Days Like Today (27 page)

He’d slapped her. She’d taken a step back. He’d called her obscene names. He’d hit her again, this time on the other side of her face, and then advanced on her. As she took the next step back, she turned to see how close to the edge she was and while she was still trying to protect herself rather than thinking of attacking him, he made a rush at her and pushed her quickly several times, until she went over.

The moment when she realized that she was falling – she wouldn’t describe it except to say that it was worse than the moment when she knew that she’d never get out. From above her he’d shouted, ‘And you can stay there.’

It would have been simple to find the man. Maria could
remain unseen and point him out; it would be easy to kill him.

‘Let’s see if he comes around saying it was all a joke,’ she said. ‘Then I’ll kill him myself. But those people he runs around with are pretty rough. They’ll probably take care of him.’

‘Unless they come after me.’

‘No. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that. As far as they’re concerned, there isn’t any connection. And he’ll probably think he was so drunk that he dreamt it.’

After a few days went by, it was too late: he no longer had the readiness, nor the high sense of righteousness, to take revenge. He wanted peace; and to begin life again, with Maria. She wasn’t in love with him but that was something he didn’t have to think about at the moment. He loved. And that was enough. As long as Anna stayed with them, Maria would probably be satisfied. Anna had replaced mother and sister; he was a substitute for the lover and possibly also the father.

As it turned out, they couldn’t find anyone who had seen Maria’s lover since the night he’d been out at the quarry with her. But they decided that if any questions came up, Anna would say she’d heard a rumor that the man had killed an aid worker and the married woman he was sleeping with: because the two men were in some kind of smuggling racket together and the woman was sleeping with them both and didn’t know which one was the father of her unborn child.

Their other enemies were in plain view. One day Anna
and Maria went shopping in town while the younger children were being looked after in a nursery group. The older ones were away at the first educational classes they’d seen since the evacuation: a kind of school that had just been started up by a group of mothers and grandmothers, one of whom – before her retirement – had been a teacher of mathematics.

Maria was rummaging through bins of patched and worn children’s clothing when Anna saw one of her tormentors: the mother from the family with whom she’d been housed. The woman was reaching into a pile of clothes. ‘Still grabbing,’ Anna said. The woman didn’t react at first, but after a moment she looked up.

Maria later perfected an imitation of the woman’s horrified understanding and recoil. When she and Anna recounted the story of the meeting, Maria would act it out while Anna described it, declaring solemnly, ‘She just stood there, as if turned to stone.’

Anna said to the woman, ‘We’ll call in to see the children in a few days. I’m still very fond of them. And I’ll pick up my refugee rations, of course. I won’t put you to the trouble of giving me a roof over my head, even if it is your duty. We’ll speak to the authorities and see what we can do about having me transferred to the family I’m with now. I’m not vindictive.’ The woman closed her eyes with relief and possibly from faintness. Anna continued in an ordinary tone of voice, saying, ‘On the other hand, you’re going to have to pay my medical bills. I’ve had quite a lot of trouble with my leg after the fall I had. You owe me that. And you know
how long I’m going to have to wait to find a doctor. So maybe you’d better leave those clothes alone. You aren’t going to be able to afford them.’ The woman nodded slowly and moved away, putting out a hand to support herself against the wall as she left.

‘It was wonderful,’ Maria told him. But Anna said, ‘As soon as they pay up for the doctor, that’s the end. I don’t want them to get so scared that they try it again. I think if they ever see the chance, they’ll move.’

Maria disagreed. ‘I don’t see why. It’s their word against yours. I wouldn’t.’ She turned to him and asked, ‘Would you?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘This is home.’

One night he went out into the orchard and dug a false grave and filled it in again. Every time he pushed the blade of the shovel into the ground he thought what bad luck it was that after climbing free from the quarry he’d been too used up to think straight; because, if he’d been fully alert, he’d have buried his wife instead of taking her in the car. That way, they’d have had a body. As it was, he’d have to pretend – if anyone wanted to investigate – that he couldn’t remember exactly which spot he’d chosen, that he’d done the grave-digging at night in order to keep the children from being upset and he was as mystified as anyone else to find that what certainly looked like the place now turned out to be wrong. The authorities weren’t going to start digging up the entire orchard. However, if by some extraordinary chance they did, he’d be forced to admit in the end that he’d lied. But that wasn’t so serious. Anyone would understand
that he’d want to tell a lie: to keep drawing the rations. He’d say that there wasn’t any corpse – the old battle-ax had fooled them all: she’d risen from her bed and gone off with one of the aid workers who had claimed that he could house her someplace closer to where she used to live.

Nevertheless, he kept digging. And soon afterwards he went to town and reported the death of the old woman. No one did anything except put the information on paper. He was told that he was now eligible to receive another refugee.

‘We buried her in the orchard,’ he began to explain.

‘Yes, yes,’ the official said. ‘No possessions?’

‘I’m afraid we had to burn the nightdress. It was too –’

‘Of course. They have her age down here as “from eighty-five to a hundred”. It’s a miracle that she lasted so long.’

‘We already have a new refugee,’ he said. ‘She had some trouble with the family she was with. I can give you their name. They’ve agreed to let you transfer her. We’ve been taking care of her for a few weeks, but we need the extra rations.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ the official told him.

The new school was a success. Within days everyone had heard about it. It attracted more pupils every week and, luckily, a few extra teachers too.

The next bit of good luck turned up when a huge shipment of flour, sugar and salt came through legally and was distributed by the authorities.

Some of the old occupations came back, even if not as
they had been practiced before the fighting. So few professionals survived anywhere that amateurs were considered better than nothing: as long as they did the work, who cared? Two girls, whose father had been a plumber, set themselves up in business using the knowledge he’d passed on to them and the tools and material he’d left behind. Even children joined the scramble for employment. A boy who had inherited his uncle’s optical equipment – and had discovered all of it, unbroken, behind a trick panel in the cellar – was now reading the medical books he’d been left. He planned to begin work as soon as he had some answers to the letters he’d sent out.

‘But that’s silly,’ Anna commented. ‘You need lenses and somebody’s got to grind them. That’s specialized work. They’re made in factories, in dust-free conditions. That belongs to another world. That’s all over now. I suppose you have to admire his initiative.’

‘And his optimism,’ Maria said. ‘He’ll probably be just the right age to be drafted when the next wave of fighting begins.’

‘Don’t even say it. Everybody’s talking about it again.’

‘They’re always talking about it,’ he said. ‘You can’t get a newspaper unless you know the right people and have the right stuff to trade, but if you do, you can read any publication you like from other countries. The only trouble is: what they print about us won’t do you any good because they don’t know what’s going on here any more than we do.’

Local news traveled – as usual – by the grapevine, which was extremely effective, although the information relayed
was occasionally completely unfounded. If you wanted customers, or were looking for a particular thing you needed for your work, the best way to get results was still to put out the word among friends, neighbors, acquaintances and strangers. A woman on the other side of town had done just that after she’d had a dream that she could cure her rheumatism by dancing. She’d talked an official into lending her a hall and some chairs and then she’d simply accosted people on the street to let them know that she was in business. One of the first men to turn up became her second-in-command by offering to bring his accordion and to supply the music. The woman rapidly collected a dedicated group of enthusiasts who were willing to pay. Her dream hadn’t mentioned remuneration; that was a natural development and a pleasant surprise. Even more unexpected was the fact that after she’d molded her idea into a reality and had given it the name of ‘The Tuesday and Thursday Tango Tea’, she was besieged by racketeers’ girlfriends who had time on their hands and wanted to pick up some refinement. Within a few weeks she’d become one of the luminaries of what – temporarily, at least – passed for society in their part of the world. It wasn’t long before the root tea and watery soup grew to resemble real tea and alcohol. To the accordionist’s dismay, the music also improved when the woman entered into a contract with a professional band that traveled from town to town all week long. They played on Thursdays, which became the popular day and helped to divide the clientele into rich and poor as well as dubious or respectable. Most dancers became
Tuesday people or Thursday people. After a while no one went on both nights, except the woman who had thought the thing up and who, despite a life formerly marked by bouts of invalidism, managed to remain at the helm.

Before the school began, there had been a local mail service run as a cooperative effort by children. Each child had had to complete a certain number of hours stamping and sorting and out on the rounds. An exception had been made for one of the founder members who was born lame and another two who had been injured in infancy by enemy action. The school cut into the children’s working time but added to the number of recruits. Since paper was scarce, their next project was going to be a paper factory and a shop where old paper could be exchanged for credits. That was for the future, as were most other similar ideas. But the town was getting organized, pulling the outlying regions into its returning life. A neighboring district had set up hospital facilities that were said to include emergency transportation to the nearest big city; no one had investigated the claim yet, as there was a strict list of conditions that had to be met by patients: all cases not considered critical were refused. However, the possibility was there and that meant hope for development: more medicine, equipment, doctors and nurses.

Some of the schemes people dreamt up were crazy, some illegal and some – often both crazy and illegal – worked, like the convoluted system of barter and banking started up by an old man who said he was ninety but was probably in his seventies and who, after a few days’ trading, became known as Major Money.

It seemed for a while as if life might continue along its peaceful course: getting back to normal and also heading towards a future of unbroken peace. But just as things were improving, the winter brought hardship again. No matter how happy they were, it was impossible to forget the cold and hunger. A series of fevers and children’s diseases ran through the entire sector. There were deaths as well as children who survived with damaged hearing, eyesight and lungs. Food was scarce and once more it was a long winter.

The next time the aid workers turned up, they brought two nine-year-old children: a twin brother and sister, who were almost completely silent for a few days. They didn’t even trust the other children, preferring Anna’s company. But they helped with any work that had to be done. After a while, slowly, they joined in the conversation. Soon they were enrolled in the school and sharing sentry duty on the first planting in the garden.

‘They’re nice kids,’ Anna told him. ‘I think they’re going to be fine as long as nobody asks them any stupid questions, like, “Where are your parents?”’

The days were warmer, longer, lighter. It was nearly spring.

With the good weather came better food and more of it. One or two luxuries turned up as a result of haggling at the weekly market. It began to seem as if, for that year at least, they could be leaving the bad days behind. There was work and building material. He’d even been able to get hold of some cans of paint that hadn’t dried out.

And then, after so many years, the fair came back to
town. Everyone took its appearance as a sign that someone was sure about an eventual peaceful settlement to the hostilities. The traveling musicians had been the first professional entertainment to return to the region, but they hadn’t been the real thing: they could pick up their instruments and run if they had to. A whole fairground was different; you needed tents and ladders, transport trucks and food for the animals.

Every day his children told him news of the marvels to be seen at the fair. He heard the same descriptions repeated by adults in town: that there was a big tent with a cage full of animals and even room for a trapeze act as well as tightrope walkers. The animals weren’t the wonderful striped, spotted or maned big cats; they were the more ordinary bears and seals, but the bears at any rate were dangerous, so the children could derive some pleasure from them. One of the bears in particular was gigantic. It was the only one kept muzzled and chained. Word of its size and fierceness spread through the neighborhood before anyone had seen it.

Everybody wanted to go to the fair. It was traveling around the country, which meant that it would set down near them only for a short while. It would be the big treat of the year. Of course he’d have to take everyone in the house – the whole crowd of them.

He produced his wallet and counted out bills. A few of the children were so impatient that they danced up and down in front of him. He paid the money to the woman in the
ticket booth. She handed him a long ribbon of paper, still unbroken. He passed it to Anna, who began to tear the single strip into separate pieces, giving a ticket to each child. ‘Remember now,’ she told them, ‘don’t get lost. Come back here just inside the gate when the whistle blows and don’t speak to strangers, even if they tell you they’re from school or the district hospital or the police.’