The Paradise Ghetto

by Fergus O'Connell

  The fire had already eaten a good way into the field and it was moving at a frightening speed. By its light Birkita could see the golden swathe of wheat being turned to shrivelled black as though an invisible hand were sweeping across it. She made another torch and lit the rest of the southern side of the field. The wind took the flames and sent them tearing across the wheat towards the track and the farm buildings. Just as she finished lighting the last patch of wheat, she saw a light appear in one of the windows of the farmhouse. Moments later she heard shouting and saw silhouettes appear in the distance.

  Her revenge had begun.

  35

  Julia is dreaming. In the dream she is a girl again – ten or eleven, around that age. She is at home but while it is definitely her parents’ house, her parents are not her parents. They appear to be more like Suzanne’s parents – or what she imagines Suzanne’s parents to have been like. Julia’s parents aren’t actually in the dream but they are part of it – there in the background somewhere. Suzanne is also there – again, not in the dream but in the background. It feels as though Julia has a sister. Suzanne.

  Nothing much happens in the dream. Julia is just around the house. In her room. Writing. Playing. Then she is out in the garden, lying on her tummy reading. The sun is shining and warm on her back. She is lost in the book. But soon, she knows, it will be teatime and her mum – Suzanne’s mum – will call her in. There will be fresh bread and butter, ham and salad – luscious tomatoes that will explode in her mouth and creamy mayonnaise.

  The dream is incredibly real so much so that Julia’s mouth is watering at the thought of the food. When she wakes from it, she is desolate. She tries to call it back.

  But of course, it is gone.

  Julia thinks it’s quite possible that she’s going mad. First, there’s the lack of food and the hard physical work. Her body is weak and maybe that has started to weaken her brain too. It’s coming loose. Unhinged.

  She’s starting to wonder which of any of this is real. The films, the war, coming here, this ghastly place, Suzanne, the book, the future that Suzanne used to constantly talk about until she went, Birkita and the things that happened to her. In Britannia. In Pompeii. Back in Britannia. Julia and the things that happened to her. Maybe none of it is real and she will wake and find herself living a normal life with a normal family and a normal job in an office or something.

  Did those things really happen to her?

  Did they?

  Did they?

  But yes, she can’t deny her senses. At least she thinks she can’t. She remembers the smell of him. She can still see – if she closes her eyes – the weird expression on his face when he was doing it. Familiar and yet, at the same time, unrecognisable. And there was the silence. Her father was normally a garrulous man. He loved to hear the sound of his own voice. He pontificated a lot. But – when he came to her – silence. Dead silence. Except for those first couple of times when he told her how good this would feel and that it would be their secret and how she must never tell. She could feel – could still feel – his whiskers on her skin. He shaved every day but he was still prickly. And the smell afterwards. After he had gone. The foxy, musky smell.

  It really happened.

  It did.

  It did.

  There was the time before it began. She had been a child. Happy. Innocent. Just she and her mother and father. The world had seemed perfect.

  Or harmless.

  And afterwards, she had come to understand that the world was nothing like that.

  She remembered she had asked God to make it stop. She would kneel down every night by the side of her bed in her nightdress. Winter and summer. On the coldest night of the year, she would be on her knees. And this would be her only prayer. There had been a time when she had asked God to look after Mama and Papa and to watch over her while she slept and for other things that she wanted. But in the end there had just been that one prayer – that he would stop.

  And when he didn’t she knew that there was no God. Or if there was that he was too busy to listen to a little insect like her. Or if he was listening that he didn’t care. And she knew then that there would be nobody she could rely on after this. She would have to take care of herself.

  Yes – that had all been real. It had to have been. Because all of that had made her who she was now.

  It is time to get up. Julia drags herself wearily from her bunk. She feels like she hasn’t slept at all. During the day she tries to forget about how weak and hungry she is. She tries not to think about the future and when the war might end and whether her body still has the strength to make it that far. She has to force herself to think about the book. But that all seems so pointless now. And anyway she is stuck as to what Birkita might do next in terms of revenge. When work finishes, Julia just wants to get back to the barracks, eat whatever she can get to eat and go to sleep.

  When she arrives back and goes to join the queue for food, Julia is astonished to find Suzanne there at the end of the line. She has been crying. Julia is at a loss for what to say – and anyway, she is too weary.

  ‘I was waiting for you,’ says Suzanne.

  ‘How are you?’ asks Julia automatically, not really caring about the answer.

  ‘Hungry,’ says Suzanne.

  ‘Me too,’ says Julia. ‘Always. I’m so fucking hungry.’

  The words seem to take whatever remaining energy she had. They shuffle forward in silence. Julia wants to ask but she doesn’t. She’s just too tired. Too uncaring. When they have their food and are sitting on the stairs of the barracks eating, Suzanne asks, ‘How is the book going?’

  Julia feels angry at the presumption that she stayed at it while Suzanne was off doing whatever she was doing.

  ‘It’s stuck.’

  ‘Maybe I could have a go at it again?’

  Julia finally has had enough.

  ‘So – you’re back, are you?’

  ‘Don’t, Julia. Not now. Not this evening.’

  Ordinarily Julia would have torn several strips off Suzanne at this point. She wants to. She really does. But she feels like somebody who is trying to lift something heavy over a wall and just can’t get that last ounce of energy to lift it that last few centimetres.

  ‘The book is in the mattress,’ Julia says. ‘Do whatever the fuck you like with it.’

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Meet the Family (Suzanne)

  Birkita spent a night of broken sleep in some woods. The fire had been the easy bit. The next piece of her plan was where it could all go wrong.

  In the morning, as soon as it got light and they opened the gates, she re-entered Venta, packed up her few possessions, paid the innkeeper and left the inn. Once again she took the West Gate and then the road out to the farm. It had rained during the night as she had predicted but the sky was clear now. Wet grass glistened in the sunlight and the clean air was just starting to warm up. Birds sang and twittered and called.

  In the daylight, her handiwork was impressive. The field was a blackened, sodden mess. But the buildings had all survived, just as she had expected they would. The ditch around the field had stopped the fire from spreading. Indeed, her fire had been incredibly precise. There was the one large, black, incinerated patch and all around it green and gold crops flourished.

  She turned off on the track that led up to the farm. As she approached the yard she saw the bull Roman and two other men, huddled together talking. Three to one. She hadn’t anticipated that.

  ‘How could it be a fucking accident?’ the bull Roman said loudly, angrily. ‘Some fucker did this and I’m going to find out who it was. When I do, they’ll wish they’d never been born.’

  Then he noticed Birkita.

  ‘What the fuck do you want?’ he said in the Roman tongue.

  ‘Master,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for work.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ he replied. ‘There’s no work here.’

  ‘I’m not looking for any money, master. If you give me
a place to sleep and if I can eat the food that you eat, I will work hard for you.’

  ‘That sounds like a good deal,’ said one of the other men.

  ‘She’s strong,’ said the other. ‘Look at her.’

  ‘And look at her tits,’ said the first.

  The remark made the bull Roman smile. Birkita pretended she hadn’t understood.

  ‘I could work in the fields,’ she continued. ‘I could look after your house. Cook your meals.’

  ‘I have a wife that does that,’ said the bull Roman.

  ‘I can do whatever work you ask of me,’ she said.

  ‘You won’t get a better offer than that,’ said one of the men to the bull Roman, nudging him in the ribs.

  ‘Can you plough?’ the bull Roman asked.

  ‘I can learn,’ she said.

  ‘What tribe are you?’ he asked, stepping closer to her.

  ‘I’m not any British tribe,’ she said. ‘I come from Gaul.’

  The bull Roman looked into her eyes. This was the moment. Birkita returned his gaze, looking for any flash of recognition. As she did so she had a vision of the horror in the forest. Her dagger was in the pocket of her cloak. She could have taken him now. But maybe not. It was a long time since she had trained as a warrior. Maybe the three of them would have overpowered her before she got to him. And then it would have been over.

  That look seemed to go on for ever. Finally, he said, ‘All right. Today of all days, I could use help.’

  He took her to the barn and showed her a corner where she could sleep.

  ‘Leave your stuff there,’ he said.

  Then he took her to the door of the house.

  ‘Wait here.’

  He went inside and reappeared a few moments later with the woman with the black hair. The bruise on her face seemed even more livid close up and in the bright morning light. The two girls stood behind her, one on either side, looking up at Birkita.

  ‘What’s your name?’ the bull Roman asked.

  ‘Birkita.’

  ‘She’ll help you any way you want,’ the bull Roman said to the woman. ‘That’s if she’s not helping me. She’ll sleep in the barn and you need to feed her.’

  Then he said to Birkita, ‘Come on and let’s see what you’re made of.’

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  The Farm – Settling In (Suzanne)

  For that first day and the next one, nobody spoke to Birkita except for the bull Roman when he wanted to give her orders. Their initial job was to plough the burnt field and replant it. He ploughed, walking behind his one horse while she raked and took out clods of burnt, sodden wheat.

  The bull Roman fumed the whole time they were working but his anger didn’t seem directed at her. He cursed the gods but most of all he cursed the person who had burnt his field. He described the kind of retribution he would have when he caught them. With Birkita, however, he was just surly. He seemed happy enough with what she was doing and most of the time, just left her alone. Birkita was surprised to find herself enjoying the work. She lost herself in it and for hours at a time, was able to forget everything that had happened to her family and in the lupanar. It was almost like being back in the time before the rebellion.

  Around noon, the woman appeared, bringing food and wine. She fed her husband first and then she brought what remained to Birkita.

  ‘I brought you some food,’ she said.

  She smiled a small, sad smile and walked off. The food was plentiful and Birkita sat by herself on the edge of the field in the sunshine until the bull Roman shouted at her to get back to work.

  She was glad that he stayed away from her. But he seemed so obsessed with the burning of his field and who might have done it, that there was nothing else he could think about. Birkita was happy to see the effect it had had on him. When he did happen to come near her for any reason, her skin crawled and it was everything she could do not to take her dagger and drive it through his heart. That time would come – but not yet.

  They worked until the bull Roman decided it was time to stop. Then they returned to the yard, washed and Birkita was given a bowl of food and more wine. It was handed out to her from the door of the farmhouse as though she were a dog. But that suited her – anything rather than to have to sit with the bull Roman. She ate the food, sitting in the orange light of the westering sun, her back against the warm wall of the barn. After that she went into the barn and made her bed – spreading her cloak out on a pile of soft, fragrant straw.

  As she settled down to sleep, Birkita heard noise coming from the farmhouse. The bull Roman was shouting. She heard furniture being scraped across a floor and then being overturned. There were screams – just the woman, no children. More shouting from the bull Roman – louder, even angrier. And more screams. But then suddenly the screaming stopped and there were just some muffled thuds.

  Birkita slept badly that night. Despite being physically exhausted, she had nightmares. She was back in the forest. The bull Roman was there. The crucifixions were being carried out. She heard the metallic clanging of hammers on nails, the screams of the children, the routine conversation of the Romans as they went about their business. She remembered how one of them had whistled while he worked.

  The following day, at noon, when the woman brought the food, Birkita asked for her name.

  ‘Galena.’

  It was a British name.

  ‘You’re not Roman?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you’re married to a Roman.’

  ‘We’re not really married. He calls me his wife.’

  The words were spoken wearily, the way someone might speak exhausted at the end of a long journey. She turned and trudged off.

  The next morning, the bull Roman said he was going into Venta and would return that evening.

  ‘No fucking slacking now just because I’m away. I want that field finished by the time I get home.’

  Birkita made good progress and by noon, she could see that she would get the job done well before sunset. When Galena came with the food, Birkita asked, ‘So how did you end up here?’

  ‘My two girls. They’re not his. Their father died in the great battle – the one that ended the rebellion. After that, the Romans were killing everybody. Killing and burning. Raping. We went into hiding, me and my girls. We hid in the forest and lived off whatever we could find there. So many times they nearly found us. But we were lucky.

  ‘Except that we nearly starved to death over the winter. When the spring came I knew we couldn’t go on. We came out. I did what you did. Came up here and asked for work. He said he didn’t need any help – he needed a wife. And so he took me in. Me and my girls. We had food again. Even if I did have to share his bed. I ... I only intended to do it for a while but now I can’t leave. If I do he’s said he’ll kill me. Me and my girls.’

  ‘He beats you,’ said Birkita.

  It was a statement.

  ‘Only if I make him angry. He’s been very angry since the field was burnt. And he wants a son. He wants me to give him one. Says girls are damn all use. He gets angry whenever he remembers I’m not carrying his child. But I’ll never carry his child.’

  Birkita remembered what they used to do in the lupanar to stop themselves from becoming pregnant.

  ‘It means I’ll be beaten for a long time yet.’

  That night, Birkita tried to get clear in her own mind how she would exact her revenge. The burning of the field and coming to work here had just been spur of the moment things. She had hoped that after these two things, the path forward would become clear. But there had been no blinding flash of light. And if it had ever been her intention to murder his family, as he had done to hers, that was gone now. Galena and the girls were victims just as much as Birkita was.

  She had decided she wouldn’t kill him. Even crucifying him or torturing him to death would be too easy. She wanted him to live a long life of misery. She racked her brains to see if there was any way she could take his farm but tha
t didn’t seem like an option. She could destroy it. That might be worth considering at some point – burn the crops again but also burn the buildings. But before she could do that, Galena and her girls would have to be long gone. Then, with the farm gone, she needed to find a way to destroy him in some way – while still keeping him alive.

  So the first thing was Galena and the girls.

  36

  Suzanne tries to make small talk with Julia on the way to work but she is having none of it. Adolf sends them off on separate work assignments. There is more silence when they return in the evening and eat. Afterwards Julia says she is going for a walk. When Suzanne asks if she can come, Julia says she’d rather go by herself.

  She goes out to the ramparts and watches the swallows swooping. It is a sunny evening and spring feels like it has finally come out of hiding and won’t be going back. Julia spends a long time sitting on the grass. She tries not to think of anything – is that actually possible? She tries just to become part of the scene – as though she were in a painting. Eventually she becomes aware that the people around her are starting to head back to their barracks. Soon it will be curfew. She gets up to go too.

  When she returns, Suzanne is writing in the notebook. She looks up as Julia arrives at the bunk. Her eye sockets are big from hunger and red from crying.

  ‘Can I tell you what happened?’ she says.

  Whatever anger was inside Julia is gone. It seems to have evaporated somewhere out there on the ramparts.

  She nods.

  ‘Want to come up here?’

  Suzanne pats the mattress beside her.

  Julia climbs up.

  ‘I feel so stupid,’ says Suzanne. ‘All that talk of weddings and bridesmaids. It’s just as you said. He just wants a girl. Any girl. And once he’s had them, he’s on to the next one.’

  ‘He’s a dickhead,’ Julia says.

  She puts an arm around her friend. ‘Never mind. There are other things that are a lot more important.’

  ‘I think part of me just wanted to find out what it was like.’