Bodily Harm by Margaret Atwood
In the middle of the morning, at the usual time, the two guards come again. Today one of them is new, he's too young, skinny body, thin wiry arms, face smooth as a plum, eyes innocent. Rennie takes one look at him and sees that he knows nothing at all. Morton is frightened, he's got his arm across his chest, almost touching his pistol, things are no longer under his control. It's the innocence of the other one that frightens him.
They unlock the door. Lora's watchful but she bends over anyway to pick up the smelly red bucket.
"Her turn today," says Morton, pointing at Rennie with the other hand. "You been doin' it every time."
Rennie isn't prepared for this, she knows what will be expected of her and she's not ready for it, but Lora steps in front of her, she's going to dare him. "Why?" she says. "Where's Sammy?"
"I don't mind which one," says the boy. He's heard something then, he wants part of it, he knows what but not what for.
"Shut your mouth," says Morton. He's afraid of being caught out, the young kid's smart enough to figure it out but he's a fool, he'll tell, maybe not deliberately but one way or another. He wants Rennie to go rather than Lora because it's safer, that's what he thinks. "Sammy's grandmother got sick," he says to Lora.
"Yeah," says the young boy. "She sick bad." He has a high nervous giggle. "What you need Sammy for? I just as good."
"I'll go," says Rennie. She doesn't want a squabble, something's about to go wrong.
"No," says Lora. The barred door's partly open, she yanks it and pushes out into the corridor. "What's happened to Prince? Is that it? You don't want me to know, you don't want to tell me. Oh shit. Where did you put him?"
She's got Morton by the arm but he's the one who's sweating, it's not her, she's tight and cold. The young boy's looking at both of them, trying to untangle this. He giggles again. "Prince?" he says. "The big man, Prince of Peace? He never in here at all, man."
"Shut your damn mouth," Morton says to him.
"You tell her he still alive?" says the boy. "He dead a long time ago, man." He thinks this is a joke. Rennie wonders whether he's stoned, it's a possibility.
"When?" Lora says quietly, to him alone, not to Morton. She's dropped her hands down, she's no longer holding Morton's arm.
"What you need to tell her that for?" Morton says with disgust. The boy has completely blown it.
"He caught in the crossfire," the boy says. He giggles some more. "That what it say on the radio. You tell her you got him in here, make her work hard for you, eh? Get some for your own self. You are a bad man." He's laughing now, not just giggling, this is the funniest thing he's heard in a long time.
"You pig," Lora says to Morton. "You knew all along. You were just afraid I'd crack up if I heard about it, right, and then they'd find out what you were up to. They shot him in the back, right?"
Morton puts his hand on her arm, soothingly, like a doctor almost. "You go back in," he says. "I doin' the best I can for you. You lucky you alive."
"Fuck you!" Lora screams. "I'll tell everyone about you, nobody screws me around like that, they can shoot you too for all I care!"
Tears are running down her face. Rennie heads towards her. "Lora," says Rennie, "there's nothing you can do," but Lora is beyond her. Morton is pushing her now, back towards the door.
"Fucking pig," she says, "take your fucking hands off me!" She kicks at Morton, aiming for the groin, but he's too fast for her. He catches the raised leg, lifts, tips her backwards towards the boy, who's quick enough, he's not stoned after all, he catches her and jerks her arms behind her. Morton knees her in the belly, he's knocked the air out of her. Now nobody needs to hold her arms and after the first minute she's silent, more or less, the two of them are silent as well, they don't say anything at all. They go for the breasts and the buttocks, the stomach, the crotch, the head, jumping, My God, Morton's got the gun out and he's hitting her with it, he'll break her so that she'll never make another sound. Lora twists on the floor of the corridor, surely she can't feel it any more but she's still twisting, like a worm that's been cut in half, trying to avoid the feet, they have shoes on, there's nothing she can avoid.
Rennie wants to tell them to stop. She wants to be strong enough to do that but she isn't, she can't make a sound, they'll see her. She doesn't want to see, she has to see, why isn't someone covering her eyes?
This is what will happen.
Rennie will be taken to a small room, painted apple green. On the wall there will be a calendar with a picture of a sunset on it. There will be a desk with a phone and some papers on it. There will be no windows.
Behind the desk there will be a policeman, an older man, with short greying hair. In front of the desk there's a chair, Rennie sits down in the chair when the policeman tells her to. The policeman who's brought her here will stand behind her.
She is asked to sign a release form saying that while in custody she has not been harmed in any way and has not witnessed any other detainee being so harmed. She thinks of Lora, her pulped face. She understands that unless she makes a mark on this paper they may not let her out. She feels that she has forgotten how to write. She signs her name.
They have her suitcase here, from the hotel, and her purse. The older man says that perhaps she would like to change her clothes before meeting the gentleman from the Canadian government who is here to see her. Rennie feels this would be a good idea. She's taken to another small room, much like the first except that the calendar is different, it's a white woman in a blue bathing suit, one piece, again no windows. She knows the young policeman is standing outside the door. She opens her suitcase and sees her own clothes, the clothes that used to be hers. Alien reaction paranoia. She starts to cry.
Rennie knocks on the inside of the door, which opens. She walks out. She's just as dirty but she feels less dirty now, she feels decent, she's wearing a cotton dress, faded blue, and her hair is combed, as well as she could do it in the mirror from her purse. She's carrying the suitcase in her right hand, the purse is over her left shoulder. Her passport isn't in the purse or the suitcase either. So she's not really out, not yet. She's decided not to ask where her camera bag is.
She is taken up some stairs, along a stone hallway, then into a much larger room, one with windows. She can hardly remember what it's like to be in such a large room, to look out of windows that are so huge. She looks out. What she sees is the muddy field where the tents were; now it's empty. She understands that this is one of the rooms that are usually shown to tourists, the room where they were going to sell the local arts and crafts, a long time ago. There are two wooden chairs in the corner, and a man is standing beside them waiting for her. He's still got the tinted glasses and the safari jacket.
He shakes hands with Rennie and they sit down on the wooden chairs. He offers her a cigarette, a black one with a gold band, which she refuses. He smiles at her, he's a little nervous. He says she certainly has given them some uneasy moments. There wasn't a lot they could do when the region was destabilized and the government here was so panicky, overreacting he says, but the situation is normalizing now.
The government can't make a public apology of course but they would like her to know unofficially that they consider it a regrettable incident. They understand that she is a journalist and such things should not happen to journalists. It was an error. They hope she's prepared to consider it in the same light.
Rennie nods and smiles at him. Her heart is beating, she's beginning to think again. Of course, she says.
To tell you the truth, says the man, they thought you were an agent. Of a foreign government. A subversive. Isn't that absurd? It's the common charge though, in countries like this.
The man is uneasy, he's leading up to something, here it comes. He says he realizes she's a journalist but in this instance things are very delicate, getting her out of here has been more difficult than she may suppose, she doesn't know how these small southern countries operate, the people who run them are quite temperamental. Irrational. For instance,
Rennie says she can. I suppose you're telling me not to write about what happened to me, she says.
Requesting, he says. Of course we believe in freedom of the press. But for them it's a matter of saving face.
For you too, thinks Rennie. Have you any idea of what's going on in here? she says.
The Council of Churches made an inspection and was satisfied with the conditions, he says, too quickly. In any case we can't interfere in internal matters.
I guess you're right, says Rennie. She wants her passport back, she wants to get out. Anyway it's not my thing, she says. It's not the sort of piece I usually do. I usually just do travel and fashion. Lifestyles.
He's relieved: she understands, she's a woman of understanding after all.
Of course we don't make value judgements, he says, we just allocate aid for peaceful development, but entre nous we wouldn't want another Grenada on our hands.
Rennie looks out the window. There's a plane, coming down at a sharp angle across the oblong of sky, it flashes, silver, up there in the viciously blue air. It must be the afternoon flight from Barbados, the one she came in on, only now it's on time. The situation is normalizing, all over the place, it's getting more and more normal all the time.
Actually I'd like to forget the whole thing as soon as possible, she says. It's not the sort of thing you want to dwell on.
Of course not, he says. He stands up, she stands up, they shake hands.
When they're finished, when Lora is no longer moving, they push open the grated door and heave her in. Rennie backs out of the way, into the dry corner. Lora hits the floor and lies there, limp, like a bundle of clothing, face down, her arms and legs sprawled out. Her hair's all over, her skirt's up, her underpants ripped and filthy, bruises already appearing on the backs of her legs, the heavy flesh of her thighs, massive involvement, or maybe they were there already, maybe they were always there. There's a smell of shit, it's on the skirt too, that's what you do.
The older one throws something over her, through the bars, from a red plastic bucket.
"She dirt herself," he says, possibly to Rennie, possibly to no one. "That clean her off."
They both laugh. Rennie's afraid it isn't water.
They go away, doors close after them. Lora lies on the floor, unmoving, and Rennie thinks What if she's dead? They won't be back for hours, maybe not until the next morning, she'll be alone here all night with a dead person. There should be a doctor. She picks her way carefully around the outline of Lora, the puddle on the floor, blood mixing with the water, it was only water after all. She looks out through the bars, down the corridor, as far as she can see in either direction. No one's there, the corridor is empty and silent, the lightbulbs hang along the ceiling with loops of wire in between, at regular intervals. One of them is burnt out. I should tell someone, thinks Rennie.
Rennie is in the kitchen, making herself a peanut butter sandwich. There's a radio on somewhere, a soft blur of noise, or maybe it's the television, a blue-grey oblong of mist in the livingroom where her grandmother sits propped in front of it, seeing visions. Rennie cuts the sandwich in four and puts it on a plate, she likes small neat ceremonies like this, she pours herself a glass of milk.
Her grandmother comes through the doorway between the diningroom and the kitchen. She's wearing a black dress printed with white flowers.
I can't find my hands, she says. She holds out her arms to Rennie, helplessly, her hands hanging loose at the ends of them.
Rennie cannot bear to be touched by those groping hands, which seem to her like the hands of a blind person, a half-wit, a leper. She puts her own hands behind her and backs away, into the corner and along the wall, maybe she can make it to the kitchen door and go out into the garden.
Where is everybody? says her grandmother. She starts to cry, screwing up her eyes like a child, scant tears on the dry skin of her face.
Rennie's mother comes in through the kitchen door, carrying a brown paper bag full of groceries. She has on one of her shopping dresses, navy blue.
What's going on? she says to Rennie.
I can't find my hands, says her grandmother.
Rennie's mother looks with patience and disgust at Rennie, at her grandmother, at the kitchen and the peanut butter sandwich and the groceries she's carrying. She sets the bag down carefully on the table. Don't you know what to do by now? she says to Rennie. Here they are. Right where you put them. She takes hold of the grandmother's dangling hands, clasping them in her own.
The sunlight is coming in through the little window, it falls on the floor in squares, in one of the squares is Lora's left hand, the dirty blunt fingers with their bitten cuticles curled loosely, untouched, they did nothing to her hands, shining and almost translucent in the heavy light. The rest of the body is in darkness, in water, the hand is in the air. Rennie kneels on the wet floor and touches the hand, which feels cold. After a moment she takes hold of it, with both of her hands. She can't tell from holding this hand whether or not Lora is breathing, whether or not her heart is still moving. How can she bring her back to life?
Very carefully, this is important, she turns Lora over, her body is limp and thick, a dead weight. Dead end. She hauls Lora over to the dryest corner of the room and sits with her, pulling Lora's head and shoulders onto her lap. She moves the sticky hair away from the face, which isn't a face any more, it's a bruise, blood is still oozing from the cuts, there's one on the forehead and another across the cheek, the mouth looks like a piece of fruit that's been run over by a car, pulp, Rennie wants to throw up, it's no one she recognizes, she has no connection with this, there's nothing she can do, it's the face of a stranger, someone without a name, the word Lora has come unhooked and is hovering in the air, apart from this ruin, mess, there's nothing she can even wipe this face off with, all the cloth in this room is filthy, septic, except her hands, she could lick this face, clean it off with her tongue, that would be the best, that's what animals did, that's what you were supposed to do when you cut your finger, put it in your mouth, clean germs her grandmother said, if you don't have water, she can't do it, it will have to do, it's the face of Lora after all, there's no such thing as a faceless stranger, every face is someone's, it has a name.
She's holding Lora's left hand, between both of her own, perfectly still, nothing is moving, and yet she knows she is pulling on the hand, as hard as she can, there's an invisible hole in the air, Lora is on the other side of it and she has to pull her through, she's gritting her teeth with the effort, she can hear herself, a moaning, it must be her own voice, this is a gift, this is the hardest thing she's ever done.
She holds the hand, perfectly still, with all her strength. Surely, if she can only try hard enough, something will move and live again, something will get born.
"Lora," she says. The name descends and enters the body, there's something, a movement; isn't there?
"Oh God," says Lora.
Or was that real? She's afraid to put her head down, to the heart, she's afraid she will not be able to hear.
Then the plane will take off. It will be a 707. Rennie will sit halfway down, it will not be full, at this time of year the traffic is north to south. She will be heading into winter. In seven hours she'll be at the airport, the terminal, the end of the line, where you get off. Also where you can get on, to go somewhere else.
When she's finally there, snow will be on the ground, she'll take a taxi, past the stunted leafless trees, the slabs of concrete, the shoebox houses, they'll stop and she'll give the driver the correct amount of money and she'll walk up the stairs and through her own front door, into the unknown.
She's drinking a ginger ale and thumbing through the in-flight magazine, which is called Leisure. On the front, up at the top, there's a picture of the sun, orange, with a smiling face, plump cheeks and a wink. Inside there are beaches, the sea, blue-green and incredible, bodies white and black, pink-brown, light brown, yellow-brown, some serving, others being served, serviced. A blonde in a low-riding tie-dye sarong, the splotches reddish. She can feel the shape of a hand in hers, both of hers, there but not there, like the afterglow of a match that's gone out. It will always be there now.
The ginger ale tastes the same as it used to, the ice cubes are the same, frozen with holes in them. She notes these details the way she has always noted them. What she sees has not altered; only the way she sees it. It's all exactly the same. Nothing is the same. She feels as if she's returning after a space trip, a trip into the future; it's her that's been changed but it will seem as if everyone else has, there's been a warp. They've been living in a different time.
There's a man sitting beside her. Although there's an empty seat between them he moves over, he says he wants to see out the window, one last glimpse as he puts it. He asks if she minds and she says she doesn't. He's standard, a professional of some sort, he's wearing a suit and drinking a Scotch and soda, he's selling something or other.
He asks how long she was down for and she says three weeks. He says she doesn't have much of a tan and she says she's not all that fond of lying around in the sun. She asks what he does and he says he represents a computer company. She wonders if he really is who he says he is; she'll wonder that about everybody now.
Vacation? he says.
She could pose as a tourist but she chooses not to. Working, she says. She has no intention of telling the truth, she knows when she will not be believed. In any case she is a subversive. She was not one once but now she is. A reporter. She will pick her time; then she will report. For the first time in her life, she can't think of a title.