The Rabbit Hunter

46

Parisa calls her sister’s name again. She thinks she sees shadows moving behind the illuminated plastic covering a large motorboat down by the water.

She starts to walk towards the boat, but trips over a rusty outboard motor. There are engine parts and other junk everywhere: windows, buoys, damp boxes full of rolls of tape, anchors, and a clutch of neon tubes leaning against a big forklift-truck.

‘Miss!’ the man calls after her. ‘You can’t just...’

‘Amira?’ Parisa shouts as loudly as she can.

The elderly couple have emerged from the office now, and over her shoulder she sees the man help the old woman down the steep steps, slowly and unsteadily.

The sound of the sander in the workshop stops abruptly.

Parisa detects movement from some distance away. Someone is climbing down an aluminium ladder from one of the boats closest to the water.

It’s Amira.

She’s sure it is.

Her little sister is wearing a blue down jacket, with a shawl covering her head and mouth.

‘Amira!’ she cries out, and starts running down the narrow path.

The old man calls out again. Parisa waves at her sister. She stumbles over a sawhorse but manages to get past it.

Her sister is squinting, trying to see her through the growing darkness in the sprawling boatyard.

Suddenly a large man in overalls comes around the corner of the workshop. He’s limping, leaning on a crutch as he walks towards Parisa. He’s clutching a heavy sander in one hand. The cable snakes off behind him, and white dust is swirling from the dislodged filter.

‘Amira!’ Parisa calls again, just as three spotlights on the front of the building are switched on.

The man with the sander is heading right for her, followed by her sister, who has a look of fear in her eyes.

‘Stop shouting,’ the man mutters, walking into the furthest light beam.

‘Anders, go home,’ the older man calls out behind her.

‘I want my wife,’ he mutters, and stops.

He stares at Parisa through smeared protective goggles. Amira is standing behind him, as if paralysed, unable to get past.

‘Hello,’ Parisa says.

‘Hello,’ he replies quietly.

‘I didn’t mean to disturb you,’ she says. ‘But I was trying to make sure my sister could hear me.’

‘Parisa, they’re crazy, you need to get help!’ her sister calls out in Pashto.

When the man hears Amira’s voice he turns towards her, steps further into the harsh light from the building and hits her hard across the cheek with the crutch. The blow knocks her sideways and she falls to the ground. He moves after her, bellowing, and tries to hit her in the face with the heavy sander. He misses and loses his grip. The machine flies off, dislodges the frame of an old window, and thuds to the ground.

‘Stop!’ Parisa shouts, trying to open the bag where her gun is hidden.

Amira is lying on her side, trying to crawl away. The man is kicking out at her, and waving his crutch.

‘My wife!’ he yells.

‘Stop it!’ Parisa cries, pulling the pistol from her bag with shaking hands.

He turns towards her and she pulls the catch back and takes aim at him.

‘Dad said she was my wife now,’ he says in a thick voice.

Parisa sees him looking towards the office building, and turns to see that the old man is still supporting the woman as they slowly approach along the gravel path.

‘She was given to me,’ the thickset man says, wiping snot from his nose with his sleeve.

‘Get out of the way,’ Parisa says sharply.

‘No,’ he says, shaking his head obstinately.

Parisa marches over and hits him in the face with the pistol, right in the goggles. He stumbles back and lands in the weeds in front of the building.

Holding the pistol with both hands and keeping it trained on him, she calls to her sister. Amira starts crawling towards her, but lets out a frightened shriek when the man rolls over and grabs one of her ankles.

‘Let go of her, or I’ll shoot!’ Parisa roars.

She raises the gun and fires into the air, then quickly aims at his chest as the shot echoes between the buildings.

‘Let go of her!’ she shouts again, her voice cracking.

‘Anders doesn’t understand. He’s only a child,’ the older man calls out behind them.

With a gasp, Parisa spins around and aims the pistol at the old man as he comes closer. The old woman is sitting on a stack of starter-motors further up the path.

‘Dad, you said I was going to have a wife,’ the large man wails from the ground.

‘Anders,’ his father pants. ‘I said... that if no one wanted her, you could have her.’

Parisa can feel hysteria flaring in her chest. The elderly man holds his hands up and takes a step towards her.

‘Stop or I’ll shoot,’ Parisa yells at him. ‘Amira’s coming with me. I’ll pay you later. You’ll get your money, but—’

Her head flashes and her vision fades as something strikes the back of her neck hard from behind. She lurches forward, then her knees buckle and she hits her forehead against a post, drops the gun and falls sideways. She feels blood start to run down her face.

With a groan she struggles to get up, but it feels like someone’s pressing a scorching hot sponge against her neck.

The ground sways beneath her. As she fumbles for something to grab hold of she hears Amira screaming with fear. She tries to pull herself up against the cold metal wall, spitting blood. She sees that other migrants have clambered down from different boats and are cautiously coming closer.

‘You don’t exist!’ roars a bearded man in his fifties. He clutches a shotgun.

He lashes out a second time with the barrel of the gun and she collapses, spilling an old pushchair full of used oil filters, and scraping her shoulder on the gravel.

She raises her head and tries to see where her gun is, but the blow to the back of her head has affected her vision. The world is flickering and shaking. She can only just make out the heavyset man with the goggles as he moves towards Amira.

Gasping for breath, Parisa tries to stand up again. She spits blood, and hears the bearded man say he’s going to wipe them out.

He kicks her in her ribs and she rolls over. She tries to catch her breath but he looms over her and yanks off her veil so hard that the friction against her neck stings.

‘You’ve got faces — fucking hell, you’ve got faces!’ the bearded man yells.

‘Linus, that’s enough,’ the elderly father says.

Wiping her mouth, Parisa tries to locate her pistol. Above the man with the shotgun she sees the flagpole shake in the wind, its blue and yellow pennant twitching and fluttering.

The bearded man, Linus, walks over to Parisa, presses the end of the shotgun hard between her breasts, then lowers the barrel, sliding it over her stomach and in between her thighs. Then he stops, and stands there breathing hard.

‘Please,’ she begs quietly.

‘Linus, calm down,’ the father says.

The bearded man trembles, then quickly jerks the gun towards Parisa’s face and puts his finger on the trigger.

‘Or would you rather not have a face? You don’t really want one, do you?’ he asks.

‘Stop it now,’ the father cries with fear in his voice.

‘She doesn’t want a face,’ he replies.

Parisa tries to move her head, but he follows her movements with the gun.

Anders is crying, covering Amira’s mouth and nose with his hand. Her legs are kicking weakly, and her eyes have rolled back.

‘Please, Linus, don’t go too far, we don’t want the cops here,’ the father pleads.

Sweat runs from the man’s beard down his neck. He mutters something and presses the cold barrel of the shotgun to Parisa’s forehead.