Wall of Days

by Alastair Bruce

  Give up your search. Give up your stories about the past.’

  ‘Why do you say things like “this time round” if you don’t believe me, if you don’t know my story is true? Why can’t you admit it?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Surely there are more important things than your guilt?’

  I look down at the table. ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘You are very kind and I know you mean well.’ I pause. ‘If you’ll permit I would like to show you what I was going to show you earlier.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘We will need to leave. It is a short walk away.’ I stand up. ‘Come.’ I hold out my hand to her.

  The night is cold. Elba shivers and I put my arm around her. I lead her into the alley.

  ‘Where are we going?’ She asks. She sounds frightened.

  I do not answer but take her by the hand again. She holds back a little and I find myself walking slightly ahead, gripping her hand.

  ‘You’re hurting me.’

  ‘You must come here. You must come with me.’

  ‘Tell me what you want to show me.’

  ‘No. You must see it first. See it then judge.’

  ‘See what? It is dark. Black. There is no moon. What is there for me to see?’

  She pulls and her hand slips out of my grasp. I turn back and reach for her arm. It is soft, thinner than I imagined. The bones of a bird.

  I look at her. She has a grey face. Grey like the light. I pull her. She stumbles. I pick her up. She is so light in my arms. So light. I pick her up as I would a sack, place her on her feet again. My fingers are deep in her flesh. Her mouth does not move, hangs open in the light. I edge her along the alley wall, my hand on the skin, skin like paper.

  ‘What are you doing? Please.’

  We are lovers in a dance. I hold her close.

  I turn her around, still holding her arms. I pull away the canvas from the shelter and feel for the portrait. She slips away and begins to run. Three steps and I have her. Her arm behind her back. ‘You will look. You will look now.’

  I kick away the rest of the tarpaulin and there it is. The paint, somehow, brighter. A glow from behind the skin, behind the eyes. I hold her with one hand, my grip tight. I reach down and pick up the portrait.

  ‘Look,’ I whisper. ‘Look at the man before you.’

  I can see her face from the side. ‘What?’ She half turns. Her voice is frail.

  ‘What do you see?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘What do you see?’ My voice changes. It is not mine.

  ‘Nothing.’

  I take her jaw in one hand, squeeze. ‘Why do you see nothing?

  Look at me. Why do you see nothing? Is there nothing to see?

  Nothing to fear? From your Marshal? You are afraid of him. You are afraid of these people and their disregard for the past. I can see this in you. I can see fear in you. The whole town is afraid. They stay indoors because of what might happen to them if they show knowledge of me.’

  I shake her. She closes her eyes. I shake her again. Her head lolls from side to side as I shake. There is a tear. I hold her face between my hands. I wipe the tear and it makes furrows in the dust from my hands, the dust on her face.

  ‘Go then.’ The voice, deeper, still not mine. ‘Go then.’ I shove her away.

  At the entrance she turns to me. I can barely see her. A grey cloud.

  She speaks softly. I strain to hear. ‘She told me you were like this. She felt everything for you: love, hate, fear. Everything. You were impossible to love unconditionally. You. You are the one who did not see. Who would not see.’

  She turns away again. She floats away from me, slides into the dark.

  I have no time to lose. I grab a heavy stick from the ground and make sure I have my knife on me. I run to the town hall. At the entrance to the courtyard I stop and press in to the shadows. There is a guard on the door. I will him not to see me. I walk round the circumference, still in the shadows. It works. I am almost on him when he notices me. He holds up his hands but I am already swinging and he goes down at the first blow. I run up the stairs.

  At the door I am breathless. I shout, ‘Tora.’ I shout it three times. I lean in to the door, press my ear against it. And I hear an answer. One word. It is soft. Just one word. ‘Bran.’ But, this time, I know it’s her.

  ‘Tora.’ I barely mouth it. I have found her.

  Then there is shuffling behind the door, people struggling perhaps.

  I run with my shoulder at the door. It does not budge. I use my knife to try and pick the lock but nothing again. I take the stick and begin to pound the door. The blows glance off. It is far sturdier than others. It is as if something is pushing from the other side, warding off my blows. I press my ear to the wood but the noises have stopped.

  ‘Tora?’

  Nothing.

  ‘I will come back. I will find an axe.’

  I run downstairs, out the door. The man has disappeared.

  I do not get very far. At the entrance to the courtyard there are men.

  They carry spears and a rope.

  My time is up.

  The man I hit is amongst them. He walks up to me, holds up his hand to my neck. He takes it, gently at first, then squeezes hard. I do not flinch. He says nothing, just winks. He steps to one side and motions for me to go.

  I am taken to a prison cell, the same I was kept in ten years ago.

  The walls are made of stone. When the door is shut behind me it is completely black. I sit against the wall, pull my knees up to my chest. I lean my head back, open my eyes. I watch as the shapes float towards me, appearing at the corners of my vision. When I turn to them they vanish. Forming and reforming in the black light. I let them come to me and do not shut them out.

  Later I am turned towards the wall. I hear the wooden shutter in the door open and Elba’s voice. ‘Bran.’

  After a minute I get up and go to her.

  There is silence between us. We just look at each other.

  ‘There is still time,’ she says.

  I drop my eyes from hers. ‘Amhara.’ I do not know what I want to say. ‘Tora.’

  Her voice rises a little. ‘Bran. You do not know what will happen if you go.’

  I reach through the shutter and hold her face in my hand. I squeeze lightly and she leans into it this time. A figure standing back in the dark reaches for her and moves her away. I watch as the blackness swallows her. She is gone.

  No one else appears. I do not sleep. They do not feed me and I drink nothing. I wait for what is coming.

  The door opens almost a day later. Two soldiers take me by the arms and lead me out. The cells are at the rear of the administrative complex.

  I come out of the courtyard. It is dusk.

  And now they have come out. All my people have left their houses.

  They line the streets, some arm in arm, some holding the hands of children. Some look at me, others at the ground. They all have blank expressions. Doors to the houses are open.

  It is silent. Hundreds of people and it is quieter than it has ever been. I walk slowly onwards. The soldiers, pressing close behind me, make it clear I am heading for the gates.

  I scan the crowd for faces I know. I see many. I do not see either Tora or Elba. But I catch a glimpse of Amhara. Just a glimpse. She is watching me, biting her lip. None of the people I know acknowledges me. As I walk past, the crowd closes in behind me and follows me to the gate.

  I am reminded of how I felt entering the town a few days ago.

  I imagined then crowds of people I could not see parting to let me through, staring at my back when I passed. Now I see them.

  As I get closer to the exit I see Abel standing in the gateway, flanked by the wooden pillars. He holds out his hands to me, takes me by the arms, leans in and kisses me on both cheeks. He is saying goodbye. He says nothing. He nods his head to one of the soldiers, who pushes me forwards. We walk out of the town, Abel next to me.

  ‘Why?’


  Abel stops. He leads me by the arm out of earshot of the soldiers.

  ‘Surely you know?’ He whispers.

  I almost feel like laughing. Instead I ask, ‘Why did you not have me executed in the first place?’

  ‘It would not have been right.’

  I do not say anything. It is too late. Suddenly I realise I do not want to die. And, I am afraid of going back to the island. I do not want to go back there.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’ I ask gruffly. Abel says nothing.

  ‘You mean to hang me,’ I say. ‘You mean to hang me in the orchard within sight of the hut. This much I know. You are too scared to give me my public trial, my retrial,’ I correct myself, ‘because you fear the past. You fear what cannot be undone. I appear to have bred a successor and a community of people who have become ashamed of their origins.

  Face me, for I am in all of you.’ I yell this so the crowd can hear.

  Abel grabs me by the shirt. He whispers, ‘All your talk of paradise, of better ways, of a once-again powerful human race, and now you want to crush it? You say we are afraid of the past but what of the future? What is it you want, Bran? Do you know?’

  I do not say anything.

  He laughs, ‘You caught me off-guard at first when you re-appeared.

  I have some repair work to do now. I may have erred by not killing you when we first saw you climbing the mountain. But you cannot kill ghosts, at least not in the open.’

  He lets me go and whispers again, ‘Make-believe. How does it feel to be make-believe.’ It is not a question. He pats me on the shoulder.

  His hand lingers for a second.

  He drops it and strides off towards the town.

  ‘Wait!’ I call out. ‘My daughter. Amhara. What have you told her about me?’

  Abel stops and turns to me. ‘Your daughter knows nothing of you, Bran, and will never know anything of you. She is our future now.’ He turns again and walks off.

  I watch him go. He is a way off now, walking back towards the town. Only the two soldiers accompany me.

  And then I see her. There amongst the people, two rows back, lit by torches. It is her. It has to be. Someone I know so well, someone who was such a part of my life: a friend, a lover, a traitor. ‘Tora!’ I shout as loud as I can, ‘Tora!’ The faces in the sea of people stare straight at me and I know it is her. She is far off but it has to be. Are there people holding her back? I shout to her again and now I try to run. I try to run through the soldiers but they block my way. I struggle through their grasp and am clear to the town but one trips me and puts his boot into my back and I taste dust in my mouth. I wriggle almost free and am on my feet again but one of the soldiers draws back his fist with his hand gripping my throat and that is all I remember.

  12

  When I come to it is dawn. I can taste blood and dust and I cannot breathe through my nose. My eye is swollen and I have grazes along the side of my face. Looking back towards the town I can just make it out in the distance. There is a trail leading across the sand from where I lie. I realise they have dragged me almost a mile away from the town.

  Though I can barely make it out I believe the gates have been closed and the people are gone.

  After a while I notice that there are more tracks than just mine and those of the two soldiers leading away from the town. They are fresh. People must have passed me in the night. One set of tracks is like a furrow. As if someone was being dragged. Tied-up. I follow them.

  I don’t recall the first moment I notice them.

  Out of the white noon light they appear, not suddenly but as if by osmosis. A mirage. My legs give way.

  I do not speak. I do not think.

  Then I get up and run. I start to run towards the tree, the one where Andalus and I stopped, the one where Tora and I spent those hours together years ago.

  Andalus stands beneath the tree. I jog up to him. He stands with his back to me but I am not looking at him. I stop a few metres away.

  He is looking up at the tree. As am I.

  He stands looking up at the body hanging from the dead branches of the tree.

  A sound escapes my throat.

  Tora. My Tora. She looks the same as she did all those years ago when last I saw her on the beach, looking after me, the salty breeze in her hair.

  All I can hear now are waves, like the ocean over the mountains.

  There is a drop of blood in the corner of her mouth. A bit lip. A punch. Vomited up from the throat.

  I am sorry. I am sorry.

  She swings slowly from the branch.

  Andalus stands still. He is fading away now.

  I feel for my knife. I do not have it.

  I reach out for Tora’s legs. I hold on to them. I sniff them. They still feel warm. They smell like her. Like living flesh. I look up at her. The sun, filtering through the branches, blocks her face. She is just a few hours dead.

  Another sound from me.

  I pick up a stone. I climb into the tree and saw through the rope with the stone. It takes a long time. Her body falls to the ground. Tora’s dress covers her face, her legs naked, dead.

  Andalus does not move.

  I get down from the tree and go up to him. I put my hand on his shoulder.

  And then I hit him. I still have the rock in my hand that I used to cut down Tora. I lift up my arm and hit him on the temple. He sees it coming. He does not struggle. I watch his eyes as I bring down my hand upon him. I watch his eyes, and they widen but he does not scream, he does not say a thing. Again and again I hit him. Some blows slap against blood – a stone dropping into a pool. Some blows miss altogether. More and more miss. After a while there is no more sound. Nothing. And there is nothing in my arms, nothing at my feet. Just nothing.

  I fall to my knees again. Then roll over. I am breathing heavily. I cover my face with my arm.

  I lie there for a long time.

  I stand up.

  I stand up and walk away. I do not stop for two hours.

  Then I go back.

  I go back to the tree, back to the body. There is just one. Where Andalus’s should have been is nothing. No blood. No body. Nothing.

  I understand now. What he was.

  Or, I already understood but did not know I did. Did not admit I did.

  I scrape out a hole in the dirt. I place her in it. I cover her with rocks, starting from her feet. I look at her face with every stone I place on her.

  I do not hurry. She looks peaceful. Her skin is grey, tight. She looks dead. A bug crawls from her mouth. I bury her facing upwards, naked, open to the earth. It is our custom.

  I lay down next to her. The night draws in and I wrap my coat around me. I feel beetles scraping at my ears. I sleep fitfully, shivering. I dig into the earth with one hand. It is warm. I lie asleep with one hand buried and the dust sifts over me.

  In the morning I see them. Twenty, thirty of them. They are far off.

  They shimmer. Disappear, re-appear. They carry sticks, clubs, spears.

  I begin to run.

  Whenever I look over my shoulder I see them. I dare not stop nor think. I grab fruit from trees as I jog past. I drink heavily at streams.

  The black bodies on the horizon chase me onwards. At the top of the mountain I see them spread out in the plain below. From the bottom I see them at the top, each one silhouetted against a white sky.

  I sleep. I have to. But only for a few minutes at a time. I sleep on my haunches.

  I run.

  I run until I reach the shore and I put out to sea.

  I watch them line the shore. They stand still. They do not gesture at me. I can see their eyes.

  I watch them until they are over the horizon.

  It is thirteen days since I arrived.

  13

  It is like coming home. I cannot deny it. The island, I want to say, looms out of the mist as I approach. But it does not loom. It floats to the surface of my vision early one morning as I lie in my almost becalmed boat.r />
  A home I wished I would never see again.

  It has been a hard crossing, a hard time of it. I left with little water, without catching any food. I grabbed as much fruit as I could. I have had one a day. The last were shrivelled. There was one fish left in the boat. It was covered in mould. Three days off the coast it began to rain.

  That saved my life. I collected water using the sail. I tied a line to the side of the boat. Once a fish was enticed to the bare lure.

  If I passed over the ruins and the statue again I did not notice. I was completely on my own.

  I set my course due east. I did not expect to hit the island. Even with a compass, finding a small patch of turf in this immense ocean is a miracle. The island, it seems, has brought me home.

  I feel my heart beat a little faster as I get closer. I think of the marshes, of the peat bogs, of the forest. I think of the quiet here, broken only by the occasional gull. I think of my cave, empty now.

  I approach from the side of the cliffs. Their collapse has not halted while I’ve been away. Great swathes of rock and mud have slipped into the waters below. I see the large white rock on the sand.

  The rain has not stopped either. It is light, very light. I am not sure whether it is rain or mist.

  I put to shore in the same spot from which I left eight weeks ago.

  The first thing I do is dig up some roots. I eat them raw.

  It is like someone else has been here. An axe and a spade leaning against the cave wall. My water container standing out in the open, overflowing. Marks in the sedge. Marks on the rock. Things are where I left them but it seems so long ago it may as well be a stranger who did those things.

  The cave smells. I notice in the corners, under the grasses, fish, rotting tubers, a bowl of gruel. I do not wonder at why they are there. I think back to the ghost of Andalus. I clear the food away. I am done with him now.

  I come across some of my old notes. Without an almost constant fire, they have absorbed moisture and are damp to the touch, though still readable. I think of all the tasks I have: collecting food, digging peat, making notes. For a brief time I thought my days might not end on this sinking island. But it was not to be. Now I have to work out when the end will come, whether my absence has accelerated the end or postponed it. I lean against the wall. A choke escapes my throat.