Caryl Phillips - The Nature of Blood

My friend, an African river bears no resemblance to a Venetian canal. Only the strongest spirit can hold both together. Only the most powerful heart can endure the pulse of two such disparate life-forces. After a protracted struggle, most men will eventually relinquish one in favour of the other. But you run like Jim Crow and leap into their creamy arms. Did you truly ever think of your wife's soft kiss? Or your son's eyes? Brother, you are weak A figment of a Venetian imagination. While you still have time, jump from her bed and fly away home. Peel your rusty body from hers and go home. No good can come from your foreign adventure. A wooden ladle lightly dipped will soon scoop you up and dump you down and into the gutter. Brother, jump from her bed and fly away home.

Eva slipped and fell into the snow. She scrambled quickly to her feet, but could feel the warm trickle of Hood where her left leg had hit against something hard — probably a rock. She knew that later it would hurt, but later did not matter. She ran on. Behind her, the soldiers' voices grew louder and more animated, but it was the barking of the dogs that frightened her, for she felt sure that at any moment they would be allowed off the leash. It was foolish of her to imagine that in her condition she might outrun grown, healthy men. Dogs would find her easy sport. If only she might be scooped up by some large celestial hand and gently deposited across water and into some other world. The soldiers would gather in a breathless huddle and call off the search. They would knock their tightly packed cigarettes out of their boxes, light up and agree that she was more trouble than she was worth. That she would not last the night. That the wolves would get her. But Eva ran on, furiously weaving her way through the trees, diving beneath branches and stumbling over exposed roots, until she saw the small house in the clearing.

She threw her body against the wooden door, which immediately gave way under her timid weight. She pushed it shut behind her. Eva looked down at her leg and saw the blood. Only now did she feel the pain. It shook her so hard she whimpered. And then again she heard the dogs. For an instant, she had imagined that she might have thrown the soldiers off her trail, but now there was only one last hope. She hobbled across the dark deserted room, through another door, and into the storeroom at the back. Once there, she called to her Mama, who was too weak to answer with anything other than a whispered, 'Eva.' At least Mama was safe. Outside, Eva could hear the soldiers who seemed now to have surrounded the house. Why was she so stupid? Why lead them to this place? She could have kept running past the house, deeper into the forest, until the dogs caught her and tore her limb from limb. At least Mama might have survived. But this way? It was madness.

Eva began to climb up the narrow wooden ladder, pushing hard with her good right leg and dragging her lame one behind her. Dogs can smell blood. The storage platform, which would normally bear the weight of hay, was empty apart from the shivering bundle that was her Mama. Eva pushed herself off the top rung of the ladder and, using her elbows, she slithered across the floor and folded herself tightly around Mama, as though providing her with a protective blanket. She heard the outer door fly open with such gale-like force that Eva knew it must have been kicked clear of its moorings. Men and dogs roared furiously, and Mama trembled and muttered her one word, 'Eva.' Eva offered her Mama a thumb to suck on and waited, and wondered if, lying here in the vast expanse of this platform, the soldiers might mistake them for a mound of abandoned garbage. And then the inner door thundered from its hinges. And Eva heard the baying. (Of course, the dogs could not climb the ladder.) And then the creaking of the ladder as the soldiers mounted its rickety structure, and the triumphant shouting, and the laughter, and then she felt the warm thuds as the bullets found scraps of flesh in which to nest.

I have tried to stop dreaming, but it is difficult to control my mind. I sleep as I walk. There is much to look at as we snake through the narrow lanes. It is a new world. Trees and hedges, and small fields. The wind surges again and the snow begins to flurry then swirl. Under the weight of snow, the trees are beginning to stoop over like old men. I fall, then quickly clamber to my feet. The wind tears the breath from my body. I want to live. The snow that already lies on the road makes it difficult to walk. I walk as though each step will be my last. Eva. I remind myself. My name is Eva. I am twenty-one years old. I have shrunk into womanhood. Mama walks beside me. We are people without expression, our backs bent, our heads low, a weary caravan of misery. They are taking us to another place. Goodbye, camp. To another place. Camp, I will never see you again. Another place. Camp, I will always see you. After two years, another place, but we know not where. I look at Mama and ask for forgiveness. Her eyes dim, and she looks at me and says, 'But you have done nothing for which you need to be forgiven.' I brush snow from her lips. Death on this road is a different affair. Lips turn blue, then the heart stops. Life is abruptly terminated. A snow-frosted mound. I cannot find Mama. I have spilt this life, but I will be more careful if you give me another one. I came naked from my mother, and naked will I be taken back. The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. I sleep as I walk. Each step is torture. My wet feet, my wooden shoes, my blisters popping like tiny balloons. I eat the snow from the shoulders of the person ahead of me. I have no body. It is my soul that is now being punished. The sky, the horizon, the fields are all garbed in white. My companions tumble into the ditch. We pass people who refuse to see us. Is this a dream? I find it difficult to control my mind. How will they cleanse the earth after this?

SUICIDE: An act of voluntary and intentional self-destruction. St Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) claimed that suicide was a mortal sin because it usurped God's power over human life and death. However, neither the Old nor the New Testament directly forbids suicide.

In this new place, there is no work. We seldom see guards. There are no roll-calls, nothing but typhus and death. (When we move we flutter like helpless, jittery chickens.) With no routine, it is easy to give up and die. So easy. Four months now and no work. It is spring, but winter remains tethered to us, reluctant to leave. We simply sit in the barracks and wait. Death waits with us, visible, staring us in the face. We simply wait. The toothy grin of death. Again, I have lost Mama. Somewhere on the road. I thought of lying down and giving up, but I willed a way to continue. During the day, I go outside and sit with my back up against a wall. I have discovered a place where I can find what little sun there is. Winter sun. I sit where I can see most of the camp. Men and women lining up to taste a thin trickle of water from a pierced pipe. Troops of cattle. To their side, sick animals lying in pools of their own filth. Glazed eyes. A crazy bowel, perpetually active, shouting its protest. Life leaving without a real struggle, collapsing and tumbling in upon itself. No killing. No last words. No cruelty. Just death. Compared with the last place, there is little noise. I do, however, notice the birds. I envy them, for they can fly wherever they wish. But they keep their distance.

At first I had no idea where she found the knife, but it seemed to me that it could not have been too difficult for her to obtain one. After all, we didn't consider her a suicide risk. But then, when I thought about it, I realized that Marjorie, the nurse, had probably sent the knife to her room with Mr Alston. Eva was supposed to use it to cut the cake that her friend, Mr Gerald Alston, had brought for her. (No. I'm telling you, doctor, I saw it with my own eyes. To start with, they were dying at the rate of a couple of hundred a day. We had to get bulldozers in to move them. They were just too far gone to be brought back to life, just crawling out into the sunlight to die. Feeble it was. Bloody feeble. I saw a woman choke to death on a spoonful of water. I saw it with my own eyes. I can't ever forget that, ever. It'll be with me till the day I die, it will.) There was no reason to think that she would do something irrational. I know now that they suffer feelings such as imagining that they should have died with their families. But back then, I hadn't done any research. Quite simply, I didn't know the danger. She didn't talk much. In fact, I don't think she said anything to anybody. Including myself. But there would have been time for all of that. She wasn't considered to be a serious problem. There were no seizures or fits. But, sadly, we were wrong. There was a problem. There was also a lot of blood. She cut the right artery, as though she knew what she was doing. A lot of blood.