“You don’t think any of them might just not have understood what was going on? And still don’t understand? This is a benighted place, zadyo. Hard to even imagine freedom, here.”
The young man resisted answering for a while, but Esdan talked on, trying to make some contact with him, get through to him. Suddenly something he said popped the lid.
“Usewomen,” Tema said. “Get fucked by blacks, every night. All they are, fucks. Jits’ whores. Bearing their black brats, yesmaster yesmaster. You said it, they don’t know what freedom is. Never will. Can’t liberate anybody lets a black fuck ‘em. They’re foul. Dirty, can’t get clean. They got black jizz through and through ‘em. Jit-jizz!” He spat on the terrace and wiped his mouth.
Esdan sat still, looking down over the still water of the pool to the lower terraces, the big tree, the misty river, the far green shore. May he be well and work well, have patience, compassion, peace. What use was I, ever? All I did. It never was any use. Patience, compassion, peace. They are your own people. . . . He looked down at the thick blob of spittle on the yellow sandstone of the terrace. Fool, to leave his own people a lifetime behind him and come to meddle with another world. Fool, to think you could give anybody freedom. That was what death was for. To get us out of the crouchcage.
He got up and limped towards the house in silence. The young man followed him.
The lights came back on just as it was getting dark. They must have let old Saka go back to his tinkering. Preferring twilight, Esdan turned the room light off. He was lying on his bed when Kamsa knocked and came in, carrying a tray. “Kamsa!” he said, struggling up, and would have hugged her, but the tray prevented him. “Rekam is — ?”
“With my mother,” she murmured.
“He’s all right?”
The backward nod. She set the tray down on the bed, as there was no table.
“You’re all right? Be careful, Kamsa. I wish I — They’re leaving tomorrow, they say. Stay out of their way if you can.”
“I do. Do you be safe, sir,” she said in her soft voice. He did not know if it was a question or a wish. He made a little rueful gesture, smiling. She turned to leave.
“Kamsa, is Heo — ?”
“She was with that one. In his bed.”
After a pause he said, “Is there anywhere you can hide out?” He was afraid that Banarkamye’s men might execute these people when they left, as “collaborators” or to hide their own tracks.
“We got a hole to go to, like you said,” she said.
“Good. Go there, if you can. Vanish! Stay out of sight.”
She said, “I will hold fast, sir.”
She was closing the door behind her when the sound of a flyer approaching buzzed the windows. They both stood still, she in the doorway, he near the window. Shouts downstairs, outside, men running. There was more than one flyer, approaching from the southeast. “Kill the lights!” somebody shouted. Men were running out to the flyers parked on the lawn and terrace. The window flared up with light, the air with a shattering explosion.
“Come with me,” Kamsa said, and took his hand and pulled him after her, out the door, down the hall and through a service door he had never even seen. He hobbled with her as fast as he could down ladderlike stone stairs, through a back passage, out into the stable warren. They came outdoors just as a series of explosions rocked everything around them. They hurried across the courtyard through overwhelming noise and the leap of fire, Kamsa still pulling him along with complete sureness of where she was going, and ducked into one of the storerooms at the end of the stables. Gana was there and one of the old bondsmen, opening up a trap door in the floor. They went down, Kamsa with a leap, the others slow and awkward on the wooden ladder, Esdan most awkward, landing badly on his broken foot. The old man came last and pulled the trap shut over them. Gana had a battery lamp, but kept it on only briefly, showing a big, low, dirt-floored cellar, shelves, an archway to another room, a heap of wooden crates, five faces: the baby awake, gazing silent as ever from its sling on Gana’s shoulder. Then darkness. And for some time silence.
They groped at the crates, set them down for seats at random in the darkness.
A new series of explosions, seeming far away, but the ground and the darkness shivered. They shivered in it. “O Kamye,” one of them whispered.
Esdan sat on the shaky crate and let the jab and stab of pain in his foot sink into a burning throb.
Explosions: three, four.
Darkness was a substance, like thick water.
“Kamsa,” he murmured.
She made some sound that located her near him.
“Thank you.”
“You said hide, then we did talk of this place,” she whispered.
The old man breathed wheezily and cleared his throat often. The baby’s breathing was also audible, a small uneven sound, almost panting.
“Give me him.” That was Gana. She must have transferred the baby to his mother.
Kamsa whispered, “Not now.”
The old man spoke suddenly and loudly, startling them all: “No water in this!”
Kamsa shushed him and Gana hissed, “Don’t shout, fool man!”
“Deaf,” Kamsa murmured to Esdan, with a hint of laughter.
If they had no water, their hiding time was limited; the night, the next day; even that might be too long for a woman nursing a baby. Kamsa’s mind was running on the same track as Esdan’s. She said, “How do we know, should we come out?”
“Chance it, when we have to.”
There was a long silence. It was hard to accept that one’s eyes did not adjust to the darkness, that however long one waited one would see nothing. It was cave-cool. Esdan wished his shirt were warmer.
“You keep him warm,” Gana said.
“I do,” Kamsa murmured.
“Those men, they were bondsfolk?” That was Kamsa whispering to him. She was quite near him, to his left.
“Yes. Freed bondsfolk. From the north.”
She said, “Lotsalot different men come here, since the old Owner did die. Army soldiers, some. But no bondsfolk before. They shot Heo. They shot Vey and old Seneo. He didn’t die but he’s shot.”
“Somebody from the field compound must have led them, showed them where the guards were posted. But they couldn’t tell the bondsfolk from the soldiers. Where were you when they came?”
“Sleeping, back of the kitchen. All us housefolk. Six. That man did stand there like a risen dead. He said, Lie down there! Don’t stir a hair! So we did that. Heard them shooting and shouting all over the house. Oh, mighty Lord! I did fear! Then no more shooting, and that man did come back to us and hold his gun at us and take us out to the old house-compound. They did get that old gate shut on us. Like old days.”
“For what did they do that if they are bondsfolk?” Gana’s voice said from the darkness.
“Trying to get free,” Esdan said dutifully.
“How free? Shooting and killing? Kill a girl in the bed?”
“They do all fight all the others, mama,” Kamsa said.
“I thought all that was done, back three years,” the old woman said. Her voice sounded strange. She was in tears. “I thought that was freedom then.”
“They did kill the master in his bed!” the old man shouted out at the top of his voice, shrill, piercing. “What can come of that!”
There was a bit of a scuffle in the darkness. Gana was shaking the old fellow, hissing at him to shut up. He cried, “Let me go!” but quieted down, wheezing and muttering.
“Mighty Lord,” Kamsa murmured, with that desperate laughter in her voice.
The crate was increasingly uncomfortable, and Esdan wanted to get his aching foot up or at least level. He lowered himself to the ground. It was cold, gritty, unpleasant to the hands. There was nothing to lean against. “If you made a light for a minute, Gana,” he said, “we might find sacks, something to lie down on.”
The world of the cellar flashed into being around them, amazing in it
s intricate precision. They found nothing to use but the loose board shelves. They set down several of these, making a kind of platform, and crept onto it as Gana switched them back into formless simple night. They were all cold. They huddled up against one another, side to side, back to back.
After a long time, an hour or more, in which the utter silence of the cellar was unbroken by any noise, Gana said in an impatient whisper, “Everybody up there did die, I think.”
“That would simplify things for us,” Esdan murmured.
“But we are the buried ones,” said Kamsa.
Their voices roused the baby and he whimpered, the first complaint Esdan had ever heard him make. It was a tiny, weary grizzling or fretting, not a cry. It roughened his breathing and he gasped between his frettings. “Oh, baby, baby, hush now, hush,” the mother murmured, and Esdan felt her rocking her body, cradling the baby close to keep him warm. She sang almost inaudibly, “Suna meya, suna na . . . Sura rena, sura na . . .” Monotonous, rhythmic, buzzy, purring, the sound made warmth, made comfort.
He must have dozed. He was lying curled up on the planks. He had no idea how long they had been in the cellar.
I have lived here forty years desiring freedom, his mind said to him. That desire brought me here. It will bring me out of here. I will hold fast.
He asked the others if they had heard anything since the bombing raid. They all whispered no.
He rubbed his head. “What do you think, Gana?” he said.
“I think the cold air does harm that baby,” she said in almost her normal voice, which was always low.
“You do talk? What do you say?” the old man shouted. Kamsa, next to him, patted him and quieted him.
“I’ll go look,” Gana said.
“I’ll go.”
“You got one foot on you,” the old woman said in a disgusted tone. She grunted and leaned hard on Esdan’s shoulder as she stood up. “Now be still.” She did not turn on the light, but felt her way over to the ladder and climbed it, with a little whuff of breath at each step up. She pushed, heaved at the trap door. An edge of light showed. They could dimly see the cellar and each other and the dark blob of Gana’s head up in the light. She stood there a long time, then let the trap down. “Nobody,” she whispered from the ladder. “No noise. Looks like first morning.”
“Better wait,” Esdan said.
She came back and lowered herself down among them again. After a time she said, “We go out, it’s strangers in the house, some other army soldiers. Then where?”
“Can you get to the field compound?” Esdan suggested.
“It’s a long road.”
After a while he said, “Can’t know what to do till we know who’s up there. All right. But let me go out, Gana.”
“For what?”
“Because I’ll know who they are,” he said, hoping he was right.
“And they too,” Kamsa said, with that strange little edge of laughter. “No mistaking you, I guess.”
“Right,” he said. He struggled to his feet, found his way to the ladder, and climbed it laboriously. “I’m too old for this,” he thought again. He pushed up the trap and looked out. He listened for a long time. At last he whispered to those below him in the dark, “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” and crawled out, scrambling awkwardly to his feet. He caught his breath: the air of the place was thick with burning. The light was strange, dim. He followed the wall till he could peer out of the storeroom doorway.
What had been left of the old house was down like the rest of it, blown open, smouldering and masked in stinking smoke. Black embers and broken glass covered the cobbled yard. Nothing moved except the smoke. Yellow smoke, grey smoke. Above it all was the even, clear blue of dawn.
He went around onto the terrace, limping and stumbling, for his foot shot blinding pains up his leg. Coming to the balustrade he saw the blackened wrecks of the two flyers. Half the upper terrace was a raw crater. Below it the gardens of Yaramera stretched beautiful and serene as ever, level below level, to the old tree and the river. A man lay across the steps that went down to the lower terrace; he lay easily, restfully, his arms outflung. Nothing moved but the creeping smoke and the white-flowered bushes nodding in a breath of wind.
The sense of being watched from behind, from the blank windows of the fragments of the house that still stood, was intolerable. “Is anybody here?” Esdan suddenly called out.
Silence.
He shouted again, louder.
There was an answer, a distant call, from around in front of the house. He limped his way down onto the path, out in the open, not seeking to conceal himself; what was the use? Men came around from the front of the house, three men, then a fourth — a woman. They were assets, roughly clothed, fieldhands they must be, come down from their compound. “I’m with some of the housepeople,” he said, stopping when they stopped, ten meters apart. “We hid out in a cellar. Is anybody else around?”
“Who are you?” one of them said, coming closer, peering, seeing the wrong color skin, the wrong kind of eyes.
“I’ll tell you who I am. But is it safe for us to come out? There’s old people, a baby. Are the soldiers gone?”
“They are dead,” the woman said, a tall, pale-skinned, bony-faced woman.
“One we found hurt,” said one of the men. “All the housepeople dead. Who did throw those bombs? What army?”
“I don’t know what army,” Esdan said. “Please, go tell my people they can come up. Back there, in the stables. Call out to them. Tell them who you are. I can’t walk.” The wrappings on his foot had worked loose, and the fractures had moved; the pain began to take away his breath. He sat down on the path, gasping. His head swam. The gardens of Yaramera grew very bright and very small and drew away and away from him, farther away than home.
He did not quite lose consciousness, but things were confused in his mind for a good while. There were a lot of people around, and they were outdoors, and everything stank of burnt meat, a smell that clung in the back of his mouth and made him retch. There was Kamsa, the tiny bluish shadowy sleeping face of the baby on her shoulder. There was Gana, saying to other people, “He did befriend us.” A young man with big hands talked to him and did something to his foot, bound it up again, tighter, causing terrible pain and then the beginning of relief.
He was lying down on his back on grass. Beside him a man was lying down on his back on grass. It was Metoy, the eunuch. Metoy’s scalp was bloody, the black hair burned short and brown. The dust-colored skin of his face was pale, bluish, like the baby’s. He lay quietly, blinking sometimes.
The sun shone down. People were talking, a lot of people, somewhere nearby, but he and Metoy were lying on the grass and nobody bothered them.
“Were the flyers from Bellen, Metoy?” Esdan said.
“Came from the east.” Metoy’s harsh voice was weak and hoarse. “I guess they were.” After a while he said, “They want to cross the river.”
Esdan thought about this for a while. His mind still did not work well at all. “Who does?” he said finally.
“These people. The fieldhands. The assets of Yaramera. They want to go meet the Army.”
“The Invasion?”
“The Liberation.”
Esdan propped himself up on his elbows. Raising his head seemed to clear it, and he sat up. He looked over at Metoy. “Will they find them?” he asked.
“If the Lord so wills,” said the eunuch.
Presently Metoy tried to prop himself up like Esdan, but failed. “I got blown up,” he said, short of breath. “Something hit my head. I see two for one.”
“Probably a concussion. Lie still. Stay awake. Were you with Banarkamye, or observing?”
“I’m in your line of work.”
Esdan nodded, the backward nod.
“Factions will be the death of us,” Metoy said faintly.
Kamsa came and squatted down beside Esdan. “They say we must go cross the river,” she told him in her soft voice. “To wher
e the people-army will keep us safe. I don’t know.”
“Nobody knows, Kamsa.”
“I can’t take Rekam cross a river,” she whispered. Her face clenched up, her lips drawing back, her brows down. She wept, without tears and in silence. “The water is cold.”
“They’ll have boats, Kamsa. They’ll look after you and Rekam. Don’t worry. It’ll be all right.” He knew his words were meaningless.
“I can’t go,” she whispered.
“Stay here then,” Metoy said.
“They said that other army will come here.”
“It might. More likely ours will.”
She looked at Metoy. “You are the cutfree,” she said. “With those others.” She looked back at Esdan. “Choyo got killed. All the kitchen is blown in pieces burning.” She hid her face in her arms.
Esdan sat up and reached out to her, stroking her shoulder and arm. He touched the baby’s fragile head with its thin, dry hair.
Gana came and stood over them. “All the fieldhands are going cross the river,” she said. “To be safe.”
“You’ll be safer here. Where there’s food and shelter.” Metoy spoke in short bursts, his eyes closed. “Than walking to meet an invasion.”
“I can’t take him, mama,” Kamsa whispered. “He has got to be warm. I can’t, I can’t take him.”
Gana stooped and looked into the baby’s face, touching it very softly with one finger. Her wrinkled face closed like a fist. She straightened up, but not erect as she used to stand. She stood bowed. “All right,” she said. “We’ll stay.”
She sat down on the grass beside Kamsa. People were on the move around them. The woman Esdan had seen on the terrace stopped by Gana and said, “Come on, grandmother. Time to go. The boats are ready waiting.”
“Staying,” Gana said.
“Why? Can’t leave that old house you worked in?” the woman said, jeering, humoring. “It’s all burned up, grandmother! Come on now. Bring that girl and her baby.” She looked at Esdan and Metoy, a flick-glance. They were not her concern. “Come on,” she repeated. “Get up now.”
“Staying,” Gana said.
“You crazy housefolk,” the woman said, turned away, turned back, gave it up with a shrug, and went on.
The Birthday of the World and Other Stories Page 22
