The Book of Malachi

by T. C. Farren

  But near the bow, Eulalie seems to have a secret fire smouldering inside her. Her smoky eyes drift to me. I smell a fleeting fragrance of burning wild thyme. ‘Love. And the cry for love,’ she says.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I type urgently.

  Eulalie shrugs her bony shoulders, swathes me with her gentle smoke. ‘That is all there is.’

  I get it. The simplicity of it.

  The rape, the abuse, the mutilation. They are all acts of self-hatred. A cry for love.

  I stroke the ridges on Vicki’s thighs. I slide my volume to Whisper. ‘I love these.’ I put the phone to Vicki’s ear.

  She grabs my sore hand and squeezes. I want to extricate it but she is loving me.

  ‘Ouch,’ I type.

  Vicki giggles, lets go of my hand. She runs her thumb along the fine scar on my cheek, laughs that dark, perverse laugh only I can see through. She is still wicked, this beautiful, ruined woman, but I am in love with her spirit, shining beneath her cruel sarcasm. I will wait forever, if necessary, for glimpses of it. Vicki lays her head against me, shivers against my skin. I kiss her temple with my soft, virgin lips. Bless her.

  We churn slowly through the water, only half afloat. Vihaan still worries at the black box like he did with his poor unfortunate teeth. ‘Mayday, mayday, mayday . . .’

  We must be out of the satellite shield now. I keep a watch on the sky, still strewn with tiny fires in star patterns. The moon is weary of our drama but it hangs near the horizon, waits patiently.

  A voice crackles then clears on the black box. ‘Copy Sea Sprite. This is Saint Helena Rescue Vessel, SH three four seven six two. Fifteen degrees, forty-two minutes south, five degrees, thirty-three minutes west. We have been searching for you. Over.’ The accent is French.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ Vihaan nods and spits. He bangs on the black box like it is a bongo drum.

  ‘Answer him,’ Samuel hisses.

  Vihaan adjusts a dial, presses a switch. ‘Where are we?’ he asks sincerely.

  There is a stunned incomprehension on the other side. The man murmurs, ‘Are you kidding me?’ Then he says officiously, ‘Repeat your question, Sea Sprite. Over.’

  I leap up, crush myself onto the bench next to Vihaan. He digs his elbow into my cracked rib, shouts in a foreign, angry language. The black box is his business. Instinctively I throw my arm around his shoulders, hug him tightly. I stroke his head, hum to him.

  Love and the cry for love. That is all there is. Vihaan goes pliant. He kisses my wet sleeve, shifts the black box onto my lap.

  I type quickly. ‘Nadras Oil lifeboat here. This is Malachi Dakwaa. We’re in terrible trouble about fifteen miles south of a Nadras Oil rig. Have you seen this rig?’

  ‘Confirm. Our vessels passed it on Wednesday night. Are you with Frances Shaw of Sea Sprite? Over.’

  Something tells me the solo sailor is our only hope.

  ‘We have her black box.’

  ‘Where is she? Over.’

  ‘We have sustained serious damage to our lifeboat. The water is flooding in. How long will it take for you to get to us?’

  There is an awkward silence from the black box.

  ‘We are only authorised to rescue Frances. Is she with you? Over.’

  ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Race insurance won’t pay. Over.’

  ‘Free Press,’ Samuel urges me fiercely.

  ‘If you don’t rescue us we will call the Free Press.’

  There is a crackle, some muffled dialogue. A woman answers through the black box. This one sounds Russian. ‘This is Angelika Pasha. I’m a Free Press journalist. I am with them.’

  I switch my Samsung tone to Emphasis. ‘They’re coming back. We are under attack from the same party who murdered Frances.’

  There is the sound of a muted argument. Angelika speaks tersely, ‘Are you moving?’

  ‘Very slowly, south.’

  ‘How many on board?’

  I minus the three deserters, minus the dead. ‘Thirty-seven.’

  I hear the Frenchman’s muffled growl, ‘Angelika, we are not allowed . . .’

  ‘I will try,’ she promises me.

  The Frenchman chops off our communication like a guillotine. ‘Over and out.’

  Samuel stands up, whoops with euphoria. Madame Sophie titters. She asks no one in particular, ‘Will they come?’

  ‘We’re going to live,’ Andride says uncertainly.

  Charmayne scans the silent sky. ‘Raizier will kill us.’ She shrugs her shoulders, tries for nonchalance. ‘And if we live they will send us home to our prisons.’ She breaks into massive sobs. Eulalie strokes Charmayne’s powerful thigh with her maiden’s fingers. In some strange way she is younger than the big beauty, as if the sea air and the prospect of a lover have stripped off a lifetime. Charmayne raises Eulalie’s hand to her eyes, wipes her eyes like it’s a tissue.

  Please, Angelika Pasha. Make them come. Please.

  I stare down at my attire. I am dressed in sodden, suave black. I even brought my sneakers. It is God-smoothed, this path, surely. I am dressed for the press.

  FRIDAY

  The moon turns surreptitiously silver. It fades discreetly, begins to rub itself out. The sun hides below the horizon, stains the sea charcoal grey. Inspired now, the prisoners take turns to bail water from our leaky boat. Even Shikorina tries to help. Red swills in the water like a skirt around her shins, follows her everywhere.

  I slide my volume to medium distance. ‘Shikorina. Be still. Please.’

  She sinks obediently onto a bench.

  I find the antibiotics floating in the corner near where I left them. I hand four to Samuel to send down the aisle. ‘One for each surgery. They must drink it.’

  ‘Is it not intravenous?’ Samuel asks.

  I shake my head. ‘It was meant for their feeding tubes. Make sure they finish it.’

  I pull my feet up in case the lifeboat pours Shikorina’s blood my way. I bail a few buckets of what I hope is simply sea water.

  Meirong stirs for the first time. She pushes back her wet hair, which, astoundingly, is still a neat, shining helmet like an anime heroine’s. ‘Quenton has weapons in Saint Helena.’ But this is not a warrior vixen. She hugs herself in her pink onesie, wipes her nose on her sleeve. ‘If the press get here first, I’m going straight to jail.’

  Romano is still sitting in the bath, his legs outstretched as if the news of his daughter has stopped his own heart. He lifts his chin off his chest, nods. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Conscious Clause is global,’ Meirong intones hopelessly. ‘They will get me.’

  ‘I hope you go to jail forever, Meirong. You lied to me.’

  ‘I promise you, Romano, I was going to tell you.’

  Romano shakes his head. ‘You killed Milja.’

  Meirong flashes sharp canines. ‘You killed many, Romano, before you had a daughter.’ She spins towards us, lashes at the prisoners, ‘All of you are killers!’

  We are a silent, dead weight beneath our dead, wet albatrosses.

  The engines cut off. There is a movement at the back of the boat. Josiah picks his way from the engines towards the port side. His hairy knees brush my trousers. His thick fingers brush my cheek by accident. He falls over Samuel’s feet. Samuel draws them up beneath his buttocks.

  ‘Easy,’ Samuel warns him. ‘Where are you going, Josiah?’

  Josiah snatches at the railing, hooks his hairy feet onto a rung.

  ‘Josiah!’ Samuel shouts.

  Josiah’s buttocks are flat and shockingly furry. They clench together, prepare to leap. I lunge for him but Josiah kicks from the top, dives into the glittering sea.

  Madame Sophie thrusts out her arm, commands me, ‘Throw the lifebelt!’

  ‘No!’ Vicki screams. ‘Leave him!’

  We stand up, some of us, watch Josiah swimming freestyle with a funny, stylish flourish of his fingers. He is a beautiful swimmer. His arms cleave close to his ears, the water swills over his greas
y head, runs off immediately. Oil and water don’t mix.

  ‘Save him, Malachi!’ Madame Sophie begs me.

  Vicki argues, ‘No!’

  ‘Malachi!’ Madame Sophie shouts.

  I shake my head, type on my Samsung, ‘It’s easier for him to drown than to carry on living.’

  Madame Sophie clings to the rail, watches Josiah travel the vanishing moon path with his funny, extravagant flick. The lifeboat is silent for long, long minutes as we watch Josiah swim almost out of sight. Vicki picks her way to the edge, peers into the fading night. She climbs the railing as if Josiah’s freestyle is towing her towards the horizon.

  ‘NO!’ I try to shout. I scramble after her, gather her tangled hair in my fist. I haul her down like a caveman.

  Vicki arches, strains against my grip. ‘Let go-o-o!’ she shrieks.

  I throw an arm around her belly, drag her from the railing. I lock her wrists with one hand, snatch at my Samsung. ‘You deserve to live.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘Your husband has forgiven you.’

  I glance desperately at Eulalie. Help me.

  ‘I can’t forgive myself,’ Vicki shouts tearfully.

  ‘It is braver to live and face it.’

  ‘I want to die.’

  ‘No. I need you!’

  Vicki searches my eyes frantically, left to right, reads the love letter written in them. Her body softens, her wrists go loose. She bows her head gracefully. I lead her to our bench. She weaves her cool, smooth fingers tightly between mine. I sit down next to her, kiss the fingertips I cut every day for a week.

  God help me. I am in love with a suicidal mermaid.

  * * *

  A whirring sound rides on the sea breeze.

  Lolie scrambles along the starboard side, squeezes behind the engines. We throw ourselves into the shallow water beneath our benches, spy a metal object flying through the grey dawn towards us. It looks like a flattened beetle with flaps and apertures, sucking in and spitting air at a shocking velocity. I hunt frantically for Vicki. Her hand snakes out, grabs on to my sneaker.

  The thing looks like a US military tank in Syria – as small as a toy at Planet Kids. A lightning bolt shreds the water six metres from us. The second bolt strikes a railing above our heads.

  The violence of electric air. A burning stink.

  A laser drone. Flown out by Raizier.

  A streak of fire rips into an engine. The shock kick starts a fresh panic in all of us.

  ‘Malachi!’ Lolie shouts. ‘Spin us! Spin!’ She jabs at the engines.

  Even as I am moving, I see Lolie’s stitches are pulling loose in her abdomen. Red runs like perfect tears from each perforation. Flames spit from the engine that has been hit. It could blow up any second but I dive towards the other engine, punch every switch I can set my eyes on.

  Where is Josiah? We need him!

  The engine snarls savagely. I grab hold of the tiller I saw Josiah steering. Jam it hard to the left.

  Help us, Josiah, please.

  The boat churns in a tight circle. I shove my weight against the tiller, snatch at an orange bucket, scoop water from the floor and throw it at the burning engine. The flames suffocate to black smoke. Lolie crouches down, slots the rifle between the two machines. She tracks the drone, waiting for a cunning moment to release her bullets. The swirling stars, the spinning drone make me dizzy. I want to lie down next to Lolie, let the steel engines protect my heart, my intestines. But I hang on to the tiller. An infra red strike slices a bench near the engines. Oh, God, no. They are firing to kill. Sacrificing their organs.

  Another streak of light sears what could be human tissue. A woman screams.

  Vicki!

  I jam the tiller in position, crawl towards the stink of burning flesh. I shove past Samuel, get caught against his bristly cheek. We breathe into each other’s nostrils, two animals close to death. I scrape past him.

  Vicki. I know those bubble toes. I grab onto them, draw my torso over hers.

  Her body still throbs with life. Was she hit?

  No, but the yellow man lies loosely, like someone cut him from a cross. A blistering, black wound on his temple emits a thin red stream. I shut my eyes, lay my head precisely above Vicki’s so they must sear through my skull before they can hurt hers.

  Yassir is dead. And the funny thing is, he looks just like Jesus Christ.

  I breathe in my own tears, bury my head in Vicki’s hair to escape the smell of his death.

  It is the scent of liquorice. Vicki smells like the wild fennel that grew at our village tap, feathery and green, but touch it and it pricks you like a knife. I bunch Vicki’s fingers, wrap them in my fists.

  The scent of liquorice mixed with salt, a mermaid’s hair at night as lasers strike the benches to our right. Lolie returns fire, forces the drone to dart away, fly erratic zigzags. It swoops back again, a terrible insect, ready to fight to the death. Lolie’s bullets spit behind us, stertorous.

  There is a shift in the whirring, a self-pitying whine from the drone’s motor. It dips above us as we spin like a playground roundabout. A new motor kicks in. The deadly beetle whirrs up in a smooth arc again.

  Near the bow, Shikorina sits up carelessly, staggers to her feet.

  ‘Shikorina!’ Andride shouts.

  Shikorina is climbing up the railing, her legs a dark red. The sun creeps up gently on this war scene. It catches her legs from the front, turns them orange. The colour of emergency.

  ‘Get down!’ Andride screams.

  Shikorina’s legs buckle and sway but she clings to the railing. She shakes her fist at the toy machine. ‘My children! My children!’

  Beyond the drone, the sky is a gigantic flower blossoming. Shikorina jerks as a laser rips into her chest. She slides slowly from the railing, as if exhausted by her furious gesturing. Shikorina curls up on the ledge, tucks her hands beneath her cheek. She sleeps.

  Lolie lets seven bullets fly in succession, shreds the drone’s steel skin. A return strike splinters the bench behind me. I feel a blast in my calf muscle. A quantum delay.

  How strange. Like thunder and lightning. Then, the pain.

  ‘Malachi! Are you hit?’

  I shake my head, lie to Vicki. But my blood makes clouds in the water beneath us. I roll onto my back but the red floods my throat, suffocates me. I cough, but more blood shoots up.

  Vicki struggles from under me, throws herself across my knees. She grabs my jaw, wrenches it to the side. ‘Malachi! Breathe!’

  I gag on the liquid, find a thread of oxygen. More precious air streams in.

  This is what Hamri was doing! He was trying to turn my head.

  He was trying to save my life, not shut me up.

  Father.

  There is a pause in the deadly hum above us.

  I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, stare at it. No blood, silly.

  I watch the pink sky flowering above me. Vicki prods my calf, tries to feel the extent of my injury.

  ‘Aah,’ I grunt. ‘It’s nothing, Malachi. It’s just a shallow cut.’

  I want to giggle. Nothing compared to the wounds she received in the medical wing. As the boat spins, the blood from my shallow cut gathers around us. I shut my eyes. It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s just raspberry juice.

  The drone spins again, whirrs towards us once more. I crawl back onto my Cleopatra, cover her carefully, bathe her not in milk but red raspberry juice.

  The sound of a huge engine hacks up the morning sky.

  A black craft charges towards us, short blades thrashing inside a wheel on the roof. The front is tattooed with a pirate’s face, grinning with white teeth. A dark-skinned pilot sits inside the pirate’s good eye. Inside the red eye patch a woman with long black hair aims a huge camera at our broken, spinning planet.

  Angelika.

  Her shining lens throws a shield of truth around blood, water, buckets. The dead among us.

  The rotorcraft sinks closer, visits a gale force
on us. A pirate galleon sails across the body and tail. Brave Heart Rum, it says in white lettering. Rescue SB6. Silhouettes press against the tinted glass, their seeing eyes our precious, wonderful protection. The scarred metal beetle hovers in the distance, paralysed by the camera’s eye. It swivels in the sky, drifts towards where Saint Helena might be. I roll off Vicki’s body, crawl to the engines. Lolie is crouched between them, nothing more than two traumatised eyes. The sky paints their dark mirrors with pink streaks. I flick the switches. Cut the engine. The spinning slows.

  Our world stands still, rocking with the rhythm of the sea. Lolie seems unharmed. The only wound I can see is the one made by Tamba’s father or one of his clumsy team. It has torn apart a little more, so blood streaks from the stitches like red eyelashes. I crawl between the engines. Kiss her on the forehead.

  Angelika’s camera is still rolling, enforcing the ceasefire, recording this atrocity of human nature.

  Not love. But a cry for it.

  The priest killer stumbles from the bow to find Lolie among the engines. He clutches her hands with his melted fingers, kisses them.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Madame Sophie’s mind snaps loose from reality. ‘Smile!’ She fixes her hair, fluffs it out.

  Vicki laughs with an unfettered, rare happiness.

  I make my way over the benches to sit next to Shikorina. I don’t care about the colour red. I stroke her head like she is my daughter in a deep, deep sleep. She is cold already.

  I love you, Shikorina, I tell her spirit.

  There is an explosion far away on the rig. Two, three massive blasts. Have they sprayed their benzene, flung a spark into it?

  Oh, God, Tamba! Did his father find him?

  And the three deserters?

  Eulalie struggles to her feet, raises her face to the breeze. She lets the rising sun drench her withered skin. She waves a silken hand at me, smiles like we are all at a cocktail party.

  I shut my eyes. Tamba is fine. Dead or alive.

  Another detonation from the rig. But it is too late for secrecy. The prisoners are here. They still have their teeth. And I have a mouth to speak.