. He cannot have gone far – in his shape no more than a mile or so. From the cave you cannot see the rocks where I fish and I think this is where he must be.
I head off down the cliff path.
Walking slowly to the edge I peer over. He sits with his back towards me, facing out to sea. He is not fishing, just sitting. I watch him for a minute. His head begins to turn to the side slowly. It seems to turn too far to be natural. I crouch down, hiding. I do not make any sudden moves. I do not think he can see me but his head stays turned.
Perhaps he is looking at something else, something further along the cliff, something behind me. I look around. I lie down in the grass and roll onto my back. A gull circles overhead.
Tora did not want to hear about the fighting. She knew what went on – everyone did – but she did not want to hear about life as a soldier, about things I had seen. Not about the killing and not about the buried relics of a forgotten age. I wanted to tell her but whenever I tried she turned away from me. If we were in bed she would roll away and lie on her side with her back to me. I would stop, turn to her and stroke her thigh. I did not berate her for not wanting to hear and eventually I stopped trying altogether. I suppose she needed distance from that. A gentler person I had never known and for her, I always thought, that she shared her bed with a man who had killed was distasteful. She did not resent my previous life, she did not blame me for it but I knew that she did not approve. Perhaps my attempts at stories of what past worlds might have been she associated with killing, or at least with dying.
If that was the case though, why did she allow herself to be involved with one whose job entailed what it did? It was a mystery to me. There were many things I found mysterious about her. Perhaps, though she did not approve, she could see the necessity of the Programme. No one really could approve, besides madmen, but we all knew it was necessary.
This was another part of my life we did not talk about much. In spite of that she was a strength to me, someone I could count on, someone whose feelings and reactions I could predict and trust. I suppose she felt that if someone had to do it, it was better that it was me, a man devoted to the ideals of fairness and duty.
She would have struggled to find a man who had not killed. That was what we did, what we had to do. She was part of that forgotten world she didn’t want to hear about, a throwback to a gentler age.
After a few minutes I get to my feet, return to the cave for my line and hooks and set off to join my companion. If I put a rod in his hands maybe he will take to fishing. It is not the right time of day but it is better than not fishing at all. I can sit him here every day and let him catch a few fish while I go about the rest of my work: gathering fuel, digging for tubers, harvesting seeds and furthering my survey. That could be the answer. I like fishing but if that is all he can do it will be better than nothing. It would free up more time to plan for the future.
He does not look around as I approach. I sit next to him, greet him, to which, as usual, he does not respond. I lift up his hands. I place the rod in them. He does not grip it. I stand up, taking it from him.
‘Watch,’ I say, and cast into the ocean. Again I try to make him take it.
‘This is your job. If you want to eat, you will catch the food. That is the way it shall be.’ Through this he watches me. Now though he turns his head away and stares out to sea. I raise my voice: ‘I am not your keeper.
I cannot provide for you as if you were my guest. You have to work if you want to stay here.’ I try again and this time he grips the rod, though softly. I decide to leave him with it in the hope that he will try when I am not there. I
head off for the peat beds. There is no time for my swim.
By the time I get back to the cave, lugging a sackful of peat, he has returned too. There is no fish and also, I notice, no fishing rod. I walk over to him and grab his arm. My fingers sink into his flesh as if it were a cushion. Between clenched teeth I say, ‘I told you what would happen. From now on the only food you eat will be what you gather yourself.’
The rod is lying on the rocks where I left it. A small mercy. Though I can fashion another one quite easily, I am careful with the hooks. I brought a supply with me but they will eventually run out and I have not taught myself to fish with a spear. I will teach myself in a few years’
time when I am down to my last hooks. I sit on the rocks waiting for a tug on the line.
I take the first fish I catch back with me to the cave. I also find a crab in one of the traps. I will eat well tonight.
Back in the cave I build up the fire. When it is ready I place the fish and the crab on a flat stone over the top of the fire. Andalus sits up on the bed and watches the food cooking. It is not long before I am ready to eat. I do so directly from the stone, picking up the flakes of fish with my fingers. The crab I move to one side and allow to cool. Andalus moves to the edge of the bed, looking expectantly at me. I stare back at him, chewing all the while. Eventually he drops his gaze and turns away from me. He lies on his side, facing the wall. I feel some guilt.
I say, not expecting a response, ‘Tell me what happened.’ He does not. ‘Tell me, or starve.’
Wall of Days Page 4
