‘We are going to wait,’ said Hal. ‘When the army storm the building, they will cut the power supply and the lights will go off. So. When the lights go off, I want you to fire and aim to kill. Each of you will mark your target and shoot to the head. Understand?’
I couldn’t believe I’d heard correctly. We would be executed? If the lights dimmed? Mervyn’s face was inches from mine. He didn’t seem too perturbed. In fact, there was a smirk of mischief on his face.
‘You,’ he said, looking up at the guerilla soldier called Ashes. ‘So is you who now coming to shoot me? You helping me to make tea an now you going and kill me? Eh, eh.’
Mervyn laughed, but I couldn’t. His laughter was hollow and I knew he was scared too; he was attempting a kind of gallows humour.
‘Mervyn, hush,’ I said. I was scared he might be shot by accident; he was pushing his luck.
The man called Ashes was pointing his gun at Mervyn but his gun was shaking. I looked up at the boy Breeze and saw his gun was also shaking. He tried to hold on to his mean grown-up man’s expression. But the boy had sweat on his face and he was squinting back tears.
My heart was racing, racing, racing and then slowing down, and then racing and then slowing. It was rock hard in my chest. The air in my lungs had evaporated and I could barely breathe. My head had filled with blood and the blood was pounding in my temples or it might even leak from my eyes. My body was rigid and yet the adrenalin made the terror inside me feel like liquid.
I felt the nose of Breeze’s long, skinny gun in my back.
‘Don’t move, Mrs Garland,’ he said, but his voice sounded weak.
The faces of my husband Marc and my children floated before me, my mother, my close friends. I was forty-two. Much too young. I imagined my soul floating upwards, to the ceiling. I could have gone to sleep right then, let go. I was flooded with the grief of my own death. I saw my own funeral, my family standing there, dumbstruck. I mourned myself, mourned with my loved ones the end of my existence. I wondered if or when I would find them all again, or who I would meet in my life after my death. This was my ending as a minister, as a public servant: being shot dead in the House by a street boy. A miserable event. I was only glad it wasn’t that crazy man, the Leader. I wondered about the Leader, about his childhood. Had he been hurt too, neglected just like Breeze? It was commonly said about him that he’d had a knock to the head. Had he been hurt as a child in some way so damaging that he’d gone on to arm himself as a man, lead a small outlaw militia, lay such a grandiose claim on the politics of this small island? I was a woman in politics and I’d met all sorts of men in the House of Power, and many of these men I’d come to know, via cocktail parties, from their wives, had difficult personal stories. Somehow this all had something to do with a very personal abuse of power; it started at home, with bad fathering, bad mothering, with a lack of love.
*
We lay face down on the floor of the chamber for what felt like a very long time. Minutes elongated and strangled each other. Hal stood with his hand on his rifle, also ready to shoot. Then, from one corner of the chamber, mad-crazy laughter rang out; it sliced the air into pieces. Laughter and cussing, the laughter of jab jabs. Then there was gunfire. Plaster fell from the ceiling and sprayed us with powder. Laughter and gunfire, bullets hitting the ceiling, powder falling, and again my body was rigid and adrenalin coursed through me in waves. So it wasn’t Breeze who would shoot me after all. The gunman wearing the Santa hat had started to shoot; he was cussing and screeching and had run to one of the windows, shouting, ‘Allyuh, come, come, we ready,’ and he began to fire out into the night.
‘Get him down,’ shouted Hal. I saw the man called Greg Mason leap across the room and round kick him hard, so hard there was a crunch. The shooting stopped and his body hit the ground. More gunmen went over to the man with the Santa hat.
‘Tie him up,’ instructed Hal. ‘And take him behind.’
The Santa hat man had lost control of himself. The other gunmen struggled with him as he writhed and cussed and tried to fight them off. They beat him down and tied him up and I could see him still struggling as they took him away.
If I closed my eyes I could easily be drawn into sleep. I could fall into dreams and conjure up a different reality, oh, if I could sleep. But instead I was hyper-awake and over-anxious, my body’s alarm systems on red alert. Mervyn lay next to me.
‘Mervyn,’ I whispered.
‘Yeah?’
‘You okay?’
He blinked and said, ‘Aspasia, we need to keep our spirits up and our heads down. See that man who just went mad?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well that madness is here in the room.’ I nodded.
‘We will get out of here,’ he said. ‘The army would have stormed long time, if they wanted to. They playing games with these ruffians, cat and mouse. They could send Special Forces in. Or Delta Force. They in the stronger position. These fools grasping at straws. The game is over. Just keep your head down. We not near dying.’
‘What about the lights?’
‘They not storming down the place, Aspasia.’
I felt a wave of nausea rise. I hiccupped and coughed a little. ‘You don’t feel bad?’ I whispered.
‘About what?’
‘About these boys.’
Mervyn thought for a few moments and then nodded slowly, like he knew.
‘Yes.’
‘The Leader captured them from the streets. Either they go dead inside here, or they going to gaol for ever.’
‘Or worse.’
‘What?’
‘They will be hung.’
‘What? All of them?’
‘Yes. Treason is punishable by death. You know that.’
‘How they go hang all this bunch?’
‘By the balls, Aspasia.’
‘Don’t make joke . . . they can hang the leaders of this. But them boys is just boys.’
‘And one of them had his gun in your back just now. He would have shot you on command.’
‘It’s not his fault.’
‘So – you like them now?’
‘No. But some are under sixteen. Surely different rules for them.’
‘Maybe.’
‘I pray for their souls.’
‘Aspasia, right now, just think of your own soul.’
I was grateful for Mervyn’s sense of reason and his wider view of things. Sans Amen still used the death penalty for murder and treason and I found this abhorrent in the extreme. It was ridiculous to demonstrate to the public that it was wrong to kill people by then killing people. But the citizens of Sans Amen had shown that they were thirsty for this kind of punishment; they were happy to see criminals hang. I tried to think of the logistics of hanging this crackpot bunch. How would they do it? First they would need to be tried before the courts, then sentenced. Would they do this in batches? If so, it could take years, maybe decades, and then carrying out the sentence
. . . Just the very idea of seeing so many men and boys hung, what – in groups of ten or twelve over days, weeks? It would be a shameful thing for any government to do. Shameful. Hang all these boys?
I felt sick. I vowed then and there that I would do more if I got out of the House alive. Rather than slink away from politics, defeated, I would double my efforts. This tragedy wouldn’t scare me off; instead it made me feel even more committed to my job. Our government had overlooked many things; we hadn’t acted quickly enough to secure change, and it was true, we had made unpopular cuts. Austerity measures. There’d been marches, and this Leader of theirs had indeed made threats. We hadn’t taken him seriously, hadn’t taken the temperature enough. There were programs for the poor, yes, all in the pipeline, all to come. But these young boys – it was already too late for them.
Just then, Hal said, ‘Okay. Looking like things are quiet outside.’
Mervyn mouthed, Stay calm.
‘All of you can relax your position.’
There was movement
above us as the men shifted about and started to move away from their targets.
‘Can we move?’ I said to Hal.
‘Where yuh want to go?’
‘These cuffs are digging in to me. Can you cut us free?’
‘No, not yet, Mrs Garland. Not yet. You staying right there.’
With that Hal disappeared.
I tried to remain calm, hogtied with my hands behind my back. I craved sleep, but the chaos of alarm in my head made sleep impossible. I rested my cheek on the carpet. I imagined seeing my children; I hadn’t said enough of a goodbye to them the last time I saw them. Brief kisses. If only I’d known. If only I’d had an inkling it might be the last time I’d see them. More plaster fell from the ceiling. It was about 8 p.m., I guessed. The chamber of the House was ruined now and I marvelled and thought, How has this happened again?
*
Later in the evening it felt clear the army weren’t going to attack. Apparently Colonel Howl had disappeared from the street outside; it probably meant he’d gone back to discuss other plans at HQ nearby. Eventually, the gunmen untied us and I rubbed my wrists which had been so tightly tied together there were welts. There was a tight, screwed-up, empty feeling inside me which came from being so scared.
But I also felt release, a giving up, that feeling I sometimes get after tears, or after a sea bath. My bowels were also weak. I’d already relieved myself into a glass. Now I feared I might defecate all over myself. My legs were feeble; I hadn’t walked around or used them since the night before. They were like phantom limbs, floating around beneath me. I’d been holding on, withstanding the situation. I had exactly twenty-four hours’ worth of resilience stored inside me. Then I sensed all the different parts of me letting go. I needed to use the bathroom. I needed to defecate, cry, wash my face, wash my hands, blow my nose. I looked at my hands and realised they were shaking.
Breeze was still hanging round me, staring with open curiosity, and I found his gaze hard to tolerate. I glanced over at the latrine behind the speaker’s chair and again I felt that caving-in feeling. A hot bile rose in my throat. I began to cough up whatever was inside me, a glue of bile and intestinal juices, strings of it came out onto the carpet and for the first time tears spilled down my cheeks. The air in my chest choked off. Tears rolled from my eyes and the young boy watched me and I wanted to shoo him away and say, Get away from me. I needed to relieve myself, but I couldn’t face that foul heap of broken cups and piss-filled glasses in the corner. There were already piles of shit on the carpet; I couldn’t see myself shitting in the same heap as the gunmen. I found a last shred of inner strength and I looked up at the boy-man with the gun as if he were my own son.
‘You will take me to the washroom now.’
He gave me a look of puzzlement and then smirked.
‘Don’t just stand there. I want to use the washroom down the corridor.’
‘No. You must go there,’ and Breeze pointed with his gun to the heap in the corner.
‘I will not relieve myself there.’ I used my politician’s voice. Stern, uncompromising. ‘Help me up.’ I began to struggle to my feet, but they were shaky. I had to steady myself with my arms. Slowly, I got to my feet and began to stumble towards the corridor and the tearoom where I knew there was a small toilet cubicle, and I felt the boy being left behind and then the nose of his gun in my back.
‘Lady, you are not supposed to be walking around. Stop.’
I was dragging my legs and my ankles felt like rubber, like they could fold over themselves and I could fall. My ears had filled up with a ringing sound. I wasn’t going to listen to this teenage boy’s commands. I turned around. Hal looked across at me and so did some of the other gunmen. I put my hands in the air, just above my shoulders.
‘You can shoot me dead right now. Okay?’ I raised my hands higher. ‘I’ll give you that pleasure, if you like.’ I was so damn tired, half-defeated already; I almost believed my own words. My hands were trembling, enough so the boy could see. ‘Go on. Do it,’ I cajoled. Right then I could have slapped his face.
Breeze frowned and seemed taken aback. Then he looked towards Hal, who was watching us.
‘Shoot me dead, this minute, or let me be. I am a parliamentarian and you cannot take my status away.’
Breeze pointed his gun at my chest. ‘I could do it, nuh,’ he threatened.
I looked at him dead straight in the eye. Indeed he could. He was feral in some way; a child, but not like my son. He had a lack of being cared for about him and in that lack he didn’t care for others.
‘I’m going to use the washroom,’ I said.
Hal gave Breeze a hard stare of disapproval and said, ‘Ayyy. Not so fast. Let her go.’
I nodded at Hal in acknowledgement for his support. I limped forward, down the corridor. I hadn’t left the chamber since the day before and now I could see the wreckage in the tearoom and beyond. It was the old anger, the barbarism and the torture once rained down on the black man that I saw there in this room. Bad energy: old, dark, rancorous; there was bad faith in there. Like a swarm of locusts had come and shredded the place up, leaving behind a pile of smashed crockery and the stench of urine. There were many words scrawled on the wall about God. And yet there was a desolate feeling of Godlessness.
I glanced left and seized up and let out a cry of terror. The body of a woman lay under a table in the room, sticky with blood. She’d been shot in the stomach and the wound was huge, like a giant mouth. I began to retch and panic and was near to lashing out. ‘Jesus Christ! What have you all done?’ I realised I knew her; she was a clerk in the House. I saw that woman every day, though we rarely spoke as we went about our everyday business.
I glared at the boy with the gun. I pointed at the body of the dead woman.
‘Go away! Get out of my sight,’ I rasped. The young man-boy with the gun looked at the body of the woman on the ground and he winced as if she was a small mistake. He moved backwards a little but hovered, still, with his big gun . . . watching me.
I found the washroom and I turned the handle and let myself in. I gagged and vomited into the sink. I ran the taps and splashed water on to my face and tried to see, really see, who I was looking at in the mirror. Aspasia Garland, where was she? But I could barely see my face; it was as if I’d no head, as if it had been removed. I saw a blank space in the mirror. That woman’s bloody and bloated body could have been mine. That body was mine. That woman was me. We were the same woman. Her body had been so casually discarded, a life thrown away; it could have been any woman, all women. The boys too, the gunmen. They were every boy. Tears ran and I saw that I looked very young, and also a hundred years old. I splashed water again so the water dissolved my tears. In the washroom there was a small window, but it was much too high up to escape from. I looked out into the night sky and prayed to God to be delivered from all of this. Deliver us, Lord. If I lived I would do better in this game of politics, which was mostly a game for men. I vowed to be there and stay there for the sake of the dead woman on the floor.
When I returned to the chamber I sat back down next to Mervyn.
‘You didn’t tell me how bad things were in there.’
‘No. It’s bad . . . isn’t it?’
‘Terrible. There’s a woman lying dead. Under the table.’
He nodded, gravely.
‘I think she was a clerk from downstairs. She must have come up here on Wednesday afternoon to deliver papers or something. A young woman, she has kids. I know her.’
I could see Mervyn was upset.
‘They are crazy, these people, Mervyn. Their Leader, he gave a bunch of men some guns, he had some half-cooked plans, and now things . . . really, really bad. I wanted to be in politics since I was young, since I was about twelve.’
Mervyn looked impressed.
‘I was one of the first people in Sans Amen to be a member of Greenpeace in the early 1980s . . .’ I laughed at this. It felt like a long time back; Greenpeace was then considered a kind
of terrorist cell. ‘I was an activist from an early age. Saving animals, you know . . . a conservationist. That was me. All I wanted to do was save the earth. It has been a passion of mine, since childhood . . . since I saw a turtle on its back on the beach, with its fins hacked off. It took hours to die in the sun. It devastated me to know humans could be so barbaric, to see the creature cry as it died. I went to school and university here on the island and studied politics. I was proud to be elected.’
Mervyn nodded. ‘Not me,’ he said. ‘I fell into it.’
‘Well I didn’t.’
‘I’ve never been an activist. I’m an observer. And a doctor.’
‘That sounds pretty active to me.’
‘No. I feel different, Aspasia. Quiet. I am a quiet man. I like to keep out of things. Really.’
The gunmen had been using Mervyn to help the injured and he’d been generous with his skills. Some more of the gunmen had been shot; one in the arm, another had had his ear badly grazed. Another had fallen on broken glass. None of the hostages, luckily, had been hurt by the incoming gunfire. Mervyn was asked to do what he could with the medicine kit and he freely obliged. One of the phone lines had been reconnected and I suspected this was how Hal and the Leader were communicating between the House and the television station. But Mervyn had also started to look a little shaky. He was less steady on his feet. Like me, he must be hungry and scared. The gunman Ashes was helping him tend the injured men. The pair of them made a rather well-matched team. In different circumstances, it was easy to see them as colleagues.
When he was done, Mervyn wrote a list of what was needed and gave it to Hal saying he should ring for supplies to be delivered as soon as possible. The gunman with the bullet in his arm faced gangrene within hours in the heat if he wasn’t treated. Others needed stitches where he’d picked out large shreds of glass. But it was the Prime Minister he was most worried about.
‘The Prime Minister is now losing his sight from his diabetes. If he isn’t treated with his medication, he could slip into a coma. Then you will have lost your most valuable hostage. Then you will have a body to throw over the balcony. His. Then the army will come in here and kill everyone. Get him his pills or release him.’
House of Ashes Page 8
