Another Justified Sinner

by Sophie Hopesmith

  He swallowed sick as he struggled into his clothes: outdoorsy bits and pieces that were hastily assembled from Kensington High Street. Everything looked too expensive, although he had deliberately ripped a few holes.

  Sucked into the corner of the ceiling, a gecko hung upside down: its shiny eyes were still and staring, the tongue flicking over the slits. Out of its mouth hung eight thick legs. It was waiting for Marcus to leave before it consumed its meal. It waited some time.

  To Stephanie’s relief, Marcus was not outside in ten minutes, as suspected, but he was there before her watch said 10am. His eyes were unfocused and his skin was pale. He looked unprepared. She handed him a bottle of sunscreen and left him to it; sitting at the back of the group, never uttering a word. He drank a lot of water.

  At lunchtime, he stayed in his corner and scoffed the fresh fish and potatoes. People were still at stage one of their chats: finding out where people came from, what jobs they had fled from, what masks they had put on or pulled off. Instead, he chose to sit on the sand and gawp at Lake Malawi, with its invisible edges and its tidal dance. He had never seen a lake like it. He was used to the enormity of numbers, but not of physical things that he could not expunge. He felt very light, like he weighed nothing at all.

  The induction week was a blur of instructions and precautions. The group familiarised themselves with the village: its small thatched buildings and its half-constructed school. The children would often throng about, grabbing their hands, tugging their clothes. The villagers seemed used to the charity, and they were friendly and welcoming. However, in solitary moments, they would stand and watch them – before sweeping the powdered-up ground into piles that would only rescatter.

  The charity was ‘multi-pronged’ in its approach (a phrase they muttered like mantra) and assigned volunteers to the duties that fitted them best. Some people were obvious teachers, and would go to a nearby village, where there was already a school in place. They could start to build up their confidence there, with the expectation that another school nearby would be built within two to three months.

  A few years earlier, the government had made primary school education free for all children. It was an aspirational statement: there was generally not the infrastructure nor quantity of teachers to allow this to happen. Plus many families still relied on their children for help, particularly at harvest, and did not see the point of keeping them inside to think when they could be doing.

  A few charities, like Project Step Up, had surfaced in Malawi to manage the momentum of this goal. If a community built teacher housing, the government would usually provide a teacher from one of its training centres, although teachers were still thin on the ground. Volunteers from the charity were there to ‘step up’ and fill in the gaps: get the schools built in the first place, help with the teaching and try to lower the class size, while the government caught up.

  Volunteers of the big and bulky kind, with too much energy, were best deployed with physical activity, such as making bricks in the kilns or building the houses. Generally, the charity endorsed using local labour, and keeping projects in the community (they were keen to stress this on their website, too). But sometimes there was muscle and punch that just needed exhausting.

  Volunteers who were neither outgoing nor nurturing enough to teach, nor bouncy and brawny enough to build, were sent into the fine arts of decoration. They were given brushes and encouraged to ‘express themselves’. They sourced resources and constructed furniture. They helped around the village with domestic tasks. They immersed themselves in village life.

  Marcus saw straightaway that this was by far the easiest occupation of the three, requiring neither sweat nor thought. It was all a bit ridiculous, really – like the system was designed to reward the sensitive and weak. He resolved to hide himself in corners and keep his mouth shut. He anti-socially sat longer on the sand, watching the fishermen drag in their boats.

  The final exercise of induction week was his downfall. Stephanie and Philippa introduced some interactive group exercises: mainly of the troubleshooting, lateral-thinking variety. Marcus intended to hold back, but he couldn’t. He fell into a role of leadership and spoke up for his group, communicating the ideas back to everyone, unravelling their logic in careful, mannered tones. He felt the sweet swell of ego as Stephanie’s eyes widened in respect, and she nodded hard at him, with thin, jutting-out lips. His people-pleaser pulsed. A smile fluttered from his face. She caught it, and spun one back.

  The next day, the volunteers gathered around a board. They were divided into three small groups. Staring him in the face were the words ‘Marcus’ and ‘teaching’. Most people were too pleased with their choices to see a snarl lift up his lip.

  In Marcus’s group was a posh guy called Reuben, who wore his hair long and thick (the one who sat next to him in the van); a short, lank chef called Ben, who seemed polite and thoughtful; plus the two girls from the previous induction. These included Annabelle, the tall girl who had carried him back to his bed that first night (or, so he remembered it). There was also Dora, the youngest in the group, who had just graduated in medicine, but acted as if she had lived a thousand lives already. Dora and Annabelle, although a few years apart in age, already clung to each other. They liked to sit and whisper conspiratorially; letting tectonic plates of gossip quake molehill mountains.

  The next day, they were driven to the neighbouring village, where there was already a school. The journey was bumpier than before. Nobody spoke, apart from irregular giggles between Dora and Annabelle. There was a mood of trepidation. The sun was bright, and sweat glistened their foreheads.

  They saw him before they passed him. A skeleton boy, painted white, with stick-thin arms and legs. His eyes did not track the passing car, but focused on some distant thing, beyond the road. He scrunched his hands into fists, sucking hard on a sugar cane.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Dora’s head swung wildly. ‘Why was he covered in paint?’

  The driver looked back at them. They had gotten to know him, his name was Kondwani, and he was a friend of Stephanie’s.

  ‘He paint white.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why.’ He allowed a couple of seconds to think. ‘When boys twelve, thirteen, we send them from village. We make them white. White is spirits. Boys live alone, find food to eat. Talk to family ghosts, our… What word?’ He clicked his fingers.

  ‘Ancestors?’

  ‘What ancestors?’

  ‘Family from many, many years ago,’ said Reuben. He was sitting next to Kondwani, at the front. ‘Family now dead.’

  ‘Yes, “ancestors”. They talk to ancestors. They talk to spirits. That why they look like spirits. So they find each other.’

  ‘But how do they survive?’ Annabelle was pale. She leaned forwards on the driver’s seat, as if to prop herself up.

  ‘Village leave food. But not home. Must leave home village. Kill animals. Find food and not die. They go home and now they man.’

  ‘So it’s a rite of passage?’ asked Reuben. ‘A ritual to mark a time of change, or something like that. Like, from adolescence to adulthood.’

  ‘Possible.’ But Kondwani sounded doubtful. He wasn’t sure how this was any different from what he had just said, but he knew the British often liked to say the same thing in a different way, as if they were the first to think or declare it. So much tautology and synonym!

  Silence returned to the car. There were a few murmurings between Dora and Annabelle: indecipherable, on the whole. Marcus managed to make out: ‘Seems a bit harsh, doesn’t it? He looked so young.’ Then a grunt of agreement from Annabelle.

  He felt a prod in his arm. Ben smiling, apologetically. ‘That was a bit odd back there, wasn’t it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘A bit voodoo, if you know what I mean. Gave me a bit of a chill.’

  Marcus shrugged. ‘It was just a boy.’ He’d seen worse in the City clubs on a Friday night.

  Ben nodded and attem
pted a subject change. ‘Gosh, I’m starving. And we’ve just had breakfast! This doesn’t bode well!’

  ‘Hmmn.’

  ‘What do you think the children are going to be like? Not painted white, I presume!’

  ‘Look…’ Marcus closed his eyes. ‘I’m really sorry, Ben; but I’m not feeling particularly great.’

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘It’s fine; I just can’t talk at the moment.’

  ‘Oh no. Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘No. It’s fine.’

  ‘I could ask Kondwani if he’s got any painkillers…’

  ‘No, it’s not a headache. Seriously, it’s fine.’

  ‘OK.’ Ben turned his body away from Marcus, towards the window. The terrain was a patchwork of grey and green.

  They arrived to a gaggle of children, singing and clapping their hands. Marcus stepped out of the car and his hand was snatched. ‘Will you be my friend? You’re my best friend.’ He felt himself carried towards the school, like a leaf on an ant army.

  Kondwani translated for them while the shy village herdman introduced them to the school and class. They also met their translator: a cheerful woman called Abikanile.

  The building had only just been completed. This was the children’s first day, and they were excited. They darted in and out of legs. Their faces were shiny and full of teeth.

  Annabelle spotted Marcus, towards the back, leaning against a wall, his face down to the ground. ‘Are you all right?’ she whispered. The herdman was still talking.

  He nodded. There was an exaggerated swallow.

  She went to walk back to the front, but his words cut her short.

  ‘I feel nauseous. I think I’m going to be sick.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really.’ His face was full of sickness and loathing.

  ‘When did it start?’

  ‘In the car.’

  ‘Maybe it’s travel sickness?’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe.’ Then he shook his head and gestured vaguely to his lips. I can’t talk, he seemed to say. She walked away.

  As they drifted into the school, she dropped back again. ‘How are you feeling now?’

  ‘I think it’s subsiding.’

  ‘That’s good. So it must have been the car.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. That’s an easy fix, then.’

  ‘Yes.’

  There didn’t seem to be anything left to say. They followed the children into their new bright, clean classroom. They split the group into two, to try to keep sizes smaller, although there were children crowding in from everywhere. Either way, it was an easy class to teach, and the hours slid by. The first lessons were mainly introductions. A village lady – Bertha – had arrived, to take over translating and study their teaching. Her English was broken, but she told Annabelle that she was eager to learn. Annabelle didn’t have the heart to say that none of them were teachers back in the UK. Although she wasn’t sure this would matter: being white seemed to carry some prestige, as if you had the money and influence to solve problems, no matter how disparate or desperate. Her shoulders felt the responsibility of kings and messiahs. And yet this was a human who didn’t know how to cook or grow guavas or measure distance with the stars.

  They were all exhausted when they returned to the village. The tiredness was deep in their bones, like extra weight to lug. There was chatter around their evening meal, but it was polite and contained. People commented on the day’s activities, informed the other two groups of their tasks. Nobody drank beer. Nobody tried to dominate. They leant back into their chairs and blinked up at the sky, almost willing the night-time.

  Then the nausea came back: a writhing jam of acid in his belly. It kept erupting through his system and up into his throat, the burn of a digestive lava flow. He got up at one point and was sick on the sand, out of view. He went to his room to get a towel and then scooped up the sick with it. He made sure nobody could see him dump the acrid evidence into one of the waste bins. When he returned, the group were already bustling about, tidying up plates and unsetting the table. He joined in, warily, wondering if the stink was stuck to him. He worried his breath might flare out, like dragon fire.

  Toby was in the room when he got there, pulling the bed sheets taut. ‘You can’t be too careful,’ he said.

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Spiders, snakes, centipedes – all that.’

  ‘You’re kidding, right? They wouldn’t be able to get in here. We don’t open the windows.’

  ‘Oh, they could get in here, all right,’ Toby replied, breezily. ‘They’ve done it plenty of times, I reckon.’

  ‘But you would notice a snake. And Aldo told me they don’t have poisonous spiders here.’

  ‘Not officially, mate. But Stephanie was telling me how they’ve been know to get violin spiders, you know.’

  ‘Right – and they’re poisonous, are they?’

  ‘Yep,’ laughed Toby, as if the prospect delighted him. ‘Their venom could kill you, all right. We’ve got nothing to worry about, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, you know. So I like to pull the sheets really tight and touch the top of them with, like, the back of my hand, just to check there’s nothing inside. And then I sort of propel myself into bed. Then I tuck the mosquito net into the sides of the bed.’

  He proceeded to do this in front of Marcus, springing into the covers with a gleam of satisfied benignness. Marcus felt compelled to do the same. Toby then stretched an arm out from under the net, and switched off the bedside light. There was the low sound of an arm swooshing in again.

  The darkness wallowed in front of them. It pulsed and eddied, like waves of nullity. Marcus held on to the sides of his pillow, so he wouldn’t fall off this gyrating planet, suspended in space. He felt like he would never fall asleep. He kept thinking of his flat in London, its comforts and luxury. He could taste steak on his lips: the salty wetness of flesh oozing out on his tongue. A pang of homesickness so fierce that he had to blink back the tears.

  But he must have fallen asleep, after all, to account for his waking up so suddenly. Sitting bolt upright, the sweat on his back, his breath puffy and rasping. He’d had a terrible dream. The horrors, even now, were flashing up in his vision, like he’d looked too long at something too bright. It had all been so vivid that he found himself shivering, shaking; at any moment, he might be sucked back in. He tried to think of anything else – anything at all. His first date with Nancy (Pizza Express). His favourite fruit (strawberries). Where he might live after London (New York). Annabelle in her underwear (she had an excellent cleavage). But it kept getting intercepted by his mother sitting in the bath, her zombie face twisted up at him, her eyes black and iris-less, the water muddy and low.

  ‘Toby,’ he called out. There wasn’t an answer. He didn’t know if he was pleased or disappointed. A mixture of both: one tied up with pride, the other, with fear.

  He needed the toilet. ‘Oh fuck, no,’ he yelped. He couldn’t see anything. He heard a patter on the floorboards – a spider?

  He lay there for a few minutes more. He felt the pressure in his groin. An insufferable ache. Maybe he could just piss the bed. He would have to hand wash the sheets, but that would be fine. He was sure he could do it in secret. Somehow. There must be a way. How easy, how much easier, to just slacken his muscles, his pelvis, let it all flood away…

  But the shame. The shame of being found out – Annabelle! Particularly by her, perhaps it was the cleavage. But by anybody, really… To discover that he had wet the bed and then slept on it all night, mummified in ammonia.

  He whipped off the sheets and lifted up the mosquito net. He tucked the bedding back in, quickly, so he didn’t return to any nasty surprises. He cursed himself for this situation as he felt his way along the wall to the door, hoping not to spring upon any latent bugs. Soon, he would be halfway to the toilets.

  The whole world was conspiring against him. There must be a God, after all, a
nd that God was showing off its dominion. Or perhaps it was the Devil. Either way, there was a vicious witchcraft in nature. All creatures, all wildlife, were the militia of some supernatural evil, some wickedness that lay deep in the soil, through pebbles, on sand, on the foothills around them, within the very veins of a leaf. Every living thing on the planet sought revenge. He was caught in the middle of a food chain: poked at and scratched at by tendrils, tentacles, umbels, follicles.

  He went to the toilet at speed and was soon back in his room without incident. He thought about turning on the light and screaming, waking up the whole camp, the whole village. Something stopped him: some bottomless code.

  He felt along his bed for the lump and bump of a malignant creature. While he did this, he heard the distant whine of a hungry mosquito. In a manoeuvre that would have impressed even Toby, he flipped himself into his bed, tucked up and secure, the netting tugged taut.

  He listened to the whine of that mosquito for what must have been hours. He felt incredibly tired, but he could not sleep. His eyelids would get heavy, he would close his eyes, drift into unconsciousness (he could see it so near, right there in front of him, like reality had a horizon)… But then the feeling would leave him. He was back with his eyes open, the mosquito still whining. He saw the light creep into the room and the day force upon him. He had contracted insomnia. The World Health Organization had never warned him of this.

  Oh, and the next few days were such a struggle. A passing blur of over-eager child-faces with chalk in their hands – like no schoolchildren he had ever seen before. And he had never seen so many black faces, even blacker bodies. He had no black friends. He had few black colleagues. He was used to being in the majority. So at first, he had stared at it: the contrast of their palms, soles, the white teeth and pink gums. Now it was normal and it was his face that looked odd: its freckles and sunspots, bloated pores and flat, wispy hair.