The Truth Commissioner (18 page)

The boy places his arms on the table again then rests his head on them once more. This time his face is completely hidden
so only the heave of his shoulders reveals that he's crying. Briggs goes to say something but Fenton silences him by raising
his hand and then speaks softly to the boy.

‘Maybe there's another way, Connor. Maybe there's a way out of this.'

The road feels increasingly narrow as it winds through the mountains and each side is bordered by dense bands of trees that
sweep right down to the edge. A thin mist that seems to drift from between the trees swaddles and blurs the road ahead and,
as he slows his speed, he reaches patches where it suddenly thickens. Putting on his wipers and lights he haunches over the
wheel, his face close to the glass as increasingly it feels as if some creature's breath is streaming against it. He glances
at the deep swathe of pine trees, so densely packed that their branches jostle one another for space, and thinks that it must
be permanently dark in the forest's interior. For a second he is confused and wonders if he has taken the right road.

A way out. That's what he offers the boy. A way out of the mess. As Walshe lifts his face towards him he studies it carefully,
registering every detail permanently in his memory. He sees right away that he's not been really crying, that like all his
demonstrative emotions – the anger, the aggression the tears have been attempted rather than achieved. The thin, feral face
is staring at him now with a sly curiosity. His blue eyes are the only trace of colour but even these are vague and unfocused
and there is something in this expression, as well as in his speech, that suggests the narrow limits of his intelligence.

‘Do you want a drink or a cigarette?' Fenton asks but the boy shakes his head sullenly and then blinks slowly as if trying
to clear his eyes.

Gradually the mist sheds its grey skin and slithers itself somewhere far back through the trees. He passes clearings where
felled trees loll against each other haphazardly like giant pencils thrown by an angry child. At the border he waits in a
queue that takes four hours to clear. Eventually all his paperwork is deemed to be in order and stamped and he is only a couple
of hours' drive now from his destination and half a day ahead of schedule but suddenly he feels nervous, apprehensive, even
though unsure of the precise reason.

Already there's the sense of travelling back in time as he sees his first Dacia car and passes a horsedrawn cart, the old
man's whip flicking through the air like a fishing line. He passes threadbare villages and farms with orange-tiled roofs and
suddenly he feels tired, desperate for sleep. Lowering the window he lets the cold night air wash over him but he knows he
has to stop. Always conscious of the need to protect his precious cargo from thieves, he waits until he finds himself far
from houses or signs of life, chooses a narrow dirt track that winds behind a screen of trees and parks. He carefully locks
the doors of the van before climbing into his sleeping bag and stretching out on the pallet of clothes which gives him only
a few feet of space between it and the roof, but which feels comfortingly secure.

In the morning he feels stronger, glad that he's taken the rest, and tells himself that it's better to arrive in the morning
than in the middle of the night. He clambers outside into the first light of day and thinks of Miriam sleeping alone in a
house many thousands of miles from this place and wonders what she dreams of, before his thoughts change to the young woman's
face on the mountain suffused with life. There are sudden memories of when Miriam's face bore the same marks, times when love
was that intense. He drinks slowly from a bottle of water and feels the seeding of sadness into the morning. In the distance
across deserted fields he sees the shadowy, tantalising outline of mountains whose name he doesn't know, then as a young man
on a moped passes on the road, he steps behind the van where he can't be seen and watches until its red tail light vanishes
into the distance. He pours the water over his hands and splashes his face. He needs a shower and a proper shave. He feels
dirty.

There's dirt under the bitten, ragged nails of the boy and a blue scribble of a self-administered but aborted tattoo on the
outside of his wrist. He is undersized for a fifteen-year-old, the runt of a large litter, all born to a single mother. His
hair is close shaven, the stubble flecked by the white scar. The gold chain he wears seems to shiver against the paleness
of his throat but it's the eyes that Fenton stares at now. They are a light, delicate shade of blue, the only softness in
his face, the eyelashes so vaguely defined that they are mostly invisible. The eyes look at him now as he promises him things,
offers him a way out of the mess, and as Fenton talks to him, he keeps his own gaze locked on them, knowing that this is where he must direct his words.

In the van he takes a towel that smells of home and dries his face then splashes it again and repeats the process. He knows
the job's to blame, tells himself that it's not possible to spend over thirty years rubbing up against dirt and not be stained
by it. Like a smoker's fingers rusted with nicotine. He has witnessed it over the years in his colleagues, the experiences
that gradually coarsen and degrade. He hears it in their language, sees it in the one-too-many drinks, the way they disrespect
then deceive their wives. He tries to show through his life rather than his words that they need a higher code to live by,
otherwise things get blurred, harder to know where the difference is between right and wrong. He knows, too, for some, that
difference has so shrunk that it's hardly visible any more, replaced by what they can get away with and what they can't.

He brushes his teeth, using what is left of the water, wishing it were colder. Wishing he could have a shower before he arrives
at the orphanage. But what if the government was right after all? Perhaps too many of them were too damaged to be part of
a future supposed to be cleaner. No longer to be called a force but a service as if they hadn't served before and as he thinks
of it he can't assuage the familiar anger, the sense of his own shame at taking the money and walking away cap in hand. He
spits angrily out of the window then gazes at his reflection in the mirror. He looks rough, his eyes blue-bagged and red-rimmed;
his skin like it needs the fresh scour of the mountains; the grey that started at his temples then spread up and consumed
most of his hair colour now seems as if it has infiltrated the surface of the skin itself. A tiny cluster of red pinheads
peppers his cheekbones and when he inspects his teeth he sees two incisors on opposite sides of his mouth are yellowing in
perfect synchronicity. He blinks then looks again as if he hopes to see something different in the glass but nothing has changed.
Taking the battery shaver he tries to shave some of the greyness out of his skin then puts on a change of clothes and starts
on the final leg of his journey.

He passes a tractor pulling a trailer filled with logs, an axe embedded in its crest. In a short while he sees distant figures
working in the fields that look like stick men silhouetted in the morning light. An old man who works the slow swing of a
scythe on a stretch of bedraggled grass briefly raises his hand in salute before turning again to the rhythm of his task.
In a couple of hours he passes through the closest town to his destination but is unable to detect any obvious changes from
his previous visit and then he begins the descent into the wooded valley where the orphanage sits at the meeting of two rivers.
The road takes him across narrow bridges where there's not room for two vehicles to cross together and then it spirals down
in increasingly tight circles that require him to stay in a lower gear and keep his foot almost permanently on the brake pedal.
Sometimes he catches a glimpse of water far below as it streams across stone-pocked gravel beds like white hair lifted and
braided by a comb, then eventually he reaches the bottom of the valley where the road straightens to run parallel with the
river and the willow trees that lean out and weep over it. A strange hidden place.

Like the places he met the boy. Far from prying eyes. Sometimes on the edge of the city, sometimes in a car park in the empty
wastes of closed shopping complexes. Sometimes in a beauty spot or a place where lovers meet. At times he had him picked up
in an unmarked car on his way, usually late, to school or after he had travelled to a neutral area. The first time they took
him to the country park at Crawfordsburn, walked him along the seashore, his pale eyes wary of the sea. Delicately at first,
nothing much more than talk about nothing much, and then the first of the money in his pocket and home again. And taking the
money that first time is the hook he will hang on like a caught fish. Sometimes he takes him to places where he can eat and
then he would sit with a coffee and watch him devour whatever was on the plate, the fired urgency of the eating facilitated
by his tightfisted grasp of the knife and fork. He gives the boy a contact phone number where he can be reached by day or
night and so he becomes part of the electric grid that courses across the city whose currency is information. The bugs and
the devices, the cameras, the infra-red toys, the secret recordings – he doesn't put his faith in any of them. It's the human
touch he puts his trust in – eyes and ears, tongues loosened by money or, even more reliable and more endurable, by personal
hatreds. Sometimes unimportant people like the boy on small retainers, sometimes important people on the inside, and the more
important, the less likely he was to know of their existence, their invisible nameless handlers, disdainful of anyone's need
to know except themselves. But the boy is his, a little acorn planted in the face of an uncertain future.

It's a Saturday morning and as he drives between the wooden posts that mark the entrance to the orphanage he's seen first
by two girls whom he recognises even though they look older. They stare at him blankly and then their faces animated by recognition
they jump up and down, running alongside the van as they wave their arms and shout with excitement. It's the first human contact
he's had in days and it startles him. He looks at himself in the mirror again. Other children, drawn by the sound of the van
and the shouts, begin to rush out of the central building and the dormitories. He slows right down, anxious not to hit anyone
as they press on all sides, and finally he comes to a halt in front of the main stone building with its still broken wooden
shutters. The grass in front of it is blistered with bare scabs of sandy-coloured soil. Then taking a deep breath he gets
out of the van, locking it behind him while the children throng about him, calling his name and pulling at his shirt. He can
hardly move through the press and he touches as many as he can on the head and uses as many of their names as he can remember,
but it's almost impossible to walk more than a few steps at a time and when he sees one small girl in danger of getting knocked
over he plucks her from the crowd and carries her in his arms. As he looks up he sees Estina standing at the top of the steps
and at her shoulder Natlia. Behind them is a young woman with long brown hair almost to her waist and whose clothes suggest
she is from somewhere else. He acknowledges their presence by raising his hand and then shrugs as if to apologise for his
slowness in coming to greet them. Estina smiles back and claps her hands loudly, does a little shouting until gradually the
children step back and allow him to reach the steps.

‘Welcome, James, welcome back. We've been expecting you,' Estina says as she offers him both her cheeks and he kisses her
self-consciously before repeating the greeting with Natlia. Then as they see him looking at the young woman behind them, they
introduce her as Melissa. Later she will tell him all about herself and how she has graduated in child psychology from an
American college and is spending a year doing voluntary work before returning to do a master's degree, but now she too greets
him as if she is really pleased to see him. ‘You must be really tired,' Estina says. ‘Please come inside.'

‘Not too bad,' he says, suddenly embarrassed to be the focus of so much attention. ‘It's a long drive all right but it's good to be back again.'

They lead him into the main building and sit at the long table close to the open kitchen. Estina makes him a cup of coffee
that smells and tastes better than anything he's had in days and they ask him about his journey. At first there's a certain
awkwardness and he's reluctant to discuss the contents of the van too soon as if it would be rude to flaunt the charity he
brings, but he knows everyone is thinking about it and he tries to find a way to itemise it that he hopes is undramatic and
sounds unexpectant of displays of gratitude. So first he tells them about the shoe boxes, checks the number he has brought
against the current number of children to be certain that no one will go without. He is careful to give responsibility to
Estina as to when the children will receive them and after she confers with Natlia she decides that they can be given that
evening, after the concert that's been arranged in his honour.

While they talk children are watching from the doorway, furtively glancing in at them from the hallway or walking past the
windows as if engaged in some unrelated business. Estina gives him an update on the recent improvements that have been made
to the main dormitories and tells him about changes in government funding that he doesn't fully understand but he nods his
head and when she's finished he presents her with a detailed list of what has been brought. He watches the two women pore
over it, their heads close together and talking rapidly in their own language. He senses that sometimes they are helping each
other with translation and as they do so he notices that Melissa is looking at him and for a second as he returns her gaze
they feel connected through their mutual separation from the animated preoccupation of the two women.