I am Not A Number

by Lisa Heathfield

  We move in line to get our bread. Lilli doesn’t look like my sister. She’s a stranger, lost, and my mum holds her tight to stop her drifting away. We go outside. Some women don’t even eat the food. Hunger is destroying them, but they have another pain now that they won’t be able to think beyond.

  None of us look over to the other side of the fence, even though the day is clear enough for us to find the men we know. Today we see only the children they’ve taken.

  ‘They killed two mothers,’ a woman next to me says. She talks to no one and everyone. ‘They shot them in front of their children.’

  I close my eyes.

  Where are Rimi and Zamal? We told them they’d be safe.

  ‘Do you think they’ll bring the children back later?’ someone asks.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘Do you?’

  Do I? Did I ever believe it? But I don’t want to say it, don’t even want to shake my head in case it stirs up the truth.

  ‘Will they hurt them?’ Lilli asks. But no one answers and her words drip down into her bewilderment where I know they’ll drown.

  I don’t feel safe without my mum near me, but she and Lilli have been ordered to go with a group to sort out the dresses. I’m on kitchen duty. A male guard stands by the door, his legs splayed wide. Was it him who shot those mothers?

  The steam in the kitchen makes me cough, a painful rattle in my lungs. But at least it’s warm in here and I wish I could stay all day. I peel the potatoes and when no one is watching I put a scrap of the raw skin in my mouth. Its muddiness sticks to my thirst, but it’s worth it. I take scrunches of peel and put them in my pockets. It’s not much, but it’s something for Mum and Lilli at least.

  I look up at the guard. His back is turned to me, so I pull a scrap of paper from my sleeve, one with Destiny’s writing explaining what’s happening in this camp. I wish I could add to it that the children have been taken. I feel my blood beating too fast as I move the paper to my palm, before I tip it into the kitchen waste. Maybe someone outside of this place will have to sort through it? It could be a guard, but it’s a chance I have to take.

  We’re allowed one glass of water each before we leave. The guards make us rush, but I want to feel every drop as it makes my gums live again. It’s like swallowing gold.

  Outside we’re led back to the women’s section and so I step from one area of hell to another. The wind digs its freezing fingers through my dress, dragging them along my skin.

  ‘Line up,’ a guard near us shouts, but we could be here for hours and I can’t see Mum or Lilli anywhere. A hand grabs me and it’s Destiny. Together we find a place and stand, waiting, my bones sewn with needles of ice.

  We watch as the men spill into the yard on their side and are ordered to get into line. I scan them for Luke. How will he be able to spot me when they make us all wear the same dresses? I see Mr Hart, his eyes searching desperately among us. I’d forgotten about his wife and children. Does he know what happened earlier? Do any of them know?

  ‘My mum thinks there’s a mole among the women,’ Destiny says quietly.

  ‘Darren thought that. But wouldn’t we be able to tell if someone in our room was actually spying for the Trads?’

  ‘I don’t think we can trust anyone.’

  I link my arm through hers and squeeze it, needing to feel even a grain of warmth.

  ‘Well, it’s not me,’ I tell her.

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘So my deepest darkest secrets are safe with you, then?’

  ‘Always.’

  I spot Stan on the other side of the fence and he looks shrunken and desolate. Next to him is Conor, his face scorched with bruises, his eye swollen. I need his mum not to see him, not like this.

  ‘I put one of our paper trails down the loo,’ Destiny says.

  ‘How will anyone find that?’ Somehow among the terror she’s still able to make me laugh.

  ‘I’ve no idea, but it was worth a try.’

  ‘Always worth a try.’

  ‘And the next time I’m near a coach, I’ll be straight up those steps to hide one in there.’

  ‘Of course you will.’ I smile and there’s a part of me that believes she might.

  ‘It’s strange, isn’t it?’ Destiny says. ‘How we weren’t friends at school.’

  ‘It is a bit.’

  ‘How does that happen?’

  ‘What, that we never knew we were friends?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I don’t know. I somehow missed out on the fact about how cool you are.’

  ‘And I somehow missed out on the fact about how cool you are.’

  ‘Well,’ I laugh quietly. ‘We know now.’

  ‘We’ll be friends, won’t we?’ Destiny asks. ‘When we’re back at school.’

  I’d give anything to be walking in the school corridor right now, introducing Destiny to Sara, sitting with her in the canteen.

  ‘You try stopping me,’ I tell her.

  ‘My friends’ll like you,’ she says.

  ‘They will?’

  ‘Theo will fancy you, so we’ll have to get Luke to sort him out.’

  And then he’s there, Luke. He’s next to Conor, looking to this side, and I know he’s scanning the faces for me.

  ‘I need him to see me,’ I say.

  ‘You’ve found him?’

  ‘He’s near the end.’ I just need eye contact with him. ‘How can I get his attention?’

  ‘You’ll have to get naked, girl,’ Destiny says. ‘Then you’ll get all their attention.’

  ‘I’m serious, Destiny. This is killing me.’

  ‘I’m serious too. Give those Trads something else to think about.’

  I take her laugh with me as I go closer to the fence.

  The bedroom feels stripped bare without Zamal and Rimi and even with so many women crammed in here there’s an invisible hole that swamps the room where they should be. I try to imagine where they are. There are rumours that the children have been taken away from the camp and there’s hope that maybe they’re in a better place.

  I look over to where Aba and my mum sit side by side, their backs against the wall. They stare into nothing and everything. I know they won’t have the answers I want to hear, so I don’t go to them. Instead I step over the piles of women to reach Destiny and Lilli.

  We sit cross-legged and make a circle, our knees touching, and I hold on to their hands like I would a lifeboat. Because I think my mind at least could drift and drift, through the cracks in the doors and the fence and it might never come back. If I let it, it’ll get picked apart by crows, leaving the shell of me here.

  ‘I want Zamal and Rimi to come back.’ Lilli starts to cry. She doesn’t let go of our hands to wipe away her tears so I watch them fall, roll down her nose and cheeks, sinking into her skin.

  ‘Don’t let them win,’ Destiny tells her. ‘We have to stay strong. Prove they can’t break us.’

  Lilli nods, over and over. I see her trying so hard not to cry, but her tears won’t stop. I wonder what’s going on in her head right now – how she must be more confused than any of us. Because I know that the Trads were beginning to convince her – their ideas were sneaking into her eyes. She’d blink and I’d still see the words there, pushing their way deeper inside. But now?

  ‘I’m not going to leave you,’ I tell my sister. ‘I’ll get you through this.’

  Somewhere, in another room, a woman screams. It’s not the sound of surprise, but of a deeper pain than I thought was possible for a human to feel. It scrapes inside me and I don’t know how we don’t all shatter. There are noises in the corridor, shouting from the guards, but no more sounds of a gun. Not yet.

  ‘Have you ever seen a raven sat on a telephone wire when it rains?’ Destiny asks.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Exactly that. A raven on a wire when it’s really raining. I saw it once. It was a proper storm. Not just a bit of rain, but totally pouring and
the wind going crazy. I was in my bedroom watching it and the raven was getting battered and I waited for it to move. But it didn’t.’

  ‘It didn’t fly away?’

  ‘No. It stayed there, calm as anything, as though there was nothing going on around it. Literally closed its eyes, stood tall and faced the storm head-on.’

  ‘It didn’t get knocked off ?’ Lilli asks.

  ‘No. It was like it was testing itself. You know, that it was strong enough to withstand it. And then when the rain slowed down, it flew away.’ Destiny lifts our hands and squeezes them tight. ‘We’re that bird. We’re that raven.’

  ‘We are?’ Lilli asks quietly.

  ‘We have to be,’ Destiny tells her.

  We’re squashed in tight to sleep and although it doesn’t make the floor any more comfortable, it’s a little bit warmer at least. Mum and Lilli are already deep in their dreams, but I can’t find a way to join them. My eyes keep staying open in the dark, listening to the bleak coughing of some of the women.

  It’s not just Zamal and Rimi I’m thinking about, it’s all the other children they’ve taken too. Does Mr Hart know yet? How will he cope, on his side of the fence, unable to do anything?

  I reach up for my necklace and pull it out from under my hoodie. My name is spelled out underneath my thumb and fingers and I press down into the letters so I can feel them printed in my skin. But now I’ve let Luke into my mind and the ache without him here cuts deep into me.

  I turn on to my side and have to brush Destiny’s hair from my face.

  ‘Are you awake?’ I whisper.

  ‘Yes,’ Destiny whispers back.

  ‘I can’t sleep.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  The darkness is so thick between us that I can’t even see her outline. All around us, exhausted women sleep.

  ‘Where do you think they’ve taken them, Ruby?’ she asks. ‘I’m so scared that they’re going to hurt them. Like really hurt them. So they never come back.’

  I know the Traditionals are capable of anything now. The behaviour of young children must be adjusted accordingly. The general’s words bring bile to my throat.

  ‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ I whisper.

  ‘Here. Put your head on this.’ I hear her moving and she’s pushing her coat underneath my head. But bile is climbing up my throat, my saliva hot and sticky. My stomach cramps and I try to turn away as I vomit.

  ‘Ruby?’ It’s Mum’s voice, but I can’t reply. My body is in painful spasms as I retch. I want all the pain in my heart to go too, but that stays there as I retch some more. I feel the hands of my mum stroking my hair, someone else stroking my back.

  ‘All done?’ Mum asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply.

  ‘Good girl.’ She kisses my head, before she picks up Destiny’s coat. She must find her way over the sleeping women in the dark as I hear her knocking on the door and people grumbling. She knocks again and it opens, shedding a line of light into the room.

  ‘What’s going on?’ the guard asks.

  I stay lying down. I’m shivering, even though the blanket is pulled up to my chin. Lilli strokes my hair as the door closes.

  Mum has gone. She doesn’t come back. I try to stay awake.

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ Destiny says.

  I try so hard not to sleep, but my eyes have weights that pull me down.

  The guard opens the door in the morning and Mum is lying next to me. She must’ve swapped places with Lilli when she came back.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ she asks, moving the hair from my forehead.

  ‘Did they hurt you?’ I ask.

  ‘No.’

  My skull has nails being hammered into it. They’re left in there to rust and I can’t pull them out.

  ‘Are you going to be sick again?’ Mum asks. I shake my head, but the pain digs into my eyes.

  ‘I’m not ill,’ I say.

  But I don’t have the energy to stand.

  ‘Come on. We have to get up.’ Mum helps me to sit.

  ‘I’m so thirsty,’ I tell her. My dry tongue somehow peels the words out of my mouth.

  ‘I know. You’ll get a drink before breakfast.’

  Two guards walk in. They’re carrying a pile each of grey material.

  ‘From now on,’ one shouts, as though we’re far away. ‘You’re to wear only these at all times.’

  ‘Nice,’ Destiny says. ‘Our dresses.’

  The guards give them to the women next to the door, before they leave and close us in.

  ‘I need water,’ I tell Mum.

  ‘There’s not any here,’ she says. ‘It won’t be long. We’ll get dressed quickly.’

  But thirst is stripping me bare. It hurts to swallow.

  Already Mum is wearing her dress. It looks awful. A lump of grey.

  ‘How am I looking?’ Destiny asks. She swirls in front of me, but when I try to smile my lips crack and I taste blood.

  ‘Beautiful,’ I tell her, as Mum takes the red material from my arm and pulls off my hoodie and T-shirt. I feel too naked without my own clothes, stripped of who I am.

  It’s freezing and the dress she puts on me doesn’t warm me. I tuck Luke’s necklace inside where it can’t be seen.

  ‘Can I put this over the top?’ I ask, taking my hoodie from her.

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘We’ll ask them later, but not at the moment.’

  I reach into the pocket and hold the precious pieces of paper that Destiny and I have written more messages on and my mum doesn’t know as I slip them into the small square pocket on the side of the grey dress I’m wearing.

  Destiny nods at me, though, and there’s her smile that tells me that we mustn’t give up.

  ‘I’m sorry about your coat,’ I tell her. I can see that mum tried to clean it as best she could, but now it’s damp and probably won’t dry before she wears it again. ‘I’ll buy you a new one when we’re out.’

  ‘Deal,’ Destiny says. ‘We’ll go shopping together.’

  Mum is silent as she fixes the red material with my number over the top of the grey dress. Next to us, Conor’s mum gets changed and I see how her body is caving in on itself, her skin sticking roughly to the outline of her bones. Mum goes to help tie the strip of material on her arm, while Destiny does her own using her teeth, careful to keep her number on the inside.

  We all stand in the same grey dresses and wait. The door opens and a male guard comes in carrying a box.

  ‘You’re to take off all of your jewellery and put it in here.’

  There’s a beat of a second as we all stare at him, until another guard steps into the room.

  ‘Now,’ she says.

  I watch my mum take off her earrings.

  ‘We have to do it, Ruby,’ she says.

  ‘I don’t want to,’ I whisper.

  ‘You have no choice.’

  I unhook the clasp of my charm bracelet and slip it from my wrist. Each part of it belongs to mine and Sara’s story, together, but they want to take it away. I hold it in my palm and feel the charms on my skin. The yellow daffodil she chose so I wouldn’t have to pick the real flowers. The tiny silver phone she gave me last birthday, linking her to me.

  Lilli stands with her hands by her sides. She only had her ears pierced a few months ago and they’ve barely healed.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Mum tells her and she takes the tiny stars from my sister’s ears.

  ‘Will I get them back?’ Lilli asks.

  ‘I’m sure,’ Mum tells her.

  The guard walks among us with the box. When he gets to me, I have to drop my charm bracelet into it.

  ‘Those,’ he says, pointing towards my earrings. I take out the small hoops and give them to him. ‘And that.’ He nods towards the necklace Luke gave me, the one that spells my name.

  ‘I want to keep it on,’ I say. The guard looks stunned for an instant, but quickly stands taller.

  ‘It’s orders,’ he says.

  His hand jolts up to my
throat and I try to step back but already he’s gripped my necklace and yanks it from me.

  My name sits in his fist. He keeps his dead eyes on me as he drops it into the box.

  I turn in time to see my mum taking her wedding ring from her finger and she lets it go, into the pile of everything they’ve taken from us, before the guard walks away among the other women.

  Mum’s face has the fire of defiance. ‘They’re just possessions,’ she tells Lilli and me. ‘They can’t steal what’s inside of us. They can never take that away.’

  I don’t know how I walk down the stairs, yet I do. It’s the thought of water that pulls me there. And when I get the cup in my hand, each sip is more precious than anything I’ve ever owned. Just the one glass softens my headache, soothes my lips and makes me feel like I can walk again.

  But outside, now we’re all in grey dresses and with our jewellery gone, something has changed. You can tell it in the eyes of the guards as they patrol past our line. Before, we were holding on to scraps of being real people, but now they don’t see that. To them we are below animals.

  In front of me a woman drops her bread. When she bends to pick it up the guard stamps on her hand. She screams as he grinds his heel deeper.

  But none of us help her.

  ‘Please,’ the woman gasps up at the guard, so he pulls her up and hits her so hard that she falls to the floor. I just look at her curled helpless there and I do nothing.

  The guard makes us step over her. I take my bread before I lift my feet over the woman. I don’t talk to her. I don’t kneel down to her. I step over her as everyone does and walk away with my food.

  The cold wipes my thoughts. It grinds its way across my face, down my throat. My fingers freeze motionless around my bread, but I manage to push it into my mouth.

  We stay huddled together and I beg for the sun to come out. When Mum’s finished eating she puts her arms around Lilli and me and tries to make us warm.

  ‘They can’t make us stand out in this for too long,’ Aba says. None of us answer. She starts to walk away and I glance up too late to see her talking to a guard. He brings back his arm and thumps her so hard in the stomach that she folds and falls heavily to the ground.