Bodily Harm (37 page)

“Suspicion,” says the other policeman.

“Suspicion of what?” says Rennie, who is still half asleep. “I haven’t done anything.” It can’t be the box with the gun, they haven’t mentioned it. “I’m writing a travel piece. You can phone the magazine and check,” she adds. “In Toronto, when they’re open. It’s called
Visor.”
This sounds improbable even to her. Does Toronto exist? They won’t be the first to wonder. She thinks of her blank notebook, no validation there.

The two policemen come forward. The Englishwoman looks at her, a look Rennie remembers from somewhere, from a long time ago, from a bad dream. It’s a look of pure enjoyment.
Malignant
.

“I
thought it was dumb,” says Lora. “I always thought it was dumb. Anyone who’d die for their country is a double turkey as far as I’m concerned. I mean any country, but this one, well, that would make you a triple one. Shit, it’s only three miles long. I thought they were all nuts, but what can you tell them, eh?

“You may think Ellis is an old drunk, I told Prince, you may think he’s harmless because nobody’s seen him for twenty years, but if you think he’s just going to let you take over without a squeak, you’re out of your mind. But then Marsdon would start talking about sacrifice for the good of all, and that stuff would get to Prince every time. He’s a sweet guy, he’s soft-hearted, it appealed to him, and though I wouldn’t want to be part of a country Marsdon was the leader of, he’s no dummy, he knew he was making me look like a selfish white bitch who didn’t care and only wanted Prince to screw around with.

“Maybe I should of left, but the truth is I thought they were just having a good time, sneaking around at night, having secrets, sort of like the Shriners, you know? I never thought they’d
do
anything.

“Change the system, Marsdon used to say. Why would I want to do that? I said. It’s working just fine for me. Stuff politics, I’d tell him. As far as I’m concerned the world would be a lot better off if you took the politicians, any kind at all, and put them in the loony bin where they belong. You can tell that junk to Prince if you want to but don’t tell it to me, because I know what you really want. You want to shoot people and feel really good about it and have everyone tell you you’re doing the right thing. You’d get a kick out of that. You make me sick.

“I always knew Marsdon would shove a knife in me as soon as look at me if he got the chance, or in anyone else for that matter, he’s a mean bugger but I guess if you want to start a war you have to have someone who doesn’t give that much of a piss about killing people, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.

“There just weren’t enough of them and they weren’t ready. They wouldn’t of been ready in a month of Sundays. Paul used to tell Marsdon he just wanted to be Castro without putting in the time, and it would get to him because that was about the size of it. They wouldn’t of even had any guns if Paul hadn’t brought some in for them. That was Marsdon’s idea too, the guns. Paul didn’t know he was an agent. I don’t think he knew, not until Minnow got shot.

“If you’re thinking of hiding out in the hills, forget it, Paul said. Two helicopters and that’s it, this is a dry island, you know there’s no cover up there, it’s just scrub. But they seemed to think it was enough for them to be right. Getting rid of Ellis, that was the point. Nobody’s denying it would of been nice, but there’s real life, you know? I mean, I used to think I’d like to fly like a bird but I never jumped off any roofs. I once heard of a man who blew himself up in the toilet because he was sitting on the can and he lit a cigarette and he threw the match in, except his wife had just dumped some paint remover into it. I mean, that’s what it was like. Though once in a while I thought, well, they might just do it. You
know why? They’re crazy enough. Sometimes crazy people can do things other people can’t. Maybe because they believe it.”

Rennie wonders where her passport is. She feels naked without it, she can’t prove she is who she says she is. But she believes that other people believe in order, and in the morning, once they find out she’s in here, once they realize who she is, they’ll let her out.

Lora slaps at herself. “Fucking bugs,” she says. “They like some people and not others. You think you’d get used to them, but you never do. Anyway, we’ve got a roof over our head. There’s lots worse things.”

Rennie decides not to think about what these may be.

“There was a little shooting at the police station,” says Lora, “but not that much, and the power plant was empty. The police did a sweep of the island, it’s not that hard because it’s not that big, and they picked up anyone they found hiding or running or even walking on the road. They had the names of the main ones and they wanted everyone related to them too but that would of been everyone on the island, everyone’s related to everyone else around here.

“They tied the men up with ropes, those yellow nylon ropes they use a lot around here for boats and stuff, they tied them together in bundles of three or four and threw them on top of each other in the ship, down in the hold, like they were cargo. The women they just tied their hands together, behind their backs, two together, they let them stand up. When we got over to St. Antoine there was a big crowd at the dock already, the radio had been full of it all morning, communists and all that, they hauled the bundles of men off the boat and the people in the street were screaming
Hang them! Kill them!
It was like wrestling.

“The police took us to the main station, down in the cellar where there’s a cement floor, and they tied the men together in a long line, there must’ve been fifty or sixty people, and they beat them up, sticks and boots, the works. The women they beat up some too but not as much. I wasn’t there for that part of it, they had me in another room, they were asking me questions about Prince. They’ve got him in here somewhere.

“Then they threw buckets of cold water over them and locked them up, they were wet and cold, nowhere to piss, nothing to eat, and then they brought them here. They didn’t lay any charges because they hadn’t figured out what charges to lay. The Justice Minister went on the radio and said there hadn’t been any violence, the people got the cuts and bruises from falling down when they were running away. And then they declared a state of emergency, which made everything legal. They can take anything of yours they want to, your car, anything, and there’s a curfew too. Nobody knows for how long.

“They said Minnow was shot by the rebels, they said Prince killed him. People believe what they hear on the news and who’s going to tell them any different? They’ll believe Ellis because it’s easier to believe Ellis.

“It’s perfect for Ellis: now he’s got an excuse to do it to everybody he doesn’t like, plus nobody’s going to say anything against him, for years. And think of all the foreign aid he’ll get now. The hurricane was all right but this is a lot better.

“We’re lucky. The others are all seven or eight to a cell. Some of these people have no idea why they’re here, all of a sudden these police with guns just bashed into their houses and grabbed them. They didn’t know what was happening, they don’t have a clue, they were just in the way.”

The room they’re in is about five feet by seven feet, with a high ceiling. The walls are damp and cool, the stone slick to the touch as if something’s growing on it, some form of mildew. The back of Rennie’s shirt is damp, from the wall. This is the first time she’s been cold since coming down here.

The floor is stone too and wet, except for the corner they’ve been sitting in. There’s a barred metal door fitted into the end wall and opening onto the corridor, which is lighted; the light shines in on them through the bars. Someone has written on the walls:
DOWN WITH BABYLON
.
LOVE TO ALL
. In the wall opposite the door, higher up, there’s a small window with a grating. Through this window they can see the moon. There’s nothing in the room with them except a bucket, red plastic, new, empty. Its use is obvious but neither of them has used it yet.

“How long do you think they’ll keep us in here?” says Rennie.

Lora laughs. “You in any hurry?” she says. “If you are, don’t tell them. Anyway it’s not how long you’re in, it’s what they do to you.” She inhales, then blows the smoke out. “Well, this is it,” she says. “Tropical paradise.”

Rennie wonders why they’ve left Lora her cigarettes and especially the matches. Not that there’s anything here that could burn down, it’s all stone.

Rennie wishes they had a deck of cards or a book, any book at all. It’s almost bright enough to read. She can smell the smoke from Lora’s cigarette and beneath that a faint after-smell, stale perfume, underarm deodorant wearing off; it’s from both of them. She’s starting to get a headache. She’d give anything for a Holiday Inn. She longs for late-night television, she’s had enough reality for the time being. Popcorn is what she needs.

“You got the time?” says Lora.

“They took my watch,” says Rennie. “It’s probably about eleven.”

“That all?” says Lora.

“We should get some sleep, I guess,” Rennie says. “I wish they’d turn out the lights.”

“Okay,” says Lora. “You sleepy?”

“No,” says Rennie.

They’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. Rennie thinks of it as the bottom of the barrel, Lora thinks of it as the story of her life. This is even what she calls it. “The story of my life,” she says, morosely, proudly, “you could put it in a book.” But it’s one way not to panic. If they can only keep talking, thinks Rennie, they will be all right.

Lora takes out her cigarettes, lights one, blows the smoke out through her nose. “You want a cigarette? I’ve got two left. Oh, I forgot, you don’t smoke.” She pauses, waiting for Rennie to contribute something. So far most of the contributing has been done by Lora. Rennie is having a hard time thinking up anything about her life that Lora might find interesting. Right now, her life seems like a book Jocasta once lent her, very
nouveau wavé
, it was called
Death By Washing Machine
although there were no washing machines in the book. The main character fell off a cliff on page sixty-three and the rest of the pages were blank.