by Elna Holst
Reflexively, my knee has gone up to meet with my assailant’s abdomen, pushing back hard. She’s taken aback, momentarily—I may not be the strongest person on this piece of dirt in the sea, but that must have hurt—and then her brow clears, her lips part in a wide-toothed, childishly endearing smile.
“Good Dimanche. Fight back. Be brave.”
Chien barks gleefully. He’s jumping about in puppy excitement, snapping playfully at whichever tangled body part—Ren’s or mine or both—he can get at.
“Yeah, well,” I’m flushed from the heat, the impromptu skirmish, the strange yet strangely gratifying compliment. “Would you please not touch me without asking first? It’s…rude,” I finish off lamely, my stump flailing in the air as if waving off an annoying gnat or mosquito.
Ren tilts her head to the side. “Touch?” she echoes, in a query, as if trying out the word. My cheeks burn.
“You may touch me,” I offer, magnanimously. “But not inside my clothes, please.”
Ren puts out her hand and strokes the side of my face, her lips half parted as she does. My fingers itch to return the gesture, but I—I don’t think I should.
“No sick?”
I grimace, the question reminding me of the thousandfold little aches and pains of my beaten-up, shaken-up, stirred and mutilated body. “I’ll heal.”
AFTER BREAKFAST—COCONUT, mango, the last provisions out of our respective holdalls, which I am reluctant to finish off, though Ren, apparently, has no such qualms—we continue on our trek, Chien making lazy figures of eight around us as we go.
I study the broad, muscular back of the woman ahead of me. There is so much I want to ask her, so much I want her to explain, but I’m beginning to twig—my heart shrinking with concern, apprehension, within me—that she’s just not used to speaking. That she hasn’t been speaking for a long time.
A drop of sweat has formed at the base of her neck, making a slow snail trail down her spine before arriving at—and who ever heard of traipsing about the blasted rainforest without a scrap of clothing?
“Ren,” I demand, for the umpteenth time, cringing at the plaintive note in my voice. “Where are we going? When will we get there?”
She turns halfway towards me—a first. It’s something, at least; an acknowledgement of my existence, even if I am named after a day of the week.
The last, or the first, depending on who you ask.
“Dimanche hungry?”
She takes off her satchel—which she has been carrying over her shoulder, I suddenly realise, mirroring the way I’m lugging my outlandish handbag around—and brings out a handful of red berries, not waiting for my reply.
“I—no, well, yes, but—” I eye the berries sceptically, my experience with the emetics by the spring too fresh for comfort. “You’re sure those are edible?”
She holds them out to me, that determined look on her face that unfailingly sends me into a confusion of pique and weirdly trembling knees.
I shake my head, wondering how I can rephrase my question, make her understand my compunction. I pick one up, holding it between my thumb and my forefinger. It’s squishier than the ones I ate.
“Sick?” I ask, indicating my stomach with my stump, as I hold the berry in front of my mouth.
She stares at me in bafflement, until something seems to click. “No bad. Dimanche no eat bad. Ren show.”
She takes one of the berries herself, and pops it into her mouth, munching noisily. “Good—see?”
“I see.” I’m not looking very impressed, I guess, because she takes another one and repeats the process, her hand still thrust out for me to join in.
“Okay, sure, you’ve convinced me.” I start eating, one, two, three at a time. I had expected them to be tart, cranberry-like, but they’re sweet and mellow. I nod in agreement. “Good.”
“Bon, bon.”
Under watchful, ever-attentive eyes, I finish off my snack, feeling very much like a kid on an interminable road trip. I don’t know if I’ve ever had that experience, or if it’s just another pop-culture reference; I can’t seem to remember my parents—any parents—at all. Only Grandda. Grandda had no car.
“I need to—” I indicate my nether regions. Ren looks at them curiously—looks, in fact, like she’s ready to pounce at this ‘invitation’ to take a peek under my skirt—and I back off, holding up my hand and stump in imitation of the gesture she used with me yesterday. “Reste,” I say, looking from her to Chien. “Please. I won’t be a minute.”
She looks miffed; they both do, and my chest swells with an indefinable elation, a burst of all-consuming affection. I have an impulse to lower my guard, to run up and hug her, hard, but I control myself. I repeat, “Good Ren. Good Chien. Be back soon.”
Ren sighs, and pulls something from her bag. A tiny stick, dangling from a leather thong, like a piece of jungle jewellery. She hangs it around my neck, and I’m worried she hasn’t understood me, that she thinks we are saying goodbye, but then, standing so close to me I can feel the tops of her thighs brushing against mine through the fabric of my skirt, she lifts the stick to her mouth and blows.
A piercing, shrill flute tone is emitted, causing both Chien and me to jump.
Ren steps back.
“Call. Ren come.”
I smile tremulously. “Merci. Reste?”
She sits down, Chien immediately there, jumping at her back and pulling at her hair. With one look, she subdues him. He sits next to her, tongue lolling out, looking from her to me.
“Ren stay,” she says dismissively. “Dimanche come back.”
Chapter Thirteen
AFTER I HAVE done my business, just out of sight, and wiped myself off with various obliging pieces of greenery, I backtrack to where I’ve left my pair of oddball companions. They are sitting right where I left them, looking, if anything, incredibly bored—but they haven’t spotted me, and I can’t resist—I raise my new emergency pipe to my lips and blow.
Pandemonium ensues.
Chien is on his feet within seconds, barking like a German Shepherd watchdog who has caught the scent of a would-be intruder; as he comes bounding in my direction, Ren follows suit, a rude, triangular-shaped weapon in hand that I haven’t seen before. They’re upon me in an instant, before I’ve had time to do anything but freeze and stare, open-mouthed. The sheer impetus of their cavalry attack fells me to the ground, where I lie stunned, as the Indomitable Duo come to a surprised halt.
Ren falls upon me, crouching and hissing in my ear, “Danger—where?”
Chien is snuffling noisily on my other side, seemingly asking the same question.
“No, Ren—” One of her pulse points is pressed against me, distracting me; I gaze down to find my fingers at her femoral artery, on the inside of her thigh. I whip my hand away as her leg shifts—in my professional capacity, I’ve doubtlessly checked people’s pulses a thousand…a million times; it’s a reflex, I tell myself, my heart rate going erratic as I thrash about for some possible—improbable excuse. “No danger. I didn’t… It was a joke.”
Ren rocks back on her haunches. I shut my eyes. Her hand comes up to my neck, and I have the time to think that this time she’s really going through with it—this time she will finish me off. But rather than strangling me, she grabs the little flute and holds it up in front of me, shaking it for emphasis, as though she were chastising a naughty child.
“Danger,” she intones solemnly, though not altogether unkindly. “Only danger. Dimanche sound.”
I risk a peek at her where she is looming above me. She nods curtly and pats my cheek, before giving me a hand up off the ground.
“Good Dimanche. Come now. Go.”
And so we do. I am giddy with the monotony of it: the sunlight dappling through the canopy, the blotches on my irises, the pent-up, frustrated questions, always on my lips, never vibrating from my vocal chords. Where are we going? Where am I? Who am I? Who are you?
My feet ache and the strap of my handbag is eating into my
shoulder, even through the relatively sturdy material of my dress jacket. My eyes itch. I want nothing so much as to sit down and weep, weep and be done with it.
“Ren—” I croak at last, weary and parched, and she turns around with her lips parted, her tongue working, her dark eyes full and glistening.
“Wha—What is it?”
Rather than speaking, she beckons me over, parting the fronds of the thick vegetation, the rustling causing an impossibly colourful bird to fly off with a shriek. Chien’s jaws snap after it, automatically, but I have no mind for him—I can think of absolutely nothing but the sight before me, the shimmering mirage that Ren has revealed by drawing back the palm leaves in our way.
My hand comes up to my mouth. I seem to have forgotten how to breathe.
“Maison.” Ren’s chin is on my shoulder, her stark, trembling excitement making my chest too tight for my lungs. “Bienvenue.”
THE HOUSE IS small and old. Where it stands in its small clearing in the midst of the island jungle it looks virtually organic, as if it had never been created by the hand of man at all, but rather sprung up from out of the fecund soil, shoots and leaves having arbitrarily decided to grow in a house-shaped way, weaving together over years, as wild and wondrous birds formed a roof on top through successive nesting. The doorway is three-cornered, like the opening of a tent. A purple orchid spreads its flowering vines above and around it, grazing the thick thatched roof sticking out overhead.
It’s a human abode. It’s Ren’s maison. In Who Knows Where. Right here.
“Welcome,” my islander guide reiterates, struggling with the word, yet beaming, close to leaping with glee. “Welcome to home, Dimanche.”
I brush my stump over my brow, biting my lower lip. She doesn’t mean it like that, I know, but I feel abruptly cold, chilled to the marrow of my bones, though the afternoon (is it?) is hot and humid.
“Ren lives here,” I say, stating the obvious, and she nods eagerly, her strong hands around my shoulders, pushing me towards the low-slung entrance.
“Come,” she sings—an imperative she, by now, has a firm handle on— “Inside.”
I have been longing for inside. I have been working to get here ever since I first saw The Eye on the beach, since I was first alerted to the presence of another human being, any human being at all, in these forsaken, desolate surroundings. Another person must equal civilization. Another person must mean salvation—an end to my freakish plight—a way, at last, out of here.
Now, I am not so sure. Now, with Ren’s heavy hands pushing me forward, the dark doorway in front of me, my insides quaver as I take in the dilapidated state of this puny construction, the way the long, slender tree trunks that form the walls have been lashed together—simply, primitively—by the aid of a fraying, long-since-created, handmade rope.
I shudder instinctively. There will not be a telephone inside this hut. There will not be a radio. No electricity, no plumbing. No hope.
Ren’s hand has glided from my shoulder and down over my rigid spinal column, gently stroking it, exploring it, through the material of my jacket. I open my eyes, only dimly aware I had closed them in the first place. I have braced my arms up against the door frame, pushing back, refusing to be led inside, refusing to give up my frail fantasy of a lifeline, a direct connection to Sihanoukville, to the rest of the world, awaiting my arrival on the other side.
Chien pushes his way between us, snorting, disappearing into the dusk.
“Dimanche no come?”
Her face betrays no emotion, no affront at my contrariness. My spine is tingling under her fingers, as they describe each vertebra in turn. It calms me. It unsettles me. It softens me, despite my unease.
My world turns askew. I want her to hold me. I want her to hold me like when the sun-faced bear of the jungle passed us: up close, flush against her weathered skin, her mouth at my ear, her groin pressing into… I want her. My head is spinning with the outrageousness of it. I wet my lips.
And the sky opens. Literally. There’s a crack of thunder, a flash as if someone just turned on the fluorescent lights in an office building, and then it’s coming down in buckets—out of nowhere!—and Ren is shaking her head, droplets flying off her tangled hair.
She is mouthing something, but I can’t hear, can hardly make her out in the downpour. My arms slacken, and I am toppled inside—by Ren, by the rain, by everything.
Chien is barking. I sink to the floor—a proper wooden floor—in a heap.
Chapter Fourteen
I AM LUXURIANTLY snug. From somewhere, I can make out the whisper of rain, a relentless din, but I am dry and warm; the material beneath me is soft, yet supporting. I am wrapped in a slightly musty but infinitely plush old-school quilt. A quilt? Yes—I am positive; in wonder, my fingertips trace the sewn-together patches of fabric, my eyes scanning floral prints, stripes, little details of red satin, a dark green velveteen.
I sit up, and in an instant, a large, furry whirlwind is at me, his yellow hairs in my face making me sneeze, his mud-streaked paws clawing at my precious cover, revealing pink, rosy nudity beneath, before a sharp whistling puts an end to his amorous assault.
“Ren?”
She is sat, gently swinging, in a one-person hammock, which is suspended from a beam above. Her face looks drawn, as if she’s been up all night, pondering the mysteries of the universe.
Or—I am strangely affected by the idea, surprised, pleased, uncomfortable, all at once—perhaps she’s just been worried. About me.
“Rain,” she says at last. “Rain come. Long now. Wet, wet, wet.”
I have brought the quilt up tighter about me, scanning my surroundings for my clothes.
“Oh,” I respond, as it dawns on me: “You mean the rainy season? The monsoon? It’s here?”
Ren gets up and saunters over. Something is different about her. Thunderstruck, I burst out: “You’re wearing a dress!”
She brushes my hair from my forehead, checking my temperature, following the trail of my blush. I can’t fault her for it. It makes sense.
As no explanation seems to be forthcoming, I pinch the fabric of the dress between my fingers, holding it out for inspection. It’s worn threadbare, faintly mouldy-smelling and holey. I can see why it would be no use outside.
“This?” I look up at her imploringly, willing her to answer me. “Where did it come from? You bought it? Can we go there?”
She shakes her head slowly, flattening my hair to my skull. Her thumbs sweep over my brows, following the edges of my eye sockets, her touch light as an artist’s brush.
“Come with Maman. No way back.”
“Your mother?” I take her hand, excitedly. “Where is she?”
Ren gazes mysteriously over to a dark corner of the room. She is frowning, working—I have come to recognise the expression—over her words.
“Maman sleep always. No wake up.”
Maman sleep… A chill passes through me. Ren’s hands are on my shoulders now, examining the knots of muscles and sinew under my skin. I have grown spare, of course, already—I haven’t given it much thought, but I was plumper, definitely, those first weeks I can remember, on the beach.
Something is moving at the outskirts of my mind. I can’t reach it, can’t gain access, and it frustrates me, it makes me crave…
“Where’s my bag? And my clothes, please.” I try to keep the annoyance out of my voice, but it’s hard—doubly hard when she insists on physically handling me, ever so innocently—I have to remind myself—while with each successive caress she makes me long to throw the quilt off, lie back, and invite her to have her way with me.
“Clothes wet,” she says, unaffected, pressing her palm against the back of my neck. “Dimanche cold. No good.”
“Be that as it may,” I drawl, my eyelashes fluttering as I check myself. Without noticing, I’ve leaned into her petting, as Chien would do. “I’ll take my chances. I’m not comfortable going about my day without clothes. Also, I really need my bag, if you
don’t mind.”
I’m using too many words, I know. She stops listening. But the closer those impenetrable eyes watch me, the more I feel the need to shield myself behind a torrent of speech.
Ren moves her lips. Then she is smiling, genuinely grinning, her face wrinkling up in the most charming, outré fashion, and I can’t help but mirror her, even as she starts unbuttoning her dress, and shock and—yes, titillation—stiffens and softens me in turn.
“Ren,” I put my stump on her arm. “It’s not going to help if you get naked with me out of solidarity. That’s not what I—”
“Non,” she pats my stump affably before removing it. “Ren be Ren. Dimanche be dress.”
She opens the last button, takes the dress off, and gives it to me. Trying not to look at her too closely, I pull the fragile garment about myself, the material retaining her warmth. I tell myself I’m being silly; she’s been in the buff since we met. Get a grip on yourself, Dr Scatterbrains.
Ren looks pleased, her arms akimbo, her bush jutting…
I lower my gaze to the floor, focusing on her grubby toes.
“Thank you,” I manage.
“Bon,” she observes. “Good Dimanche. Pretty. Maman like.”
“Maman…?”
“Come see, Dimanche. Welcome. Come see.”
She holds her hand out to me, and I take it, letting her draw me up off the crude but comfortable bed. She slips her arm around me, and I allow her to do that too. I don’t know what we’re doing, or why, but I sense I might need the support.
I am not mistaken.
Ren leads me over to the secretive dark corner of the wood-built hut, and there, as I had suspected, somehow, though I wouldn’t let myself know, my mind recoiling, turning in on itself in its effort not to know, sits Maman, or what’s left of her—hardly more than a few dry patches of what could have been skin, a burr of brown hair, a grotesquely grinning skull. She’s propped up against the nook of the walls, the building supporting her, preventing her from keeling over. In her lap are more bones, a canine skull. And at her side—my hand.
