Gravel Heart

by Abdulrazak Gurnah

  ‘Sasa,’ he said. Now what. He said it like a question, inviting us to talk, to state our business. His eyes were fixed on Saida as he spoke, and even when I explained that we had come to request an interview with His Excellency the Vice-President, his gaze did not move from her. Eventually he glanced at me briefly before immediately turning back to Saida. ‘What do you want to see His Excellency about?’ he asked her.

  I started to explain about the news we had received, but the Chief Protocol Officer hissed suddenly, a startlingly violent sound in that air-conditioned office, a hiss of reprimand and warning and exasperation. ‘We have come to ask for information about the whereabouts of our brother Amir,’ I persisted, refusing to be intimidated although I thought I heard a little quiver in my voice as I spoke.

  ‘Her brother,’ the Chief Protocol Officer said with exaggerated gentleness, glancing again at me, as if speaking to a fool who did not understand how close he was to danger. The hard look in his eyes was a warning to me not to try his patience. Then, turning back to Saida, he said, ‘You have come to plead for your brother, have you? Do you know why he has been arrested? You don’t, do you? He has been arrested because he raped a girl of fifteen. She is a girl of good family, still at school, and beloved by all her brothers and relatives. Your brother’s behaviour is outrageous and despicable and unforgivable. That’s the kind of thing people like him have been doing to us for decades, degrading our sisters with impunity. But the time is different now, and he will have to pay for what he has done. He will receive a punishment appropriate to the outrage he has committed.’

  I released a sudden unintentional snort of disbelief at this bombast. What people like him are you talking about? What kind of people are you? And what kind of cruelties have you been committing that are different from the ones people like Amir are supposed to have done? That was what I would have said. That is what I almost said. The thought was complete in my mind but I don’t know how much of it I spoke. I had never been close enough to powerful people to understand their methods or how their minds worked, and I did not know if it was best to grovel or to stand firm. Saida put her hand firmly on my knee before I could get going and I don’t know if I managed anything more than something blundering and incoherent, some expulsion of noise. I am not a brave or even a reckless man. Whatever I said came out before I could think to be afraid, although our world then was full of fear. Hakim glanced my way, as if waiting for me to continue, but I heeded the warning in those stony eyes.

  ‘May we know where he is, so we can hear his story from him?’ Saida asked. ‘So we can see how we may help him?’

  ‘No you may not,’ Hakim the Chief Protocol Officer said.

  ‘It cannot be right that you will not allow us to see him and offer him what assistance we can for his defence,’ Saida said. ‘May we at least see him and see that he is well and hear what he has to say for himself?’

  ‘No you may not,’ Hakim the Chief Protocol Officer repeated, and I thought I heard the appointments secretary chuckle softly to himself. ‘When or if it is considered advisable that you should see your brother,’ Hakim continued, ‘proper authorities will inform you.’

  ‘May we see the Mheshimiwa to ask him this favour personally?’ Saida asked again. ‘I cannot believe the accusation you have made against my brother. It cannot be as you describe.’

  ‘No, you may not, and it is as I describe,’ Hakim said. ‘It is not I who has made the accusation but the girl herself. But above all you cannot see His Excellency because he is out of the country on a tour of Asia for the next four weeks.’ With that the Protocol Officer turned back towards his desk and said over his shoulder, ‘You may go now.’

  ‘What will happen to him? Doesn’t there have to be a trial?’ Saida asked, speaking stridently for the first time, desperately. ‘You can’t brush us away like this as if we are just curious bystanders. He’s my brother. Go to your heart and ask there how it feels for a sister to worry for the safety of her brother.’

  The Chief Protocol Officer sat down at his desk without replying, and the secretary opened the door and held out his arm for us to leave. He did this with his head cocked solicitously to one side, as if he meant us to go for our own good, but the gesture was accompanied by a sneering flourish he did not try to disguise. When we were back in reception, he took down our names and address and told us he would be in touch if we were required or if there was any information to give us. He told us that his name was Abdalla Haji. I saw that there was still a small light of excitement in his eyes and I could not be sure exactly why. Was it pleasure at the bureaucratic power available to him? Was it the pleasure of seeing the Protocol Officer flex his muscles? Or just the excitement of participating in cruelty?

  We walked in silence all the way home, and when we got there we went over everything again. What will they do to him? What is the punishment for what they say he has done? I said I did not know. It must have been Hakim who ordered his arrest, an angry brother affronted by the dishonour to his family. Did you hear that people like him stuff? Perhaps his anger will diminish with time, I said, although to me he seemed a man capable of any cruelty. Maybe his father will be capable of more mercy when he returns from his tour.

  No, I don’t think it’s hopeless, Saida said. Maybe he’s just trying to frighten us. That secretary will send us news of Amir’s whereabouts, or why did he bother to take our address? He’ll send us word in a day or two, and then we can go and see him and take some food and fresh clothes.

  Yes, I said, and my scepticism must have come through in my voice because Saida looked wounded but did not reply for a moment. Then she proceeded to make a list of the things Amir would need in prison until something was resolved. I listened to her and wondered if I should get a piece of paper and write them down. It seemed a long list. Perhaps Saida was beginning to resign herself to a lengthy wait. I still thought that the best we could do was to wait and hope that tempers would cool, and perhaps pray that the Vice-President, when he returned from his tour of Asia, would show Amir clemency. He was said to be a thoughtful and considerate man whose gifts were wasted on the work he had to do. He had trained as a veterinary officer and worked for the agricultural research unit before politics claimed him and rewarded him with high office. Perhaps we would just have to pray that what was said of him would turn out to be true, and that he would prove to be a man capable of compassion. I did not think Chief Protocol Officer Hakim was likely to prove capable of that. But suppose it really was true that Amir had raped the girl, then kindness was most likely out of the question. I did not say this to Saida, because she seemed to have cheered herself up with the long list of items Amir would need, and I did not want to depress her again. But no, I did not think Chief Protocol Officer Hakim was intending to show clemency, and maybe from where he stood, there was no reason to consider doing so.

  ‘What will they do to him?’ Saida asked again after a long silence. I did not think there would be a trial for a while, if at all. Ours was not a government that bothered much with trials. I thought Amir would stay in jail or wherever he was held until Hakim had glutted his sense of injury and outrage at the degradation visited on his family. Nor did I think the Vice-President would overrule his son if his anger proved as implacable as I imagined it to be. But perhaps Yusuf was right, and there was no coercion. What exactly did Yusuf mean when he had said with such distaste that Amir had a reputation? A reputation for what exactly? For seducing vulnerable girls? For having reckless affairs with inappropriate women? For avarice? Yusuf had also said that he thought perhaps Amir and the Vice-President’s daughter knew what they were doing, and I hoped that was so, that they were just young lovers doing what young lovers do. And the girl, whose name I did not know then, was lying low for the time being until her brother’s rage had cooled, and would seek to extricate her lover when her father returned. That was the best we could hope for, it seemed to me, although I did not think it would save Amir from bruises and humiliations in the meantime.<
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  *

  Baba’s eyes were glowing. The tempo of his speech had slowed and his tone was harder, with a hint of reproach. I sensed that we were getting closer to the moment of pain. He reached for the large thermos of coffee that he had asked Ali to prepare for us, anticipating another long night, and poured us both a small cup.

  ‘I was at work the next day when the following events happened,’ he said. ‘So what I will tell you now I know because of what Saida told me later. I don’t know if she told me everything, and it has been such a long time and I have thought about these matters for so long that I may have forgotten something important. It will not be easy to talk about. This is what she told me happened while I was at my desk at the Water Authority that day.’

  *

  At mid-morning a message was delivered to our house from Abdalla Haji, the appointments secretary at the office of the Vice-President. The man who delivered it stood at the door and said: ‘You are called. There is news. I’ve parked the car round the corner and will wait for you there.’

  ‘I’m coming,’ Saida said without a second thought. ‘I’ll come right away.’

  She changed out of her household rags and hurried out. The car was parked under a tree and there were already a handful of people watching nearby, curious to see who it had come for. The words The Office of the Vice-President and the national seal were painted across the side of the car. She wished then that she had refused the lift and walked to the office so as not to draw so much attention. The messenger dropped her outside the door of the office as if she were a dignitary, and as she walked past the armed guard, the same one who had refused her entry the day before, stiffened slightly in a kind of salute. The secretary saw her from his open office door as soon as she entered the reception area, and rose from his desk with a smile. After a word of greeting, he indicated that she should follow him and started off upstairs. He knocked on the Chief Protocol Officer’s door, opened it after a short pause, and stood aside to let Saida pass. Then he closed the door without following her in. Hakim came walking slowly towards her and she sensed that the intensity of the previous day’s rage had diminished, although his expression was still taut. He indicated that she should take a seat and came to sit opposite her.

  ‘Sasa,’ he said again as he had done the first time, but now without venom. He was dressed more casually today, in a long white shirt made of thinly ribbed material that was almost transparent.

  ‘I am told you have news,’ she said.

  He stared at her for a moment and then shook his head. ‘I still find it hard to believe that this could have happened, that your brother would dare to act in such a savage and insulting manner. He has done wrong. You will admit that?’

  ‘If what you say proves to be true,’ she said stubbornly.

  He smiled, toying with her. ‘Do you mean I could be lying? But if it is true, will you then admit that he has done wrong and no longer seek to defend him?’ Saida said later that it was at this point, when he smiled at her in that way, that she began to be afraid.

  ‘Will you then stop defending him?’ he asked again, and waited until she made a gesture of compliance, a small ambiguous nod that might have meant something like: If you insist, but I’ll wait to see where this is going.

  ‘Will you then accept the punishment the authorities decide fits his ugly deeds?’ asked Hakim, still smiling, insisting on her compliance, but now the veins in his temples seemed to pulse with anger as he spoke, or if not from anger then from some other strong emotion. He leant forward a little and she saw the hardness of his neck and the depth of his chest through the thin, baggy shirt he was wearing. ‘The authorities in this case is me,’ he said, ‘and in my hands he will suffer for what he has done and he will deserve it. Or that is what I thought yesterday, before you came to see me. But now that I have seen you, I am no longer sure if there isn’t a way of saving your brother after all. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  Saida thought she understood perfectly what he was saying, and she sat in front of that powerful-looking man, disbelieving what she knew he was about to say.

  ‘Only you can save him,’ said Hakim. ‘You are a very beautiful woman. When you came in the door a moment ago, I felt my blood rushing to my chest with eagerness. I have not felt like that for a woman before, never in my life. I mean for you to be clear what I am saying, plainly understand that I want you. I want to remove that mtandio veil and undress you and take full command of your body. I want you to yield your body to me. I want to take charge of it and do with it as I wish. I thirst with desire for you. I will not harm you or cause you pain, do you understand? I want to make love to you, not just once, but to my satisfaction. That is how much I want you. In return, I will release your brother.’

  He made no effort to touch her. His face was dead-pan and unsmiling now, and after he had said what he said, he leant slowly back in the chair and calmly waited for her to speak.

  She said: ‘You humiliate me. I am a married woman and a mother. I love my husband above any other person in this world, and I will not bring shame to his home and my son’s home.’

  Hakim leant forward again, smiling now with a kind of teasing pleasure. ‘I thought you would be a virtuous woman, and your words do you credit. I do not mean to harm you or humiliate you. I desire you but I do not wish to belittle you. I want you to yield your body to me, that is all. If you wish to redeem your brother, you have no choice but to do as I ask. Your father was shot as a traitor some years ago, and suspicion already hangs over your brother, in addition to his abuse of a minor. You must understand that nothing else can save him but what I ask for. No one will interfere in this matter, not even the Vice-President, because they will see that it is my right as a brother to have the last word on it. I will give you a few hours to think about this, and I will arrange for you to see your brother after our conversation here, so that you may see he is well and his skin is undamaged … yet. Then I will want your answer before the end of tomorrow. And as for shame, I will do everything to arrange matters discreetly, so that you and your home will suffer as little embarrassment as possible. I want you to understand, I do not wish to harm or humiliate you.’

  Hakim said the last words with that same lingering smile then he rose to his feet and went to his desk. A few moments later Abdalla Haji appeared at the door, and after listening to Hakim’s softly spoken instructions, he escorted Saida downstairs. He too was smiling, and Saida guessed that he had known all along what news the Chief Protocol Officer intended to give her. As she waited for the car which Abdalla Haji had summoned to take her to the prison, she saw from the clock in reception that it was not yet eleven o’clock, so she had only been in the Chief Protocol Officer’s office for ten minutes, yet it felt like hours. A short while later she was back in the car and on her way to see Amir. The driver parked in front of the main gate of the prison and knocked on the wooden door. After a brief exchange with the armed guard who appeared at the small inset panel, Saida was allowed inside on her own. Another guard escorted her through a large dark hallway, which was cool and surprisingly tranquil, like the entrance hall of an old mansion. It was not what she had expected. She was directed to a small room containing a medical trolley and a small desk and chair. It smelt strangely. She guessed this would be the examination room when the medical officer visited and she thought the smell was the odour of anguish. So far she had seen no sign of the yard or the cells, or heard the groans of the prisoners or the angry shouts of the guards that her imagination had prepared her for. She expected to be searched, but the guard who accompanied her merely pointed to the chair and told her to wait there, then he locked the door on her.

  When he came, Amir looked dishevelled, as if he had only just woken up, hair uncombed, shirt creased, eyes swollen, but otherwise he looked unharmed. His skin was unbroken, as Hakim had said. The guard pulled the door to without closing it and waited outside. Saida embraced her brother and asked him her anxious questions to which he replied reluc
tantly, aggrieved and petulant. She thought how like her father he looked, and how unlike him he really was, how reckless and demanding, how sullen. They sat in silence for a moment while she considered how to proceed.

  ‘What happened? Tell me what happened?’ she asked.

  ‘What are they saying happened?’ he asked.

  She tried to gauge his tone of voice: suspicious, cautious, assessing how much to tell her. She had imagined her brother terrified and confused by his arrest, but he seemed alert in that familiar way of his, unravelling a small idea of his own, plotting.

  ‘I would have liked to hear from you first,’ she said. ‘Nobody is saying much, not even that you’ve been arrested. Only that you were picked up from the Coral Reef. We had to ask around … What happened?’

  She saw the same calculating look on his face, assessing what she had said, deciding how much to tell. ‘Nobody has told me why I’ve been arrested,’ he said. ‘Two men came to the hotel and told me to get in the car. One of them had a gun,’ he said, his voice rising to an exaggerated pitch, but she heard its faked intensity as he played for time behind the appearance of drama. ‘They brought me here and put me in an isolation cell. I’ve been in here for the last two days and nights. It’s hell, the heat and the mosquitoes … using a bucket. Can you imagine that? The smell … I don’t even know what I’ve done or what they are planning to do to me. Nobody will say anything to me, not even you. Who did you ask? What did you find out?’

  ‘We were told you raped an under-age schoolgirl,’ Saida said briefly. After a second’s silence, Amir snorted derisively, disbelievingly. Saida continued: ‘The Vice-President’s youngest daughter.’

  ‘I did not … do such a thing,’ Amir said, dropping his voice to a whisper. ‘Who said that?’

  ‘Her brother Hakim,’ she said.