The Stuff of Nightmares

by Malorie Blackman

  So he still hated me. I was glad. If he hadn’t hated me then I wouldn’t have seen him again. But then I saw it … and disbelief tore through me like the gun blast that had ripped into my body and ended my life. Baris had his zenerth slung across his body, his hands resting lightly but possessively on the instrument. His father must have buried him with it, Baris’s pride and joy. We stared at each other. Baris looked at his zenerth, then back at me, and his hands fell slowly to his sides.

  ‘Listen to me. Listen to me!’ I shouted. Gradually the cemetery quietened. ‘I killed Baris because he owned a zenerth, because he played it in front of me and was proud of it. And then his father killed me. I think Baris and I should finish what we started. A fight to the end, right here, right now. I won’t mind going to Hell if I know he’s there with me.’

  ‘I agree,’ Baris replied slowly, his low, deep voice rumbling through me the way it always did.

  ‘Naima, let me fight for you,’ Oliver demanded, stepping forward. From the abhorrence on his face I could see that Payne’s Cemetery was where he belonged, just as we all belonged here, whether we admitted it to ourselves or not.

  ‘No, Oliver. For once I’m going to fight my own battles. Baris is mine.’

  ‘Just as you belong to me,’ Baris replied. The hatred in his familiar voice rushed through me. I could see him so clearly; he could see me. For the first time we saw each other for what we truly were.

  ‘And where I’m going, I won’t need this any more,’ Baris added gravely.

  We all watched as he walked towards the cemetery fence. He unstrapped the zenerth, looking down at it for several moments. I wondered what he was thinking. Once I would have said without hesitation that I knew. Suddenly he threw the instrument over the fence. It spun further and further away from us, spiralling into the darkness. I never saw or heard it hit the ground. My eyes were once again on Baris as he turned and walked back.

  A silence of anticipation settled on both sides of the oaks. Baris moved forward until he stood just over his side of the line. I moved to stand opposite him. We were touching distance apart. He hadn’t changed at all. Strange, but somehow I had expected to see more of a difference in him.

  I remembered all the times we had lain in bed after making love, just holding each other. He told me that he loved me, that we would go away … away from the colony, even though it was strictly forbidden for us People to travel without all kinds of permits. But there were ways, Baris assured me. We’d travel to another country where we’d both be accepted, where we’d find some happiness. He’d bribe whoever he had to, pay out any amount of money to get us away. It would take all the money he had, and once we were in a new country, life would be difficult: we’d both have to start again with nothing, but at least we’d be together; we’d have each other, Baris promised me – and that was all either of us cared about.

  I’d packed my few belongings and gone to his house as I did each morning since I’d started working there as a housemaid two years before. Today was the day; it was all arranged. Baris had hired a car and we were going to drive across the country to a minor border crossing where he had already bribed the guards to let us through. It would take us over three days of hard driving to get there and any number of things could go wrong between now and then, but I refused to dwell on any of them. Baris and I were going to be free, and whether it was for a day or a lifetime, it’d be worth it.

  Baris’s security guards let me through as usual, without checking my holdall. I finally made my way to Baris’s bedroom, avoiding more guards and Mrs Statson’s replacement, who was just as bad, if not worse, but I had snuck through the house to Baris’s room so many times before that I wasn’t anxious. Baris and I had been lovers for over a year now, a deep secret that neither of us dared reveal to anyone, otherwise we’d both be condemned and I’d probably ‘disappear’ one night, never to be seen again.

  We sat down on the edge of his bed, his arm around me as we whispered about our future.

  ‘No second thoughts? No regrets?’ Baris asked.

  ‘None.’ I smiled. ‘What about you?’

  ‘None,’ he replied.

  ‘Did you get everything we need?’ I asked eagerly, knowing that even if he said no it wouldn’t really matter.

  ‘Most of it is in the car already, but take this,’ he said, picking up the gun from his bedside table and pushing it into my hands.

  I recoiled from the weapon. ‘What’s this for?’

  ‘In case we run into any guards or police patrols on our way. I’ll have one as well, but it’ll be better if we’re both armed.’

  ‘Do I have to? I mean …’

  Baris smiled, hugging me closer to him as he put the gun firmly into my hand. ‘Once we’re out of this country, there’ll be no need for guns, Naima. I promise.’

  ‘And no one will follow us?’

  I wasn’t important enough to follow, but I was so afraid of Baris being pursued and brought back and punished. And I loved him too much to see any harm come to him.

  ‘By the time anyone thinks to come looking, we’ll be long gone.’

  ‘Yes, but what if your father decides to come home early?’ I worried. I couldn’t get rid of the nagging feeling that something was going to go wrong. ‘Or what if—?’

  But Baris just laughed. ‘You’re never happy unless you’ve got something to worry about. We’ll be fine. The car’s outside, the tank is full, I’ve got money and I love you. So what could go wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I replied, and we kissed, putting all the love and passion we felt for each other into every touch.

  We took one final look around his room, the room where we had first been together. Then Baris saw his zenerth, high up on the wall. He smiled eagerly, telling of the nights when he would play for me while we travelled. I said it would be too dangerous to take it but he insisted.

  ‘I love this thing most in the world, followed by you!’ he teased.

  Then he told me all about this strange musical instrument and I couldn’t understand how he could profess to love me and yet own such a thing. For the first time I saw him as he really was.

  A different perception.

  A different morality.

  Different …

  Looking at Baris’s face now, I could see that he was remembering too. We’d had so much to look forward to. Together. Even now I still didn’t understand exactly what had happened. How could dreams turn to dust so quickly? When I shot him, he fell to his knees, his hands over the gaping wound in his stomach. The bewilderment in his eyes as he looked at me sank into deep, abject hatred. He took a while to die. Being gut-shot is a slow, very painful death. And as he died, we watched each other, neither of us saying a word. He’d died hating me … I’d died hating him, and both for the same reason.

  Now Baris grabbed my hands in his and a cry rose up from both sides, before the tense silence fell again. What would he do? Close his hands over my throat for all eternity? What would I do in his shoes? I looked at Baris, waiting …

  But then he smiled at me. Such a sad smile.

  Just as sadly, I smiled back.

  ‘I love you,’ he whispered.

  ‘I love you too,’ I replied softly.

  He did still love me, I could see it in his eyes. Just as he could tell by looking at me how I felt about him. Wrapping our arms around each other, we kissed. We had to make it last, make it count before all the others forced us apart. From far away I could hear all those in the cemetery roaring at us, but they didn’t matter any more. Nothing mattered except us. Baris was a murderer – but so was I. He came from a race of murderers who couldn’t see that what they were doing to us was wrong. Maybe Baris had realized exactly what the zenerth meant to me when he threw away his most prized possession. I didn’t care about that any more. We were damned, Baris and I … damned to each other. Damned because we loved each other, and nothing could or would ever change that now.

  When we stopped kissing, we held each other tightl
y, our eyes closed as we waited for the rest to descend on us and rip us to pieces.

  But nothing happened.

  ‘Baris …’ I said uncertainly, opening my eyes.

  I didn’t dare look round. I didn’t dare look at anyone but him.

  ‘Come with me,’ said Baris.

  We walked towards the cemetery fence together, our arms linked, our eyes focused only on each other and nothing else. I could hear the roars of fury around me, but they were distant, totally external.

  We stepped over the fence and carried on walking.

  20

  THEY MADE IT out of the cemetery. They made it. And where they were going I couldn’t follow. For the first time in what felt like for ever, I smiled. And it felt so strange, so alien, it faded almost before it had begun. Musical instruments made out of human skin? I knew Naima’s nightmare was in the future, but no way could that come true. Could it …? Who was I trying to kid? I mean, every time I thought something monstrous like that couldn’t happen, never in a million years, the daily news on the telly invariably proved me wrong. I didn’t know what country Naima was in or what colony she and her family had joined, but what did that matter? And I’d been wrong about Naima not caring about anything or anyone but herself. She was just very good at keeping her feelings deeply hidden. I could understand that.

  So Naima had fallen for someone and killed him.

  And everything I’d seen had been her life after death.

  Who was Baris? What kind of man was he? What type of person would use the skin of other people in that way? I’d thought that kind of thing had stopped with the Nazis in the Second World War. Obviously not.

  Listen to me! Thinking about warring ghosts like they were normal, everyday things. I was thinking about too many things. My head was still buzzing with each vision I’d seen. My head felt like an oversaturated sponge, but what was leaking out was me – my sanity, my sense of my own thoughts and feelings. I had too many of the thoughts and feelings of my classmates to have much room left for my own. It took all my concentration to focus on something else. Not Rachel, not my friends, and definitely not that thing at the end of the carriage. I looked up again. Was the TV news helicopter still there? It was, and its camera was still trained on me and Rachel.

  Were they transmitting right this very second? Was it a live feed going out on all channels nationwide as I stood looking up at it? Maybe Mum was at home, watching me now. Well, it sure as hell wasn’t the moment to wave. But everything I was hoped that Mum could see me, that she knew I was OK. For now. If Mum were standing in front of me, what would I say to her? What would I do? I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted the last couple of years to never have happened. I wanted Mum and me to hug like we used to, for everything to go back to the way it was before. I didn’t want to hate her any more, but I didn’t know how to stop.

  Time to escape again and stay put this time. Whose dream hadn’t I visited yet? The black woman in the camel coat, the stranger. Her nightmare would be something completely new, something I’d never seen before because I didn’t know her. I could escape into her head and never come out. Death would never find me inside her head. And it was as easy as closing my eyes.

  21

  The Stranger’s Nightmare

  1985

  Waiting.

  I’ve been waiting all my life.

  Exactly a year ago today my daughter Miriam walked down the dusty brown road from our township to school, swinging her orange string bag in her hand. Afternoon came and went. As did evening. As did night. I sat and waited for her throughout the night, then the next night … and the next.

  Waiting.

  I never saw her again.

  I learned a few days later that she had been detained by the police.

  ‘But why?’ I asked.

  Miriam’s friend Joshua looked down at the ground. He couldn’t meet my eyes.

  ‘Miriam stood still when they began to whip us,’ Joshua said quietly. ‘I’ve been hiding ever since in case they came back for me. I tried to send you a message …’ His voice cracked and faded, a temperamental radio being taken further and further away from me.

  ‘She stood still?’ I asked.

  ‘She didn’t move.’ Joshua looked up, his eyes burning. ‘You should have seen her. You would have been proud.’

  ‘Proud?’ I balked at that strange word.

  My daughter was gone. Proud?

  ‘I have to go now,’ Joshua muttered.

  I barely heard him. My daughter was gone.

  Gone.

  I sank to my knees and wept, silently, in case my daughter felt my distress … wherever she was. I could not add my grief to hers. But I never gave up waiting. I never gave up hoping that one day she would walk through my door.

  Waiting.

  A month later I had to seek domestic service.

  ‘How can you hire yourself out to be a slave – worse than a slave, a nothing?’ my son Gabriel asked angrily.

  ‘Tell me what else to do to put you and Ruth through school,’ I snapped back. ‘Do you think I want to go? Do you think I want to leave you? Think again. I do it so that you and Ruth will not have to live your lives as I have lived mine. You will have something better. Education is the key that opens any door—’

  ‘I wouldn’t do it,’ Gabriel interrupted with contempt. ‘I wouldn’t be a slave.’

  ‘You would if you had children, if you wanted the best for them.’

  I was tired, so tired of trying to make Gabriel understand. But at least he spoke to me. Ruth, my youngest, had barely said two words since I’d told them that I was going to be a maid.

  ‘If having children means living like an animal, worse than an animal, then I’ll never have children,’ Gabriel said.

  I smiled. ‘Children are the one thing you’ll ever have that no one, not even this government, can deny.’

  ‘They killed my brother!’ Gabriel shouted. ‘Our father hardly ever sees daylight working down the gold mines from dawn to dusk. Now Miriam has disappeared and we’ll never see her again. You’re a fool—’

  I slapped him, hard. ‘Don’t you ever say that again. Don’t you even think that your sister isn’t coming home.’

  Gabriel scowled at me, fighting to hold back the tears that shimmered in his eyes.

  ‘Gabriel …’ I stretched out my hand.

  He ran out of our shack. I sighed. Maybe I’d been too hard on him but he had to be taught not to give up. He had to be taught to wait.

  The road to Madam’s house was long and hard and dusty. The hot earth scorched my feet through the thin soles of my shoes. But I kept walking. I promised myself as I walked to Madam’s house that I would ask about my wages as soon as I saw her, but my courage deserted me in her tomb of a house. I knew that Madam wouldn’t appreciate questions about money. And I needed this job.

  So I didn’t ask.

  I’ll wait until I’ve worked the month, I thought. I’ll wait.

  I rang the bell. The door opened almost immediately. Madam stood there, her face set, her green cat eyes looking down at me.

  ‘Come in, Adeola,’ she said at last.

  I entered the house, out of the sunshine into the cool dark.

  ‘I want you to know that you’re easily replaced,’ Madam said as soon as I set foot past her front door. ‘If you can’t do the job, there are at least a hundred others who can. If you don’t want the job, there are at least a hundred others who do. And another thing: when you come into this house you’re to use the back door. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Madam,’ I murmured. Of course I understood.

  ‘My son’s room is across the hall from yours. You’re to feed him, dress him, make sure he wants for nothing. You’re to keep the house clean and cook all the meals. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Madam,’ I answered. I’ve understood all my life.

  Oh, Ruth, Gabriel, how I love you. How I miss you already.

  * * *

  First Day
r />   I prepared lunch for Madam. Two lamb chops, peas in real butter, boiled potatoes. She stood over me the entire time. The smell of the food made my stomach churn. I hadn’t eaten since the evening before. I had had to set out early in the morning to walk the long, long way to Madam’s house and I was so tired, so hungry by the time I got there. Madam ate her food in the kitchen.

  ‘You can have some lunch too,’ she said as she sat down.

  I looked down at her plate. ‘What am I to have, Madam?’ I asked.

  ‘You may have a plate of beans and some tea as it’s your first day. Tomorrow your lunch will be bread and jam and tea.’ She cut into her lamb chop.

  Later that evening, as I was preparing dinner, Madam’s husband arrived with their son.

  ‘Peter, this is our new maid. She’s going to be your nanny,’ Madam’s husband said to the small blond boy clutching at his hand.

  Peter couldn’t have been more than five or six. His cheeks were round and chubby. His arms and legs and stomach were fat and soft. I thought of Ruth at home, her arms and legs thin and hard like pencils, her stomach bloated from malnutrition. I looked up from Peter to Madam’s husband. I liked him less than I liked Madam but I smiled tremulously.

  I needed the job.

  ‘Why is she here?’ Peter asked.

  ‘Your mother needs some help around the house now that she’s pregnant,’ Madam’s husband said. ‘Now, Peter, it’s time for bed.’

  Madam’s husband looked at me. ‘Take him to bed,’ he ordered, his eyes chewing me up and spitting me out.

  I held out my hand, which Peter took after a moment’s hesitation.

  ‘Come on, Peter.’ I smiled. ‘You can show me to your room.’

  Peter smiled up at me. ‘It’s this way. You can follow me.’

  I looked at him, forcing a smile.

  My children … Oh, Ruth, Gabriel, I love you so much. I miss you. My eyes creep and creep back to the long, hard road that took me from you. The same road that will bring me back to you. But I must wait to see you. I must wait.