Robert McGill - Once We Had a Country

He sits in the middle of the carpet with a film strip lying all around him. It’s off its reel, hundreds of feet long, twisted, knotted, and tangled about chair legs. The white projection wall is gouged where he has flung the reel against it. He isn’t wearing his glasses. What happened to them? He shouldn’t have been driving without his glasses.

“Where is everyone?” he says.

“Gone,” she answers, “or hiding in the barracks.”

Without a moment’s pause, he says to her, “You humiliated me.”

Her sympathy drops away. He can’t accuse her of such a thing. Has he been thinking it all this time? “I didn’t see it till the rest of them did,” she says. “How was I to know what was on the reel?”

He looks unbelieving. “But you always watch them first. Always.”

“I was busy, there wasn’t time. I just stuck it on.” She’s talking fast, searching for lines of defence, and recalls the start of the evening. “You! You were hurrying me along, remember? So I could help Rhea.” She waits for him to relent, then lapses into even darker thoughts. “You must think I’m an idiot,” she says, not hiding her bitterness. He seems surprised by this statement, but not as surprised as she would like.

“What are you talking about?”

“On the film, you were speaking to someone. Who was running the camera?”

He remains quiet. She thinks she can hear movement in the hall. Anybody could be listening. Well, let them.

“It was only me,” he replies. “I was talking to you.” He shakes his head. “You thought I was with somebody else? Jesus.” The little smile he gives her makes him seem even more distant. “I meant it as a surprise for you, when you were putting together the reel.” The smile gives way to a look of despair.

“But then—” She doesn’t know how to finish. What kind of a surprise could he have intended? “Was it supposed to be a joke?”

“I—I thought it would turn you on.”

“You thought it would …”

The time in bed with the camera returns. Doesn’t he remember it? Wasn’t he there?

“Anyhow, it was your idea,” he continues. “You’re the one who said it should just be me.”

“My God,” she breathes. He’s never seemed so far away. Even his attention has drifted to another place. When it returns, his eyes are hardened with some frightening certitude.

“I can’t stay here anymore,” he says.

Can’t stay. It’s a marvel how the words stab her.

“Don’t say that,” she tells him. “Because of the film? Fletcher, what happened is awful, but you can’t—”

“I need to go away,” he insists, then sits there in some unfathomable contemplation.

“For how long?”

“I don’t know. A while.”

“I see.” There’s a long silence. “And what about me?”

He blinks a few times, as if until now he hasn’t considered this detail. “You can come too.” He says it with no enthusiasm, only tosses it out like a coin.

“That’s very kind.”

“I didn’t mean it like that—”

“Where will you go?” It’s not her voice that asks the question; it’s some other person’s.

“I don’t know. Back to Boston, I guess.” He doesn’t protest that she has referred only to him, not both of them.

“After all the work we’ve done? There are so many people here now.”

“Bunch of jerks,” he mumbles. “Most are leaving anyhow.”

She can’t believe what he’s saying. “But I don’t want to go. I want to stay here—with you.”

This thought seems to overwhelm him. “Didn’t you see this?” he shouts, grabbing loops of film and thrusting them toward her. “Of course you did. Everyone saw it!”

It’s too much. Backing away, she escapes to the living room, hoping he’ll follow. On the couch, she weeps and wills unconsciousness. It’s cold, she should get a blanket from the closet, but she has no energy to move. Her thoughts buck against her exhaustion until at some point she starts awake and realizes he’s standing over her. Through the window is the blue bruise of the pre-dawn.

“I’m sorry.” His lips touch her cheek. “It’ll be all right. Come up to bed.”

“Don’t leave,” she says.

“I won’t,” he tells her. “I promise, I won’t go anywhere.”

In their room, he’s the only one who sleeps. Maybe it won’t be so bad. A few days of teasing, perhaps a few weeks. Dimitri will be the worst; he’ll never let it go. To hell with him. He and Rhea will leave soon anyhow. And what of Wale? He couldn’t really have gone to Laos. He’ll be back tomorrow—and even if he isn’t, so what? He and Brid were never really close, except in some toxic, mutually degrading way. Maggie wonders how many women there have been for him since Pauline was born.

Her shoulders and hips work themselves into the bed, casting a mould of her body in the mattress. The ticking from the alarm clock maddens her.

At sunrise, she goes to the playroom, where the un-spooled film still lies spread out like skein-work. She winds it back onto its reel, trimming the torn ends and taping them together. Once she’s finished, she can’t help herself; she places the film in the editor and finds the beginning of the scene, then plays it back. Eventually Fletcher enters the frame, removing underwear and socks before lying on the bed. She watches, telling herself she’s finding the end so she can cut out the whole sequence. When she reaches it, though, a tremendous fatigue comes over her and she returns to their room. For an hour she sleeps beside him, until nausea awakens her and she hurries to the bathroom, making it just in time.

A few inches of fetid water at the bottom of the pit prevent Gordon and Yia Pao from sitting down, forcing them to lean against the muddy walls when they want a rest from standing. Gordon’s beard is a tangle, and his skin is clean only in rivulets where sweat has washed away the earth. Yia Pao is worse. There are scabbing cuts all across his face and a gash on his forehead that won’t stop bleeding. In his arms he holds Xang, the baby’s clothes so stained as to have lost their former colour altogether. The little boy’s skin is jaundiced, his face covered in mosquito bites. Gordon yells in a rasping voice for the guards to come, while Yia Pao takes a piece of banana into his mouth and chews it, then removes a bit of the mush with his fingers and tenderly feeds it to his son.

“They must be dead,” says Gordon. “I’m going to do it.”

“Wait a little longer,” says Yia Pao.

“They’re gone. It’s been a day.”

“It could be a test,” replies Yia Pao. “They could be waiting up there to beat us.”

Gordon looks at his companion’s forehead. “They haven’t needed excuses for that.” He squints up toward the edge of the pit. “If we wait any longer, we’ll be too weak.”

“I’m already too weak,” says Yia Pao. “It could be miles to a village.”

“They must get their supplies from someplace close,” Gordon observes. “What if they don’t come back? Xang needs milk.”

“He won’t get it from the jungle,” says Yia Pao. But he holds Xang out toward the other man. “Take him. Take him and go.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” replies Gordon. “You’re coming too.”

“You’ll move more quickly without me.”

Gordon doesn’t budge, so Yia Pao pulls the baby back to his chest and offers a forefinger for Xang to suck on. “I want him to live. There are no more men in my family. My father, all my brothers, my cousins are gone. Xang’s the only one left.”

“You’re left too.”

“You don’t understand, Gordon. I wasn’t a good husband. I wish to be a good father.”