by Mandy Hager
“Now you're being childish,” he snarled.
“Maybe I am,” she bit right back. “But what do you know of being oppressed? You've been stuck in a cell for one day and you think you understand how it feels to have no power? To fear for your life?”
“You'd be surpri—”
His reply caught in his throat as the outer door was flung back open to admit Jo again.
She was followed into the building by the guard who had unshackled Maryam. He pulled his keys from his pocket and unlocked Maryam's door, ushering Jo into the cell and carrying the chair in after her so she had somewhere to sit. “Behave yourself, missie,” he warned Maryam, shaking his finger at her to underline his words.
“Thank you,” she said. “I promise I will.” She smiled her thanks.
Next the guard approached Lazarus's cell and unlocked the door. “Listen to me, bucko. I'll put you in together, ‘cause I happen to think this fine lady here can do some good—and, god knows, someone needs to—but if you do one thing that brings me grief you'll get your arse whipped again, no two ways. You comprendo?”
Maryam was still struggling to decipher the meaning of the man's strange words when she heard Lazarus sullenly agree. She had to hand it to him: it seemed he'd got his way. The Confederated Territories for Christian Territorials…whites for whites. She heard his door creak open and waited for the guard to lead him to her cell, dreading the pompous look of triumph he'd have slathered on his face.
When Lazarus appeared, she was so shocked she cried aloud. Both his eyes were buried in a swollen mess of angry red and blue bruising, and a gaping cut on his left cheekbone still oozed with blood. He moved like an old man, favouring one side, one arm wrapped around his lower ribs to hold them firm.
“What in the Lord's name happened?” she whispered, automatically crossing to him to help ease him down onto the sleeping mat.
Behind her, the guard locked the door. “There's people here don't like so-called wiggers and boonga-jockeys, miss.” He shrugged and looked at Jo. “No rewards for guessing whose handiwork this is, eh? Anyways, I'll be back in half an hour to let you out.”
Jo shook her head slowly, her frown deepening. “Thanks, Charlie,” she said. “I owe you one.”
Maryam looked from Lazarus's messed-up face to Jo. “What did he mean?”
“It seems one of the guards objected to Lazarus's allegiances.”
“His what?”
“Allegiances. His loyalties…his friends.”
“But why?” She didn't understand. Why beat up on Lazarus when he was white?
“We've been taught, over the years, to loathe and fear anyone who doesn't look or act or think like us. So when some people see one of us mixing with the ‘other side’—” she raised two fingers from each hand and wiggled them strangely as she spoke—“they see it as a betrayal of our race.”
“You mean it's our fault Lazarus has ended up like this? Ruth's and mine?” Oh great.
“Forget it,” Lazarus said. “I'm fine.” Beneath his swollen bruises, his face set hard. “Let's just get on with this.”
Maryam studied him from the corner of her eyes. He'd insisted that they speak together in this one room, so obviously he'd wanted her to see his injuries, yet now he told her to forget it. That made no sense. Still, now wasn't the time to pursue it. She might have only this one chance to tell someone what was going on back in Onewēre and she didn't want to waste it. “I'm ready to tell you why we left our home.”
She could feel Lazarus glaring at her, but refused to let him put her off. She closed her eyes to block him out and began to tell her tale. At first the words came in nervous bursts but, as she proceeded, the horror of the Apostles’ treatment of her—of all the Sisters—took over; her heart pounded hard and fast now as she relived the days and weeks since her Crossing. She found herself thinking ahead, trying to decide how much of Lazarus's involvement she should reveal. His presence in the story loomed large in her mind, but she was uncertain of what would be achieved by inviting a direct confrontation with him. By the time she'd told of Joseph's death, words were sticking dry and awkward in her throat, and she skipped ahead, ending in one breathless rush at the point where they'd been plucked from the sea. She glanced across at Lazarus, but he was staring steadfastly at the floor.
“My god,” said Jo. “I had no idea.” She shook her head, as though trying to fit in place everything she'd heard. “Onewēre's literally been off the radar for decades, like all the other outer islands. Everyone just presumed they were totally annihilated. When the first wave of refugees started arriving after the flares, our government made it policy simply to ignore any islands that hadn't been heard from—that any contact would just encourage further floods of refugees. And the government certainly didn't want that—especially with the start of the Confederation Wars. The people of those islands were literally abandoned then and left to rot.”
“They didn't care that we might need their help?” So much for their claiming to follow the Holy Book's teachings. Goodness and mercy…what a lie.
Lazarus broke in now. “Come on! Even if they had shown up, do you really think my father's predecessors would've welcomed them? I'd be prepared to wager that if anyone had arrived in our lifetime, my father would've had them killed. The first Apostles set things up exactly as they wanted—and the fact you lot swallowed the line that you were the only ones Chosen to be saved just made you all the more compliant to their Rules.”
“There you go again, blaming us. You haven't changed your thoughts at all.”
“These are facts. It doesn't mean that I condone them.”
Bitterness hardened Maryam's laugh. “Fancy words. To see something is wrong and do nothing is just as much a sin.”
Lazarus bristled. “I'm merely pointing out that any kind of attempted contact would've met with grief.” He shifted in his chair with a pained grunt. “This is stupid. They didn't even try to help—isn't that the point?”
Maryam turned away from him, sickened by his slick answers, and spoke instead to Jo. “But we're supposedly all the Lord's chosen children—His followers—the same as them.”
“I'm certainly not excusing us,” Jo answered. “But you have to understand what was going on at the time. Governments disintegrated, services collapsed. Only the toughest and the most powerful survived—just like your so-called Apostles—who were able to manipulate people's fear to seize control of the few resources the world had left. It really was a case of survival of the fittest—and often the fittest meant those prepared to stamp on the heads of others to survive.”
“But don't you think the Territorials would act to put things right if they knew?”
Lazarus grabbed her arm and held it tight. “Don't do this, Maryam. Think about what I said before.”
“I can't believe they wouldn't care.”
“You're being foolishly naive.” He released her arm, but not before he squeezed it so she could feel the imprint of his fingers well after his hand had dropped. “Look around this place and then tell me again that they'd care. Look at me.” He thrust his battered face in front of her. “This is what I got just for mixing with you and Ruth. Imagine what they'd do to your people if they went there with their guards and guns.”
“I'm afraid he's right,” Jo said. “Go look around this place. You think the filth and squalor here is an accident? It's not. This camp has been used to detain refugees since well before your so-called Tribulation, and they've done nothing—absolutely nothing—to improve it since that time.” She tipped her face towards the ceiling and drew a long slow breath, as though to rein her anger back under control. “It's designed to break wills and strip away dignity, while feeding the prejudices and fears of the people back at home. Calculated but clever, eh?”
“But if they'd just let us speak—”
“Your plea for help would fall on deaf ears. Most people in the Territories are struggling to survive—and they're not about to share what little power and property th
ey do have.” She massaged her temples for a moment before she continued. “Besides, unless the authorities think you're the first of a new wave of boat people from there, they'll not bother helping Onewēre even if you ask. They've got enough to contend with, given the number of people who still keep arriving.”
“What I don't understand is why anyone is trying to come at all, when they must know the Territorials don't want them,” Lazarus said.
“Because you don't know where they're coming from.” Jo turned to Maryam again. “I wish I could tell you how much your story shocks me but, believe me, there are many people out there who suffer as much as you…in fact, the depth of human depravity does my head in sometimes.”
Jo talked so fast and used such foreign words that Maryam struggled to understand her. “So there's nothing you can do to get us out of here?”
“I'll try. The fact that you share the same beliefs and that Lazarus is white may help.” She sighed. “But, if you want my advice, I'd tell them you were the last of the people from Onewēre, otherwise god only knows what they might do if they thought the remaining population might look to The Confederated Territories for sanctuary or support. Remember the lessons of Marawa Island. I wouldn't want to see that kind of genocide take place again.”
“Genocide?” What did this flat-voiced woman mean?
“Oh, they never admitted to it, of course. But a whole race of people doesn't suddenly drop dead for no reason. And our government had had a gutsful of boat people and made it plain they'd not stand for more.”
“But The Confederated Territories must be huge—”
Jo laughed caustically. “Life's never quite so straight forward. After the solar flares there was precious little left for us, let alone all the other people decamping to our shores. It's said that some of our top brass decided to teach the poor people of Marawa a lesson—one the rest of the region wouldn't soon forget. Some say they were herded into the temple and gassed; others claim that they were shot…” Her voice drifted off and she shuddered.
Maryam pressed her hand over her eyes, trying to block out the picture of those tangled bones. How could one human do that to another, in cold blood?
Lazarus nodded his head and prodded Maryam. “See? Do you still want to send them to Onewēre now?”
He seemed so smug, so unaffected by what Jo was telling them. Maryam felt her fury rise again. She jumped to her feet, facing Jo accusingly. “Then what's the point of your even being here? You said that you could help.”
Jo stood up. “I come as a witness, Maryam, to let you know there are still people out here in the world who care. And if I can help in any small way I will certainly try.”
“Then I will do something myself. There has to be a way…”
Jo placed her hand on Maryam's arm. “I'm sorry,” she said, “I'll speak to Sergeant Littlejohn myself, and see if he will let you put your case for settling on the mainland…”
She was interrupted as another group of hunger strikers were wrestled into the building. One of the guards pressed his face up to the bars of Maryam's cell.
“You kids can beat it now—we need the room.” He nodded at Jo, unlocked the door and waved the three of them out. They did not need to be told twice.
The air was cooler outside the cell, but the stench of phosphate and human excrement still hung in the evening air. Somewhere an engine was thumping, setting up a dull reverberation, and lights were coming on in the walkways like scraps of weak winter sun between the clouds.
Jo and Lazarus looked at Maryam, as if waiting on what she would do next. She had no idea. All she knew was that they appeared to expect something from her, just as Ruth would, back in their airless little hut. But she had no plan and no reassurance to give. All she knew was she had to get away. Without any destination in mind, Maryam ran. She dared not look back as she dodged down an alleyway between two buildings. Lazarus called out after her, but she did not stop. All anyone had done since she'd been rescued was talk, talk, talk, bombarding her until she truly thought her head would burst. There were too many words she didn't understand—too many things she didn't understand—when all the time she felt as young and ignorant as a newly fledged chick.
The huts that butted up against the shadowy paths pressed in on her, and she tried to focus on her breathing, on the way the air rasped in and out of her lungs, rather than acknowledge the hum of human desperation that leaked out from the gaping doorways of the huts. Too much. Too much.
Eventually she turned a corner and found her way blocked by another fence. But the gateway remained open and she slipped through it, uncertain now of her direction or of whether this was the route Aanjay had shown them on their morning tour. She stuck to the fenceline, scanning ahead of each footfall to avoid the animal droppings and rubbish that lay in stinking piles. She ran on until the fence turned abruptly at a large building. Rounding a corner, she nearly crashed into a tall, bearded man.
“No girl, no girl,” he shouted, holding out his hands to bar her way. The rest of his words were indecipherable, but his tone was not. She guessed she must be trespassing on the place reserved for men and turned on her heel, backtracking fast, and didn't stop until she'd traced the fence back to its start.
She dropped to her haunches then, panting out the stitch that knotted up her sides. When the pain had subsided, she set off in the opposite direction, turning down alleyways solely on the basis that they were deserted. At last, just as darkness swelled the shadows at the edges of the camp, she found herself out in the open ground.
A gaggle of young men were kicking a ball around on a patch of dirt. She slipped past and took herself off to the garden, crouching in amongst the malnourished plants to breathe in their dry leafy scents. Closed her eyes, trying to conjure up a picture of Joseph's face. If only he were here to talk with her, to help her understand what was going on. She felt tears rising as she pictured his vibrant blue eyes and the way his mouth curled and puckered as he leaned in for a kiss. The memory of his kisses tweaked low inside and she wrapped her arms around herself to try to hold the memory of him close. But the presence of the unyielding plaster cast that pressed against her breasts and the ragging laughter of the ball-players shattered her whimsy, sharply reminding her that Joseph was gone and there was no one to replace him.
What, then, would he do?
The answer to that question was not the one she wanted and she tried to bat it away again, but it persisted, knocking at her conscience until she had to give it space. Joseph would tell her to return to Ruth, who would be fretting once she heard that Maryam had been released. She could not add to Ruth's despair. So she rose and tried to retrace her steps, even harder now the natural light had gone and the man-made lights strung overhead cast little more than a watery glow. The mood of the camp was changing now, winding down. Babies cried weakly in their mothers’ arms; women whispered and crooned as they rocked children to sleep; and the adults who clustered together by their small open fires murmured quietly—some even broke into laughter and sang plaintive songs that dissipated quickly in the thick night air.
She thought about the people back home on Onewēre who lived according to the Apostles’ Rules. They were not, as Lazarus had thought, foolish or ignorant or, as she herself had once said, weak. Most were merely doing as the people here were: making the best of what they had. They understood they were reliant on the Apostles’ goodwill to keep them safe, but within those bounds they tried to build families and communities to ease the burdens in their hearts. It took a special kind of strength to go on caring for each other when life was limiting and tough. It was a kind of strength her father, for all his posturing, did not have.
The only difference between Onewēre and the camp was that the people here already understood that they weren't free. Would she have believed it if someone had told her of the horrors in the Holy City before she'd Crossed? Certainly not. It was only by hearing what had happened to Sarah, Rebecca, Ruth and Mark, and then experiencing it for herself,
that her understanding of the world was reshaped. But how would her fellow islanders ever understand the controls and pressures on them to conform, when the Apostles used their power to silence every dissenting voice? They confused the thoughts of those repressed with tirades from the Holy Book, washed down with the anga kerea toddy to dull the servers’ minds.
Reluctant but at least a little calmer now, Maryam tried to find the hut she shared with Ruth. Every pathway looked the same, every crossroad a random decision that she hoped was right. The accumulated effects of the day were now taking their toll, and she felt exhausted: her feet dragging and her brain growing ever more confused. Just as she began to think she'd never find her way back, she spotted Ruth standing anxiously beneath the flickering light outside their door.
“Finally! Where have you been?” Ruth scolded like a flustered mother hen before she scooped Maryam up into her arms and squeezed her so tightly Maryam had to push away to relieve the pressure on her arm.
“Sorry,” Maryam said. “I needed some time alone to think.”
“You saw what they did to Lazarus?”
“I did.”
“Don't tell anyone,” Ruth whispered, “but Jo and Aanjay helped me smuggle him into our room for the night, so we can tend to him.”
“You what?”
“They were worried that his being white might get him into trouble with the other men. They say he won't be missed tonight—the guards have made a move on the men who refused to eat and Aanjay's sure there'll be some kind of trouble, otherwise they'd never have let him out of their sight.”
All Maryam could do then was laugh. No matter how much she wanted to shun responsibility, the fates worked against her. Like it or not, it seemed she had an obligation towards Lazarus that no amount of personal antipathy could shake.
“What are you laughing at?” Ruth asked, looking suspicious and slightly hurt.
Maryam wrapped her arm around Ruth's shoulder. “Nothing, Ruthie. Nothing. I'm glad to see you're all right.” She steered Ruth towards the door of their hut, and took a deep breath to ready herself for more of Lazarus's scorn.