Tomorrow 3 - The Third Day, The Frost

by John Marsden

  I threw the paper back on the desk. ‘What a load of crap,’ I said.

  The Major picked it up. He didn’t look bothered. ‘Now come with me,’ he said. We went further down the corridor, and he ushered me into a small room at the end. There was a stool, an umbrella, a couple of lights on stands, and a big television camera operated by a woman wearing headphones. The umbrella was like a big parasol. It was on a stand and seemed to have something to do with the lighting.

  ‘Sit down,’ Harvey said.

  I hesitated, then obeyed. He handed me the sheet of paper again and I took it.

  ‘Now, just read it again, for the benefit of your New Zealand friends,’ he said. ‘Look up at the cam­era from time to time. No funny business, thank you, and no silly facial expressions like some of your immature young friends attempted. It just means we have to start again, and waste more of our time.’

  I was ecstatic to hear him mention the others. It was the first news I’d heard of them in more than a week. I’d asked the guards every day but no one would answer. It was obviously a taboo subject. I didn’t know if I should read the statement or not, but the others had made it easier for me; sort of taken the decision out of my hands. Of course, Major Harvey could have been tricking me, but I didn’t think so. He must have been a great actor if he was. The way he mentioned them came out so naturally.

  I still wasn’t keen to read it, but I sat there on the hard cane chair thinking about my choices. If I didn’t read it, what would happen? I guessed they’d use tougher, rougher treatment on me. I didn’t think I could stick that. I was having enough trouble coping with things as they were. I couldn’t have borne it if they’d got worse. So if I did read it, what would happen? I’d feel ashamed; that’d be one thing. But forget about me: what damage might it do? Well, none really. It’d be so obvious to everyone that it was a fake. I couldn’t imagine that people in New Zealand, or anywhere else, would take one look at this and think, ‘Oh well, we’d better stop helping them because they’re obviously happy with the new arrangements.’

  Major Harvey was getting impatient. I said to him – mainly to make myself feel better about the deci­sion I’d already made – ‘What’ll happen to me if I don’t read it?’

  With no emotion at all he answered: ‘Don’t make things any worse for yourself, Ellie.’

  The woman nestled in behind her camera and I heard it whirr into life. Major Harvey switched on the lights. The room instantly became extremely bright and extremely hot. I held the sheet up and read it quickly, without expression. At the end I thought Major Harvey would tell me to do it again – I knew I’d sounded like a robot – and he did stand there silently for a minute after I’d finished. But then he switched off the lights and went to the door and called the guards.

  When they came, I followed them back out towards the exit. Major Harvey, who was ahead of me, turned into his office without so much as a back­wards glance, but I couldn’t bear to let him go with­out trying to find out something, anything, about my future. I figured he was the most likely one to know, and I figured I would rather know than not know. So I stopped and asked him.

  ‘Major Harvey, can you tell me what’s going to happen to me?’

  He was moving around the desk towards his chair but he stopped dead when he heard my voice. There was a long silence, a terrible silence. My heart started pounding fiercely, and I broke out sweating, wishing now that I’d never asked the question. Without look­ing around he said, ‘You have to accept the conse­quences of your actions, Ellie.’

  It was not only the words; it was the way he’d said them. I knew now. My legs were so weak they wouldn’t move. It was like the bones had been taken out of them. A guard nudged me from behind and I staggered forwards. This time I didn’t even see the sky. My head was down, my legs were dragging, I felt like I was going to be ill, like I had some serious ill­ness creeping up on me.

  But I knew the name of that serious illness. It was called death.

  Back in the cell I fell on my bed and lay there. For the first time I didn’t show any interest in lunch when the lady brought it. Inside me, I was hoping that she’d notice how upset I was, and that she’d come over to the bed and give me a cuddle and ask what was wrong, and comfort me. Just like my mum. But she didn’t. She put the tray down and left the cell. I cried bitterly when I heard the door slam. ‘I’m too young,’ I kept thinking, ‘I’m too young.’

  It seemed so unfair that by a fluke I’d escaped being captured when the invasion came and so I’d been forced into a certain course of action, and because of that I was now going to die. Why couldn’t I have been captured at the start, like everyone else? Why did I have to be the unlucky one?

  I conveniently ignored the fact that one of the soldiers we’d killed didn’t seem any older than me.

  I lay there for about two hours, I’d guess. If I’d had a way of killing myself I probably would have done it then. The fact that I didn’t has taught me something very important about life: that you never know what the next minute might bring. If you kill yourself, it might be seconds before something wonderful happens. What that afternoon brought mightn’t seem so wonderful to others, but to me, at that moment, it was.

  The door was unlocked and I heard the voice of the officer who’d brought me the toothbrush and paper. She said: ‘Exercise now. You come.’

  I thought it might be a trick, and that this might be the execution I was now certain was coming, but I got up anyway and went listlessly out into the corridor.

  We took the same route as usual: down the corri­dor enclosed by wire, past the dull green lawns and the tennis courts. But as we came to a gate leading into a small section of the grassed yards I saw a group of people standing together talking. I would have known those people from a kilometre away let alone from thirty metres. I let out a great gasp of pure joy, then quickly tried to bite it back, in case the guards changed their minds. But I’d made enough noise. The little group broke up, as they turned to see who was screeching at them. I saw with relief that all five of them were there. The guard started unlocking the gate as Fi called out: ‘Ellie! Oh Ellie!’

  As soon as I got inside they threw themselves on me. It was like a football ruck, like a soccer player had scored a winning goal, like tag team wrestling. For a moment I had to struggle for air. We hugged until we bruised.

  It was a wonderful reunion.

  And after the hugging came the questions. They flew backwards and forwards so fast that every answer was cut off within a few words.

  ‘Which cell are you in?’

  ‘In that block over ...’

  ‘Have you seen Major Harvey?’

  ‘Yes, that bastard! He asked ...’

  ‘What do you think’ll happen to us?’

  ‘I don’t know. Major Harvey ...’

  ‘Have you guys been seeing each other every day?’

  ‘Are you OK? Did they beat you up or anything?’

  ‘Be careful what you say. We don’t know if they ...’

  ‘Did you have to do that confession thing?’

  ‘They’re so horrible. They make us ...’

  It took a while but eventually I got a sense of what was going on. Homer and I were the only ones left in E Block. The other four were in a totally different sit­uation. They’d been transferred to a block with a lot of other prisoners, some like us who were ‘war crim­inals’ and some who’d been in there for ages, from before the invasion, for crimes committed in peace­time. At meals they ate together in a big room and, at other times, they could talk to prisoners through the doors of their cells. Most amazingly of all, Robyn and Fi shared a cell. I was jealous of them for that and it made me more fearful of what might happen to me. Homer and I had definitely been singled out as the ringleaders.

  But I forced away all the dark thoughts, all the fear. I was determined just to enjoy the company of my friends. It was such a relief, such a release, to be with them again. And I didn’t know how many more chances like this
there’d be.

  We talked flat out. I had a funny desperate yearn­ing to play basketball, wanting some activity. The cage we were in was about the size of a basketball court; I suppose that’s what made me think of it. In the end I grabbed Homer’s shoe and ran to the fence, making him chase me. At once guards up on the wall aimed their shotguns at us. ‘Look out,’ Fi called. ‘Stop. They think you’re doing something.’ But I ignored her. I was determined not to be too fright­ened of these thugs. And, although they kept watch­ing us closely as we ran around, they didn’t take any action.

  After we’d been there about an hour the guards who were supervising through the wire from the corridor unlocked the gate again. They beckoned to me first. I’d been the last to come, now I was the first to go. But as they led me away I saw them signalling to Homer, so I guessed exercise time was over for all of us.

  I called out to them all: ‘Bye! See you!’, but, as I said ‘See you’, I wondered if I ever would, ever again. The great dark weight of depression and fear was hovering over me once more, but hovering a little higher, and perhaps not quite so heavily.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  As it happened I saw the others the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. Regular afternoon exercise became a part of my routine: the most precious, exciting, anticipated moments in my life. The worst thing was that Homer and I only got an hour each, which apparently went with the deal when you were in maximum security. The others got two hours.

  Maybe the guards couldn’t afford the manpower: when Homer and I were out there they had three guards assigned to watch us. The others only got one between the four of them. I think Lee felt a bit insulted by that.

  For three weeks our lives remained locked into this pattern. Very little out of the ordinary happened. I saw Major Harvey a couple of times from a dis­tance, when we were in the exercise yard, but he took no notice of us. The only exciting things were air raids: there were two during the three weeks and even in my soundproofed cell I could hear the wail of the sirens. I pressed my call button during the first one but got no answer. Later when the guards brought my food, I asked them what the noise was, and they said, ‘Planes in sky drop bombs, very bad.’ The other five, when I met them next day on the grass, confirmed that there had been air raids.

  ‘All the guards ran off,’ Fi said. ‘I think they’ve got a shelter somewhere. Not much help to us though, when we’re locked in our cells. Even when there are no guards we can’t escape. Makes you wonder why they bother to have them at all.’

  Both the raids were at night; we figured it’d be too dangerous for them to come in daylight.

  It started raining a lot and for our exercise hour we were put in a gym more and more often. I didn’t like it nearly as much. I needed fresh air so badly. We were all looking terrible, but Homer – and me, I sus­pect – looked the worst. You couldn’t exactly call Homer pale, because his skin was naturally dark, but it did get an unhealthy tinge to it, almost green. And he was so thin. Well, so was I, We were skeletal. We looked like Aurora at school when she had anorexia. The others were getting better food and they started smuggling bits out to us but it was difficult: we were watched so carefully.

  Yet the passing of time calmed us down a bit. I guess you can’t live at full-on intensity for ever. Lying on the bed of my cell in the dark, trembling, waiting for soldiers to come in and shoot me – you just can’t keep doing that. There’s something in the human spirit that won’t let you live that way. Gradually, you start forgetting about your death sentence and think­ing about more normal things instead. Not all the time, of course, but enough times to keep you exist­ing. You sleep occasionally, and you don’t always dream of death. You get a bit numb.

  Well, that’s the way it was for me anyway.

  The day it changed was a day that changed me for ever. Of course we’re changed by everything that hap­pens to us. Of course I’d been changed dramatically by the invasion and everything that had happened since. But that morning, the morning when I finally had to confront what I’d been avoiding for so long, changed me like nothing else had – or ever will again, I guess. They came for me at about eleven o’clock. I remember every detail of the first few minutes. The way the officer flicked her hand to gesture me out into the corridor. The way the door squeaked slightly as it swung heavily open: that little cry from the hinge that I’d never heard before. The faces of the guards: the women and men I’d gotten to know so well by sight but who now, this morning, wouldn’t look at me. The long slow walk to a building near the jail entrance, one I hadn’t been to yet. The soft throb­bing of thunder in the distance. The sweaty palm-print left by the guard as she pushed the door of the building open. I knew when I saw that palmprint that I was walking towards something terrible. From that moment on I hardly remember anything.

  They took me into some sort of large room, all lined with light brown panelling. It looked very for­mal. There were people sitting at a table, about five of them I drink, and I think all of them were men. I was in there three or four minutes. No one looked at me. The bloke in the middle read a whole lot of stuff, very fast, in his own language, while a bloke standing behind him translated into English. It was about how I’d destroyed property, committed acts of terrorism, murdered people; how I’d been found guilty of the above charges, and sentenced to death. Sentence to be carried out Monday the 16th, at 7 am. That is all. Do you have anything to say? No? Take her away. Bring in the next prisoner. The next prisoner was Homer, though I didn’t know that until he told me himself, in the exercise yard six days later. He’d seen me coming out of the room but I’d walked right past him without noticing him. He said he’d known then, as soon as he’d seen me.

  I remember saying only one thing to the guards, and that was to ask them what day it was. They said Friday the 6th, so I knew I had only ten days to go.

  It was the same afternoon that the daylight raids started.

  I was lying on my bed, knees up to my chest, hands between my legs, rocking myself, trying to think of one thing at a time. But I couldn’t. Thoughts were screaming into my head at such speed that it was like a demolition derby in there: the thoughts kept crashing into each other and spinning off into the darkness. I couldn’t even slow them down, let alone stop them. I thought my head would burst into flames.

  When I heard the dull thundering booms they seemed like the background to the chaos inside me. I hardly noticed them at first. It took a while to realise they were coming from somewhere outside. Just as I realised that, the walls gave a little tremble and a tiny white powder fell from the ceiling. Then I knew: it was an air-raid, an afternoon air raid, and close too if it could rattle the walls in my cell.

  I wasn’t scared, just fascinated to see what would happen. I got off my bed and stood by the door, wait­ing and listening. The booms kept going for a few minutes, then suddenly the lights went out. That was scary, but exciting too. I started wondering what would happen if the roof fell in on me. What would my body look like, buried under fifty tonnes of steel and concrete? I was feeling claustrophobic, but still not desperately frightened, more tantalised by the knowledge that something out of the ordinary was happening, and there was no telling what it might lead to.

  In fact it led to nothing. The booming noises lasted another ten minutes, then stopped, suddenly and completely. Hours later the lights came back on; two guards came in and inspected my cell, and I was left to guess what might have happened outside.

  The next two days there were more raids, one in the morning and one in the late afternoon. Again and again the building shook. Several times I cowered in the corner of the cell. Each time the white dust floated down, till the floor looked like light snow had been falling. By the end of the third raid I found long thin cracks in the wall.

  On neither day was I allowed into the exercise yard. I started to fear that I’d never see my friends again, never have a chance to say goodbye. Three more awful days passed, suffocating, excruciating days, when as f
ar as I could tell there were no air raids, though the guards were very jumpy. But on Thursday, just four days before the sentences were to be carried out, I heard them unlocking my door. It was the time when we normally had exercise, and now they took me out as though nothing had hap­pened. I guess someone in authority had decided the air raids were finished. But I was shocked at the damage that had been done while I was locked in my square little white coffin. Every second window in the jail was broken. There was rubbish all over the place – I mean big rubbish, serious rubbish: sheets of galvanised iron, slabs of brickwork, big tree branches. The eastern wall had partially collapsed: about fifty metres of it was more like rubble than a wall. But already they’d put up a huge wire fence to cover the damage. I couldn’t see any way of escaping through that.

  A couple of minutes later I was in the gym. Condi­tions were different now. The guards watched us more closely. Homer and I were not allowed any phys­ical contact, with each other or with the other four. We were assigned three different zones in the basket­ball court and we had to talk to each other from our own zones. I had the keyhole at the southern end.

  We each told our news. Homer and I had both been given death sentences, both for Monday. The others got prison terms: thirty years for Lee, twenty-five for Robyn and Kevin, and twenty-two for Fi. I don’t know how they’d arrived at the different numbers.

  We had a ghastly conversation. No one could think of anything to say. We sat there like we were at a funeral already. Occasionally someone would say something in a hoarse whisper, but usually no one would answer, so the conversations never got far.

  It was almost a relief to go back to my cell.