Turning Back the Sun

by Colin Thubron

  CHAPTER

  15

  How long the staff car had been waiting outside the clinic Rayner could not guess. The corporal had covered its dashboard with a blanket against the sun and fallen asleep inside. As they drove into the barracks he said, “It was the captain wanted you,” and he pulled up outside the military police jail.

  Ivar met Rayner in the warder”s room. He was wearing a look of complicitous charm, and took Rayner”s arm as if to lead him aside—but there was nowhere aside to go. There had been an unfortunate occurrence, he said. One of their prisoners—an elderly savage—had died of heart failure. The surgeon had carried out a postmortem, but they needed a second signature on the Notification of Death form. It was routine, of course. He pushed the form across the desk until it lay under Rayner”s eyes, then began to talk of other things. His relationship with Felicie was unexpectedly better, he said. And how was Zoë? Yes, she was certainly characterful. In fact you never knew which of her characters she was going to adopt next. This did make her … well … difficult …

  The Notification of Death still lay on the desk beside Rayner”s hand, with one of Ivar”s pens beside it. Against “Cause of Death,” it read, “Cardiac Arrest.” Rayner wondered: is he really expecting me to sign it without question?

  “But of course Zoë is bright …” Ivar”s smiles and laughter came and went, yet somehow made no difference to his face. It was as if his face were temporarily missing. Except that once or twice its eyes flickered down to the form, encouraging Rayner to pick up the pen.

  In the end Rayner said, “We”d better get on with the inspection, then.”

  “Will that be necessary?”

  “I can”t sign an autopsy for a corpse I”ve never seen!”

  “Of course not.” Ivar stood up. His smile was faintly disconcerted. “I”m not familiar with the procedures.” Rayner realized, with surprise, that Ivar wanted his esteem. “And the surgeon is absent at the moment.”

  He led the way down a short passage and opened an iron door. The Intelligence lieutenant materialized behind them. Rayner found himself in a room which must once have been a cell. It reeked of chlorine. The body lay on a table in a linen sack. The lieutenant untied and eased back the cloth from the head and shoulders. “He died about twelve hours ago.”

  The man was no more than forty-five years old. His closed eyes made two dark-lashed crescents on his flat face. From the high cheekbones his features tapered to the natives” soft mouth and a tiny, withdrawn chin. It was an oddly humorous face, rather delicate. Its lines of pain—if that is what they had been—were all smoothed away. At any moment, it seemed, the eyes might fly open and the mouth crinkle into laughter.

  Rayner pulled the sack from the naked body. The lieutenant fidgeted on the far side. Ivar stood behind Rayner, with the Notification in his hand. Rayner recognized no obvious sign of heart failure—the feet were unswollen—and there was no incision. He began to feel angry. How this native had died had been decided irrelevant. As for him, he was being enrolled as the army”s pawn.

  He asked, “How did the surgeon arrive at his diagnosis?”

  The lieutenant answered smoothly, “I”m not sure.” Ivar said, “The man collapsed in his cell early in the night.”

  It was difficult to detect bruising on the dark skin, but it appeared to Rayner that the whole region beneath the rib cage was heavily contused. A discoloration blacker than the natural skin tone spread unevenly down to the man”s crotch. It looked as if he had been systematically hit.

  “How did this happen?”

  For an instant the lieutenant looked confused, then his gaze followed Rayner”s finger and he stooped down to stare. He said, “He got into a fight with another prisoner.” But when Rayner looked at the lieutenant the watchful eyes and ambiguous lips no longer expected to be believed. They seemed simply to be saying, Even if you don”t cooperate, we”ll do as we”ve decided.

  Then, when Rayner ran his hands over the native”s skull, he encountered beneath the thick hair a sudden bulge. The skin was almost unbroken, but the tissue had thickened into a hard swelling ten centimeters across. And the surgeon had not even shaved his head.

  Rayner straightened up. On either side, Ivar and the lieutenant had stiffened into silence. He said, “I thought your man had performed an autopsy.”

  “He didn”t think it necessary,” the lieutenant said.

  The Notification of Death rustled in Ivar”s hand, but his smile had faded back into an expression of plastic concern. Rayner felt suddenly tired. If he didn”t sign the form, it would make no difference. They would merely forge the papers, or suppress the death altogether. On the bare table the native”s flared nostrils and soft mouth kept their hint of whimsical humor. But the frail-looking body accused him. He said: “This needs a proper postmortem —something I”m not qualified to carry out. The abdominal bruising could mean a ruptured spleen or several other causes of death. Most likely, in my opinion, he died from a fractured skull. So we need X-rays.”

  Ivar said, “That won”t be possible.”

  It was futile, Rayner knew, to argue. He said, “Then there”s nothing more I can do.” He turned and opened the door behind him.

  Then Ivar touched his forearm, smiling, with the familiar gesture which claimed old friendship, and handed him the Notification of Death form. For a moment the flagrancy of this so astonished Rayner that he took it. But in his erupting anger the treatment of the native and of himself were inextricably joined. He laid the form on the table beside the corpse”s feet, and saw his pen tremble as it wrote in thick, jagged words: “Cause of death: Cerebral contusion consequent on a head wound.”

  Ivar took the form, and his smile vanished. The lieutenant was dragging the linen sack back over the body. Ivar said, “You”re making things more difficult for us.”

  “You”ve made them impossible for me!”

  Ivar began pacing back and forth in front of him, the few steps which the cramped room allowed. He appeared to be contemplating something, but perhaps just hated to concede defeat in front of the lieutenant, who was tying the neck of the bag in a neat double bow. It was only after the subaltern had left, closing the door which Rayner had opened, that Ivar said, “I hoped at a time like this you would realize there was something more important than medical etiquette.”

  Rayner said bitterly, “I thought murder was what we were fighting against.”

  But Ivar had turned cold. Rayner had the impression that his uniform had leaked upwards, into his face, and was slowly suffocating it. “We”re fighting for the peace of this town, perhaps even for its survival.”

  “That”s hyperbole.”

  “Is it?” Ivar smiled just as he had done at school, when his secret knowledge turned everyone else stupid. “We”ve received reports of armed savage bands numbering as many as fifty.”

  “Then why don”t you cope with them,” Rayner demanded, “instead of …”—he waved one hand at the sack—”this?”

  “Because when we hunt them they scatter. That makes Intelligence vital.”

  “What can they tell you? These people all come from different regions.” Rayner tried to remember what the old native had told him. “A few may be marauders, but the ones who drift into town probably come from other groups.”

  Ivar said, “In that case they know each other”s movements remarkably well. Several have admitted to a plot to infiltrate and sack the town.”

  “Was that suggested to them under interrogation?”

  “I don”t know. Interrogation isn”t my job. But the lieutenant”s not a fool.”

  Rayner turned his back on the shape in the sack, as if it might be listening. “People will admit to anything under torture. Just to stop the pain.”

  “Nobody said anything about torture. Do you think I”d order it?”

  Then Rayner realized that Ivar was angry—or as close as he could reach anger. His eyes had awoken in a controlled glitter. Perhaps this was no more than the simulated fury of ar
my officers at insubordination, Rayner thought, yet even that suggested some discomfort in him, so that Rayner found himself thinking: he”s vulnerable after all. Nobody on earth could be quite certain of himself.

  It occurred to Rayner that the lieutenant had covered the corpse again on purpose: it would be harder to lie in its presence. He said, “This man was beaten systematically.

  The heart attack attributed by your surgeon is pure fantasy.”

  They were no longer facing either the corpse or one another, but staring at the cell wall three feet away. It had been thinly whitewashed over indecipherable graffiti. After a silence Ivar said, “I don”t think you care about this town. You”ve never felt any loyalty to us.”

  His words threatened Rayner with all the certainty, the enclosed authority, of his own class and kind. That was their power.

  “I care all right,” Rayner snapped. “At least enough to hate this place losing its head.” And he thought at once, a little surprised, that yes, he did care about the town, about his friends and certain patients, about Zoë, even about the place”s blind future.

  Ivar said, “But you betray it.” He edged the death notice into his inner pocket, slowly, as if giving Rayner a last chance to recant. “You haven”t changed, have you? You always did find some reason for being separate.” The words debarred Rayner absolutely, just as they had at school. He imagined his name appended to the Intelligence list of unreliable elements. “It”s easier for you to dissociate yourself,” Ivar went on, “because you feel you don”t belong here. You keep this pipe dream of returning to the capital. But people like me have to cope with the realities. It”s rough going, but we do the best we can. We can”t afford your morality. It doesn”t work here.”

  Rayner turned on him. “You accuse me of idealism because I don”t abet a murder! I don”t have any morality I can lay my hands on, just hand-to-mouth decency. And sometimes not even that. I”ve never stuck even to medical etiquette. I”ve practiced euthanasia like most doctors with a grain of pity in them.” He saw his own hands trembling; he stuffed them into his pockets. “But I won”t sign that form.”

  Ivar looked at him as if at a baffling child, then turned his back, but found himself facing the corpse in its linen envelope. Again he seemed to be seeking self-exculpation as he said, “These people aren”t like us. They don”t think like us. They don”t share our sense of right and wrong. They—”

  Rayner shouted, “But they feel like us if you fracture their skulls!” He just wanted Ivar to stop talking, wanted the plastic mouth to stop going up and down, planting its rational syllables in his mind. It was Ivar”s calm which was so dangerous, he thought, so insidious.

  And it was true in its way, of course, the natives were different. When they came into contact with whites they fell instant prey to alcohol or disease. Yet out there in the wilderness they slipped back into collusion with something else, and appeared to live and die as if they did not profoundly matter. They did not battle with life as the whites did. So they stayed backward, and were peculiarly still. They seemed to retain some secret which later peoples had lost. He remembered the paintings on the rock face, their disembodied peace; but whether they imagined a future or portrayed a past, was impossible to say.

  The echo of Rayner”s shouting died in the tiny cell. It left behind a solid wall between him and Ivar, probably forever. Before, the difference between them had been inarticulate, or the subject of banter. But now it had reared up with inescapable meaning.

  Ivar opened the door, gently dismissing him, and said, “None of this alters your obligation to the army if you”re called on.”

  It must have been Ivar”s blandness, his imperturbable civility, which made it impossible to sustain anger with him for long. Rayner left the cell without answering, or looking back. As the staff car moved out of the barracks, he was disgusted to realize that his dominant feeling was regret for the loss of an old friendship.

  CHAPTER

  16

  That evening, as he walked home along the deserted river, he saw that the wreckage from the army raid still scattered the bank, as if nobody had been there since last night. But the last of the savages had gone. Their campfires had died to soft anthills of pure ash, or were smeared in a grey dust where the print of boots and bare feet overlapped. A torn blanket dangled from a branch. Some cooking pots gleamed under a bush. And once he came upon a necklace of tiny bones, broken, like vertebrae on the red earth.

  In the clinic, when he had told Leszek that the army had tortured a man to death, his old partner had turned cold with recognition and said at once, “Now you must see, don”t you? You must tell that savage and the girl to go. You”ve done everything you can.”

  “His blood pressure still swings over 210. He trembles all the time. If I let him go, he”ll die out there.”

  But Leszek only said, “Better than dying in prison”—and the memories blanching his face lent him a cruel authority.

  By now Rayner was obsessed by the two natives. For all he knew the army would seize them that night. An hour later, on the way to the hospital, he met the local priest, a stout man with frosty eyes, and told him that the military had cleared the river of savages, and what was he to do about his patient?

  “In my experience these people are not converted by kindness,” the priest said.

  “I”m not trying to convert them.”

  “But judging by their actions, it”s wrong and dangerous to harbor them. They”re better among their own kind.”

  In the hospital Rayner had approached the senior consultant warily, but the man had realized with a shock what he was asking. “That”s preposterous, Rayner! I”d no idea they were still there! You”re not only jeopardizing your own standing in the town, but that of the whole medical profession.” He had looked at Rayner as Ivar sometimes did, baffled and incredulous. Rayner began to feel he was going mad. The consultant demanded, “How many people do these savages have to murder before you repudiate them?”

  He passed a sodden quilt on the riverbank, and a torn sandal; then he started to climb toward his house. Far to his left stood the copse of acacia and bloodwood trees where the natives were camped. He glared at it as he trudged up the slope. They would be sitting there, he knew, in their own impenetrable world, oblivious of the dilemma they were causing. He hunted for reasons to disown them, but found none. He prayed for them simply to leave. They were imposing on him an idiotic heroism or treachery. He might start to hate them. Yet he thought: this town”s going insane about a sick old man and a girl.

  By the time he reached his villa he had no anger left, just a bleak indecision. Zoë”s cat was sitting under the porch in the fading sun. He turned into the garden to compose himself. The frangipani trees were dripping waxen blossoms into the brown grass, and all the canna lilies were in bloom.

  After a while Zoë came out. In her flowered dress, with her hair loosed, she looked like the natural child of the place. But as she approached him her smile faded. “What”s wrong?”

  He took her hand and began to walk. “The army have just killed one of the native prisoners. They asked me to falsify the postmortem, and I refused.”

  “Ivar?”

  “Not personally, I don”t think. It was the Intelligence fellows. My guess is the man fought back under torture and they killed him by mistake.” He stopped under the frangipanis, whose fall of flowers seemed somehow shocking now. “There”s not a native free in the whole town except the old man and the girl, and the soldiers may come for them any time. The old fellow wouldn”t last a day in prison. It”d be torture enough to separate him from his daughter. And she”d be raped.” He kicked at the hard earth. “But he”s still so weak that if I send them away I can”t guess his chances. He might survive, but he”d probably die.”

  He turned to face her. Suddenly he realized how deeply, by laying this dilemma at her feet, he had put her on trial. He was not even sure what he wanted her to reply. He just stared into her face, whose vivid eyes overruled al
l trouble in it.

  She simply said, “Where shall we keep them?”

  As he looked at her, standing under the milky trees, he was overswept by a boyish adoration. Quaintly he balanced her fingertips on his, and kissed them.

  She laughed, startled. “What”s that for?”

  “You.”

  She stared back at him, puzzled. She did not notice that there had been any decision. “Well, where?”

  “I don”t know. They should probably be in the back bedroom. It”s sheltered from the road. We”ll find them the moment it”s dark.”

  They stepped into the villa as if they were treading on glass. The huge, halting man followed the expressionless girl across the sitting room to the far door. His whole frame trembled faintly as if it were independent of him, of the life sunk deep inside. Like a mariner between islands, he faltered from table to chair to window ledge, but touched their surfaces only tentatively, as if testing their existence. “You got a good place here, eh.” He held out a hand to Zoë. “You Mrs. Doctor?” “I”m a friend.”

  She showed them the kitchen. The girl stood behind her father, uncomprehending. But the man said, “I remember these things from the cattle station days. I work these things okay, I explain to the girl.”

  “But you tell us what you eat,” Zoë said. “We”ll buy the food.”

  “Is okay for now. We got the flour. Some fruit. White-feller stuff make harder eating for us.”

  The moment they entered the bedroom they went to the window and looked out into the dark of the garden. They murmured together. The trees seemed to comfort them. When the old man turned, he picked experimentally at the coverlets, the curtains, the cushions, but said nothing. His daughter did not seem to see them.

  “If you go out,” Rayner said, “don”t go beyond the trees.”