by Hugo Wilcken
‘Some company you lot are,’ he mumbles, then rolls over.
The crackle of the fire, the odd rustle in the forest, the monkey howls, the weirdly mechanical insect clicks. But Sabir’s no longer scared of the night, its sudden noises and grotesque shadows. He’s lying on his back, hands behind his head, staring up beyond the canopy to the stars. So Edouard killed a showgirl on a bridge over the Seine, he’s thinking. Funny, all that time he was in Paris, so was Edouard. They might well have bumped into each other. In fact, it’s strange that they didn’t. But then he has a doubt. It’s not like Edouard to come out with anything so direct about his past. Surely he was just fobbing Bonifacio off with a silly story. It sounds too pat. Like the melodramatic tales convicts tell to cover up their ignominious past as muggers or house robbers. Edouard often said how much he disliked Paris, how he’d never live there.
Through the next morning, they gradually work their way up to higher ground. Here, the trees soar to stupendous heights, cutting off most of the light. Mosses, vines and ferns string their way overhead, forming a low roof as if they’re in a vast green cave. And everywhere the constant drip, drip of rainwater running off the leaves, echoing dully through the forest. The undergrowth has thinned out and the going’s easier: for long stretches they can walk without having to cut a way through. It lifts their spirits, since it makes it more likely that they’ll get to the Maroni within a day or two.
If that’s the case, what happens next? Sabir wonders what’s on Edouard’s mind. Because, on reflection, it’s not so simple as getting back to the river and negotiating the purchase of a new boat. Bonifacio’s a guard killer. It’s too dangerous to stay any length of time in French Guiana with him. Besides, there’s his murder of Say-Say. They’d still have to ‘lose’ Bonifacio somehow. It brings Sabir straight back to the old question.
‘Stop!’ he hears Edouard hiss. The men freeze. A couple of metres up a tree, an iguana, the size of an arm. Edouard noiselessly picks up a rock, aims, throws hard. The iguana drops to the ground with a heavy thump. ‘Good shot!’ says Bonifacio. The men gingerly approach. Edouard pokes it with a stick and it scuttles off under some ferns. They all pummel the ferns with rocks – but when they search them, the iguana’s nowhere to be found.
At noon, they eat the last of the tapioca in gloomy silence. All that remains now is a few cans of condensed milk. The thought of the iguana they almost caught simply sharpens the hunger, adds to the horrible nervy frustration. Back in camp, Sabir heard convicts say you could last up to a month in the jungle without food, as long as you had water. Perhaps, if you’re not walking and cutting your way through the forest.
Another long march all afternoon, making a fair distance in the absence of thick undergrowth. What bothers the men most now is some kind of low-growing plant with tough, thorn-bordered leaves that scratch and tear at their legs. In the late afternoon they reach a stream. In theory they could walk on for another hour or two before nightfall, but they’re too exhausted. Edouard gets a fire going for the mosquitoes, but there’s nothing to cook on it. There are some small fish in the stream, but no way of catching them. Even if there were, they’d be barely a mouthful. The best the men can manage is to collect the grass that’s growing along the side of the stream, put it in a tin with water, boil it up and drink it as a soup. But it has little effect. The hunger and exhaustion have brought on a heightened, febrile atmosphere, with the pre-storm heaviness in the air only adding to the tension. Bonifacio in particular seems to be in a state of some excitement.
‘How far d’you think we’ve got?’ he asks Edouard.
‘I’d say we’ve covered almost half the distance.’
‘Almost half? Is that all?’
‘If we were closer to the river, we’d have come across something by now. Jungle paths, Indians, some sign of life. I think we’ve got another thirty kilometres to go.’
‘Jesus.’ Bonifacio’s hands are shaking slightly. Bad time to get the fever, if that’s what it is. ‘Got to eat something, or I’ll go mad.’ He wades back into the stream, stares into it, plunges his hand down as if to grab at something. After a few attempts he tires of that game and clambers back up the bank. Now he approaches Edouard again. ‘You and that fucking bag of yours. Dragging it all this way. What the hell have you got in there?’
‘That’s my business.’
‘We’re all in this together. It’s all of our business.’
‘No. It’s my business.’
‘You’re hoarding food, is that it?’
‘No.’
‘What else would it be? I’ve seen you. Sneaking off by yourself.’
Bonifacio is standing over Edouard now, as he’s fixing a palm cover for the fire to protect it from the rain. The bag’s sitting by his feet. It’s clear that Bonifacio is working himself up into a rage.
‘Give me the bag.’
‘No.’
‘And I say give me the bag!’
Bonifacio makes a move for it; Edouard kicks his hand away. Bonifacio explodes in a frenzy of anger, all the simmering tensions between them finally spilling over. Edouard has his knife out, but Bonifacio simply picks him up and throws him into the stream. There’s a gash along Bonifacio’s arm where Edouard must have caught him before being thrown in.
‘Fuck you!’ Bonifacio screams. ‘You’ve fucked us all! You sailed us straight into that fucking storm … fuck you …’ He’s in such a state as he tears at Edouard’s bag that he’s practically bawling. ‘What’s this … what’s this …?’ He’s pulling out sheaves of paper, throwing them in the air. There seem to be hundreds of sheets, and on each is one of Edouard’s precise, careful little drawings of a plant or a flower – they scatter and billow about in the wind like confetti. Sabir recognises the creamy texture of the paper as the expensive type the commandant used – not the normal, crumbly stuff you got from the Administration. He remembers how Carpette asked him to steal it, how he delivered bundles of it to him.
‘Fuck you …’Now Bonifacio is pulling something else from the bag – there are half a dozen of them, they’re about a metre long, and they look like dark, gnarled tree roots. Bonifacio sinks his teeth into one of them, spits it out, then throws the lot at Edouard in the river. ‘What the fuck are these?’
It starts pouring down. Before long, the campsite and nearby vegetation are plastered with soggy paper, the rain-smudged ink running down the sheets like mascara on a tearful face. The rain seems to have brought Bonifacio back to his senses. He sits down by the fire and pulls his rag of a shirt off. A gash along the biceps of his left arm is dripping blood. It doesn’t look like a deep wound, but he tears a strip off his shirt to tie round his arm. On the other side of the stream, Carpette is helping Edouard out of the water. Edouard looks blank, shocked. At one point he says to Carpette: ‘No, no,’ and gets back into the water, feeling about on the bed of the stream. Perhaps he’s dropped his knife.
If Edouard and Carpette were to launch an attack on Bonifacio now, Sabir would join in. Or if they made a run for it through the jungle, Sabir would follow. But nothing happens. When the rain eases off, Edouard crosses back over the stream to collect the sheets of paper from the ground and bushes. Most come apart in his hand, although that doesn’t stop him. He’s like a zombie. He lays the sodden remains carefully on the ground, then wades back into the stream and fishes out a couple of those knobbly, root-like objects that had been in his bag. He places them next to the pile of paper. Nearby, Bonifacio’s watching wordlessly, still as a reptile.
Edouard joins Carpette on the other bank. The two of them are speaking lowly, urgently. Sabir expects Bonifacio to say something, to stop them as he’d done on the boat. But he remains silent. More furious whispering, then Carpette shouts angrily: ‘I’ve seen the tattoo!’ At that, the whispering abruptly stops, leaving Sabir mystified as to the meaning of Carpette’s remark.
As darkness descends over the campsite, the two men get up to cross the stream and move over to the fire. Bonifacio f
inally speaks up: ‘No. You two stay over there on the other side.’
‘We’ll get eaten alive by the mosquitoes.’
‘That’s your problem. You’re not sleeping by the fire tonight.’
Edouard stands there undecided for a moment, then starts to scout about for more firewood. Within twenty minutes, he has a new fire burning on the other side of the stream. It leaves Sabir stranded with Bonifacio: crossing over now would surely be some sort of provocation. Edouard has lain down on the ground, while Carpette sits by the fire. They must have some agreement to take turns to keep watch.
‘Give me your knife.’ Bonifacio’s standing over Sabir. He doesn’t have his own knife out, but his right hand’s resting by his pocket. ‘I’ll give it back to you in the morning.’
It’s not done to ask another convict for his knife; and it’s seen as a humiliation to hand it over to anyone else. It hardly matters, though. They’re far from convict society now, with its perverse niceties. Sabir takes his knife out, hands it to Bonifacio, handle first. He feels relieved to be rid of it. Bonifacio lies down on his stomach; he’s shirtless, and the gigantic cross on his back rises up and down with his slow breathing.
Somehow, Sabir has managed to sleep. He’s not sure if any of the others have: Bonifacio looks drawn, bleary-eyed. The bandage around his biceps has stained a vivid red, although he doesn’t seem to have any trouble using the arm. Sabir remembers that Bonifacio has been living out in the jungle much longer than the others – probably since the night he murdered the Corsican guard, all those weeks ago. It can only be down to his bull-like strength that he’s alive at all.
Sabir’s vaguely surprised to see Edouard and Carpette still there, on the other side of the stream. Edouard has boiled up some more grass, but Sabir doesn’t have any: he’s got mild diarrhoea from last night’s soup. The weird atmosphere again. No one knows any more how to respond to the other – it’s as if the men are in some play and have forgotten how it goes. Bonifacio and Edouard stare at each other across the stream. Edouard has managed to patch up his bag and has slung it back over his shoulder. Sabir’s knife is on the ground by the fire; he picks it up, thinks about pocketing it and then puts it down again.
They move off through the trees, into the dark of the forest. Bonifacio first, then Sabir, then Edouard and Carpette. Well spaced out, to prevent anyone being able to sneak up on anyone else. Relatively little undergrowth now. They’re following some kind of narrow path, or an animal run – tapirs, or the wild pigs that they’ve caught frustrating glimpses of in the distance.
They walk all day without a break, keeping the sun to their right shoulder. Although the going is fairly easy, compared with most of the terrain they’ve crossed, Sabir has the impression they’re not covering as much ground as they should. On top of the exhaustion and hunger, they’re cut and bleeding, limping, their wounds are festering. On occasions, Sabir’s overcome with a light-headedness, and an overpowering desire to sit down, lie down. It passes after a minute or two. But the attacks seem to be getting ever more frequent.
The mind spools back. He remembers that evening Bonifacio was waiting for him for the first time in the folly. And how just before then, he’d been crossing the garden, lost in a memory about the trenches. He’d been thinking about that time before the assault, when he’d considered deserting, and had decided against it. He’d been wondering why he’d taken that decision. There’s an easy answer to that, he now realises. Deserting would have condemned him to a life of wandering. A life of exile. He’d have had to change his name, become someone else. And yet all these things have come to pass anyway. The forest stretches out before him like an ocean.
Hours of walking in a stupor of memories and vague sensations. Now Bonifacio has stopped dead ahead. The afternoon light, filtered through the branches and vines, streaks his body and makes him look like some wild animal. As Sabir gets closer, he sees that Bonifacio’s holding the half-rotting carcass of a large bird.
‘If we give it a damn good roasting, it should be edible.’
They sit down and wait for the others. After ten minutes or so, Carpette appears.
‘Where’s your friend?’ asks Bonifacio.
‘Lagging behind. He was feeling sick. Should be along soon.’
They wait in silence. A good half-hour passes. Bonifacio’s getting increasingly nervy and irritated, since Edouard’s the only one who can get a fire going easily. Sabir spends minutes at a time staring at the dead bird. Hours before, he’d have been virtually hysterical at the thought of roast meat. Now he almost couldn’t care. He knows he’s hallucinating from fatigue and hunger, but the carcass looks as if it’s decomposing in front of him. Living or dead, the forest absorbs everything – ingests it, digests it, excretes it, in an eternal cycle of decay.
Still no Edouard. After a while, they start to call out through the vast silence of the forest. There’s no answer.
‘We won’t find him if he doesn’t want to be found,’ says Bonifacio presently. ‘He’s fucked off in some other direction. Good riddance.’
They spend a few minutes collecting firewood, then Bonifacio busies about trying to get a fire going. Carpette’s just sitting there staring into the ground, his face completely vacant. Sabir’s thinking about Edouard. On the one hand, he’s wondering why Carpette’s not making more of an effort to find him. On the other hand, he’s thinking back to the trenches, when he and Edouard formed a ‘couple’. He remembers that time when Edouard climbed out of the trench to recover a packet of cigarettes, under sporadic enemy fire. When Sabir remonstrated with him later for taking a stupid risk, he laughed bitterly. ‘I’d rather die for a cigarette than for my country.’
Sabir gets up. ‘I’m going back to look for Edouard. Something might have happened to him.’
Bonifacio shrugs. ‘Suit yourself. Don’t expect me to save any meat for you.’
Carpette looks up briefly. Impossible to read his quizzical expression. Sabir disappears down the trail they’ve just come from. Judging from the sun, he’s got enough time to backtrack a good kilometre, and still return before dark. At intervals, he lets out a shout: ‘Edouard! Edouard!’ There’s no echo – the trees deaden the sound. The high fronds of the ferns sway menacingly in the breeze. After a while his own voice starts to frighten him, and he continues on silently down the trail. Impossible to see the sun through the trees now, and in the fading light he has the impression of being swallowed up by the forest.
It’s just as he decides to turn back that he sees it. A pile of cut branches by the edge of the trail. He moves closer to get a better look. Underneath, a pair of bare feet are just visible. Sabir tosses the branches aside.
He’s a mess. One side of his face is smashed in. It’s like one of those long-dead frozen corpses you’d stumble over in no-man’s-land in a February snowstorm. Only Edouard isn’t quite dead. Carpette must have thought he was, though. Sometimes it can be so hard to kill someone. There are men, even mortally sick ones, who don’t want to die, who hang on through sheer willpower. And yet there’s no way that Edouard will survive. Even if he were anywhere near a hospital. Sabir has seen enough men in this state to know. The breathing is shallow, hesitant. Through the mask of blood, Sabir detects a tightening of face muscles. Edouard’s attempting a smile. Or a grimace. The mouth moves, ever so slightly. It’s a whispering croak: ‘Jules Cotard.’
‘Yes.’
That was the name Sabir used in the army. Nothing more for a while, and Sabir wonders if Edouard has died. But he hasn’t, not yet. Sabir stares into his face, into the eye on the side that hasn’t been smashed in. And the eye stares back, holds Sabir in its gaze.
Edouard feebly gestures towards Sabir. Sabir leans forward, until his ear is almost touching Edouard’s bloody mouth. It whispers again, slowly, trying hard to enunciate each word through the slurring: ‘Do you remember that dream?’
‘What dream, Edouard?’
‘Remember it? Do you?’
‘Yes. I remember
that dream.’
‘We talked about it so many times.’
Edouard smiles again, then sighs. He moves his head, almost imperceptibly, as though to shake it. He’s trying to form more words in his mouth, but nothing’s coming out except little bubbles of bloody spittle. A few more moments of mouthing into the void, then a final straining to be heard. ‘Finish me off.’
‘I can’t do that.’
He mouths again and then is still. Edouard’s hand, by his side, is frozen mid-grasp like a statue’s. The moment was indistinct, but he’s gone now, there’s no doubt about it. No need to kill him; there never was. It almost sounded as if he were asking for something else, an embrace.
Sabir moves away from Edouard’s body and sits down on some sort of rotting log. He feels so tired. Edouard with his bloody face lies before him, in that unnatural pose of a dead body. It’s obscene. Sabir thinks about burying Edouard. He really wants to bury him, but has no digging implement, nor the strength to do it. Possibly he does have the strength, but he doesn’t want to waste it. Nevertheless, it doesn’t seem right to leave Edouard here like this. Men should be buried. An unburied body is no longer alive, not properly dead, either.
The things they went through together. The bodies they saw. Tears come to Sabir’s eyes. Confused, he puts his head in his hands. For a moment, it seems he can’t continue. The moment passes, though. He gets up, gathers the branches up again and places them over Edouard’s body. Nearby, he spots the pole Carpette had been using as a walking stick – stained dark red at the heavy end. And Edouard’s bag, split open, rifled through. The dried-out sheets of paper with their little drawings of flowers. What was Carpette looking for? Money? Sabir puts a couple of the drawings in his pocket, as proof that he’s found Edouard’s body, if proof he needs. Then he starts along the trail back to where Bonifacio and Carpette are camped.
As he walks, he’s reminded of that first walk through the forest to Camp Renée. Although it feels like a lifetime ago, the memory of it is still very clear. Climbing up that tree. The vision of his fiancée. Meeting Edouard. Not recognising him at first. Noticing his glass eye … It occurs to him now that the eye he’s just been staring into, which held him so fixedly in its gaze, that eye was not actually Edouard’s real one. So how did he know that it was Sabir?