The last three days of revolution had shaken him. Ashes felt he’d become a crude, simple man again; he had succumbed to all the lowest emotions. He’d been scared almost every minute of the last few days. He’d been anxious, riddled with doubt. He had been angry with the others, with most of the brothers, in fact, including Hal and Breeze Arnold and Greg Mason. Anger was never a wise reaction to events; anger shut out the light. He’d felt ashamed, too. At first he was disappointed and then disillusioned with what had happened in the chamber of the House. The dead woman on the floor, the dead men lying all over the place, in other rooms, on the balconies, on the ground outside, on the steps, their bodies now defiled. Arnold all tied up in one of the back rooms; Arnold who’d gone mad, overwhelmed by the nafs. The lady appearing from the broom cupboard; she had made him feel guilty and bad. And then there were the terrifying guns and rockets, the army outside. Ashes had suffered actual pains in his chest. Panic attacks. Even though he had been praying several times a day, but it was hard to open his heart in these conditions.
Greg Mason was one of the few that remained intact. His eyes were still mean and full of intent; his righteous fervour hadn’t died. He had survived 1970; he had shot at least one man dead; he had served years in gaol for his crimes. He was the Real Deal: a guerilla fighter. Ashes looked out the window and saw the army and the ruined streets and he felt un-free. He doubted he would ever be free again. He knew his personal freedom had ended. But Greg still seemed crazy with zeal, committed and self-assured. They had kept each other at a measured and respectful distance throughout the last few days. Now it felt impossible to avoid meeting him.
‘Ayyy,’ Mason said, by way of stopping him in his tracks.
Ashes froze. He was holding his gun. For some reason he’d kept it with him all along. It had given him something to hold on to. He hadn’t fired a shot. He carried it with a kind of tired resignation and yet he didn’t want to put it down in case it was loaded and went off. He didn’t know if it was loaded or not. He’d held onto it just in case.
Mason gave him a look which meant that he wanted to talk. He was one of those men in the compound Ashes had kept clear of. He’d kept clear of men like Mason in life, too. They were men of action who other men respected and women found attractive. Mason had that energy. Men like Mason made him feel weak. They didn’t read books; they read magazines, if that.
‘You use that thing yet?’ Mason said, and his eyes were like they didn’t see him.
Ashes shook his head.
‘Give it to me.’
Ashes complied.
Mason weighed it in his hands and steupsed. He opened the chamber of the gun and peered inside.
He looked back at Ashes with a knowing and disappointed expression. ‘It empty. W’appen, you doh figure to load the damn thing?’
Ashes cringed.
‘You were given ammunition. Why didn’t you load your gun like you were ordered to?’
Ashes had forgotten this command in the heat of it all. He had been wearing his bandolier of bullets, but had taken it off to sleep. The bandolier was now downstairs in the library. Besides, no one had shown him how to load his gun.
Mason steupsed. ‘Come.’
In a back room there were boxes of ammunition, more guns, bullets, hand grenades. All unused; it was like they had brought too much; like they had decided they were going to save the rest for another try. Mason reached into a box and said, ‘See?’ And he opened the chamber of the gun again and loaded six bullets into the holes inside. He gave Ashes a look which said something to him about his brother River. Ashes’ spectacles began to fog.
Mason glared at him. ‘Your brother, he showed me how to load a gun,’ he steupsed. ‘You two like chalk and cheese. How your mother born two sons who get in to so much trouble, eh?’
It was a good question.
‘River was a soul man, a man who saw the light.’ And with this his eyes fired up and Ashes could see that Mason had loved River too. ‘You two are so different. Is like you are him in reverse.’
At this Ashes bowed his head, feeling ashamed. He was no fighter. He had a few reasons for being here, but they had evaporated almost immediately. He wanted to be at home with his wife. He wondered if Mason was married or had children he loved. He wanted to say to him that heroism could also be quiet. He had made a family and that was enough good work for a man.
Mason passed him back the rifle and he weighed it like he was trying to measure the difference but it felt the same, with or without bullets. Now his gun was loaded. Now he was dangerous, just like Fat Clay of Cuba. It felt very late in the day to be so dangerous. He nodded at Mason and said, ‘Our mother is very proud of us.’
*
Apparently, it was all over now. The army was sending a convoy of trucks to take all the hostages away. But by now he had overheard the ministers whisper amongst each other, using words like ‘treason’ and ‘murder’ and ‘hanging’ and ‘prison’. And these words had been the reason for his attacks of panic. What would his wife think? He’d sunk to the lowest, crudest possible human form. He had deceived his wife – and his country. He was a common betrayer. Treason. It was a word he must look up in the dictionary. He hadn’t even considered this. It was a crime he didn’t know much about. He hadn’t left the compound three days ago in a W.A.T.E.R. truck to commit an act of treason; that wasn’t his motive at all. He wasn’t a ‘treasonous’ man. One act, depending on how you looked at it, could be both positive and negative. Now he didn’t know which way to look at what they had done. It was clear he had let himself down. And his spiritual aspirations were failed too; they hadn’t just ended, they had reversed.
Jade must now know where he was. All the wives must have known since the first night. After the two-hour bombardment that morning, and the news of the hostages being taken away in army trucks, Ashes decided he would use the telephone. Everything had been smashed up and blown to pieces; everything was over. He would call his wife. He would apologise and beg her for forgiveness. And so, when Hal was issuing orders to the men in the chamber, Ashes went into the ruined back room where everything was smashed up and there was more graffiti about God on the wall. The phone was on the floor and he sat down next to it and he picked up the receiver and felt relief at the sound of the dial tone and dialled the telephone number to his home.
The phone rang and he felt a slow rolling oceanic wave threaten to engulf him, a wave of dread and fear and sorrow.
‘Hello?’
She sounded unhappy. Even with this one word he could tell. He had expected it to be a relief to hear her voice. But he didn’t feel anything like relief. He felt dead.
‘Jade.’
‘Hello . . . Ashes?’
‘Jade, yes. This is me.’
He could hear her heart beating, and he could imagine her love for him now ruined. He had ruined it. He had ruined his life, their life together. His sons’ lives. He had made an irretrievable error.
‘Ashes, where are you?’
‘I’m inside the House of Power.’
She didn’t respond and for a few seconds he thought of telling her again, to make it clear.
‘What you expect me to say, eh?’ There was a thick sob in her voice.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Yes. Please forgive me.’
‘Ashes . . . at this stage forgiveness is high talk. They going and kill allayou. They going and kill you all. Blow you away. That . . . or send you to prison for the rest of your life or hang your arses.’
A hard lump formed in Ashes’ throat and tears fell. He could feel his breathing begin to change, his heart speed up; he patted for his inhaler and pumped spray into his mouth. But the spray had run out. He had none left, his secret air.
‘Ashes, why you never tell me about this?’
‘Jade. This wasn’t supposed to end this way. This was all supposed to go well. It was a good plan which the Leader thought would work. He is not a bad man. He is not a
treasoner. The Leader had been planning this event for months, even years. He send people to train in camps in the desert.’
‘Plan? Desert? Are you all mad in the head? None of the wives knew about this. The Leader, he a madman. Allyuh crazy or what? I should never let you get involved with him. He mad. You mad too. Ashes, oh God . . . why didn’t you tell me . . . the whole country in state of emergency.’
‘You seeing it on TV?’
‘No. They block it all out. Nothing on the TV but one show. The Little Mermaid. Running over and over again. Nothing else. We get the radio, though. One man still in the radio station across the road from the television station. He lock himself in and he broadcasting the news every day. We get the picture. This is a terrible thing. All of town in chaos I hear. Looting everywhere. Looters carrying TV and furniture all up the street by us. One man walk past just now with a bath tub on his head. The City of Silk is on fire, people dead. Utter lawlessness. I keep the children in and all they do is ask for their father and all I tell them is that I don’t know where he is. They ask if you is with the Leader. I tell them no. I say you gone down south for a trip to visit your uncle. I tell Arich and Arkab you gone to stay with him. What else I go tell them, eh?’
Ashes groaned.
‘You think I proud to tell them where they father is?’
Ashes took off his spectacles and rested them on his lap. His breathing was becoming uneven; he mustn’t panic or get any more upset. He must say goodbye to his wife.
‘You did this for your brother, River. You did this for some crazy idea. Family redemption. Sompthing so. I know is for River you do this. Well River dead. An you go dead too just now. The Leader use you. You think he care about you or about us?’
‘The whole thing is over now,’ Ashes said. ‘The army coming for the ministers. Soon it all over.’
‘Oh,’ Jade said and her voice plummeted.
Ashes realised that this ending had no meaning for her. She wouldn’t be seeing him soon. He wouldn’t be coming home. He missed his life. He hadn’t reckoned on losing it. He looked up out of the window and he could see a magnificent sky, and he wondered about the impossibility of reaching the seventh level, or ever ascending to any higher level of selfhood than level one. He was a man. He had tried to grow but he had missed something.
‘Goodbye,’ Ashes whispered, his breath now very thin.
‘Ashes, what? Goodbye? Are you mad? Come home. I want you to get out of there in one piece, yuh hear? We need you. I ent going an be a single woman, no husband. We need you and you must come back. Immediately. Get out of there, okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘Get out of there and come home.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Ashes whispered.
‘I’m sorry too.’
‘Can I come home?’
‘Yes. Come now.’
Ashes put down the receiver and he sat very still with his back against the wall and tried very hard to breathe, but his lungs had constricted tight and it was very possible he might die right there sitting on the floor after three days of revolution. Fat Clay of Cuba, he had similar health problems; he had coughed and wheezed his way through weeks of active revolution. But unlike him, Fat Clay was a hero. He wasn’t a treasoner. He had been a liberator, stamping out oppression; he had got things right. They had cut off his hands in the end. Ashes closed his eyes and tried to breathe through the rising panic in his soul, but he couldn’t and then he saw Breeze staring in at him from the door and he gasped, ‘Get the doctor.’
Dr Mahibir came quickly and when he saw Ashes breathing like a crapaud fish on the sand, he sat down opposite him and said, ‘Look into my eyes.’ He picked up Ashes’ hands in his and said, ‘Do not panic. You are having an asthma attack.’
Ashes nodded, knowing this. It rarely got this bad, but now it was happening and he had no secret air to save him. If he died here like this he wouldn’t face what the others had to face, courts and treason. He wouldn’t have to face his wife, his sons. It would be a natural way to disappear.
‘Keep looking at me,’ said Dr Mahibir. ‘Look at me and breathe, keep breathing.’
Ashes looked into the doctor’s eyes. It helped a bit.
‘I know you,’ Dr Mahibir said. ‘They call you Books, don’t they?’
Ashes tried to keep his breathing even. He nodded.
‘You keep medicinal plants in your backyard. You read a lot.’
Ashes nodded and kept holding the doctor’s hands; the doctor was kneeling in front of him.
‘You work as a porter in the health clinic in the east side of town. I hear about you and about your plants from a neighbour of yours, a trainee doctor who works in my department.’
Ashes kept his slow, shallow breaths going. In, out, in, out.
‘I heard you had a famous brother. River, right?’
Ashes wanted the doctor to stop talking. He wanted everyone to stop talking about his famous brother, the one who got shot up.
‘I was the one who wrote his medical report for the coroner. I was a very young doctor then. I had my first job with the government. They needed all those men looked at, proper certificates. Everything above board even though they had shot them all dead. I was the one they called in. I removed twenty-eight bullets from his body.’
Ashes could feel the air in his lungs begin to surge. Air, the source of all life, was returning in small measured doses.
‘You?’
‘Yes, me. This is a small place, you know that. We are all related in some way. I am sorry about your brother. I was shocked at the time, deeply shocked. Now I meet you here. Your poor mother. Two sons active in revolution. I guess having a strong political conscience must run in the family. I guess all this, guns and . . . everything must be exciting. Breathe,’ he said.
Ashes breathed in slowly; he was feeling a little better, more air now.
‘You know . . . I think we don’t need guns to change anything. Change is upon us all the time. Change is natural and ever present. Nothing stays the same. Everything is always moving. We are always growing. Our hair grows, our skin flakes, we grow each day. Every situation moves forward in its own way. Look, you see, even this situation has changed. When I arrived you were breathing your last breath. You were dying. Now your breath is returning.’
Ashes nodded.
‘All it took was a bit of . . . regulation. You are breathing again. See?’
‘Yes.’
‘The biggest part of the self wants to live,’ said Dr Mahibir. ‘Not one part of the self wants to die. We desire to live. That’s a very basic rule of life. Being too reactive is not the way of the natural world. The natural world is slow and often abundant, it can heal itself.’
Ashes nodded. He was breathing again. And yet he felt profoundly confused. Love. Just like air, it was an invisible force. A cohesive agent in the world. In the last three days this love force, one he usually had access to, could find within himself, had vanished. Love had vanished into thin air. And then he had no access to air. Both air and love had cut him off. He put his hand to his heart and breathed in deeply and it felt like a miracle to be breathing and to be alive. He breathed in and out, in and out; his lungs were working again, just. If he’d found his way back to air, maybe, just maybe, he could find his way back to his own heart. Go through the phases of life without losing yourself, said the Sufi mystic Hazrat Inayat Khan. Yes, he had lost himself; he had lost the heart of self. He breathed, in and out. In and out.
*
There was no place to go; everything was wrecked. The tearoom had been blown to smithereens. There was debris everywhere. The dead lay under the debris. Three days. Ashes felt there was a sense that they, the men with guns inside, were hiding now; they had no power whatsoever. The army had not yet sent their convoy of trucks. Soon after Ashes had used the telephone, the army had cut off this line so that Hal and the Leader couldn’t communicate. Hal’s walkie-talkie had more or less died. Hal was on his own now. But the agreement, generally, was t
o get out of there alive.
Ashes tried to think it out: the elected Prime Minister of the country had shown from the outset that he was prepared to die. The head of the army, Colonel Benedict Howl, had shown that he was loyal to the PM and the country; he had followed orders and attacked. The army had shown discipline and loyalty. They had backed up the PM and Howl. These two men, the PM and the head of the army, had worked together in some mysterious way. They hadn’t been speaking to each other like the Leader and Hal had been talking every hour; none of that was going on. And yet they were somehow working together, decisively, without needing to talk. It was becoming clear that this collusion was something Ashes didn’t know about, had overlooked; and so had the Leader and Hal.
Power. In some way these two men, the PM and Howl, knew what it was and what it meant. It had been allocated to them. And they had both been trained about power. They seemed to have some kind of secret knowledge about events like this which both had put into action separately and together. It was as if this covert complicity was only needed once in a lifetime, perhaps – but it was vital. They both knew how to act when power was under threat. The thought of all this made Ashes’ head spin.
Breeze had been behaving differently since the attack that morning. He looked like he had been doing some thinking too, and he’d been hanging around Ashes as if wanting to share his thoughts. Now Breeze came up to him with his hands empty. Breeze had stopped carrying his gun, maybe because it was bigger than him.
Breeze cornered him.
‘What? What going on, my friend?’ Ashes tried to sound encouraging.
Breeze crossed his arms over his chest. He was trying to maintain the posture of an urban guerilla fighter still.
‘What is a Prime Minister?’ he said. The question was more like a command.
Ashes laughed. Where had he seen Breeze before?
‘The Prime Minister is the head of government, the head of the country.’
‘Oho.’ Breeze looked suspicious, as though this was a trick statement. He re-crossed his arms and struck the same pose from another angle. ‘I thought the Leader was the head of the country.’
House of Ashes Page 12
