House of Ashes (4 page)

Just then, bullets came in from the dark, like schools of barracuda, ripping up everything in their wake, shredding up wood, lodging deep into the walls. The air around him became smoky and
peppery with gunfire and a brother next to Ashes, one of his fellow revolutionaries, was shot straight through the head. His skull split open and his face splattered into pieces and his tongue was
shot out of his mouth. The tongue landed on the red velvet carpet. ‘Everybody
down
,’ screamed Hal.

Hal was on his walkie-talkie again, shouting to the Leader who was no longer in the newsroom at the television station. ‘What the
hell
is the army doing here so soon?’ Hal
shouted. ‘It is Wednesday evening. We picked the day on purpose, they all supposed to be at
home
, month end, or at the football match in the stadium. Big football match and we
already blow up the police headquarters. What the
hell
they doing here?’

The walkie-talkie buzzed. The army had stationed themselves right outside the House of Power and they must have been using bazookas because suddenly the whole chamber thudded and rocked. Chunks
of plaster fell from the walls, fancy cornice work tumbled from the corners. A chandelier plummeted to the ground. Screaming now, a wild hysteria which belonged to every person in the room, the
brothers and their hostages. Some of the younger boys wept openly. He saw Breeze throw his gun on the ground and cover his head with his hands and pray. Some of the brothers went to the windows and
tried to return fire. Hal was on one knee shooting out into the dark. Arnold had gone mad and was belting out bullets from his rifle, and then it was clear no one had showed him how to reload; he
was having trouble putting new bullets into his gun.

Ashes was up on the ceiling again. From there he could see outside. Hundreds of men in army fatigues had surrounded the House of Power. He was stunned. The Leader had said the army was
loyal
to him, that he had important contacts high up, that there would be no problems with the army. The police? They would all give up and run away. But the army would be supportive of
the revolution: that was what the Leader had told him
directly
. The Leader had explained that on Tuesday night, the night before the coup, more guns would be handed out to well-known
criminals the Leader had either paid off or who owed him favours, and these men would ‘command the masses’ in the streets in a popular revolt. He had said that the army too would join
in this people’s revolution, as it had done before in 1970.

But these plans had obviously gone wrong. When Ashes looked outside he saw an entire regiment of men, heavily armed, snipers in trees, men flat on their stomachs, army jeeps and trucks and men
jumping out of them; the army had very quickly formed a cordon around the House of Power. Soldiers were everywhere, state-trained, expensive boots, soldiers obeying orders. A buzz in the air, a
helicopter was circling overhead, and then he could hear a captain from the army on a megaphone shouting orders up at the chamber. But the brothers inside ignored this and kept firing out into the
dark.

The Prime Minister was still face down on the floor with his pants down by his ankles. All the other cabinet ministers were still on the floor too; they kept quiet. Breeze looked startled and
wild. He’d picked up his gun and he was firing randomly; he had completely lost his cool. He was cussing loudly, saying, ‘Oh, gorsh, damn frikkin muddecunts.’ Arnold had managed
to reload his gun and was shooting his ammo out into the night. The hard man, Greg Mason, the man who’d known River from the Brotherhood of Freedom Fighters, was with Hal, firing into the
dark; they were like real soldiers, together, steady and focused. They’d been trained for this. Hal’s walkie-talkie crackled and from it Ashes could hear the Leader’s panic and
this panic electrified his nerves.

*

The shooting lasted for an hour at least. Men firing and men returning fire and a clatter of bullet-hail and it didn’t seem to matter who was shooting at who, just that
a storm was going on and the revolution was still taking place. Bullets were embedded in the walls of the chamber and it was dangerous as hell to stand upright. Most of the boys were flat on the
floor with the hostages. Ashes came down from the ceiling and made his way on all fours to the tearoom at the side of the chamber. It was safer there, behind a partition wall. But the tearoom was
ruined; every piece of crockery was smashed and shot up. There was a big urn on the counter and he reached upwards and touched it and realised it was boiling hot, full of water ready for tea. He
could happily drink a cup of Lipton’s right then, with sugar stirred in. His stomach was a tight ball; he hadn’t eaten since lunchtime and he wondered if there were any plans for dinner
in this revolution. On the side there was a small white cardboard box, like you might get from a bakery; he opened it and saw it was full of cheese puffs which were his favourite delicacy. He ate
one quickly and shoved another puff into the side pocket of his camouflage pants, next to his inhaler. There was a fridge too; he opened it and saw half a carcass of roast chicken on a plate, a
carton of UHT milk, three green portugals.

Then he remembered the man he’d seen from the ceiling, possibly a cabinet minister, who’d stripped and hidden in a cupboard in the tearoom. He turned and aimed his rifle at the row
of cupboards which lined the other side of the room. A man, he was certain, had climbed into one. Ashes’ hands were numb and yet he managed to aim his gun. He advanced cautiously. The man was
in the middle cupboard, he knew that for sure. Outside, in the next room, he could hear shouting. Hal was giving new orders, more of the brothers were shouting too, ‘Get down, get
down
.’ Ashes went straight to the middle cupboard and knocked on the door.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Come out.’ He tried to sound officious. ‘Come out now with your hands up,’ he said again.

But nothing. The door didn’t open. He realised it had been locked from the outside by one of the tea ladies now escaped.

He turned the tiny key in the lock. He stepped back and aimed his gun and again he commanded, ‘Come out of there.’

The door didn’t move.

Instead, the door next to the one he was aiming his gun at opened, slowly.

A man was stooping sideways inside the cupboard. He was wearing only his underpants and socks and he looked very scared. He held his hands up. ‘Please,
please
, don’t shoot
me,’ he said, his voice choked. Tears in his eyes. ‘I have children.’

Ashes stared. He was almost on the ceiling again, out of himself. He nodded.

‘I have little children,’ the man begged. ‘Two girls.

Please
don’t kill me.’ Ashes could see the man was about forty-five, his stomach covered in black hair. He had a neatly trimmed black moustache and he looked familiar.

‘You in the government?’ Ashes asked.

The man nodded in a cringing way. ‘Yes.’

Ashes lowered his gun. He reached for his inhaler and shot a quick puff of mist into his lungs. The minister began to sob. ‘I want to see my wife again,’ he stammered.

Ashes could barely stand up straight; his head swam and he wanted to see his wife too, but he was duty-bound to stay.

‘Go,’ he commanded.

The man looked shocked. ‘Go?’

‘Yes. Go.’

‘Where?’

‘Out there,’ he pointed to the empty hallway with his gun. Beyond the hallway there was a labyrinth of corridors which led further into the House of Power, and out and away from all
the revolution, out onto the streets of the City of Silk.

The man didn’t wait for Ashes to change his mind. He stepped out of the cupboard with his hands raised high and then he fled, running down the wood-panelled corridor, and Ashes felt relief
for the escaped man and a powerful surge of shame for his own cowardice. In truth he ached to flee. He wanted to leave. He had to pray, needed to pray, connect with the beautiful, the force that
would take him away from all this, the heartsource he understood. He needed space and he whispered,
Oh, help me, oh Lord
. It had been hours now of this battering; he hadn’t been
fully prepared for all the noise and chaos. When the Leader had spoken to him, he hadn’t painted this picture at all. He’d said it would all be well executed, straightforward.
Everything had been planned for months, planned like professional soldiers, a militia of men. All Ashes had to do was show up. He had assumed it would be an easy takeover, and it had been, to begin
with.

Ashes left the tearoom and walked into another large, high-ceilinged room which was also empty and ruined. Telephones lay strewn over the ground, their wires ripped from the wall; chairs were
upturned all over the floor. The window was open to the night air. A chandelier gave off a pretty fairground-type light. Under a big wooden table lay the injured woman he’d seen from the
ceiling. She was on her side and her stomach was now slick with blood; she’d been shot and was badly wounded. She was barely conscious; she was on the carpet under the table, bleeding to
death. He bent down and looked at her and she made eye contact with him, but he could see that she was on the ceiling too, out of herself.

She whispered something and he couldn’t hear what she said. He bent closer.

‘My son,’ she whispered. Blood came up in her teeth and spilled from her lips. ‘The young man who shot me. The same age . . .’

Ashes saw River, then, bleeding, just like this woman, left to die with a hole in his stomach, left to die in the road.

Ashes recoiled and let out a gasp. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and left the room quickly and ran down the corridor and found himself deep inside the House of Power. All the rooms had
been ransacked: papers everywhere, drawers pulled out onto the floor, overturned chairs and smashed-up glass, bullet holes where the army had shot in, and in the corners there was the acrid smell
of urine. Some of the younger brothers had been in here and they had shot up the place just for the hell of it and relieved themselves in the corners. Someone had written
Praise be to God
in white Liquid Paper on the grey wall. Ashes stood in wonder and read these words over and over again. His heart felt sour and heavy: it was wrong to harm women.

The brother called Breeze appeared at the door with his rifle which was bigger than him.

‘What you doing in here?’ Breeze asked. The young boy seemed to have recovered himself from his fit of terror.

‘I came in here to pray,’ Ashes said. It slipped out. He didn’t know that was what he’d come to do. Maybe he was even already deep in prayer, or had been praying all
along, up on the ceiling and now in here.

Breeze gazed at him, unsure of what to make of this. He nodded and yet kept his expression neutral. Again, Ashes recognised that faraway look; he sensed the young boy was struggling, as he had
been, that he was a little out of himself.

‘What happen?’ Ashes asked.

The boy steupsed. ‘Nothing.’

But Ashes could see this was a lie.

‘Nothing, nuh. Mind yuh Goddamn figging business.’ The boy looked sullen and dangerous.

‘Come and pray too, nuh.’

Breeze looked at him like he was crazy, as if this was no time to pray and the last thing he needed to do. ‘You muddercunt,’ he said and fled.

Ashes was left by himself again. He bowed his head and put the palms of his hands flat together and opened his chest and his heart and waited and hoped. He could feel water falling from his eyes
and his nerves were jangling and electrified. There was something about the air, it was too troubled; something about his head, which was too closed up; something about his heart, which was all
troubled up too and racing; something about the drawers strewn all over the floor. The words on the wall swam,
Praise be to God
. Nothing came; nothing he recognised, no connection with the
divine source, the beautiful. This had been his life’s inner work. This was what had made life bearable for him since his brother had died. This quest for the beautiful. But there was no
peace for him here, not now. He shifted position and stood with his back to the wall. He closed his eyes and counted his own breath. But nothing came to him.

*

In the chamber the shooting had stopped. No one had missed Ashes.

Hal said: ‘Right, everybody reload.’

Hal found his walkie-talkie amongst the debris and switched it on.

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ he barked into it. The television station had also been bombarded; the army had arrived within an hour of the revolutionary forces. The Leader and his band of
brothers were also under attack. They too were holed up and returning gunfire, but they were making announcements on television to the nation, telling people to remain calm, that they had taken
power. The Leader informed Hal that there were a few cabinet ministers on the outside, those who hadn’t been in the chamber that afternoon. They had immediately converged at the army barracks
nearby; a small team had pulled together, and somehow a prized hostage, the Attorney General, had escaped from the House of Power. He had been spotted by troops running down the road in his socks
and underpants amidst all the gunfire. They had saved him. Now there was a proxy government on the outside.

‘How did the
focking
Attorney General get out?’ fumed Hal down the line to the Leader. He glared around at the brothers and no one spoke. Ashes almost dropped his gun.

‘The army is here when they were not supposed to be and the Attorney General has escaped. What de
ass
is all of this,’ Hal steupsed. ‘Big mistakes, man,’ he
said, and he walked off down the corridor speaking into the walkie-talkie.

Ashes didn’t say anything; he went and stood next to the less important hostages who were lined up, faces to the ground, behind the speaker’s chair. He decided it was best to keep
out of the way of everything and everyone.

Hal returned from the hall. He’d made contact with the army and had an officer on the line.

‘Bring him,’ he gestured to a brother guarding the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister was clearly in pain. His face was bruised and bloodied from the beating Hal had given him. He
was still lashed to another minister, leg to leg. One of the gunmen pulled them both from the row of others.