I am Not A Number

by Lisa Heathfield

  I feel empty of everything but fear. It touches every speck of my bones, every drop of my blood and it’s so dark that I can’t see beyond it.

  I keep my eyes closed even when I hear the gates open and we drive into the camp. And when they pull me out of the car I keep them closed as they drag me with them. I hear groups of people murmuring, but I can’t look at them.

  I could have set you free.

  I only open my eyes when we’re in a corridor whose smell I recognise, strong enough to almost make me vomit.

  The guard knocks on the general’s door.

  ‘Yes,’ I hear him say, before they open it.

  ‘Number 276,’ one guard says.

  ‘Thank you. You may leave her here,’ the general says. ‘One of you wait outside. I won’t be long.’

  The general sits behind his desk, looking at me. I’m no longer Zoe.

  ‘Number 276,’ he says.

  ‘No,’ I reply. ‘I am Ruby.’ But I’m betrayed by the shake in my voice.

  ‘What a disappointment. I thought I could trust you.’

  ‘You can,’ I tell him.

  ‘So, you’re a liar as well. I shouldn’t have been so foolish to think otherwise.’ Anger swarms from him, stinging my exposed skin.

  I look to the painting of the horse, the one nearest me, and try to let it calm me. The fine lines of its mane, its chestnut-brown fur. But it makes me want to cry and I have to bite back the pain in my throat. I won’t let the general have the satisfaction of even one of my tears.

  ‘Who were you working with?’ he demands.

  ‘No one.’ I turn to stare hatred into his eyes.

  ‘Whose idea was it?’

  ‘Mine.’

  ‘You expect me to believe that you contrived all that on your own?’

  ‘I’m capable,’ I say.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘There was no one else.’ Desperation is weaving in and out of my breathing and I know he notices it. ‘I just did it without thinking.’

  ‘It was impulsive?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The general puts back his shoulders and tips his head so I see his nostrils flare.

  ‘A dangerous trait,’ he says. ‘Not one we’d like in our country.’

  ‘Are you going to put me in that room with the doctor?’

  ‘To experiment on you?’

  ‘Yes.’ I feel the blood too strong in my heart.

  The general leans forwards and picks up his cup from his saucer. His eyes don’t leave mine as he drinks, before he puts it back down, the sound of china rubbing on china.

  ‘I wouldn’t waste precious resources on you,’ he says. ‘No, you’ll be punished.’

  I feel my lungs rip apart as I try to swallow.

  The general stands up and walks around the desk until he’s in front of me. I flinch as he reaches out and wait for the pain, but he’s undoing the red material around my arm. He’s taking my number from me.

  ‘Turn around,’ he says.

  I do. And now I’m facing the door. His breath is too close as I hear his arms move. They’re either side of me, the material in front of my face. He clasps it over my eyes and spins my world to darkness.

  I raise my hands but he slams them away, as he tightens the material, enough for my hair to burn.

  ‘You disgust me,’ he says, his wet lips on my ear.

  And the door opens and I’m being led. Someone else pulls me by the elbow, the sound of footsteps either side of me as I stumble and am dragged up, hurried along a tunnel I can’t see.

  More doors bang and I’m led outside, cold air covering me. The ground is rough and I’m sure this is the path I’ve been on so many times before.

  Further, until the silence is strange and heavy and I know there are people watching. I must be on the men’s side as they lead me and we stop and there’s the sound of the gate opening and I’m pulled through. To the women’s side? I can hear someone crying.

  ‘Lilli?’ I call out.

  I’m dragged nearer to the sound and hands are on my head, my hair is twisted and pulled until the blindfold and darkness are taken from me and sunlight burns my eyes.

  My sister stands next to my mum in front of the crowd of women in our camp. How so many of them are so silent, yet there are Lilli’s tears as she reaches out and clings tight to my dress.

  Mum touches the dried cut across my cheek. ‘What did they do to you?’ But a guard pushes her back and she falls against the fence. I look past it now to the other side. To where there are gallows on the stage, nooses hanging down.

  No no no no no no.

  The Trads are leading two people towards the steps and I know who it is. I know who it is. I know who it is.

  My scream rips my soul in two.

  ‘Luke!’ I see my hand reach out for the fence, feel my fingers distant as they grip the metal. ‘Darren.’

  They stand together, horror tight on their mouths.

  I was meant to save them.

  ‘They can’t make us watch,’ a woman says, as my blood burns holes in my chest.

  ‘They won’t do it,’ my mum says.

  ‘Luke,’ I shout again, but he’s staring at the sky. ‘Luke!’ And he’s trying to find me as I rip at the fence, try to claw it from the ground. He sees me and I stop as he closes his eyes and opens them, his chest rising and falling too quickly. I put my hand to my heart, but he’s suddenly dragged up the steps. Darren stumbles beside him, but they pull him up too. The guards force them to stand on the stools beneath the ropes. They put the nooses around their necks.

  ‘No,’ I hear Mum whisper.

  ‘Let them go,’ I scream.

  ‘Kelly,’ Darren calls to my mum and she looks up at him. His breathing is strong, catching in the air that he needs. ‘Ruby. Lilli. Don’t be frightened.’ And it crushes my soul. I want to speak to him but the words are buried in the rubble of myself. They can’t find their way out.

  ‘276.’ It’s the general’s voice, warped through his speaker, spiralling into me. ‘This is on you. One of these people will live. One must die. You will choose.’

  ‘Dear God,’ I hear someone behind me say.

  ‘276, you must decide, or they will both die.’ The general’s voice rips into the air, leaving behind a suffocating silence.

  I don’t move. I can’t.

  I need fragments to breathe.

  ‘276.’

  Luke doesn’t look at me. He stares straight ahead.

  ‘I can’t,’ I whisper to my mum and I’m shaking her and she’s trying to calm me. ‘I can’t choose.’

  A gunshot cracks.

  There’s screaming and a gunshot again, but it’s the guard next to the general and he’s firing towards the sky.

  everyone is quiet, too quiet

  Lilli shaking violently in my arms I can barely hold her

  The clouds choose now to break a place for the sun and it shines down on the gallows. Darren holds himself steady in the light as he looks over at us.

  ‘I love you,’ he shouts. And he kicks away his stool.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘There’s a shadow hanging over our country. We alone can bring you, our nation, into the light.’ – John Andrews, leader of the Traditional Party

  The world is a splintered place I don’t understand. Just air that holds the echoes of Lilli’s screams.

  As they cut down Darren’s body.

  How long have we been standing here?

  I stare at the sky as it slowly turns black.

  My mum’s eyes don’t waver from the empty gallows.

  On the other side of the fence, the men’s faces slowly drift into darkness. I see Luke, standing on the ground now, until he almost disappears, swallowed by time moving on. By an evening that Darren will never know. Because of me.

  They tell us to walk back inside and we move across the yard, up the stairs and into our rooms. No one says a word. We fall where we stand. Mum is between Lilli and I and we pu
ll a blanket over her, covering her shoulders so that only her face can be seen. Her cheeks are sunken in, her lips bitten to bleed. I want to stay awake to look at her, to hold her in my memory.

  But the light goes off. I’m in a sea of black and I’m sinking.

  The morning is here too soon and instantly I see Darren standing at the gallows. I push it and push it away and try to bring him back alive, but I can’t.

  Lilli sits up, the blanket falling to her knees, her eyes red from crying.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ I whisper. I feel the weight of that rope on my own neck, pulling me down.

  Mum grabs my wrist, the fire of grief and injustice lit in her. ‘This is not your fault, Ruby.’ I hang my head as Mum brushes away my tears. ‘You didn’t kill Darren.’ But she’s crying too. ‘They did. Do you hear me? They did. The Traditionals led him up those steps, they put that noose on him, not you.’ Her breathing is rushed with fury. ‘Not you.’

  I squeeze my eyes shut tight, blocking away the truth.

  ‘Look at me,’ Mum says, but I can’t. I don’t want to see the pain I’ve carved so deep into her face. ‘Look at me,’ she shouts. I’ve no choice and when I do, I see the defiance in her eyes. ‘This is what they want you to feel. They’re trying to break us and if we let them, then they’ve won. You must understand that.’ I nod my head. ‘Tell me. Tell me that you understand.’

  ‘I do,’ I say.

  ‘Good.’ And she puts her palms on either side of my face so I look at no one but her. ‘You know Darren would tell us that we mustn’t let them win.’ I want to stop her tears, but she lets them fall. ‘They can try, but they won’t destroy us.’

  ‘That’s right,’ a woman nearer the door says.

  ‘So we’re going to stand up now,’ Mum says. ‘We’re going to take our courage in our hands and we’re going to walk down those stairs and fill our stomachs with their bread. And we’re going to go outside with our heads held higher than ever before. Okay?’ She nods, just once. ‘And we’re going to do this for Darren.’ When she says his name, I feel her heart break, but she holds her arms still.

  ‘Yes,’ Lilli says.

  ‘And you, little miss,’ Mum says, turning to her, ‘will dry your eyes. We won’t give them the satisfaction of seeing us cry.’ Lilli brushes away her tears, but more come. ‘We’re alive and we’re going to stay alive,’ she tells us. ‘Do you hear me?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lilli says again.

  ‘Ruby?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. And Mum takes our hands.

  We exist on a line between life and death, between hope and despair. And every day we get to choose which side we’ll walk. Some mornings I wake with life and hope by my side, but most days I have to claw my way through thick clouds to find them. When Mum or Lilli begin to fall, I save them, as they do me. We are somehow strong enough to hold each other’s souls in place.

  We try the same for Conor’s mum, but often she’s so lost when she wakes that we can’t find her. It’s a shell of herself that walks beside us.

  Darren’s spirit is everywhere. Mum has hold of it so tight and she won’t ever let it go. She talks of him and Lilli talks of him and I try, but my words get caught in guilt and regret too complicated to untangle. It burns me every moment of every day, a searing red line that cuts through everything.

  We cook, we wash, we clean, we sew. My mind is turned inside out until it’s a flat sheet that I grip in the wind. There’s nothing on it. I stand for roll call and see only the mountains, with snow now on their peaks. So life has gone on. The world is turning and the seasons keep walking, even though our lives have stopped.

  We’re settling down to sleep when the door opens. A female guard is standing in the light from the corridor.

  ‘Sit up,’ she tells us. There’s confusion among us. Under our blanket, Lilli reaches for my hand. ‘Who can tell me the rules that we, as Traditionals, should abide by?’ the guard shouts.

  A panicked silence stifles us. I know their rules, I’ve heard them enough times, but somehow my mind can’t reach any of them.

  ‘To not be promiscuous,’ a woman finally says.

  ‘To work hard,’ says another.

  ‘What else?’ the guard demands.

  ‘No alcohol in a public place,’ someone says.

  ‘And . . .?’ The guard asks, but no one answers. ‘You must not steal.’ She stretches the word through her teeth.

  I want to look around at the other women, to see if anyone knows why the guard is saying this, but I keep my eyes firmly on her. I’m not guilty of whatever she’s accusing and she mustn’t think I am.

  ‘How,’ she continues, ‘can we have a fair society if people steal? How can there be trust? Tell me that.’ Our silence stays with us as she glares into the room. Her eyes rest on Lilli and I feel my sister squeeze my hand. ‘Tell me – is stealing right, or wrong?’

  ‘It’s wrong,’ Lilli answers. Has she done something? Please God no, not Lilli.

  ‘Louder,’ the guard commands.

  ‘It’s wrong,’ Lilli repeats.

  ‘And people who steal should be punished.’ The guard’s eyes leave my sister and find a woman near the door. ‘Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes,’ the woman answers.

  ‘Earlier, we caught a woman stealing potatoes from the kitchen.’

  Relief floods me. Lilli and Mum were on sewing duty with me. None of us have set foot near the kitchen today.

  ‘We know that you contaminate each other. If there’s one thief among you, there’ll be hundreds.’

  That’s not true.

  ‘As a punishment,’ the guard says. ‘Tomorrow, before dawn, every woman in camp will be lined up and every tenth person shall be shot.’ Her voice is tinted with eagerness, so I know I must have heard it wrong.

  ‘But I don’t steal,’ a woman behind me says. ‘I’ve never stolen anything in my life.’

  ‘Then this will be a deterrent to make sure you never do.’ The guard smiles. She smiles. ‘Sleep well,’ she says before she closes the door. The darkness is sudden and complete.

  ‘Mum?’ Lilli whispers.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ Mum tells her.

  ‘Are you mad?’ a voice nearby shouts at her. ‘Tomorrow they’re going to use us as target practice.’

  ‘They’re going to shoot us?’ Lilli’s asks.

  ‘It won’t be you, Lilli,’ I tell her. If I think it hard enough, I can convince myself.

  ‘If we stand together,’ Mum says, ‘and the number lands on one of us, then the other two will be spared.’ Mum’s voice is balanced, as though she’s working out a sum.

  Somewhere in the room, a woman starts to weep. Around me, I hear whispered prayers. What do you do if tomorrow you might die?

  ‘Ruby,’ Mum says, her hand in mine. ‘Tell me something I don’t know about you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Anything. Just something I never knew before.’

  The dark whittles into my bones and tries to take me.

  ‘I don’t like your shepherd’s pie,’ I say.

  ‘My shepherd’s pie?’ She sounds confused.

  ‘Yes,’ I admit.

  ‘But it’s one of your favourites.’

  ‘I just pretended because I didn’t want to make you feel bad.’

  And Mum laughs. In the crushing horror of this night, she’s able to laugh.

  ‘My secret,’ Lilli says, ‘is that I’ve never kissed a boy.’

  ‘What about Paul Jenkins?’ I ask her.

  ‘I made it up.’

  ‘But in the alley by his house. Sharon told me about it.’

  ‘It was all a lie,’ Lilli says simply.

  ‘That’s okay,’ Mum says. But she sounds so sad and I feel her mind wandering to a bleak place and I need to keep her with me. We’ve all got to stay on this side of hope.

  ‘Mum, what’s your favourite smell?’ I ask he
r.

  ‘Smell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yours and Lilli’s hair.’

  ‘Still?’

  ‘Always.’

  Sorrow sweeps in and grabs my breath. Mum holds me tight.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ she says. ‘Don’t give them your tears.’

  But how can I not? I want to live. I want us all to live. I want every woman in this room to live, every person in this camp.

  I must have slept somehow, but now I’m awake. I don’t know what time it is, or how long it’ll be before the guard opens the door. I hope I still have hours. But then I also hope it’s just minutes. There’s a cruelty in waiting that fills me with poisoned thoughts.

  We will stand, our backs to that wall.

  One in ten of us will die. Just because we believe in different things to them.

  My heart beats so hard that it must bruise my ribs and the pain rattles around my body, to my feet, my neck, scalding my skull.

  Breathe, Ruby.

  Will they make the men watch, as they made us when they murdered Darren?

  His name drifts through my fingers. I try to clasp it, but it’s too painful and I let go.

  Help us, I beg him.

  I grasp the blanket tight to me, my fingers on my forehead follow the line of my eyebrows, touch my eyelashes. I’m Ruby. And I’m alive. I feel the bones in my cheeks, bring my fingertips to my lips. It’s my skin, with my blood underneath it. I bite enough to feel pain and know that it’s my brain that feels it.

  I’ve got fifteen years of memories spread within me. They’re my very own. I have Luke. I have his arms and his voice and his kisses and they’re mine.

  I won’t feel the guards’ madness. I’ll stay stronger than steel and face their bullets. They’ll count to ten again and again, but even if they take me I’ll always have lived. In other people’s minds, I’ll be here.

  I am the raven on the wire.

  Everyone is awake. Somewhere outside the sun must soon be rising. It will keep going even if we don’t. It will look down on empty spaces where some of us should be.

  The guards herd us out of the bunk room. A swarm of us. We’re only insects to them as we shuffle along the corridor in pairs. I’m with Lilli. Mum insists we stay together. I hold my sister’s hand and feel the stair rail in my other. I watch my mum walk, see how she’s tied her hair into –