The soup is hot and I finish it quickly. A plate then appears in front of me. It is piled high with meat and vegetables. I say nothing and just eat and drink. The wine brings a flush to my cheeks, the food warms me. I sit on the bench and I find myself smiling and I keep saying to myself you’re home, you’re home and I am grinning to myself while around me people eat, drink, talk and laugh.
When I finish I look around me to see what others do. I have not had my name taken. I notice other people getting up. They walk straight out the door, turning to wave goodbye at the servers. I too stand up. I walk past the woman on my way out. I stop opposite her. ‘Thank you,’
I say. I pause after the word ‘you’.
She answers with a smile, ‘Elba.’
I smile and nod. ‘Thank you, Elba.’
Outside I sit on a bench with Andalus and lean forward, my head in my hands.
People walk around us, going about their business. I am still surprised there are not more people about but perhaps everyone is working in the fields. Children play in the street. No one gives the two old men on the bench in the town square a second glance.
This town square has a history. It is wide and surrounded on all sides by wooden buildings, one of which is the kitchen. We used the space to hold public gatherings. At the far end is a stage. I remember standing there one day. The square was packed. I believe every able-bodied citizen had come to listen. There were so many people that the dust kicked up by thousands of feet hung in the air above their heads. I was above the cloud of dust looking down on my people. I paused for breath and to take a sip of water. No one stirred. There was not a sound. That was when I knew I had them. I smiled inwardly. By way of conclusion I said, ‘Once our kind was powerful, once we did not struggle. We will become strong again. It will not happen tomorrow, it will not happen next year but soon, soon we will become strong enough to ensure this will never happen again. There is no question of guilt here. No question at all. The most humane thing we can do is to ensure the survival of our children. The most humane thing we can do is to ensure the survival of a civilised way of life.’
There was no applause when I finished but I did not need it and it would have been inappropriate. My victory was inevitable. I had broken a barrier and I would now see out the plan for better or worse.
The audience would have known that many of them would end up hanged. Each would have known that either himself or the person standing next to him or behind him would end up dangling from a rope like a criminal. There was silence.
Many of them hung their heads. They did not look at each other. When they started leaving it seemed as if each person left separately. There were no groups, no families anymore. Everyone was on their own. They knew it was necessary. They knew what they had done.
Sometimes I wondered if my people wanted to hear about the past, whether they wanted to hear how all the evidence pointed to our kind being far more powerful, far more numerous and technologically advanced than we are now. Or whether they were only interested in what they had to do for an easier life, what they had to do to know where their next meal was coming from and how to survive in a harsh climate. I toned down my stories of ruins, of enormous boats and vessels, of papers covered in text no one could read, in favour of details of the food roster, the routine, the rules of the Programme. They were not interested in the poetry of the past, in how it can make us desire a new future. I though always knew that both were important – facts and stories. I used to think my people were overwhelmed by guilt and did not want to look beyond the here and now. I might have underestimated them.
Andalus has fallen asleep in the sun. Spittle runs from the side of his mouth.
I must find Tora. The apartment where she stayed is close by. Nothing, it is true, is very far from here. I wake Andalus and we walk around behind the kitchens and initially head in a southerly direction. Second right, first left, half-way down and there it is, a three-storey building, much like the others around it but special to me. I find another bench for Andalus and tell him to wait. He sits down without any fuss. I am surprised he is being so compliant in the home of his former enemy but I do not have time to think about that right now.
I walk up to the building and round the side. There I climb the stairs on the outside to the third floor. There are weeds growing in the cracks. It all looks exactly as I remember. I walk down the exterior passage passing six doors before I come to hers. Number thirty-seven.
The number is still there, painted in the same way. The door is yellow.
The afternoon sun makes it seem as if it glows. I raise my hand and knock twice. My heart is beating hard. My mouth is dry. I feel like a child.
I hear nothing and knock again. This time though, I hear footsteps and a voice, a slightly breathless voice which says, ‘Sorry, coming, I was washing…’ and the door opens and the voice is not hers and I already know it is not Tora. But I am surprised to see the woman from the kitchen, Elba, standing before me, her hair still wet. She must have left straight after me. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she says. She does not seem as surprised as I am.
‘Hello,’ I say, ‘I am sorry, I did not mean to disturb. I did not know you lived here. I was looking for someone.’
She looks expectantly at me but I hesitate. ‘And?’ she says, ‘Have you found her?’ I do not follow her meaning.
‘She used to live here,’ I say. ‘She worked in the kitchens, like you.
Do you know her?’
She tilts her head. ‘I don’t believe so. How long ago did she live here?’
‘It was possibly as many as ten years, maybe fewer. I don’t know.’ I pause, ‘I went away for a while.’
‘That is strange,’ she says. ‘I have been here for eleven years and the flat was unoccupied before that. I’m not sure for how long.’
I realise she must have got her dates wrong. It is sometimes difficult to separate the years in this place. Sometimes it seems like a year has passed when in fact it is only a season. But I know I am not mistaken.
I ask her again. ‘Her name is Tora. Did you know her perhaps?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Have you been working at the kitchens since you’ve lived here? If so your paths would have crossed.’
‘Perhaps we did know each other and I have forgotten. People forget the strangest things.’
I smile at her. ‘She is difficult to forget.’
She nods her head but makes no other reply.
‘I have to ask,’ I say. ‘Do you know who I am?’
She looks at me with what I think is a smile on her face. ‘I have never known you.’
It is a rather strange reply. I wonder briefly if she might be flirting. I try again, ‘I don’t look familiar to you?’
‘I am sure I would not have forgotten you.’
I step back into the sunlight. I wonder how much I’ve changed. It seems I will have to seek Tora and Abel elsewhere. ‘I am sorry to bother you,’ I say.
She smiles and closes the door softly.
Andalus is where I have left him. I drag him to his feet.
It is now evening. Though I have not found Abel or Tora yet there is little more I can do tonight. I have nowhere to sleep and we need to find shelter. I am homeless in a town that should belong to me. We could head out into the orange groves but I do not want to find the gates closed again. I consider going back to the Marshal and asking for somewhere to stay. I also think of the woman living in Tora’s flat but that would not be appropriate. I decide to walk around the town to see if I can find an abandoned house or some other form of shelter.
I walk in the direction of the administrative complex. After a few minutes I remember an alleyway that might serve our purposes. Before the complex I turn off to the right down a narrow passage. It turns to the left and continues for a few metres before widening into a little courtyard. There are no doors leading into it. With no through traffic this could be the best place to take shelter, at least until I have sorted things out here.<
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Against two of the walls are piles of furniture and boxes. There is a tarpaulin, which I drape over some of them.
I take the stone from my bag and hide it in a corner.
Andalus crawls into the shelter when I motion for him to do so.
He lies down and pulls some papers over himself. As he crawls into the space between the canvas and wall I realise it is a very good hiding place. From a few steps back, as long as he makes no noise, you could never tell there is a huge man in the shadows. I tell him to be quiet, though by now I have given up expecting him to reply, and climb in after him.
I lie awake for a while listening to Andalus’s faint breathing. A whole day has passed in my town. No one has recognised me. No one has even looked twice at me or at Andalus, though he sticks out.
A big, pale mountain of a man amongst a people who are browner, earthier, closer to the ground. Even the Marshal, who should know better, did not react when he saw me. And, though I held back from saying who I was, he should have known. I am the one who brought stability to this town and it was only ten years ago that I was exiled.
You would know me. Do people have such short memories? Do they choose not to see? It is vaguely unsettling, though it is better this way than to be hauled off to the gallows screaming my story, my excuse, to whomever will listen.
And Elba? There is something wrong with it. There are only a few thousand of us. You do not forget someone who lived in the flat before you, who had the same job, who is the same age. Or was.
Abel and Tora. One who sent me away. The other who brought me back. I will find them.
7
It is just before dawn when I wake. Andalus has thrown his arm around me. What do I feel for him, this man, this spectre? Truth is, I feel less and less. ‘Feel’ is not the right word. In the beginning I felt.
I was frightened for a short time, then sympathetic, then angry. Until we left the island I veered between sympathy and compassion and loathing of his intrusion and his refusal to talk. The anger though was always tinged with guilt. Not only did I realise that perhaps what he had been through, whatever it was, had broken him but also I realised that he was my excuse, my passage off the island. His unwillingness to communicate, beyond the simplest of facial expressions, is useful in some respects. Perhaps if he had told the truth, blurted out his story, I would not have been able to justify leaving the island and bringing him to the attention of the settlement. His silence has been useful to me. I am not ignorant of my motives. But I must make him talk. And soon.
Lying in the semi-dark I wonder when I will first be recognised, acknowledged for what I am, for what I was. Who will be the first?
Who will lift his eyes over his bowl of soup and stare at me? Will his jaw clench shut, his brow furrow? Will the room grow silent around me, me oblivious, lost in the hot food and the wine, and will I look up to see row upon row of men with black eyes staring at their ex-Marshal? Who will be the first to pick up a sickle and advance on me, shout at me, cut me down?
Or will it be a gentler thing, a flicker of recognition in the Marshal’s eyes, a raised eyebrow and an ‘Oh. It’s you.’
Or will it be Tora who recognises me first? If I can find her then it will be her I am sure. She cannot have forgotten. No one forgets a man who shared your bed for near half a lifetime. No one forgets a man who provided for you. No one forgets a man who ordered your sole surviving relative to be hanged.
She forgave me for that.
She had to. It was written in statutes.
Besides, it was she who came to tell me of her mother’s incapacity, she who stood aside for the hangman.
I forgave her for that.
I had to. It was me who forced her to abandon her mother, forced her to betray one she loved.
I did not think much about why she had done it. It was what everyone did. But Tora was different. She was the one who had said
‘Rather die than be tainted by the murder of your own people.’ I should have asked her why. I should have thought more about why she did it, more about what was behind the unblinking eyes. So many things I should have done. I can only guess now.
I think back to when I held her that night, the first time she came to me after her mother’s death. Did she whisper something? Did she say to me, ‘She had suffered enough. She would have wanted release’?
I think. I hear something. It might be only the wind outside blowing dust through the streets.
It took her four days to come and tell me. Longer than she should have delayed. What was she going through in that time?
I cannot believe Tora would have been like the others. Not she.
Cold. Weak. I want to believe. I cannot not believe she would have had another reason, some explanation. I could not have turned her so.
Stripped her.
I throw off Andalus’s arm and crawl out of the shelter. He follows, yawning. I tell him to stay in the shelter. He does not move but also does not follow me when I leave the alleyway. I will take him with me later but for now I am better off on my own. I can move more quickly without him.
I will go to Abel’s house. If anyone can rectify the current situation it is he. I am curious to find out why he is not still the Marshal. Though it is an elected post, we did not have set periods for elections. Death or, it seems, banishment, were our reasons for new elections. When a people is faced with an issue serious enough to threaten their livelihood, they do not bother with nuanced political visions, they do not bother with who is more right, who is morally better. They require only a strong leader, a leader with a clear vision and awareness. They also do not need to waste their energy arguing with each other over trifles such as election periods. Our people are not used to change and Abel was perfect to come after me, to live on the legacy I created for many years.
Strong, forthright and a traditionalist, he should have been exactly what this town needed.
But people change. I have already seen evidence of this. Perhaps with the easing of the burdens they had to carry, they have more time to ponder, more time to be dissatisfied, more time to change their minds. I am sure though Abel would not have gone without a fight.
I remember his house very clearly, its walls made from the same bleached-grey wood as the rest of the buildings, strengthened here and there with mud baked solid. I often strolled past it on my daily walks around the town. These would take me from the town hall to the main gate and then in an anti-clockwise direction. It took me an hour and a half for the five miles. Smaller than my island. His house was three-quarters of the way round, set back from the walls, the entrance down a narrow passage. I would sometimes glance down it when I walked, at the one window visible from the street.
Every now and then I saw Abel through the window or coming out or going in. I would wave. I would very rarely stop. We spent the whole day together and did not need to talk more than that. Towards the end I saw other officials there too on one occasion. It was late. I was in the shadow of the wall and I do not think I was seen. When his guests were gone he was framed in light from the doorway. I moved and my feet crunched against the gravel. ‘Who’s there?’ he called out. I did not answer. Though he was looking in my direction I know he did not see me. If he had, he would have greeted me. I knew all of them – I had appointed them after all – so why didn’t I make myself known?
Though I did not allow the thought to surface then, I knew. Suspicion begins in the marrow. That night was the start of it all, months before anything happened, months before I was arrested.
I think I wanted to scare him a little, though I didn’t yet realise why of course. I wanted him to be afraid of the shadows, of what might be out there. But it is only people with imagination who can be afraid and I have always felt he was lacking in that area. It is I who imagined a better life. He executed orders. I wouldn’t call his plot imaginative.
Expedient yes, imaginative no.
As I walk around the town walls, I glance over my shoulder to see if anyone is looking
and trail my fingers across the wooden walls. I would do this sometimes. I like the touch, the tangible sense that what these walls contained was dependent on me. I also liked that every time I ran my fingers over the wall, fragments, splinters would fall to the ground.
Every time a little of the wall was destroyed. That is the instinct of one who is afraid of heights: you do not want to but you feel drawn to the edge, feel an urge to jump.
I never saw Tora leaving that house.
Almost before I know I am upon it, I am standing at the entrance to the alleyway. I look through the window but a shade covers it and I can see nothing. I move down the alley and knock on the door, loudly, three times. There is no answer. The door rattles on its hinges. It would not take much to kick it in.
I lean down to try to see through the opening at the bottom of the door. I look through the keyhole but it is blocked and I can see only a faint glimmer of light. A key on the inside maybe. I stand and wait.
I wait for five minutes or more. I press my ear to the door and knock lightly this time.
I become aware of a man standing at the head of the alleyway. He is old. He has his arms at his sides. He looks at me. He does not blink and his mouth is open. I stand up straight. I take a step towards him.
My mouth too is open. I take another step and he has turned on his heel and is running. From the entrance to the alley I watch him. He runs like an old man. I take a deep breath, smile and run after him. I tell myself not to hurt him when I catch him.
He is old but not as slow as I thought he would be. Every time I think I’m catching him he disappears round another corner. He weaves in and out of buildings. I do not shout out to him. He knows I know him.
I struggle to contain the anger rising in me.
I fly around a corner and run straight into a man. I am knocked flat. He has held out a stiffened arm. He does not say anything, this man.
I cannot see. I am dazed but I sense he just looks at me lying on the ground. Then he walks off. I get up slowly, first to my knees then to my feet. I call to him, ‘You!’ I shout. He pretends not to hear. I lean against the wall and recover my breath.
Wall of Days Page 10
