*
The Prime Minister had left a chasm behind him. His civilising presence and influence was missed and this also brought a new worry. Without him in the chamber, there was a vacuum; it felt as though anything could happen, even this late in proceedings. Apparently we were soon to be released, but I wouldn’t be able to believe this until I was actually on the street, until I could see my children.
I wondered about what Mrs Gonzales had said. I knew the government had an ‘intelligence unit’, that we had stationed an army post right on top of the Leader’s compound. The Leader was well marked out. He was being observed. But just how had they smuggled all these guns into the country, trained all these men, sent some to the deserts far away – I had heard them talking – and nobody high up knew? Secrets were impossible to keep in Sans Amen. Even Mrs Gonzales had overheard some of these so-called secrets.
I looked around and thought: who? Who knew? Who isn’t here?
It was a fact. Everyone in Sans Amen, particularly in political life, was linked. They had met at school, or university, or were related by blood. Some of the ministers right there even knew Hal from school. If you were clever and male, you had come across one another. Many of the ministers in the House had been in various previous governments. The Leader? It was too simple to heap everything on him, isolate him and reduce him to a monster.
Sans Amen had made the Leader. And the Leader wasn’t the only mad man involved in politics on the island, that was for sure. It was too easy to simply hang all the sins of the past thirty years on one man. The Leader hadn’t worked entirely alone. The Leader had his part to play in the story of the making of a small nation. Many others had their fingerprints all over this half-realised failure of a plan. An official inquiry into these events would never be commissioned by anyone. An inquiry would implicate everyone.
*
Now we were facing our fifth, and hopefully final, night under the gun. No army convoy had arrived to take any of us away. The army now seemed to be stringing the gunmen along with negotiations as long as possible. No amnesty, just surrender. The piece of paper signed by the ministers had been photocopied by the gunmen on a machine in one of the offices; several had a copy of it in their back pocket – the army had the original. Hal also had a print in his back pocket. The signatures mattered to him; it had been signed by the PM after all. The army had kept up their demand all day through the megaphone. Give yourselves up, was their only demand. Come out. Surrender. I hoped it was now only a matter of time before this insurrection fell flat on its face. A few more hours of hell.
The July rain didn’t make it cooler. The rain brought a sullen broodiness with it, a rancorous on-off drizzle which affected my joints. I hadn’t eaten in days and the lack of nourishment had made me weak. We were allowed water and the women could use the washroom, but nearly five days without food meant I could hardly walk straight. Any physical bravery was out of the question.
I watched the young boy Breeze as he painted words onto the wooden butt of his gun with white Liquid Paper. I strained to read the words and saw that he was slowly inscribing the words God will prevail.
Breeze had entered the House brainwashed and convinced of his plans. Now I watched him lose himself. Not just Breeze, many of the other men looked nettled and a little undone. Some of them had been killed or injured and it was interesting to see who still kept the bravado up. Most of them called each other ‘brother’. Many still prayed and they did this together. I wondered if these men looked at us, the ministers, the elected politicians of the land, in the same way I had been studying them. Were we all now feeling uncomfortable; were we all dying to stop seeing so much of each other? Hal kept glancing at his watch and striding to the back room even though the phone line was now cut. Was he at all embarrassed?
Greg Mason still hadn’t jettisoned his gun, his military combat garb or persona. He was still there to liberate the oppressed. In the same way all the politicians had met at school or at university, these men had met too, on the street, in gangs, in prison; there was an alternative criminal network which mirrored the network of so-called legitimate political life. Some men did things by the book; others did the opposite.
‘Ay, you,’ Greg Mason suddenly turned around. ‘What you staring at, lady?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Oh yeah? All you do is stare all the time.’
‘I don’t mean to. I am thinking . . . that’s all.’
‘Yeah, well stop with the staring.’
I was starving, fatigued, constantly on the verge of tears, but I had no intention of letting him see me as weak. If I moved my head too quickly the room span. Even so, I kept my cool around this dangerous man.
‘Anyway, what you thinking?’ said Mason. I studied him: hardman, liberator, badjohn, guerilla fighter, whatever he was, or thought he was. He was serious.
‘We are at the end of the twentieth century . . . change is coming. A whole new century is round the corner. A New Society is arriving . . . why you so hasty to shoot up everything?’
Mason gave me a pitying look and steupsed. ‘Lady, you not real sharp, eh? We does take cocaine off the streets. Eh? Flush it away. We does care for the young boys of the City, buy medicine for the sick who cannot afford it. We does organise ourselves and fight for the land we build on. You think anyone in this country really have power? You think the black man or the brown man have power in this country, or if you in here have power? Power belong outside politics. Power belong to the men we cannot see, big men. They running drugs up and down the islands from Colombia. Men in business in this country are part of it. Men with big money, their own army. We know who those men are – so do you. No one inside here have power. Money is power; corporations are the new colonisers. We taking power back. Change? You talking change coming? Bullshit.’
I felt cowed, and interested.
Mason glared. ‘Allyuh politicians take a cut of the big men money and nothing ever go change. The Leader, he march in the streets, he march with the labour movement, plenty people think the same way as the Leader. The Leader represents the poor man, the humble man in the street. Allyuh politicians like to use him, associate with him. Allyuh like puppets,’ and he made a puppeteer movement with his hands.
I actually nodded. He was right, there was big power outside politics. And this big power was all about drug money. Yes, those men Mason was talking about existed, and yes it was difficult to run a small country with them bribing everyone, including the politicians and the police.
The young boy Breeze came forward, anger in his face.
‘Who is the Leader?’ he asked Greg Mason. ‘If he so friggin clever and important, why he not running the country?’
Everyone hushed and looked at Breeze. ‘I tired of all of this. Big men, power. The PM, the Leader. Who run this damn friggin place?’ Breeze steupsed and looked vexed.
Greg Mason was twitchy, like he’d been cooped up far too long. ‘The Leader born poor like you,’ he said. ‘He work for the police force. He go away, get some teaching. He find the spiritual path he lose in slavery. He come back and he make space for himself in society in Sans Amen and for men like you and me. He doh really want to be the PM, or head of the country at all. He want a job, yes, maybe Minister of National Security. But the Leader, he come from another place. He come to start the purification process.’
Breeze stared.
I gaped.
Mervyn laughed out loud and shook his head. ‘The Minister of National Security? That what he looking for?’ he said, openly amused.
Then Greg looked a little ashamed, like he’d let a secret slip.
No one said anything.
Breeze said, ‘Fock this shit.’
‘Ay, watch yuhself,’ said Greg.
‘I leaving here,’ said Breeze.
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Greg, ‘and go where?’
Many of the younger men had come closer. They’d been listening in to the conversation. Now they gathered close. Some sto
od behind Breeze; many were as young as him or not much older.
‘I going and walk outta here, plain so.’
‘Oh yeah? Life done, boy. Where you think you going?’
Breeze looked blankly at Greg. His lower lip quivered and he squinted. ‘Muddercunt,’ he said. ‘We should all shoot you and Hal. Is you they want. Not us.’
The words fell like bombs. The air around emptied, a space cleared. That feeling came back to me, which had evaporated for a while. Extreme danger.
‘Young man, hush,’ said Mervyn.
Greg Mason stared down Breeze. They were both holding their rifles.
Breeze glared at Greg Mason. He wasn’t scared. He was angry and tense. He screwed up his face and sniffed up phlegm from his lungs and hawked it on the floor and then sneered. He gave Greg a hard, mean look from the streets. The Leader hadn’t bred that out of him, hadn’t even tried.
Greg threw down his gun and clenched his fists, beckoning Breeze. ‘Come, nuh,’ he said.
Breeze flung his gun down. He spat hard on the floor and cussed and lunged at Greg. In seconds they were brawling and kicking each other with karate kicks and round kicks and all kinds of action poses I assumed they’d learned from their training and from TV. And then Greg Mason had Breeze in a headlock and was jabbing hard punches into his ribs and Hal was shouting for order and the ministers all cowered and everyone in the chamber was frozen watching. No one wanted this. It was too late in the proceedings. Soon we were to be freed. Ayyyy, fockin muddercunt, Breeze struggled and swore, jabbing back, and then Greg had Breeze on the ground, punching him in the face, and the young man was still cursing and Greg was pasting him down with hard punches, shouting, rounding on the boy who was cussing and swearing he was going to kill Mason dead.
Shots rang out in the house.
Mason stopped mid-punch, heaving. They all looked across the chamber. Behind Mason and Breeze the gunman called Ashes was standing there with a rifle in his hands. He was staring at the men and clutching his gun, shaking his head. He’d fired two shots up into the ceiling.
Greg looked annoyed and steupsed. He was still heaving. ‘Fockin put that thing down,’ he gasped.
‘Leave him alone,’ Ashes said. He aimed his rifle at Mason. ‘He a young boy, let him be.’
Mason shook his head with pity.
Ashes moved closer with his pointed gun. Greg Mason smirked. ‘What, you going and shoot me with that?’ he laughed. ‘You ent even know how to use that thing. You coming like your brother or what?’
There was a silence.
The gunman called Ashes closed his eyes. It was as if he was praying or trying to steady himself. When he opened his eyes they were glistening. Then,
Bam.
‘Jesus Christ!’ screeched Mason, clutching his leg. Blood sprang. Mason looked incredulous, horrified. ‘Jesus hell, you fockin prick,’ he cussed. Blood seeped instantly through his camouflage pants and he held his leg and writhed around on the floor.
‘Get away from him,’ Ashes said to Breeze. ‘Go on, move away. If you want to leave, go. Get out of here.’
The young man called Breeze also looked surprised. He moved away from Mason and crawled across the carpet. Breeze was fine, roughed up, but okay.
Mason was still cussing.
Ashes pointed his gun at him again. ‘I’ll shoot you again, if you don’t calm yourself down,’ he said.
Mason was crying now, blood all over his leg. ‘Shit, man,’ he cussed. ‘Why you go do that?’
Hal looked wondrous, out of himself. ‘Ay,’ he said to Ashes.
Ashes wheeled around and pointed his long rifle at Hal’s chest.
‘Okay, okay . . . ayyyyyy,’ Hal said quickly, backing away. Hal was unarmed. He put his hands in the air.
Everyone went deadly quiet.
‘Ay, ay, look,’ said Hal. ‘Look, cool it, nuh. We all leaving this place soon. Okay? Anytime now. Cool it.’
The gunman called Ashes didn’t lower his gun. It was as if he was listening to another voice inside him.
‘Where we all going soon?’ Ashes said to Hal.
Hal looked confused. He nodded. He still had his hands in the air. None of the other gunmen had come to his rescue. Every person in the room was at the end of their wits. No one came forward to help him. The group of gunmen stood huddled, not knowing their own strength. Breeze, the younger men, just stared. The older men didn’t move. Hal’s second in command was on the floor, shot in the thigh.
For the first time since the whole invasion began, I saw Hal was beaten. This Ashes wasn’t a crazy hothead like the man with the Santa hat. Tears dripped from his eyes.
‘I lose mih life over this,’ Ashes said. ‘Lose mih home, mih family. Everything. Now you get us out of here alive. I want to live.’
SUNDAY EVENING,
THE HOUSE OF POWER,
THE CITY OF SILK
I felt queasy. Sick. I found it hard to breathe. Everything was too much by then. I’d been hallucinating, having night sweats and day sweats too. My body was five days without food and I could feel it straining, shutting down. I was able to walk around but I had to hold on to things to do so. In my hallucinations I saw the wise, inquisitive head of a leatherback turtle surfacing from the sea, gazing towards the beaches of the north coast of Sans Amen, ready to lay her eggs. I saw many turtles, dozens, maybe even hundreds, approaching to nest, huge, tentative and pregnant with new life. I saw the Sans Amen of the twenty-first century, the House of Power painted green. I saw a female Prime Minister in the future, a woman perhaps no different to the male leaders of the past. I had a gnawing desolate feeling in the pit of my stomach that it would be many decades before Sans Amen grew mature. This wisdom was coming, though, this change the gunmen so hastily grabbed for. It must come. Bathsheba, the freedom fighter, her baby shot dead in her stomach. A citizen murdered in the womb. Bathsheba had wanted this change too. I will not run away from all of this, I pledged to myself and to my own children, and the sons and daughters of the other mothers of the city. I was still alive. But everything was different now in Sans Amen.
I was hanging on, just. My ears rang with tinnitus, as though I could hear a distant screaming. A rage had struck up in me and it was as if my insides were shrieking. My outer ear could now hear this sound of inner distress. My body was damp with my own sweat and urine. The stench of this five-day chaos was omnipotent in the air. Tomorrow, dear God. Tomorrow. Let it end soon. The PM had been gone just a day and he’d kept things stable. The PM had kept us all alive. Now there was no battle, no tension between the gunmen and the army. The gunmen had been cut off from their Leader; there’d been a small mutiny. They had stacks of ammunition left, in boxes down the hall. They’d brought enough bullets and explosives to last another week at least; they could still blow up the whole place. But the army weren’t negotiating and Hal, unable to speak to the Leader, didn’t know what to do.
I could see Mervyn was now struggling with his legs and feet. For hours at a time he would unbuckle his braces and then he would crawl about on the carpet. He would rub and massage his shins. He never once complained or showed distress.
‘Mervyn, are you okay?’ I said. Mervyn didn’t look at all okay.
‘No.’
‘I didn’t think so.’
He laughed. ‘I think we have survived the worst, hopefully we all going tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Five days. No food. Very little water. I figure every single person here now on the verge of collapse. It can’t last longer. The gunmen are as dehydrated and exhausted as we are.’
I didn’t want to bring up what Mrs Gonzales had said. It felt inappropriate right then. He was one of the few good guys in the cabinet, like the PM; it seemed the good guys had been hurt in all of this, on both sides. Five days ago he was a man I hardly knew. I wanted to hug him. Or maybe I wanted him to hug me.
‘Let me give your feet a rub,’ I said.
Mervyn shot me a look and he blushed.
I didn’t give him a chance to
say ‘no’ out of politeness. I pulled one of his feet towards me and rested it on my knee and I began to massage the ankle and arch with my fingers through his sock. I sensed he was embarrassed but I knew what I was doing, keeping my fingers moving slowly and in circular movements and this kept him quiet.
‘I saw you tending to Mason,’ I said.
‘There really isn’t much I can do. He’s been badly shot. The bullet needs to be removed. They’ve lain him down in one of the back rooms. I applied a tourniquet. His leg will become infected if he’s not seen to by tomorrow. He could lose it.’
‘That bad?’
‘Yeah. Boy, that quiet-looking feller with the glasses, I never figure he could shoot.’
‘I could shoot a gun now, if I had to. This situation bring out a side in us we never use.’
‘I bet you could shoot. I think I could too, by now.’
I kept massaging his ankle, the ball of his foot. He winced.
‘The PM is on the outside, he will take charge. I guess they making decisions all now. But I still worry for these young boys. What will happen to them.’
‘Aspasia, you still feeling sympathy for these crooks? Half of them would shoot you dead.’
‘Not now.’
‘Yes now. All of them is crooks. Including that boy Breeze you like so much and that spooky quiet one, Ashes. They are crazy fellers. Gunmen. Is like you can’t see them.’
‘I am a mother. Some of them same age as my own children. They should all be in school.’
‘I suspect many of them are at school.’
‘The Leader’s school?’
‘Life is school, Aspasia. Revolution is school. They getting educated right now.’
House of Ashes Page 15
