The attempted revolution had now become international news. Journalists were flying in from America and England, CNN, the BBC. A woman called Kate Adie had arrived; apparently she was already at the Holiday Inn. Hal was getting all this news from the Leader. The journalists wanted to speak to the Prime Minister on the phone, only all the phones had been ripped out of the walls. One of the brothers was now trying to reconnect a line. Mr Bartholomew Sheldon was very bad indeed, slipping in and out of consciousness. At 2 p.m. Hal allowed him to leave in a wheelchair in return for eight buckets of KFC chicken. Mr Sheldon went out, but no KFC arrived. Hal was furious. Furthermore, Colonel Howl refused to speak directly to either the Leader or Hal. Father Sapno was supposed to be the go between, only he had disappeared.
‘You see that,’ said Hal. ‘They starving us out. They doing the textbook thing, nuh. Howl has been to hostage crisis school or something.’
Ashes cleaned his spectacles on his shirt and then put them back on his nose. It was like the freedom fighters were now hostages, Ashes realised. They held the ministers and the army was holding them. A double bind. The liberators were now being held captive and in turn were holding captive those who oppressed others. The army was loyal to the oppressors. The liberators were now being seen as oppressive. Some of the liberators were ex-army, Ashes knew that. The Leader himself was ex-police. The oppressed people outside, whose arses they had come to liberate, were all out looting; the brothers had seen them from the windows of the House.
Ashes tried to picture a bomb in the House of Power, with Hal pushing a red button to make the thing detonate, all of them blown sky high, the roof of the House of Power blown off, all of them dead, mutilated. Forty or so brothers and about twenty-five hostages. Sixty souls ripped to shreds in order to prove a point. Now it was hard to hold on to the point of it all. Perhaps Mrs Garland had been right. They had somehow arrived too late. They had captured the wrong government. When the colonisers left, a popular people’s government were voted in and for almost thirty years they had simply replicated the mistakes and greed of the British. It was as if they had caught something, like a flu or a cold, except the thing they caught was corruption. Corruption had been caught and then continued to spread; the no-longer colonial government had carried on the same practices and the masses had remained more or less oppressed. Of course, as a result, there had been a popular uprising too, in 1970, but this was soon snuffed out. His brother River, twenty years old then, had marched and followed the young black leaders of the time.
At night, as they had laid in their separate beds, River had recounted his adventures of black power marches and the ideas behind them. Sans Amen was part of a world struggle, his brother had assured him. Revolution was everywhere in the world in 1970, especially in America; earlier they’d had something called a Civil Rights Movement and it had led to change for the oppressed. Even women had marched; they had called themselves Feminists. Musicians, artists, even white people had joined in. In other parts of the world, the big patches of pink or yellow on his small globe, revolution had made all the difference. River had called himself a fighter for freedom.
But 1970 all came to nothing in the end in Sans Amen. The then leaders of that black power movement were all tracked down, rounded up and locked away on a rock off the coast. Some wrote poetry; others broke down. Some never broke. But during their incarceration, the spirit of rebellion cooled in the City of Silk. Their ideas were ridiculed by the government and then forgotten by the people.
River had joined a small band of men who had fought on; they were called the Brotherhood of Freedom Fighters. It was as if the island of Sans Amen had been forever blighted with this flu called corruption; it had arrived with Christopher Columbus. Half the Amerindians were killed off instantly and then it had spread through the Caribbean; it had arrived in waves, with the Old World planters and the pirates.
Now it was 1990, fifteen years after River had been shot, and a new Leader had emerged on the streets of Sans Amen; a spiritual man who cared enough about boys like Breeze to rescue and educate them, give them a sense of self-worth. The Leader had also attended marches, he had self-organised and talked like River had talked, about a New Society. ‘We still don’t have enough men in society to respond to political oppression,’ the Leader often said. ‘We need to kill the very idea of oppression.’ And Ashes had consulted his heart and knew that these words were true and just. Not enough common men stood up for what was right, or understood that they needed to fight for social reform. The people of Sans Amen were asleep; they had accepted too much corruption, they did not expect let alone demand fair governance.
*
Four o’ clock on Thursday afternoon, and still no word of an amnesty or any of their demands. No one had eaten much, if anything at all. The hostages had been allowed water and if they needed to relieve themselves they did so in a teacup or a glass in the corner of the chamber behind the speaker’s chair. Some of the brothers were openly relieving themselves against the wall. Some had defecated and Ashes was ashamed of this. Small heaps of human faeces had started to fester in the heat. That part of the chamber had become a latrine of smashed crockery and human excrement and piss. The two female ministers could not go there. Instead they used their own glass or cup. The chamber stank and what with the smell of the dead in the rooms behind and those lying dead on the steps leading to the gallery, there was a new concern: disease, an outbreak of cholera or typhoid. Most of the hostages held a cloth or handkerchief to their noses. They didn’t want to inhale the bacteria now airborne. The chamber was a hell. The fetid air was making Ashes’ asthma worse. He had already used half the salbutamol spray in his inhaler; when the rest was gone he would be in trouble.
That was when he decided to go downstairs. He didn’t need to ask anyone for permission or say anything about where he was going. He felt invisible again and quietly moved towards the back rooms of the House, the rooms with dead bodies, the rooms that were all shot up. Some of them contained gunmen sitting or lying on the floor; he walked past these and no one stopped him or called out. In the commune he was always the odd one out, quiet, aloof; he didn’t live there, he came and went for prayers or to volunteer in the medical clinic occasionally. No one seemed to notice him as he passed. There was a staircase leading to the lower ground floor and he followed it, his feet slipping down the steps, his heart crying out for peace and solitude. But he knew downstairs there were barred gates, that he would still be surrounded and trapped. It was only just dawning on him what they’d done – what he’d done. He’d taken part in an armed insurrection. A coup d’état. Or at least a good attempt at one.
A fountain stood in the centre of the lower floor but there was no water flowing through it. He stood next to it and looked upwards to see a high vaulted ceiling, rows of opaque windowpanes and lots of green oxidised brass, all arranged in a square. He was underneath the tower in the centre of the whole structure which was the House of Power. He realised the dragon was directly above him, pointing its scaly head towards the direction of the wind. He shuddered just to think of it; they should have taken more note of it and its spell. The tower and its structure reminded him of some kind of intricately woven ladder upwards to the sky, but it offered no way out.
Along from the fountain there was a cool corridor and many doors leading off the hall, most half open. The brothers must have come down here early on and rounded up anyone still in the House at 6 p.m. The lower floor had a deserted feel, like a museum. He walked past door after door, peeping into some of the rooms, feeling very small and like a burglar. And then he saw a door which looked older than the others, shut. He was still holding his rifle, which he had got used to, and yet still didn’t know how to shoot, let alone reload. It stank in his hands of gunmetal and sweat. He opened the door, twisting the doorknob hard, and it opened with a push and he shrieked when a large ginger cat ran out, hissing. It fizzed its way down the corridor away from him, furious. Then it hopped up and sat on the ledge of the fou
ntain and glared at him. It began to clean itself and glare and clean itself alternately and Ashes felt guilty to have annoyed it so much.
Ashes pushed open the door to find the room inside was very light, spots of colour all over the wooden floor. Ashes saw the coloured spots came from a stained glass window and in the window he saw Jesus Christ pinned to the cross gazing upwards. Ashes gasped and crossed himself as he’d seen Christians do. Jesus seemed to be blazing there against the afternoon sun, which was still strong. He was up on the cross on Calvary, the two thieves next to him, Jesus who was executed for treason, for preaching compassion and for challenging corruption. Ashes shivered and saw that to the right there was a wall of books, and the wall of books went around and encased the room and it was as if Ashes had been given a gift, a secret chamber in this vast monument built in the style of Victoria. The House of Power was a feminine place with its coolness and its fountains and fancy tra la la upstairs; all gold and white and embroidered with bows, the red carpet, the chandeliers. And at the heart of it, there was this library. A haven from the hell they had brought in. They had made a terrible mistake, he knew this now. They had injured and killed a woman, and others too. They had shot up the place and ruined the House. The City of Silk was on fire. They had even locked up a cat. His wife Jade might never speak to him again.
Ashes leant his rifle against the bookcase and he allowed himself to scan the shelves. He saw history, law, encyclopedias, atlases, books of maps, books written by a famous ex-prime minister of Sans Amen, a book about the voyages of Columbus, and books full of old art plates, many files, papers and leather-bound books which looked meaningless, like a kind of wallpaper. Hundreds of books like these. But there were no novels or volumes of verse and the region had many fine novelists and poets. And nothing of Fanon or Fat Clay of Cuba, not even any words from Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King. None of the great mystical poets, Kabir or Rumi or St Francis of Assisi, no books about living or dying well like those written by the holy sages in Tibet. There was no Bible, no Torah, nothing of the Quran or the Upanishads.
He turned around to face the window and Jesus there on the cross. He saw a man who said The first will be last and the last will be first. He crossed himself again and thought that somehow he did not feel righteous or noble or revolutionary. Somehow, his revolution had gone to pieces. He picked up his gun and he felt its weight and how useless it was in his hands; he didn’t even know if it was loaded or not. He looked at the man on the cross and found himself saying ‘sorry’ aloud. It just fell out of his mouth because he felt so ashamed of himself. He left the room glad he’d found it, a place to be safe, away from it all; and yet in his heart, in the most intelligent part of him, he felt destitute.
*
Upstairs in the chamber the Prime Minister was still lashed to a man who Ashes now knew was Mr Bertrand Cranleyson, the Minister for National Security. Mr Cranleyson and the PM were the most high-level hostages they had captured. Both had been seriously wounded in the legs by Hal the night before. Though the blood had stopped seeping, both men were in poor physical shape. The Prime Minister’s eyes were sealing up and his face was blue and purple from where he’d been kicked. And yet he had an air about him of being the victor. He had a rakish aspect about him too; his moustache was a thin line across his top lip, his sideburns were defined, like he had modelled his facial hair on a celluloid pimpernel. His skin was olive brown and his teeth were very white, and when he spoke it was as if he had been given elocution lessons. Also he had something that Hal hadn’t counted on, a human quality no one else in the chamber possessed, and in some strange, unspoken way it was the very thing all the hostages and brothers were aligned with. The Prime Minister had stood up to the gunmen, to Hal’s leadership, and he’d risked his life in doing so. He had been shot for his disobedience. But what he’d really been shot for was that he refused to acknowledge Hal’s leadership. Under duress the Prime Minister had claimed his rightful authority. He would rather die than relinquish it.
The Prime Minister was suffering physically – and yet psychologically he was defiant. In some ways, he was still the most powerful man in the chamber. He had made sure everyone knew who was the official leader. His pants had been wrestled back up by one of the brothers and he was no longer so rudely exposed. But with his swelled up face and his legs caked with clots of blood, he didn’t come across as vulnerable. He spoke like a dignified person, slow and articulate, and the brothers didn’t know quite how to respond to him. The hostages were used to him and even seemed to like and respect him. Hal hadn’t counted on all of this, and neither had Ashes or any of the other brothers. Half of those in the putrid, reeking, shambolic chamber still deferred to the Prime Minister. The PM had showed Hal that his power was useless against him; Hal could go ahead and shoot him. Hal had threatened to do so and the Prime Minister had called his bluff because he had been willing to be shot. Now Hal knew he couldn’t threaten to shoot him again without making himself look like an arse. The PM had shown he was prepared to die for his country and he had exposed Hal: Hal wanted to live and the Prime Minister was prepared to die.
So now the Prime Minister, all battered and bruised, an old colonial and yet dashing, had kept his power. And that power was greater than Hal’s. The Prime Minister had demonstrated what power really was, that it was important enough to risk life itself for. And Ashes was stricken with a mixture of remorse and hopelessness for his own cowardice and weakness. He had fled upwards to the ceiling; he had vanished under duress.
The PM’s bravery had had an effect on everyone. The hours dragged by. Parakeets squawked in the berries in the palms around the House. The ceasefire had lasted most of the day. No news from the outside. Hal kept in constant contact with the Leader but still neither of them had spoken to Colonel Howl, and Father Sapno was due to come back at 6 p.m. One of the brothers had brought a pack of cards and four of them played all fours. From the windows they had all witnessed the looting in the streets, the fires everywhere, men walking brazenly down the road carrying TV sets, beds, table tennis tables, boxes of expensive imported sneakers, standing fans, ladders, bolts of cloth, bags of rice, ironing boards, golf clubs, skate boards, tyres, boxes of rum. They spotted one man walking slowly down the street with a chandelier balancing on his head. The army couldn’t stop the looting; the whole regiment was fully occupied with surrounding two locations in the centre of town. The police had all run away. The police weren’t trained for this; they couldn’t keep control of the looting even if they tried. Ashes saw that not one of the looters, his fellow countrymen, seemed interested in what was happening in the vivid magenta House of Power. They all walked past it. Some pointed and stared; one or two looked up. Fat Clay of Cuba had trained thousands to march on Havana in the end. The Leader had half-trained not even a hundred. There was a method to a successful revolution, Ashes was beginning to realise.
*
At five in the afternoon there was an important piece of news. Hal came into the chamber. ‘Delta Force are here.’ He announced this mainly to his men, but in some way he found the fact thrilling, that they had caused such a stir, like he was saying it to a larger audience. ‘They Americans have landed.’ Hal went over to the PM. ‘You,’ he said. ‘You will make sure there is no foreign intervention, okay?’ He kicked the PM in his injured legs and the PM howled.
Breeze looked worried. He walked over to the PM and prodded him with the nose of his rifle.
‘What is Delta Force?’ he said to the PM.
The Prime Minister regarded young Breeze with his august attention. He gave him a thorough looking up and down, enough to make Breeze squirm in his army boots.
‘They are a specialist fighting force within the army of the United States of America. They have come to my rescue. They have come to rescue everyone here who you have barbarically captured and tortured, young man.’
Breeze swore, saying muddercunt under his breath. He steupsed and swaggered away, hiding that he was trying to think ab
out this information. Everyone else also absorbed these facts. Hal disappeared with his walkie-talkie crammed to his ear.
Breeze came back.
‘Why the blasted focking Americans interfere?’ he said. ‘You tell them focking Yankee muddercunts to take their focking Delta focking muddercunt fancy specialist troops and stick them on the ground right here. We go blast their skinny white arses from here back to Washington DC.’ Breeze aimed his gun out the window and made as if to pull the trigger. ‘Pow,’ he said.
Greg Mason whistled.
Arnold cackled and danced and said, ‘Yeah, man.’ Many of the younger boys laughed.
Ashes felt ashamed. This was no way to speak to the PM.
Mr Mahibir said, ‘Young boy, have you not heard of the Monroe Doctrine?’
‘The what?’
Now Greg Mason was paying attention.
‘The Monroe Doctrine. It was penned many years ago. And it is a Doctrine which means that Latin America and the whole of the Caribbean region have a “special relationship” with the USA. They have sworn to protect us, you could say.’
Breeze looked suspicious. ‘No. I never hear about that.’
‘I’m sure neither has that arse your Leader,’ said the PM.
Greg Mason said ‘Ay,’ as if to demand respect, but it was clear Greg was interested and hadn’t heard of the Doctrine either.
‘The Americans saw off the Europeans in the end. They wanted the Europeans to stop all their warfare and land-grabbing in the New World and so they pledged to act as . . . well you could say . . . peace makers, in the Latin American and Caribbean region. They have done so ever since the treaty was signed in 1823.’
House of Ashes Page 6
