Part 9 (1/2)
Selena was silent for three days, then Lisa pushed her way in for an interview with Police Chief Edwards. She lied; said it was a piece about mothers' cooking, how good it is, favourite recipes.
He was a big man, charming, with a dazzling smile. If she'd met him at a bar, any pick up line would have worked.
He was furious when he realised where she stood. ”How dare you? I am not a monster. I want families to be safe from people like you and your cancerous words.” He threw her out, hissing, ”Write nothing. Say nothing.”
That night, Lisa heard a crash of gla.s.s downstairs and reached for the phone. Voices, and she knew for sure there was someone in the house.
She dialled Keith but his mobile didn't work; all she heard was a high-pitched squeal. Then she dialled her neighbours, hoping one would at least look out the window, shout at the invaders. No answer. Finally, in desperation, she called the police. She flipped open her computer and logged on at the same time.
The phone rang a dozen times. She heard the men downstairs, moving around as if they were looking for something. She quietly shut her door, then moved to look out of the window. It was barred; she had no chance of getting out that way.
”Hold, please,” the operator said.
Music, some old pop song, played on bells. ”Help,” she whispered. She hid in the cupboard. She didn't care what the men took; they could have it all. She didn't want to disturb them. They carried machetes, these home invaders, and guns. They would not always try to kill, but she knew that many arrived out of it on booze or drugs.
”h.e.l.lo?” she whispered into the phone. Footsteps on the stairs.
”Can I help you?” The cold, hard voice of the operator.
”My home is being invaded,” she whispered. She gave her address. ”Hold, please.” The operator was remarkably calm; unaffected.
”Lisa Turner?” This came through the door. They knew her name.
”Lisa Turner, we have a warrant for the repossession of your home due to uncontrolled verbiage activity.”
Lisa felt deep relief. Every day she spent in fear that her moment of activism would catch up with her, that the grieving relatives perhaps would track her down and ask her why people had to die for her cause. Lisa did not regret the fire. The building had been on sacred ground and the activities inside had destroyed the souls of the true residents of the country. She was sorry that people had needed to die, but it had been necessary. She had lost contact deliberately with those who had instigated the attack; they had considered the deaths a victory, whereas she felt great pain, great guilt, and knew that she would have to atone for it one day.
The police operator hung up on her. As the men entered her room, Lisa hit send, and her notes went out to a dozen journalists and activists around the world.
She expected to be interviewed, locked up, but they gave her thirty minutes to pack her bag and leave her home.
They recommended a hotel for her to stay in, which made her laugh. They would watch her every move, listen to her every word.
Before he ran, Keith had told her, ”We can't put friends or family at risk. If you need to, come join me. Don't go anywhere else. If they take your house, go there. It's the first stop. We'll get the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.”
They confiscated Lisa's car, too, so she hailed a taxi to take her to the Cewa Flats. They pa.s.sed through a roadblock at the end of the street; Lisa wondered who it was they were keeping out. All the way the driver cleared his throat, spitting out the window. When they arrived, he turned and smiled at her. His teeth were red. ”I'll be out of this country soon. I keep my mouth shut. I'm just waiting for my visa to come through.”
”You know it won't, don't you? You know they're not letting anyone out. They've cancelled all visas, all pa.s.sports.”
He shook his head. ”University girl. You don't know how this country goes. You shouldn't tell lies to us.”
Lisa climbed out, paying him a generous tip. ”Good luck with it,” she said. He gave her such a look of hatred she mis-shut the door and had to do it again.
The flats were dirty and huge up close. She stepped forward, over a grey, cracked path. The front dirt area was empty of people, a rare thing. Even after the families left, the young men remained, and they hung together in clumps, moving as one large ma.s.s, always something in their hands to be tossed up and down, up and down.
None of the young men were there. In their rooms? Lisa looked up at the many dark doorways. Doorless.
An old woman took her hand and squeezed it. ”I am Rashmilla. I will guide you through the spirits.” She had an odd shape, lumpy around the chest, as if she had a child hidden in there.
”Up there,” she pointed. ”You find a room up there. You scream if they bother you, and I'll send my sister to talk to them.”
Lisa saw the lump in Rashmilla's chest wriggle.
”You can see her?” Rashmilla whispered. She began to unb.u.t.ton her dress; Lisa backed away, wanting to escape.
”If who bothers me?” Lisa said. ”I have friends here, you know. They don't bother people. They speak the truth.”
”I'm not talking about your friends, dear,” Rashmilla said. ”You will know when you meet one.”
It was hard to tell a vacated room from an inhabited one. Families had left in a hurry, leaving rubbish, belongings behind. Small clay pots, some with grey ash to the rim, sat in many corners. Mouldy cus.h.i.+ons, piles of mice-infested newspaper, remnants of clothes.
Lisa poked her head through a door on the top floor, saw a man sprawled on a mat and pulled back.
”Who's there? Who is it?” he called. ”I'm at home.”
Lisa backed away. He hadn't seen her and she didn't know him. He sounded desperate; too eager.
She changed her tactic after that, walked slowly past each door and tried to have a sideways peek through the shuttered window. The walls had posters, dismal and ancient attempts to bring colour and life to the small, dank rooms. They seemed embedded, welded to the walls.
She carried a small suitcase. She'd left the rest of her things behind in her house; she imagined the police would have been through everything by now and taken what they wanted. She found a room with a mat and a pile of empty, rusted tins, each with a dry residue at the bottom. She put down her suitcase and tried to find comfort in the s.p.a.ce. The rooms were three metres square, s.p.a.ce for a mat and a sink which also did as a toilet, she could tell.
Looking from her window, all she could see were buildings: dark, rank, decrepit.
It was late--past eleven--and quiet. She curled onto her mat. It was hard and thin with smooth stains at either end. She pulled out a s.h.i.+rt and used that as a s.h.i.+eld for her face.
In the morning, people started to emerge. A sense of community filled her. Of possibility. She could hear people talking quietly, and footsteps, people moving around, making breakfast, and, she hoped, coffee. She recognised faces; people she knew. From the inside out the room didn't look so bad. She had a view, when she stood on her toes and squinted, of a small grove of trees that would bear fruit during the wet season. With a small breeze she fancied she could smell the fruit. It was intoxicating, like the first sniff of a good wine.
She liked wine. Felt an emptiness for it. That first sip around the dinner table, already knowing that the conversation would become freer the more people drank. That soon they would be shouting, making plans, talking of outrages, human rights, and moving the country forward.
She saw Rashmilla one floor down in the building to her left. She called out, but her voice seemed m.u.f.fled. She tried again but then...she opened her mouth to call out again and from her feet, from through the floor, rose a tall, thin ghost, a man with red lesions along his cheekbones. He raised his fist and she flinched, unprepared.
He thrust the fist into her mouth and out, so fast all she felt was a mouthful then nothing but the taste of anchovies left behind.
She reached to grab him but he leapt over the balcony, over so fast he blurred in her eyes.
She heard nothing.
She looked over and there was nothing, only Rashmilla looking up, her face serene.
Lisa ran; got to the stairwell, turned around and the ghost was right beside her, fist raised. With his other hand he shushed her, finger to lips.
She hated to be shushed. ”I won't....” she started, but the fist again, in and out of her mouth again, how the h.e.l.l? She couldn't even get her own fist in there.
She watched him this time over the side and down to the ground where he seemed to...disintegrate.
Lisa dragged herself down the stairs. There were people in many of the rooms, most with their hands over their ears. Others moved up and down the stairs, purposeless. She knew some of them, had sat and talked all night with them, but none of them acknowledged her or seemed willing even to meet her eyes.