The Saulie Bird

by Eliza Quancy

  ***

  For a whole week we sweep and scrub and clean. In a corner of the shower room, I find bits of Saul’s watch. The face and a small bit of the strap. Chewed. He never took it off. Not even at night. He used to boast that it was waterproof but I don’t know if he kept it on when he washed. Nothing else. I can see that Layla doesn’t believe me that I didn’t move him, but surely she can understand that he was too heavy. I couldn’t have moved him even if I had wanted to. I think that sometimes she believes me and sometimes she doesn’t. There’s no smell she says. If Saul’s body had been left here, the whole house would have smelled of it. How does she know that? But she stops asking about him and we clean until our fingers hurt from the bleach and then we work in the garden.

  ‘How are we going to manage for money?’ I ask one evening as we sit on the veranda after we’ve eaten. ‘How much have you got left?

  ‘There is some hidden,’ she tells me. ‘We used to hide it behind the shed. It will still be there.’

  ‘Who were you hiding it from?’ I ask and Layla laughs.

  ‘From ourselves,’ she says. ‘We used to pretend that it wasn’t there so that we didn’t spend too much. There might have come a time when Saul couldn’t carve and we would need it.’

  ‘And who’s going to go down to the city to get food?’ I ask.

  ‘I will, Auli,’ Layla says. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe.’

  I feel ashamed because she’s lost Saul. I killed him and she has to look at me knowing that. I ask if it’s hard for her knowing that I killed him and she says that it is.

  ‘I know with my mind,’ she tells me, ‘that you had to do it, Auli. But I wasn’t here and I remember him in different ways. I remember him saving me. And loving me. And staying with me even though it was dangerous, and he had to give up everything else and give up everyone else. It was a big thing.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ I say. I tell her that me, too, I remember Saul as he used to be and it doesn’t seem real what he did to me. But it was. The scars on my hands show it. The scars on my ankles show it. They will always be there, although I have to admit that the pain in my legs has almost gone. Every so often, Layla asks me about Saul and the shackles and eventually, she tells me her own story.

  ‘Did he tell you where he got them from?’ she asks one day when we’re out in the garden. I know she means the shackles.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘They were meant for me,’ Layla says and goes on. ‘In the village, when they said I was a witch, they put me in shackles. Somebody in the village had been to Australia and brought them back from there. I don’t know why he got them but they were used on me. When Saul helped me escape, he brought the shackles with us and he kept the key.’ She pauses and stares at the earth pulling weed after weed and tossing them on to a pile on the path. ‘The shackles were a symbol of my freedom. We loved them.’

  ‘I never saw them,’ I say. ‘I didn’t know you had any.’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘We didn’t want to burden you. We were going to tell you when you were older.’

  ‘Like the meaning of the circle?’ I ask. ‘Why have you put it back, Layla? Why have you started sweeping it again?’

  ‘It’s to keep us safe,’ she says and grins at me.

  I raise my eyebrows and wait for her to go on.

  ‘We know it means nothing,’ she says and pauses. ‘But if anyone comes, Auli, it will mean something to them. They will know that it’s the circle of safety and they won’t step across.’

  ‘But there’s nobody here,’ I say.

  ‘Someone may come,’ Layla tells me. ‘So we have to be ready.’

  17

  Nobody comes. We work hard to get new vegetables growing, starting early each day before it gets hot. It is a good thing that Layla has brought pumpkin seeds and kaukau for planting. No wonder the bilums were so heavy and yet all I did was complain. All I thought about while going up the mountain was finding Saul.

  ‘Where did you get them from?’ I ask. ‘All these seeds. And the cabbage seedlings and the pineapple.’

  ‘From my friend,’ she says. ‘From Shantelle, where we stayed. She’s good to me. Always good to me.’

  ‘What did you tell her?’ I ask. ‘About where I’d gone and where you were going.’

  ‘I said you’d gone home. Felt homesick and gone home.’ I watch as she makes raised beds ready for more pumpkin seeds. Layla works fast. ‘And I told her I was going into hiding again. She knows what happened and that’s why she gave me the seeds.’

  ‘Does she know that we’re here?’ I ask. ‘You said that we shouldn’t trust anybody.’

  ‘No,’ Layla replies. ‘Only that we’re somewhere in the mountains.’

  A few minutes later, she asks me about Joel. Is he still ringing? And am I tempted to reply?

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’m tempted, but you told me not to respond. I like Joel but there’s no future is there?’

  ‘The future is in your belly,’ she says, glancing at my bump which is getting big now. ‘But you’re right. It’s better he doesn’t know.’ She stops and straightens up. ‘And he’s a policeman,’ she says pulling a face.

  ‘So what,’ I snap. ‘He saved me, Layla.’ And I realise that it’s true. So much has happened that I’ve hardly thought about Joel. But if he hadn’t let me escape… An image of the police station burning … with me trapped inside, of the fire reaching my clothes, my skin… I’ve heard that being burned is unbearable. Painful beyond imagining. Burned alive. Like Joan of Arc. Except she turned into a saint afterwards. I shiver. No point in being a dead saint. Better to be a live sinner.

  ‘Has he been in touch?’ she asks again and he has but I shake my head. If she’s going to pull faces about him and make disparaging remarks, I’m not telling her about Joel. What’s wrong with being a policeman anyway?

  Mostly, we work without speaking. It’s in the evenings after the crickets have stopped and the light has gone, after we’ve eaten and cleared away that we sit outside and talk a little. We sit in the dark with just the light from the moon and the stars. The kerosene lamp is only good in the house. If you carry it outside, the light attracts every type of flying thing, especially mosquitoes. It’s good to sit here and as time pases, we think less about Saul. It wasn’t often that he sat outside with us. The veranda was our place, not his. Usually, he was inside the house watching tv. We haven’t managed to get it to work again yet because we’ve been busy with everything else.

  It’s light outside tonight. I look up and see the moon surrounded by some black space and then the stars. Thousands of them filling the sky. There are hibiscus bushes right next to the veranda and after looking up, I look down. I lean over and stare at the foliage but even though it’s such a light night, you can’t see the colours. The bright red flowers nestling among the green leaves are a memory, just dark shapes now, but the jasmine grows higher and the little white flowers are clear to see, little stars that I can touch. I breathe in the scent and think of the garden in the city where Layla took me to talk and we put flowers in our hair. We haven’t had time for any of that since we’ve been back home. Home. That’s a big word.

  One evening, Layla starts telling me about her village and what happened to her. It is Joel’s village, too, I remember. It’s Joel’s place she’s talking about but she doesn’t know him. She left before he was born. It was a good place to be, she tells me and her face lights up with the memories. Her voice sharpens and lifts. It was where she grew up and where she lived until she went to train as a teacher. Even after she started work and married Saul, she went back a lot. Saul had a store in Boroko and sold carvings, masks and tables and that’s where they lived, but Layla’s father was old and sick and her mother needed help so she spent a lot of time in the village.

  ‘So why did they say you were a witch?’ I ask. ‘Why you, Layla?’

  ‘There was a man,’ she says and her face darkens. ‘He wanted my father’s land. Kept asking him
to sell, but my father wouldn’t.’ Layla turns and looks at me. ‘So that’s why, Auli. That’s why it was me.’

  I still don’t understand so Layla continues.

  ‘His son died,’ she goes on. ‘His small son and after that, he went mad. He used his son’s death as an excuse to get the land. Told the village I was a witch. Said it was me who killed his son. They tortured me,’ she says and looks at her hands and I see them twisting. ‘That’s how the man could get my father’s land. My father would have to pay compensation on my behalf. They took his land as payment for the dead child.’

  ‘And did you?’ I ask. ‘Did you admit it, Layla?’

  For a long time, she is silent and I think our talk has finished, but then she speaks again. I can hardly hear her.

  ‘They put hot rods in my body, Auli. You can’t imagine.’ Layla gets up and goes inside leaving me to sit and stare at the sky and then down again into the bushes below.

  The next day we finish the planting and Layla says we should have a rest. She will try and get the tv going and we can watch a movie. I am lazy all afternoon and spend the time reading through my old books. Children’s books so they only last a few minutes. I skim through them and start to feel irritable. I find myself longing for my laptop. I could get stories on my laptop as well as news and movies. I look again along the top shelf. Saul’s shelf. But there is nothing there. No laptop. Some lumps of dust that we must have missed when we were cleaning.

  ‘Have we got enough money for a laptop?’ I ask her hopefully as I stand in the doorway and watch Layla as she bends over the table where the tv lies with its back off.

  ‘What!,’ she says, ‘You must be joking. We’ve hardly got enough money for food. And we already need to fetch some more.’

  ‘How soon?’ I ask and she turns to look at me.

  ‘Now,’ she says. ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘So will you go down the mountain?’ I ask her. The baby is kicking and I don’t want her to go. I’m scared of this being inside me waiting to fight its way out. What if it’s like Saul? Huge and aggressive. What if Saul’s spirit has gone into the baby and I’m carrying him around inside me? How will I manage? Who can I ask for help?

  Layla says she’s surprised that my bump is so big but that everybody is different. Some women have big bumps. Some have small ones. And it might be twins, she says.

  Oh my God, I think. One is bad enough. Pray God there aren’t two little monsters in there. That’s what it feels like now. A monster. The kicking never stops and my stomach rises first on one side and then on the other.

  ‘I don’t want it,’ I blurt out to her. ‘I don’t want it, Layla.’ Then she walks over and slaps me hard on the face and tells me to get out of her sight.

  I go to lie down and I hear her start to cook. She’s underneath the house, banging the pot and everything else down there. And I think she’s crying.

  I get up and go to help her. We chop in silence and drop the vegetables into the pot.

  ‘I’m frightened,’ I say. ‘When you go to fetch food, I’ll be here by myself.’ She looks at me but her face is hard. ‘The baby might come while you’re gone,’ I whisper.

  ‘Of course, he won’t,’ she says. ‘You’ve got at least another month left. Maybe two’ and her voice gets quieter. ‘And don’t you ever complain again about having a child!’

  I listen and I understand. But it doesn’t help. I’m still afraid and I’m beginning to hate this being inside me.

  After we’ve eaten, Layla puts down her bowl and tells me that she’s going in the morning. She spends all evening messing about with the tv and trying to get it to work. Hardly speaks to me as she keeps poking the back of it. The tv is laid out on the table but the connections are on a board so there’s nothing she can screw or unscrew. Layla is angry. I know that it’s me she’d like to be jabbing and hitting but she leaves me alone and concentrates on the tv. After pulling bits and poking and scraping at the back with her screwdriver, she plugs it in and surprise. It’s alive. Definitely better than before. There are grey flickering lines all over the screen as well as a harsh white noise.

  ‘Take this,’ she tells me and hands me the aerial. ‘Now hold it up high.’

  I try.

  ‘No, not there. Left a bit. Higher.’ The lines on the screen move more frantically than before. ‘We’ve nearly got it,’ she says. ‘Move back a bit. Stop. Higher.’

  This feels more like ordering me about than mending the tv but I do as she says.

  ‘I can’t hold it up any longer,’ I tell her and put the aerial down on the table and the tv springs into sudden life. A picture, sound. Somebody talking. We stand and look at it mesmerised. If we move, it might disappear but then Layla does move slightly and the whole thing dies. Black screen. No lines, no crackles. Dead.

  ‘It’s buggered,’ Layla announces. ‘You shouldn’t have moved.’

  I’m speechless as I watch her pick up the hammer and raise her arm. ‘It’s completely buggered,’ she says and hesitates.

  ‘Well, it will be if you smash it with that,’ I say and she starts to laugh.

  18

  The next morning Layla sets off straight after breakfast. She tells me what to do while she’s away and tells me not to worry. She’s back to normal this morning and she hugs me before she goes, but things are different between us since I killed Saul. We’re more equal. Not so much mother and daughter. She loves me less.

  ‘Remember you can always phone me,’ she says. ‘Or text.’

  ‘Be careful,’ I say. It’s not safe for me, but it’s not safe for Layla either.

  ‘I will,’ she says. ‘Don’t worry, Auli.’ I watch her walk down the path and, after stepping over the circle, she turns and waves. ‘Don’t forget to sweep,’ she says.

  ‘I won’t,’ I shout to her and stand on the veranda waving long after she has disappeared down the track.

  There’s work to be done. I’ve got to weed round the cabbage seedlings and I need to sweep the house, but first of all, I’m going to look at my phone. I need to turn the sound on. I’ve had it off for weeks so that Layla doesn’t hear the ping when a text comes in. It’s Joel. He’s been texting a lot. He keeps telling me that he loves me. And he asks about the baby. I’ve texted back a couple of times, but I haven’t told him where we are. I have a look but there’s no new message. It’s been four days since he texted. Maybe he’s found a new girlfriend.

  Is that what I am, I wonder? A girlfriend carrying his baby? Part of me is surprised that he keeps in touch. He will never be able to ask me to marry him and he knows it. But part of me is not surprised at all. I know, like all women know when it happens, that Joel is in love with me. I know my power and it is nothing to do with witchcraft. He can’t keep away. I peer again at the phone. I suppose I’m enjoying the messages of love and the fact that he wants to see me. I don’t love him but I like him a lot and I’m grateful. He is kind. He has saved my life, and, as Layla says, I owe him.

  I go into the garden to start work. Better to work outside first so that I can go inside when the sun gets hot and I’ve hardly started when the phone rings. My heart jumps and I look but it’s not Joel. It’s Layla.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asks.

  ‘I’m in the garden,’ I tell her. ‘Weeding the cabbages.’

  ‘That’s good,’ she says. ‘I wanted to remind you to sweep the circle.’

  ‘Of course, I will,’ I reply. ‘It’s my next task.’

  ‘That’s no good,’ she says. ‘It has to be your first task, Auli. Every day, it has to be your first task and your last one at night. To keep the house safe.’

  ‘OK,‘ I tell her. ‘I’ll do it now, tonight and first thing tomorrow. Before anything else at all.’

  ‘All right,’ she says, then asks me how the baby is and I tell her fine. What else can I say?

  ‘Where are you?’ I ask.

  ‘Nearly half-way down,’ she replies. ‘Take care, Auli. I’ll ring tomorrow.’ I say goodb
ye and am about to hang up when she says it one last time. ‘Don’t forget to look after the circle, Auli.’

  I put the phone down on the banana leaf that I’ve fetched so that I can put it down without it getting dirty and I look at the sky. Looks like rain and I feel the first drops start to fall. Big ones splashing on to my face and arms. It will be good for the garden, but I had better go in. I’ll clean inside until the rain stops. Then I’ll sweep the circle and get back to the weeding. I hate housework and wish I had a book to read. I miss my lessons. It seems like years since Layla gave me exercises to do and research projects. I used to feel like a normal girl with a future. I’m not a girl anymore. I remind myself that I’m a woman. With a baby inside. Layla said that the baby was my future.

  I start cleaning the house and try to make myself do it properly but it looks clean already. Maybe it will be all right until tomorrow. The rain is beating hard on the roof and I like hearing the rain. Or maybe I can leave the cleaning for a couple of days and do it just before Layla gets back. I stand in the doorway and look out through the downpour. I see the earth sucking in the rain like a great thirsty animal.

  I go back inside and sit at the table. The baby keeps moving and I’m getting very heavy. How big is this child? It’s strange being here without Layla. I remember the times from before when I was here alone and how good it felt when Saul was gone. Even though I was shackled. Now I don’t want to be here alone. I want Layla back as quickly as possible. I think about our conversation and how I complained to her and what she said. That I was lucky.

  Well, I don’t feel lucky, but I suppose it’s all relative. That’s what Layla used to say in the past. It’s all relative and I would say it, too, but she told me to beware. It’s a cliche she said and so we discussed what a cliche was. She said that those sayings that we like become used so much that their truth wears out. They stop you thinking she said.

  ‘Truth can’t wear out,’ I argued as I sat there playing with my laptop while Layla marked my exercises.