The Nature of Blood

by Caryl Phillips

  My hair is removed by a woman who wields large blunt scissors. The woman seems to relish the thought of inflicting pain. She speaks: While you were still going to the theatre, we were already here. Now she smiles at me. The hair on my head, the hair under my arms, the soft hair between my legs. Go ahead and pray. But you know where your mother is, don't you? I look around. Our heads are strange and knobbly. We all look the same. Grotesque figures, naked and without hair. Right up in that chimney, that's where she is. And then we disinfect our feet in violet water. And then we shower. And then a powder of some sort is sprinkled on us, and we scramble for clothes. I try to forget my name. I decide to put Eva away in some place for safe-keeping until all of this is over. But already Eva refuses to be hidden. There is no new name in my throat. Eva refuses to disappear.

  For three whole days we endured the furious onslaught of the sea, before our battered vessel finally arrived at Cyprus. It was dusk, and a large contingent of my army were gathered on shore to meet me, with relief written large upon their faces. Clearly the storm had propelled them in a more logical direction, which had enabled them to make good time and a safe landfall. After greeting my men, and receiving the welcome news that the Turkish fleet had fallen victim to the might of the sea, I asked to be immediately conducted to the bosom of my lady. My lieutenant, Michael Cassio, a Florentine intellectual and arithmetician, assured me that she who I now called wife was safe in the company of my Ancient, to whom she had been entrusted. It appeared that there would be a few days in which to luxuriate while we waited for news from Venice and, this being the case, I immediately determined that I would divide these precious days between my wife and my officers. It was important that I rested, for I freely acknowledged to myself that I was no longer the young Titan who bestrode the battlefield in days past. After a night of sweet slumber, I would begin to embrace this free time to learn yet more about these people who were clearly to be my new countrymen. This island of Cyprus, to which fate had deposited me safe in both body and mind, would serve as the school in which I might further study the manners of Venice, before eventually returning to the city to embark upon my new life. However, my first action as both General and Governor was to order that revels should commence within the hour to celebrate both the drowning of the heretical Turk and the happy and fortuitous marriage of their commanding officer to fair Desdemona. It was at this point that Michael Cassio took me to one side and conveyed to me the intelligence that my father-in-law had died shortly after my departure. Whether from grief, or anger, or some other cause, he chose not to disclose, but I thanked him for the information. According to good Cassio, my wife had betrayed no outward sign of mourning, so again I confirmed my order that within the hour revels should commence, and I charged my men that they should busy themselves and prepare for a night of celebration that would live long in the memory.

  OTHELLO: A play by William Shakespeare. Probably written between 1602 and 1604, and first performed in 1604. The principal source for the play is Giraldi Cinthio's Hecatommithi, a collection of Italian stories first published in Venice in 1566, and used by a number of Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists as source material for their plots. Out of one key sentence in Cinthio's story, Shakespeare wrote the early scenes of the play.

  It happened that a Virtuous Lady of wondrous beauty called Disdemona, impelled not by female appetite but by the Moor's Good qualities, fell in love with him, and he, vanquished by the Lady's beauty and noble mind, likewise was enamoured of her.

  Each morning, while waiting for sunlight, she sighed (The worst part of every day. I open my eyes and I feel pain.) and faced the truth about her situation. (How long, winter? How long?) I spotted her among those lost souls, just as she was knotting the rope around her neck. Mama! I cried, Mama! No! And she looked at me and spoke softly, all the while continuing her preparations. She said, but I am not your Mama. I knew that she recognized me, but she did not want this filthy rag for a daughter. I began to laugh, as though it were a joke. I wanted to shame her into recognition. And then she stopped, and she took the rope from her neck. So you have come back to me, my child? She touched my arm. Yes, Mama, I've come back. And then she smiled sadly. And now Papa flooded the dream world. He was dressed elegantly, and walking down a broad avenue near the City Hall. She prayed that she might be left undisturbed, for everybody knew that one should never wake anybody having a nightmare. Reality was much worse. Nightmares were acceptable. He approached the man and asked pleasantly, 'Excuse me, could you tell me where the American Embassy is?' The man looked him up and down, as though unable to comprehend this impertinence. (He was a man some years younger than Papa.) Then he stepped back and struck Papa a blow with his walking stick, a blow that sent Papa sprawling to the ground. I looked on, but said nothing. I watched as the younger man walked off into the afternoon sunshine, and then Papa looked up at me, his face red and marked, and he assured me that it did not hurt. Six people on a plank of wood, on top of them another layer, below them another layer, one turns, all turn, packed like livestock, frozen nights, reach the bucket or let go on the wood. Hold on. Hold on. Sleepless nights. Newcomers quarrelling, cursing in a new language. Hateful people. Stubborn moonlight flooding through panes feathered with frosty patterns. And then it is morning. Rise and shine. A sleeping partner has given off enough warmth to enable her to sleep for a moment, and dream. Human life is cheap. (I sometimes think that I would even kiss one if it meant that I could live.) Young bodies rusted like old taps. (Squeeze it, turn it on, drip, drip, rust coating my fingers if it meant I could live.) Valueless. (Perhaps there is to be no continuity to my story?) Unless she changed her attitude towards herself and others, she was going to die among squadrons of furious flies. (In the morning, a wealth of corpses. I look and wonder, if I survive, and if I should meet their husbands or children or parents, and if they should ask me about their loved ones, what should I say? Should I confess to the terror in their eyes? Should I say that at some point during these squalid years we all wished to stumble forwards on our swollen feet and simply fall into the ditch. Easy. But to try to survive was terrible. Should I tell them this? That the body begins to eat itself. Fat. Flesh. Muscles. In this order. Unless one fights hard, there is soon only enough strength left to flick the switch and turn out the lights.) But this death is a trivial affair. It has become a habit, like the habit of the lice to quarry their way to the armpits. Only typhus is feared, for the head bursts, the body trembles, the intestines and stomach are stricken in agony, leaving one to wallow in pools of excrement of one's own making. The rest is routine. Every day, there are examinations. Men and women in name only, an unaesthetic drop of menstrual blood signalling death, a tongue coated in a white deposit signalling death. Dragged across the courtyard by the ankles, the head banging out its final resistance. But they must remember to wash with the coffee, they must remember to try to keep clean. Picking at each other's lice like monkeys. Now reduced to a small tangle of bones covered with skin that is stretched tight and stained with bruises and bites. Bald heads and powerful eyes. These were women who once made love, decaying now like discarded and foul-smelling fruit. Buried in their own filth. (Buried in one's own filth.) Hungry enough to gnaw on a shoe, forever relieving themselves, stinking skeletons. Repulsive. It is in the natural order of things for the elderly to die before the young, for the adult to die before the child. And still they come. Newcomers. With no understanding of the language that is being barked. And on some days the smoke pours so powerfully from the chimneys that daylight cannot break through. (I once passed close by a chimney, Ash-freckled snow skirted its base. A seasonal cape of good cheer defaced.) They look at the guards. These newcomers don't know the words to this song. Random history by chance gave you your precious golden face, but measured time will carry you off to a bloodless place. But perhaps they will learn the words. Some of them. (Look at us! I plead with the newcomers. Do you not understand?) And the newcomers look at these monkey-people with shaved heads and they feel compass
ion. But the monkey-people have nothing to give except glances and whispered warnings. The monkey-people no longer hear the silence. They no longer ask the question, where will they put us? She once helped a pregnant woman to flush a child from her womb. (I told her. We were once you. Healthy, with beautiful figures. With long hair. (Mama and Papa still exist in my mind.) And breasts.) Her full breasts, soon to disappear. An imaginary pebble near the nipple, distorting the length. Then the sack will shrink. Shorter. And then she will become a man. No breasts. Plumes of smoke. (Margot was to be lived for. Only Margot now.) The newcomers must remember their names. Without a name, nobody will know who they are. Nobody would know who she was. Morning. Good morning. On the floor, mice have frozen to death next to scraps they were too weak to bite apart. She must use the latrines. Quickly. But in the barracks there are no latrines. (I try to forget that I am aware that to befoul the body is to befoul the spirit.) Quickly. In this place, only buckets that have to be used at night. Buckets that are soon filled. And, come morning spilt and emptied, for it is easier to carry a bucket that is only three-fourths full. Come morning. Quickly. Public humiliation. No privacy. A tiny building ankle-deep in human waste, a smell that chokes like a cloud, squatting like birds on a wire, showering each other, exploding quick, hurry, this is no temple of reflection, no paper, nothing to clean with, beaten with a club, diarrhoea sticking to clothes, dropping down legs, nothing to wash with, a cold in the bladder means you can wash frequently with urine, dreaming of the bucket which, when full, spills against bare legs, repulsively warm, it offers some heat. Quickly. Outside. (I feel guilty, for Papa always said that I must never sit on a strange toilet seat.) In the sky, shifting clouds. (Before I work I need food.) A piece of bread is a lifeline. So hungry that at times they behaved like wild animals and would unthinkingly have murdered for food. (I disliked the dirty, uncultivated people from the east.) A hungry body is an affront to human dignity, but why waste time? Why water a dying tree? (Why waste time on these people?) Tin plates of soup. A few grains of barley floating in warm water. A lump of mouldering bread. Coffee? Water to which bitter black colour has been added. She uses the warm liquid to wash her hair. Nothing is wasted, nothing is saved. The only safe storage place is the stomach. A diet designed to kill within weeks, unless one could steal. (Everybody is a part of somebody else's game. That much I understand.) Lick your spoon. Lick your spoon. No clock. No time. Now only work. March to work. The ground wounds easily beneath the foot's heavy passage. Slow, vague thoughts filter through their confused minds. Today, they continue to burn bodies. (I burn bodies.) Burning bodies. First, she lights the fire. Pour gasoline, make a torch, and then ignite the pyre. Wait for the explosion as the fire catches, and then wait for the smoke. Clothed bodies burn slowly. Decayed bodies burn slowly. In her mind she cries, fresh and naked, please. Women and children burn faster than men. Fresh naked children burn the fastest. Do not look at those who watch. (I always know where the nearest guards are. I always know what they are doing. I never volunteer for anything.) Tonight they will jackal to each other as they dull their minds with king alcohol, and then they will vomit like pigs. (I do not look at them. Fifty lashes. Or a quick shot and a short journey to heaven.) One woman attaches a written message to a stone and throws it hopelessly towards the fence. Frostbite has already removed her toes. She cannot dance. They make her dig her own grave, her shovel scraping against the stubborn earth. The dull thump of clay as it is tossed to one side. And her companions look on and dare to weep. She climbs in and lies down with her arms folded about her chest, her shovel by her side. They place the gun barrel almost at her temple. Then shoot. Her head is bent backwards and her bared teeth are visible. One eye stares vacantly into space. Dear kind mother earth, we tear deep wounds into your holy body. When it rains, the earth turns to thick mud. (Standing in mud up to my ankles.) A terrible thirst caused by stench and smoke. But now to the ravine. But before they leave, a quick shot and another one in heaven. Death has swept another soul from off her feet. Sashaying musically across the floor, twirling and pointing, arms thrown wide, head tossed back, death is so happy, so fleet-footed, so free. A tempting invitation. And at the ravine the ground is moist, the graves eight weeks old, and she pulls out parts – heads slushing easily away from bodies – and she puts them into buckets, and then she carries them back to the fire to burn. And then she goes back to the ravine. Old sites, up to the knees in foulness, pulling flesh from bone, joy, look like you are working, or digging, and any who find time to pray will die of an active mind. Look into the dead faces. Eyes sunken and dimmed, eyes which once flickered with happiness. Mouths that once gave wise counsel and encouragement, now hang agape. (I long for fresh bodies.) Look, over there. (Please do not let me discover anybody that I know.) Night falls with the weight of a hammer. We go back. Carrying tools and cauldrons, a heavy load. But pain can be conquered in a way that hunger cannot. Shuffling along on her spindly legs, her dry shrunken lungs gasping for air. Damaged bodies. A forest of barbed-wire illuminated by powerful lights. So bright they render the whole scene a photograph. And again the moon. (I look at the moon. Still pregnant. Every month pregnant.) Standing in line with people with big heads, and within their big heads only the eyes are living. Always the eyes. A piece of black bread, four inches thick. Whispering. Bread? More bread? Twenty-five lashes with a whip in exchange for the chance of somebody else's bread. This is good business. Good business. Will anybody trade bread for cigarettes? Or coffee? Or anything? Whispering. Bread? More bread? (I don't trust anybody.) Don't trust your best friend. (I look out for myself.) Don't get sick It is evening. And they are counted into the hut. People's mouths move, their faces ablaze with indignation. They shout orders. (No words reach me. Inwardly I remain calm. I simply stare. Suspended. A young woman-foetus. Slowly turning.) Rats feed on human bodies. Dead or alive. The distinction is irrelevant. All night, she brushes mice away from her eyes and lips. There is a small stove with three feet. But no fuel. I cannot keep my feet. I cannot eat or drink. It is morning. I drag myself out of the hut, but fall motionless to the ground. My colleagues begin to march off to their work sites. I summon what strength I have and stand, but that is all. I cannot move. I simply watch them disappear from view. Between us, enough Hebrew to recite the basic blessings and prayers. (My parents believed just enough so that nobody could accuse them of being either disrespectful or ignorant.) Death swims before my eyes. Alone in the yard now. My head slumps to one side. A prod in the back brings me back-to consciousness. The man is standing over me, a smile frozen on his lips. I am aware of his health. He holds the gun lightly and allows his fingers to play with it. And then he points the gun at my head. An early dream. Too early to dream. Six people on a plank of wood, on top of them another layer, below them another layer, one turns, all turn, packed like livestock, frozen nights, reach the bucket or let go on the wood. Hold on. Hold on. And somebody whispers, did your family light Shabbat candles on a Friday night? (And I laugh.) And somebody spits then asks, did you wash any bodies today? (And I laugh.) Everybody laughs. She laughs quietly. Stupid questions. And somebody laughs then asks, did you witness any men reciting the Kaddish today? Too much. (I cannot laugh.) Six people on a plank of wood. Tonight. (I remember. Sometimes Mama lit the Shabbat candles. A beautiful, delicate glow. No smoke.) No smoke.

  What I now know of the condition I've learnt largely because of Eva Stern. Not because I possess any intimate knowledge of her case history. I hardly knew her. I interviewed her just the once. But it was she who started me thinking about the problem in general. These days they call me an expert, or more properly a specialist, but initially I could find only the odd article. I have to admit that I was guessing as I was going along. Not entirely satisfactory, but I couldn't afford to be too precious. These people's conditions were generally chronic. They needed time to forget, on the one hand, and on the other hand time to learn to trust people again. Sadly, neither of these processes can be rushed. Eventually, we all have to submit to the
whim of time. However, I couldn't help wondering what the situation must have been like over there. I knew there had to be thousands of these survivors, and as a result there would be countless fellows doing research in this area. After the situation with Eva, I thought about doing a paper myself. About their clearly defined emotional anaesthesia, or psychic numbing. Eva, in fact all of them, they were so detached. But, at least to begin with, I didn't have enough information.

  My wife smiles, and I reach over and clutch this faithful jewel to my bosom. The light from the lamp illuminates the sheen of her skin and I almost swoon with delight. She is both smooth and unblemished, and beneath her breast I can feel the gentle pounding of her heart. Her legs are gracefully entwined in the confusion of the sheet, but with one hand I reach down and strip away the offending garment. Tonight there is no reason to worry that our bedroom hours might be interrupted by messengers from the doge, or concern ourselves with the furtive nature of our coming together. We are man and wife in a union known broadly to all, and acknowledged by the doge himself. There is time for love, then our revels, then more love. And then, when my duties here on Cyprus achieve a happy conclusion, we shall return home to Venice and commence our new life of peace in the remarkable city-state. She whispers my name. And again, my name.