Stone Kingdoms (33 page)

‘I have told him that you work for the Agency and that you have become separated from them, that tomorrow we will try to go to where they have their offices. He says we must be careful, that foreign soldiers have come ashore from their ships and there has been fighting. In some places foreigners have been attacked. While we are here we must not go out or draw attention to ourselves.'

I nodded that I understood. The woman brought us thick black coffee, and when she served Nadra their eyes never met and no words were spoken. He was curious about the West and for a while asked many questions, but sometimes Nadra answered them herself without translating and gradually her voice became flecked with irritation. Soon after the questions stopped he went out for a while, and when he returned he told us that in the morning someone from his workshop would drive us across the city to the area where the Western agencies had their bases. That night we lay on the stone floor, hearing the staccato rattle of gunfire and the hollow rumble of explosions. Once when we got up and looked into the night sky we saw what looked like the red scream of tracer bullets. When we turned round the woman was standing there with the baby in her arms. He was awake but not crying. I think she had just fed him. We stood looking at each other for a few seconds, embarrassed by the silence but not knowing what to say, and
then
she came towards us and offered the baby to Nadra, holding him with outstretched arms into the space between us. Nadra hesitated, glanced at me, then took the child in her arms and held him close.

In the morning a small three-wheeled van arrived outside the courtyard. We sat in the back, squeezed between spare tyres and wooden boxes of tools, and the smell of exhaust fumes seemed to seep back inside the van. I hoped the journey would be short, but the roads were already clogged with traffic and when we hadn't come to a complete stop the van swerved in and out of other vehicles and we had to use our feet as brakes to stop ourselves sliding across the floor. Once we were caught in a jam at crossroads, and then the faces of cyclists peered in at the back windows but as I tried to hide my face the van moved off again, jolting and rasping through changes of gear.

After about half an hour, we turned onto a broad boulevard, lined on either side by high white walls. Almost immediately the driver shot his foot on the brakes and the van slewed out of control, finishing side on to the road. As we spun, we caught sight of the burning cars ahead, heard the angry bursts of gunfire and the screams of running people. Suddenly the smell of smoke filled the van, and as our driver jumped out we kicked open the back doors and scrambled out. People were running in every direction, knocking into each other, stumbling, sometimes falling in the frantic search for escape. Gunfire sprayed over our heads and the air was raw and riven by the smell of burning and new explosions. As we hesitated in the confusion, a technical veered towards us from a side street, its machine-gun pointing at the sky, and suddenly there was a deafening rush of air as a helicopter swept low over our heads. The swivelling gun of the technical spurted shuddering volleys into the sky. In a moment's pause in the firing we ran across the street, heading for the partially open gate of a courtyard, but before we reached it there was the sweeping slash of sky and another helicopter swooped over the tops of the buildings. It
hung
so low that I could see the occupants' faces, and then there was only a molten flare of light and the sear of pain and I stumbled into the courtyard, hearing nothing but my own screams as hands tried to scrape away the burning rags of my clothing. And then somewhere in the darkness, the darkness that isn't night, Nadra's voice is screaming that I am a European and a voice says Jeez, Jeez, and then it tells me that he is an American soldier and he will take good care of me and I remember and think that I am an expectant and that they will ship me somewhere to die. And I do not want to die. As I scream his hands move over my body and he's talking to me and sometimes he forgets himself and says Jeez again under his breath, and then I realize that the soldier is a woman. And she's shouting, shouting for a stretcher, and then there is the clatter of feet and nothing but a deep well of blackness.

24

‘
Why did I come to Africa? It's always better not to ask that, Basif. It only encourages lies.'

‘What about telling me the truth?'

‘Why do you want to know? What difference will it make?'

‘I'd like to know, to help me understand. That's all.'

‘So you can decide if I'm crazy or not.'

He laughs a little and I hear him strike a match, draw his cigar into new life. ‘I don't think you're crazy. No crazier than anyone else. Anyway the Irish are all a little crazy, I think. I met this guy once in Paris – his name was Marty Sullivan, do you know him? He was a very crazy man.'

The children have started to sing. I try to follow the melody and slowly recognize it as one of the songs Nadra taught the children in Bakalla. I shake my head at his question and try to listen to the song, but his voice pushes in over the top of it.

‘Do you think you're crazy, Naomi?'

‘Like you say, no crazier than anyone else. I think Stanfield might say something different. But you've talked to him about me, haven't you?'

‘Yes, I've spoken a little to Stanfield. Not much. Just a little.'

He has the advantage over me. I have to listen for his evasions, his half-truths, can't see them in his face. ‘And Stanfield thinks I'm crazy?'

‘He thinks you're young, that you've seen many bad things. He thinks maybe some of these things have affected you.'

‘And what do you think?'

‘I don't know, Naomi. Some people come here and have big
problems
with what they find. They've seen it on their TV and then they come here and it's not like TV and they aren't strong enough to deal with it.'

‘What happens to them?'

‘They go home again and try to get it out of their heads.'

‘And you think I should go home?'

‘I don't know. Maybe. But I know you're strong. When they brought you here your injuries were very bad, very painful. You were brave, and now your body heals well. Soon you will get back your sight. Maybe even by the time the Swiss doctor arrives.'

‘You shouldn't promise things you can't deliver, Basif. Do you make promises to all your women?'

‘Of course, Naomi. Apart from marriage. And I always deliver. It's my trademark.'

He laughs at his own joke. The children are singing a new song, one I don't recognize, and I can hear Nadra's voice mingling with theirs. Above my head the branches move slightly and a little slip of light brushes my face. I think he has given up, will soon get bored with me and leave, but I am wrong.

‘So, are you going to tell me why you came here?'

His persistence arouses my curiosity. It is a quality I don't associate with him. I could lie to him, of course, concoct some tale that he might believe, but the effort it would involve seems wearisome, unnecessary, and there is no need for lies any more – the lies you tell because you're frightened that your own truth isn't good enough. I turn my face to where I hear him shift in his seat and I start to tell him.

‘I came partly because of a boy.'

‘Ah,' he says, as if that one sentence makes everything clear to him. ‘It was – what do you call it? – an affair of the heart. That's it, isn't it?'

‘Yes. It was an affair of the heart. But not in the way you think. He was a young boy I taught in Ireland.' I hesitate, but
there
is only the wispy swirl of smoke from his cigar and the silence of his attention. And I tell him about Daniel, tell it in a way he will understand, and as I speak the words, my voice sounds strange to me and the story I tell travels to me from a different world, a world which I can only reach through memory. When I have finished, told the part he will understand, there is silence, and for a second I think I have been talking to myself, but then there is a knock of his feet against the chair and the rustle of his clothing.

‘And did you ever see this boy again?'

Did I ever see Daniel again? Yes I saw him. Only once. And only for a short time. It begins with a letter I almost throw away because it is mixed in among all the pieces of useless paper which fill my pigeonhole in the staffroom. A small white envelope addressed to me in thin blue writing, and I think it is a note from some parent to excuse an absence or request permission for a pupil to attend an appointment, and so I leave it lying until break. But it is from Mrs McCarroll and it says that Daniel is in a young offenders' centre. There is a visiting permit in the envelope. Beside his name is an inmate's reference number, and in writing which I recognize is my name and the address of the school. There is nothing else, and it answers none of the questions which run through my head. When the bell rings for class I fold the paper carefully and place it in my pocket.

The afternoon of the visit I am nervous, more nervous than I can remember being about anything. Nervous about what to wear, what to take, but mostly about what I will say. In the end I take only the book his brother Sean had given him and make the short drive to the edge of the city; turn into a winding tree-lined drive which too quickly leads to the high wire-topped walls of a prison. In a few minutes I am standing at a metal gate, studied by two officers inside who tell me to push when I hear a click. Inside they look at my pass, write my name and address
in
a ledger, and inspect the book I have brought. They flick the pages, turn it upside down and shake it, then check it against a list of banned books. The older officer calls me ‘Love' and points me to a waiting area, where I sit beside a fish tank with a poster of a tropical island above it. The rose-coloured carpet is blackspotted with cigarette burns. I am the only person there and I wait until another locked and barred door is finally opened.

There is a perfunctory search of my bag, and then I enter the visiting area. On the walls, large circular, convex mirrors throw back my reflection. At a raised platform a prison officer inspects my pass, tells me the number of my table, and then he too flicks the pages of the book. When they bring him in I almost don't recognize him. He is taller, broader, and his hair is cropped so short that it's almost drained of its colour. He comes to me with a casual, loping walk and I look into his face, search it for his smile, but it isn't there, only a slight creasing of his eyes and mouth. For a second I think of offering my hand, but as he reaches me he looks away and pretends to concentrate on taking his seat at the other side of the table.

‘Hi, Daniel,' I say, without meaning to, already slipping into my teacher's voice. He looks at me properly for the first time, as if he is struggling to remember who I am.

‘Hi,' he says, nodding his head several times after he's said it.

‘What happened to your hair?'

‘I got it cut like this a while back. It helps me look like a hard man.'

‘Does it fool anybody?'

‘Yeah, I think so. Sends out the right messages. Maybe you should try it.'

‘I don't hate my hair that much. I brought you a book,' I say, as I hand him it in its polythene bag.

‘A book? Bad for my image.' And pretending elaborately to check if anyone's watching, he removes the book from the bag delicately with his finger and thumb, as if it's something
dangerous.
When he sees what it is, he's surprised and flicks to the flyleaf to check for the inscription. ‘Where did you get it?' he asks.

‘It was one of the books your father threw at me as I was leaving your house. He thought it was one of the ones you'd borrowed from school.' He holds the book for a few seconds, staring at the flyleaf, then sets it at the side of the table as if it doesn't belong to him.

‘Me da said you'd come, but he never mentioned the books.'

At the table across the way a young woman with a boy of three or four is talking to an inmate. The boy kneels on a chair and drives his car across the table's formica top.

‘So you met me da, then. That must've been a treat for you.'

I shrug my shoulders and smile. Across the way the child has climbed on to the table.

‘We had a row about three weeks ago, he hasn't been back since. Me da'd fight with his own shadow. So, how's school, then?'

‘Same as always. Trying to keep my head above the waves, not make a fool of myself too often.'

‘So you've stopped looking for that boy Axl Rose then?'

‘You're never going to let me forget that,' I say, but I'm smiling. At the other table, the girl smacks the leg of the child and pulls him back down on to the chair. ‘A lot of your class passed their English. I don't know who was more surprised, them or me.' He doesn't say anything and in the sudden silence I look at our reflection in one of the circular mirrors. We listen to the voices beginning to rise at the next table, and then he drops his own.

‘He has two other kids by two different girls. Some day they're all going to arrive here at the same time and then there'll really be a row. Do you want a cup of tea?' I nod my head. ‘You'll have to go to the vending machine for it – I'm not allowed to move my arse from the chair.' When I return with two cups he says, ‘Don't be making a mess now, because I have
to
clean up after you've gone.' We sit sipping the tea, which tastes like something else, and there is silence again and it feels as if the first safe rush of conversation has gone. The young boy comes and stands at the end of our table with his eyes level with its top, and he raps it with the car before his mother calls him back.

‘So what's it like in here?' I ask.

He shrugs his shoulders. ‘No problem.' The child's mother is saying ‘What do you know?' louder and more angrily, over and over, her only response to what the youth on the other side of the table is saying. We both glance over, and when I turn back to Daniel he says ‘No problem' again and his face is closed and proud. An officer walks between the tables, lingers a little, then walks on with his head still turned towards the argument.