Red Joker

by Michael Nicholson

  He pulled the rifle slowly to his left shoulder and his right thumb pressed the automatic fire lever two clicks. He pulled back the bolt, saw the first bullet rise and gently placed his right forefinger along the trigger guard, as the brass band began loudly playing the only tune they knew without their music sheets.

  Elizabeth knew she was trapped between them. She could see the side-door of the antique shop at the end of the alley, but suddenly they were everywhere.

  For over an hour she had run backwards and forwards through the alleys and yards, watching the patrols, waiting for them to pass before she moved on. But now they all seemed to have converged this side of the Square and she was caught, standing in the shadow of a doorway with the open Square on her left and patrols searching the houses on her right. Any minute and they would be coming to hers.

  There were grenade explosions constantly now, muffled from inside the houses but followed in the same instant by shattering glass as complete window frames were blown across the alley into the walls opposite.

  She pulled again at the door but a heavy padlock was jammed tight against the iron bar swung across it. There was another explosion and she felt the door shudder and the sting on her bare legs as masonry was blasted low across the cobbles. They were next door now and there was nowhere else for her to run to.

  She took off one of her sandals and wedged the hard leather heel between the bar and the door near to the hinge, hoping to prise it away from its buckled rusting screws, as the large brown hand went around her waist and spun her round.

  They were grinning, their faces whitened with the dust from the explosions, three of them, their light green uniforms ragged and stained with dirt and sweat. He was not tall but stocky and the hand around her waist held her tight like a clamp.

  ‘Agara – a rapido,’ he said over his shoulder to the others, and they took his rifle. One went to her left, the other to her right and he, the smallest of them, his tunic open at the neck showing thick black curly hair, pushed her back hard against the door. They pulled her arms wide and wedged their knees against hers so that her legs were splayed and the door-lock dug into her spine.

  He pushed his stomach against her and with both hands ripped her shirt open and cupped his hands over her breasts.

  ‘Con una vaca, con una vaca bella.’

  His mouth was open, still in a grin, but his voice was suddenly hoarse and she closed her eyes as he began to rub her breasts hard into her ribs. His fingernails dug into her armpits and she felt her nipples rise hard against the roughness of his palms, rubbing quicker, nails going deeper.

  Slowly, he licked her neck and ears and then her face, and she smelt the grease in his hair, the tobacco on his breath, his stale sweat and the taste of his spittle on her lips, and she felt his hardness pressing into her. Then her arms and legs went suddenly rigid and she strained against the three of them as his hand went down inside her loose- fitting skirt, gripping the soft folds of skin pushing his fist between her thighs to open them until his fingers pushed through her hair and she gasped with the pain as he forced his fingers into the dryness of her.

  Still he kept the rhythm, pushing against her, and he began to groan, rocking his hips from side to side. The door lock bit into her back and she was thankful for new pain. Then, with her eyes still shut tight, she felt him fumbling with his trousers and the hands and knees holding her stiffened and she pressed her head against the door and waited.

  She felt the impact, like a heavy blow, and suddenly he went limp and fell away from her and the hands holding her let go. She heard him scream and she opened her eyes and saw him rolling on the cobbles, where another Cuban, wearing a helmet, stood over him kicking him in the head and stomach. Screaming, he curled up to protect himself but the Cuban officer above him turned on one foot, kicked hard into his back and as the man straightened with the impact, the officer brought his boot up hard between his legs into his crotch and the man began coughing blood and rolled over and over along the cobblestones away from them.

  The Cuban officer turned to the two standing either side of Elizabeth, pulled out a pistol and raised it side to side, level with their eyes, and she waited expecting him to shoot. But there was an explosion from their left and they looked along the alley, then another explosion, not a grenade, much smaller, and she saw the red tiles suddenly blown away from the roof, exposing the rafters of the attic roof above the antique shop.

  The three Cubans started running towards the side-door, leaving the fourth rolling and moaning on the ground holding his crotch, blood oozing from the sides of his mouth. Elizabeth kicked off the second sandal and tied the ends of the tom shirt together in a knot as she ran. There was another blast and more tiles were blown out and fell like shrapnel around her.

  She began crying and her crying became sobs and then her sobbing became screams which were already lost in the noise and commotion in the Square and the band playing ‘La Marseillaise’.

  The third bullet came through the Mansard roof just above the dressing-table, shattered the oval mirror and then went out through the far wall, exposing the sky. Pilger understood. The South African had come to kill him. Everyone must have agreed to it. They wouldn’t let him kill the Russian. They’d rather Union sank into the sea than cause a commotion. Damn them . . . damn them all. . . the South Africans, the Americans, the French. And his own people. They must have said yes too.

  Another thud and the bullet pushed a brick ahead of it and smashed through the head-rest of the bed out and through the wall, but all he could hear was the noise below and the cheers and drums and bugles of the band. He looked down as the first of the delegation stepped out of their cars and walked along the red carpet to the stage. Then, on the far side by the white wall of the Governor’s Fort, he saw the Russian car, large and black, driving slowly, with large white men in dark suits running alongside it, a hammer and sickle flying from its bonnet. He saw the South African on one knee aiming again, but too late and even as he turned to stand sideways he was pushed backwards by the force of the bullet. He hit the floor, saw blood gushing from below his knee and the splinters of bone through the torn skin. No pain yet, not for a while, another thirty seconds, best move to the window quickly before the shock hit him.

  As he dragged himself forwards he heard a shot below and then shouts. They were in the house, on the stairs now.

  He pulled the rifle towards him, heaved himself up on to the window sill, and pushed the tip of the barrel through the gap in the balustrade. Immediately another bullet took away the side of the wall three feet from him. He was beginning to feel detached. The South African’s gun was knocking the place apart but with all the noise and the band and now the Cuban trumpet fanfares, no one below could hear a thing. He hung to the sill, and saw the blood pumping from his leg as another bullet sprayed plaster and wooden staves over him. He would only be able to show himself once, he would only be able to lean out of the window the moment he fired. He knew for sure the South African would get him a second later.

  More shots in the house . . . a floor below him now . . . and someone screaming, a woman’s . . . No! . . . a girl screaming and familiar. . . echoing. He saw her image, blue- green eyes and long blonde streaming hair.

  And there he was. God! At last there he was.

  Soldiers ran around the car and formed a cordon as the Cuban Guard of Honour raised their rifles and the Cuban trumpeters began another shrill call and the young men in the red armbands began cheering and waving their flags, and the hunchback on the red carpet, the new President. . . God help him . . . forgive them . . . that’s what Laurent would have said . . . forgive them, and there was the Russian . . . grey suit, grey hair . . . holding out his hands as if he’s going to hug the hunchback, fire. . . God! . . . fire now.

  He flung himself on to the balustrade, pushing the gun in front of him, and as Dr Vassily Solodovnikov stepped on to the red carpet Pilger pulled the trigge
r. There was a flash and an explosion and the South African’s bullet hit the magazine exploding thirty bullets into Pilger’s chest, and spun him backwards into the room, crashing into the Cubans as they came through the door with Elizabeth behind them. A second later, there was another flash of light and the sound of another explosion high up on the rooftops of the far terrace of houses eighty yards away. The Russian Ambassador looked up, and so did the new President of Uzania and so did the large men with large faces in dark suits, and so did the Cuban trumpeters as they began ‘The Red Flag’, and so did the young men with the red armbands. But all they saw was a single white dove soaring into the sky, spiralling higher and higher until it was lost at last in the blueness.

  And the Russian Ambassador smiled as he turned to his host and they embraced.

  23

  They took them along the airport road in airline coaches. Someone had tried to scratch off the airline’s name but hadn’t bothered to remove the paper antimacassars on the seats with the same three initials on them. The tourists - South Africans, Germans, French and some Japanese - were in the front three coaches, busy taking photographs, and none of the escort soldiers bothered to stop them. The tourists had spent the days since the invasion inside their luxury hotel at the far end of the island and had seen and heard nothing of what had happened, so they had boarded their buses excited at the sight of so many soldiers and had even posed by the side of them, laughing and joking. It was a shame, they said, that there should have been this upset on their holiday, and they’d make damn sure of compensation when they got back home. But it was probably only temporary and when things had sorted themselves out they’d probably give the island another chance, given of course a continuing favourable rate of exchange.

  Elizabeth, Faraday, his crew, Prentice, Doubleday and Protheroe had the last coach to themselves. Two Cubans sat in the back row, another two up front with the mulatto driver, so casual now, they’d even left their rifles on the seat next to Doubleday, who sat there anxiously, hands together still in prayer.

  Faraday and his crew had carried Prentice down from his sick bed and sat him sideways on the bench seats with his heavily bandaged foot propped up across the centre gangway. Elizabeth had put blankets around him but even though it had been a hot day, he complained of the cold and every now and then he would shiver and hunch up as if he was protecting himself from a sudden draught.

  They had left the hotel with the evening sun full on it, turning the white stucco golden. The hand-painted sign, nailed to the trunk of the palm tree, still warned of falling coconuts and the menu board by the front steps still promised cold lobster mayonnaise for lunch, though the kitchens would never serve it again. And the sisal matting up the broad sweep of the hotel’s front steps was caked in sand from the boots of the Cubans who were now camped there.

  As they passed the smashed window of the chemist’s shop, opposite the fish-smoking sheds, the broken bottles of perfume and after-shave were still scattered across the pavement, and as they rounded the curve of the Boulevard, they saw the harbour and the freighters high in the water and the fishing boats bringing in the last of the large wooden crates. They saw the blank faces of the work-gangs, men and women who looked up as they passed and saw the airline coach and the peering white faces inside and wondered, in a brief moment, if it hadn’t all been a dreadful nightmare. And then turned away.

  Elizabeth looked across the harbour to the tiny yacht basin on the far side, where George had been tied up, and she could see the yacht’s name painted in white on the side of the wooden jetty and the pile of fishing nets nearby. The sloppy old yacht had gone and her eyes glistened as she remembered sobbing in her father’s arms in the gloom of the slave pit when he had told her how.

  Faraday watched her head go back against the seat as she stared at the roof lining. He turned and looked out beyond the harbour to the furthest point of the breakwater, where he had stood that first glorious evening and watched the doves and followed the gulls to their roosting spots on the face of the mountain. One week ago, seven days ago, but distanced now by a thousand years. The monument had gone, they all had, and Governor Chaudenson would never watch again, with his salt-washed eyes, the flying fish or the dolphins or the sea’s commotion as the surf spread across the coral beyond the deep water channel. So long apart, but the sea had taken Captain Chaudenson back again.

  The bus passed the Square and the jerking change of gear made Prentice open his eyes. The sun still seemed to be bright and the window felt warm as he rested his cheek against it, and everything seemed red, a vague blur, but splashed red, the trees, the road, the sky, and he wondered if it was blood running down the outside of the window and it was its warmth he was feeling against his face. He raised his arm to pull himself up but the blankets were tight around him and he fell back again and closed his eyes and listened to the whine of the gearbox.

  And then they were out of the town, away from the white and ochre houses with the red and green pantiles, and the pavement cafes and their gingham tablecloths and the smell of Gauloises and the labels from wine bottles that had floated in the harbour like jellyfish in the soft red evening glow of the cafes’ lights.

  The coaches stopped where the Boulevard joined the airport to let an armoured convoy pass and Faraday saw the faces of the Cubans in the lorries and jeeps, young faces, his age and they were laughing and handsome, ordinary young men from ordinary families from that other island. He didn’t even know where it was except that it was somewhere near Jamaica. Or was it Trinidad? Where was Cuba?

  And then they were moving along the coast road with the sea on their left and suddenly there seemed nothing else left to remember and silently they looked out of the windows because they couldn’t look at each other.

  The buses swung round in a wide circle and they saw them, parked in a line, heavy squat aircraft, with four engines and bellies that seemed to be resting on the ground, camouflaged, with a single large white star painted on their tailplane, and by the front hatches of the fuselage, a small Stars and Stripes.

  Their crews stood grouped together waiting in their grey flying suits, under the wings, and there was a long queue of civilians carrying suitcases, boarding through the open end of the first plane. Faraday thought they must be the Americans from the satellite tracking station.

  As they watched Prentice being put on to a stretcher, they heard a rumble behind them and saw the flash of lightning above the mountain, and black clouds begin to cover the top like an ink stain. The crewmen hurried them into the aircraft as it began to drizzle and the mulatto women ran along the edge of the runway, lighting the paraffin wicks of the goose-neck flares.

  They buried him in lime, only a matter of yards as it happened, from his friend and fellow fisherman, Albert Laurent. They made no pretence about a headstone, there was no identification and no record of the burial made. The mound of clay, after all, was just one of many hundreds scattered among the grapevines in this new and casual cemetery on the slopes of La Souffrière.

  As the last sod of earth was patted down, the shadows of the American aircraft fell over the graves, and the old gravedigger looked up. He had seen many planes come and go, but never as many as in these past few days, all painted the same colours, all looking very much alike, their bellies blue and grey, like the sky itself. But these, he knew, were special planes, and he knew he would never see planes like them again. These were American planes, not Russian, and they were taking friends away. And he knew, because his own people had told him so, that there would never be friends on the island again.

  ‘What can you see, lad?’

  Prentice was strapped to a stretcher hanging low from the side of the aircraft. His face was grey with the morphine they had injected, and the pupils of his eyes were large and black. A medic was cutting away the bloody and smelling bandages. The loadmaster crews handed out mugs of hot chocolate and Elizabeth was sitting on the stretcher, propping hi
m up, helping him take sips of it.

  Faraday stood by one of the small portholes at the side of the emergency escape hatch.

  ‘They’ve painted the new name on the roof of the airport building. Large white letters,’ he said.

  ‘Uzania?’

  ‘No, more. The Uzanian Soviet Socialist Republic. And the capital letters have been painted extra large: USSR.’

  Prentice tried to laugh but coughed into his mug and Elizabeth began to wipe his face dry with the tail of her shirt. Faraday threw his handkerchief to her.

  ‘Why, Alf?’

  ‘Why what, lad?’

  ‘Why did it happen? Why did they let it? Surely the Americans could have done something?’ The island was passing under the wing now and he saw the ring of white sand and the horseshoe of coral and the white-tipped Guano rocks, the icing on the fruitcake. And then it was gone.

  ‘Why, lad? I’ll tell you why.’ His voice was very soft and Faraday left the porthole and, steadying himself on the mesh of nylon cargo straps, went and sat on the floor by the stretcher.

  ‘This reminds me, lad, and I’m going back a few years now, when we were airlifted out of Cambodia. It was the last day of the war and we’d been waiting in the American Embassy in Phnom Penh for the Marines to come for us with their helicopters . . . Jolly Green Giants they called them. There were only a few of us from the Press there, the rest were embassy staff and some Cambodian generals.

  ‘I was with one of your lot, television cameraman . . . funny, always seem to end up to my neck in it when I travel with you lot. He was an American, a grand fellow called Marvin, great ox of a man, bald and hair everywhere else. He’d seen it all, from Eisenhower’s advisers to Westmoreland’s junkies, and he was very fond of Cambodia, we all were, but he was one of the first ever to go there and he had seen it when it was nice and peaceful. D’you know they hadn’t been to war for hundreds of years? It was a glorious place. I think they were the nicest people I’ve ever come across.’