Caryl Phillips - The Nature of Blood

'Just people,' I said. 'Lots of people.'

I lived for nearly two years in that small apartment, abandoning my books, making daily visits to the high window in the tiny kitchen, and staring at the world which my parents had forbidden me to re-enter. They feared that, should I venture out, they would lose their remaining daughter, and so I was to remain hidden inside. I understood that we were fortunate, that most were living ten or more to an apartment, and that Papa's money, and what little influence Mama still had, had bought us this luxury of space. But still, I was unhappy and frustrated, and sixteen.

Rosa stayed in the room next to mine, but I had never heard a sound through the wall, or, until the afternoon she surprised me in the kitchen, caught a glimpse of this mysterious woman. However, during the day, when my parents were out, I often heard a man who came regularly to visit her. I would sit in my room and listen to him pounding up the communal stairs. Then I would hear the front door open, then slam, and then I would listen to the hurried patter of his feet as he scampered into Rosa's room. Soon I knew how to time my exit so that I would be in the kitchen by the time he curled himself around the front door. He would look down the short hallway and see me standing on the crate. An unshaven man, with dirty worn clothes, he seemed an unlikely visitor. Perhaps three times a week he would simply smile at me, and then he would disappear into Rosa's room.

'A friend,' was Rosa's response to my question. 'Just a friend.'

'But why is your friend not living here with us?'

Rosa gave me a tired smile.

'He cannot be with us. He's fighting. In the underground.'

I looked down at her bony hands, then up again at her anxious face. She could only have been in her mid-twenties, yet she seemed so sad.

'I see.' I watched as Rosa tried to hide her hands in the folds of her cotton dress.

But, of course, I didn't really see. Rosa and I would spend long afternoons taking turns on the crate, and then Rosa would suddenly step down and disappear before Mama and Papa returned. No 'goodbye'. No 'see you tomorrow'. She would just turn and leave, as though in her mind an alarm-bell was sounding. I would climb back up on to the crate and once more survey the streets that were crowded with the desperate and the hungry. With each passing day, the women in the street grew to resemble men; by this time, it was often difficult to tell the difference. And then, later in the afternoon, I would once again step from the crate, drag it back to its familiar place, and return to my room and my books, and pull in the door behind me.

The day that Rosa surprised me on the crate, Mama and Papa arrived back early and were extremely angry to discover me sitting in the kitchen. Papa stormed off into their room, but Mama stayed with me. I explained in a low voice about Rosa, and how wonderful but frightened she was, and Mama listened patiently. However, I sensed that I should not be discussing Rosa. Before my discovery of her (or her discovery of me), Mama and Papa had seemed reluctant to answer any of my questions about the young woman in the apartment. Was she old or young? Did she own the small apartment that we had been forced to move into? Was she pretty or ugly? Did she know that we had had to leave nearly everything behind, including Mama's piano? Did she know that we were not poor, that I had a sister, that the things we brought with us were merely the things that we could carry? Did she know? Mama and Papa always evaded my questions with a polite smile. And then they would change the subject. And then, in the morning, they would once more go out into the streets to find whatever they could, and each evening they would return with the evidence of their labour. A single potato was a triumph. Or an egg. Or a misshapen loaf of illicitly baked bread. Papa was too honest to become involved in any of the smuggling rings, so there were never any treats. Never any fruit. Never any sugar.

After they discovered me in the kitchen, Mama and Papa must have talked. A week later, Papa came to me and announced that, because the heat was becoming more oppressive, he understood that I could not be expected to remain in a stifling room all day. Not only was the door to be unlocked, but I could occasionally leave. Finally, they were treating me as an adult. Papa continued and said he hoped that I knew that I would soon see Margot again. He also told me that they, too, missed her. Papa never said how, or where, or when I might see Margot again; he simply said he hoped that I knew that I would soon see her again. I almost believed him.

'Are they killing people today?'

I heard Rosa's voice and turned from the window. The early autumn light was catching Rosa's face and accentuating her pale features.

'Don't watch if they're killing people.'

I stepped down from the crate and smiled at my friend. I was the same height as Rosa. These days, she seldom seemed to venture anywhere without her shawl. During the summer, the shawl was occasionally forgotten, but now, summer over, she always wore the shawl across her rounded shoulders.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'Please, watch if you must.'

'I don't like watching.'

'I know you don't. You're just curious. It's perfectly normal.'

I felt ashamed. There was nothing normal about watching a boy dancing barefoot, one hand outstretched, his brother's corpse curled at his feet, and people slouching around them both as though neither of them were visible. Normal? I had almost forgotten the meaning of the word. These days, Rosa and I talked more easily. She informed me that I was lucky, for my parents were relatively young. Even though the weather was turning bitter, they still had the energy to go out. They still had hope.

It was almost December, and snow had fallen heavily and settled. In the street it was thick and discoloured, and piled up like ploughed mud. Rosa had long confessed to me that she was married to her unshaven friend in dirty worn clothes, but that was all she told me. She opened and closed her confession in a single sentence. He is my husband. As I huddled in bed, and imagined the fearsome wind in some distant place stripping the remaining leaves from trees, I realized that these days I heard the pounding of his feet less frequently. I was disappointed, for I had become accustomed to his winking at me conspiratorially before he disappeared into Rosa's room. And then one afternoon, as the snow began to fall again, and while I stood on the crate wearing cap, scarf and gloves, I asked Rosa without turning to face her.

'Why does your husband not live with us?'

She did not answer. For a few moments, I was too nervous to turn around and face her. When I eventually did turn, she was smiling sadly.

'I told you, he's fighting on the outside.'

'He lives on the outside?'

She nodded.

'But he could get you out. You could live on the outside too. Both of you.'

'Yes,' said Rosa. 'That is possible, but then he would have difficulty visiting me.'

That evening, I dared to raise the name of my friend Rosa with my parents. Mama looked up at me and shook her head slowly and with resignation.

'She should forget him and live among her own kind. With them, she has a chance of a life.'

Papa looked across at his wife.

Spring arrived. It ceased snowing. In our streets birds did not sing, or trees bud, or flowers bloom. There were rumours that, within the year, we would be taken to the east. That the streets and houses would be emptied. And in the east? Work, of course. We would be required to labour like farm animals until we dropped. I had begun to question Rosa openly about her husband who seemed to be neglecting her. Three months had passed since his last visit. Had he gone away? Rosa simply smiled and shook her head.