Gone to the Forest

6

There were six barns on the farm. They were simple structures. A knocked together wood frame, covered in sheets of metal. Each barn had a plastic gutter along the roof to let off water when it rained. The six barns stood in the middle of fields and were spread across the property. Inside were bales of hay, tools and spools of wire fencing.

The spools of wire were taken first. Then the shelves were emptied of their tools. These items were lifted in the night and carried away. Their only trace being footprints in the grass and tracks from where the spools had been rolled. The barn door carefully closed behind them.

A week later the bolts were knocked out and the doors disappeared. The barns stood with their entrances gaping, six barns spread across the property without a door to lock or close. The barns circulated air. Nobody took notice. There was a hush. It was long and extended. It was exactly two weeks before the windows disappeared.

They were glass and therefore valuable. For these they came with gloves and dirty quilts, into which they packed the panes as they knocked them from the frames. They returned for the frames the next day, having realized that these were also necessary. They cut them out with saws and went away by daylight, carrying the wood tucked beneath their arms.

The gutters were next to go. The plastic pipes were pulled down from the roofs and carried away. Then sheets of corrugated metal were dismantled and vanished square by square. Holes appeared in the barn sides. Entire walls were lifted away. Eventually each of the six barns was reduced to a bare wood frame. Like skeletons with the flesh burned away.

Finally even the frames went. The wood — some of it rotten with age and damp — was taken, along with scraps that had been abandoned in the grass. Hinges and bits of metal hardware. After a brief pause, the nails were also stolen up, gathered in their palms. They were secreted away until all that stood in place of the barns were stacks of hay. These rotted in the rain.

That was the prelude, which took place in the month following the land reform announcement. Which was broadcast on the radio and published in the newspaper, the news of it spreading like water. The whites being expulsed from the land in so many inches of ink and paper. The land shifting alliance across radio waves.

Then came the thing itself. He saw them through the window. Coming with their single wagons and mules, a tide of rusty instruments. The first thing they did was mark out boundaries with the barbed wire and wood from the barns. Dozens of parcels, one not to be confused with the other. A hundred people colonizing their own land in a fever.

The land bent and buckled under the weight of the new men. They overturned the earth in a churn of activity, demonstrating how property was the thing most worshipped in the country. This being the first legacy of the white settlers. This being what the natives had learned.

He had dismissed most of the natives in the days following the announcement. There remained only a few dozen. These natives watched as pell-mell the farms went up on the hills around them. Each new farmer was given three cows and five sheep and a burlap sack of seed with which to start operations. The soil, now rich with ash, was plowed and the seed dumped into the ground. The livestock corralled into the corners of the plots and the houses hammered together with the weathered squares of corrugated metal.

In all the effect was — not what they were used to, and not especially felicitous. The natives shook their heads. They could leave the farm and put their names down for their acre and their three cows. Others had done so. But they decided against it. They were hedging their bets. They were waiting for something more, and did not believe this was the end of the matter.

THE OLD MAN returned six months later. Tom sits on the porch. It has been one month since the old man’s return and still Tom calls it the porch in his head, what was once referred to as the veranda. There have been many retractions in his life, the most important taking place in his head. It is now spring but there are shadows from inside the house and Tom is sitting on the edge of a pool of darkness.

There is nothing cheering to see in his face. Tom has been neutered by age and disillusion. His body is still young — he can run and jump with the best of them, he can move quickly when he has to, having always been good at running, in multiple senses of the word — but his face is like an old man already dead. His world has shrunk down to a fraction of its original size and he has already grown used to it.

After the land reform announcement, Tom was alone. The land was, for the time being, safe. The farm was his and he could do with it as he wished. But this farm was different from the farm he had envisioned, the farm he had filled his days imagining. He was forced to accept the reduced state of affairs, the missing father and the missing land being one and the same, both having gone at the same time, under the same circumstances.

The missing father being in two parts: the simple physical absence and the more difficult absence of the idea. The image of the father. Which was now gone, which had crumbled in front of him. The second being the greater loss. Having lost so much, Tom was obliged to divest himself further. He dismissed most of the servants and farm hands; others left of their own accord. He did not think to ask where they were going. He sold one thing and then he began selling all of it. He took whatever was offered, not knowing how to bargain.

He sold the motorboats. The tractors and the plows. (There was a lot of machinery. It took a lot of machinery to maintain all that land. The storehouses containing piles of hardware and tools, the ossuary of the farm as it once was.) It was not hard. His attachment was to the land, not the apparatus it came with, and the valley was crawling with new farmers. The carpetbaggers bought the equipment in bulk and sold it at premium. Everything went except the fish farm, which continued to sit in a shed adjacent to the river, covered by a sheet of tarpaulin.

The other sheds went with the land. Tom did not know who owned them. The redistribution process had been fast and loose. It had seemed chaotic. Tom did not know if the result was what they wanted, if they have been satisfied by their gains. He did not even know who they were — communists, he heard, who did not believe in individual property. But then he heard that they were not communists after all but revolutionary capitalists. Nihilist rebels. None of these words meant anything to him.

Tom sat on the land that was still his. He had retained just enough natives to make the farm run. He had a little bit of money. But mostly he had erased himself from the land with his usual ease of retreat. And it was a good thing he had moved so fast. One week before the men arrived he sold most of the cattle. Then he saw them striding in from the distance — the same men, the three from before. Who had walked away and now came back. He was waiting for them when they arrived. They came on foot, their trousers coated in dust and their hands clutching stones in their pockets.

He didn’t ask them in. He saw no reason to. They arrived and told him what he already knew. They took out the papers and presented them to him — he could tell, from the manner of presentation, that they expected no resistance from him. The old man’s signature was incontestable. He acknowledged the papers. He told them he understood. He only wanted them to go away. Still they insisted on explaining the matter to him:

The violence had been spreading across the country for months. Then, a sudden escalation. It appeared the unrest had a leader. Someone capable of organizing the unrest into a movement. There was rumor of an illegal shipment of weapons — steps had to be taken to prevent chaos from claiming the country. Demands were made and agreed to. The Land Reform Bill was hurried through by the Government in a matter of days.

The men had been aware of the sea change for some time. For months they had been telling the old man that expropriation was looking more and more inevitable. However, there were opportunities in the chaos. The old days were gone and the Government was now fighting to maintain power. The whites were. That was a reality like the rest of it. But there were things to be gained, even in a time of attrition.

For example. They themselves had played their cards carefully and were subsequently appointed Special Commissioners to the Land Reform Process. They had told his father there were opportunities, even for men like them. As for a man like his father — well. It had been an awkward conversation. The old man had not taken it very well. He had not believed in their authority, even when they showed him the stamped and authorized papers. He had not wanted to believe in the changing times.

Granted, they hadn’t known very much about how it would shake down. They didn’t know very much now! They were still working out the details, it was a complicated thing, they had told the old man he would have some time before they seized the land. Of course, Tom would know all this already. His father would have told him. They had not realized Tom was due to inherit so soon — if they had, they would have included him in the conversations.

As it was, they were impressed by how quickly Tom had retrenched. They had not expected it. But here he was. Already off his land and one week before the deadline. He was as quick as his father, in his own way. It had been clever of him to sell the livestock. Unfortunately they were obliged to seize assets such as livestock and machinery along with the land — but here they were and there was nothing to take.

It had been chaos across the valley. They could tell him a story or two. As for Tom — they supposed he would find the adjustment quite easy. It was only land in the end. They had hardly been using it. Their herd having been so much reduced in recent years. Yes, he told them. That much was true. They had used the river. The river was how they had lived. They asked him what he planned to do now and he shrugged.

He thanked the men for coming. They were grinning, they clearly thought he was a fool. The idiot son tricked by the cunning father. Tom knew that was how they saw him. The men took out a pen and told him to sign some documents. Acknowledging the transfer of land. Exactly what his father had already agreed to, nothing more. He signed the papers without looking and then asked if they would excuse him, he had not been feeling well, not since his father had left.

The men told him they understood and left without another word. They went backward down the track and he watched them go from inside the house. Having locked the door behind them. The men left a copy of the papers inside with one of the servants. Nobody ever looked at the papers. Tom went to his bedroom, now in the servants’ quarters (they had shut down whole wings of the house). He lay down in bed with an ice pack on his forehead.

He lay in bed and around him the business of the last forty years fell apart. The history of the farm dissolving. The mythology of the father crumbling at the knees. It was like picking a loose thread, it was like leaning back. He rocked onto his heels, he balanced on the back legs of his chair. He tilted and it came apart. The land and the old man, the first settler’s claim across the sea. Then his mother, next came his mother, before the neighboring farmer and the fish, the churn of the river and the nets spread thick in the water.

In the dark room, he lay on his back, clutching the threads to his chest. He gripped them like a stuffed toy. When he was a child he spent days alone in the sickbed. The servants tended to his physical needs and nothing more. His mother was absent. His father also absent. The room was stuffy and dusty and the indifference gathered around him like a cloud. He would wish for the illness to prolong itself. To be left alone where he could not be seen.

And now it had happened. The old wish had been granted. It was like the sickness had taken over the world and so he lay, abandoned and forgotten. He dreamed — of a life that would not happen. The riding lodge he would set up, the wife he would marry, the tourists that would return to the farm. His dreams unfolded into the still air and overlapped. He had fever and the sheets grew musty and he broke into frequent and profuse sweats.

Tom retreated into his bedroom, into his inertia, and the farm — what was left of it, ten thousand acres and almost no river front — ran itself. The small herd of cattle rounded in and out. The garden tended. He lay in bed and his dreams multiplied as he watched the hill crawl with new life. Hardly knowing if it was hallucination or not. He sank into the land. The separation from the earth always less distinct for Tom than for his father. The separation giving way even now, although the land no longer wanted him.

Tom’s respite was temporary. There was no real comfort in it and soon he was spat back into the world. His solitude had not lasted any more than a matter of months. The world — as it was and as it had been, both came crowding back in. The country returning. Linear time alongside it. The earth shuddering and the world outside raging with change. The old structures of power returned but in altered form. And now his life is both the same and entirely different.

Tom stands up. He goes into the kitchen to find Celeste. She is at the stove. Always she is at the stove. For six months she had walked the land (the farm was diminished but it was still big enough for walking). As if she were looking for Jose and the old man. As if she thought she might find them, somewhere on the land. Now she is back at the stove and Tom thinks she is both relieved and reassured. Despite the changes that have taken place, that are still taking place.

She nods to him as he comes in. She is making soup for the old man. A one-dish meal. Before she cooked for the extended household. Lavish meals for a full table. It goes without saying that the menu has changed, but this is not just because of their reduced circumstances.

“Is it almost ready?”

She grunts. She shields the stove from him with the broad surface of her back.

Fine, he thinks. That is fine. She can make the soup but the soup can go nowhere without him. That is his job. Not that it is a job he especially enjoys.

He has a series of disconnected thoughts. They do not represent the best aspects of the man. He feels wary. He feels hard done by. He knows this is a petty feeling. He is tired. He is surprised that in most ways it is still life as he knows it. He eats the same food. Sleeps in the same bed. Shits the same shit. Yes. All of this being true and also not true.

He watches Celeste crouching over the pot. Stirring with her long-handled wood spoon. She is not used to this kind of cooking. It is not her strength or what she likes. Her strength is something else. Rich sauces. Charred meats (crisp and smoky on the outside, meltingly tender inside). Butter and cream and wine.

Not this. Vegetable broth thinned with water. No salt but mixed with one part chicken stock because she cannot resist — she does not work with a stock made solely of carrots and onions, what is the point of it. Nothing good ever came of bad food. Who ever got better off bad food? Who was ever cured?

He ignores her. (She does not actually say this aloud, she says all this to him with her back, which remains hunched over the pot. She has slipped in a little cream, although he has said not to. Although he has told her this only makes matters worse. He understands that she cannot help it. She does not know how else to tend to the old man.) Tom walks around so that he can see the pot. And the soup inside, which looks cooked.

“The soup is ready. And Celeste. No butter on the toast this time.”

She glares at him and shakes in salt and pepper. With a wave of open palm. She adds more cream, as he watches. He shakes his head. He wonders if this will continue. If she will persist in seeing battles where they aren’t. She is still glaring at him when she reaches for the loaf of bread. She seizes a bread knife and saws off two slices. These she slips into the wire grill and props over the open fire.

He checks the tray while they wait for the bread to toast. The soup does not smell especially fragrant but he is hungry and it reminds him of this fact. He slices a piece of bread and eats it absent-mindedly. It is a little stale. Celeste looks at him disapprovingly.

“I would have toasted it for you.”

He waves the statement away. Mouth too full for talking. He checks the tray and is careful not to spray any bread crumbs. Can’t be careful enough. He checks: the spoon and knife and fork. Resting on the cloth napkin lining the tray. Everything looks fine. He rests his hands on the tray and then is overwhelmed. To think of picking up the tray and carrying it away. He removes his hands from the tray and sits down, suddenly in need of rest. Celeste looks up.

She pulls the grill from the fire and pries it open. She flips the pieces of toast onto the cutting board and severs them in two. Then she wraps them in a cloth and sets them on the tray. She eyes him as she reaches for the butter.

“No butter, Celeste.”

She ignores him as she cuts a square.

“No butter, Celeste.”

She thrusts the butter dish back and wipes her hands on her apron. Reaches for a bowl and serves a single ladle. Places it carefully on the tray. She looks at him.

“I can take it in.”

“That isn’t necessary.”

She looks at him cunningly.

“You look tired. Stay here. This time I will take it in. For once I can take it in.”

“No.”

“You will become exhausted. I am telling you.”

“It’s okay.”

He rises and looks at her. She is right. He is tired. He will become exhausted. Everything she is saying is right. But she cannot take the tray in. They both know this. He picks up the tray. She makes a noise of protest but does nothing to stop him. He checks for the saucer with the pill. Yes. It is there. Tucked in beside the napkin. Now he lifts the tray carefully so that the soup, the glass of water, will not spill. He picks it up, exits the kitchen, and disappears down the hall.

7

The room is dark. The old man lies in the bed and thinks about the things he needs to do. He can hear noises outside the wall and windows. The noises of the farm. He makes lists in his mind and they grow — down the page, grow in all directions. Run to the side and go off the edge and he is overcome. He cannot keep them from growing. On certain days he can feel the lists on his skin. Crawling across his chest, down his legs, into the interior of his body. This causes the twitching and the spasms.

There is some confusion in his mind. He does not understand what is happening to him. On a bad day he will understand that something new is taking place, that his body is sailing toward uncharted territory. But even on a bad day he does not understand what that means. His mind will not allow it. His mind is crumbling, it is eroding into sand, but it is still the strongest thing about him.

The old man grips handfuls of sand, he remembers that he has been growing old for a long time, that he grows old and grows stronger. He grows and around him people cave and it is almost like they want to. That is his secret. It has not always been like this. When he was young he had struggles and the world did not conform to his wishes. Then he grew old and the world started giving in to him and then it continued, it gave and it gave.

But now the world is defying him again. Shrinking, spiraling, and he does not understand why. The world is taking it back! First it was the country. The land changing, the property retreating, beyond his power, outside his jurisdiction. Then the girl, failing him as she did, her body occupied by another man’s seed. He tried to open the world, he tried to clamp it down so it would stay and instead he was compelled to come back. He — of all people — he had been forced to retreat into a corner, the girl stumbling behind him, and the corner not even safe.

His head twitches in a spasm that he cannot control. His body is defying him like the world is. The world being in his body as the world shrinks down. As it sits in his swollen belly like a ball. Apart from that there are his legs and his chest and his arms. That is all that is left. Even that is going, even that will be gone if he is not careful. He would like to put his body back together. He thinks about joining the bones and muscles and making them strong again.

He crouches on the edge of the bed. He is a collection of bones, a belly like a fruit pit and limbs like shards. His arms splintering at the touch. He cannot believe this body belongs to him. He is not sure that it does. He tries to do arm exercises. He lifts his arm to the height of his shoulder and back down again. After two lifts he cannot breathe and needs to lie down. He leans against the bedpost and grips it with both hands. He levers himself down to the bed. Then he peels his hands from the bedpost and presses them to the sheet. The air rattling in his throat.

He lies in bed and waits. He closes his eyes, but his mind does not rest. He sleeps — people tell him that he is sleeping well, they tell him it is good to rest, that he needs it. But he wakes up exhausted from dreams he cannot remember, he wakes and he does not feel refreshed as he has always felt refreshed. He dreams and the dream is as intense as hallucination. But never as intense as the pain, which is nothing but unbearable sensation. Which is bound only to get worse.

So he lies in bed in terror but nobody would guess it. Never underestimate the charisma of the dying. It has attached itself to the old man. Who grows bigger and bigger with it. He spreads across the farm, that is still shrinking from expropriation, that is still being cut down to size. He seizes hold of the house and land. He refuses the transfer of ownership. But he alone knows, can see, what is coming.

The door opens and Tom enters with the soup. The old man opens one eye and watches him as he sets the tray on the table by the bed. Tom lifts his father up and props him on pillows. He reaches for the cloth napkin and carefully unfolds it. He spreads the cloth down to the old man’s swollen belly. It is hard as a rock and getting harder by the day. Tom sets a chair beside the bed, he picks up the bowl of soup and feeds him.

When the old man returned to the farm one month ago, he was on his own two legs. The unfamiliar car — scraped and sputtering as it was — came down the track and the old man sat in the back. The girl sat beside him, and up in front Jose looked not like a driver and not like a farmhand either. The car window rolled down and the old man peered up at him.

“There have been changes.”

Tom nodded. Here, too, he wanted to say. Here, too, there have been changes. It is not the same as how you left it. He was filled with anger and relief. Don’t come back / come back. The father’s face a complicated thing as it peered up at him from inside the car. That the old man thought he could return and find it unchanged. As if nothing had happened. As if he had nothing to do with the nothing that had happened. He would like to tell his father about his resentment, his lifetime of resentment, now coming to a head and barely understood. I have things to tell you, he thought. There are things you need to hear.

There was no opportunity for that. Later that afternoon his father collapsed. He fell six feet something down to the ground. The girl crying for help. The domestics running. They picked him up and carried him to the settee.

He was shivering from cold and they covered him with a blanket. There was blood on the tiles and blood on the old man’s head. They could hear his teeth chattering inside his skull. The old man lay on the settee and tried to recover and vomited twice onto the floor. The girl stood and stared, hands on her belly. Her condition also changed. It has been like this, she said. It is getting worse.

The old man looked ill. His color was wrong. His body slipped out from under the cover — an ankle and a calf and both like sticks. Tom had never seen his father so thin, he would not have thought it possible. He turned and told one of the boys to prepare a bedroom, close to the kitchen and their quarters, where it would be easy for them to tend to the old man.

The old man heard but did not protest. He closed his eyes. The sharp smell of vomit on the air. He said to Tom that he had not been well and had come back to the farm to get better. He had come here to recover. Tom only nodded. He said the farm was not as he had left it. The old man had closed his eyes and did not respond. Tom said that things had changed here, too. I have changed. The old man still did not respond. Tom did not say anything further.

They set up three rooms for the old man. A sitting room, a study, a bedroom. The girl slept in the sitting room. The old man slept in the bedroom. He sat on the porch during the day and the girl took him on short walks. They went out across the lawn and then she would tell him he was tired. No, he would say. No. I am not tired. You are, she would tell him. And he would ignore her, but soon they would return to the house.

In this way a perimeter was established. The old man took meals in the sitting room and he spent hours in the porch’s thin spring sun. He did not regain his health. He grew thinner instead. His color went to gray and then it went to green. In certain lights, at certain times of the day. In other circumstances it returned to its usual gray. He was constantly shifting and they were losing him in the change.

The perimeter, once established, shrank rapidly. One week and he could no longer go on his morning walk. Another week and he was staggering as he made his way to the porch. He lurched from wall to furniture as he made his way across the hall. He would sit speechless for half an hour as he recovered but he would not accept their help.

Then the old man gave up the porch and stayed in his rooms. Once his father owned everything as far as he could see. Now it was three rooms and even those rooms would go. He gave ground — each foot, every inch, signaled what was coming. It was in this way that Tom realized the old man was dying. Animals died in the same way. Their territory taken away. Cattle retreating into their stalls. Wild dogs cowered in a corner. The look of it indistinguishable.

Death equalized everything. Tom saw but did not believe the old man was dying. The confusion proof that Tom was not prepared for the end that was coming. He disavowed the knowledge, the thought like a dry seed in the palm. He clenched his fist and tried to hide it, he buried it in his back pocket. Where it sat suspended, alongside his rage toward the old man and all that he had done, the old man’s fall from grace.

A pocket full of confusion. Tom concentrates on the present. He thinks that is how he will get through this — and he is not even sure, he could not say, what “this” is. He sits beside his father. He spoons soup into his mouth. Two days ago the old man decided to accept help. He had no real choice in the matter. He could no longer satisfy his body’s basic functions without it. In this he chose Tom, who counts for nothing and is therefore fit for the job. The old man is loath to be seen by the natives in a state of weakness. Whereas being seen by Tom is like being seen by no one at all.

So Tom now has the privilege of being intimate with his father and this is something new, something that once would have meant a great deal to him. For example, he now sits beside his father’s bed. Close enough to see the texture of his skin. The individual hairs on his arm. Close enough to smell the stench of his breath, which is stronger than he imagined. Tom brings the spoon to the old man’s mouth and obediently he opens. Both of them ignoring the obedience like it never happened.

The door opens. The girl comes in and he nods to her. She walks with effort. (Laboriously is the only word and not only because of her condition. It is not a felicitous pregnancy. It has aged her, it has drained her of life. Although she is still slim and sly, and that despite the bump.) She hobbles to a chair against the wall and sits down. The old man swallows the food in his mouth. He opens his eyes and looks at the girl.

She sits in the chair like she is pinned against the wall. Aware as she is of the old man’s animosity. Tom spoons soup into his father’s mouth and the old man continues to watch the girl. Who would like to make herself small but cannot because of her belly. Who shrinks and shrinks back even as the belly remains. It is its own thing, it just happens to be attached to her body. They are all aware of this.

Tom looks at the bowl of soup. It is mostly eaten. He dips a piece of toast into the bowl and pushes it into his father’s mouth. He opens and chews and swallows. His eyes still on the girl. Tom picks up the tray and turns to go. He looks at the girl and motions in the direction of the door. She does not move. He looks at her again and reluctantly she stands and follows him.

They close the door behind them and look at each other. Without saying anything she reaches for the tray. Her fingers push over his and she yanks the tray to her so that the dishes rattle. He lets her take it. Her touch on his touch. She holds the tray so that it rests on her belly. Then she turns and goes, the empty tray sitting heavy on her pregnancy.

He looks after her. Eight months pregnant and that is the other thing that came home in the car. Showing, showing — her belly strains at the seams of her dress. Each day she splits another dress and must sew together a new one. The girl is still tiny and the pregnancy is unnatural. Every time her dress splits Tom expects to see a plastic belly, a padded pillow, a not truth in the shape of a truth. But there is nothing but stretched flesh, an acreage of flesh in her belly.

His father dying but still capable of engendering life. Capable of colonizing a woman’s body. He is a man after all. Tom is also a man but of these things he knows nothing. When he first saw the girl’s belly he had been overcome with jealousy. The jealousy being in several parts, the girl’s belly further proof of his displacement, further proof also of the old man’s obscenity.

But Tom was not altogether correct in his assessment. Which means that he was not prepared when the reversal took place. He should have been. After all there was a precedent. A man can be dying but he does not change his behavior. This man in particular, this old man — he becomes more himself as he goes, he simply distills himself as he dies. His power going nowhere.

The night they returned, the three of them — his father, the girl and himself — sat down to dinner. For months Tom had subsisted on rice and beans. But that night Celeste made a heroic effort and the table was only two or three — maybe four — times removed from what it used to be. Succulent cuts of meat and fish. Tom had not seen a fish cooked or alive for months.

When the first dish arrived the old man said, “I have missed your cooking, Celeste.” He took a bite and she blushed and bustled her way back into the kitchen. But he did not finish the terrine or the soup or the courses that followed. He said that he was not hungry. They had been on the road for nearly a week. Tom nodded and said his room was prepared, he could go to bed, whenever he liked.

Only his father did not want to go to bed. He drank his port (A month ago he was drinking! A month ago he was able to sit through a meal) and stared across the table at his son. Then he announced that the girl would give birth in two months’ time. Tom nodded. In his head he was doing the math: nine minus seven is two is six months minus seven is one month. The old man said preparations should be made.

Then his eyes slid to the girl, who looked at him blankly. She opened her mouth as if to say something. Her lips pursed but no sound came out. The old man looked at her sharply. A little later he stood up and said he was going to bed. The girl stood up with him. Her arm snaking around his. She said they could make their way alone. She said she would take care of things.

Tom cleared the table. Now that he had dismissed most of the servants the cleaning was left to him. He didn’t mind. He had become used to it, it had taken him no time to become used to it. He carried the plates, the silverware, the wine glasses. Celeste had uncorked a bottle from nowhere. Perhaps she had whole crates of wine hidden beneath the stairs — clearly there were things happening in this house that he did not know about. He put on one of Celeste’s aprons and washed the dirty dishes.

He was taking the apron off when the girl came back into the kitchen. He struggled with its knots and flaps before yanking it off at last.

“Yes?”

“A cup of tea.”

He nodded and reached for the kettle. He filled it with fresh water and struck a match against the gas range.

“No,” she said.

“No,” he repeated.

“Sit down.”

She was trying to sound like she had a handle on the situation. She did not have a handle on this or any situation, and they both knew it. Her lips cracked. Her face was tired. And yet he was helpless, though he did not feel tenderness toward her. Her presence confusing to the man. She blinked and leaned against a chair. He sat down.

“Your tea.”

She shook her head.

“I will turn the stove off.”

She shook her head again. He listened to the flame whirr behind them.

“This baby.”

“Yes.”

“Please don’t act as if it has nothing to do with you.”

The kettle was boiling. He stood and switched the gas off.

“Everything here has to do with everything else.”

He looked at her. He tried to sound reassuring. Although he himself did not feel reassured.

“We will make the preparations.”

“That is not what I mean.”

He sat down uneasily. She leaned forward.

“Don’t you want to know who the father is?”

“That does not concern me. That is between you and him.”

“You honestly don’t remember?”

She had arranged her features into a mask of anger and incredulity but did not appear to be feeling either of those emotions. She sat down next to him and folded her hands across her belly.

“You were drunk.”

He shivered.

“I don’t drink.”

“And yet you were very drunk. I was frightened when you knocked on my door. You could barely walk straight. It was over very quickly.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Your father was surprised when I told him but then he said it was as it should be.”

She has not recovered her mind, he thought. Her mind cracked back there and she has not recovered the pieces. She cannot think he will believe this story. She cannot think that he will be so foolish. He of all people. The old man’s son. And yet she continued to talk.

“I understood,” she said. “You were — you are, my fiancé.”

He blinked.

“You have certain rights.”

She was watching him carefully. He told himself not to listen to her. He reminded himself that she was full of deceit. But the idea — no, not an idea but a collection of urges and images, of the girl, and the farm, of a version of life — had been seeded inside him once more. There could be other children, for example. He reminded himself that he had never touched her, though not for lack of want. His mouth was dry like she had stuffed it with cotton.

“I have rights—”

She nodded. He did. Though she was not going to open herself up for him, this shop being closed for business, however temporarily. His rights being granted too late. But there was no reason for her to tell him this. After all, it was self-evident. He stared at her and wet his lips. A crease of confusion appeared across his forehead.

“What is it you want?”

SHE LOOKED AWAY and after a second shook her head. She did not know what she wanted. The measure of what she wanted had been taken away. The tape having been stolen. It had been no easy thing — keeping the pieces from floating away. It had taken everything she had. If she’d had an endless amount of string she would have tied them together and then been whole again but as it was sometimes the splitting came back to her in a flash.

She looked around the kitchen. And now the growing inside her. Which she had avoided all these years by cunning and tact but was now a definite reality. Her body grew heavier each day like the baby was made of lead. The chain tightening. Her world also shrinking. Just like it did for the old man. In this they were also the same. Their bodies revolted in unison and the world around them—

She stood up and went to the stove and turned the gas back on under the kettle. She waited for the water to boil while Tom stood beside her. She was not imagining a life with this man: that was not the way she thought about it. She only needed him to do what he was meant to do, do as the old man said he would. He had made her a promise. He had not spoken the words, it was in no way binding, but it was the best that she had.

She stared down at the flame. The sickness had clenched her head and stomach. The first wave came just days after they reached the city. She felt her insides shift but thought that was to be expected. Given what had taken place. Given what had been inserted and then torn out. Then she was late and she still didn’t think. She was trying to recover all the pieces of her body. It never occurred to her that something could grow in such a desert.

It was not a good time for such a thing. She was in no condition for growth. While her head was still retrenching and her body. There had been lasting damage. She half expected the baby to fall out of her but it did not. She half expected the baby to curdle inside her but it did not. She tried to help it. Twice she tried, but it insisted on living, on thriving inside her. She therefore needed protection. The old man had stood by her thus far. Now she was pregnant and she had to guess if he would continue to stand by her.

Even if the child was not his. Which she believed it was not. She spent a long time going over the math and the thing was never entirely certain — scribble on paper and count your fingers, give or take a day, it was hard to know. The father remained faceless and nameless like the group of men that night. The father was a many-headed monster and that was the truth. As for what was growing inside her — there weren’t prayers sturdy enough for that.

She went to the old man and told him what was currently transpiring inside her guts. She waited for him to ask if he was the father and to tell him yes, to assure him of course yes, obviously yes, who else? But the question never came. He asked her why she did not get rid of it and she told him that she had tried. She had tried, she had tried to get rid of the damn thing but she had failed and now she was stuck. It was tied around her neck like a weight.

Then there was rage in his face. This man, who could bear her rape but not the evidence of it. Who could not live with the evidence growing up in front of him. She half thought he might tell her to leave. But he did not. Because he was sick, they soon realized that he was sick and would need to journey back to the farm. Things had not gone according to plan. They had run out of money and the old man had discovered that no bank would extend him credit. They had already sold the horses and jewels.

He said there was nowhere else for him to go. He could not stay in the city. She said to him the country did not feel safe. She said she did not believe in the peace. There had been rumors that the violence was spreading across the country again. That the natives had not been appeased. The Government had not done enough. She asked if there was not another way, another option. He stared at her and then told her not to believe in idle gossip.

He would have left her if he could. His old use for her being gone. But he could not travel alone. She therefore tried to make herself useful. Driven as she was by need. She made preparations for their departure. In haste they purchased a car — she handed Jose a wad of bills and two hours later he returned with a Buick built like a hearse and some rusted canisters of gas. A joke contraption that would break as the wheels turned. It was not worth discussing. They packed their bags into the car and left in the morning.

Jose drove them through the traffic in the city. As soon as they reached the autoroute he gunned the motor and they shot down the empty road. However, it was full of potholes and invisible ditches. They punctured two tires and the motor repeatedly stalled. They were constantly stopping and coaxing — coaxing and beating, they alternated between the two — the hearse into movement again.

By that time the girl had grown desperate to reach the farm and the enclosure of land. She was nervous and the open road terrified her. Meanwhile, the old man was so sick they could not get south fast enough and she saw that they were returning to the farm for him to die. He lay in the backseat and expired by the mile. He was green and blue and sweating from the journey. The girl was no great shakes either. Nausea meant she spent half the trip with her head out the window as they drove, hurling her guts out or trying to.

Halfway to the valley she made Jose stop the car and she vomited onto the side of the empty road, so much she thought she must have heaved the baby out. As she stumbled back to the car she turned to see if there was a fetus dropped in with the half-digested protein and starch. Once inside the car, she shouted at Jose to go. They screeched away down the road and she would have told Jose go faster if she’d glimpsed a little fist, a little foot, waving out of the puddle of mush.

They were a hundred miles from the farm when the old man rose up from the backseat. Like a vampire — he rose up from the sleep of his coffin, having been supine the whole of the journey, and said to the girl, “You will tell Thomas about the child.” She turned to look at him. She would tell him what? That he was going to have a brother?

She said this hopefully. She reminded herself that she was as strong as the old man. That under different circumstances she could have owned and run her own farm. That she was more like the old man than either cared to admit. He shook his head. “A son. You will tell him that he is going to be a father.” Then he lay back down.

The father’s shame transferred to the son. These being men made up of appearances. Now she stood in the kitchen and waited for the kettle to boil. Tom stood by the table and watched. He had spent a lifetime under the weight of the old man. His endurance was considerable. He was like one of those hardy plants that grew low and close to the ground. You didn’t notice them but they outlived the taller and more verdant ones. Yes, probably he would be here when she was all but been and gone. She watched him shift and scrabble his eyes across the floor.

She told him to sit down. She no longer felt afraid. She believed that he would fall in line. In the same way she had. She would have her security. It was the old man. He overcame them both but it was more than that. The truth was that there was too much else. The country was in turmoil. And there was besides: sickness and growing and dying. How could they do anything but give in, to what was obvious, rather than what was good? In the face of that accumulation.

Yes. Even she. She looked at Tom. She felt a stir of sympathy despite herself. The gap between them lessening by a sliver. She wanted to tell him that there were some things they held in common. She wanted to say they were not entirely different. This was against her better judgment. The thin edge of the wedge.

8

Tom and the girl sit in the kitchen. Tom leans forward. If the old man dies that will be one thing, he tells her. But what if he recovers and lives? His father looks out the window and does not seem to see the change in the land. He talks to Tom about what they will do next year. He tells him about the improvements that must be made. They will open the fish farm once the water runs clear, they will add another pool, they will open up new trails, maybe a second lodge.

Tom does not think the old man sees the change in the country or the change in his own body. Tom does not try to convince him otherwise. He does the opposite. It is like playing a game of charades. He tells and he does not tell, he does not see why he should do either. The image of the father is gone, but Tom is still afraid of him. Afraid for him. That part of the relationship remaining intact. Tom drinks his tea and asks the girl how much the old man knows, how much he remembers.

She shrugs. He knows plenty, she tells him. He knows more than you know, more than you and me put together. He tells her this cannot be the case. He asks if she has been listening to what he has been saying.

She shakes her head. You have known him forever. How can you know him so little? He is lying in the bed but there is nothing weak about him. He is lying in the bed and he is going but until he is gone the old man is still there. Do you understand?

He understands. He looks at the girl. He becomes more attached to her by the day. Also to the child growing in her belly. Toward whom he feels proprietary. His idea of what life will look like after the old man’s death being tied up in the woman, also in the child that is not his own. She heaves her belly around the house and now she stops to catch her breath, she holds her belly in her hands like she is worried it will fall to the ground. Her skin is growing dull and her hair dry. She looks as if the child inside her is draining her of life, the growing child and the dying man.

Tom asks if she is getting enough to eat. If she is getting enough rest. He tells her she should try not to worry too much. She tells him that she is fine. Everything is fine. Thank you for asking. She knows that he is doing his best. His best is not good enough but she sees that it is something. They are beginning to grow tired. They are starting to be ground down by the old man’s dying.

Both slept poorly the night before. The old man could not stop coughing and called to them continuously — for water, for light, for a goddamned cigar. The girl brought him one and then he ignored both her and the cigar. He is beyond cigars. They know this. She knew this when she brought it to him and still she brought it to him. She allowed herself this. She thinks it must be hard for Tom, Tom who would not have brought the cigar and will therefore never be free.

She thinks: Tom does not know how to love the old man so he loves the land instead. She had seen this from the start. His emotion toward the old man unresolved. His feeling long misdirected. Even now, he would like to stay on the farm. In this house, in this room, at this table if possible. He clings to the land and the farm and really he is holding on to his father. Whom he hates and loves in equal measure. A wave of pity and she reminds herself that the problems of the farm have long been in place. Some of them too long to solve or change.

The girl leans forward.

“How much money is there?”

He looks up.

“Money?”

“Yes. Money. How much money is left?”

He shakes his head and looks blank. His expression is stupid, stupid without thought or pretense. Which cannot be right. The old man said there was more to Tom than met the eye. He said that Tom could be canny, on occasion. Good with money. Good with numbers. He had left the farm — not in good hands but in hands that would do. That was all he said. But the girl listened.

The girl listened and that is why she knows that Tom knows more than he is letting on. She believes this because she needs to. The old man will die. And then what will become of them? She has staked a great deal on Tom’s good hands. On the protection of the land, however reduced it may be. She sits with her knees apart to accommodate her belly, she sits back into her chair. She clears her throat to show she means business and takes a good long look at him.

“The money.”

Tom appears startled by the sharpness in her voice.

“There is not much.”

“How much?”

“Very little.”

“What has happened to it?”

He shrugs.

“There was not that much to begin with. There was not money. There was land.”

“How much land remains?”

“There are still some pastures.”

The old man is wrong. His son is an idiot. He stares at her and does not know what he is saying. She leans forward.

“Tell me what is left.”

“They took almost everything.”

“Tell me what is left.”

“Enough for a small farm. That is what we are. A small farm.”

She can see that it pains him to say this. He is not without vanity. He is not a man without want. But that want is small and it is compromised, it has undergone a lifetime of atrophy. She sees that she will need to do the wanting for both of them. She leans back and looks at him. She wills her voice steady.

“But there is still land.”

“Yes.”

“And in what condition, since the eruption and the ash?”

He does not reply. He blinks and then wets his mouth.

“I haven’t looked.”

“Are the cattle able to pasture?”

“They tell me that it will be fine.”

“Who tells you this?”

“The farmhands.”

“Which ones?”

“The farmhands.”

She looks at him and knows that he has no idea. It has been too much for him, he has not spent these past months drawing up business plans. There have been other things to worry about. Well and he has been through hell but so has she. She hoists herself to her feet, panic rising.

“We will go and look. Now.”

“We can’t leave him alone.”

“Of course we can.”

He licks his lips nervously.

“Right now we need to take care of him. We agreed, remember? That is what we need to do.”

She shakes her head.

“I will wait for you at the stables. We will bring Jose.”

She goes out into the hall and looks for Jose. Jose does not like her. She knows that he does not like or trust her. But he listens to her. He does as he is told. Having been the first to realize the old man was dying. The question is only this: who will come out on top? The son or the girl or the two together? She can see the question vibrate inside him. He is armed with the instinct to survive and it is ugly, but then she herself is the same. The two of them understand each other.

She walks out into the entrance hall. From here she can see the other wings, the wings that have been closed, sitting in darkness, windows shuttered. She thinks about the old man’s talk. He is half in delirium but is still more shrewd than the rest. It is not crazy to imagine there is money in the house. They would have to give up the cattle but they could take visitors, visitors who would fish and ride and pay like before, once sanity has been restored to the land. It is not impossible to think this might happen.

She quickens her pace as she leaves the hall. She reminds herself that she is looking for Jose.

She finds him outside. Tending the kitchen garden. Working over the pea shoots and the beets and the asparagus and the lettuces. Things that grow and that she knows nothing about. She stands in the garden in her robe and slippers and realizes how little they leave the house. It is warmer than she expected, well into spring. She watches Jose bend over the plants. She wonders who has told him to tend the garden, who has remembered to do that.

“Jose!”

He looks up when she calls and stands. To see what she wants.

“Yes.”

“Tom and I are going to take a tour of the property. Do you know the new borders?”

He nods.

“Will you show us?”

He nods again.

“We will meet you at the stables in half an hour.”

She returns to the house. She is a woman of imagination but it does not occur to her to wonder how much longer Jose will remain. How much longer Celeste and the farmhands will stay. Why they do not leave and start their own farm, claim their own acre of land. Their loyalty is taken for granted — by Tom, Carine, the old man. Its meaning never examined or perceived.

Back in the kitchen, Tom is still sitting at the table. The girl does not see what it is like for him. He understands this at once. She proposes a life, an idea of a life. But even as he grasps at it, the seed of his confusion grows heavy and unwieldy. He can feel that it is starting to sprout. She makes preparations for the future and the shoots press up around him, he worries about hiding them, he is certain that his father will spot the new growth any moment now. It is beyond his control, it cannot be suppressed. But this is not something he can explain to the girl, who would not understand, it is not even something he can explain to himself.

Tom goes back to the kitchen in search of Celeste. He finds her and tells her that they are going out. She asks him how long they will be gone and he thinks and then says that he does not know. He does not know how long it takes to circle the property because he does not know how big it is. It is the first time he has faced the concrete evidence — the physical borders — of the farm’s contraction. Celeste asks him if the girl is going with him and he tells her that she is. She makes a sharp sound in her mouth to show him that she disapproves. He tells her that it was the girl’s idea in the first place and then says they will go no faster than a walk, a trot, certainly not a canter or a gallop.

He turns and leaves, feeling like a fool. At the stables, the girl is already waiting. She sits on a rock with her arms wrapped around her belly. She looks like she has been sitting there for a long time. She looks up at him.

“Finally.”

“I was speaking with Celeste.”

She heaves herself up and looks at him without replying. He goes into the stables and she sits down again. Hands on her belly. The lead baby grows and it grows. She sits on the rock and she looks like she is about to roll over onto the ground.

Tom brings the horses out. With some effort they get her onto the mare and she grips the reins and the saddle and she looks secure enough. There is determination in her face. She urges the mare forward without waiting. Tom and Jose mount and then follow her out the stable yard.

They ride up the valley and across the fields. Tom has always favored the pasture but the farm is oriented to the river. The house looks to the river, the gate frames the river, the windows and the French doors and the veranda. In the direction of the fields there is no veranda or French doors and very few windows. When the old man drew up the specifications for the house he did not know about the day when they would have nothing but a pittance of river front to their name.

They ride and are silent. Tom sees the girl glare at him. She would like him to question Jose. She would like him to gather information about the fortunes of the farm, the state of their affairs. Tom is not prepared to do this, on some level he has not fully understood or accepted the reduction of the farm. He looks and does not know what is theirs and what is not. He sees lushness around him but has no idea what that lushness is worth, he does not know what they can hope to preserve.

He hesitates. Then he asks Jose how the cattle are faring. Jose rides ahead and speaks to him over his shoulder.

“They are fine, they are not bad.”

“When will they take the herd to the auction?”

Jose shrugs.

“I do not think you should worry.”

He does not elaborate. Jose never elaborates. They continue across the pasture in the direction of the hills. The girl is silent. Jose points to the edge of the field.

“That is the north border of the land.”

They peer to where he points. It is in spitting distance. Tom fingers the reins.

“There?”

“There.”

Jose turns and now they follow no path in particular, they meander across the fields. They trace the border of a piece of land that makes no sense. Jose points again and tells them this is the west border of the land. This is the east border of the land. He turns. The girl pulls up beside them and now she speaks.

“Where are the other fields?”

Jose shakes his head.

“There are no other fields.”

“Tom showed me the map.”

“The map is out of date.”

The girl laughs and pats the mare on the neck.

“Impossible.”

“But true.”

“How?”

“The Government is becoming desperate. It is making more and more concessions. Each week there are announcements on the radio.”

He looks at the girl. She turns pale. They have not listened to the radio since their return from the city and it has been one month, it has been longer. She grips the reins tighter but shakes her head defiantly.

“They cannot take away the land by announcements on the radio.”

“Except they do.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“The Land Reform Process has been a failure. The people are not satisfied. There is more and more violence in the country, only this time it is organized. This time it is armed.”

He shrugs.

“It is like they predicted. The unrest is now a rebellion. They give away your land, but who knows if that will be enough.”

The girl turns the mare around and gallops across the land that is no longer theirs. She goes as far as the top of the hills and then comes to an abrupt halt. From the top of the hills the land once stretched another five thousand acres. Now she is already trespassing.

Tom and Jose follow and then they also look down the slope. In the distance they can see the land is divided into a hundred tiny farms. Recently it had been empty. Now it is a complex diagram of fences and ownership that is difficult to decode. It is no longer taking place in their language. Still, one meaning of the landscape is clear to them. The girl stares down at the land and her eyes are filled with dread.

“Where did these people come from?”

“They are from here. Where else?”

“But how have they come so quickly?”

“The rebellion. It has organized the land. It is overseeing the process. The Government no longer has any power.”

It turns out, Tom thinks. It turns out these are people who do not believe in property until it is theirs. Then it is defended tooth and nail. They will push back, Tom thinks. The momentum is on their side. It will carry them forward as they push and push. Until they will be pushed into the river for all he knows. The force of it being stronger than anything they have ever known.

The girl says that she is not feeling well. She backs the mare up and then she turns her around and disappears down the hill. She is upset, Tom thinks. Like him, she has seen that it is a bad nest. The mud walls crumbling around her. The farms below also bad nests. They have given them land and that is not nothing. But these tiny squares of earth do not contain appeasement, they contain nothing but dirt. Even Tom can see this.

Tom and Jose stand alone on the slope. After a long silence Tom says to Jose they may as well finish the tour. Now that they are here. It being such a nice spring day. He does not know what else to do. Jose nods and they turn their horses back down the hill to the flat land below. Jose leads him around the pasture, in a long and sloping square. Tom asks him what is theirs and Jose tells him that it is this square and what he has already seen, something like one thousand acres. What good will that do me, asks Tom. I don’t know but it’s yours, says Jose.

Tom points to the land surrounding their square.

“They haven’t allocated our land.”

“Not yet.”

“When will they do it?”

“Soon, I think.”

“And what were we doing with it?”

“Nothing.”

Tom nods. That cannot strictly speaking be true and yet he understands what Jose means. The old man left things fallow more often than not, his own son included. Until the time came to harvest at will. Tom looked down across the valley. At the land, which has been the only frame for his vision. He thought: the old man had liked a picture. He had liked a vista. An empty legacy, a stupid one, now that time had come to an end.

It will not be recovered. Soon these fields would also be covered in fence and barbed wire. Like a million cages set upon their land. They would be surrounded and there would be nothing to be done about it. Tom draws his breath in through his nose.

“Is it all like this?”

Jose nods.

“Everywhere?”

He shrugs. They turn and ride back to the house.

When they arrive, the girl is nowhere to be seen. She has vanished. Her bags have been packed and the drawers of the dresser in her room are empty. Tom stands in the stable and wipes the horses down. The mare had not been untacked. They had found her standing in the stable yard, the reins hastily thrown over a post. Tom unbuckles the harness and the horse exhales in relief. He rubs her down and the muzzle is soft as felt.

9

The house sits empty without the girl. Meanwhile the old man is much worse. He has gone into free fall. It is official. There is a measurable difference each day. Every change is a bad one. His limbs are swollen with the sickness. His skin is slick and glossy and his eyes have grown cloudy — his eyes are so cloudy it is impossible to believe they contain vision.

He cannot walk. He cannot sit up. Now he can only lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and call for more morphine. He says that he cannot breathe, I am having difficulty breathing. He tries to describe it to them. It is like someone is stealing my air. Like someone — he claws at his chest and throat. Like this. It is like this. He asks for more morphine.

Tom brings him the bottle. The old man’s eyes glitter as he looks at it. His eyes do not move as he watches Tom tap out one, two pills and then set the bottle down.

The old man grabs Tom’s arm. He lifts three fingers.

“Two.”

The old man shakes his head. He lifts three fingers again.

“I can only give you two.”

The old man shuts his eyes and shakes his head. His voice spent by frustration. Tom reaches for the glass of water.

“Open.”

The old man nods and opens his mouth and sticks his tongue out. Lips quivering. Tongue dry as dust. Tom drops the pills onto his tongue and raises the glass to his mouth. Gently he presses the old man’s jaw shut. He watches him swallow and close his eyes. His face becomes calm.

“Sleep. Until the medicine takes effect.”

The old man nods. He is covered to the neck and only his head protrudes above the edge of the quilt. Tom raises his hand to check his temperature. He stands up, bottle and glass in hand. His father does not open his eyes again.

Tom goes into the kitchen. Celeste takes the glass from his hand. She doesn’t look at him as she returns to the stove.

“I will take the meal in to him.”

He nods. His father no longer cares who serves him. He is not able to see much beyond the pain. It has got to that point. And Tom no longer cares to take the meal in himself. He is happy for Celeste to do this. She stirs a pot vigorously then sets down the spoon.

“He is not well.”

“We are running out of morphine.”

“This morning, when I went into his room—”

“There is enough for another week. If we do not up the dosage, and we may need to. The medicine does not last as long as it did even a couple days ago.”

“—he was calling out.”

“It was six hours and now it is only four. Tomorrow it will be only three.”

“And he was in distress. He had fouled himself.”

“Celeste, listen—”

“The shit was everywhere. All over the sheets. Some of it dripping onto the floor. He had shat right through his pajamas. He was crying and crying and I do not know how long he had been lying there like this, in his own shit and nobody listening. Nobody knowing.”

Tom falls silent. He sits down. He cannot look at Celeste. She is crying. A tear, another, one by one. Falling into the soup.

“The smell was terrible. I opened the door and I couldn’t breathe. I don’t know how he lay there all that time. And the shit — the shit was black as tar. Sticky like pitch.”

Tom does not want to hear this. He is stumbling, his legs are buckling, beneath the weight of the situation. The girl has gone. The old man sits in a pile of his own shit. And there is the rebellion. Will it come to them? Despite himself, he asks the question. It is impossible. Surely it is impossible. He looks at Celeste. He cannot discuss the matter with her. She has her own emotions to tend to, it is better that they keep to themselves.

He rises to his feet and asks her to look after the old man’s cleanliness. To make certain that he has not soiled himself. He is not entirely himself anymore, he says to her. He says this to her and also to himself. The old man is himself and he is also something very, very different.

Tom goes outside and sits down on the stoop. His day is filled with tasks. He feeds the old man. He checks his temperature. He changes the bed sheets. He counts the hours between pills. The days will disappear in the counting — all his time will go and then the old man will be dead and Tom will not even know where to begin. He knows only this: that when the old man dies, there will be no place for him to put all his feeling.

He is aware of a deep and growing numbness, which is spreading through his body. He can no longer think, his brain sits beneath a heavy mass of unexplored emotion. While the numbness inches across his body. Soon he will not be able to move, he thinks. Soon it will be just like he has been paralyzed, from the waist down, from the neck down, from the top of his head down to the floor.

Yes, he is tired, it is like they warned him. Tom tries to imagine the farm with the old man dead, he tries to imagine what that will mean. But without the girl and the inheritance he has no way of understanding the old man’s death. Without the girl there is nothing but the old man lying in the bed, and the old man stops all acts of imagination. He freezes the son in the present tense. Although he himself continues to die, and soon will be gone.

Tom gets up from the stoop. He goes back into the house and to the old man’s room. He hopes he will be asleep. The old man asleep and dying is easier than the old man awake and dying. The old man awake is becoming more than Tom can handle. Every interaction is increasingly strange. Each interaction is becoming a horror show.

He is not asleep. He is awake and staring at the ceiling and smiling. His eyes crawling across the wall. His hands petting and patting the covers. He looks at Tom when he comes in. It takes a moment. He motions for him to sit down.

Cautiously, Tom sits down. The old man motions for him to come closer. Which Tom does, a little. The old man motions for him to come closer still. Tom hesitates and then moves forward until he can smell the sour odor rising from the old man’s mouth. The residue of shit from the floorboards. Something new, something he has not noticed before — a sweet smell, the sweet smell of the sickness, like confectionery, seeping out of the old man’s skin. He sniffs and pushes his nose closer while his father’s eyes roam the ceiling and down the wall.

“Did she go?”

He jolts back. The girl, who has been gone a week if not longer. The old man leers at him conspiratorially. As if to say, You and I both know what I am talking about. And Tom does in fact know. But he does not know what the old man means by the leer and the wink.

“Do you mean Carine?”

“Tccch.”

That’s all his father says. His fingers back to patting the cover in place. His eyes back to roaming the ceiling. He is smiling. Wistfully, like he is listening to nostalgic music in his head. Tom has never seen his father like this. The old man does not smile. Not like this and not wistfully. Tom shakes his head.

“She is gone.”

He hopes the fact of the girl’s departure will bring his father back. But his father is a million miles away. He waves his hands in the air like he is conducting an orchestra. Then he folds his hands together and rests them on the quilt. He closes his eyes. He is still smirking.

Tom realizes that if he had a different relationship with his father, if he loved him in a way he understood, in a way that he knew to be normal, if the numbness had not overtaken his body — then he would have found this tragic. He would have been weeping into his cup of tea the way Celeste weeps into her pot of soup. But he is not. He does not have access to those tears.

Tom stands up. The old man is asleep and there is no point in his staying. He exits the room and returns to the kitchen. Left alone, the old man opens his eyes and goes back to crawling the walls with his vision.

Tom sits down at the kitchen table. His father’s eyes on the bottle. The gleam against the cloudy pupils. His thoughts return to the problem of the medicine. The old man is lusting after the pills the way he once lusted after women. And he is a man whose needs must be satisfied. He will need more pills. He will need them very soon. Tom has a headache. He tries to think through the throbbing. He thinks the nearest doctor is in Herbertville, sixty kilometers away.

He thinks but is not sure. He has never been to Herbertville. He believes it is a day’s journey. He has no idea how to organize such a journey. On a horse? In the car? Alone or with help? (Not alone. He will not do such a thing alone.) He tries to imagine himself walking the streets of Herbertville. He tries to imagine how he will explain it to the doctor. Pain management, he thinks they call it. After a certain point you have to concentrate on pain management.

He will need money for the doctor. And he will need a horse. The car is useless, the car is barely running, and then there is the fact that he does not know how to drive. Tom does not know if going to Herbertville is a good idea but he understands that he is a man without choice. People shoot cattle in the head when they are too far gone for saving. The old man is too far gone for saving but shooting him in the head is not an option as far as Tom can tell.

No — the gun being out of the picture, Tom will go find a doctor, who will give him more pills and tell him about the pain management. He will need to get Jose to travel with him. Jose is a good horseman. He has traveled the roads and knows the area well. And Jose is good with people. Tom is not good with people. He does not do well with strangers, not even with people he knows. But Jose — yes, Jose is different.

With this in mind Tom goes to find him. He walks the road leading to the stables. This road is generally deserted and runs clear and unimpeded across the land. He can therefore see the men in the distance. He counts four or possibly five. They come down the road, down from the farm, riding bicycles. They have tied plastic bags to the backs of the seats and there are plastic bags hanging and swinging from the handlebars.

Mystified, Tom stops and watches the men approach. His men, they are his natives. The sound of wheels whirring fast as the bags rock and jolt and are covered in dust. The men wear bandannas across their faces and dark glasses to protect their eyes. They have large rucksacks strapped to their backs and humpbacked they roll forward, they occupy the road, gaining speed as they move.

Two-wheeled as they are, they catapult toward him. Tom leaps to the side of the road. They come within a single foot of him but swarm past without stopping — they act as if they do not see him, their eyes invisible behind the sunglasses and road goggles. They pedal furiously and the dust rises ten feet into the air as they go.

Within seconds they are gone. Tom stares after them as they disappear down the road. They move past the gate and exit the farm. He stares at the empty road. It is silent. The stables are quiet. He listens to insect sounds and watches the dust cloud settle to the ground. He stares at the earth and is baffled.

He turns and then sees another group of men. A sea of them coming down the road on bicycles and motorcycles, these men carrying their wives and children. The men ignore him but some of the women and children, some nod or wave as they pass. None of them slow. None stop to explain. They churn more dust instead, they toss the dirt back up into the air.

They are fleeing. The last of the farmhands are leaving. They are abandoning the estate. This time Tom runs after them. He shouts into their cloud of dust.

“Where are you going? What are you doing?”

Still they do not stop and so he runs faster, waving his arms.

“What has happened? Why are you leaving?”

He is talking to a mountain of dust. They are meters away, they are half the distance to the gate, they have disappeared down the road. He stares after them. He turns and looks back at the farm. It is silent again. He watches as the road dust settles. He looks for the men, he tries to spot them in the distance, but they have disappeared and the landscape is still.

He hears a whirring sound behind him. A young boy comes cycling down the road after the pack. Tom races into the road and flings his arms out.

“Stop! Stop!”

The boy swerves and tumbles off his bicycle. He scrambles to his feet, hopping. There is a cut across his knee. Tom looks at the boy’s face. He is not certain that he has seen him before. He does not know his name.

“Where are you going?”

The boy shakes his head and rights the bicycle.

“Tell me where you are going!”

“It is not safe here.”

Tom laughs.

“What are you talking about?”

“The rebellion is coming. The men who go to the forest — they are coming.”

Tom grabs the boy by the shoulders.

“You are just a little boy. You do not know what you are talking about.”

The boy shakes himself free.

“Mister, I know what I am talking about.”

He gets back on the bicycle.

“I have to go. They will not wait for me.”

“Who will not wait? Where are you going?”

The boy shakes his head and calls out as he pedals away.

“I know what I am talking about! You will see!”

Tom watches him cycle down the road and then disappear. The farm is now completely silent. He whirls around and runs to the house. He finds Jose by the stables. He is smoking a cigarette. Tom stops in front of him, gasping for breath.

“What is it? Why have they gone?”

Jose looks at him. In the silence, Tom becomes increasingly aware of Jose’s contempt. Which for the first time he displays to Tom without mitigation. He takes his time before replying.

“They have gone.”

“Yes, but where?”

Tom is still trying to recover his breath. Jose stubs out his cigarette on the ground and then carefully retrieves the butt. He holds it in his fingers.

“They are afraid.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know.”

He looks at Tom.

“I hope they will not come so far as the valley. But you should be prepared.”

“Prepared — for what?”

“There has been killing everywhere. Do you not listen to the radio? It started in the north and it has spread. For the past month they have been moving toward the south.”

Jose pauses. He shrugs.

“Now they have reached the south. The rebellion is here.”

Tom stares at the dirt and the dust. He has never listened to the radio, he is not interested by it. He does not even read the paper. He licks at his mouth, nervous.

“Violence about what? We gave them the land. They are taking it. We saw, just the other day—”

Tom is like a blind man. He does not see what is about to hit him in the face and knock him down. It has been shown to him but he has been looking the other way. Jose is not inclined to explain, perhaps believing the task to be insurmountable. He shrugs again.

“Yes.”

“One acre a man. Isn’t that enough? We are all the same now.”

“You have one thousand acres. You are a single man.”

“That is different.”

“Yes.”

“I will give them more land. If more land is what they want.”

“It is too late.”

Tom needs to gather his thoughts. He takes out a pack of cigarettes. He offers the pack to Jose.

“We need to go to Herbertville.”

Jose shakes his head.

“Too dangerous.”

“He needs more medicine.”

“It is too dangerous.”

“He will die if we do not go.”

“You should not be here. Do you understand?”

Tom shakes his head. The old man will die either way. The old man is bound to death. But either he will die and that will be that, or the work of dying itself will kill him. The logic is impenetrable but solid as rock in Tom’s head. He reaches up and seizes Jose by the shoulder.

“He will die. I need you to go with me.”

Jose shakes his head. Tom drops his hands. Jose fishes in his pocket for a lighter and goes back to smoking.

“I will give you something. If you go.”

“What can you give me?”

“Money. There is still some money.”

“How much?”

“Two hundred dollars.”

Jose puffs at his cigarette. For the first time it occurs to Tom: he tells Tom to go, but why does he stay when the others have gone? It cannot be loyalty. Tom does not believe in Jose’s loyalty. He stays, Tom thinks, out of force of habit. He is too used to them. Too used to the whites. Celeste is the same way. They cannot break the habit in the way of the others. There are too many links, of which they are barely aware. Tom waits for Jose to speak.

“I will need to see the money first.”

“Of course.”

“And we go together.”

“Yes. How long will it take?”

“Half a day by the back roads. Maybe a little longer.”

“If we leave in the night, can we be back in one day?”

“Possibly.”

Tom nods. He needs to sit down. He is feeling faint. His breath is coming short and sweat is breaking out across his forehead. He sits down on the ground, in the dirt, chest heaving. Jose looks down at him.

“What are you doing?”

He waves him off. He sits cross-legged and wheezes. He keeps his head tipped down into his chest. He waits for his breath to slow.

“Are you well enough to travel?”

Tom swallows and looks up at Jose.

“I am fine. We can leave tomorrow.”

Jose puts his hands into his pockets. He does not offer Tom his hand. He does not help him to his feet. He looks down at him. Tom sits in the dirt and watches Jose, who frowns.

“Okay.”

Slowly, Tom gets to his feet. He reaches out to shake Jose’s hand. Jose hesitates and then takes Tom’s hand. They are both confused by the gesture. Now Tom dreads the journey ahead. What is he doing? Perhaps they are both fools. After all, they are the only ones left. He should have gone long ago. But he did not and instead is still stuck on the land, it is him and the dying man, here on the farm.

10

They leave at three in the morning. It is black dark outside. Tom does not like the dark — he is the kind of man who sleeps with a sliver of light. He is the kind of man who likes a candle by his bed. He is nervous and rides his horse poorly. Lucky for him the horse is placid and used to his nervousness. The horse plods ahead and stays the course despite the darkness.

Jose rides ahead and is inscrutable. This is the word Tom uses in his head. The word they all use and have used, to describe the natives. It is not accurate, the natives being as readable as any of the white settlers, if the white settlers took the time to do the reading. However, they do not and have not. Nonetheless, as far as Tom can tell he is as interested in completing the journey as Tom and that is a source of some reassurance.

According to Jose, they can take the main road for the first half of the journey. The rebellion has not yet come this far south. Jose knows the movements of the rebellion in uncanny detail. Having never spoken of it before, the rebellion is now all Jose speaks of. The rebellion is here or it is there. The rebellion is moving toward them. It is moving away. The rebellion is growing in speed and strength.

This new idea of the rebellion is making Tom unhinged. He rides the horse and his entrails thrash inside him. He does not even know what the rebellion means. And yet his vocabulary expands. There are new words and new ideas. The Oath Takers. The men who’ve gone to the forest. The expansion is no good thing for Tom. He lives in a permanent state of contraction and the stretching is like to break him.

He asks questions. In the dark he babbles out of nervousness.

“And what is their oath?”

“The oath is for land and freedom.”

“But we have given them land and they have their freedom.”

“Maybe it is not enough.”

“Who says they are not free? They are free.”

“We should not talk. We must be silent.”

Jose is also tense. All the others have left. The punishment for collusion is worse than death. And yet he stays! When logic dictated his departure long ago. He has been hedging his bets, he tells himself he is only hedging his bets. But his position will not be sustainable for long. Soon he will need to make a decision.

Therefore he remains silent as they ride. The roads are empty and dark. There are small herds of sheep and cattle but no humans to speak of. After two hours the road runs up the hills and directly through the territory of the new farms. Loops of barbed wire hang from sticks and in some cases there are wire fences. Most farms have nothing more than a single shack. Not large enough for a family, barely large enough for a couple of tools and a plow. The farms are all fence and barbed wire.

None of the land looks like it is being used. It looks like acres of divided dirt fields. They are not large enough to grow anything. A vegetable garden. Some wheat or corn.

The new farms are by and large useless. Tom sees that. He is not surprised that the farms are deserted. Jose says to him that they should go. They should keep away from the new farms and villages. He says they are not deserted, far from it. Tom shakes his head. The new farms are everywhere. They are unavoidable. Look, he says. Look how they are eating up the land.

But Jose is uneasy. He says to him that they must go. Now. They leave the main road and go up the hills. They are nowhere close to Herbertville, they are nowhere near half done with their journey, and already they have taken to the back roads. These roads are curving and winding and indirect. Tom does not like the logic of the back roads. After an hour of riding in what feels like circles, Tom tells Jose they should return to the main road. He says to him that they are losing time. It is past dawn. It is nearly morning.

We are not so far, Jose says. We are making good time—

He is cut off by the sound of gunfire. Both men jump. A long silence and then a long round of shots. The sound of voices shouting. They dismount and pull their horses into shadow. Jose motions to Tom, he puts a finger to his lips. Tom nods, teeth chattering. He whispers to himself, he says, perhaps it is a hunt, yes, maybe that is what it is. That would explain it. They are hunting impala. They are hunting wild boar. Jose glares at him and motions again for him to be silent. He peers through the bushes.

The next round of gunfire is all around them. It is in every direction. Tom covers his ears. He buries his head and closes his eyes. The reins slip through his fingers — in an instant, the horse has bolted and is gone. He hears men shouting and he cowers down closer to the ground. He wishes to disappear, for the ground to swallow him whole — he should never have left the farm.

The voices come closer — they are on this road, this dirt road, they are right there, they should have stuck to the main road, another mistake — and then there is a long silence and he is forced from terror to open his eyes. Jose is nowhere in sight. Both horses have disappeared. It is only him, what they call Lizard Boy, crouching in the dirt and dust. He stands. The sun is high in the sky. He squints and raises an arm to block the sun.

“Don’t move.”

He freezes in the middle of the road.

“Turn. Slowly.”

He shuffles his feet in the dirt. A young man dressed in full army uniform stands behind him carrying an AK-47. Tom is cautious but relieved. This makes sense. The Government will have sent soldiers to the valley, having heard of the rebellion’s course. They will have sent troops to protect the citizens of the country.

“Raise your hands.”

Cautiously, he raises his hands. He wishes the young man would not point the machine gun at his chest — it is hardly necessary, look, he is white, clearly he is not an Oath Taker! But the young man does not lower the rifle. Instead he steps closer until the barrel of the gun is pressing into Tom’s sternum and then he stops. He is not even a man. He is just a boy. Tom’s heart thumps against the gun’s metal barrel.

The boy soldier calls out.

“Over here!”

He is joined by an older soldier. This solder has a shotgun strapped to his leg and his uniform is not as clean as the boy’s — there are rips and tear and stains and the sleeves appear to have fallen off altogether. Perhaps he has been fighting the rebellion for some time now, since it started up north. He wears a colonel’s stripes and medals. His green trousers are tucked into his boots and the boots are covered in dirt and grime. He comes to Tom and the boy.

“Who is this?”

“I found him here, crouching by the side of the road.”

“Where?”

“Here. Here.”

The boy soldier jerks the rifle to the ground. His eyes remain on Tom.

“Is he armed?”

“No.”

The older soldier looks at Tom.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to get medicine for my father.”

“What is wrong with him?”

“He is dying.”

“You are all dying.”

Tom nods. He is becoming afraid again. He would like to go. These people are frightening to him. Their faces are crossed with scars and he sees now that they are splattered with new blood. The boy soldier has a machete slung into his trousers. Tom does not know if this is right or wrong. There are things, definitely there are things about these men that are not right. They seem very close to deranged. They have spent too long in the forest and lost their minds.

“Soon you will be gone. This country is no longer safe for white men.”

“Yes. We will be leaving.”

“And going where?”

“Home.”

The older soldier laughs.

“Yes. That is the right answer. I see that you are learning.”

He smiles and scratches his chin. He looks up at the sun lazily.

“Tell me. Have you heard of the birds called Rheas?”

Tom shakes his head, mute with fear. The soldier smiles.

“No? They are big birds — too big to fly. They gather on the ground with nothing to do. Imagine. So many birds, gathered on the ground and none of them able to fly away. There is not enough land for so many birds.”

Comically, he lifts an eyebrow.

“They must find a way to occupy themselves. They must find a way to keep themselves busy. A game.”

He pauses. He wags a finger at Tom and lowers his voice confidentially.

“This is a game the male birds play. They clear a large space and then two male birds lock necks. They spin in a circle with their necks locked. They spin faster and faster until one of the birds becomes dizzy and lets go. The dizzy bird is the loser. The one that lets go first. That is how they make the time pass.”

He looks at Tom.

“Have you heard this story before?”

This time Tom nods.

“It is a good story, no? These birds are as big as men. As big as human beings.”

He sighs. He looks up at the sun again.

“Time to go.”

He signals to the boy and then turns and heads down the path. The boy soldier looks after him.

“What do I do with him?”

“Leave him. He is harmless.”

The older soldier disappears down the road. The boy soldier turns to Tom. His gun still leveled at his chest. He keeps the gun trained on him and then abruptly lowers it. He grimaces.

“You are a lucky guy.”

He turns and jogs down the road after the older soldier. They disappear into the bush.

For a long time Tom stands frozen in the middle of the road. Eventually he lowers his hands. They have been up, held up in the air all this time. Now he lowers them and they are sore with the effort. He hears — birds, trees, stupid and anonymous sounds. He is alone. He is safe and still alive. He knows he has been lucky, he does not need the boy soldier to tell him this. The blood — his life, now saved, of which he is newly aware — pounds through his head.

In the distance he hears a round of gunfire. Followed by shouts. Quickly, he crouches down in the middle of the road, he hides behind a bush. The shouts gather into a song. He strains to hear the words.

The men who go to the forest

The men who drink the oath

We will fight

Until we take back the land

Down to the last man

Down to the last shout

Better to die standing

Than on your knees

Better to die free

Than a slave

He covers his ears with his hands in horror and waits for the voices to fade as the men pull into the distance. When he can no longer hear the voices he stands. He is trembling all over. He ducks into the bush and runs as fast as he can. He is getting lost — he is already lost. He does not know where he is going apart from away.

Tom runs as fast as Tom can run. He runs but it turns out there is nowhere to go. He runs and finds himself down on the main road. The moment he sees the expanse of paved surface he panics and ducks back into the bush. He crouches in the dirt and listens for the all clear of silence. There are smells in the air — smoke and blood, he can smell both smoke and blood.

His thoughts are disordered. He needs to get a horse. He must find Jose. He must find a way to get home, he must warn his father of the soldiers. I am looking for help. He says this to himself. I am looking for help. He stands up and steps into the road. Up ahead he sees a house in flames. It burns close to the ground and is half in ember.

He starts walking in the direction of the burning house, not knowing where else to go. He has lost his shoes — how? He cannot tell how long his feet have been bare — and the soil is hot from sun and flame. His feet and legs have been cut from thorns and bramble. He stumbles as he walks and then he is grabbed, seized, by both arms and pulled to the ground. He chokes as the air is pushed out of his lungs and coughs as the dust flies up into his face.

Jose clamps his hand over his mouth and motions for him to be silent. Tom pries his hand off.

“Where have you been?”

“Quiet.”

Tom lowers his voice to a whisper.

“Where have you been?”

“Are you okay?”

“Those soldiers — there was something wrong with them.”

“Those were no soldiers. You should be dead.”

“Who were they?”

“Oath Takers.”

“They were in uniform.”

“They steal uniforms off the dead. They have seized this entire area.”

“But — how?”

Jose motions for them to get off the road. They crouch — like animals, like less than animals — in the dirt and bush. From this position, close to the ground, they see a group of men on the road. A handful carry AK-47s and there are machetes as well. They do not appear to be in any hurry, they move at a leisurely pace. They fire their guns — sometimes into the air, sometimes at a target up ahead on the road, not visible to either Tom or Jose.

“They are on the move. The men who questioned you — which way did they go?”

Tom indicates the road east. These men also go east. They pass and Tom and Jose lie still, flat on the ground, underneath the bush. They are followed by more and then more men. There are not that many, they are maybe two or three dozen. But they fill the road, they are grabbing hold of it as they go. No wonder — it occurs to Tom, Tom thinks to himself, they will take this country. They will take it. If thirty men can do this then with three hundred, with three thousand, the country will be theirs.

They believe it belongs to them, or they do not care and will take it anyway, in any case it will be theirs, he can see it. Things are splintering around him, Tom can feel the foundation crack. It will never be put together again. It is not going to be restored. He gasps for breath. It is like he is growing transparent, like he himself is now becoming invisible, as in front of him the terrain is hacked to machete slices.

It is no wonder they do not see him. The Oath Takers patrol the road. Everything around them falls silent. Even the animals and the animal noises. The rebel soldiers walk with swagger and exaggerated grimness. Their limbs are loose and they pull faces and shout to fill out the silence. We are performing a duty. We are doing what needs to be done for the country. Behind them is a trail of justified blood and they are carrying, they are dragging, the trail forward.

Tom and Jose crouch in the shadow of the trees and wait for the men to go. They are not very many but they come in small clusters, it takes a long time for them to go. Even when they are gone Tom is afraid to move. After a little while, Jose swallows.

“They are gone.”

Tom nods. He no longer remembers what they have come here to do. It seems a long time ago, it seems far away. He crouches beside Jose, trembling. His legs have the cramp and he cannot move them. Jose turns to him.

“Let’s go.”

“We should wait a little longer.”

“No. Let’s go. Now.”

He steps out into the road and Tom has no choice but to follow. He scrambles after Jose.

“Where are you going?”

Jose stops.

“I am going in the opposite direction from the rebels. That is where I am going.”

He turns and continues down the road in the direction of the village. Tom scrambles to catch up. Black smoke rises up from the soil and into the air. Up ahead, the rebels have torched the shacks and houses. They have torched anything that will burn. The side of the road is lined with giant heaps of hot ash and ember. Tom and Jose walk along the ash heaps and the air is full of smoke and the smell of blood and charring.

They should go, Tom says. He wants to go, he does not understand what they are doing. His voice rising to a screech. Tom has been unfastened by panic. He only wants to go, now. But Jose is not listening. Jose is ignoring Tom. He steps from the road and begins looking through the rubble. He lifts pieces of charred wood, blackened metal and finds a body. The head has been hacked off with a machete. Jose ignores the black stump of bone and vein and carefully opens the pockets. He pulls out a gold chain. A couple of bills. He takes these and pushes the body away.

“Jose! Jose!”

There is a warmth spreading through the seat of his trousers and down to the ground. A puddle of hot piss growing in the dirt. Tom cries and whimpers and continues to piss himself. The relief and hot warmth being a comfort while Jose moves further down the road, looking for bodies, poking through the ash. He finds things and they make their way into his pockets. He looks back at Tom.

“Come.”

Reluctantly, Tom follows him, soaked in piss, his bare feet completely wet. Jose strides ahead, having picked up a rifle. Tom does not know when Jose found the gun. Now he carries it over his shoulder like he has always carried a rifle over his shoulder. Tom can smell the acidic register of his own clothes, soaked as they are in urine. In front is more smoke and more bodies. A chicken wailing in distress.

They enter the village. An army jeep has been overturned in the middle of the road. It lies on its side like a dead animal. The glass has been shattered and the driver hangs limp from the half open door. He has been shot in the head and his mouth is wrenched open in protest and his palms are spread into the dust.

Around the jeep are dead soldiers — real Government soldiers this time. They are sprawled across the road like they have been flung there by way of explosion. Their torsos are slashed and entrails spill into the dusty road, viscera sit in the dirt. The rebels have stripped the soldiers of their jackets and boots. Their feet are coated in a layer of fine dust. They have also taken all the guns.

By the side of the road bodies hang from trees like spectators made to watch against their will, not finding the entertainment to their liking. Their trousers are twisted around their ankles and their faces are petrified. Their mouths stuffed with their own testicles, they are slack jawed with shock and surprise. Their penises lie shriveled and scattered in the dirt beneath their feet. Tom vomits and then wipes his face with his shirt. The smell is terrible.

It is terrible and it is everywhere. There are bodies in the road and in the trees and there are children as well as women and men. Women and men as well as soldiers. The killing has been expert and senseless. Up ahead a tree is also burning. The fire spreads from branch to branch. It jumps from limb to limb. The whole thing will burn down, thinks Tom. The entire forest will be destroyed.

“Tom!”

He turns. Jose stands by the army truck, he is attempting to prize a canvas case from the collapsed trunk of the vehicle. He motions to Tom.

“Here. Help me.”

The case is enveloped in warped steel and rubber. They try to bend the metal with their bare hands. Jose steps back. He yanks an abandoned machete from a dead man’s torso. He returns to the jeep and hacks into the metal until the case is free. He snaps it open. It is full of syringes and vials and pills. He examines the labels and then tosses the case to Tom.

“What is it?”

“There is some morphine. Take it.”

Tom takes the case.

“What now?”

“We need to find horses.”

“Where?”

He shrugs. He turns and goes deeper into the village. Tom thinks about not following. He thinks about waiting here by the jeep. Soon Jose disappears and Tom is left alone. He looks — in every direction is a dead body, a rotting body, a burnt corpse. He hurries after Jose and hears a crack like loud thunder. The burning tree has fallen into the road and is blocking it. Jose looks at Tom.

“Take off your jacket and cover your face.”

“Let’s go back. Jose, let’s go back.”

“We need horses. There will be horses somewhere in the village.”

He wraps his head in his own jacket and bolts forward, the rifle cradled in his arms. He leaps over the burning rubble. Tom stares after him. He leaps and hops and jumps and then stops. Only his feet and head are visible through the smoke. He motions for Tom to follow, a movement Tom sees dimly through the smoke and debris. Tom shakes his head. Jose pulls the jacket off and turns to go. Left with no choice, Tom removes his jacket and plunges down the road.

At the other end, Jose pulls him out and thumps him on the back. One. Two. Three. Tom gulps fresh air and is better. He wipes the soot from his face and eyes and can see. Ahead on the road are more bodies, more overturned army vehicles. Jose points.

“Look. There are horses.”

And in fact there are horses. There are three, there are four, standing by the side of the road. Jose walks forward with his hands by his side. He moves like the old man, Tom suddenly realizes. He has become exactly like him. Tom sees, in a flash of understanding, that this is also part of the new order. That Jose should take the place of the old man. Tom watches as Jose slides to the horses, he holds his palm out, they approach, he grips their manes and then they are no longer free.

The horses’ owners are more than likely dead, somewhere ahead or behind them on the road. Jose tells Tom to mount the calmest and the broadest horse. He has found some rope, he uses it to lead the other two horses, two horses in addition to the two they ride, four horses altogether, what will he do with four horses? The horses are terrified by the chaos and are reassured by being led. They are comforted by the human weight astride their backs.

Jose leads the two spare horses and also Tom and his horse and together they make their way down the road, out of the village. The horses jumping over the bodies in the road. Where are we going? Tom asks. We will circle around, says Jose, we will find our way back to the farm. You have the morphine, he says. You have the case? Yes, Tom says. I have the case. So you see, we found what we were looking for in the end. Yes, Tom says. Yes.

They are ten minutes outside the village before the smell of burning flesh and blood is gone. The rebels must have come this way, says Jose. But there is no sign of it. They pass a large farm with a gate and emblem. Jose stops.

“I know this farm.”

Tom nods.

“It belongs to the Wallaces.”

Tom nods again. There is a large stone house, visible from the gate. Jose looks up at the house. Then he quickly dismounts and ties the horses to the gate.

“What are you doing?”

“I am getting more morphine.”

“We have morphine. I have it right here.”

“That will only last a few days. The Wallaces are addicts.”

Tom does not know how Jose knows the Wallaces are addicts, how he knows this and so many other things. He watches Jose disappear down the path. He has no choice but to tie his own horse and follow him. The house windows are broken and the door is charred black. Jose kicks the door open. He enters ahead of Tom and he holds the AK-47 at the level of his waist. He could be an Oath Taker for all Tom knows. Nothing would surprise me now. Everything is surprising me now. It is one or the other, he is not sure.

The house is empty and it is silent, in a bad way. There are pieces of furniture overturned and there are bullet holes in the wall and splashes of blood on the floor, on the wall, on the overturned furniture. Jose stops and listens but the house is silent. He nods and goes to the dresser. He opens drawers, he looks for bottles and syringes. In the process he pockets things — jewels, coins, packets of bills and bonds — that the rebels have missed or not looked for at all.

Tom goes into the sitting room and finds Mrs. Wallace. Who has been slashed in the throat and torso. She sits on the sofa secreting a stream of blood. The cushions are stained and there are splatters of blood on the walls and on the floor. Mrs. Wallace stares up at the ceiling. Her expression is one of shock and disapproval. The family hounds lie on the floor around her, shot in the head and chest, tongues draped from their open jaws.

Tom stares at Mrs. Wallace. He has not seen her since the girl first came to the farm. When all the trouble began, a long time ago. Now Mrs. Wallace sits frozen in this well-furnished room. There are pillows and throws on the chairs, not all of which are ruined by blood. There are brass lamps and paintings on the wall. A trio of flies buzzes around Mrs. Wallace’s head. One and then another lands on her open eye. Which is turning to jelly, her eyes are decaying quickly in the heat. Soon they will slide out of their sockets like liquid gel.

Slowly, Tom backs away. Then he turns and runs out of the room. He is running past the marble heads and silver cigar boxes, past the walnut credenza and the cupboards, the mahogany cupboards that line the room. He is knocking over chairs and occasional tables in his haste to get out of the room. When one of the cupboard doors swings open and a foot, a leg, the girl steps out of the furniture. Tom comes to a halt.

Of course she would have come here. Of course they would have taken her in. These are times of trouble but they are family. The girl is family. Even in her current state. Tom can understand. But it is still a shock to see the girl and her belly, climbing out of the cupboard, coughing to clear the dust that has gathered in her throat over the hours — how many? — she has spent hidden, cramped inside the cupboard.

Tom stares at her. He opens his mouth.

“Mrs. Wallace—”

“I don’t want to look.”

He nods. Jose enters the room and looks at both of them. He does not seem surprised to see Carine. Yes — Jose has become like the old man. Who is also seldom very surprised. Briefly, Jose looks across the room at Mrs. Wallace. Then he looks at the girl.

“So you came here.”

“Yes.”

“How did you survive? Where did you hide?”

“I hid in the cupboard. I was sitting with Martha when they arrived. There wasn’t time to hide anyplace else.”

“And Mrs. Wallace?”

“She did not move quickly enough.”

“Unfortunate for her.”

The girl shrugs. Jose looks away.

“Where is Mr. Wallace?”

“They shot him outside.”

Jose nods. He is carrying a leather satchel and it is full to bursting with pills and vials and gold and silver objects. He looks at the girl.

“Where is the safe?”

She shakes her head.

“I don’t know.”

“We will need money.”

“I know.”

“Then where is the safe?”

“Her jewels are upstairs in her dressing room.”

They leave Mrs. Wallace on the sofa and follow the girl up the stairs. She stops by a window on the second floor and points out the window.

“Look. There is Robert.”

A man lies facedown in a ditch. His back is riddled with bullets. Jose looks out the window, then continues down the hall. The girl looks out the window a little longer, then quickly turns away. They reach the dressing room. Inside there are silk gowns and feathers and flowers. The faint smell of perfume. Through an open door, the bathroom is visible. The tub sits full of lukewarm water.

Jose walks to the vanity table. He sets the rifle on the gilt and glass surface. He picks up and pries open a jewel box and begins lifting out necklaces and bracelets. He pauses and looks up at the girl.

“You should wash the soot off.”

She nods and goes into the bathroom, where she sponges her face and arms and legs with the water in the bath. Jose empties two boxes full of diamonds and sapphires and pearls into his satchel. He drops in ebony hairbrushes and mother of pearl hair clips. He finds, at the bottom of the stocking drawer, a wad of bills tied with a piece of string.

The girl appears, rubbing her hair with a towel. She has changed into a dress and sweater, she wears boots and carries a bag. Jose looks up.

“We should go.”

She nods. Jose briefly surveys the room. Then he picks up the satchel and rifle. They go downstairs in a line, Jose and then Carine and then Tom. When they reach the front entrance, Jose looks at the girl. He grips the gun in his arms and nods to her.

“You aren’t staying.”

“Here? No.”

“Then you may as well come.”

“Yes,” she says. “Yes. I may as well come.”

11

The horses are still tied to the Wallaces’ gate. Tom helps the girl mount and then he and Jose mount their rides. Jose leading the fourth horse. The girl holds out her hand.

“Give me a gun.”

Jose looks at her. She keeps her hand out and stares back at him.

“I mean it.”

He reaches into the back of his trousers and pulls out a pistol, which he hands to her. The AK-47 remains on his lap. The girl’s hands tremble a little. She checks the magazine for bullets and thumbs the safety, then tucks the pistol into her boot. She nods to Jose. He hesitates, then brings out another pistol and hands it to Tom.

“Here.”

Tom takes the gun. There is powder at the barrel. He grips the gun and the reins and nods to both of them. The weight of the gun in his fingers.

“Let’s go.”

They go back through the village. In order to return to the farm they must retrace their steps. It is nearly noon. The sun is directly overhead. The bodies are melting in the sun. Already there are flies gathering in the holes and crevices of the corpses. The smell is awful. The horses are calm, preferring the smell of rot to the smell of blood, but to the humans, the smell is unbearable.

Jose looks back at them.

“Cover your nose and mouth.”

The girl’s body loses balance and momentarily she sways in the saddle. Her belly plunging her sideways. Jose wrenches her upright. He holds her there as he pulls a cloth from his pocket and wraps it around her face. She presses the cloth with her fingers. She grips the saddle with the other hand and nods to him.

“Do not look. Keep your head down.”

She nods again and sinks down into the saddle. Jose leads the horses over the bodies in the road, past the bodies hanging from the trees, past the overturned army truck. The girl is quiet, she sits still and careful in the saddle, face masked in cloth.

Tom would like to be riding behind her. He would like to climb up onto the horse, he would like to slide his arms around her belly and press his face into her back and sleep. Curled around the curve of her back. Instead he sits alone and sniffs as the smell of his urine grows sweet in the heat, sweet against the horse sweat and leather. Animal, vegetable, mineral. He is turning to stone as he sits astride this horse.

They could wait until dusk, he thinks. They could wait until it is dark and it is safer. It would be best for all of them. They are in a state of shock. Consider the girl, in her condition — it would be better to wait. This heat, and this smell. As it is the girl is not moving, she is sitting perfectly still and letting the horse carry her through the village massacre.

He acknowledges that they now have the morphine. He knows that he is still alive, more or less. But he has paid a price. He would like to unsee what he has seen but he already knows that is not possible. He has made his acquaintance with the contingent world, he knows now that it is a place built of madness. Past the farm there lies nothing at all. It unfolds and extends without reason. He, who has seen so little, can now see future’s history, that is going to happen in this country.

There is no life for him there. The last of his illusions slipping away. Jose says to them that they must continue. He says they cannot afford to wait until dusk. The girl, her face muffled by the cloth, does not respond. Tom is also silent. They will continue. They will go back to the farm. But it is like he has left a limb in the village, a hand or a leg or a foot. The world he has believed in has gone. It is lying by the side of the road in a puddle of blood. Therefore he is no longer innocent; his fetishes have been taken away.

WHEN THE THREE approach the farm, it is morning, or nearly morning. The girl sits bolt upright, having removed the cloth from her face and gripped the reins, which now drape over her belly. She stares into darkness, into the night, as they ride down the back roads.

For a long time she believed there was security in land, but now she sees there is no place with land in the country, she understands the land is receding from them all. Without property, the terrain becomes senseless. The country becomes a maze, the landscape now unrecognizable, the markers slipping away. And she is moving in widening circles, she is trapped inside a growing labyrinth.

As if there is only the farm (although it is shrinking). And there are only these men (although they are fading). She could travel the country and she would always end up back where she had started. It was not entirely as she had seen it to be. Around her the country splinters and fragments. There are deep shudders of violence while inside her the baby grows, shrinking the world down as it does. Without the baby things would be different. Without the baby she would be free.

But she is not free. None of them are. Such a thing no longer exists in the country. Instead they are retreating to the relative quiet of the valley. They have never crossed the land so quickly. Two whites and a native — a bad combination, at a time when whites and natives alike are being shot down. They are running for their lives and that is no metaphor. It is no longer the time for metaphor in the country, the girl thinks. Now there is only the thing itself.

When they come upon the farm in the morning it looks the same. The farm is quiet and the valley is empty. The rebellion has not yet arrived. They are safe. They are on their own land — land that is theirs, temporarily, they remind themselves that everything is now temporary, including and especially the land. But the farm, the property, still has its effect. False though it may be. They feel the chaos begin to recede before they are through the gate.

They stable the horses and Tom clutches the canvas bag with the morphine. He is exhausted and sleepless. His memories of the land in turmoil merge with fragments of the old man: the fits of pain, the medicine running low, the eyes crawling the ceiling and wall. The old man is the last surviving link to the old world, the old order, that they have recently seen crumbling. He is the last collection and already a ruin, but Tom reminds himself that he has the morphine, that at least here there is something yet he can do.

He starts walking up the drive to the house. Jose and the girl follow and together they enter. Where there is death throughout. They have been surrounded by death at top speed and now — now they are in the midst of death in slow motion, death that is slow as treacle. It is something different but no less gruesome. The house is filled with its smell: like all the doors and windows have been kept shut for the sole purpose of keeping the stink trapped inside.

Celeste runs to the door and pushes them back outside.

“Low. Keep your voices low.”

Although they were saying nothing. Although they were completely silent. Her face is stricken and in it all is there to see. She proceeds to tell them anyway.

That the past thirty-six hours have been very bad. All day he was in pain and screaming for the pills. She fed them to him, she kept feeding him pills until the pain was gone and he could rest. Then the pills wore off and then she heard thumps and pounding and she ran to his room and he was there, thrashing in the bed, screaming in agony, hitting his head against the wall and headboard, and she fed him more pills.

At nightfall he went mute. He opened his mouth but his voice was gone. His tongue flap-flapped in the air but no sound came out. She stood by the side of the bed. He motioned with his hand for more pills. She told him she had no more. He motioned for the pills again. She asked if he would like some water, some soup, some milk. If he would like her to rub his feet. He opened his mouth but could not scream.

She is glad that they are back. She is very glad. Tom nods and swallows.

“Is he sleeping? How is he now?”

“He is no longer himself.”

“I will go and see him.”

“Yes.”

He hands her the canvas bag.

“There is medicine in there.”

Jose takes the bag from Celeste and looks at Tom.

“You should sit down and recover from the journey. I will give him the morphine.”

He disappears. Now Celeste leads them, Tom and the pregnant girl, into the kitchen. She makes them sit down, she boils some water for tea.

“The old man is no longer himself. You must be prepared.”

“I am sorry we left you alone.”

Celeste makes a cup of tea and Tom drinks it. She finds a piece of cake and brings it to him. Celeste, who does not seem surprised to see the girl, offers her a piece. The girl refuses. She lets the cup of tea cool in front of her. Celeste sits down and eats the girl’s slice of cake. Tom takes a bite of the cake. His eyes are vacant.

The girl watches him. She sees how much he has been changed. She raises the cup of tea to her lips and then abruptly drops it back into the saucer. She stands and leaves the kitchen. She is not going to wait any longer. Whatever has to be faced will be faced now. After all, what does it matter to her — what is the old man to her, what is this place, this boy and this woman, what do they matter to her, of all people—

She goes into the bedroom and it is more or less like a wall swinging into her face and then she remembers. She actually flinches at the sight. Tom comes rushing down the hall behind her and it is too late — she cannot go running, she cannot back out or tell him not to enter, he is literally blocking the door behind her. There is no way to go but forward and so they enter the room together.

And yes. They are aghast. The old man lies on the bed and more than ever he secretes the toxic charisma of the dying. He sprays the air with it like a cat. They cannot look away. They stare instead at the limbs that have collapsed, the face that has gone yellow, the shallow mounds beneath the bed sheets that are now the old man — they are pretty damn sure he is dying at last.

It is plain as anything. The reality of the dying and the reality of the larger situation. Which is equally dire. There is no way around it. The old man is dying and the farm will die with him. Tom has run out of time. He has been running out of time for days and weeks. He is a fool. The world outside is beyond all control but the man in front of him — he sees the body stretched out before him and knows there will never be the time to say, what was it he intended to say? What would he have said, if he had found the time?

He does not know, that is part of the problem. He is crying. The girl is dry-eyed and passes Tom a handkerchief. She tells him to blow his nose and get a grip. He takes the handkerchief and blows his nose. He gives the handkerchief back to the girl but still does not have a grip on the situation. And the girl needs him to hurry up, she needs him to pull himself together, because as it is he is not helping.

The two of them and the world outside and the old man in the bed. The old man, who has lost the power of speech and no longer retains the power of movement, whose limbs lie frozen — the old man is glaring at Tom. It is not their imagination. The old man has had enough. The old man is dying and he is not happy about it. When he glares at Tom it is not a trick of the dying physiognomy. It is the absolute truth of what he is feeling.

It is therefore too much for Tom. Who will never be able to say what he feels. Who would gladly trade ten years of his own life for one of his father’s, for another month, another week or day or hour, but who knows such transactions are impossible. The feeling, his willingness, has never had anywhere to go, and now more than ever he does not know where to put it. Pressing his hands to hide his face, his body heavy with this deadlock, Tom leaves the room.

The girl closes the door behind him. She goes to the side of the bed. She stares down at the old man, dry-eyed. He glares back up at her, dry-eyed. They remain like this until the old man’s eyes empty and his head falls back into the pillow. He closes his eyes. The girl places her palm on his forehead, she grips his wrist between her fingers. He has slipped away again.

She adjusts the covers. She thinks, You wanted to die here and you did not even know that you were dying. You wanted to come home and die. That is more than what they got. The men and women and children who were hacked to their deaths. Also the soldiers. Also the un-soldiers. And now I am here, too, and I am backed into a corner but at least I am still living. Me and the one inside me. For what that is worth.

Not much, she thinks. It is not worth very much. She lets go of the cover. She turns and leaves the room. She does not want to see Tom or the others so she wanders the halls instead. For lack of anything better to do. She enters the wings that have been closed for months. She leaves the zone of dying where they have been sequestered all these weeks. She walks through the wings (closed but not locked). She opens doors and passes through corridors.

Here she finds rooms emptied of their contents. The walls are masked with sheets of plastic and white cloth. She can barely recognize it as the house she used to know. She looks and sees. Here is the room where this happened. Here is the hall where that happened. It looks nothing like what it once was. It looks like it is all ending. Like it has already ended and they are as extraneous as ghosts.

They and everything that happened to them in this place. It is being spirited away. It is not yet past. But it is slipping away. She can see that soon there will be no way of talking about it. That the past is going to be sealed off and the keys to the locks will be lost. It is already happening and she is starting to forget, she has already forgotten, how she got to where she now is.

There is so much empty floor. Once she was drowning in society, suffocating in its antechambers. Now it receded like ice melting in water. She looks up. These vaulted ceilings, these stone floors, these bay windows and chandeliers. It is too good to let go and too good to destroy. They will make it a government building. A department store. A post office or a bank. They will fill the rooms again and the people will talk about the architecture. They will say it is a good relic of the past preserved. It is a question, she believes, of time. Whether it is one year or one decade or one month.

The girl is sitting huddled and cold in the corner of an empty room when she hears the voices. They are both hushed and panicked. She hears a word here and there, following the native dialect with difficulty. She listens closer, concentrating, and hears more:

“We cannot stay any longer.”

“Look around you. He is dying, it is a matter of days.”

“We have run out of time. You do not know how bad it has become. It is spreading like an infection.”

“That is just the mood. It will not last. You will see that it will not last.”

“Listen. They will kill us. It is not just the settlers. They are killing loyalists all across the country. They are making examples of people. And you are a loyalist if you do not take the oath, it has become like that.”

The voices subside. The girl leans her head back and closes her eyes. She is nearly asleep when the voices return:

“I am no loyalist.”

“You went out in search of adventure. Like a child.”

“If I was looking for adventure I would have joined the Oath Takers.”

“But you do not like them.”

“No.”

“I do not like them either. I am waiting for something else for this country.”

A short laugh.

“You will die waiting. There is nothing else. It is a miracle that even this has happened. We are surrounded by a miracle.”

“It is not my miracle.”

“You do not have any choice. That is what I am trying to tell you. The choice has been made for us. We must do what is best. In order to survive.”

“He is your father. How can you speak like this?”

“He has been no father to me.”

“You know nothing. He has tried.”

“That means nothing. He has given me nothing.”

“He has given you a home. That is the love he could offer us.”

“He gave me the same home he would have given any native, any slave who worked his land. And you call this his love—”

A choked cry.

“No, no. I will not be sorry when he dies.”

Their voices move down the corridor. The girl peers into the darkness. She hears nothing further but she understands. The ghostly echo between Tom and Jose. Jose, who is so much like the old man and therefore so much like her. More — Jose’s hatred for Tom and his ignorance, the things Tom had been protected from knowing. Tom who knows nothing and Jose who sees everything. The father’s strange patrimony.

The secrets of this place. No wonder Jose and Celeste stayed when the others had gone. The old man meaning something to them yet. She cannot believe that she did not see it earlier. Nevertheless, it had been madness for them to stay. She wonders that Jose, canny as he is, could have made this error. It is true none of them know how far the rebellion will spread. But there is little margin for error, and none for human sentiment.

Eventually, she falls asleep. She lies huddled in the corner, on the floor, for hours. When she wakes it is with a jolt to the sound of footsteps. Her sleep has been crammed with the fragments of bad things — the volcano, the veranda, the dying fish. She gets up and half expects that this is the end, for her belly to be slit open and her head sliced off. She wakes out of the dream and she hears the voices again, she hears Tom and Celeste and is temporarily reassured.

She labors to her feet and walks in the direction of the voices. She goes into the old man’s bedroom. He lies spread-eagled on the bed, body flailing from side to side. His eyes roll in circles and there is froth gathering around his mouth. Celeste is asking where the pills are. The girl tells her there’s no point. No way he can swallow anything — just look at him. Celeste insists. The pills. Where are the pills?

She tells Celeste that Tom has them. She does not know where they are. Tom has all the morphine. Where is Tom? She does not know where Tom has gone. The girl cannot take her eyes off the old man. He is panting for breath, he claws at the bed sheets, at his chest and neck, at the air in front of his mouth. He screams in silence, his eyes yellow and bulging with rage and agony.

She steps forward — as Celeste continues to ask for the pills, again and again — and she grabs the old man’s hand. And even though his body keeps convulsing his arm, at least, is still. She grips it tight and tells him that it is going to be okay. It is going to be okay. She holds tighter and then he jerks his head to her, eyes staring. And she tells him again that it is going to be okay and he nods. He is a man grasping at straws and she can see in his eyes that he wants to believe her.

Yes. It is going to be okay. How okay and what okay she doesn’t know but she keeps telling him. It is going to be okay. And he looks at her and then he nods. Yes. It will. Will it? And then Celeste plunges a needle into his arm and they hear the quick suck of the syringe and he collapses back onto the bed.

The girl looks up. Celeste puts the needle down on the bedside table. She rolls the old man onto his side and with a quick jerk pulls down his pants. The girl looks at the old man’s face — it is frozen, it has no expression beyond resigned outrage. Celeste taps the morphine pills out of the bottle and shoves them up his ass. Her face says nothing as she pulls the old man’s trousers up again and lowers him to the bed. She pulls the covers up and he lies in perfect stillness.

Tom stands in the doorway, gripping the open canvas medicine bag to his chest. Celeste sighs and steps back from the bed. The girl stares at her blankly.

“Is he alive?”

The three of them stare at each other and then Celeste leaves the room. She is conscious of having done more than she intended. There is a long low wheeze and then the smell of shit fills the room. Like nothing they have ever smelled. The girl knows they should clean him but it is a distant thought. Tom shuffles up to the side of the bed and stares down at the old man’s face.

“What did Celeste give him?”

Carine shakes her head and walks to the door. Tom finds a chair and sits down. She looks back at him.

“What are you doing?”

“We can’t leave him.”

She thinks about it. She needs to lie down. She needs to eat. She cannot even breathe in this room. Tom is looking up at her. He is sitting in the cloud of smell and his face is full of decision, it says he is going to sit, for as long as it takes. After all, it is all that he has left. She nods.

“Fine.”

She leaves the room.

12

The old man stays in a coma for the next three days. He does not stir. His breath is regular as a clock but a clock that is gradually slowing. They listen to his breath and now they are waiting for him to die in earnest. To go on and get it over with. His breath is slowing but too slowly for their taste.

They would like him to die. They cannot wait much longer — they do not believe it is physically possible. The strain is immense. They are not getting enough sleep. They are not remembering to eat. Celeste is cooking all day. Always there is a pot on the stove, she is cooking through their last remaining store of food. But they have lost their appetite.

They are the living and it is difficult for the living to contend with the dying. There is not enough space. The old man inflates and expands and he presses them against the walls of the house. They are having trouble breathing from this position. While the old man’s own breath swishes rhythmically in and out.

Flattened against the walls and ceiling they listen to the sound of his breathing. They wait for the walls to crack. For the house to collapse. It is obvious the structure cannot hold. There is not room for all of them and the dying and something will have to give. They hope it will be the house and not them. That it will not be their lungs that collapse first.

Tom alone sits by the old man’s bed and holds his vigil. He does not want the old man to lie unattended. He does not want him to die alone. Of course it is a possibility. He might get up to stretch his legs or use the toilet and whoosh in a flash he may go. It could end like this, it is a roll of the dice each time. But Tom needs to believe that there are still things he can do. At least inside this one room. That some things can still be maintained, even if too late.

Therefore Tom sits by the bed and the others, they sit pressed against the wall, they tumble out windows and crawl back in again. For three days Tom sits. He is persistent. He will not allow a single second of the dying to escape him. The others watch and to them it is like he is grasping the dying man to him, like he would devour the already stinking body if he could. He has the sense that he will dissolve when the old man dies, he can see the moment around the corner.

But even Tom’s persistence cracks in the face of this interminable dying. On the third day he leaves the bedroom and goes outside. He has had nothing but the smell of dying. The sweetness of which is now as strong as candy boiling. Lately he is having trouble breathing, he pinches his nose and holds his breath when he leans in to lift his father, to wipe him down and change the diaper.

The shit has the color and consistency of tar. A smear of tar on white muslin. Each time Tom examines the diaper like he is reading runes. Like there are signs written into the excrement.

Tom sits in the dark on the porch steps. He remembers putting the outdoor furniture into storage all those months ago. It goes without saying that it feels like a lifetime earlier. He looks down to the river, which is now running clear. Nine months — it has taken nine months but at last the river is clear. There have been no further signs of the rebellion in the valley. There has been nothing but the deafening silence of the old man’s death.

Later, Jose comes out and joins him. He leans against one of the pillars and lights a cigarette. Tom speaks without looking at him.

“Do you think they are coming?”

“I do not know.”

Tom nods. He continues to stare at the river. Which is not only clean but also flowing. In which there are fish, even if they are not huge in number and not yet breeding.

“I will give them everything. Our thousand acres. They can take the house — I have no need of it. I can live on an acre. I can live on less. Only—”

“Only you do not want to die.”

“No. I do not want to die.”

“I do not think they will come so far. There is nothing in it for them. They will return to the city and make their demands. Their leader will make a deal with the Government like before. They are not mindless and they are not without purpose.”

He is watching Tom as he says this. Tom shivers.

“I do not want to die.”

“Nor I.”

Jose turns and goes into the house. Tom stays on the porch. The air is clean and warm. It will be summer in no time. If the old man does not die by summer his body will rot in the heat and that will be that. It will end in this way. It is hard to believe the old man will die. It seems more likely that he will rot before their gathered eyes, it seems more likely he will stay with them forever, undead as he now is.

Tom stands up and goes inside the house. In the kitchen, Celeste has left a tray of cold food. Tom thinks he will take it to the girl, who is sitting with the old man. He takes the tray and goes into the bedroom. The old man’s body has not changed. It is still churning through the air like a wind machine. One of the lids has gone up. The white of the eye is visible and the pupil stares at nothing.

Tom puts the tray down. He lifts and then presses the lid down and sits down. The girl nods to him. They are neither enemies nor friends. It has gone beyond that kind of thing. They may as well be the last two people left in the world. Why did you lift his eye like that? Forget it, she shakes her head. She is tired, she sits by the old man’s feet. She presses her eyes with the heel of her hand.

She stands and leaves the room. Tom stares at the old man. In the last day there has been a change and he has been weighted to the bed. He can see the change clearly. Like there are a thousand stones resting on his body. The old man has been transformed by death’s alchemy: he had been weightless and brittle, now his body is heavy and dense like lead. Tom can no longer move him; his father can no longer be stirred.

He is also now a noise machine. His breath creaks in and out of his body. Like he has a bellows packed inside him. Like he is a giant bagpipe tucked into the bed. His body is very loud despite the stillness, it is making more noise than it made in all its life. Tom sits by the side of the bed and eventually falls asleep. He is dozing, he is slumbering, to the noise of his father dying.

HE WAKES TO a sudden and broad silence. In panic, he leans close to the bed. His breath — certainly his breath has slowed. Tom pitches his body to the bed and puts his ear against his father’s mouth. A long silence. So long that Tom’s heart rate rises in the quiet. It bangs against his chest. Then a sharp intake of breath that is dry — very dry, more like a mechanical click than a breath. Then another long silence.

A swell of nausea rises inside him. He leans closer to the old man. He listens to the silence. He counts it out — one, two, three — ten seconds, more like twelve. Fifteen. Can he be dead? Is this how it looks? He places his fingers on his neck and searches for a pulse. The vein is still and he presses harder and harder until he is almost throttling him with his hands. He feels nothing, no whisper of a pulse. And yet the old man does not look dead.

It has been thirty seconds — it has been longer, he has lost track. He freezes with his hands on the old man’s neck. His head is spinning. He tries to recover his count. He loosens his grip and drops his hands. He clenches them together in his lap. To keep himself from grabbing the old man’s neck again. Please. Do not go. Now he wishes he knew how to pray. A sound as loud as a shotgun bursts out of the old man’s throat and Tom sees his body finally let go.

Tom sits by the side of the bed. For a long time his mind is blank. He stares down at the corpse. He reaches for his arm and then stops. He does not move. The old man’s face grows rigid. It happens in a minute. One minute or maybe two. He is human and then he is no longer human, he is a thing with its mouth open like a maw. Its eyes staring in shock at the ceiling. Its eyes having opened at some point in its death.

It is not a face for the dying. It turns out the face of death is not a face for the dead. Sickened by what he sees, Tom tries to close the jaw. He presses and presses and the open maw does not yield until he uses the heel of his palm and the knuckles of his fist and then with a snap the mouth closes. He reaches forward and presses hard on the lids, until he feels the old man’s eyes sink beneath his fingers.

Tom drops his hands. He stands for a moment and then quickly leaves the room. He passes the kitchen, he can hear Celeste working at the stove. It is the middle of the night but she is banging pots and pans — she is unhappy with him and Jose, it is like when they were children. Now the old man is dead and who knows what will happen, what she will do with her dissatisfaction. Tom does not go into the kitchen. He goes to his room and gets into bed.

He does not actually sleep. He sits beneath the covers and stares into darkness. The old man’s death lying huddled in the corner of his brain. Whether it is dormant or expired he does not know. But it is quiet and the rest of his brain is like a desert or wasteland. It is like he has been emptied. He is not capable of stirring the death in his mind. He imagines that blankness is preferable.

Eventually, he exits the house and discovers it is dawn. Light appears on the horizon and he sees that the soil is green and the land stretches out in the direction of the sun. The land has been liberated. Its imprimatur is gone. Tom is in a daze. I will be in a daze for a long time, he thinks. That is the first thought that he has in relation to the old man’s death. A pop as he is set free. Then his mind is quiet again.

Past the gate he sees the girl, sitting underneath a tree. She is staring down the track. It is morning and getting warm. Tom thinks: she is going to run. She has done it before and there is nothing to stop her doing it again. He will tell her that the old man is dead and then there will be no reason for her to stay. They should both leave. There is no point in staying. But Tom does not think that he can leave, he does not think he is able.

He sits down next to her and she does not look up. They sit side by side. He sits and does not think he will ever be able to stand up again.

After a long silence, he speaks.

“Are you going to leave?”

She shakes her head.

“Are you thinking about it?”

She shakes her head again.

He nods and turns back to the road. He does not tell her the old man is dead. He tells himself that there is time for that later. He tells himself that there is time for many things, that one day he will love the memory as he never loved the man, one day he will be able to do this. But he does not see how such a thing will come to pass, the hope of ordinary things having grown impossible. Meanwhile, the death still prone inside him.

The girl came down to the road in order to escape the house. When she reached the gate and saw the dirt road — then she thought about going. She thought she should go now, while the road was open, while the country was quiet. There was nothing here worth waiting for. She did not believe in the farm’s safety. But then she had another instinct and changed her mind. Soon. But not yet. She sat down beneath the tree instead.

Now she looks at Tom. His heart quickens. He stares at the ground and says nothing. She reaches out and gently strokes his hair.

“I said to Jose that I would help tend the garden.”

He nods.

“We can grow things to eat. He said that he would show me.”

He does not move but waits. She strokes his hair again and then she tells him that she will stay. She tells him that she is not going to go. She knows that Tom will never leave the farm. The truth is that she does not mind lying. She drops her hand back down to her belly. She feels it hard beneath her fingers and then her mouth goes dry. When she speaks it is without meaning to.

“He is not going to come.”

Tom looks up.

“Who?”

She ignores him and presses harder on her belly. She tries to press her fingers in. Her body has changed. The baby made of lead has turned her torso into wood. She cannot break or crack it. She tries. She makes a fist and sinks her knuckles in but it does not give or even splinter. It is hard as the polished surface of a table and solid throughout.

She shakes her head and looks at Tom.

“It is made of wood. It has turned into wood.”

How can she make him understand? He does not know what to say, he does not even know what she means. He has no way of responding. She reaches out and takes his hand and lays it on her belly. She tries to show him what has happened.

“Do you see? It is made of wood. I am turning into wood.”

It is solid as rock. He starts to think he understands what she means. But then there is a stirring. A kick of alien life. The lead baby stirring. They look at each other.

“Do you see?”

She says it again. Her eyes are hard. She thinks to herself that it is hopeless. She will never be able to leave. She will be stuck dragging her wood belly back and forth across the length of the farm forever. It will kill her in the end. She asks him again. If he sees, if he can understand how it happened, how her belly turned to wood. He nods. He almost thinks he does see but of course does not.

They give up and stop talking. The girl sits and presses her hands into her wood belly. The wood begins to hum and vibrate. She turns pale. Tom does not feel the vibration. He is too busy staring down the road. He sees a cloud of dust. The sound of a motor in the distance. He sits up and peers across to the horizon.

With a roar an army truck catapults into view. The earth now trembling. The dust scattering in plumes behind the vehicle. A group of men hang out the side, holding machetes and AK-47s. The car careens across the road and the machetes swing. The girl lets out a strangled cry. Tom pulls her to her feet and together they crouch behind the tree.

The army truck continues to race forward. From the opposite direction, a horse and rider appear on the road, coming from the direction of the stables, heading toward the truck. It is Jose, who does not realize about the men. Who is about to make a terrible mistake. Tom almost cries out a warning but quickly the girl presses her hand against his mouth.

They watch as the horse moves down the road, the roaring vehicle and the galloping animal pulled together across the horizon. The truck now clearly in view. Tom waits for Jose to turn around, to veer and to run. He does not. He rides straight up to the truck and comes to a halt before the men. The horse snorting and rearing as the truck engine idles. Horrified, Tom waits for the gunshot.

There is no gunshot. Jose points in the direction of the house. He says something to the men. A second later he is continuing down the road. The men shout something and he raises his arm in reply, then disappears down the track. The men give another cry. They gun the motor and the truck leaps forward. In the direction of the house. In the direction of where they are sitting. The wheels spinning through the dirt.

Tom stares at the vehicle. The truck now lifting off the ground as it races toward them. The girl reaches for his hand and grips it. Tears streaming down her face. It is too late, Tom thinks. It is too late. His knuckles white and shaking. He watches the truck and braces himself for what is coming. They both do.

They sit by the tree and wait.