Mister Pip (21 page)

We were all there, an orderly, well-drilled crowd. As usual, we'd gathered without any order to do so. The officer did not appear as interested in us as he was last time. We were waiting for him to go through his roll and ask us to answer our names. But he was interested in one name only. He approached the rambo. He stood over him and, in a voice loud enough for the rest of us to hear, he said, “Point out here the one who is Pip!”

The rambo lifted his bloodied face. He raised a weary arm and pointed towards the schoolhouse. The officer gave an order, and two of his men grabbed the rambo by the arms and, half-dragging him, made off in the direction he'd indicated. To the rest of us the officer said, “I am finished with being lied to.”

As we watched the soldiers and the rambo disappear I remember feeling preternaturally calm. This is what deep, deep fear does to you. It turns you into a state of unfeeling.

It was only a few minutes later that we heard gunshots. Soon the two redskins reappeared by the schoolhouse. They carried their guns on their shoulders and otherwise looked bored. Between them was the rambo. They must have untied his hands, because he was dragging the limp body of Mr. Watts towards the pigs. We averted our eyes for the next bit. But some of us were too slow to avoid seeing the flash of the machete as it was raised. They chopped Mr. Watts up and threw him in pieces to the pigs.

I am unexcited as I remember this; my body no longer shakes. I no longer feel physically ill. I have found I can reassemble Mr. Watts at will and whenever I like, and my account so far, I hope, is proof of that. At the time, though—well, that is a different story. I suppose I was in shock.

Everything had happened so quickly—from discovering the rambos gone, to the reappearance of the redskins, and now the killing of Mr. Watts. The events seemed to come as a package. There was no separating them; there had been no time to breathe between them.

The redskin officer looked around at our horrified faces. His glower was him telling each one of us that he wasn't bothered by what we had just witnessed. He pointed his chin in the air. Once more he said he would not be lied to. He would not tolerate it. The way he looked at us, we knew he was looking for fear. He was looking for someone to catch his eye. Maybe he would kill that unlucky soul for insolence.

We looked at the ground, as if we were the ones who should feel shame. I could hear him sucking his lips—he was that close, but that's not why he knew he didn't have to raise his voice. By now we were so fearful, he could have whispered and we would have heard him.

“Look up,” he said.

He waited for each of us to pick our eyes off the ground. He waited for the last kid, and for the parent to give that little kid a nudge.

“Thank you,” he said at last, almost politely. And in the same tone he asked us, “Who saw this?”

He stared hard at our faces, and I am ashamed to say I was one of those who dropped their eyes back to the ground. It was only when one of us spoke that, in spite of myself, I looked up.

“I saw it, sir.”

It was Daniel, looking pleased with himself. He had beaten his classmates with the answer. The redskin officer stared at him long and hard. He did not know Daniel was slow. He spoke to one of his soldiers, who nodded to another, and the two of them took Daniel into the jungle. He went without complaint, swinging his arms at his sides. And for a moment it seemed none of us would complain. Then Daniel's grandmother spoke up, the same woman who had come to our class to talk about the color blue. “Sir, let me go with my grandson. Please, sir.”

The redskin gave a nod, and the old woman—after replying with her own nod of gratitude—hobbled along on a bad hip behind another soldier, who looked annoyed to be asked to lead an old woman into the jungle.

Along our line a small boy began to cry. The officer snapped at the boy to shut up. The mother's hands hovered over her son. She wanted to calm him but she didn't want to move without the officer's permission. The sobs grew fainter on their own. And when the officer turned to our end of the line, the woman dropped her hands and pulled the boy into her legs.

The redskin officer appeared pleased by these events. As though everything was going along very well, perhaps even better than he had expected. He shuffled in his boots and clasped his hands behind his back. He wasn't looking anywhere in particular when he spoke. “Now, once more I will ask you fools—who saw the white man die? Who saw?”

The silence was long and hot, and as I recall there was no bird sound.

There was no sound until I felt my mum move from my side.

“Sir. I saw your men chop up the white man. He was a good man. I am here as God's witness.”

The redskin officer strode across to my mum and struck her face with his open hand. The force of the blow turned her head. But she did not cry out. She did not fall to the ground like a helpless woman. If anything she seemed to grow taller.

“I will be God's witness,” she repeated.

The redskin pulled out a gun and fired several shots at my mum's feet. She did not move.

“Sir, I am God's witness,” she said.

The commander barked out an order and two redskins grabbed my mum by her shoulders and dragged her towards our line of shelters. She did not scream. I did not hear her utter a word.

I wanted to go with her but I was afraid. I also wanted to speak out on Mr. Watts' behalf but I was too afraid. I did not know how to speak out or run after my mother without bringing harm to myself.

“You. Your name.”

Up close I saw the filmy sweat on the officer's face, and his yellow eyes seeking out my fear the way a dog will smell it on another.

“Matilda, sir.”

“Are you related to this woman?”

“She is my mother, sir.”

When he heard that, the officer yelled out to his men. A soldier came forward and pushed me with the butt of his rifle. “Move,” he said. He kept pushing me with the butt. But I knew where I was to go.

When I came around the huts my mum was on the ground. A redskin was on top of her. Another soldier was doing up his trousers—this one looked cross to see me. He shouted something at the soldier who had pushed me here. This man said something in reply, and the one doing up his trousers smiled. The man on top of my mum looked over his shoulder, and the soldier who had brought me said, “Her daughter.” Now my mum came to life.

She pushed the man off her. I saw her naked and felt so ashamed for us both that I began to cry. My mum pleaded with the soldiers.

“Please. Have mercy. See. She is just a girl. She is my only girl. Please. I beg you. Not my darling Matilda.”

One of the soldiers swore at her and told her to shut up. The one I'd seen on top of her now kicked her hard in the ribs and she collapsed, gasping, on the ground. The soldier who brought me there grabbed my arm and held me.

My mum struggled to sit up, wheezing and groaning with the effort. She held out her hand to me. I saw how everything in her face had come loose with fear. Her wet eyes, the shapeless mouth. “Come here,” she said. “Come here, my darling Matilda. Let me hold you.”

The soldier let me go a bit, then snatched me back like a fish on the end of a line. The others laughed.

I felt relieved when the officer with the sweating face appeared. He seemed to find the sight of my mum crumpled up in the dust disagreeable. His eyes and mouth joined in disgust. He ordered her to stand. My mum struggled upright. She clutched her ribs. I wanted to help her, but I could not move. I was rooted to the spot.

The officer seemed to know exactly what I was feeling and thinking. He gave me a funny look—not quite a smile, but a look that has stayed with me ever since. He took a rifle from one of his men and with the barrel lifted my dress. My mum sprang at him. “No. No! Please, sir. I beg you.”

A soldier grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back.

God's witness had changed back to a mother, but the officer didn't see that. He only saw the woman who had promised to be God's witness. He spoke quietly, as a man might who is in control of himself.

“You beg me, and for what? What will you give me to save your daughter?”

My mum looked broken. She did not have anything to give. The officer knew this, and that's why he was smiling. We had no money. We had no pigs. Those pigs belonged to someone else.

“I will give myself,” she said.

“My men have had you. You have nothing left to give.”

“My life,” replied my mum. “I will give you my life.”

The officer turned to look at me.

“Did you hear that? Your mother has offered her life for you. What do you say?”

“Don't speak, Matilda. Do not say anything.”

“No. I want to hear,” said the redskin. He had placed his hands behind his back. He was enjoying himself. “What do you say to your mother?”

While he waited for me to say something my mum used her eyes to plead with me, and I understood. I was to say nothing. I was to pretend that my voice was my secret.

“I am running out of patience,” said the officer. “Is there nothing you want to say to your mother?”

I shook my head.

“Very well,” he said, and gave a nod to his soldiers. Two of them lifted my mum and hauled her away. I went to follow, but the officer put out a hand to stop me.

“No. You stay here with me,” he said. Once more I saw how yellow and bloodshot his eyes were. How sick he was with malaria. How sick of everything he was. How sick of being a human being.

“Turn around,” he said. I did as he ordered.

All the lovely things in the world came into view—the gleaming sea, the sky, the trembling green palms.

I heard him sigh. I heard him rustle around in his shirt pocket for a cigarette. I heard him strike a match. I smelled the smoke, and I heard him make that kissing sound as he smoked. We stood there, almost shoulder to shoulder, for what felt like a long time but was surely no more than ten minutes. Over that time he didn't speak. He had no words for me.

So much of the world seemed to lie elsewhere. So much of it unrelated to our being there and what was happening behind our turned backs. Those tiny black ants crawling over my big toe. They looked like they knew what they were doing and where they were going. They didn't know they were just ants.

Again I heard the redskin officer sigh. I heard him sniff. I heard a murmur of satisfaction from him; it came from a deep place like a tummy rumble, and I thought he was giving his assent to an event that only he could see.

I found out later what I didn't see. They took my mum to the edge of the jungle, to the same place they'd dragged Mr. Watts, and there they chopped her up and threw her to the pigs. This happened while I stood with the redskin officer, listening to the sea break on the reef. This happened while I gazed up at a sky where I hardly noticed storm clouds gathering for the brightness of the sun in a blue sky. The day held so many layers, almost too many things, contradictory things, all jumbled up, that the world lost any sense of order.

In recalling these events I do not feel anything. Forgive me if I lost the ability to feel anything that day. It was the last thing to be taken from me after my pencil and calendar and shoes, the copy of
Great Expectations,
my sleeping mat and house, after Mr. Watts and my mother.

I do not know what you are supposed to do with memories like these. It feels wrong to want to forget. Perhaps this is why we write these things down, so we can move on.

Even so, this hasn't stopped me from wondering if things might have turned out differently. There was an opportunity. My mother could have held her tongue. The question I keep coming back to is this: would my rape have been such a high price to pay to save the life of my mum? I do not think so. I would have survived it. Perhaps the two of us.

But at this point I am always reminded of what Mr. Watts once told us kids about what it is to be a gentleman. It is an old-fashioned view. Others, and these days I include myself, will want to substitute
gentleman
with
moral person
. He said that to be human is to be moral, and you cannot have a day off when it suits. My brave mum had known this when she stepped forward to proclaim herself God's witness to the cold-blooded butchery of her old enemy, Mr. Watts.

W
E WERE ALIVE, I SUPPOSE. THAT WAS US moving like ghouls to complete the burial tasks, our mouths and hearts stunned into silence. I suppose I must have breathed. I do not know how. I suppose my heart must have continued to pump blood. I did not ask it to. If I'd known about a switch to pull in order to turn off the living part, I might have reached for it.

People waited until they were sure the redskins had gone far into the jungle. Once they were sure, they killed all the pigs. It was the only thing we could think to do to give a decent burial to Mr. Watts and my mum. We buried the pigs.

They found Daniel later that afternoon, on a mountain track, high in a tree, his limbs spread like a crucifix, ankles and wrists tied to branches above and below; a stick of wood holding his mouth open, and flies buzzing around his flayed body. They buried him with his grandmother.

I was aware of people both watching me and watching after me. I was aware of a dozen small kindnesses.

When night came I lay down but there was no sleep. There were no tears either. I lay on my side, and I stared at the space where my mum should be, at the moonlight shining on her teeth, at her silent triumph.

I must have slept, though, because I woke to a wind from a strange direction. It rose, it turned shrill, it went mad with a thousand furies before neatly falling away to nothing. This was followed by a heavy rolling thunder of such violence that you thought it would bring the skies tumbling down. I don't imagine anyone slept through it. There was a rip of lightning. Then, like before, a tremendous stillness fell over everything: us, the birds, the trees.