Alastair Bruce - Wall of Days

Every now and then something from below pokes its head above the surface, like the people I imagine crawling up from underground into the smoke. It sickens you to think of what might have been.

Could others be closer than we think? We have explored much but there was always more to see. Maybe we missed them. I think this often.

Untouched by our curse, a village with green grass, smoke coming from chimneys, fat children singing.

My people seemed afraid of the search, of the ruins, of finding something new. I had evidence for that but chose not to see it. My stories fell on deaf ears. Few wanted to hear about the ruins, about pictures that I found, strange artefacts half buried in the dust. Once we were marching through an area of desert. We walked towards what we thought was a tree in the distance. It was a stone pillar. At the base was an entrance leading underground. My men hung back. I asked for volunteers to go with me. Each man hung his head. ‘I will go alone then. I will show you there is nothing to fear.’ I took a torch. One man begged me to stay. In fact he grabbed my arm. I pushed him away and ordered them to make camp.

I descended stone stairs. The torch flickered on the walls. It was cool below ground in spite of the heat of the torch. The passage went further underground and turned corners. I marked my way with a stone. I had been walking for a long time when I began to see them. Shelves set into the walls. On each shelf a body, some wrapped in cloths, some not. I walked deeper into the cavern. Hundreds and hundreds of them stretching from my feet to above my head on both sides of the walls.

I came at last to a circular chamber. There on a stone slab a piece of metal in the shape of a cross. There was a red stone in the middle of it.

It flickered in the fire.

It was cold in there and I left, hurrying out. I did not know what to make of it and I left it feeling dumb. Too many stories to be told, even for me.

Outside the men would not meet my eyes. They were silent. I did not tell them what I had seen. It was three days before they recovered their humour.

Later in the afternoon I go back to the Marshal’s office, this time on my own. I spend a long time waiting, knocking, shouting. I kick the door once. The sun sets and I leave. I will not let the Marshal avoid me. I will have my say.

I make my way to Elba’s flat alone. In the settlement lights come on in windows, flickering behind curtains, barely lighting the street.

Shapes move past the lights, past yellow drawn curtains, hover like spirits before fading into black. I sense more of them, figures moving behind the walls, trying not to make a sound.

Not dead then.

I walk the long way to her flat and see few people out. I come to a place in the wall where you can climb up to the ramparts. It is normally guarded but now there is no one here. The gate is on a latch, not locked.

I lift it and walk through, climbing the narrow stairs. I used to come here sometimes, at night mostly, still summer nights. Looking out over the town, the quiet darkened town, I can see all of it. I can see the town hall. I can see the walls and the grey wooden buildings that have stood for so long, the architecture of a people with little imagination, little will to better themselves. I was torn, I remember, between fatherly feelings, between wanting to protect this mongrel people and anger at the lack of imagination, at the lack of will to do something out of the ordinary, to be extraordinary. A failure of imagination. I felt anger, sometimes, that it was left to me, a stronger mind, to lead, to imagine, to impose something like order on these simple people. I wondered if it was worth it. To have saved a savage is perhaps no great thing after all.

It is true, they did imagine something different for a while. But were they true believers or simply believing for the sake of expediency? I fear the latter. But then sometimes, at night, lying awake, I too sometimes stopped believing. I never told anyone that. Too late though. I stopped believing too late. Too late to stop the faces coming to me in the dark, to stop the screaming of the children in the island night.

I have achieved little since coming back. I have not told my story, I have not found Tora or Abel. I need a reaction in order to know what to do. Somewhere in the town, somewhere in a building I can see will lie the answer, will lie my future. Somewhere in the town if alive, or somewhere just beyond the walls if dead, lie their bodies, my touchstones. Breathing or decaying, breath or fetid airs, their fumes I imagine wafting in the warm breeze, drifting here to my nostrils. I could follow them like a dog follows its prey. So close.

But not close enough. I have come home after a long absence and my children have made rules of their own. The patriarch has returned but his children no longer know who he is. Or admit to know.

If I don’t get a reaction soon I will have to take matters into my own hands.

I am surprised when the door opens. It is opened not by Elba but by a girl. She has large brown eyes. I am struck by them. They remind me of mine when I was a boy. It is the same girl I saw when entering the town for the first time.

‘Hello,’ I say. ‘What is your name?’ I lean down to her.

She turns her face away from me and walks into the flat leaving the door open. Elba appears. ‘This is my daughter,’ she says. ‘Tell the man your name.’

The girl looks up and says boldly, almost haughtily, ‘My name is Amhara.’

I did not expect Elba to have a child. She had not mentioned it before. But then why would she? In the settlement children spend a long time away from their parents. They are schooled intensively and live in boarding houses for most of the week. That way we could both accelerate their learning and ensure that each was provided for equally and adequately. I presume that at least has not altered since my time.

‘That is a beautiful name.’ I say in response. ‘And how old are you?’

‘Nine.’

I will admit disappointment at the fact that Elba has a daughter.

Though I do not expect much of her, it will mean that her loyalties will never be totally with me.

‘I did not mention her to you as it did not come up,’ Elba says, as if reading my thoughts.

‘Oh,’ I say, ‘nothing to be concerned about.’ I don’t know what to say. ‘You have a very beautiful daughter.’

Luckily Elba smiles at that point and asks if I would like to come inside.

For a while we talk while the child draws on a sheet of paper at the table. The conversation is slightly awkward. She asks after a pause, ‘You seem to be wondering about her,’ nodding towards the girl. It is more of a statement than a question. In fact I have not wondered much at all.

It would be unusual to see a woman of a certain age without a child in our settlement and there do seem to be a lot of them around now. Tora did not have one. She was different in that way. I suppose you could say she was allowed certain favours, being the lover of the Marshal.

‘Where’s the father?’ I ask.

She pauses and does not look me in the eye. ‘He left,’ she says simply. ‘He went away. He is still alive but he won’t come back. Not truly.’

I want to ask what she means but she carries on.

‘He would not be a good father anyway. Too flighty, too angry. I do not mean physically, not that kind of anger. An anger against the world. Though he had things just so, though he was very successful in our way, he was angry. To say he went voluntarily would not be true.

He could not have stayed. Others began to sense it. It was like he was always looking for something else, somewhere else. This place was not for him.’

‘Where is he?’