DISCLAIMER: All characters in this story are original, and are the sole property of Maggie. Do not use them without permission, please. Also, please do not copy, in whole or in part, any part of this story anywhere, without my permission. If you wish to do so, PLEASE CONTACT ME; also, if you have any queries about this story.
A brief summary:
Shushan is a young unorthodox Jewish woman, working for a Metropolitan Borough Council. It could be any MBC, in any town in England. She has, by accident, met a young and enthusiastic Muslim journalist, named Daoud, who works for one of the local papers. In his research into local trouble experienced by a group of New Age Pagans, he has become suspicious of the local council, and believes that they are somehow behind the persecution that the group is being subjected to. He has enlisted Shushan's help in delving deeper into the problem ...
~~~
This story came to me earlier in this decade, ('90's) and wore me out in the setting down of it onto hard copy. Typing until two or three in the morning, with a slave-driver of a muse keeping constant guard to make sure I got no sleep until the relevant portion was done, when I had to get up early to go to work the next morning, was no fun, believe me.
It is not so much a story, as a back-story. It is told in the form of diary entries, letters and a newspaper article, for the simple reason that that is how it came to me. And come it did, sometimes so fast that my typing could not keep up with the words as they emerged, sometimes, almost at a 'stream-of-consciousness' type level. I have no idea why it came to me, or even where it came from, but virtually nothing else has bugged me, to the same extent that this did, to get written, or else ...
To clarify the chapter titles, I can tell you that each of the characters has a different purpose and each of the narrators has a different title, depending on their purpose. The story itself is split into parts, each of which details a different place on the spiral of its journey.
Make of it what you will.
* * * * *
PROLOGUE.
Shushan, THE HARP
At just thirteen years old, after a visionary night of heightened awareness, perceptions changed for all time, I began to write about something that I could not touch in my own life, only view plainly from a distance. It was wonderful and at the same time, it saddened me. I did not know then what I came to know later; that it was not for me. I waited in hope. One day I looked, and hope had died.
To be born of the Spirit is to experience a sea-change. To drift at sea, waiting, as I drift now, is to experience emptiness, uselessness, guilt; a burden.
Purgatory is indeed, a waiting room.
Hell is to come.
Heaven, a state of being that is visited on you for moments only. If those moments stretch into hours , you are blessed.
Longer than that, and you are privileged indeed; but the eventual fall is agonising and lasts much, much too long.
Any fall from Grace, is hell.
You lose the way to rise up and walk; instead, living in the constant fear and pain of no helping hand.
How can it be, then, that there should be one?
* * * * *
Shushan, THE HARP
It was the only way that you had to express your pain. It was obvious to me immediately, that you were driven by some demon, which to me, seemed familiar; I had seen that same wild look, sometimes, in the mirror.
Your frustration was desperately expressed, and I was shaken in a deep sympathy; have they no eyes, have they no ears, I thought furiously. What would it take to convince them ...
There was nothing. I saw their hands upon you, and was stung into the only action that was possible for me. Admonishment of their deliberate ignorance tore out of me; a flood of words, sounding like a wind in my own ears. And what did they think of themselves, and what did it make of them, to be so blind. On and on I ranted, afraid to stop, knowing my silence would be the cue for their retaliation.
Their eyes were upon me then, and in a sudden nakedness, it came to me that this was the moment of risk that I had dreaded, and longed for. My own fury, or righteous indignation, or whatever it was, faced them down.
I was taken severely to task afterwards, of course.
The armoured men and the lap dogs, their dignity in pieces, had retreated in silence, to their boardroom and heavy desks, and immediately had begun planning their revenge upon me.
But you, at least, were safe from them; whilst they vented their spleen upon me, they would leave you alone.
Once, I looked up from behind my desk, piled high with their punishment, to find you standing in the open doorway, looking at me; that moment is graven into my memory. I see it now ...
'I see you, know what you have done for me, and in my name; I know what they have done to you, allowed by you, that it might not be done to me ...'
Words from your eyes, in silence that shook me like a storm; I felt the words, like water that was eagerly soaked up, to alleviate, blessedly, the dryness of my heart.
It was three months before I saw you again.
I was free, finally, of the 'High Court's' spite, though still wary of anything more visible in activity than making their tea; they seemed happy enough with that.
I remember that I was at home, finishing some overdue work, which I no longer had the heart to complete at 'the Barracks'. The phone rang; it was you. You were back in the country, and would I meet you tomorrow, for lunch, or a drink, or anything I wished?
It was difficult to answer you at first; my emotions, never stable creatures, threatened, suddenly, to choke me with weeping; but somehow my voice remained steady enough to reply to your request. Perhaps constant practice over the previous months had made it easier to hide how I felt.
All the next day, I found myself imagining finally being able to tell you everything I felt about myself, my life, my past, my dreams, my beliefs; I did not know how to find the courage to tell you how I felt about you. Nonetheless, I was determined to give you something of myself before we parted again ...
I was so surprised to see you sitting there; phone call or no, I somehow hadn't expected you to be there. As if I had imagined the whole thing, or only dreamed it, and would be disappointed, but safe.
But no; you were there, in the little wine bar where all the previous conferring of conspiracy had taken place. Then there had been only the heated rush of the latest find, the digging through the dirt, looking for stolen gold.
Those days had been a constant, perverse pleasure; a pleasure, terrifying yet almost sexual, to get away with the daily furtive discoveries. At last to find THEM vulnerable and almost as caught in the wheels of the giant machine as I had found myself.
But then that last day - finally, in my hands, the pieces that fit to left and right, to turn the whole thing, unexpectedly, on its head; I had made the phone call from the office, stupidly, when I had already risked and risked, and used up the last of my luck.
You had come flying into the Reception Hall, almost bumping into me as I came down to meet you. Hearing a phone ring, I had seen the girl on the desk reach to answer it and had known, somehow, that I had unwittingly betrayed us. As we had left the building, me urging you into almost a run, even then I could feel their eyes, watching.
In the wine bar that day, barely touching two glasses of the house Red, I had told you about the contracts, the pay-offs, the hidden agenda, everything. When we got out of the bar, they were waiting for us.
Bundled quickly and efficiently into an estate car, we were driven back to the Council House - rear entrance - frogmarched up the back stairs, and into the top office, heavy with their badges of superiority and control: the heavy desks, leather chairs, cut glass and the other chains of tradition, Queen and Country. I remember looking up at the old paintings of all the past Bulldogs; previous occupants of that hallowed chamber. The fear was a tangible thing, like the taste of cold steel in my mouth, as they began, without preamble, to move in. Circling their prey, cutting us off from any kind of reality that made sense. I had prayed to wake up, found myself acceding to their demands, reactively regretting getting involved in an enterprise which they so adequately described into hopelessness ...
... and then you were prowling the room, snarling at them like a caged panther, trying in vain to get them to enter the cage with you.
But no-one had to teach them, or their Norman ancestors, the politics of survival; their silver and gilt was being threatened, and their fear aroused instinctive action, hemming us in and pushing us down with their dirty hands. I could almost feel the interrogator's grip on the back of my neck.
There came a moment when I physically tried to leave, taking you with me; but the anger was deep within you, risking everything, and they had turned on you ...
... and I had turned on them; I had felt that I was ready for death in that one moment, that I could have faced it quite alone. It wasn't until afterwards, once they had thrown you out, and I had sat there in confusion, shaking and small again, that I'd realised that my messianic defense of you was only possible because I needed you.
I couldn't face that. To be so vulnerable and inadequate as to need, and act only in the name of that need.
I had acted as I had, all along then, only because I needed you, then. Had done nothing solely for the people who were suffering under the old men's cultural prejudices and cravenness - the odd ones out, the square pegs, children of a different thought and simpler calling. Those you were trying to help. Dry-mouthed, I could barely swallow with the taste of self-loathing strong in my mouth.
How easy it had been to fool myself into believing myself your equal because of these things that I had done; devastated by my self-discovery, I had sat there, twisting and turning like a hooked worm, trying to find a way to make that equality still be there, somehow. Somehow not a lie.
A lie, a deception, a carrot on a stick; the only way I could make myself do these things at all. That's what it had been. My heart thumped loudly in my own ears. I could hear nothing else.
The darkness of the old men had clung like ash in the aftermath of an eruption; I had turned and looked at myself and found myself to be stained with their doubt.
I had defended you; not the group.
Then, the next evening, there had been the phone call from you, explaining that you had received the traditional chewing-out from your Editor, and had been assigned to another case, in France; I'd barely been able to speak to you, convinced, somehow, that you must be able to see how unworthy, how inadequate I actually was.
I found myself looking at our time together with totally different eyes: I felt as if I had given myself away at our first meeting, at Carenna's party, and that you had seen an opportunity and taken it. Had you led me by the nose, only for your own ends? It was so easy to believe in the darkest moments; the anger so much better than the heavier guilt.
Over the phone you had asked me if I was going to be alright, whether they had been stupid enough to sack me. For a long moment, tottering on the edge, trying not to explode into anger, or drown in regret, I couldn't answer you. That my silence had worried you, only turned the screw a few more notches, until the tightness in my chest had left me almost gasping for breath. I finally managed something, some banality, to put you off.
You were in France, I wouldn't, couldn't, see you again, for heaven-knew how long. Suddenly this knowledge was overwhelmingly black and impossible; I couldn't even bring myself to ask you when you'd be coming back. You had begged me not to give up, that we would continue this when you got back ...
You hadn't said when.
The exquisite torture I felt, strength flooding away like blood from an open wound, still comes back to haunt me at unguarded moments, even now. Silently screaming at the back of my throat for you to tell me when I would see you again; to say something, anything, that would absolve me from the sin of needing you.
I felt it in the wine bar, sitting there opposite you, on that almost unreal date for dinner. The hug I had given you, to welcome you back after your semi-enforced exile, had bordered on the perfunctory; you looked at me strangely, but at that time said nothing, perhaps believing that this was merely the results of the aftershock of discovery, still.
Facing each other across the little table in the corner that we had always occupied, and the plea for absolution was still dry dust in my throat. Still saying nothing that meant anything; Yes, thank you, I had managed to keep my job, but I was no longer in a position to help you, and I'm sorry, I'm sorry ...
Wanting so desperately to tell you how much it had meant to me, that day I had looked up and found you standing there, in the door to the office, the words of your eyes my only solace. That I'd known what you risked, getting on a ferry on a moment's impulse, to come back and invade their sacred haunts once more, to see me.
I couldn't. Sitting there with nothing to say, I felt worse, failing once more to be anything that would be worthy of you. Trapped, my body twitching with the need to run, I could do nothing. How could I escape you? Above all else, to retain any dignity at all, I knew I must not give myself away.
An emptiness stretched out suddenly, before me, as I sat there, eating and suddenly babbling about the pettiness of the office I had been relocated to. All the while I was avoiding your eyes, one line of poetry battering at my brain; it was a greedy bird - feeding on pain, flapping in my face and stinging tears into my eyes - that wouldn't leave me alone.
"Stevie Smith."
"What? Sorry?" I didn't dare look up; what had I said?
"'Not waving, but drowning'; it's Stevie Smith.
You were beside me; how had that happened? I never saw you move.
"What's wrong?"
Shaking, totally unable to speak, unable to look up. Now you would find out. Now you would know, finally, of the dark and guilty secret.
No, don't touch me, don't, don't touch me, please, don't ...
... touch me. God if there is any mercy in heaven, just touch me. It's too heavy, and I can't carry this one more moment, just ...
... touch me.
Weak and stupid female. Words I could almost hear, see them in letters five feet high on a cinema screen for the world to see. Inside my head there was the masculinity of maturity, waiting for me to grow up. It didn't need this. You didn't need this.
However, in the face of that, I'd gone cold on the revolution; personal considerations overshadowing everything else.
"That's some demon you're wrestling with; come on, I'm taking you home."
I wanted to go home. Wanted to be safe, curled up on my sofa, in your arms, forgotten coffee going cold on the little table. You would do that for me, I knew; you would do that for anyone who needed it, I also realised in that same moment, bitterly, jealously.
"Please don't patronise me," I snapped.
"Sorry," you told me softly, and knives went to work inside me again when I looked up; saw hurt and confusion.
God knows what you saw in my face at that moment. A tear escaped, followed by a full charge of its fellows, and I couldn't possibly do anything else but give way under them. I got what I wanted, and didn't want, as you reached out and put your arms around me, holding me up.
For the length of time that it took to get me out of my seat and into the Ladies - empty, thank God! - I really despised myself. By the time I had sluiced my face and steadied myself to at least carry my own weight again, and returned to you, I was ready to accept the moment. Maybe later I would have the chance to try and explain it all, come what may.
I thanked God again, that the Wine Bar was all but empty; that was all I could think of as you led me out, got me into the car, and took me home.
Eventually, I let go of the old men; their vice-like grip on my guilt loosened, and then the guilt itself floated away, and was forgotten in a moment.
You worked hard to convince me that I was wrong about myself.
"You must allow yourself this; it isn't wrong."
"Isn't it?" Bitter, angry.
"No! Why should you think you've betrayed those people, simply because, somewhere inside you, something has determined that they cannot be your priority at the moment? Everyone, everyone without exception, has the right to love, and to be loved. You've done so much for them already, simply because you HAVE done it. And you were punished for it." Softly, hurt; hurt because I had been hurt. I took hold of that and held it very close, cradled it inside me.
From that moment, I no longer tried to defend myself against what you said. I listened, instead, to the sound of your voice, followed your movements with my eyes, totally caught up in trying, with what I saw and heard and felt expressed by you, to define you, that I might celebrate your life.
"It's just that people say things sometimes," I offered by way of explanation for my restrictive behaviour at last, "and they don't know what it is that they're taking on when they say them to me."
I handed you another coffee and sat down, watching your face, waiting for the, hitherto unexpected, journey to begin.
"You smiled, looking round at me. "I know," you said.
How do you describe it when, finally, someone you love loves you back, when you've been alone for a long time? Physically and emotionally alone?
The nearest I can come to it is that it is a definition of self; a physical, emotional, and then mental, definition of self. You find that you finally have something which gives you a real chance to make a reality, the things about yourself that you've, up until that point, only been able to dream about.
Up until then, I would reach a point where my instinct would say, 'Go for it!' and I would, because everything was telling me that it was right: the right time, the right move, the right place, the right people, whatever; and then it would dissolve right away, gone already, like it had never really been.
To have all that change ... To suddenly be given or perhaps to find something in myself because of you, which empowered me in a way that had been alien to me, was for a long time unbelievable.
I fought against it, because I didn't want to grasp it, only to lose it again; but when I was, finally, convinced - it changed everything.
We loved that night, without thought to practicalities; just loved and loved.
That you took control of the situation that night was certain. For a long while, that was all you did take: caressing me for what seemed like long, dreamy hours, before I dared to venture forth into unknown territory, learning your body as slowly as I wanted to, still needing permission.
Touching you for the first time, in such a way, was frightening; it made me feel at such a disadvantage. Your patience amazed me; content to wait until each movement began to flow into the next like a river flowing over rapids. Until I could no longer bear to be apart from you, burning with a heat that was not yet of the fire; and aching for the fire.
There was a rushing towards you, that somehow you managed to breathe into stillness. Teetering on the brink of falling took my breath; how did you encourage me to breathe? Was it your hands, your eyes; voice or breath?
Again, somehow, the moment passed, and we lay still, as I caught my breath - a moment taken aside in the climbing of the mountain.
A moment's touch, a kiss to the pulse at your throat, and you shivered, moved, moaning softly, your hands instinctively kneading, like a cat's, the flesh of my back and shoulder.
There was no help for it then, but to climb, onward and upward, our movements as natural as breathing, slowly, but intensely ascending.
I remember opening my eyes, and at the sight of your face - awash with an agony of pleasure, the sound of your breathing, ragged and voiced with vulnerable helplessness - something broke open and expanded endlessly inside me, until I was filled with the world. I heard my own sobbing breath that drew upwards into a scream as you drew your hand, like a slowly mounting wave, down the length of my back, to curl around the curve of my behind and clutch me softly but possessively to you.
My breath was gone; my sight was gone. There was nothing but a burning ocean of you exploding around me, as my hands sank deep into the molten core of your soul.
Later that night, much later, when we were spent and tangled around each other, like sleepy puppies in a basket, the words came. Slowly at first, like drops of water, breaking the silence, then studding the night sky of our awareness with a gradually forming pattern of stars; light provided by new knowledge by which to see the other. Having no words adequate to describe reasons for the paranoid guilt you had so recently banished, I quoted songs to you. Sometimes I drew comfort and a closer awareness of you from your face, your eyes; sometimes the sound of your voice. Sometimes I just closed my eyes and shut off my awareness to everything but your touch; the way your hands, your mouth, your cheek against mine, held conversation with my aphorismic explanation.
And you returned the trust. Strangely I found that I needed that almost more than anything else; that you could give yourself away to me in that way, was so important to me. It filled up a hole in me, that perhaps had been so large I'd never been able to define it before that moment.
Even when having sex - though not having very much experience to draw on, I had realised that men didn't really give themselves away. Their emotions, their own vulnerability, remained locked away, because they couldn't really trust their partner. Perhaps that was one of the things that defined what we did as making love, rather than having sex. How unafraid you were, of trusting me with every secret; spoken, implied or silent.
Dawn, all too eager to betray us to the world, was cheated that day; you stayed with me, and the office went without me. I cared not a jot for that, having been restored by you, to a sense of importance of my own life.
We took a walk in the park, before most people were up. Did all the things that people do when they're in the park: talked, laughed, fed the ducks with what was left of yesterday's loaf. It felt quite natural, and overwhelmingly as if this had been waiting to happen; to become - or as if I had finally gained access to what I acknowledged as my real life, which had been hidden until that moment. We had breakfast in a trucker's cafe, walked some more. When it started to rain, we went home for some lunch, then on impulse, went to the pictures - something epic and adventurous - and got lost for a couple of hours.
Strolling around the local gallery was a completely different experience for me, though I had done it numerous times before, but always on my own. Having not just someone, but you, to share this with defined my appreciation of the ecstasy of inspired creativity, of which there is such a wealth in that gallery. And atmosphere of powerful intensity grew up around us, until I felt I was breathing in the same air of balmy summer afternoons and stormy tempests that these artists lived with. Two hours in there was enough to leave me almost shaking; I needed a drink.
Perhaps it wasn't just the artists; perhaps it was you ... us ...
The more sure I was of you, the less sure I was of what was going to happen in my life, in the next twenty-four hours.
I found out rather sooner than I'd expected to.
Walking back, the comfortable silence which we had struck up between us, was broken by the sound of a car pulling up to the pavement beside us, with a screech of breaks, and Jem jumping out. I thought we were about to be mugged of kidnapped and I darted awkwardly back into your shadow, as you instinctively interposed yourself between me and the car. When we saw who it was, naturally we were relieved; until we saw the look on Jem's face. He rushed round to the near side of the car and, opening the rear door, almost yelled at us to get in.
"What on earth's the matter?" I asked him.
"What's happened?" Your face and tone expressed a fear of the worst.
You were hardly wrong.
"Jamie and Karen have been beaten up. They'd just gone shopping, taken the stuff back to the car park ... They were set on while they were loading it into the car. " Jem sounded wild; looked as if he was still in shock. "Karen's pretty bad - God, 'Shan, you should see her; from what I could see through the bandages, she's covered in bruises, and she's got a broken arm and collar bone, cracked ribs ... Jamie's in a coma. Fifty, fifty, they said at the hospital. They set fire to the car. I've just come from the hospital, phoned round to everyone else to stay indoors; I've been driving round, trying to find you. What the hell do we do now?"
"Take us back to the hospital," you told him, pale-faced angry and shaking.
"I wish I could drive," I offered uselessly. "You don't look like you should be driving, Jem."
"I'm okay," he said, but he didn't sound it.
Thin-lipped and dangerously silent, you held onto the back of the passenger seat the whole way, hands clenched into the material, knuckles white.
When we got there, you yelled at the receptionist, causing heads to turn, when she wasn't sure which ward Karen was in. I dragged you away around a corner to calm down, leaving Jem to deal with the poor girl at the desk. He found us a minute or two after, and told us Karen was in ward eight at the back of the building, but that she wasn't allowed any visitors.
"But you saw her, didn't you?" you snapped back, more upset than angry now.
"Only briefly," Jem said, obviously trying to be diplomatic; the last thing we wanted was a big scene in such a public place. "I'm listed as Karen's next of kin. But the girl said we could have a word with the ward sister."
Not sparing another moment, we went to find the ward, to try to see Karen.
The ward sister didn't want to let us in at first, but when Jem explained that the group - of which he persuaded her we were members - was her only family, she acquiesced.
Jem was right; Karen certainly did look a hell of a mess.
We were only allowed five minutes with her, and you sat there, silently holding onto her one good hand - the other one was completely bandaged, having been, we were told, stamped on repeatedly - looking as if you were about to be physically sick.
She was sedated, unconscious, so after a couple of minutes we left her, to go and ask after Jamie. The ward sister managed to contact the doctor in charge of the case, and told us we could talk to him when he came out from working in the Intensive Care Unit, up on the first floor.
We had to wait in a corridor reception area for him to come out to us, and after waiting around, nervously impatient, for half an hour, and three cups of coffee later, he finally emerged through the big double doors that we'd all been trying not to stare at, and approached us, his face carefully neutral.
It wasn't like seeing it on the news or watching it in a movie. When it's happened to someone you know, especially someone as harmless as Jamie, you see it all; you feel the pain. We listened to the catalogue of injuries in silence, and when the doctor had gone back through the doors and we were alone, companioned by shock and disbelief, you stood for a moment, seeing nothing, then made hastily for the men's room. Jem went after you, and I sat back down again, overcome by a consuming sense of waste, which comprised of a confusing mix of rage, hate and sadness, each feeling vying for position like members of a hockey team. Sobs suddenly rising to the surface overwhelmed me; drove me to seek out the privacy of the women's loos. Thankfully, they remained empty whilst I cried myself out.
Emerging fifteen minutes later, finally dry-eyed, but feeling so, so tired, I found the two of you, sitting waiting for me. You looked up, concerned for me and, pride being quite out of the case, I went straight to you; as I sank into the comfort of your arms I confronted the confusing gratitude that it wasn't you who was lying only yards away, fighting for your life. You were here, holding onto me, and for a while that was all I could think about.
Persuading you that there was nothing more that we could do at the hospital, at least for awhile, we left.
Once we'd got into the car we just sat there, the three of us, totally unable to think; it was as if time had stopped for us, collectively, reducing us to a state of waiting on it to begin its march once more.
However, once we got were on the road again, unsure initially of where we were going, all that changed, like fog driven off by the morning heat.
It was all Jem and I could do to persuade you that going straight to the council house and confronting the people we were sure were behind this attack, would not be the thing to do. A passionately hot temper would only make matters worse now; for you, and for the splintered shards of the group. Something had to be done, but it had to be the right thing. It went against the grain, but it seemed we all had to become poker players, if we were to beat the individual council members involved at their own game.
A raid on the place was called for; a raid in conjunction with bait they couldn't fail to jump at. We needed complete proof of all their perfidies.
Jem and I discussed this in the car, as we drove back to my flat. You were seething, as volubly angry as I'd ever known you to be. My own reaction, prompted by a burning righteous indignation, was somehow held down, being confronted by the shocked anger I saw in your eyes.
No expression of yours is ever just an expression, Daoud; I think that's something else you don't know. It has its own light and life, passion, awareness and understanding. An expression, on your face, could burn and never be forgotten; so I was being burned now, not just by your pain, but the victim's pain, the group's pain, through your pain.
But what worried me more was the fact that once you'd vented that anger, that pain, you became silent, the expression of your eyes, hidden, withdrawn; as if finding no answers, you were unable to deal with what had happened any longer. Either that, or you had hit on some course of action that you didn't want me to know about; something you would only rashly attempt on your own.
Jem and I talked, because to leave you with silence was too dangerous. Really, I had no other thought than to get you home, where I could hold onto you against all sense of practical safety; love some measure of calm back into you.
Made more sensitive than ever by the evening's tragic events, Jem left us at the door to the flat, refusing to come in even for one drink, which he looked as if he badly needed. I told him to take care driving home, and then go you inside.
More and more sure that you were trying to hide something from me, nevertheless that wasn't what was bothering me. I felt sure that I could make you take the time to calm down and rethink the situation. What was niggling away at me now, was a deeper instinct that, despite our recent caution, events beyond our control had now ensured that we were in over our heads and that we might well be the next to be sacrificed. We knew why. When the kind of money in question, was at stake, people this greedy and obsessive could be likely, as had just been shown, to stop at nothing.
Nothing.
It seems that no battle with self is ever won completely. Once again, I was confronted by my own weakness, as I realised one more thing on that day of revelations, incredible to either extreme:
I, not seeing how to be able now, to live without you, could not bear for you to be the next victim; whatever happened, I knew I must not lose you. Not now, nor within the confines of my life.
I lost the poetry for a while. The brutality of the attack on Jamie and Karen left me no other way of dealing with that time, except directly. This is the first thing I've written in nearly three months.
The meetings, the discussion, the preparation, have all passed by, water under a barely-noticed bridge; even the raid and the diversion that was implemented to distract the interested parties in the enemy camp.
They went well; we became poker players, our bluff, silence and inactivity. The raid was well prepared and clandestine in the extreme; the diversion most definitely was not. Anarchy hit town in a big way that weekend; posters, rallies, leaflet distribution, and we were high profile in all the activities.
Then, when we finally had the hard evidence in our hands - including an added bonus of a photographed meeting between one of the councillors in question and the front-line irregulars who were doing their dirty work for them - we tailed off again; became silent once more.
That must have worried them, though they did nothing to communicate that worry to us. We did nothing; they did nothing.
A week later we sent the letter. It was quite specific, and left them no place to hide, nor chance for retribution.
'This is just to let you know that I have accessed all your data banks within the course of the past few hours, and that copies of all the relevant information are now being held at a certain location; we also have photographic evidence of a meeting between a council member and the gang of hard-liners you are paying to effectively try to destroy our group, both internally and publicly. Should anything happen to either Daoud or myself, or any member of the group from this time, this evidence will be flood-released to every newspaper in the country, as well as to certain members of the Metropolitan Police Force, Special Branch.
I think, gentlemen, that it might be as well for you to be prepared to settle this matter out of court; however if this is not the course of action that you decide to take, matters will proceed accordingly:
An official investigation into ALL council affairs will take place;Any findings will be sent straight to Whitehall and the Metropolitan Police, ALL appropriate Divisions:
Anything that is then considered to be fit for Public consumption will be released to the appropriate publications, the internet, and possibly, the Media in general.
I believe, Gentlemen, that you will see the common sense in acceding to our requests. You already have confirmation of what those requests are. (Letter dated 6th September, 1991, ref. GR/A123.)
You have until midnight of Sunday next, to convey your decision to us, in writing. We await your answer.'
They capitulated.
They capitulated, and we celebrated. We held several meetings, in fairly public places, and although the public reaction was mixed, which by now was only to be expected - after all, the damage had been done - we were not disheartened in the slightest. No-one could repair that damage, except us. No-one could prove our innocence except us. So we held meetings ... and nothing happened. No unwelcome gate-crashers, no fights, no destruction of property, no harassment, nothing.
It was wonderful. Just being able to plan a meeting without having to keep a check on who knew and who they were in contact with from day to day, being able to plan a couple of weeks ahead, instead of having to pass message on at the last minute, was like surfacing after a long illness, and being able to do simple things again, like walking and eating out.
By now, of course, I had another job, in a bookshop that was, not quite by chance, just around the corner from your newspaper office. You would come in every lunchtime and pretend to browse, while I would pretend to work; paying for anything you bought used to take a long while. You would leave me little notes, sometimes asking quite mundane things, like what we were having for supper, sometimes quite outrageous things like asking me to pop to the travel agents to find out what it would cost to go round the world three times.
If I got home and you weren't there, I would write little notes to leave on the kitchen table that said things like, 'Look in the cupboard under the bookcase,' or 'Check the post,' and leave you little presents, or things to do which would make you either laugh your head off, or groan, if I was feeling Blue-Moon-wicked.
It was all to boost our spirits, of course, while all the secrecy was still forcing us to hold our breath.
Now? Now we can breathe, and live and be people again, I think I have simply become more wicked.
* * * * *
Jem, THE INTERPRETER
Dad; there's someone I have to tell you about. Shushan.
She seemed just like an ordinary, everyday type of person, until you spoke to her, or noticed her eyes, if you had enough about you to know what to look for. The first time I met her, she seemed nervous and unsure about herself around us, though trying to express the opposite. The only person she seemed comfortable around was Daoud, but that was understandable, I thought at the time, as she had known him longer than any of us. She seemed very eager to help us; I was willing to reserve judgement on that however. I've heard these protestations of support before that have simply disappeared when it came down to getting anything done.
I know what we are, what we believe, is different to the normal, run of the mill cultural and social traditions, and that it's difficult to stand up and be counted against the majority; but I really would rather that people not come into the kitchen unless they're willing to do their share of the cooking and washing-up, so to speak, as you know.
But she really did help us; a lot.
I did realise, of course, probably a long time before she did, that she was doing it because of Daoud. Seeing the two of them together, it became obvious how she felt about him.
Yes; I really don't think she realised until much later. Daoud said something to me, a little while after the attack on Jamie and Karen, that made me realise she'd been either innocent of, or denying, her feelings.
But whatever her motives were, she did help us, and we were very grateful for that help. Actions score over words every time, eh, Dad?
The help she gave us had limitations, of course; there was only so much that she was able to find out. I mean, she wasn't anyone's personal secretary or anything like that, and of course, once 'the old men' as Daoud calls them, from his beloved 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom' (+), found out what was going on, the information stopped altogether.
When Daoud told me what happened that day they were hauled before the 'inquisition', it seemed like everything would go downhill from then on, and that we might have to disband, or try and find a way to move on to some other place.
He told me she'd been badly frightened, and I was sorry that her ferretings on our behalf had been the cause of that. Also, of course, the editor of the newspaper that Daoud works for, sent him off to France, to get him out of the way for awhile.
So, everything sort of dried up then; it was a bad time for us. We had no meetings of any kind for awhile, couldn't get the newsletters printed, even, for one reason or another. I did think, for a few months, that it was all over.
I didn't dare write to you during that period, because I knew what you'd say, and I really didn't feel like I could handle it right then. We were all very down; even lost a few members.
At that time, I have to admit, I didn't think things could get any worse, but as you will have obscurely gathered from earlier in this letter, they did. I won't give you all the details; suffice it to say that two of our members, Jamie and Karen - you met them once, they keep the animal sanctuary about ten miles outside of town, nice couple, self-sufficient, quiet - were attacked. They were beaten up quite severely. Jamie was in a coma for about four days, but is on the mend now, thank God, and Karen is back on her feet and back home, running the sanctuary with help from myself and another member, Jonathan; but both she and Jamie have decided that they can no longer be active in the group, at least for awhile, and who can blame them?
It was that attack that really galvanised us into action; once Daoud had calmed down enough after the attack, (he was FURIOUS, you should have seen him!) to think straight, Shan and Daoud organised and prepared a course of action which really clinched the deal for us. Whilst the rest of the group were publicly active in other areas, he and 'Shan got into the council house after hours, and stole enough incriminating material to nobble the council members involved, for good and all. We also found out about a meeting with the thugs who were doing the dirty work, and Daoud got some great photographs and tape evidence of that; enough to back us up in court, should it become necessary.
We covered ourselves with mates of Daoud's in the Force, and really went for it, and it worked; the 'old men' folded.
We celebrated, thinking that was the end of it, and that from then on we would be able to go on with our lives.
Oh, God, Dad, we couldn't have been more wrong.
I need to talk to you, Dad. I started to phone you three times; but I just couldn't think of what I should say to you, to explain. You will have heard about it on the news; we were all in shock, saddened, hardly knowing where to begin to grieve. I can't get away right now; could you come down for a couple of days? I need your steady head ... I feel very lost right now. Please come, there will be no problem about putting you up.
Hoping to see you,
Love, Jem.
* * * * *
Daoud, THE DRUM
You knew, didn't you? You knew this thing would claim one of us, if not both.
I wish it had; it feels so unnatural, as a child-murderer is unnatural - to be left here on my own. I wish I had been closer to you, in the blast, as close to you in body as I was, am, in soul. Their intolerable blackness, they have filled me with it. Yet it is nothing; so adequately describes Nothing, that it leaves me empty ... empty of life, joy, hope.
Empty of you.
I took too long to heal, in the hospital; all that time, when I might have still felt close to you, still in communion with you, I was unconscious.
I didn’t even know that you had died in the blast, until yesterday.
Gone. Really gone. I cannot believe it.
I want to be dead... I want to be with you.
My Father would kill me - ha! Ironic - for saying such things. I don’t care; it’s how I feel... What can I do about that?
My Editor called me this morning; he wants me to write all this up, cover the trial, when it comes up.
I have nothing to say. All I can do is think of you, ‘Shan; like this morning, for some reason, my memories kept dwelling on our first meeting, and how I wondered why a Jewish name was given to a pagan Briton. You didn't see that, I know; not until we made love that night, almost a year later, and you looked deep in my mirror and found yourself. Found yourself beautiful as I had always seen you.
They are blind, those old men; blind and deaf, to waste your life without even a thought.
They must’ve hated school, to dislike lessons so intensely.
Couldn’t they have learned? No, perhaps they had already made too many mistakes; the swamp is always with them, as the deep end was always with us; they carried it along with them, they created it, foul and treacherous.
I can’t write anymore, there is nothing to say...
‘Shan, I found your journal; this morning, when I was going through your things, to pack them away, for your parents to take. (I feel very bad about this; I know it is very selfish, but I don’t want them to have them; I want to take them all; every shirt, every pair of socks, your pictures, your books, photographs....
Your writings...)
This; this journal; this is one thing they cannot have. It is ours, for us alone. You wrote it to me, it is personal; I shall take it with me when I go back home. I have to go home; I cannot stay here any longer. I wanted to take you, for you to see it, there was no time; why was there no time?
I feel horrible, I don’t know what’s happening to me, as if I could go out and destroy them all... It shouldn’t be that way, I know what you would say...
I have your journal with me; I can’t bring myself to read it yet. Maybe when I get back to the flat...
I need sleep; I’m so tired all the time.., but I can’t sleep... I need you...
I have read it; I have read it all. Jem says I was crying; I suppose I was. My face is wet and my eyes ache, but I don’t really notice these things.
At last, I have felt you with me; reading the words, hearing you say them in my mind, your presence suddenly with me, caught up in a powerful silence, almost feeling your hands upon me, moving up my arms, stroking my shoulders, my back...
I couldn’t read the part where you talk about when we made love until Jem had gone out for milk and more coffee; I felt you with me so much. I couldn’t stop myself from going into the bedroom, to lie and take a pillow to hug close to me, to imagine it was you; I swear I could feel your breath on my face, your fingers touching me, arousing an unbearable love for you...
I cried then; I do remember that; I was alone with you, and I don't know what I said to you; ecstasy evoked by your undeniable presence reaching through the agony...
My eyes closed, I could feel your power touch my mouth, the ecstasy running like a storm through me....
...as if I could open my eyes and find you there, all of the past days, nothing but a fevered bad dream...
I didn’t open my eyes. You were still with me, wrapped all around; the warmth of a blanket; I hugged it to me, and fell asleep.
The rest of it was almost as difficult to read; where in hell were they getting their information from? How did they know where we were meeting, and when? Larry, my Editor, says he has an idea about that, but he won’t tell me; I guess I can understand why. He says he’s saving it for the trial.
I don’t understand how they could’ve been so stupid as to do something which was going to immediately crack their deals wide open; for the whole country to know about.
We were safe; we knew we were safe when we wrote that letter; we had it all; we had them, they couldn't move, they HAD to accede to our requests, they had no other choice... And they gave in, acceded to our requests; I thought it was all over, done, finished with.
Why? Why did they do it?
They were pin-pointed within two hours of that bomb going off; the information was with the Police, the story was there ready to go to print at any time...
What in hell happened?
I am sorry; sorry to say this, but I think you would know, DO know, somehow, how I mean this, when I say that I hate your grave. It has nothing of you, is not anything to do with you; I can find nothing of you there.
Only at the flat, or at the Wine bar, or in the park where we walked, can I find you, any feeling of you. I talk to you, and people passing must think I am one of the crazy homeless, of which there are so many now. Or perhaps I am only just beginning to notice them. More innocents who have had their lives stolen; left with only a paper substitute with nothing to read there, but the old men’s rules and regulations, and the prejudices of the unaware.
Of course I visit your grave; to change the flowers, every week; but I can’t really bear to be there. It reminds me only of the funeral, which was stifling and small and horrible.
Cremation, yes; I can accept that, for anyone ....... But not like that! Words, a few words from some priest, someone who never knew you, and then gone. The coffin moves, the curtains are drawn... and that’s it?
NO! God, No, not like that; I wanted to scream at them, all of them, you were a warrior, you knew how to fight, you should have had a flaming bier out on a Beacon hilltop somewhere, a blaze to be seen for miles around, your spirit free, curling upwards with the smoke into the Midnight sky.
And the tea and little cakes afterwards... Oh, God, I couldn’t stand it. Jem and I left early, just slipped out; went down to the local pub and got drunk and held a wake for you - ‘The Dragon’s Arms’ - where we used to go with everyone after meetings. Most of the locals in there knew what had happened, so we held a wake for you; Jem says he lost count of the number of times people came up and said how sorry they were, that you were a lovely, friendly, funny girl, (they meant that kindly,) and what a waste of life it was, and shameful that someone could plant a bomb like that.
Sorry that you were dead.
I don’t like to say it, but I don’t remember; only that you were with me and I kept expecting, without thinking because I was drunk, to see you there, as if I’d forgotten why we were there.
I don’t remember getting home, climbing into bed, nothing; just slowly waking up the next morning, and still feeling you with me, still feeling warm and close to you.
But then, suddenly, you were fading away fran me; I lay there, frustrated and sad and empty, so empty; desperately wanting you with me; desperately wanting to make love with you for hours and hours until there was no outside, only us, in a perfect circle, knowing everything.
I have never felt so lost, and angry, knowing nothing except that everything I had was broken...
It was a bad time; a bad time for me.
I‘m sorry if somehow this hurts you, to know this, but you must have everything, as you gave everything, the good and the bad; all my instincts tell me this, that you must know all of me; now; always.
I will never stop telling you, in whatever way I can find, that I love you; how I love you.
I remember how heavy the old ways had made you with guilt and sadness and despair. I could kill just because of that.
There is a power that runs through me sometimes, like now, when I feel with a wave of my hands, a slow blink of an eye, that I could wipe away all the foulness and the evil that so loves to enslave innocence, as if that is the only way it can regain what has been lost.
Their rules, The Book of the Old men ... it all means less than nothing to me now. I will do what I have to.
But... why did they do it?
Were they betrayed... by someone.......
Was it someone other than them who did what we had to fall short of?
Who... who?
Who was it?
Getting off the ‘plane, collecting baggage, going through the indignities of customs - even more necessarily careful now - leaving the airport, and getting a ride with an old school friend... Everything passes me by these days, my gaze still inward, seeing only you.
My father was happy to see me, but concerned. I could understand why.
“What are you doing here now, Daoud? Now is not a good time; the fighting could begin here again, any day now.”
“I can’t come and see my old father?”
“I am not so old! And you are not so old, either, to be wise enough to always do the right thing. And in this house, you will tell the truth, please. Something has happened, I can tell; you are here, and you are not here, at the same time; so tell me. You look like someone has died.”
His eyes always saw too much. I told him. Not everything; he is a traditionalist, he would not have approved of some of the things that I have done for my work in England. But enough for him to understand what drove me back to my roots, at least for a while.
Despite the shadow of turmoil and heartbreak, the atmosphere of which is ingrained into every stone, every heart, of this city - a residue of the almost constant fighting here - my father was shocked and saddened by the events which I retold to him, in bits. It was hard to keep my mind from wandering as I spoke to him; more than once I realised that I had lapsed into silence as my thoughts were held once more by some remembrance of you. There was a moment when a picture of you standing in the kitchen, just making coffee, came into my mind, and it was so vivid that I was captivated by it. I could see every line of you, the way you held yourself; I was intensely aware, for some reason, of the exact angle of the lift and shape your right arm made as you poured the hot water into the mugs. I could see the steam rising from them, could almost smell that unique, attractive aroma that hot coffee has.
You were wearing a plaid shirt and a long, black skirt... It took a moment only to pin-point when it was; that day we got back from the hospital after we found out about the attack on Jamie and Karen, and I was so mad.
You turned and brought the cups over and laid then down on the small table; merely sat there on the long over-stuffed sofa which you were so fond of, while I paced the room, wearing holes in the carpet, threadbare already, all the time raging at the old men and their ignorance and selfishness.
When I sat, eventually, drained of impetus, bitter and tired, only then did you do anything, say anything. Taking my shoulders in your capable, loving hands, you worked away the pain, the anger; your words pulling gently apart all of my half-formed schemes for a rash and dangerous revenge. The sound of your voice stilled me to silence; your hands, as counterpoint, gradually wooing me into wanting only you.
Oh, the love we made that night ...
I moaned softly at the thought of it, and the vision shattered, glass breaking into the silence, as I felt a touch on my arm. My father, guarded concern on his face, asked me if I was alright. I realised that was the third time I had drifted off into memories. I apologised to him, saying I was tired.
“Get yourself to bed, Daoud; it drains the life out of you, remembering things like this. I remember when your mother died...”
He waved his hand at me, dismissive, kind; muttered, “Sleep, sleep. In the morning you will feel better. Go on,” and getting up fran his old wooden chair in the corner, where he always sat, he made his way, slow and awkward now, into the back room where he slept. Taking the half-burned candle he had lit between us, to talk late into the night, I went through to the little room off the main room, where I had always slept from a child.
The picture of that night after the attack, came back to me before my head hit the pillow, and I found I could not sleep. In torture and ecstasy, I relived that night of love that you brought; every moment, every detail, vivid inside me. Every sound, every sensation came back to me; awoke, alive, inside me: the way you shed your clothes, quietly, not tantalising; your hands soothing and then with fire over my chest, shoulders, arms; your mouth, everywhere, a slow but insistent blessing of fire, your warmth moving over me, intense and slow, a siren’s song, summoning me to the rocks, to dash myself against you and break open, free at last, to lap at, and caress, the spirit of your existence.
The night’s remembrance was a river in flood, rushing over rocks and river bed, stirring up unbearable emotions, that carried me away into blinding light and finally, the dark, warm waters of oblivion.
You are shaking me apart; changing me from the inside out, with your love. My whole existence is caught up in, being swept away by... creating...
A Firestorm.
It’s time to move on, do something, write..., write....
Sitting in the grove at the back of the house, with you quite settled in me, nothing else is constant. To keep up your journal, as I have been doing, is not enough.
You require action.
What am I doing here? My father is right; I must go back to England.
The trial is a year away. So; I have that much time to try to find out what went wrong at the end.
You haunt me constantly now, but as a slave-driver, drawing me back to work, giving me no rest until I have unravelled the weave of this mystery.
Old newspaper reports have told me nothing more than when I originally wrote them; Jem and I have gone over and over than; there are no clues; the words are silent, creating only distraction and confusion. Apart from the evidence that you unearthed, (that the group was being targeted by certain Council members because its anarchistic approach was in danger of raising questions about corruption within any body of authority - for example, the Council,) my thoughts can only keep returning to the bomb blast and the final betrayal of the Council members.
Who on earth had anything to gain from such a course of action? Was it another Council member? Hard to believe, as the obvious consequences of such an action, must surely, eventually, draw attention to that person.
Jem has suggested that perhaps the bomb was planted by someone who had nothing to do with any of us, like the IRA. Again, I think that’s unlikely, as no warning was given before hand, neither have they claimed responsibility for it.
The only other people I know of who had any hand in this at all, are those men who infiltrated the meetings with their violence in order to have the public turn against us. Even now there are those who believe the group got what it deserved. But they were hired; working only for money. I witnessed one such pay-off myself. Where in hell do I go from here,‘Shan? I know of no-one else it could have been, and I can find no reason for it.
....And yet, perhaps it is these men I need to investigate. So far, we have accepted them as we have come to see them; tools, nothing more. But where did they cane from and how did they become involved?
You know, ‘Shan, the more I think about this, the more my gut feelings tell me that this isn't all there is to this; perhaps these men were already there, just waiting to be used.
Used again? Just what kind of work have they been used to? What have they done in the past... and for whom?
| EDITORIAL
‘Violence in our inner cities these days is ever on the increase, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for our Country’s Police Forces to control it, as statistics have shown. Whether such violence is a result of the difficult social climate, or whether it is what creates that climate, is a matter for debate, and, I would imagine, a very lengthy one at that. Nevertheless, whatever the reasons for it, ours is still a free Country, and we, at least, can count ourselves better off than our South African or South American neighbours. Is it not, then, up to us to do what we can to maintain stability where we can? It has long been suspected by many of us that financially and morally, the Government has certainly more on its plate than it can even begin to bite off, let alone chew. Perhaps it is up to us then, to show them the way. ~ ‘I cut short my Editorial this week, to make room for this report from our office, by a journalist whose work you will have come to know well over the past few years. I feel he can perhaps put the point across better than I can. Although, I must say, I wouldn’t advise that you go to the lengths he does.’
PEST CONTROL by Daoud El Sahir. ‘It has been three months since I returned from my sabbatical at home on the West Bank of the Gaza strip, and I am convinced now, of one thing; this long trail that I have been following as best I could, did not begin with the members of our City’s Council who come up for trial next year. On the contrary, it started with the men who actually created the trouble for the Group, who have remained as innocent of, and shocked by, the instances of violence that their perpetrators |
breathe out onto everyone around them like smoke, as you or I.
‘The work they were hired to do, to gain satisfaction for the greed of others, was nothing new to them, I have found; I have seen their criminal records; have been allowed to view the warp and weft of their activities, and only now begin to have a full measure of the cut of their cloth. ‘But there never seems to be quite enough cloth to make a suit which will fit then for the jail sentences that they deserve. ‘Their threads extend over half the country - even across the Channel -it is amazing to me that they should bother themselves with such a local matter; to them, a minor thing. But perhaps a mouse may finally trap a cat; who knows? ‘You, the reader, may consider that shedding light onto these people and their work, stupidity; perhaps you may expect to read of my sudden and unexplained death in next week’s column. God knows, removing obstacles such as myself, is not something they would shy away from. But too many innocent people have already died for someone such as I am, to stand by and play it safe. Those trapped by prostitution or drugs; scum, you might say, but living beings nonetheless, who have now lost their chance of learning that they might free themselves; and innocent bystanders, in a bomb-blast, the results of which still burn the dreams of many into the nightmare of empty ashes, my own among them. This I know; they will be found, somehow, sooner or later, and will pay the price that the ordinary people, striving to hold onto their dreams and disparate individualities, demand.’
|
‘Shan; I have a confession to make.
I know why we had so little time; I’ve been thinking about it lately. I deprived you of love that you might have known a lot sooner; I am so sorry.
A Pagan named Shushan; what a mix-up there. Bound by tradition not of your own choosing, and constantly struggling to be free of it; struggling to be simple, instead of all those different shades of grey.
There was passion in your eyes when you talked, that you didn't know about; I wanted that passion, wanted it free.
But I never told you. I was scared that, along with your friendship - valuable enough, I might also lose your help.
I talked you into this; talked to you, took you to group meetings, let them talk to you...
You didn’t know them, love them, as I had come to. Nevertheless; you began to blossom in the shade of this family of strangers, even then. I don’t think you knew that, or if you did, perhaps you were a little scared of it, having been kept asleep for so long, that that was all that was comfortable to you.
But if I hadn’t involved you, you would be alive now.
I know, I know... alive but asleep; unaware. I saw, felt, how much it meant to you, to wake up, at last.
But the waste, the grief, now; I know you would never blame me, nor any of them...
Help me, forgive me; I cannot forgive myself.
Is that why I keep writing these reports? Bringing out into the open, all the activities, the evil, the nightmares that these men create? I know what it could mean, for me eventually.
My own death. Is that what I want?
I go out every day, even as you used to, to see what else I can find; more and more evidence. Fraser, my contact on the Force has warned me not to involve myself anymore, to leave it to the Police, but I can’t; I feel restless constantly and can only alleviate it by digging deeper, trying to pave a way to bring these man to the justice you even now demand.
I reach out, in the night hours, to find you missing from my bed, and it is as if you have gone out hunting; I have no choice, then, but to follow in your footsteps, sometimes for hours.
Was it wrong of me to involve you? Is this my punishment from you?
All I can do is dig and write; dig and write...
God help me, I am losing you... I have lost you.
Have I lost you?
* * * * *
Jem, THE INTERPRETER
You asked me to keep in touch with you, Dad, about how things are going; I can’t tell you too much; I think Daoud is trying to keep me away from it all, because it’s getting too dangerous now; he could get himself killed, and he knows it, and he doesn’t want me to go down with him. I’ve begged him to drop it, but it’s like he’s not really there with you; I trail off into silence sometimes and he doesn’t notice. He’s having a bad time of it, and I don’t know what to do to help him, reach him.
Half the time I can’t even find him; when I do it’s because I’ll bump into him on a street corner somewhere, looking washed out and nervous. He says he‘s found someone, someone he’s working on, someone who can give him the information he needs to finish this thing. I hope it happens soon.
If only we hadn’t lost ‘Shan. She knew just what to do, how to make him see things in perspective; stop and think. He keeps insisting that it’s ‘Shan who’s making him do this. The way he speaks of her sometimes; like he’s being haunted, driven. I know she would never do that to him, alive or not; if he’s being driven, it’s by his own conscience, for some twisted reason; I simply do not think he’s dealt with her death; cannot accept that she’s gone.
What’ s left of the group has gone underground, so to speak; we carry on with our own lives, keep in touch, of course, meet sometimes in the ordinary way, but no more than that. We keep a sharp eye out for ourselves now; we learned that lesson, of necessity. It worries me that Daoud’s activities might exact more reprisals amongst us; those of us with children take them to and from school each day, even if it means three hours travelling a day. The last time I saw Daoud, I told him I wanted him to stop what he was doing for the sake of the group, and he said he just needed a few more days and then it would all be done with. That was a week ago and I’ve not heard from, or seen, him since.
One thing, at least; the newspaper reports have stopped, but I know it’s because he’s saving it up for the big one.
I just wish to God it was all over.
Will visit soon,
love, Jem.
* * * * *
Daoud, THE DRUM
‘Shan; last entry before tomorrow night. It will either get me killed, this meeting, or it will explode this pool of evil for ever.
Saw Karen out with Jamie yesterday; he’ s still in a wheelchair, but he looks like he’s recovering well. It seems like something from another life, when that happened; it WAS another life; you were still here, then. But what am I saying? You ARE still here, aren’t you? Pushing, pulling.., do you know how tired I am?
Yes. Of course you do, I know you do. I’m sorry. Well, tomorrow, I shall either be with you - at last - or this will all be over, and then we can both rest.
I thought I’d lost you, you know that? Yes, yes, I’m sorry, I told you, didn’t I? You know, even when I thought I had, I couldn’t stop, couldn’t rest, even take a breather.
Jem’s worried; afraid for the group - not many left now - but not for long; one way or the other, tomorrow night...
I’m afraid; I’m always afraid now; I keep asking myself, if all this is worth it, but I can’t stop... I can’t stop. This thing HAS to be finished, and there’s no-one else to do it.
This woman that I am meeting with, she was married to the man who holds the purse strings, gives the orders, known to only two or three in the syndicate; the thugs who do the dirty work, they only work for him, and they don’t know him; but this woman; she is willing to give me enough to pull in the net on all of them; the whole damn show. I meet her, and take her straight to Fraser; she hands the evidence over to him, and is given Police protection. She will be moved to a ‘Safe House’; even I don’ t know where.
The arrests will be carefully planned and timed to be effective and simultaneous, so that no-one slips the net; there will be no bail set for the lengthy list of charges that Fraser anticipates will be brought.
This woman, Helena is her name - you would like her ‘Shan - is very frightened to do this, but she is being very brave; apparently her ex-husband was no bowl of candy to live with any more than he is in his ‘business’ dealings, and this will be something of a personal revenge for her.
I hope it all comes off alright.
Well. I shan’t sleep tonight; too nervous; but I am so tired; more than anything in the world, I just want to let go, let it all go, with nothing to worry about anymore, and sleep; just sleep for days. And more even than that, I wish I was with you; I have grown so tired of the fact that I can’t hear your voice, can’t really touch you anymore. Those first days ... afterwards... when your presence was with me so strongly; that has faded now; you are there, I can sense that, but you don’t touch me anymore; the nights are so empty, without respite. Only in sleep can I be closer to you. Sometimes it’s memories, sometimes a dream of how it could have been ...
But I don’t sleep much now, so at least there’s no come-down when I wake up.
Tomorrow night... one way or the other....
All done; all over. Helena is safe, neither of us getting blown to Kingdom come; the arrests... all of them taken... the mopping up...
Now I don’t have to think anymore, don’t have to move anymore; now I can sleep.
But I don’t think I can.
I‘m too tired to celebrate; even call anyone.
But I wish to God you were with me.
Where are you?
Where? Where are you?
I had a dream last night; a long, twisting, winding dream; and so real that, when I woke up and didn’t find you beside me, I went searching through the flat to find you, convinced that I would.
Sitting here on the carpet, hungry but unable to eat, in that early light before true dawn, the world outside my window still and quiet, I am still trying to unravel the dream.
I was driving along a quiet country road; I felt apprehensive about something. There was a wood on the left hand side of the road, suddenly, and I stopped, pulled over, parked in a gateway.
Leaving the car, I entered the wood, still apprehensive, seemed to sense that I was looking for something. I saw you, dressed in jeans and an anorak, big red woollen scarf, sat on the stump of an old tree. You had a piece of wood, a stone and a leaf in your hands. I tried to call out to you, but had no voice. Being but a few feet from you, I wasn’t worried; you looked up and saw me. Getting up, you beckoned me to follow you, which I did.
It was muddy, squelchy underfoot, rich, dark, wet earth and dead leaves; you went deeper into the trees; it was quiet except for the birds, but the stillness, nevertheless, had a quality of sound to it, more sensed than heard.
But suddenly, this delicate quality was crushed and blown away, by what I came to realise were gunshots. There was movement in the trees, which I couldn’t see, except at the corners of my eyes, and sounds of falling; small, thudding sounds. Another gunshot, so loud, I hunched down to the ground, covered my ears. Something brushed against my foot. Daring to open my eyes, I saw a small bird, sane kind of thrush; it was covered in its own blood, blasted open by the shot... so terribly, terribly dead.
Rooted to the spot, I couldn’t move a muscle, wanted to scream into the darkness, but could barely part my lips, as if they’d been sewn together. Fear pumped adrenaline uselessly through my veins; still, I could not move.
There was someone coming towards me, someone squelching heavily through the mud, and swinging something through the bracken, as if it were a knife to cut it down; someone in corduroys - trousers and Norfolk jacket - and it was a gun he was carrying, a great heavy hunting twelve bore; I could see the moonlight slashing in streaks down the twin barrels as he swung it, with great purpose, to and fro with his left hand. He was a gamekeeper, and for some unknown reason it came into my mind that he was only one of several; I was terrified that he would see me, God knows why; it wasn’t me that was killing his birds.
He stopped for a moment; looked around him; I lowered my head slowly, praying he wouldn’t see me. When I looked up, I saw that he wasn’t alone ... the poachers were with him, guns held across their arms, and talking to him. I shut my eyes, and crouched lower in the undergrowth and the mud.
Realising suddenly, that I didn’t know where you had got to, I raised my head cautiously, and looked around; everyone had gone, but I could see you standing a little way off, in front of me, and you were holding out your hands to me. The wood, stone and leaf were still in your hands, as if you were offering them to me, perhaps for me to protect them, I thought. I approached you, and noticed then that you were talking to me, your face agitated.
But I couldn’t hear you; I tried to call to you, but still couldn’t open my mouth.
Then I remembered something... remembered... SHAN!!
That was when I woke up, and went looking for you, to find out what it was that you were trying to tell me.
What was it?
And what does it all mean?
Or does it mean anything at all? Perhaps it’s just me... dreaming.
I don’t know.
* * * * *
Michael, Jem's Father, THE SONG
It’s been a long hard fortnight for the remnants of the group; especially, I think, for Daoud, who has taken this totally unexpected revelation very badly.
But, of course, I should explain myself, for whomever else may read this after them. The trial of the men responsible for the harassment, and violent and deadly atrocities, perpetrated on this group of innocent and well-intentioned people, is finally over. We are holding this meeting, possibly the last the group will ever have, to decide the fate of the group, in the light of this final evidence: Jem has asked me to chair the meeting, and to record it to tape, so that he and Daoud can mull it over when tempers are less high; heaven knows when that will be.
The nature of the woman, Helena’s, evidence, backed up by the evidence and personal research of Daoud’s Editor, I suppose, should have been suspected, and undoubtedly would have been if clear heads had been at work on this mess.
But it wasn’t, and it has come as a terrible shock, especially to Karen and Daoud, who are the most affected by it.
Information about the group’s whereabouts and activities was leaked to the relevant Council members, and then to the gang doing their dirty work, by an insider.... Jamie.
Apparently he tried, more than once, to pull out, and the attack on him and Karen was initiated by Councillor Maynard, who was the main person involved with the gang. The attack was supposed to target only Karen, as she was the one who usually did the shopping; it was unfortunate for Maynard that Jamie happened to be along that particular day, and the gang members who made the attack, got carried away.
So he lost his main source of information, until it was too late for him and his two co-conspirators, anyway.
This man Maynard, by the way, had connections with some of the major drugs distributors, who were part of the larger picture, so to speak, deep in his past; he had apparently, at some point, reneged on a rather expensive deal with them, but had been able to maintain good relations with then, because, at that time, he was still needed by them.
But they never forgot that broken deal.
Once the group had seemingly won their victory, Maynard had been prepared to cut his losses, and leave well alone, so long as the evidence against him and the others was never released where it could be acted upon.
But the mob had other ideas. One more incident, a fatal one this time, would bring Councillor Maynard to his knees, publicly. And by now, they had a solid hold on him, in the shape of his new wife and son; they knew he could not afford to reveal any of his former connections with the ‘underworld’ as it was called in my day.
So the gang, making one more threat to Jamie against Karen - her death, this time, if he was uncooperative - gleaned their one final, necessary piece of information; the time and location of the group’s celebration dinner.
And then they planted the bomb, knowing that this final act would release the group’s evidence against Maynard and the others, into the ‘right hands’, and Maynard would be done for.
An excellent revenge.
It went just as they had planned. The blast would have caught all the group, my son, Karen, Jamie - killing two birds with one stone, as it were - everyone, if the van they were travelling in hadn’t had a puncture, making them more than half an hour late. Daoud and Shan, travelling separately in his car, arrived on time. The bomb had been placed at the back of a window seat at the table they’d booked, and was set off by a preset timer.
Daoud had gone to the bar to get a drink, and so didn’t get caught by the full force of the blast.
Shan, still sitting at the table, was killed outright, as were four people at nearby tables and a pedestrian who was passing by in the street.
You know, it reminds me, all this, of when I was younger; I myself was involved with people who felt and thought as these young people do. There was much opposition from the ‘old men’ back then, too. We got in the way of their politics and their way of life, and there was no more communication then than there is now. And people got killed then, too. Riots, demonstrations... the forces of the older generation’s fear and stale ignorance were heavily against us.
But, as I had grown older, I had hoped that that was all finished with.
It looks like I was wrong.
They sit here, trying not to look at each other, finding themselves, at the moment, with nothing to say. There was a time like this, something like this, in the old days, with my old group; I dropped words like sleet, back then, into their silent winter and the weather of my spoken thoughts got them talking at least.
But I‘m too old to be sleet and snow now. Winter does nothing now, but make my bones ache, and I have no wish to be out in it, or the cause of it.
At last, Daoud arrives. He is pale and thin and tired, but the horrible shock of last Wednesday’s revelation in court, has restoked the fire that really should have been allowed to go to ashes. That young man has done more than enough, for my son and his group. Why should this be left to him? I might as well ask why there are so few Mother Theresas in this world. The answer is the same, I suppose; there are so few fitted to the task.
They don’t want to look at him, as if they are as guilty as Jamie, but slowly, amongst themselves, they try to sort out, the whys and the wherefores; the who-knows and the if-onlys.
In the end, it is Daoud, they must try to convince; I hear by the heat of his words how much he thinks he hates Jamie at this moment, and he won’t listen to them.
The fact that the men concerned have been brought to justice and sent down, seems to matter less to him than punishing Jamie. Really, it could have happened to any one of them, and perhaps their actions would have been no different.
Eventually, the meeting breaks up under a cloud; Daoud has stormed out of the house, just a little while ago. They are all worried for him, and for Jamie, I think, too. Jem is in there now, giving them tea before they go; I, as I have said, consider this important enough to write in my diary, so have taken a few minutes aside to do that.
The girl, ‘Shan; she kept a journal so Jem has told me; I wonder, had she been here, what she would have said tonight? For Daoud, at the moment, there is only hate and blame; but I think before too long, he will remember her. Perhaps then he will come around to seeing the truth of all this. I hope so.
With nothing left to fight for, I think that he is so alone now, bereft, even of himself ...
* * * * *
EPILOGUE
Daoud, THE DRUM
For a long time I couldn’t bring myself to go and see Jamie. For a long time, I hated him like I have never hated anyone. I felt, only in relation to myself.
Then, one morning, I woke up, quite early, and remembered you; was suddenly aware that I hadn’t thought of you, as I had used to think of you - in relation to you.
I decided in that moment, that, as much as I didn’t want to, until I’d seen him, I would never be able to put things right inside me; never be able to regain any kind of direction in my life, and in my work.
I wrote to my father again; asked him to pray for me, for all of us. he sent me back the veil that my mother had worn when she had been alive. I knew he was asking me not to judge Jamie out of hand, and to try to understand the position that he was in; the reasons for his betrayal of us.
I took the veil with me, still wrapped in the silk bag that my father had always kept it in since her death.
As soon as Karen had found out about Jamie’ s treachery, she had packed her bags and left him without a backward glance; she returned to her parents in France, and we haven’t heard from her since then. So; Jamie was alone in the house when I arrived. At first he wouldn’t open the door to me; but I couldn’t leave without at least hearing his side of things, so when I wouldn’t go away, at last, he let me in.
He’d obviously really let himself go. The house was a mess, there was a pile of unopened mail on the kitchen dresser, and he looked like hell. Not sure what to say to him, I set about starting to put things back into some kind of shape: cleared out the fridge, did the washing, opened all the windows to let in some badly needed air, and then, once I’d practically forced him to clean himself up, took him shopping.
He looked and acted like some old tramp you’d find hanging about in the park begging for coppers; he flinched at every word, every look, like an animal expecting a kick. It wasn’t until much later, in the evening, that he would even look me in the face.
"You’re doing this for her, aren’t you?"
"Doing what, Jamie?"
"All this; me."
"I don’t know; possibly, I’m doing it for myself, for you. Because I hate waste; you’re wasting yourself, letting yourself go like this."
"I don’t care. Why should I? It’s too late."
"That’s not true. ‘Shan would have said- "
"Oh, please, don’t talk about her; or is that why you’re here? To remind me of what a weak-minded bastard I’ve been ..."
"No, that’s not why I’m here, and for God’s sake, just stop with the self-pity; it won’t buy you anything from me or ‘Shan."
"Look, what the HELL do you want me to do? I killed her, as good as, didn’t I? I betrayed all the lot of you, why are you helping me like this? Why don’t you just leave me alone?"
"No; this has gone on long enough. If I can live with it, then so can you. And I want you to tell me why. Why, when you could’ve come to us, could’ve asked us for help. We might‘ve convicted them all sooner if you had."
"I told, you, for God’s sake don’t remind me! I’m not a bloody Christian Soldier, like I thought I was; I can’t stand up and fight the good fight like the rest of you; what do you need to be convinced?"
"You’re not going to convince me, Jamie, and stop trying to put my back up, it’s not going to work. ‘Shan can’t come back... but you can, and you’re going to, if I have to get all the others to help. ‘Shan would want you to."
"Oh, don’t, don’t, leave me alone, can’t you?"
I couldn’t. He cried like a frustrated child in the end. I found myself holding onto him while he let it all out: the tremendous fear of reprisals from the uncontrollable men who had such power over him; the constant feelings of guilt and self-loathing, which his helplessness against them left him with; the horror of what they did.
It was horrible to see him reduced to this; not even a shadow of himself, he was like a different person, someone I could barely recognise. Whilst clearing up around the house, I found his guitar, smashed up; when I asked him about it, he just shook his head, dismissing this which he had once guarded with his life and treated like another friend.
Had it been pedantic of me to consider that I was looking after you, back when you were still with us, ‘Shan? Maybe; but I felt so protective of you.
And now I have someone else to look after, don’t I? Jamie has to learn to walk again - literally as well, as it happens - step by step.
He’ll grow, but first he has to want to; I can forgive him, and he must make his peace with the group, if that’s possible; he was with them too long for him to just be able to walk away from them, as he wants to right now.
Can he forgive himself? I know how that feels, I told you.
Will I ever be able to stop talking to you, writing to you, in the present tense? I don’t want to... and why should I have to? I’ve forgiven Jamie, so I can get on with my life, now...
I can even enjoy myself again, as long as I share that enjoyment with you. I‘m not mad, and I’m not lying to myself, and I don’t expect you to wait for me. Energy can be neither broken nor destroyed; you’ll be back. As long as you’re around, somewhere, I don’t care.
As your favourite, Kahlil Gibran, has written;
‘What was given us here we shall keep. And if it suffices not, then again we must come together and together stretch our hands unto the giver.Forget not that I shall come back to you. A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam for another body.
A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.’(*)
~finis~
(+)Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence.
(*)From "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran.
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