Absolution

by Paul E. Hardisty

  ‘That’s it,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Sirius Star.’ He opened the cab door. ‘Stay here.’

  Half an hour later Mahmoud returned. Rania was still in the back.

  ‘Time to go,’ he said.

  Clay nodded, called back. ‘Let’s go, Ra.’

  Rania emerged a few minutes later, carrying Eugène. His cheeks were red. He’d been crying. Tears covered her face.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Clay.

  ‘He does not remember me,’ she said in Arabic, wiping her face with her free hand.

  ‘It will take time,’ said Mahmoud. ‘Come, we must go.’

  They crossed the open concrete apron to the quay. The ship was there – big and grey against the hazy white of the horizon. Cranes swung containers into the hold. After the desert, the smell of the sea was strong, the air thick and humid, laden with iodine and chlorine. Rania pulled a blanket close over Eugène’s head and reached for Clay’s hand as they approached the aft gangplank.

  A man was waiting on the quay. As they approached he moved towards them. He was short and powerfully built. Tattoos veined his closely shaved head, snaked down both sides of his neck. He and Mahmoud shook hands.

  ‘The payment,’ said Mahmoud over his shoulder.

  Clay passed him the cash. The man stood and counted through each bill. Then he did it again. He glanced at Clay, passed his gaze to Rania, held it there a moment. Then he nodded. ‘Follow,’ he said.

  Clay shook Mahmoud’s hand and looked into his eyes – this man he now called friend. ‘Please, look after yourself,’ said Clay in Arabic.

  ‘And your family,’ said Rania, defying convention and going up on her toes to kiss his cheek.

  ‘Go with God,’ said Mahmoud.

  They followed the man up and onto the big Liberian-registered Panamax, and down three levels to a small starboard-side cabin. There were two bunk beds, a head, a small washbasin and mirror.

  ‘Galley is this level, aft,’ said the man. ‘Meals for you at six, thirteen, and nineteen. Same food as rest of us.’ His accent was vaguely Slavic, or Nordic, perhaps.

  Clay nodded.

  ‘How far you go?’

  ‘Mombasa,’ said Clay.

  ‘Five days,’ said the man. ‘You can go topside during day. Not at night. Stay away from cargo holds. Stay aft.’ Then he turned and was gone.

  Rania sat on the bed, lay Eugène next to her. She looked up at Clay. Her face was drawn. ‘Do you think…’ she began, but stopped herself short.

  ‘What?’ said Clay.

  Rania shook her head.

  Clay looked out of the porthole. Mahmoud was there on the quayside, looking up at the ship. He was still there three hours later when the big freighter pulled away from the dock and churned its way out into the hazy expanse of the Red Sea.

  19th November 1997. The Red Sea, somewhere off the coast of East Africa. 09:30 hrs

  Eugène is sleeping now, finally. My joy at finding him again is tempered by the knowledge that he is changed, that he seems, still, not to know me. He does not cry, does not respond as a child should. He is withdrawn, silent. What did they do to him? What traumas has he endured?

  You are up on the deck somewhere, chéri, exercising or staring out to sea. Last night I lay in bed and watched you change. You turned away from me. Only the small light over the sink was on, but I could see the thickness in your shoulders, the heavy slabs of your shoulder blades flexing as you pulled off your shirt. You carry no fat around your waist, unlike Hamid. The muscles of your legs are very big, almost too big for your derriere, which is compact and angled. Everything about your body is edged, hardened, familiar. The damage is there quite plainly, also: the new welted scarring across your side and those other traumas you have suffered. Your ear is healing quickly, but with the old scar across your cheek and the smaller gun welts from the farm in Cyprus, it is only your pale eyes and the cut of your jaw and the stubble of fair hair that keep you from being ugly.

  As I watch you, the man who killed the father of my son, confusion and regret surge through me. I have simply no idea what I should feel, how I should behave, what I should do in the face of everything that has happened. Only with Eugène, caring for him, hoping that he may begin to respond to me again, do I find solace, some measure of meaning.

  What was Hamid doing there, on that mountainside, looking down as that horrible massacre unfolded? I can only conclude that he, too, was a member of GI. It is clear to me now that it happened over the course of his many work trips to Egypt. The woman, Fatimah, must have played a key role in radicalising him, in bringing him to make such a monumental decision. Did he love her? I know from the way she spoke to him on the mountainside that she did not love him. How long had they been planning it? Hamid said, there on the mountainside, that he had done it for me. What can that possibly mean? The knowledge that he betrayed me this way – taking our son and framing me for murder; the lengths to which they went – the planted emails on my computer, the DNA in the incinerator, the teeth, the clothing, all of it – makes me shudder. My violation is now complete.

  And yet the irony seems like the work of Greek gods, toying with us for their fancy. The four of them – Yusuf, Hamid, the Kemetic, and yes, even her – fighting a terrible evil, not just the pollution and the poisoning of innocents, but the systematic exploitation of an entire nation, an entire people. And each of them reaching a different conclusion on what means were justified, each finding in the response of their enemy the limits of their own conviction, and eventually, coming to the same end.

  That this end should come as it did! How could this have happened? The only man I have ever loved kills my husband. I kill my husband’s friend, one of the few men brave enough to stand up to this scourge, this legal crime. Samira is killed for getting too close to me. And, if I had told you, Claymore, there in Garbage City, to kill those two crooked policemen, you surely would have, and perhaps Samira would be alive now, and her girls would have a mother now instead of a foster family.

  And for all of it, nothing has changed. As Mahmoud said, this last atrocity will only allow the government and the people that control it to further restrict freedoms, to redouble their efforts to eliminate dissent, to rule this country and its people purely and solely in their own interest. I am crying inside. The waste.

  For the first time in my life, I doubt God.

  21st November, 1997. Off the Coast of Somalia, East Africa. 04:55

  The days pass. The coast of Africa slips by, sometimes obscured in haze, sometimes close, barren and deserted, without a trace of green. My slide into nihilism continues.

  Claymore, my love, we have not exchanged a single word since we left Egypt. You tried, at first, but I have steadfastly rejected all your advances, verbal and physical. We go together to the meals – I do not want to go alone and have all those men stare at me. When I am with you, their stares become furtive glances. Most do not look at all. I know you frighten them. They look at you and I can feel their fear. We eat, but we do not speak. We return to our cabin and you go up on deck, returning only to take me to the next meal. At night, you climb into the top bunk and read for a while and then turn out the light. In the darkness, your voice comes, deep and sure: Goodnight, Ra, you say. And each night, I do not answer.

  I can feel myself turning inwards. Only Eugène matters to me now. I have not prayed for three days. I can no longer feel God.

  When I was just a girl, after the men had come to our house in Algiers and murdered my father as I watched, my mother told me that it was Allah’s will, that there was purpose and meaning to everything. My mother’s faith was strong, and it nurtured mine, so that as the years passed I began to see indications of God’s purpose. I came to believe that my father had been taken from me so that I could see the value of life, of the limited time we are given, and that like him, it was my purpose to resist the forces of extremism that were corrupting Islam. That was why I joined the Directorate. Then, when I met you, and you helped me see the error we w
ere about to make in Yemen, I again saw God’s purpose revealed. For without the events so entrained, I would never have met you, the love of my life. And then, finally, Eugène. It was complete. And in a way, I was happy.

  And now, I have lost you both.

  I read my Koran, searching for direction. But the words are empty to me.

  There is no God.

  It Was Something

  24th November, 1997

  Latitude 02°, 29' N, Longitude 46°, 47' E

  Off the Coast of Somalia

  Clay stood on the starboard aft deck and looked out across the grey early-morning chop towards Africa. He’d risen while it was still dark and come above deck to breathe and think. The journey had been uneventful, so far, reassuring in its monotony, the routine of life at sea.

  The day before, he’d picked up a newspaper in the galley, a copy of the Al-Ahram weekly, in English. The Luxor accident was frontpage news. There was a photograph of the dead insurgents, laid out in front of the cave where they were found. Exiled members of Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya were already blaming the massacre on foreign radicals who they said had taken control of the organisation. In particular, they blamed the new leader of GI for what they called a grave miscalculation. At the bottom of the page was a recent photograph of Rania’s husband, clean shaven, in shirt and tie. The caption identified him as Hamid Al-Farouk, also known as The Lion. There was no mention of bodies in the hills above the temple.

  Rania was still locked in a prison of her own devising. Other than her interactions with Eugène she had maintained a strict isolation, neither acknowledging Clay’s attempts at conversation, nor allowing eye contact with any person other than her son. After what she’d just been through, he didn’t blame her. After his first firefight, he’d huddled in his hole all night without saying a single word to anyone, Eben included. For days after, he’d felt bruised inside, dulled somehow, as if some essential part of his psyche had been torn out and replaced dead. All she needed was time. He hadn’t shown her the newspaper.

  Each day since they’d boarded Sirius Star, he’d watched her, sometimes for hours, as she wrote in her diary or pored over her Koran – the copy her father had given her. Mostly she would read silently, her lips moving but making no sound. But occasionally she would whisper a sura to Eugène. At least she had her faith to support her. For a long time now he’d had nothing, just a vague, far-off hope that maybe, one day, he would find some meaning in it all. The clemency he thought he might find by going back to South Africa to testify to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission turned out as the false hope Crowbar had warned him it would be. Instead, he got the AB and its assassins. And because of it, Crowbar was dead. His only hope now was that G would keep his word, that the promised additional fifty thousand dollars would be enough to buy his silence.

  In a few hours they’d arrive in Mogadishu, unload cargo, and then continue south. No one wanted to stay in Somalia any longer than absolutely necessary. A day later, they’d be in Mombasa. If Flame was still where he’d left her, hidden in the mangroves, they had a way out. The world was a big place.

  Mogadishu, once called the white pearl of the Indian Ocean for its Italian and Arabic architecture and stunning setting, lay stunned and bruised under a mid-afternoon sun. Burned-out vehicles hulked among decapitated palms and the rebar-and-concrete skeletons of smashed buildings. A blanket of soot and dust had settled over the city as if it had recently been witness to a huge conflagration. Great slabs of masonry peeled from the walls and turrets of the old town, revealing flesh-coloured stone beneath the once-brilliant whitewash. Bullet holes riddled the quayside warehouses. Only the water seemed to have retained its vibrancy. The sea here was clear, the shoals and reefs reflecting in shimmering waves of ultramarine, shifting banks of oyster shell and pearl.

  As the freighter approached, crowds began to gather on the quay. Clay watched from the porthole as they drew close. A vehicle parted the throng, a Toyota bakkie with a mounted heavy machine gun manned by a Somalian irregular in mismatched camouflage and reflective sunnies. Soon the freighter had tied up alongside and the onboard cranes swung into action, setting containers onto the quay. Even in the midst of chaos and civil war, the business of commerce continued.

  Clay stood back from the porthole and watched Rania playing with Eugène on the lower bunk. She had fashioned little shapes out of some paper she’d found in the galley and was helping the boy arrange them on the blanket. The little guy had been good, sleeping long parts of the night and napping frequently, rocked to sleep by the slow rhythms of the ocean and the vibration of the ship’s engines. Although he knew little of such things, she seemed a good mother, attentive and affectionate.

  ‘Mogadishu,’ Clay said. ‘Want to look?’

  Rania looked up at him. It was the first time she’d made eye contact in days. She gazed right into him, held it, said nothing. For a second he thought she might speak, share something with him, some of what he knew was torturing her, but she looked away, went back to playing with Eugène.

  It was something. Progress. In a few more days they would be aboard Flame, and then everything would be different. They would have to work together to survive, to ensure Eugène’s safety. They would have to communicate, cooperate. There would be much to do: navigate, provision, cook and clean, pilot and sail. She would have no choice but to focus. Unless of course, she decided to go her own way. She had money, wherewithal. She had never said that she would go with him after, only that she needed his help to her find her son.

  Clay was about to turn back to the porthole when there was a knock at the cabin door.

  Rania looked up at him. He shrugged, stepped to the door, put his hand inside his shirt and grabbed the handle of his neck knife. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s me.’ It was the tattooed skinhead who acted as their official shipboard liaison.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Need to talk.’

  Clay opened the door.

  ‘You have visitor,’ said the skinhead. There was someone standing behind him, off to one side, obscured by the bulkhead.

  Clay blinked. ‘I don’t…’ That was as far as he got. The man pivoted past the skinhead and let go a powerful front kick, catching Clay full in the solar plexus, sending him toppling back against the bulkhead.

  Rania screamed. The man stepped into the cabin and closed the door behind him. He raised a pistol, aiming it at Clay’s face. Rania snatched up Eugène and held him to her. Clay looked up. The face before him was almost unbelievably hideous. The jaw misshapen, wired shut. Both cheeks sunken, caved, covered over by patches of weeping, bruised skin, horribly grafted. Only the eyes seemed undamaged.

  It couldn’t be. But it was. Manheim.

  Soliloquy for the Fallen

  ‘Don’t look so surprised, Straker,’ said Manheim in Afrikaans through clenched jaw.

  Clay stared down the barrel of the silenced automatic. He couldn’t see the head of the bullet waiting in the breech, but he knew it was there.

  ‘You really thought we couldn’t track you?’ said Manheim.

  ‘Just leave her alone,’ said Clay.

  Manheim’s face twisted into what may have been a smile. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me, Straker?’

  ‘Go ahead. Tell me.’

  Manheim turned his head. ‘Bullet went through both cheeks. All I lost was a couple of teeth and part of my jaw.’

  ‘Should have made sure.’

  ‘Ja, ja,’ said Manheim. ‘Hindsight.’ He pulled aside his shirt, revealed a custom-fitted ballistic Kevlar vest. ‘Never go anywhere without it.’

  Clay glanced at Rania. She was staring right at him, terror in her eyes. He shook his head, opened his hand palm out to her.

  ‘She’s safe as long as she doesn’t try anything,’ said Manheim, switching to English. ‘Understand bokkie?’

  Rania nodded and moved Eugène so that her body was shielding him.

  ‘Where’s Crowbar?’ said Manheim.

&nb
sp; ‘Dead.’

  Manheim’s eyes narrowed. ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘You were there.’

  ‘Sudan?’

  Clay nodded.

  ‘Shit.’ Manheim glanced at the porthole. ‘I wanted to ask him something. I tried to tell you, back at the airstrip.’

  ‘Maybe it was the way you opened the conversation.’

  Manheim ignored this. ‘He and I, we—’

  ‘He saved your sister’s life, and you fucking hunt him down and kill him. He was right, you have no honour.’

  Manheim swallowed hard. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘He saved your sister. During the break-in at your parent’s farm. That’s what he told me. They killed your parents, but he got them all before they could touch your sister.’

  Manheim took a step back, lowered the gun a few inches so that it was now pointing at Clay’s knees. ‘Fok me.’ He raised the gun again. ‘No, it can’t be. She never told me.’

  ‘Maybe she didn’t want her big brother to know that she was screwing one of his army buddies.’

  Manheim seemed to wither again, shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back. He was thinking about it.

  Clay looked for an opening. ‘He thought you knew. Ask her.’

  Manheim took three more steps back, leaned against the cabin door and lowered the pistol so that it was pointing at the floor. ‘Fokken moeder van God,’ he said. ‘I always thought…’ he began, but cut himself short. ‘What did you do, anyway, to get the AB so pissed at you?’