Old Music and the Slave Women
Page 6
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 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 of breath at each step. She pushed, heaved at the trapdoor. 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?"
"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, thought again. He pushed up the trap and looked out. He listened for a long time. At last he whispered to those below him 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 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 round 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 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 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 open, not seeking to conceal himself; what was the use? Men came around from the front of the house, three men, then fourth—a woman. They were assets, roughly clothed, field hands they must be, come down from their compound. "I'm 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 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 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 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 field hands. 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.
Presently Metoy tried to prop himself up like Esdan, but failed. "I got blown up," he said, short of breath. "Something 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. where 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, hair.
Gana came and stood over them. "All the field hands 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 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 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.
"Staying," Gana said.
"You crazy housefolk," the woman said, turned away, turned back, gave it up with a shrug, and went on.
A few others stopped, but none for more than a question, a moment. They streamed on down the terraces, the sunlit paths beside the quiet pools, down towards the boathouses beyond the great tree. After a while they were all gone.
The sun had grown hot. It must be near noon. Metoy was whiter than ever, but he sat up, saying he could see single, most of the time.
"We should get into the shade, Gana," Esdan said. "Metoy, can you get up?"
He staggered and shambled, but walked without help, and they got to the shade of a garden wall. Gana went off to for water. Kamsa was carrying Rekam in her arms, close against her chest, sheltered from the sun. She had not spoken long time. When they had settled down she said, half questioning, looking around dully, "We are all alone here."
"There'll be others stayed. In the compounds," Metoy said. "They'll turn up."
Gana came back; she had no vessel to carry water in, but had soaked her scarf, and laid the cold wet cloth on Metoy's head. He shuddered. "You can walk better, then we can go to the house-compound, cutfree," she said. "Places we can in, there."
"House-compound is where I grew up, grandmother," he said.
And presently, when he said he could walk, they made their halt and lame way down a road which Esdan vaguely remembered, the road to the crouchcage. It seemed a long road. They came to the high compound wall and the gate standing
Esdan turned to look back at the ruins of the great house for a moment. Gana stopped beside him.
"Rekam died," she said under her breath.
He caught his breath. "When?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. She wants to hold him. She's done with holding him, then she will let him go." She looked in the open gateway at the rows of huts and longhouses, the dried-up garden patches, the dusty ground. "Lotsalot little babies are in there," she said. "In that ground. Two of my own. Her sisters." She went in, following Kamsa. Esdan a while longer in the gateway, and then he went in to do what there was for him to do: dig a grave for the child, and wait the others for the Liberation.
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