Captives (9 page)

These are not ordinary times we're living through. Carol and I, Jacques and Melanie have each other. Why should Louise and Martin not support each other too? And why should we, as parents, not turn a blind eye to matters that in normal circumstances we might have some say in? If it helps them to spend time in a shelter of their own, I can see no problem with that. Still, there's an uncomfortable moment when Jacques learns what's afoot.

“Louise…” he says, and his jaw clenches. Even beneath his tan you can see his face flush. There's a moment when we half expect the return of the old Jacques, but he simply turns and heads for his shelter.

*   *   *

There was a knock at the door, then it squeezed open a crack.

Nick stood in the doorway, darkening it. Since Martin had been in captivity, it was as if Nick had filled all his space. Martin returned to school to find Nick had become like a mascot to his friends, a favorite of teachers who congratulated themselves on his “progress.”

“Can I come in?” said Nick.

“Door's open.”

Nick was eight months older than the boy who'd watched the back end of a lorry kick up dust and seen the rest of his family severed from him. He was almost as tall as Martin now, but grown like a sapling that has overshot itself. Hair that had once been cropped short had grown and, gelled into careful disarray, it made him appear softer, somehow younger, than he'd looked the year before.

“What d'you think, then?” Nick asked.

“'Bout what?”

“Dad on TV.”

“Oh, that. He didn't lose a leg.”

“Eh?”

“He didn't make a fool of himself. He looked OK.”

“Think it was OK about the French people?”

“Yeah—uh—look, I don't know. It was a long time ago, for Christ's sake. It's over.”

“OK, it's over.”

“Yeah…”

“Mum says it might snow.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“But Dad says it's too cold for snow.”

“Exciting. Place your bets.”

Nick smiled.

“So what film did you watch?” asked Martin.

“Something set in the future—about a family.”

“Sensitive or violent?”

“Mum chose it.”

“Ah. Subtitled or not?”

“Not.”

“Sounds good.”

“Mmm, wasn't really.”

“Tough shit.”

“Good night, then.”

“Yeah, good night.”

But Nick hung around the door frame—why did people do that with him? When it's time to go, for God's sake, go.

Then, “Good night,” Nick said again, and closed the door behind him.

Sometime, Martin thought, he would get around to asking Nick what it had really been like for him—from the moment when that blur of a face had peered into the taxi, seen an old couple and a child, and dismissed them with a curt wave. The lorry. The dust. The silence. The media attention back home, the gentle questioning from all those government agency people and then the long limbo of hope. Ask him, like, in a real conversation. Till now it had been easier just to tell Nick what everyone had tried to tell
him.
“It's over, Martin. It's over—we're back—we're safe—we're lucky—we can move on—put it behind us. It's
over.
”

And it almost had been, till the fuss over the diaries. But the story they told—the story that engaged him now—clearly was not the story he had to tell himself. For months, that had been gnawing in the pit of his stomach and it didn't let him think about anything else.

Day Twenty-Three

Contact with the outside world! We haven't been forgotten. There's a distant thrum that breaks our forest silence. You can't hear a bird or the buzz of an insect anymore. The helicopter's only the size of a dragonfly when we first see it at the head of the valley. Miguel and El Taino force us into our shelters. Their agitation is clear when Miguel thrusts his barrel into Jacques's back.

“Hey,” says Jacques. “Easy, eh?”

After the days up here more or less “rubbing along,” it's an uncomfortable shock to be so harshly treated again. But we all remain calm—though I think each of our hearts beats with expectation.

“Not long now,” I say. “Not long. They'll find us.”

“Do not be so sure,” says Jacques, and true enough, looking into the stillness of the clearing, I see that the shelters are barely visible. The palms show a brief flurry of activity, then the helicopter veers off and continues to climb. The silence that reasserts itself is more imposing than before. It leaves us gasping for air.

“What now?” says Carol.

“Nothing,” I say. “Best just stay till they call us out.”

“They're looking for us,” says Melanie later. “Glory be. We're gonna get out of this hell-hole.”

“That helicopter's certainly spooked them,” I say. “Look.”

Out in the center of the clearing an argument is taking place. Rafael is pointing up at the distant mountains, but Gabriel, our deceitful guide, shakes his head and points in the other direction, down towards the coast.

“You see how alike Gabriel and El Taino are,” says Melanie. “The same sallow skin, the same cheekbones. They could be cousins.”

“Maybe mulattoes,” I tell her. “You know, mixed black and white blood.”

“You don't have to tell me what a
mulatto
is. I'm American, remember. One thing I know about is race.” She glares at me and I wonder whether civility among us can last much longer.

Gabriel's holding both hands before him and, in a shunting motion, gesturing fiercely. Eventually Rafael nods and claps him on the shoulder. Gabriel's triumph is marked only by a muted half-smile.

“Pack everything. Fill in latrines,” says Eduardo. “Tomorrow, early, we leave.”

“For the coast?” says Melanie.

“Perhaps,” says Eduardo. Then he gives Louise one of those looks that have aroused all our suspicions. I wonder if he knows that the endgame is in sight and that he has little time to make his move. One more reason we're happy Louise and Martin have each other.

Day Twenty-Four

For much of the night it has rained. We rise in darkness. We gather up our belongings as Miguel and El Taino take their machetes to the shelters, scattering thatch and supports. There is no cause for speech and the tasks are carried out in silence—a numb silence, for it seems strange to be leaving this spot after the time we've spent here. I wonder where we are in this ordeal and what our journey to the coast will bring. By the time we're ready to go, the black cut-outs of the palms are already dark green.

*   *   *

We walk till almost midday. We clear the thickest of the forest canopy and the sun is strong on our backs. But Carol in particular is struggling. She falls, twists her ankle, and limps on in pain.

“We can't go on like this,” I say to Rafael. “We must rest for a bit.”

“After the river. We cross first and then we rest.”

We take the steep slope down into the river valley. I give Carol all the support I can. Rainfall has swollen the river, and it rushes and twists down the hillside. On the river plain you can see where its force has taken great half-moons of red earth from its banking.

Rafael shouts ahead to Gabriel, who nods affirmatively and waves his hand farther on. Finally we come to a part where the river spreads into a broad shallow weir. It still flows strongly here, but close below its plaited surface there's a line of stepping stones. Just beyond these, the river tumbles into a deep pool, then sweeps on down towards the coast. Gabriel nods: This is it.

Miguel places one boot on the first stone and draws the other foot across. The water washes over the ankles of his boots. He stretches a boot to the next stone. At the same time he reaches out a hand to one of us. To our surprise and dismay, it's Martin who reacts first. Their eyes lock together. As Martin stands on the first stone, Miguel steps onto the second one. Whether its edge is rounded or whether Miguel simply miscalculates the maneuver, he twists as he attempts to regain his balance and his left leg seems to hang in the air momentarily, before the force of the water tips him over and he falls backwards into the river. His pack hits the water first and his head whips back and strikes one of the stones. There's a burst of blood in the water, before the strong current carries him away like a log down into the deeper reaches of the river.

“Martin!”' Carol's first thought is for Martin, who stands statuesque on the first stone, his arms curled around himself. I reach out to him and, with locked fingertips, pull him to the safety of the bank.

But Carol's shout is embedded in El Taino's shout for Miguel. Now Rafael and Eduardo hold him back, talking fiercely to him all the while. The whites of his eyes roll, and he casts Rafael and Eduardo from him as if they were bindings of straw and leaps down the riverbank after Miguel's body.

We collapse on the grass. Martin allows himself to be held awkwardly in Carol's arms. She strokes his forehead over and over again.

“Martin. Martin. Martin.”

After a while El Taino returns, shaking his head, his eyes glistening. Rafael is first to rise to greet him. He says a few words and lays his hand on El Taino's shoulder. Gabriel approaches and seems to shrug an apology. For a moment I think El Taino will take his machete to him. But the energy and the anger have left him. He buckles to the ground, his head between his knees, his broken fingers held like a flag above one shoulder.

We improvise a camp near the river. Rafael wants us to stay here for as long as we can to retrieve Miguel's body.

Day Twenty-Seven

After two days of searching, Eduardo and El Taino find Miguel's body, lodged between two rocks, and bring it back up to camp. They're exhausted. The body is gray as slate and wrinkled. River crabs have been nibbling at the softened flesh—small ragged wounds. His proud face is bruised and swollen, beaten up like an old fighter's. But even in death we're slightly nervous about looking at him, face-to-face, for long.

El Taino and Jacques have scrabbled in the earth and dug a shallow grave. Rafael stands at its head and insists we all join him. Once again Jacques humiliates himself, stubbornly sitting with his back to us all as we gather round the grave. El Taino pushes his muzzle hard into Jacques's neck.

“Stand,
señor,
stand. All stand for Miguel.” His voice shakes.

Melanie screams, “Jacques, stand, for God's sake!”

Rafael places his hand on El Taino's forearm. He lowers the gun and Jacques slowly rises to his feet.

“I dig the man's grave. Must I honor him too?” he mutters to me. There's a minute of silence, till Rafael speaks, first in Spanish, then in English for us all.

“No matter where death surprises us, let it be welcome. And let other hands pick up our weapons where they fall. One day, Miguel, you will hear other men come forward to intone your funeral dirge till the air rings with cries, not of grief, but of victory. For wherever a life is lost, however it is lost, it is a life lost in battle. It is a gift for a cause greater than any of us.…

“‘Miguel, comrade, soldier of freedom, we salute you.”'

So Maria was right. Rafael's still a poet when he wants to be. We stamp the earth down on the unmarked grave till it's flat and hard and Rafael's sure not even the wild pigs could root Miguel out.

Day Twenty-Eight

In the time of our waiting, the river has become more easily passable. We cross by the stepping stones that cost Miguel his life and soon we're glimpsing the shining blade of the sea through a fringe of coastal palms. We pass only one poor hut on our journey and now must be far from the town. I think of the first shacks we passed at the start of this ordeal. It is with the same casual “‘Hola”' that we're greeted now by an old man. Rafael exchanges a few words with him. It seems we'll have fish to eat tonight.

It's late afternoon and the sun is just beginning to lay itself across the water—the closer we are to it, the more beautiful a deep blue it becomes.

After the claustrophobia of the forest—always on narrow paths, always with a thick canopy above us—you can see how each of us visibly changes. Our shoulders come down; we lift up our faces and breathe in the air. We walk along the narrow strip of beach, reconnecting with the world at our feet. Everything is like a message—shells, seeds, even the plastic detritus from a world we were once so keen to escape. Our captors are out of place here in their heavy fatigues with their machine guns slung over their shoulders. Only El Taino seems unchanged, his taut face a reminder of his loss and of the threat that still hangs over us.

Rafael stops and removes his bag, throwing it on the ground and arching his back.

“Thank God,” says Melanie. “Well, at least they've brought us to the ocean.”

“A day at the seaside,” says Martin glumly.

“Oh, come on, Marty,” says Louise, and Martin brightens a little at that. “Isn't it great to get out of the forest? Do you think they'll let us swim?”

“I ask for you,” says Eduardo, in that oily way of his. He has words with Rafael and comes back nodding.

“Great! Come on, Marty, let's go!”