Burridge Unbound (22 page)

“Just in the beginning?”

“You will have to see what the reaction is,” she says. “I suspect there will be somewhat of a national outpouring, that for logistical reasons you may need to limit testimony later on. But for now it’s essential that no one feels excluded.”

“Some commissions in other countries have been circumscribed as to what they can investigate, how far back they’re allowed to go,” I say.

“Yes, and again, for logistical reasons, it might be prudent to do that at some point, when focus becomes important. But for now the field is wide open, and you will have the freedom to investigate as you feel fit. You can call your own witnesses and they will be bound by law to testify. You will have what we call
trilanto godin
, the power to instruct the courts and government. It’s not the power to convict individuals or pass laws, but it can’t be ignored either. It’s a wide mandate, Bill. You can travel, you can investigate, and like all of us you could be shut down any moment by the military. But that would be a coup and all rules
would change then anyway.” She smiles wanly. “There are some people, of course, who wish to derail this commission, and me as well. But not to worry. If there is anything you need, just tell me. I can’t be seen to be too close to the process, you understand that. This is not to be Suli’s vendetta against the murderer of her husband. But I am vitally interested. You must accept our apologies for not being better prepared. We are in many ways a backward country. I beg your patience.”

She draws a chair from out of the gloom and sits near me. I think of
liir
, but she’s so gentle with it, just the slightest trace of irony.

“I haven’t answered everything,” she says, “but perhaps that will help for now. What I should have said right away is thank you so much for changing your mind and agreeing to sit on the Truth Commission after all. I am overwhelmed by your dedication and courage. How are you feeling now? Are your accommodations up to standard?”

“They’re fine. Luxurious. More than I expected.”

“Good! Well, I’m glad about that!” she says. She looks at me too long, not at all overwhelmed.

“I’m feeling well,” I say. “I was anxious about my return but I seem to be handling it. I’ve brought my personal assistant, Joanne Stoddart, to look after me.”

“Yes, I know. Good!”

Cautiously I sip the
supira –
one small taste races sharply across my tongue. I swallow, manage to avoid coughing. I should have more questions but my mind is suddenly in neutral. I’ve been raging about, when if I’d only stayed patient … The lull in the conversation stretches into my own discomfort. “Do you always work this late?” I finally ask inanely.

“Usually,” she says, folding her legs up in the large chair in a feline motion. The movement is familiar, unofficial. “I never
learned to sleep very well after Jono was killed. You know I was there when it happened. I turned to look at a red banner.
Teriala kojinda Minizhi lundafilo
. ‘The Minitzh airport wishes safe journeys.’ When I looked back Jono was on the floor beside me. Half his face was ripped away. There was blood on my stockings and bits of his teeth hung onto threads of skin. It was utterly silent. I didn’t hear a thing. But there was my husband and there was the banner:
Teriala kojinda Minizhi lundafilo.”

Her voice so quiet, flickering slightly as if with the candlelight. A strange and sudden intimacy. She has opened up completely, without any apparent hesitation, in a way that seems natural and effortless and stunningly human.

“This happened in 1983?” I ask, trying the
supira
again. Much smoother this time.

“April seventeenth,” she says. “I shouldn’t be functioning, I know. I should be in the asylum.” Her tired smile again, but sly as well, as if this is a private joke, meant mostly for herself. “I pray, I meditate, I sing, I rest. But sleep was no longer the safe place so I let it go. Maybe someday it will be all right again.”

“Yes.”

Maybe someday, but this is now and time has turned liquid, stretched itself and slowed with the quiet of the hour. She tells me about reading my book in a small country library in Kent, with a cold rain outside and tears washing down her face. “It was as if every bit of rage and sadness in my body was stored in those pages and written directly for me. I read by the window from ten in the morning until almost ten at night. The whole day I didn’t move except to turn the pages. I felt your captivity. I sat so still the staff forgot I was there and closed the building behind me. When I stood finally it was as though years had passed. I’d practised fasting before and been still through meditation, but this was different. It was being caught in someone
else’s torment that bore the scent of my own. I thought about contacting you. Finally it boiled down to just one main thing. After reading your book I realized how thankful I could be that Jono’s death was so quick. He couldn’t have been in pain long, if at all. It’s not such a bad way to go. The Intelligence Service could have put him through agony.”

She holds my gaze for too long, but it’s not uncomfortable. She connects with people, I think. This is where her genius lies. She’s the president of her country and yet she wins you through her vulnerability and willingness to open up, makes you feel like you could ask her anything and it would be all right.

“Is that who killed Jono? The IS?”

“Nothing is certain,” she says. “Maybe that’s something you’ll find out. There was never an inquiry, of course. I believe the man who pulled the trigger is either a wealthy landlord in the back country by now or else
doslin terda.”

“Doslin terda?”

“Literally, ‘feeding maggots.’ ”

A pause stretches into the shadows of the room.

“You said there are people who want to derail this commission. Do you know who? What do I need to do?”

“Nothing is certain,” she says again. “But it is possible that Barios is still in the country, and he has a lot of support among Minitzh’s old guard. Have you heard of Barios?”

“The former vice-president?”

“Yes. He should have stepped in when Minitzh was killed but disappeared instead. He has been seen in some of the villages. A large man, fat as a cow, it’s hard to mistake him. What we’ve learned – and nothing is confirmed – but it’s possible he has joined with some of the Kartouf groups. He also has extensive contacts with the
djotkas.”

“The drug lords?”

“They have enormous money and grew very comfortable while Minitzh protected them.”

“But why would the Kartouf join with Barios? They were mortal enemies.”

“And sometimes the lion lies down with the lamb.” She pauses, looks briefly at her hands, then fully meets my gaze again. “There are things that you need to know. Many factions of the Kartouf are no more than armed thugs happy to work for the
djotkas
anyway. Whatever it takes to get rich. Only certain portions of the Kartouf want anything to do with helping peasants or overthrowing corrupt governments. Once you look closely at the pattern of villages destroyed by Minitzh you’ll see that it looks much more like a Kartouf turf war than any crackdown on an opposition group.”

It takes time for the words to sink in. My mind feels webbed by her soft voice, the
supira
, the late hour.

“There are army members who actively support certain Kartouf groups,” she says. “The few groups that wanted Minitzh out were never very powerful. Most of them desired a share of the drug profits. That’s what it was about. That’s what you fell into. And that’s what I now have to deal with.”

She seems so candid, yet from her tone and the look in her eyes I suddenly feel that she’s keeping back important things. Things I didn’t want to know, and yet now that I’m here I must ask. If I didn’t it would be like coming to the edge of the water then turning back.

“Do you know who kidnapped me?” I saw my keeper, Josef, and the others shot by the army helicopter during the rescue, but it was never clear exactly who was behind it all and what they wanted, or why they held me so long.

“Nothing is certain,” she says.

“No. But what do you know?”

“I don’t
know
anything,” she says. “That’s what you’re here for, to find out as much as you can, as certainly as you can.”

“But you’ve heard things.”

“We’ve
all
heard things, Mr. Burridge.”

The formality of the name seems to bring things near an end. Suddenly I feel the exhaustion of the day. She
knows
, but she won’t tell me. She’s been playing me, winning me over without giving anything away. But then just as I’m thinking this she confides something else.

“You must be careful of Justice Sin,” Suli says.

“Why?”

“He was close to Minitzh. I fought to keep him out of this, but I’m balancing between Tinto and Mende Kul and both insisted on him. He’ll try to protect his cronies, so I’m hoping you’ll be able to work with Mrs. Grakala. She has a strong record working behind the scenes for issues of social justice. I fought hard for her. And for you too.”

I’m surprised, and pause before speaking. “Mrs. Grakala has been very reserved so far,” I say.

“Appearances deceive.” She leans in to press her point. She’s playing me. The Angel of Kalindas Boulevard. She uses everything – her beauty, vulnerability, soft words, the steel hidden behind them. “Mrs. Grakala has a strong record. And Justice Sin can surprise us all. He is his own man, or I would never have finally agreed. And if I don’t agree, no one gets on the commission.”

Then it’s as if a switch has flicked. Clearly the meeting is over. She rises and moves across the room to her desk. I find myself standing, not sure what to do with the remaining
supira
. It’s already weighing heavily in my head. I put my glass down on a side table and start to thank her for seeing me. She looks up from something at her desk as if surprised I’m still here.

“Justice Sin will contact you when the translation service is available. You’ll have to watch him closely. But Mrs. Grakala will be your ally, I’m sure. And you
will
make a difference.”

Suli and I say our goodbyes, then I walk down the hall, surrounded by my guards again. Outside it’s still night, although it feels as if many hours should have passed. The air is filled with mist, and a drowsiness enters me. We ride back in silence and I nod my head with fatigue, too tired to look out the window, too strained to really sleep.

B
ack at the commission meeting room in the
Justico kampi
, two days later, and the translation service is up and running. It comes through the headphones in the form of an unemotional female voice, in competent English, only slightly hurried, with most of the island singsong taken out of her accent. The room feels overflowing with staff, but there are no reporters allowed, only limited seating for the public. Most of the men in the room are smoking; the pall hangs over us as a visible, choking reminder of the gloom that enveloped this country for so many years.

Our first witness is a villager with only one name, Tangul, who survived the Lorumptindu massacre of three years ago. He sits in the middle of the room surrounded by the rectangle of our tables, telling his story. His hair is grey and dishevelled, his clothes ratty, still bearing mud from the fields.

“And when we came to the checkpoint at Lorumptindu,” the voice in my headphones says, “soldiers boarded the bus. They had guns and ordered us all out of the bus, and separated the men and the women. We were the men, we were on one side
and we could hear the soldiers yelling and saying abusive things to the women but we couldn’t see because the bus was in the way. They made us cross over the ditch and then walk into the jungle, it wasn’t very far, there was a clearing where some men had been digging. I asked where they were taking us and one of the soldiers took his
waloo
rod and slashed it across my ankle. I fell in the mud and then he hit me three or four more times and told me to get up or he was going to shoot me right there. I got up and limped a bit further and then they gave us all spades and said we had to clear the land by digging a large hole. Someone asked why should we clear this land and the soldier said it was a special peasant tax, this was our labour. But we knew there was no peasant tax, they just wanted us to dig our own graves and then they were going to shoot us.”

Tangul pauses to elaborately sip from a mug of tea, his hands shaking badly. Sin Vello asks him to continue.

“We could hear also some wailing and commotion from the other side of the road by the bus. There were no shots yet but it seemed clear that soldiers were raping the women. I considered then that I was a dead man and I thought, do I want to dig my own grave first and let these
jiroptas
rape our women or do I want to bring some soldiers with me while I die? For others, I could see they were afraid and wanted to hope that really we were just clearing land and the commotion from the other side of the bus was not soldiers raping our women. I whispered to one or two of the others we must die like men and then there were shots. I didn’t know what was happening. I thought they’d started killing the women, and so I turned and swung my spade at the nearest soldier. He saw me coming and pointed his gun, but he was very young, perhaps only fifteen, and scared by the shots, he froze and my spade caught him on the side of the head. As he fell I grabbed for his weapon. I don’t
know how I thought what to do. I’m a farmer, not a fighter. But now shots were coming from everywhere and I ran as fast as I could into the jungle. I believed any moment I would get hit, but I guess no one followed me in the confusion.”

“How long did you spend in the jungle?” Sin Vello asks.

“Two nights. I climbed a rinko tree and waited in the leaves. I had the soldier’s gun ready in case anyone came for me and I slept only in small … only in little bits.”

“What happened when you got down?” Mrs. Grakala asks. Her voice in Kuantij above the headphones is broken and faint.

“I started to feel weak from hunger and thirst, and there had been no sounds, so I got down from the tree and walked carefully back to the bus.”