Caryl Phillips - The Nature of Blood

'But why does he want to fight? Does he not see that it is hopeless?'

'It is not hopeless,' snapped Rosa. 'If we do not fight, then we have lost.'

(We? Always we. Rosa and her 'we'.)

'But we have already lost, Rosa. They are everywhere.'

I paused, for my friend was staring at me with a pained expression. I softened my tone.

'I'm sorry.'

'Eva, we have not lost. And I cannot go to him. I am a wife, so I must be where he can visit me.'

'But with us you are in danger, Rosa.'

'But with him I am in danger. It's all the same.'

'But you can save yourself. If they come in the night, there will be no time for explanations.'

For a moment there was silence. And then Rosa took my hand.

'Eva, I have made my choice. I have no regrets. Truly, no regrets.'

It was a long hot summer that second year, and the heat served only to increase the stench and the sadness. People continued to fall dead in the street from starvation, but an increasingly common practice was the taking of one's own life, and that of one's family. Jumping from a high window was a popular individual method, while rat poison administered to food was a common way of dispatching a household at one sitting. By utilizing these and other procedures, one remained master of life and death. A precious gift. Mama fell ill, so it was now Papa alone who left on the daily search for food. Rosa and I would sit together in the kitchen, the heat dripping from our bodies, talking and mopping our brows, while Mama lay alone in the cool darkness of her room. And then one day, Papa came home early, and he told Rosa and I that he had seen a girl of about my own age throw herself in front of a military vehicle. Papa's jacket was stained with blood. The horror of this girl's suicide had struck Papa a heavy blow. He waited a few minutes. Then he calmly told us that today he had also seen the son of a fellow doctor begging with open palms. Again, he waited a few moments, then he looked from Rosa to his daughter, then back again to Rosa.

'Some among us are behaving like animals. But we are human beings.'

And then he lowered his eyes. Papa's heavily fortified personality lay in ruins.

'It is written in the Holy Books,' he began, 'that a time will come when the living shall envy the dead.'

The summer heat gave way to grey skies, and then the freezing chill of a second winter. By now I had lost interest in my studies, although I occasionally still sought refuge in my books. An ailing Mama simply languished in bed and waited for her husband to return. One morning, she called me in to her bedside. With her stiffened fingers she touched my threadbare dress, and then, in a feverish voice, she began to try to explain the pain that she felt at not being able to buy clothes for daughters who were growing tall.

'I remember, you girls used to love to look at yourselves in the mirror. You used to try different hairdos, and secretly put on my make-up, and my jewellery, and my clothes. But of course, I knew. Neither of you could ever put anything back in the right place.'

Then Mama suddenly stopped, her face knotting before my eyes into a painful grimace. She turned from me. I left Mama and went into my cold room and locked the door. I sobbed all night. And then, in the morning, I began to keep a journal, but within a week I gave it up, for I could no longer summon the energy to maintain the daily pretence that I was writing to my sister.

I saw less of my friend Rosa. When I did see her, she seemed to be physically shrinking as the days became shorter. If her aspect could be used as a barometer of our general condition, then we were thoroughly exhausted. Out in the streets, the hostile noises and barked orders had begun to grow even louder. One morning, I looked through the high kitchen window as the bulky sewage wagon rumbled by. These days, it was pulled by men who were wrapped like mummies. The fresh snow and weak grey light made these thin figures appear ghostly, a state to which they would soon be reduced. There was no longer water in the standpipes, so people cleaned themselves in snow. And there were no tools to bury the dead in this frozen earth, so it was now acceptable for people to simply lie where they fell. By the time the spring arrived, we knew that our streets would soon be sealed. It was over. We were to be sent away on the trains, for we were needed elsewhere. The rumour was that, by the end of the spring, the whole district would be reduced to rubble. I wanted to discuss this with Rosa, but after the long hot summer I seldom saw her. My friend's increasingly reclusive behaviour, and her obvious physical decline on the few occasions that I did glimpse her, disturbed me greatly. I could not understand what was happening to her.

Towards the end of the summer, I had sat with Rosa in the kitchen and told her about Margot. About her being in hiding. About my sister, who was a year older than I, and who looked like them. (Apparently, according to Mama, I bore the stamp of Jerusalem.) I asked Rosa that if, by any chance, she should change her mind and decide to leave, would she please find my sister and be sure to tell her that Eva loves her and is thinking about her. Rosa clasped her bony hands around mine and whispered, 'Of course.' And the longer I talked to Rosa, the more I found myself speaking to her as though her leaving were inevitable, her discovery of Margot only a matter of time, her reclamation of her old life a certainty. Yet Rosa said nothing further. She simply listened as I retold tales of Margot's escapades, and of how I was sure that my sister was harbouring a boyfriend named Peter, and I talked on until I noticed the sad smile on Rosa's face. And then I fell silent in embarrassment. And then again, Rosa squeezed my hands between her own. 'Don't worry,' she whispered. 'It will be all right.'

This turned out to be the last conversation that I ever had with Rosa. At nights I heard her walking around her room, and during the day, although I stationed myself in the kitchen so that I might see her should she venture out, Rosa seemed determined to be by herself. And then, one late spring day, we received the fateful news that at six-thirty the next morning we were to report to the train station with clothes for a journey. All valuables were to be surrendered, and all who failed to report would be punished. I watched as a defeated Mama and Papa prepared themselves in silence. I could see the terrible truth in Papa's dead eyes. His flame of hope had gone out long before the arrival of this latest gust of wind. And Mama, having reluctantly removed her wedding ring and her mother's antique necklace, simply sat with her head bowed.

But my thoughts were not with my parents. I wondered about Rosa. Had she truly been abandoned? I turned my mind back to that first afternoon nearly two years ago, when Rosa caught me standing on the wooden crate, a shaft of light illuminating her face, a young woman waiting for her husband. And I remembered how, after she had gone back to her room, I had again looked out of the window. However, unable to concentrate, I had climbed down and sat at the table and simply stared at her closed door. When Mama and Papa arrived back, they were extremely angry to find 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. Then, having heard me out, Mama looked in the direction of Rosa's room and spoke quietly, but firmly. 'She married outside of her people.' Mama spoke as though she wished me to understand that this was the greatest crime that a person could commit. Then she smiled at me, rose to her feet, and left me by myself. It was our secret. I had no idea that Mama possessed such attitudes. That night, I lay in bed and listened to the immensity of the silence coming from Rosa's room. Nearly two years later, the same silence.