Jim Crace - All That Follows

Leonard never sees the hostages. They are the last to leave their home. But from the shelter of his garden wall he has clear views of their captors. The Filipina woman, Donut Paredes, is the first to be pushed through the door and led by two armed female officers out of the front garden into the sharply lit street. She looks in better health than in the television photographs, where her face was cut, bruised, and swollen. Her hair has grown out a bit, not quite the student ponytail of her youth but black and styled. The four-day break has done her good. Her hands are cuffed behind her back, but she walks briskly, despite the restraining grip of her minders. She takes deep breaths, as if she is finding the air crisp and flavorsome. She calls out once. Not a slogan. Nothing political. Not No pasarán but “Rafaelo. Te quiero.” It’s when she’s being ducked into one of the waiting armored saloons and sees her lover, the hardened Nicaraguan, being brought out of the house, feet first, between four hefty, clumsy officers, like a struggling boy, resisting playground bullies.

Maxim Lermontov is last. The hair is unmistakable. Otherwise he is hardly recognizable. Either he has been stripped from the waist up and forced to remove his footwear or he was in the shower when the raid began. He’s slender still, but hollowed out and ribby, no longer young and toned. He’s middle-aged like Leonard now. His walk attempts to be just as insolent as it ever was, but he’s barefoot — it’s not easy to shuffle insolently without shoes. His near-nakedness and the biting cold of the morning, together with the runny eyes and hacking cough caused by whatever canisters and sprays the police have used on him, have robbed the Final Warning warrior of any majesty. He’s shivering. His head is down. His mouth is dripping phlegm. He’s looking like a cornered animal.

Leonard steps into the street, just as the day’s rain starts with a bilious thunderclap. He should announce himself, at least. He remembers the advice from Austin: “In circumstances such as this, just make it loud. And keep it short and simple, yeah?” Leonard pumps his lungs and spreads his legs. Habit almost makes him mime a saxophone. But what — apart from “Shame, shame, shame”—can he call out, except their captive’s name? Maxie. Maxim. Max. No, anyone could use those names — the police, a press photographer: “This way, Maxie, for the cameras.” Almost instinctively, then, and on his third or fourth step toward the cars lined up to take away the Final Warning trio, Leonard yells out, “Maximum.” It does the trick, amazingly. Maxie lifts his head and stares across at the familiar man who is now striding toward him. Unexpectedly, he recognizes who it is at once, though he evidently can’t recall the name — that very stiff and very English name. “It’s the fuckin’ herbivore,” he says, and tries to take a step into the street, pulling away from his escorts for a second. Leonard hurries forward now, at jogging speed. “It would have been ill-mannered and unfriendly,” he explains later in his many interviews, “to not say hi at least.” He doesn’t know what he should do when he and Maxie meet. Shaking hands is out of the question. The man is handcuffed, like his comrades. A hug would be presumptuous. They never were that close. Besides, Leonard’s damp already from the rain. He doesn’t even know what he should say, except “I’m taking care of Lucy.”

The shout of “Maximum” has not just alerted Maxie. In less time than it takes to say Kapow, you’re dead , Maxie has been thrown to the ground. His cheek and naked chest are on the wet tarmac, a knee is pressed against his shoulder, his hair is bunched and gripped tightly at the back. Automatic guns and tasers are swiveling, fingers on their triggers. Three red laser lights dance on Leonard’s jacket. Fireflies again. They’re shouting at him now, a hubbub of instructions: “Stay where you are,” “Get down, arms out,” and “On your knees.” Three men in combat uniforms are running at him, their nightsticks drawn, their hot breath smoking in the morning chill.

Leonard does not doubt what he should do. Don’t hesitate. Retreat. He turns his back on them and starts toward the waste ground and the safety of the Buzz. It’s Budapest again: his terror is too deep to spot, but he is mute and powerless with fear, hardly able to breathe, let alone walk. He does walk, though, and tries his best to move as nonchalantly as a man who does not understand what hurry means. He aims to be so slow and insubstantial that the red laser lights he knows are trained on him will pass straight through his back and head and pale into the night. Half a second and he’s dead.

Their lasered target succeeds in taking another dozen steps. Before he has reached the corner by the press marquee and the posses of journalists and camera crews just released to inspect and film the hostage house, the three night runners catch the herbivore. The first blow that he takes — a kick, in fact, clinically delivered — is to the back of his calf. It topples him. He’s down before he feels the pain. The second is a knee, rammed into his frozen shoulder. He feels that pain at once, and yells. The third blow is a silencing and stunning punch to the jaw. It clicks his head back sharply, knocks off his beach cap. All he hears is someone shouting, “Make him safe, make him safe.” The men are frisking him, simply pulling out his pockets and pushing their hard fingers into his niches and his angles. “He’s clean and he’s made safe,” one shouts eventually. Another advises, “Keep it easy, lads.” A third, his mouth a centimeter from Leonard’s ear, is whispering, “You hear me, pal? You so much as twitch and you are getting tasered. That’s fifty thousand volts, understand, you fuck? You’ll never want to twitch again. Be a hero or be sensible. Your call.” Leonard cannot know, but it will seem that he is being both.

FRANCINE IS AWAKE BY NOW. Awake and tired. It’s not nearly dawn, but she slips out of bed and looks into the street to see if Leonard has come back with her car. She’s not sure how much time has passed since he went out. It can’t be long. He will have walked to where they parked in less than fifteen minutes. He’ll be back quite soon. She checks her phone: no messages. She speed-dials Leonard’s cell. It’s off. She’d better dress. It will be good to have an early start, get home and make the most of Sunday. She waits at the window, like a trawler man’s wife. The street outside the Woodsman is quiet. The parked cars have it to themselves. Again it’s raining, and the wind has lifted from the east, bringing in a Russian chill that rattles the windows of the room in hostile gusts. It is a Sunday morning wind, the sort that says that it will be okay to stay all day in bed. But this is not a bed for staying in, and so the weather must be faced. She pulls the sash window up and leans out into the cold as far as she can, so that she has views across the rooftops toward Alderbeech. She sees a helicopter and what looks like the hard white glow of floodlights. At once she knows what they must signify — the siege is finally over. Lights, camera, action — that’s how it always goes. So that’s where Leonard is, standing at the barrier and watching. She knows better than to wait for him. When her husband is spectating — at anything from a tennis match in the park to a fight outside a pub — he seems to lose all sense of time. He has to stay and watch from his safe distance until there is no drama left. So Francine settles the hotel bill by posting cash in the early-bird payment safe and sets off toward the car by the route that Leonard is bound to use himself on his return. She expects to spot her Buzz and husband at any moment. She will wave, and he will pull across to let her in and take her home. A pleasing prospect. Everything is pleasing, even the rain. The walk itself is deeply satisfying, and not only because she has escaped that room. She feels unexpectedly young and sensuous. She has not washed or changed her clothes. She has not cleaned her teeth. What makeup she had on last night has smudged across the pillows on the bed. Her lips are bruised from kissing. Her cheeks are wet and flushed. She’s warm and satisfied. In ways she does not even try to understand, the helicopter and the distant blush of lights suggest a rescue she has feared would never come. Everyone is rescued, actually, not only the hostages and not just Lucy Emmerson, rescued from herself, but Leonard and Francine too, and — dare she think it? — Celandine.