I see a figure at the corner of the street. I walk towards him and he vanishes.
I go back to the houses. That is all there is to do now. Look for more proof. Tonight I will ask for what I have come for. I will find a way to free Tora. I cannot now. It is too light. I must just hope they give me a chance later on. Perhaps what I ask for will change everything. Perhaps it won’t.
I follow the sun. As it moves overhead so I move through the town.
I knock on door after door. Time after time they remain closed.
I realise I am completely alone in the streets. The children have gone. I turn around. I scan the tops of the houses. I watch clouds cross the line made by the rooftops. I scrape my foot along the sand. There is only silence. If someone is following me they are keeping themselves well hidden. I turn around and around with my arms held out, my face to the sky. I feel the breeze beneath my arms. Grey buildings. Sunlight.
Shadow. Dust blown into eddies.
Door after door.
At dusk one opens.
The man is blind.
And I know who he is.
He was another official in my administration. He ran the Farming Licensing Department. I stare at him.
‘Who’s there?’
I reach out to him. I fold him in my arms. ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’
He struggles now. ‘No.’ His voice barely registers.
‘It is me, Bran. You know me. We used to be friends.’
‘No.’ He struggles. He is like a fish before I beat it against a rock.
‘Bran.’
‘No. They will come for me. Please.’
‘You know me. How dare you deny me? I made you what you are.’
I speak softly.
Through his chest I can feel his heart beat. His ribs feel brittle. Like if I squeezed hard enough they would snap.
I put my face against his. My face is wet, my mouth at the bridge of his nose, my teeth sensing the taste of his flesh. I breathe over his blind eyes.
I push him away. He falls down. He whimpers.
Back at the shelter I find that Andalus has gone. I am not surprised.
I walk through a few of the streets around the alley but there is no sign of him. I will not look for him anymore. Chances are he will not be of much use.
It is well after sunset when I walk into the courtyard of the town hall.
In the middle stands the Marshal dressed, rather strangely, in a long white gown. ‘Come in,’ he says. ‘The others are here. We can begin.’
I fol ow him into the hall where we had our discussion about the names on the wall. Seated at a table in the middle of the room is Elba, who has her back to me. The man who has been watching me stands in a corner of the room. There are three empty chairs at the table. The Marshal extends his hand towards one of them, motioning for me to sit.
He goes over to talk to the man, whom I assume is a soldier. I whisper to Elba, ‘Hello,’ I say. ‘I am sorry about the other night. My behaviour was inappropriate for the circumstances.’
She does not look at me but says, ‘You should not apologise for who you are.’
I do not get a chance to respond as Jura returns and sits down at the table.
He asks, ‘Where is your friend?’
‘I could not find him. He must have gone for a walk. He probably wouldn’t have been good company. He is not very talkative.’
‘So you say.’ Jura rests his hands on the table but says nothing more.
‘Well?’ I say.
He smiles at me. ‘We have a lot to talk about.’
‘We do. Why have you called me here? You said you had come to a decision. What is it?’
‘In time, Bran, in time. First we must wait for the other member of our party.’
‘Who is that?’ But I know already.
‘A man who wants to talk to you. We tried to persuade him not to.
But it is his decision. This is his town.’
I feel the skin at the back of my neck prickle. ‘Who?’
I hear footsteps behind me. I don’t want to turn around.
I feel a hand on my shoulder. I look at it. It is white, manicured, the nails clean.
‘Hello Bran.’
I mumble. It is not how I want to sound. ‘Abel.’
He sits down opposite me. We stare at each other. The old warrior and his friend, his foe. He has half a smile on his face. He is tall. His limbs spill over the chair, over the table. I note the creases in his face, the grey in his hair, the paleness of his skin.
The years I have known this man. The things we have been through, the things we have seen. At this point, seeing him, I am numb.
The room grows darker. No one has lit a candle. Elba gets up to do so, sits down again.
He speaks first.
‘I want to hear your story, Bran. I want to hear why you are here.’
‘Hello Abel. Friend.’ I look at his eyes. Paler than I remember.
Abel stares at me. He does not blink. Then, again: ‘I want to hear your story.’
‘Just as I want to hear yours. I have many questions.’
‘So I have been told. You have come to us with fantastic stories, calling us murderers. You claim to have journeyed here across the oceans, a survivor, a wanderer.’
I feel a chill. ‘Are you continuing the game? You too.’
‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.’
‘You know me.’
He says nothing for a while. Then, ‘What do you want?’
‘If I tell you, will the games stop? Will you acknowledge the truth of who I am?’
Abel makes no movement.
I grip the table. ‘What is going on? I have come with a plausible story about Axum. You all know who I am. Yet no one will admit it.
You all stay out of my way, do not look me in the eye. It is like you are trying to persuade me I do not exist. Have never existed.’
The half-smile returns but still he says nothing.
I lean back. ‘Very well. We can play your game for a while longer. I have more proof of who I am now.’
‘More?’
I have brought my bag with me. In it I have placed the jacket and the letter. I have left the portrait in the shelter.
‘I told your assistant about these,’ gesturing in the direction of Jura and placing the items on the table.
Abel takes the letter and reads it. The smile disappears again.
‘An item of clothing and a letter you could have written yourself.
Hardly proof.’
‘It is not my handwriting. I found it in your house.’
‘So you say.’
‘We both know who wrote it. Why would I make this up?’
He does not answer but says instead, ‘You have broken into a lot of places. You must think us a very lenient people. Perhaps you think us lazy. Slow. Dog-people.’
I stare at him. ‘I have found my portrait as well.’
For a moment he looks almost startled. ‘Portrait?’
‘My portrait. A portrait painted when I was younger, when I was the Marshal.’
‘When you were the Marshal.’ My old friend appears to have adopted the habit of repeating what I say. Perhaps it gives him time to think. ‘A portrait of you?’
‘Yes.’
‘That is strange. Where did you find it? Was it in the hut in the orchard?’
I stare at Abel wondering if that is another joke. ‘Where I found it is of no concern. The fact that it exists is what is of concern, what should be of concern to you.’
‘And what does it look like, this portrait?’
I do my best to suppress a smile. ‘Why, like me of course. Only younger.’
‘I mean,’ says Abel – I have unsettled him – ‘I mean, how were you portrayed? What was the pose? What was the condition of the painting? Tell me more about this painting of you.’
‘I am in uniform. Three-quarter profile. Though the colours are faded you can see that I am portrayed as a l
eader.’
‘Faded?’
‘Yes, it was painted a long time ago but that is of no concern. It is in reasonable condition.’
‘And you’re sure it’s you?’
‘Of course I am sure. It is me, clear as daylight. There is an inscription under the portrait. True, that is faded more than the painting but a closer look would reveal a name, my name.’
‘What makes you certain? You say it looks like you but is it you?
Was it you? When was it painted would you say?’
‘Fifteen, maybe twenty years ago. Not long enough for your argument to be valid. It was the portrait that used to hang above my desk – your desk now. There is still a darker patch where it was hung.
Perhaps you had it replaced with one of yourself. You accused me of vanity.’
He waves this away. ‘But still, a long time. Long enough for appearances to change.’
‘For the painting to change? Paintings do not change. That is why they are commissioned.’
‘Exactly. But you have changed, no doubt. You looked one way once and now you look another perhaps. You say you lived on an island. Did you have a mirror? Have you seen yourself recently?
Would you recognise yourself? You can show me the painting. You can say here I am. See me. You can see it is me. And yet how can I see it is you? How can I who do not know you see that a twenty-year-old faded painting is you as a younger man? I do not know you. You say you know yourself but I do not know that, that has not been proven to me. The painting is not your proof. You must look elsewhere and find other proof.’
I bang the table. I shout at him. ‘You may despise me, Marshal Abel! You may despise me but you cannot deny me. You especially. You betrayed me. Twice. You banished me. I stayed away for years. And I survived. You were hoping I wouldn’t. I survived. I lived. I thought.
Ten years alone with only memories. Memories like ghosts. Ghosts everywhere.’ I stop myself.
‘Then I come here at great danger to myself. Not only the voyage but just by being here I risk death. I bring a man to you, a man whose presence means danger to the settlement you stole from me and you deny everything. You offer nothing.’
I open my mouth to continue but before I can, Abel asks softly,
‘What do you want from us?’
I get up quickly from the table.
‘I want…’ I breathe in quickly. I do not look at Elba who is staring at me. ‘I want a retrial. I want to be judged again in the light of the current events and those of the previous ten years. I do not want revenge on you. I do not want to be Marshal again. I do not seek to accuse you once more of participating in the murders for which you held me accountable. I want my legacy re-evaluated, my crimes recognised for what they truly were and my efforts in bringing an enemy General to the settlement authorities at great personal risk to myself noted. I want to be allowed to live among my people, the people I helped create.
Failing that, give me an end. Death, at least, brings redemption. Don’t deny me an end.’
There is silence.
‘I want to know what has happened to my friends and colleagues.
I want to know if Tora is still alive, the woman I loved.’ I look at Elba but she is still staring at the table.
‘Whether or not she loved me well enough, I still want to know what has become of her. And…’ Here I pause and feel my voice tremble slightly. ‘And I want the executed to be remembered. There is no monument to their sacrifice. The hundreds we had to kill, they should be remembered too. There were nine hundred and seventeen of them, Abel. Nine hundred and seventeen. Forgive me, please. I have to be forgiven. Please. They come to me at night. I cannot shake them. When I shut my eyes I see them. When I open my eyes they hide behind trees, on cliff tops, in the shadows. Every moment I see their faces, some of them. Others just blank. Skin. I have searched and searched for the names but I cannot. I cannot. Please.’
Abel’s jaw is set in a firm line. ‘You want to be re-judged? How can one be re-judged? One judgement is enough, surely? A judgement determines right or wrong. If the judgement was incorrect there would be no judgement in the first place. You cannot be re-judged. You ask the impossible.’
I am quiet for a while. ‘Do you admit you know who I am? Do you admit ten years ago a trial was held in this very room at which the citizens of this town banished me for life to the far corners of Bran territory?’
‘I admit no such thing at all. Nothing. There was nothing.’
‘Nothing? But look what has come of nothing,’ I say, pointing to myself. I am shouting again now. ‘Somehow I have appeared from nowhere, no one will admit to having known me and yet I know so much about this town. Of course you recognise me. I can see it in your eyes. You are just afraid to admit it. You are afraid of what that might mean for the paradise you have built. The paradise you have built on the bones of the dead.’
I am out of breath now. ‘In spite of your best efforts I have gathered proof of my past, the most obvious being a portrait of me. You refuse to admit it for fear that you might have missed something, for fear that the past you buried has resurfaced. I come here, searching for the forgiveness I cannot live without,’ again my voice trembles but I plough on, ‘yet you will not look me in the eye and allow me to explain, allow me to say what it is I need to say.’
‘You have told your story, old man. You have taken up much of my time, much of our time, telling your story. We have given you charity and friendship but it is not enough for you. We have given you shelter and food but it is not enough. We have allowed you to be part of the present and the future of this town but that too is not enough. Instead you must have forgiveness as well. For what? For the story of your past? A past that implicates this town? Forgive you? Why would we forgive you if it makes us guilty? You have not accounted for that, have you? And indeed, how can we forgive you if we do not know who you are? Not knowing who you are we cannot forgive you for the crimes of which you say you and all of us are guilty.’ Abel’s voice has risen.
‘And your friend the General,’ he continues, ‘You go on about a General you have brought to us. Where is he? Is he at this table? I don’t see him. I have never seen him. A General who doesn’t speak?
We do not know of any Andalus. He does not exist for us either. He, the Axumites, gone.’
He is screaming now, leaning towards me, screaming. ‘Show him to me! Bring out your exhibits. Why isn’t he at this table, voice or no voice? Is he one of your ghosts, your stories, your lies?’
He stops. He is breathing heavily. The room is silent.
I go on, quietly. ‘We did not know what we were doing. It is important I am absolved. I have no life without redemption. You have condemned me to something beyond pain. You too need to atone.’
I take a deep breath.
‘Abel, the children were the worst. The sick, one born without a hand, one born simple. There was a boy aged seven. I went to his cell late at night while he was sleeping. I sat at the foot of his bed and wept. Why could I not say that before? Why could I not admit it? At dawn I left his cell, went to my office and gave the order for him to be hanged later that day. You may remember they had to carry him there because he was too weak to walk. You may remember the father bursting into my office, attacking me and the soldiers defending me. They hit him so hard, so hard, so many times that we had to hang him the day after his son. The soldiers carried him out and I locked the door. I pul ed my knife out, held it to my neck. I thought of what was happening to him, to his son. I thought of duty. I thought of the future. I put the knife away.’
Elba turns away, puts her hand to her mouth.
‘Why did we do that, Abel? Why didn’t we just allow the boy to die in his own way?’
Abel is silent for some time. He stares at me, then down at the table.
‘Never being able to be one thing completely, sometimes that is the greatest sin. Is that you, Bran? Somewhere in there a good man but one too concerned with ideas.’
‘For
give me or execute me. I cannot go back to the ghosts. We used to be friends. I am asking this one thing of you.’
I am saying too much. I did not mean to lose control.
Speaking more softly now, Abel says, ‘We are not an unfeeling people.
My good friend Elba,’ he says, nodding at her, ‘tells me you have struck up a relationship with her daughter. She says she likes you too in spite of your strange ways. We will offer you another life. On one condition.’
I look at him. ‘You know she is my daughter.’
His face darkens and his fingers curl but he ignores me. He goes on, ‘On the condition, on pain of death, that you give up these stories for ever, that you give up trying to drag us down with you, that you embrace who we are now, not what you say we were.’
‘Why?’
‘I have told you. This is a new world. We will not begin it as killers.’
‘What am I if I am not who I say I am?’
The Marshal looks hard at me. He sighs and Elba looks away. He is silent for a while. Neither of us speaks. At last he says, ‘We will not remember you.’
With that he gets up from the table and walks out the door. Over his shoulder he says, ‘You have until morning to decide.’
I am left alone with Elba. I look over at her. She is silent. I sit with my head in my hands. Eventually I look up again and find her looking at me.
‘Why do you make everyone angry?’
I ignore this. Instead I ask, not looking at her, ‘What I said about Amhara. It’s true isn’t it?’
She is silent.
‘It is, isn’t it? She is Tora’s daughter by me. She is the right age. She has my eyes. She could have been conceived the last night we were together. Before she went completely over to Abel. And you are a friend of Tora’s and not the child’s mother.’
‘She is yours if you want her to be. You have a role to play here. You can be a father this time round. The condition still stands.’
I sigh.
She reaches over the table and takes my hands in hers. ‘Give this up.
Wall of Days Page 17
