Nameless, p.17
Nameless, page 17
I laughed.
I never thought I’d laugh again.
The man smiled too as Friend chewed on the petal with bites too big for its size. ‘He eats them. He has no respect for beauty. Or taste.’
‘Why don’t you go inside where it is warmer? Surely you’ll freeze out here? Is your house still standing?’
The man nodded. ‘But the blossoms have opened wide over the past week and soon they will leave the tree. I’m enjoying their beauty while I can.’
He couldn’t see. Yet he saw so much more than me. ‘And then?’
‘Then I’ll return to my home and make tea, and Friend and I will be civilised for as long as we’re allowed.’
‘What if the Pack return?’
‘Then I will invite them for tea again.’
‘They may kill you this time.’
‘Then I’ll accept that. Death has no terror for me. But if I am to go, I will enjoy life as much as I can, enjoy all the happiness I’ve had to this point, the happiness I have now. I will not lose myself in the ill that was done to me, because it cannot be changed. My wife and daughter suffered but up until then our lives were wonderful. And now they’re at peace. One with the earth and the sky. I’m grateful for that.’
I had no gratitude. I was wallowing. Lost in my self-pity as usual. Not thinking about the gift I’d been given that so many had not. I had life and memories that were full of sorrow but also full of joy. How easy it was to forget that. How easy to focus only on the ill that had been done my family and friends and not on my escape. My life.
‘Will you come for tea?’ Another smile. ‘I will leave the blossom for tea.’
I told him I would, then helped him stand and he rested the stump of his hand on my arm so I could guide him. Friend showed us the way, bounding ahead. The man’s home wasn’t far. Down a small slope near a river, a rough shack with smoke issuing from a narrow chimney and curtains in the windows. Inside it was neat. Wood stacked near the small stove. A kettle on the top. I looked away from the blood stains on the floor.
The man asked me to fetch the teapot. To warm it with boiling water from the kettle. To spoon in tea and add more water until the teapot overflowed, then put the lid on halfway. Bring it to the table with two warmed cups.
Cups made of china so perfect and fragile they sat as delicately on the table as the plums sat on their branches. Out of place yet so welcome.
He gestured me to sit. Then joined me.
For a moment we waited. As narrow tendrils of steam escaped the pot. Breathed deeply. Released it. Relaxed.
And the ease that had begun with this old man, that had blossomed with his wisdom and fruited with my laughter, that ease began to seep all through me and fill me up. That ease made me remember. To see the truth of his words. He was right. We had to be grateful.
Civilised. If we lost that, lost our customs, we had nothing.
‘We become like them,’ I murmured.
The old man nodded and instructed me to set the lid in its place on the pot and pour tea into the cups. I passed one to him and he waited until I had drunk to sip his own. Cradling the small cup between his wrists.
The tea was good. So very good. So very necessary.
‘Thank you,’ I whispered.
‘Pass on what I have said to others you meet. So we don’t lose who we are. Because if we lose that then there’s no point fighting.’
‘I will.’
‘Who have you lost?’
I told him and he was silent then whispered a prayer and in it were two names I didn’t know. I guessed they were his wife and daughter and that he was introducing them to my family so they could walk into the afterlife together.
Then he said, ‘What is your name, my dear?’ I told him. Yet felt he already knew. ‘They’re looking for you.’
Calm. I was calm. A slight quickening of my heart. ‘Who?’
‘A man and a girl. Kind people. He helped me.’ He indicated the bandages on his hands and face, the wood near the fire, a pile to last weeks. ‘He buried my wife and daughter and she prayed with me at their graveside. She…she cleaned the floor.’
My eyes followed his nod to the stains.
‘She was an odd girl,’ he went on. ‘Barely more than a child but at times she seemed ancient and I wondered…’ He shrugged. ‘But she knew the rituals. The old ways that few remember. He was a soldier, from the north, he said.’
Soldier. Crow.
‘He wanted to take me somewhere safe. I told him I was safe here.’ A slight smile. ‘They said that if a woman came past who had your name to tell her they would find you.’
‘When?’ The word cracked with disbelieving hope. ‘When were they here?’
‘Two days ago. They said they were going north. But slowly. So you could catch up if you were still alive.’
‘Was there anyone else with them?’ Holding my breath. Eldest. Eldest. Eldest. Her name whispering over and over in my head.
The man shrugged. ‘Not that I met.’
I closed my eyes. Disappointed. Then remembered all the man had taught me.
Soldier and Crow were alive. I would find them. And we would leave this cursed place.
28
I STAYED THE night with the old man and in the morning he showed me where his wife and daughter were buried. He found them as unerringly as he found the teapot and kettle and cups and bloodstained floor. Near the river. The graves neat. Plum blossom laid across each one.
Then I offered my arm and we followed Friend back to the fountain and sat amid the drifting pink petals. Snow had fallen overnight. Just a little. The pink flowers were like muted jewels against the white-topped branches. I stayed with the man for a while before taking my leave. Soaking in his peace. Then I kissed his cheek and patted Friend and asked what Soldier had.
The old man shook his head. ‘This is my home. I will stay here. But you…you haven’t found yours yet.’
‘I have lost mine.’
He shook his head. ‘You have lost one home but you’ll build a second from strength and hope and courage. Then you will give it to another.’
I walked away not knowing what he meant. Wondering if he was a seer. Or just wise with age and the peace that some find in loss.
I walked away not knowing where I was going. North. North. Carrying the man’s wisdom in my heart like a fire.
It wasn’t long before I was wishing it was a real fire. One on which I could brew tea and warm myself. The man had given me a knitted rug and another packet of tea, a tin to brew it, rice, and a bowl from which to eat. The fire in my heart lasted two days of walking and hiding and constant fear and cold. Then it began to sputter and my steps plodded again.
But the despair was just an outline of what it had been. The old man’s company, even for so short a time, had been a salve. His words like a slap in the face. Each time I felt the going was too tough I repeated them in time to my steps or my breath or my heartbeat or my tears. The ghosts still came when I slept. The cold was almost unbearable. The fear kept the pace of my heart quick and my senses alert. I saw terrible things. The same as before and fingers of horror crept from pits and streets and deserted homes and tried to steal the remaining coals from my heart and smother them in hopelessness.
But I fanned them with my life’s breath. With gratitude.
With hard-fought hope.
Fanned them even though sometimes my breath juddered with sobs and the flames were only glowing embers.
Still they were there. Waiting to be kindled.
On the fourth night of ghosts and cold, hidden behind a deserted barn within gorse bushes whose barbs reminded me I could still feel, cushioned by straw taken from inside the barn, well away from the excrement that had leaked from the bodies hanged on the rafters, I slept deeply and woke to a sound. A smell. Smoke and the crackle of a fire.
It penetrated my sleeping brain and told me I wasn’t alone, and when you’re in a country invaded by filthy butchers who would shoot you dead on the spot then abuse your body the idea of company is a pretty good alarm clock.
I opened my eyes but didn’t move. Just looked cautiously through the branches. No one.
‘I’m over here. Hooray for me.’
The thorns dug deep as I jerked then grunted in pain. Crow. She’d found me. And I closed my eyes again in relief. Closed them too long for the impatient girl.
‘Come out, I’ve made breakfast. What’s taking you so long?’
I crawled stiffly from beneath the branches, swearing as the thorns snagged my blanket and scratched my cheek. A glance around showed snow dappled the forest in the heaviest overnight fall I’d seen so far. My breath was a cloud before my face. It was bitterly cold.
Crow sat cross-legged beside a small fire, out in the open as if we were holidaying not fighting to live. She’d ransacked my bag and taken the rice. The tins of vegetables I’d found in deserted homes. She’d prised them open with a knife and a rock and set them in the coals and added water and rice. She’d made tea, not with the careful ritual of the old man, instead heaped into a tin and liberally sprinkled with ash. But I welcomed its unceremonious cocktail more than anything I could remember.
Welcomed the girl and her impatience so very much.
If you’ve ever been alone, thought it would be forever, you’d understand. She glanced over her shoulder. ‘It’s safe. There’s no one here except us.’
No one here except us, and my gaze followed her words around the icy forest. No Pack. No Soldier.
‘How did you find me?’ My teeth clacked together on the words and I dragged my blankets close. She had no blanket. Just an old woollen coat and hat and a wild frame of unkempt hair. So I passed her the knitted blanket from the old man and she took it without thanks and pulled it idly around her then waggled something retrieved from the well of her crossed legs. A pair of military binoculars.
‘Luck. And these binoculars. Soldier gave them to me.’ A quick grin. ‘One of the Pack gave them to him. You don’t need binoculars when you’re dead.’
‘Where is Soldier?’
‘Not far. There’s a village…only a few houses and a farm. He’s there. We’ve been looking for you for days. Since…’ She frowned and her hands gripped the binoculars tightly then dropped them.
‘Since the Pack killed everyone on Sanctuary,’ I said. ‘Killed Daughter.’
‘Yes.’
I studied her then took my mind from the memory to an incongruity. A nagging thought my morning brain had only just grabbed hold of. ‘Why are you still alive? I thought the Invader shot you. Or…or did I just imagine that? Imagine you there?’
Crow’s eyes lit with a fire whose flames roared satisfaction. She shook her head. ‘You didn’t imagine it. But he didn’t shoot me. I shot him.’
My mouth opened then closed like a fish that has lost its air to the dry earth. ‘You shot…’ I shook my head and felt an instant of hope. Whispered, ‘Did you kill him?’
The hope was dashed with a shake of her head. ‘No, simply wounded him. His hand.’
‘But the Pack was there. How did you escape them?’
‘I had six bullets in my gun. I used them. But I’m not a very good shot. I didn’t realise it was so hard.’ She rubbed her wrist. ‘But they all ran and it gave me time to get away.’ A feral smile. ‘I hid while they were running like cowards. They only looked for me for a short time then gave up.’
‘Too busy killing everyone…Daughter.’ Her name broke on my lips and I cleared my throat. ‘You could have helped… warned them.’
‘It was too late.’ She spoke with her eyes on the grey sky. Expression as bleak and cold as a tomb.
She had heard the gunshots and the screams and the dying.
She had known there was nothing she could do or she would be one of them.
I’d thought this girl flippant and uncaring but I could tell now that she kept all she felt inside. Away from the eyes and speculation and judgement of others. I wanted to reach out to her, embrace her, maybe imagine I was holding one of my children just like I’d imagined Husband while in Rescuer’s arms. But I knew Crow wouldn’t welcome it. Her outside was as prickly as her inside. As prickly as a porcupine whose spines kept the world at bay so it could survive. Crow had been hurt, I was sure of that. She did what she needed to keep on living.
We all did.
Crow told me how the Pack had gone first to the house on Sanctuary. While I was looking for Soldier they had come across the lake in their own boat by a different path to the one most used. A path that took them by Crow’s makeshift camp. She’d seen them and hidden, for she knew that to confront them was a sure way to die. But she had followed. Stealthy. Silent. Carrying the gun she’d stolen from the resistance’s stash in the boathouse.
They had taken the path around the crag to the reclusive man’s lookout. Down the stairs. Through the forest. Except one who went the other way and intercepted me.
The Invader.
And Crow had followed him at a safe distance. Hoping to kill him. Because to kill their leader would send the Pack into chaos.
Rescuer hadn’t been with the others because he’d followed me, as I’d guessed. Crow saw the Invader shoot him. Saw me. Saw the Invader killing me. And acted. Thinking she could at least save one.
Then she ran.
‘I should have shot the Invader in the back while I followed him, should have saved Rescuer. But…but I hesitated and it was too late. Then, when I shot the Invader, I didn’t know if you were still alive and I couldn’t stop to see because the island was swarming with soldiers. So I left. Swam across the water and into the forest. And I found Soldier.’
‘You know him.’
She nodded. ‘I met him when I first found Sanctuary and many times after that while he kept watch. We travelled north, to near here. A few days ago we encountered someone who said they’d seen you…or someone that looked like you. A scared person who stole our food while we slept and ran away. Then we met the old man with no eyes at the burned town and told him we were looking for you. I played with Friend.’ A smile flitted across her solemn face in memory of happiness and in it was the childhood she hadn’t yet left behind.
‘Why didn’t you come back to Sanctuary to see if I was still alive? Once the Pack had gone? To bury the dead?’
She met my eyes. Then pushed the mug of tea into my hands. ‘Drink before you freeze. We can’t stay here long.’
I nursed the mug. Feeling its heat. Savouring it. But not drinking yet. Because I remembered what Crow had said when I last saw her, on that morning when Daughter was still alive. That morning when my search for her had saved my life yet at the same time taken the only reason I lived.
Or was it?
‘Why? Why didn’t you come back? The Pack had gone. They thought everyone was dead.’
‘Because there was something important we had to do, information we had to act on,’ said Crow. Eyes on the fire. On the steaming vegetables and rice. She put half into the bowl, left half in their tins, sat the first before me and took the latter for herself. After scooping some food into her mouth, her eyes lifted to mine.
‘Eldest is alive.’
The words silenced the thoughts murmuring in my head. Then Eldest’s name whispered over my lips, touched only by the icy frost of morning and the pallid mist my lungs breathed out with the words. But not touched by hope. Never by hope. To hope was to despair.
‘Yes,’ said Crow.
She chewed. Nonchalantly. As if she didn’t realise the magnitude of what she was telling me. But she did know. She did. It was just the magnitude of the emotions she knew were inside me that she didn’t want to see. Prickles flicking outwards to repel me.
So I held the emotion in. I was used to it now, though it was never easy. But I searched Crow’s expression for hope, for surely if there was life there was hope.
I found it. In the stark lines of the girl’s pale face. In her eyes. It was there but shrouded by a darkness that was almost impenetrable. Almost.
Rape. Torture.
The destruction of spirit. Hollowing out.
They were the darkness, I was sure of it. This child was another victim of the Pack and my heart bled for her.
But Eldest was alive.
Before I let myself feel, though, to hope, I needed a reason. A beating heart didn’t always mean life.
‘Tell me. Please. It should be good that my daughter lives but I can see it’s not.’
‘It is good because life from death is always good. But it’s bad too. She needs help. She needs you to help her.’
I nodded. Good news, bad news. I let the hope take a small step into my heart. ‘She’s strong, you know. Eldest is strong. The strongest of my children.’
Crow’s smile had an edge. ‘Rope is strong but even rope can be stretched too taut and its strands can fray and break. That’s what has happened to your daughter. She’s alive but it’s an existence without life.’
‘Where is she? At the village?’
Crow nodded, pointed, named a small town that sounded familiar but whose streets were not. But where, close by, Eldest was. Existing without life, said Crow, because although she breathed it couldn’t yet be called that.
But it would be. It would be.
‘She is with Soldier. And your mother-in-law.’
Eagerness had tipped me towards Crow; surprise tilted me back. ‘Husband’s mother is alive too?’
Grandmother lived. Grandmother lived.
Two. Two sentinels of hope from hopelessness.
Crow nodded. ‘She saved your daughter.’
‘How? What happened? Tell me. Tell me.’
‘Both of them lived on the day you thought they died. Your husband’s mother was put to work. The Pack took your daughter with them.’
