by Gemma Malley
‘You were there?’
‘Several times.’
‘And?’
He smiles and shrugs. ‘The wars when the colonialists left – they were brutal. I was raped several times –’
‘Raped?’ I look at him in horror.
‘As a woman,’ he says. ‘I have lived as woman and man. So have you. In that life all my children were killed in front of me, all of us were left to die.’
I think of something that makes my hair stand on end. ‘Was I there? Was I one of the –’
Douglas shakes his head. ‘Not then. But our paths have crossed, Will, many times. As I’m sure they will again.’
‘And you don’t hate me? You don’t want to hit me? To kill me?’
The girl’s hand moves to my arm. ‘Will, it’s not like that.’
‘No?’ I round on her. ‘Then what is it like? Please explain, because to be honest I really don’t get it. I mean, I’m an evil bastard, right? And you’ve endured horror and pain in all your thousands of lives or however many there have been. And yet you’re here with me like we’re old friends.’
Douglas lets out a sigh. ‘You know,’ he says, ‘after a war, soldiers find it hard to talk to civilians about what they’ve been through. They often become recluses; marriages break up and old friendships are torn apart. Ex-combatants can often only talk to each other because only then do they know that they are understood, that they aren’t being judged, that they can be themselves. Soldiers on the other side, the enemy, understand better what a soldier has been through than his own wife.’
‘We’re all soldiers together?’ I look at him incredulously. ‘That’s rubbish. I’m the soldier; you’re the civilians back home who’ve been bombed to smithereens.’
Douglas clears his throat. ‘OK, how’s your history, Will?’
I shrug. ‘Not great,’ I say testily.
‘You know about the First World War?’
‘Some.’
‘Have you heard about the armistice? The Christmas armistice?’
I shake my head.
‘Ah,’ Douglas says. ‘Well, let me tell you what happened. It was 1914, December 24th. The trenches were a grim affair. You’ve heard of them, I suppose?’
I roll my eyes. ‘Sure. Mud and stuff.’
‘Mud, ice, dead bodies, lack of sanitation, yes,’ Douglas says gravely. ‘And then on Christmas Eve there was a ceasefire. It wasn’t organised or anything. It was just Christmas. And the Germans didn’t want to fight any more than the British or the French or the Belgians. They sent notes over asking for a ceasefire. They gave each other cigarettes, chocolate cake. They sang carols and celebrated Christmas. They even played football.’
‘Seriously?’ I frown. ‘You’re not making this up?’
‘I’m not making it up, no,’ Douglas confirms.
‘OK,’ I say dubiously. ‘But what has that got to do with me?’
‘Don’t you see?’ Douglas looks at me carefully. ‘We are soldiers on different sides of the same battle. We are here because of each other. And there is no fighting at the moment. We are at peace.’
I think about this for a while. ‘And the next day?’ I say eventually. ‘What happened when it was all over?’
‘When it was all over?’ Douglas looks at the girl, who squeezes my arm.
‘Then it was back to war,’ she says. ‘They started fighting again.’
‘Right,’ I say uncomfortably. ‘So it didn’t mean anything.’
‘It meant everything,’ Douglas says. ‘The dividing lines were not between people. They rarely are. They are between political stances, ideologies, beliefs.’
I look out over the river. I feel confused, uncertain. I turn to the girl. ‘Was I there? During the First World War. I don’t remember it.’
She looks over at Douglas, who nods. ‘You weren’t there,’ she says. ‘You died in the Mexican Revolution.’
‘The Mexican Revolution.’ Images flash into my mind – of heat, of power, of attackers. ‘I was attacked.’ I look at Douglas hopefully. ‘I was attacked. Me. I wasn’t the one who . . . I mean, they killed me. I remember it.’
‘After you massacred anyone who rebelled against you,’ Douglas says wryly. ‘You ruled the place for thirty-four years before you were deposed.’
My shoulders slump. ‘Right. Yeah,’ I say. I sigh. ‘So anyway, you were telling me about India.’
Douglas frowns. ‘Will, I can tell you, but the stories are all the same. India, Africa, right here in the UK. There’s Mongolia, six hundred years ago – I was beheaded as part of an ethnic cleansing exercise. Russia, forty years ago – I was sent to Siberia, to a work camp, died of hypothermia. Hungary, five hundred years ago – stoned to death as the Ottoman Empire spread into my country. Humans may progress, Will. They may think that they are moving forward because they have invented clever machines and because they control the land and sea. But man’s capacity to inflict and endure pain is constant. Man’s desire for power, to beat down his competition – it hasn’t changed in the slightest.’
The girl nods. ‘The stories don’t matter,’ she says. ‘They’re all the same in their different ways.’
‘All the same.’ I repeat her words. Something is bugging me, but I’m not sure what. And then I realise what it is. I stand up. I want to be looking at both of them. ‘So what’s the point?’
‘The point?’ Douglas frowns.
‘You said that Returners exist to absorb the pain, to remember it for humankind.’
‘That’s right.’
‘But what’s the point, if people carry on doing terrible things, if I keep coming back, and others like me, to inflict more suffering? What do you achieve?’
He smiles sadly. ‘We can’t change humankind,’ he says. ‘Human nature is what it is. Driven by desire for material things, for love, for conquest, for knowledge. The best and the worst come out of this desire.’
‘But if history just keeps repeating itself, then why remember? When it doesn’t do any good? I mean, people are always rewriting history. And what’s the point of remembering if you don’t remind people once in a while?’
The girl looks at me sadly. ‘Memories don’t have to be at the forefront of the mind to exist, Will.’
‘But nothing ever changes.’
‘It does. It just happens slowly.’
‘So what happened in Auschwitz will never happen again?’
She looks uncomfortable. ‘It’s not like that,’ she says.
‘Then what is it like?’
‘You are asking the wrong questions, looking at this the wrong way. What Emily is trying to explain is that our paths are all set,’ Douglas says gently.
‘Emily?’ My head swings round to look at the girl. I realise I didn’t even know her name.
‘Names don’t matter,’ she says, reading my mind.
‘Nothing seems to matter to you,’ I say bitterly. ‘Not the fact that I don’t know your name, not the fact that some people kill other people, not the fact that some people torture and maim other people. But it does matter. It all matters.’
‘It matters, but not in the way you think,’ she says. ‘We are comrades throughout time. Names are transient.’
‘Maybe to you,’ I say staunchly. ‘Maybe you’re beyond names. But I’m not. I’m Will Hodges. And I am not going to do this. I’m not going to do whatever it is you think I’m going to.’
‘We don’t know what you’re going to do,’ Douglas says. ‘But it is not for you to choose.’
‘You mean my choice has been made for me? No. No way.’
‘Not made for you, no. But we will always make the same choices. We are who we are.’
I shake my head. ‘I refuse to be who you say I am.’
He stands up
and takes my hand. Emily takes the other one; I feel warm suddenly, as though I have just come in from the cold. ‘I don’t think I have explained it very well,’ Douglas continues. ‘Returners hold on to humanity’s violent secrets out of love, out of hope.’
‘Hope?’ The word makes me feel uncomfortable.
Her eyes, looking at me. Begging me. Hopeful.
‘How can you feel hope when you know your life is doomed to be full of suffering?’
‘We need hope and love, Will. Without either of those . . . well, that’s when the suffering will start in earnest. That’s when everything will come to an end.’
‘And returning brings hope?’ My voice is heavy with sarcasm.
‘Absorbing the pain stops hope from being destroyed.’
‘Hope gets destroyed,’ I say bitterly. ‘Trust me.’
Douglas looks at me sadly. ‘Tell me, Will, is there love in your life? Is there hope?’
I think of Claire. Think of Dad. I think of Mum.
But she’s gone. They’ve all gone. It’s just me on my own. I have to deal with this, take control. I am in shade, I am in scrubland, I am in a swamp, I am sinking. I feel myself getting angry. I am resentful. I feel pain and it hurts and I want it to go away, and it is Douglas’s fault, I see that suddenly. He is making me feel bad and I want him to go, want them both to go, and yet they are still here.
‘Go,’ I bark.
Douglas shakes his head. ‘We won’t leave you, Will. We know what you intend to do, and we won’t let you do it. It will only cause you more pain. You have run away for long enough; you need to accept things as they are.’
‘I’ll do what I want,’ I say. The anger is rising up like a tsunami, quick and deadly.
‘Of course you will. But allow us to guide you at least.’
‘Guide me? Guide me?’ I am furious. I feel rage coursing through my veins. I grab him, I throw him to the ground. He doesn’t resist. I kick him. He lets me. It makes me more angry, more bitter. He is pathetic. I am strong and he is weak and he will learn, he must learn . . . I throw myself down on the ground on top of him; I am hitting him, grabbing him by the neck. My hands hurt; it feels good. It feels as though I am wresting control, as though I am in charge. I am just doing to him what he wants me to do, what he expects me to do. He is responsible for this, and he must pay. He must pay.
Suddenly I stop. My anger has evaporated; I can’t remember its source any more. I get to my knees and I stare at my hands in horror. What have I done? What just happened? I feel hands on my shoulders – Emily’s hands. I shake her off. ‘Don’t touch me.’
‘It’s OK, Will,’ Douglas says, pulling himself up painfully. His cheek is bleeding, his voice is strangled. ‘It’s OK.’
‘It’s OK,’ Emily echoes. She is standing next to Douglas now. Their haunted eyes are fixed on me.
‘You are who you are,’ they say in unison.
‘What am I?’ I whisper. My hands are bruised. A lump is appearing above Douglas’s eye. I look away. ‘I don’t know why I did that.’
‘Yes, you do. You were angry. You blame me for that anger.’
He’s right, but I won’t admit it. Can’t admit it. ‘You didn’t even try and stop me. You didn’t fight back.’
‘Returners don’t fight back. It is not for us to stop what happens. We are what we are, Will. We all play our role.’
He is smiling; I look at him incredulously. I hate him for smiling. Hate him for telling me I cannot change. ‘If you won’t help yourself, then I’ll help you,’ I say, ‘and you can’t stop me.’
I stand up and walk towards the water’s edge. I am full of self-loathing. I am evil. There is nothing else I can do to stop it.
‘That isn’t the answer and you know it,’ Emily says.
‘Think, Will. Think of the people you love. Think of your hopes, their hopes. You are part of those hopes. The fabrics of your lives intertwine. You belong here, you must live your life as it is intended to be lived. Running away will not help you or anyone else.’
‘Living won’t help anyone if I’m evil,’ I say, my voice choked.
‘Evil is an emotive word,’ Douglas says. ‘Unhelpful too. You are yin to our yang. You have a different energy force, that’s all.’
‘Like Hitler did?’ I swing round and stare at them defiantly.
‘History moves along a certain course,’ Douglas says gently. ‘One cannot fight it. Be with the people you love. Be who you are. Make peace with your destiny.’
I move away from the water, sit back down on the bench, let my head drop into my hands.
And suddenly I am crying. Weeping. I don’t even know why. Is it shame? Or is it fear?
Emily sits beside me; Douglas stands over me. We stay like that for a few minutes. Then I wipe my eyes. As I do so, something hits me. Something important. Something I’ve been pushing from my head. ‘Dad,’ I say. The conversation with Patrick. He’s doing something wrong. Something terrible. He doesn’t realise, doesn’t see. And Yan. He didn’t do it. He shouldn’t be in prison.
‘You love your father,’ Douglas says. ‘And he needs you.’
I shake my head. Then I nod. I think of Dad’s face, of his sitting in the chair alone, always alone since Mum died. ‘He doesn’t need me.’ My voice has gone all raspy. I wasn’t even going to say goodbye to him. I was just going to leave him. Like Mum did. Only this time he’d have had no one. No one at all.
‘What is it, Will? Tell me.’
‘I won’t be . . . I can’t be who you say I am,’ I manage to say.
‘Perhaps not now. But it’s who you are, Will. It’s who you will become.’
‘No.’
Douglas stands up. ‘You promised you wouldn’t do anything stupid, remember.’
‘Killing a future murderer isn’t stupid in my book,’ I say, even though I already know I can’t do it, can’t do what Mum did.
‘You know we’re here for you,’ Douglas says, turning and starting to walk. Emily gives me one last look, a smile framed by mournful eyes, then walks after him.
It’s properly light now; I realise they have cleverly kept me talking until daylight. There’s a woman on the other side of the river walking her dog; there will be other people soon. It is too late.
I stand up and let the early rays of the new day’s sun warm my face, warm my bones. I have goosebumps; I need to eat, to have a hot shower.
I hear something, footsteps, quiet ones, creeping ones, from behind me, from behind the bushes, and I swing round, then stop, my mouth falling open.
‘Will?’
It’s Claire.
‘Will, I’m sorry, I . . . When you said goodbye like that I was worried. Worried what you might do. I followed you. I’m sorry. I was going to just go, but . . .’
I stare at her. ‘You followed me? You’ve been here all the time?’
‘For ages.’ She’s shivering, her wide eyes surrounded by shadows.
‘You mean you heard.’
She nods. ‘They were . . . That was them?’ she asks. ‘Returners?’
‘Yeah.’
She looks at me, right into my eyes. ‘You were going to do it, weren’t you? You were going to . . . in the river, I mean. Like your mum.’
‘I guess.’ I put my hands in my pockets awkwardly.
‘That man is right. You can’t run away.’
I roll my eyes. ‘So what then? I just stay put and wait for whatever it is that’s going to happen? Wait until it’s time to kill some more people?’
‘No.’ She bites her lip, maintains her gaze. Her eyes are so clear, so true, so defiant. They never show any hint of doubt, of uncertainty. ‘You have to fight, Will.’
‘Fight, yeah. Fight and torture and –’
‘Not that sort of fighting.�
�� Her voice is growing in confidence. ‘I’ve been thinking about it and I think that man is wrong. Nothing is set in stone, Will. Nothing is determined, not until it’s happened. You don’t have to be who they say you’re going to be, who you think you’re going to be. You can be someone else. You can change. Everyone can. We all make our own decisions, every single day.’
I shake my head. ‘Making a decision about whether to have Cheerios or Shreddies isn’t the same as deciding whether to be an agent of evil or not,’ I say. ‘Look, thanks for the vote of confidence, but you don’t get it. Look at what I’ve already done – to Yan’s brother, to Dad. I’m bad. Deep down. I’m not a nice person, Claire. I’m not nice at all. I saw it all tonight. I remember it. Auschwitz – I was there. Rwanda – I was supposed to lock those people in the school . . .’
I wipe my eyes angrily.
‘But that’s just it, Will. You’re not that person. Not really,’ Claire says, looking at me intently. ‘You told me about Yan, about your dad. You care. You hate the characters you inhabit in those dreams. Nightmares, I mean. Maybe there’s some Returner soul inside you that’s evil, but that’s not you. You can fight it. You can, I know you can.’
I want to believe her. But I know I can’t. ‘No.’
‘You can. I’ll help you.’
‘Help me? How?’
‘You do these things without knowing. Well, if I’m always with you, you’ll know. I mean, I’ll stop you.’
I raise an eyebrow. ‘You’ll stop me?’
‘Yes.’ She folds her arms.
‘What if I hurt you? What if I turn on you, like I turned on Yan’s brother? What then?’
Claire shrugs. We’re walking back towards town. ‘You won’t.’
‘I might.’
‘No.’ She looks up at me, bites her lip. ‘You remember why we stopped being friends?’
I look at her awkwardly. ‘I guess you found better people to hang out with.’
‘No, Will. That’s not what happened.’
‘It isn’t? So what? We just drifted apart then?’
‘No,’ she says again. I feel my stomach clench. Another chunk missing from my life. What did I do? What did I do to her?