The Colonial Hotel

by Jonathan Bennett

  My contacts find me. I never look for them. I never know when they will appear. Just that, in each country where I am sent, they find me. They are usually women. They assume occupations such as filmmakers, engineers, foreign workers, or travellers. I feel myself being watched. Sometimes for just an hour, other times for days. Then I am approached. A brief, casual-looking conversation occurs. I say little. I am given instructions. Usually, I am to ask something of someone else. Sometimes it’s just the name of, say, a local chief’s daughter, or else so-and-so’s father. Other times it’s the whereabouts of a man’s home, or where a person is originally from. The information is never hard to come by. I often ask the patients I treat, work it naturally into conversations if they speak English. Sometimes other aid workers know the answers, especially if they’ve been in the place for a while. The information is mostly connected to the power structures of the villages, towns, cities, or camps we are in. I can’t always get what they want. Then they just ask for something else, or disappear into the crowd. They are always foreigners, never locals. Once there was a woman from my own country. She was the only one who ever looked at me with the faintest bit of kindness or interest.

  I am not a spy. I wish it were that glamorous. I don’t really know what I am.

  Once, I had a dream about a thistle. In my dream the thistle was growing out of my thigh. I longed for it to be tugged out. But how? I couldn’t get under its roots because they were too deep inside my leg, and I couldn’t grab it and tug it out due to the spines. The thistle represented this work I do, I awoke sure of that.

  I have never been paid for the work. I do not know who or what is behind the people who ask me the questions—but they are connected to my organization somehow. I am doing the work of God, even when it’s mysterious to me. I do not know what they do with the information.

  It all began so simply. I was asked by a kind-looking man to see if I could find out the name of the new local police chief. He said he was a reporter and that he wanted to interview the chief. Everyone knew the former chief had been killed. The new one was keeping his head down. So I said sure, yes, and I did. Easy. No harm done, the pleasure of doing a stranger a simple favour. And then, a few weeks later, I was asked for some information again—this time by another man.

  The second man began, by way of introduction, saying that the reporter was a friend of his, and that I’d been recommended by him as an excellent source of information. Flattered, I obliged. This became a pattern until soon the people who approached me needed no introduction.

  For a time, I expected to be informed who precisely I was doing this for and when it might end. I thought one of these people asking for information might explain to me it was for this political party, or such and such a country’s government, or else a media corporation, or activist organization. But nothing was ever forthcoming. I finally tried asking directly, and the person just smiled. Before turning to go, she said, Helen you are only ever working for God.

  This work has become entangled in what I do, a part of who I am and how I conduct myself. I enjoy it. I have been chosen. I do not expect I’ll ever know why. It takes courage to maintain this level of faith. And, the added danger it brings helps keep the pain away.

  More shots, semi-automatic. The army is patrolling the streets. The faint cries of a woman—likely being dragged right out of her dreams—drift up into the night. Car horns are pressed as some choose to flee, fight to get out, get away. A man shouts. He is trying to attract attention as a call for help, or to scare assailants off. I smell burning rubber in the air.

  About twenty-four hours ago I was asked by a tall woman in the downstairs lobby to approach the leather vendor across the road. Buy a suede bookmark, she said. When you do, he will tell you a day and perhaps also a time. I will be in the café. Come directly to me but do not let him see us speaking to one another. Ignore me if he follows you or if he can see us.

  This request was different. I have never been asked to speak to someone and pass along messages, only to use my wits and try to casually find out simple facts. The leather vendor was there. I followed the woman’s instructions.

  Do you have a suede bookmark? I asked. He was a compact man with strong-looking arms.

  You’re a day late, he said. It will happen in five minutes, he added, handing me the bookmark, asking for no money in return. I took the bookmark and returned to the hotel’s café. Paris was seated by the window. I joined him and ate some pastry. The woman entered and took the next table. Before she and I were able to speak, soldiers burst in. During the commotion, under her breath, she spoke to me. She was confused initially. I now understand it was because she was clearly annoyed at being caught up in the fall of the city. The information I was passing along was, obviously, the timing of the northern army’s advance. So who is she? What business is she involved in? Peanut, I do not know. It is likely better I never find out.

  The next few hours were harried. Even if my feelings for your father are only a fraction of those he has for me, I did not plan on being apart from him, on separating him from his baby daughter. Please know that this coup was unfolding around me and I did not know how to escape it.

  They are going to take us too, she said. Stay close to me. I will tell you what to do.

  Soldiers from the North invaded the city. They swarmed the Colonial Hotel and rounded up the foreigners, Paris and me included. We were loaded onto a large truck. A guard sat facing us at the front. He had a rifle of some sort. The woman assured me that she would see to it that I could leave, with her, and another woman. I asked her about Paris.

  He’s a doctor, I pleaded.

  She said that the men would have to stay. But she would try to meet with the Colonel himself to see what she could do for Paris.

  Who is this Colonel? I demanded.

  The leather vendor you talked with, she said.

  He can’t just do this, I said. We are humanitarian aid workers.

  She looked at me directly, and said straightforwardly that full-scale civil war had broken out. The government in the South is falling. We are inside chaos. There isn’t an organization, or law, or government whose authority matters here. Stay close to me. I can get us back to the capital city—which has yet to fall and likely won’t for weeks due to the distance over the mountains. From there, we’ll see what can be bargained.

  Peanut, I was scared—the machete blades, the cruelty of the soldiers. The road and dust made the journey difficult. Nausea came in waves. It seemed to me that this was a mistake, a detour that would be corrected. And it was. But, only partially so. As soon as we arrived at their camp in the mountains, the three women in the group—this woman, myself, and one other who had been muttering a prayer in French, were led to a jeep. As I climbed into the back seat I turned to look for Paris. To show him that I was alive and was being saved, to leave him with an impression of my face that said: never lose hope. But a large soldier was standing between us, blocking our line of sight. We pulled away with a jerk, the dust and engine noise and confusion taking a few moments to subside, and by that time we were beyond the camp.

  Not far down the mountain, our jeep pulled aside to allow another to pass. The Colonel was in the passenger seat. He caught our eyes. Both jeeps stopped. He got out. The woman did too, approaching him. They spoke. She towered over him. When she returned to our jeep she said to me that she had struck a deal. Paris would be spared, she said. The Colonel would ransom him.

  The best I could do, she said.

  I am grateful.

  Is he brave?

  He isn’t a coward.

  Is he a reckless man?

  I don’t know, I said. I really don’t know.

  The jeep dropped us off at the Colonial Hotel where we found no one working, but it was intact. The phone line was dead. It was then that we came upon the food and water and locked ourselves in rooms upstairs. The woman said she would be gone
at first light, but would be back for us within a matter of hours. What is your name? I asked her. She smiled and turned away.

  * * *

  Paris

  AS THE TRUCK STOPPED, HELEN leaned into me. Up close to my face she said, Listen to me. When we get out I will be taken away. You must let me go. Don’t put up a fight or they will kill you, Paris. Stay, just stay. You will be spared. They know you are a doctor; they need your help. And then she kissed me on the cheek, touching my face and the nape of my neck.

  I did not properly comprehend all of what she was telling me. But I believed her. I always believed.

  I grazed my knee stumbling off the truck. There was sudden, superficial blood and those about me offered the doctor help, in case, perhaps, it would oblige me to repay the favour when they needed it. Helen was next to me, but her focus was not my cut knee. Soldiers pressed us up against a mud wall. One soldier with a pockmarked face brandished a machete as he strode the length of our line. Another followed him and tied a blindfold on each of us. Sharp bits of straw embedded in the mud wall pricked into my neck and head.

  Where do you think we are? I asked Helen in a whisper. My other four senses were alive, eagerly seeking information. She did not answer. This air is thinner, I continued. Are we in the northern mountains? The truck had seemed to work its way up and down hills, but where and how many I couldn’t say. The mountains to the north were the edge of these people’s ancestral land. It would be known and safer ground for them.

  Then I heard the sound of a gunshot, its imprecise ricochet, followed by struggling. I tilted my head toward the noise. My blindfold was not tied on well; I was able to see some of what was going on. At the end of the line, an execution, and then in poor English a soldier shouted threats.

  You will be killed all! Do not run away! See this man? He runs. Will you run now?

  The previous year—another country on another continent, another set of grim problems—we were all arrested and thrown into a football stadium to await our fate. But a production crew arrived making a documentary. They were shown where to come by several foreign aid workers that we knew. Caught on film, our captors ran away. The aid workers asked if we were hurt. The film’s director instead asked how the situation made us feel as he pointed at us the very camera that had saved us.

  The light was sudden and difficult. I was correct; we were up in the mountains. My blindfold had been ripped off. Why was it put on in the first place?

  Along with two other foreign women—the woman from the café and the other one who had been praying in French—Helen was led over to a jeep. A soldier got in with them and removed their blindfolds. Then the soldier nearest me signalled to him, making a thrusting gesture with his pelvis. It was acknowledged by the soldier with a closed fist. I saw that Helen was disorientated. She attempted a look back at me, but was blocked by the body of the other soldier. I could see that she did not know where I was in relation to her. The jeep drove down and away. It must have appeared to her that I was following her instructions, obedient, acquiescing to the end—I did not run after her. But I wanted to. She was disappearing and my whole living being cried for her, desired her, would have gladly taken death as a preferred option over letting her leave me, but I was unable to talk, too frozen with horror to even cry out her name. I was struck silent, immobile and weak. Do you think less of me?

  Daughter, I have no one to blame but myself. Despite the hopes and fears of the naive many, you can learn to love this lawless, Godless world. I have. I have come to understand my paralysis as an unwillingness to face my suspicions of her. I wanted Helen more than I wanted the truth of what she knew and who she really was. So I surrendered to her, gave you up, and was cast out into this abyss.

  A thin dog was sniffing about and licked at my bloody leg. I attempted to push it off with my foot. The soldier approached me and booted the dog. The man was young and strong. He smiled at the sound of the dog’s yelp. He walked over to it and stomped repeatedly on its head and neck until it ceased its cries, until it was dead. He then got close to my face, grimaced, and cocked his neck, preparing to head butt me. I winced, awaiting pain. Instead he laughed at my obvious fear. Called me blind.

  At the end of the line a man raced through the Lord’s Prayer in English—taking, I guess, his cue from the recently departed French woman. The soldiers understood him to be praying. After exchanging looks they shrugged, allowed him to continue. Thy kingdom come; thy will be done—his words found a new rhythm. It was the right time for these words; I was grateful to him, for the lulling, and I relaxed by accepting in the straw points from the wall needling my neck, and breathed into and through the pain of it. Helen was taken from me. My daughter, what of you, still an embryo deep in her womb, did you survive this day?

  A white jeep pulled up, driven by a short man wearing fatigues. I did not immediately see his face. He was carrying a handgun—as we forgive them that trespass against us.

  Are you from the oil company or the bank? the soldier demanded of a bald man just three people away from me. There was a fresh and serious savageness to this soldier’s voice—I did not risk looking up again. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.

  I am from the bank, said the man. In his voice there was gratitude, hope. I understood that he believed that this soldier had come to release him: his global bank perhaps having paid some extortion fee to save their loyal employee. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. The soldier began to walk away, but turned and quickly unloaded four bullets into the man. The noise of it was horribly loud. I strained for breath and felt light-headed. Another person in line vomited. The bald man fought to stay upright but folded forward facedown onto the ground. Blood pooled from him. The shooter was the leather vendor I had seen across the street from the hotel.

  Another soldier saluted him and called him Colonel. They embraced, the salute mere pretence or play between two old friends. Their garbled talk was light and familiar. I did not understand it, but I followed the tones. Did they talk of easy things? Were they catching up and gathering simple information, the weather up higher in the mountains or the cost of food on the black market in the capital, or perhaps the name of a trusted colleague working in the city in disguise?

  They switched abruptly to English.

  Lend me your gun, friend, said the Colonel.

  I thought another, maybe several, among us would now be shot. But instead this man then called to the soldier who had kicked the dog away from me. The gun was thrown to him. Two hidden soldiers burst in from a tent behind a stand of trees, a camp that I had not previously taken in. There was shouting among them. The friend’s gun had not been borrowed. The Colonel was not his trusted friend. The friend had been double-crossed, or tricked or suckered by the Colonel. The friend had terror on his face and he pleaded, as his own gun fired a bullet into his stomach.

  The soldiers followed the orders given by the Colonel and the friend’s body was thrown beside the dead banker. The Colonel shot the friend’s corpse in the head one more time. He then stood over the body and I heard the sound, louder than one might expect, of his urine as it splashed into the pooled blood and dust about the bald man’s head.

  * * *

  Helen

  THE WOMAN KNOCKED LOUDLY ON the door of my room in the Colonial Hotel. It was mid morning. She woke me from an unintentional doze. I was surprised to see her return at all. I stuffed Paris’s drugs, razor, and photograph album into my bag, leaving the rest of his belongings in the room. I realized that he must have had his passport and wallet with him. They’ll take those at the first opportunity.

  Outside, the woman urged me down a series of back alleys at a half run. The day was hot. Shots were ringing out frequently. Livestock was loose—chickens, goats, pigs. Fires burned. The flies were bad. At one intersection music boomed from a truck radio. Soldiers were ransacking a store. We pressed on unseen.

  Where is th
e other one, the French woman? I asked.

  She left, said the woman. I didn’t ask anything more.

  We entered a two-storey brown building that appeared to be a mechanic’s garage. Inside was an old bus. It was full of women and children—and had been waiting for me. The engine turned over. The garage doors swung open to the street and the bus jolted forward into the daylight. Would we be allowed to leave the town? The woman did not get on the bus. She did not even say goodbye.

  I sat next to a mother with a baby that had dysentery and an angry diaper rash that flowered down her legs and up onto her stomach. Neither the mother nor I had creams. I shared my water. There were chickens in cages tied to the roof of the bus and at the back a group of children periodically tried singing songs.

  The driver’s name was Oenone. She seemed to me at first glance another strong-looking local woman with closely cropped hair. She took the corners quickly and the bus pitched, struggling with the angles at such speed. Within a few minutes we were in the slums. The northern soldiers did not yet seem to be about—in this part of the town. Our driver pressed on just as fast. She shifted gears with much physical effort. Only when the open road began, and the town fell away behind us, did she moderate her pace. The tension inside the bus diminished.