Devil’s Harvest (38 page)

Gabriel gathered all the scorn he could muster. ‘Damn you, Jane. Damn you all and your bloody PlayStation wars.’

Chapter 21

BRISTOL UNIVERSITY, SOUTH-WEST ENGLAND

Leaving Juba had been wrenching. Sitting in the quiet of his office, the familiar push of the ergonomic chair against the small of his back, Gabriel stared out at the spire of the Wills Memorial Building. For the first time since arriving back in Bristol, he had time to reflect on the events that had unfolded after the horror of Malual Kon village. Outside, the sleet pattered on the window pane, and cars hissed past, the road slick under their tyres. Somewhere a student shouted something to a friend, running together under one umbrella.

Bristol remained unchanged by the travesties that befell others in the world. Yet now Gabriel realised that it wasn’t the strangeness of Juba that made him melancholy; rather, it was this ordered, obedient city with its cocooned population, eyes averted from one another. The unspoken judgements, the whinging complaints, the luxurious range of choices bewildered him. And the extraordinary absence of smell. There were odours, to be sure, the astringent bite of antiseptics and bleaches and cleaners, but it was a world devoid of the smells of natural human activity. Toilet sprays and rose eau de colognes assaulted him wherever he went. The ground beneath his feet was cleansed tar or cement, but he had no idea what the colour of the earth might be beneath High Street near the river, or whether it was similar in texture underfoot to the soil on St Michael’s Hill, or how its scent might change in the rain.

South Sudan still clutched his heart – it felt close and yet far away, as he came to understand that he couldn’t possibly explain to anyone what he had experienced there. People asked him, like voyeurs hoping for a glimpse of another’s trauma, but he was unable to find the words to express himself. Only Hargreaves seemed to understand. Gabriel had started to tell his colleague about Juba, and Jila and Malual Kon. But with every word uttered, he felt as though he lost something, a remembered detail, a part of his person that, if shared, would be diluted and lost for ever. So he stopped, midstory, shaking his head. Hargreaves had nodded, understanding.

‘My dear boy, you must understand the most dangerous thing most of us have done is operate our cellphones while standing at a urinal. You can’t expect us to begin to appreciate what you’ve been through.’

Gabriel was grateful for his colleague’s honesty and left the stories untold, for now.

His return to England felt like an unfolding dream, or perhaps an unwaking nightmare, stretching from the bloody events at the village until the meeting at MI6. The drama was unrelenting, not slowing until he had finally walked out of their offices, giddy with released tension. He stared at his screen saver on his computer, at the yellow flowers of
Arabidopsis
, a hint of dew along the edges of each delicate petal.

Alek had felt almost weightless as he had carried her back to the Land Cruiser. He walked like a blind man through the burnt village, thorn trees plucking at his clothes as if to hold him back. He’d dropped the gun and watched Jannie stumble. The South African had twisted his arm behind him as if trying to brush something off his back. After he fell, Gabriel had gone to her. He realised now, looking back, that he had expected her to stir when he touched her bare back, that he still hadn’t understood that the final shot was fatal. Alek seemed somehow above mortality, inured to common dangers like bullets fired by ugly militiamen. He imagined that she would treat such obstacles with disdain, like a superhero fending off the feeble blows of lowlife criminals. But she did not stir and as he turned her over he saw, with shock, that she was as vulnerable to the violence of men as anyone else. The bullet had left a gaping exit wound just below her sternum. Her head flopped to one side and he knew that she was gone.

He couldn’t remember how he had thought to collect the memory card from the broken camera or the metal fragment from Jannie lying still on the rocks. His vision had tunnelled, and he was aware only of the narrow pathway leading between the black shells of dwellings and cattle enclosures. He was oblivious to the afternoon heat searing down, the smoke in the sky drifting from the burning millet fields, the sickly smell of the carcasses. All he could feel was the soft, cooling skin of Alek on his bare arms, her body hastily wrapped in her torn dress, her blood sticky on his hands. In their time together, they had hardly touched, he realised now.

He laid her on the back seat of the car, staining the dull fabric on the seat. He had to bend her long legs to fit her in, but there would be no more protest from her. As he closed the door he heard Al Babr’s men shouting some way off in the burnt village, then a burst of gunfire as they found something still living to shoot at. He had no fear for himself any more; perhaps he had passed the point of caring. His only focus was to get Alek’s body away from the village, as if that might somehow make things right again. The thought of her thrown into the gulley for the vultures and crows to pick at was unthinkable. He started the engine and gripped the steering wheel, slamming the gears into place as he made his way back along the road they had come along earlier that morning.

He drove at speed, suppressing the sobbing in his chest, not once daring to look in the rear-view mirror. He kept his mind clear of any thoughts, any plans or strategies, looking straight ahead at the road and watchful for anything that might hinder his path. The fire in the fields was still raging and the road was dotted with displaced people making their way to a pretence of safety. He didn’t stop to drink or eat, keeping his foot on the accelerator, dust billowing out behind him. He had only the roughest idea of their route and yet he made his way – without deliberation – straight back to Jila camp.

It was dusk by the time he arrived, sending chickens scattering in indignation. People in the huts along the roadside stopped and stared, holding their children to their bodies. Margie came out of her office, just like the first time, standing in the gloom watching him. The dust settled around her as she waited, her hair free and wild. She had known, even as he pulled up outside the administration block. He saw her face fall, her eyes lower in pain.

She did not ask him any questions and immediately helped carry Alek from the vehicle, stroking her face and murmuring to herself. The joints of the body had stiffened and when they laid her out in the church, her posture from the car remained.

Gabriel could not remember now how he had ended up in bed. He recalled Bernard trying to comfort him, giving him a sleeping pill, someone else washing his face while he sat immobilised on the edge of a hospital bunk. There were no dreams, just a bland expanse of exhausted sleep, its beginning as abrupt as its startled end. He jerked awake to find himself already sitting upright, his arms rigid and extended in anguish. But still he felt nothing.

They buried Alek with the sunrise and without words. Some of the men had dug a grave next to that of her mother, extending into the narrow path. Bernard had straightened her limbs, and her body was wrapped in muslin cloth, only her face showing. They laid her next to the grave on a wooden board – there was no coffin – and Margie knelt and kissed her tenderly on her forehead. Bernard was weeping, groaning quietly. Gabriel knelt beside her and put his hand on Alek’s cheek. Without life, her skin was incomprehensibly waxy and cold.

The men slid the bound body into the grave and together they all covered her. Gabriel had to look away as the soil started to pile over her face. Only once she was in the ground, and the heap of dirt patted down, a small makeshift cross stuck at an angle, only then did the mourners look at each other. Gabriel felt a pressure growing inside his chest, an unimaginably powerful, expanding rush. He guessed that he was ill, or somehow injured, that he might collapse onto the fresh earth. Malaria, he thought vaguely. But the sickness lay deeper than his bloodstream. Margie saw it coming and grabbed him in a tight embrace. He clutched her, his body shaking until his ribs hurt and his chest felt stiff. She held him for what seemed hours as he let days of pent-up horror escape, wracking waves of sadness overcoming him. Then his legs gave way, buckling underneath him like a beach chair. He recalled that the men had carried him on the same board that had brought Alek’s body, a strange procession leaving the cemetery instead of entering it. People came to the road, confused, and then understanding, some making the sign of the cross, others offering murmured prayers.

Margie had cleared a room for him and they put him to bed, swaddled in sheets like a newborn. A small citronella candle was left burning near the door. Bernard made him take some pills, probably another sleeping pill or a tranquiliser, and he soon drifted back into a black sleep. He woke from time to time to find Margie sitting close by on her favourite chair, her brow knitted, watching him battle through his darkness. Again, thankfully, he did not dream, slipping from perplexed wakefulness to unconsciousness. He continued in this state throughout the day. By afternoon he was running a high fever and he woke to find a saline drip running into his left arm. Bernard and Margie took turns to watch over him, trying to cool him with wet cloths and keep him from falling from the bed in his agitated state.

Around midnight, he awoke to find Alek standing at the foot of his bed, her thin arms by her side. She seemed to be smiling. But there was a ragged hole in her chest, a dark-red opening through which he could see her heart beating, pink and healthy. He cried out and Margie stumbled from her chair, half-asleep, to comfort him.

To sleep was to eat without nourishment. By morning he was exhausted, emotionally naked and at the mercy of those around him. Margie seemed to appreciate his condition, lulling him, praising him for eating small amounts of food, willing him to sleep some more.

The following days brought visits from a series of strangers from the camp, many women and children – survivors from Malual Kon perhaps. Each said no words, only approached him while he lay on his bed and touched him, some on his head, others about his face. Some left a bowl of grain, others a sprig of leaves plucked from one of the trees in the compound. The priest came and offered a silent prayer at his bedside. Bernard visited him constantly, each time squeezing his shoulder without comment, then sadly turning away. Gabriel knew he was not dying, his strength was returning, and it was not for him that they mourned. He was but the manifestation of their grief. But in their care he found solace nonetheless.

It was days before his fever abated. Time passed slowly, and yet also at speed, for at times he felt that he had just dozed, only to find that the day had given way to night or the dawn had been reached once again. After four days, he finally rose from his bed. He was still weak but he started to venture out into the camp on short walks. Wherever he passed, he was met with respectful bows and sad smiles. It seemed that everyone in the camp had come to hear of Alek’s passing, and where words failed, simple gestures of goodwill remained. The camp was even fuller than before and the lines at the clinic wound around the trees and into the hazy distance. The World Food Programme planes droned overhead, landing on the earthen strip and disgorging their contents before taking off again in a whirl of dust and vegetation. Family members made their way to the graveyard, returning with empty hands and hearts. There was a rhythm to life and death in Jila camp.

Early in the morning of the seventh day Margie came to him alone.

‘It isn’t safe for you to stay here any longer, Gabriel. We hear Al Babr has died. I don’t know if you played any part in that – and I don’t want to know. But his men are still about. Looking for revenge. A WFP transport plane will be leaving this afternoon. They have agreed to let you on board.’

Until that moment, Gabriel had not considered his future beyond trying to keep down his next small meal. His weight had plummeted and his mind seemed permanently blank, his actions subject to the instruction of others. He accepted Margie’s urging without question and packed his small bag of belongings.

He didn’t have the strength to visit Alek’s grave, and the Scot did not suggest he do so. Instead they hugged, watched by a small group of refugees, some shaking their heads, others staring at the ground as if they were somehow at fault.

‘You must go now, Gabriel. It is time.’ Margie nodded and turned away from him, leaving him alone at the metal stairs leading into the hold. He boarded the plane in a daze, propelled only by Margie’s quiet strength. As the plane rushed down the dirt runway, he saw her shielding her eyes, standing next to Bernard and watching him as he left.

He spent the afternoon in Juba, where a phone call to Brian Hargreaves had brought him up to date, giving him an idea of what to expect on his arrival home. He had just enough time to arrange for the practicalities of his plan before boarding a commercial Kenya Airways flight at Juba International Airport. As they lifted off the ground and the crashed Boeing at the end of the runway slipped out of view, Gabriel looked down on the sprawled shacks and haphazard dirt roads that made up the world’s newest capital. It was hard to imagine that all he saw – the Lodge, Konyo Konyo market, the tea rooms – that this would all carry on without him. Insensitive to his absence, the parties, the paid sex, the mad drinking, the friendships, they would not disappear like scenery packed up after a performance, waiting for his return. And yet it comforted him to think that while he was to be confined once more to the drizzle of Bristol, here in Juba the sun would be baking down, Rasta would be serving up cold Tuskers to wide-eyed new recruits, the tea ladies would be mixing up their powdered-milk brews, and the men would be sitting under the same neem trees, reading the news of the day to one another.

Leaving Juba had been all that he had longed for from the moment he had arrived. Now that he was on his way, he yearned only to return, to meet Alek once more, to return to the beginning.

The flight to Nairobi was again only half-full. But now the passengers were mainly NGO workers, some sick and snivelling, others depressed and stunned. The young woman across the aisle looked desperately ill, her skin wet with sweat and her pallor devoid of circulation. Gabriel felt a sudden affinity towards this tragic collection of do-gooders, captured by their conscience, seared by their visions, all bereft yet unable to articulate to anyone else quite what it was that had destroyed them, reformed them.