The Truth Commissioner (21 page)

‘They get so excited,' she says.

‘It's a little sad they get so excited over so little,' he answers as she signals him over to one of the rough benches that have been yellowed by the sun. ‘How long are you here
for?' he asks.

‘I go home next month.'

‘Looking forward to it?'

‘Can't wait, can't wait to see my family and friends, to eat proper food, sleep in a comfortable bed. All that stuff.'

‘But you've enjoyed your time here?' he asks as he watches her stir her hair from her face with a slight shake of the head.

‘Some of it,' she says, turning to look at him. She looks slightly younger than her age, her brown eyes light with life and
her face pretty and seemingly open as if she has no secrets. Taking out a band she pulls her hair back in a rough ponytail,
using both her hands to smooth it. ‘I won't miss head lice,' she says, shivering her shoulders. ‘Check yours when you get home.'

‘Not as many places for them to hide in mine,' he says but already imagining he feels an itch.

‘There are other things I won't miss,' she says, looking at him more intently, and he knows that if he encourages her at all
she will tell him but he is unsure of whether or not he wants to hear and so at first he stares ahead. ‘Things you should
know,' she insists and then he knows she's going to tell him whether he wants to know or not. He glances over his shoulder
but they are on their own. ‘Don't worry, no one can hear and it doesn't matter if they do. You have a right to know.'

‘A right to know what?'

‘About some of the things that are wrong with this place.'

‘And what are those things, Melissa?'

‘Well take Estina for a start. I don't think she is a fit person to be in charge of a place like this. I don't think she's
educated – once I tried to talk of her qualifications and she pretended she didn't understand. I don't think she has any training
in child care or child psychology or child anything.'

He is surprised by the sudden anger that shows in her voice and surfaces in her face. ‘But she seems to care for the children,
seems to run the place as well as she can.'

‘Sometimes she's cross with the children, sometimes she shouts at them – you should never shout at a child, James, especially
ones who are already emotionally vulnerable, and there are children here who obviously have special needs, who need to be
assessed but who just get lumped in with all the rest.'

His concern at her words is tempered at first by the tone of her voice and the impression it gives that it's imparting wisdom
to the needy. He listens to her talk and the flow of her words is evangelical, so self-assured that he can't but be struck
by the discrepancy between her age and her insistence on knowledge. Perhaps Estina is right about her, perhaps she is a young
woman whose education has given her an inflated sense of her own importance, so he says little but his silence only seems
to prompt her to renewed efforts to persuade him.

‘Sometimes her friends and family come up here at weekends and drink, eat big meals and get drunk.'

‘You've seen this?'

‘Yes, of course.'

‘But you've said nothing?'

‘Not directly because whenever I try to say anything at all about the way things are, she gets angry and things get heavy.
Sometimes I think I should have left earlier.' She fingers the silver cross at her neck and then pulls it tight to her lips.
‘Not all the stuff your church sends goes to the children. There's a room in the basement where she keeps stuff and I think
she sells some of it in town.'

Fenton stands up and expels a nervous rush of air. He rubs his hand up and down his throat feeling the tufts of bristles left
behind after a week of hurried, inadequate shaves. He stares up at the tree line and wonders if Florian is in his secret place
at this very moment. Into his mind comes the memory of a time shortly after he had taken up walking when he was following
a path up the Annalong Valley, bounded on one side by a wood and on the other by the mountains when the sky had filled with
mist in a thickening tumble of grey. He had kept walking, feeling it feather his face like a clinging web, telling himself
that it would lift, but with each step visibility reducing until he stopped and let it engulf him. He felt no need to be frightened
because he was on a well-used path, a mile from where he had left the car, the climb into the mountains not yet reached. All
he had to do was wait and stay warm or hug the edge of the wood and follow it back. Now as Melissa talks on he thinks only
of the feeling of being softly cradled, removed from the hard edges of the world and held in the arms of the sweetest kind
of letting go.

‘I think you had a right to know,' she says.

He turns and looks at her. Now her face no longer seems open but tight and riven with shades of secrecy that he can no longer
gauge or calculate.

‘Where is this room?' he asks.

‘I'll show you,' she says, standing up, almost excited.

‘No, just tell me where it is.'

‘It's the last room in the corridor that runs past the kitchen.'

In that second she appears to Fenton like a child, eager to persuade him, eager to impress him. He stares into her eyes but
all he sees is that grey swirl of mist separating himself from a world where he has to make decisions, where he has to pick
a course. And now there are no landmarks or maps, no way to pick a route except through instinct. She starts to apologise
for having to tell him these things but he knows she's glad she has and that part of her motivation is to see him do and say
things that she felt unable to do herself.

‘What will you do?' she asks.

‘I don't know,' he answers even though part of him believes that he will do nothing, that he will get in his van in the morning
and drive, and the thought of the anonymity of the journey, the endless unravelling of the landscape, brings some relief.
So he excuses himself, telling her that he has to check the van before it gets dark, and leaves her sitting playing with the
rope of her hair.

Getting into the van he locks the door and grips the wheel with both hands but fights off the impulse to start the engine
and drive. He tries to force himself into the world where actions have consequences and where everything has to be balanced
in ledger columns but at first these thoughts fly asunder like startled birds and nothing can stop their scattering wing-clacking
confusion. Turning, he stares at the cardboard boxes and packaging that will go back with him, the empty pallets and the blankets
that protected fragile items, and suddenly he feels weary, knows he has to build up his strength before attempting the long
homeward drive. He is tempted to sleep but knows he must put it off a little while longer and knows, too, that without some
sense of stillness it would be impossible, so he begins with what he knows is certain. The conditions and facilities in the
orphanage have improved significantly since it was first revealed to the world. Estina and Natlia, the two full-time workers,
were appointed after the worst features of the past had been largely addressed and, under their care and that of the other
team of helpers, the children seem well and, as far as he can judge, reasonably happy. He sees nothing that speaks of the
former abject physical neglect or the catatonic paralysis of the emotionally abandoned that originally formed the most disturbing
images. Even if some of what Melissa claimed was true and even if occasionally a small proportion was creamed off for personal
use perhaps it was a small price to pay for these improvements. And if he were to say anything to Estina how could she respond
but to deny it and he thinks of the damage it would do to those who have contributed faithfully and sincerely to what they
believed had made a difference to the lives of these children.

That night the sleep he felt so much in need of refuses to come. He constantly changes position in his narrow bed in an effort
to find one that will allow him to drift into sleep but it eludes him the harder he tries. Moonlight silts like silver through
the thin gauze of curtain and the night is speckled with sound. Insects ping against the glass and at intervals the bang of
a dormitory door or the cry of a child are sharp pinpricks in the unsettled silence. Sometimes as he listens he thinks he
hears the rush of the river but then tells himself that it's too far away and what he hears must be the hum of electricity.
He thinks of Florian's house in the trees and for a second is almost tempted to try and find his way there and sleep amidst
the sheltering canopy of leaf. Rising he goes to the window and peers at the blanched moonscape which is layered with shadows
and where the transit van sits like a beached boat washed round by incoming tides of an opaque wavering light.

He gets dressed but then sits on the edge of the bed unsure for a moment about what he's going to do. Then opening the door
he stands listening and as an uneasy silence settles he walks along the corridor towards the stairs. He switches on the torch
he has brought from the van and it smears thin slips of white across the green skin of paint coating the stairwell. His steps
are light, muffled by the coldness of the bare floor. Sometimes a moth rushes to dance in the fleeting spotlight he offers
and as he slowly descends the stairs he pauses at intervals to listen carefully but the whole building seems to have slipped
into some fitful slumber that is broken only by the bark of a cough or a whimper perhaps prompted by some dream.

He makes his way through the central rooms, each step still a debate about whether he should return to his room or go on.
Somehow not finding out gets linked in his head with Florian's future and simply to walk away feels like it will condemn him
to something less than he deserves. Suddenly there's a scurry of feet and two young children, hand in hand, hurry across the
corridor in their nightdresses and disappear again into another room. He switches on the torch again as he passes the kitchen
area and momentarily it brightens against the shiny surfaces of pots and pans, then he steps into the corridor that ends with
the room he seeks. It feels smaller than the other corridors and the floor is bare concrete, cold to the eyes. When he reaches
the last room he rests his hand on the handle and hesitates for a final second but when he tries to turn it, he finds it locked
and the discovery brings no sense of failure but rather a rush of relief. But before he can take comfort in it a light that
hurts his eyes suddenly illuminates the corridor.

‘What are you doing, James?' Estina asks, her face hardened into anger, her stare unrelenting even in the face of his blinking.

‘I was going to look in your store. See what you have, what you don't.'

‘In the middle of the night?'

‘I couldn't sleep,' he says, feeling foolish, unused to and embarrassed at being in the position of the accused.

‘So you've been talking to Melissa?' she says as she walks towards him.

Now there seems no point trying to sidestep and he feels the unflinching fix of her eyes that are grey like flint under the
harshness of the light.

‘She told me some stuff,' he says, still hiding in vagueness, ‘and I wanted to see for myself.'

‘Let me guess. She told you that we are all thieves who steal everything, who starve the children while we get fat. That what
she told you?'

‘No, she didn't say that, Estina.'

‘And you want to see in here?' she asks, pulling a bunch of keys out of her trouser pocket. ‘Here, James, here is the key.'

There is no escape from his humiliation as he stares at her outstretched hand.

‘I don't think I should,' he says, desperate to find some way out of the situation.

‘Take it!'

And this time he obeys her order and turns the key in the lock. She pushes the door open with a gesture of contempt and switches
on the light. She has to lean across him to reach it and he feels her breath on his cheek. He doesn't want to go further but
has little choice as she presses her hand in the small of his back.

‘Please look as much as you want,' she says, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips. But now he knows that there
will be no respite in half-hearted apologies and that it would be better to grasp the nettle so he merely thanks her and shrugs
off any sign of hesitation or further embarrassment.

The room has boxes piled high along three walls. Most are shut, some are already opened, and a quick examination shows that
most contain tinned foods. In others are kitchen and bathroom consumables. The only time he turns to look at her is when he
finds several boxes of children's toys but she returns his gaze defiantly. He sees nothing to confirm or deny what Melissa
has told him but knows that his efforts have succeeded in damaging things. He nods curtly to tell her that he's finished and
after he leaves the room she locks the door once more. He doesn't know what to say and they walk back down the corridor in
silence.

‘I think we should talk,' she says, ushering him into the kitchen with an outstretched hand. She gestures him to sit at the
table and rummages in one of the high cupboards for an already opened bottle of wine, then sets two small wine glasses on
the table and pours each of them a drink. She leaves hers untouched as he sips his cautiously, trying not to grimace at the
splurge of sourness that hits his throat.

‘What we store is what we don't use, what will be needed in the future.'

‘The children's toys?'

‘We keep them for when we need them – birthdays, holidays. We need to have these things at different times. You understand?'

‘I understand.' He sips the wine again and then asks, ‘And you've never sold things you've been given?'

‘Never,' she insists. ‘But sometimes if we have too much of one thing and not enough of something else then we …' She
searches for the right word, screwing up her face in momentary frustration.