The Notebook
#45
The Journalist
Holly sat on a wooden bench at the far end of the room, her eyes now adjusted to the shade. Outside the wide doorway, the world was bathed in blinding sunlight. The world from which she had been snatched. People drifting by, the sound of chatter, a shout, a vehicle. Shifting her gaze inside, fascinated, she watched her backpack being ransacked by the two women who had captured her, a pair of hands digging and scraping inside, randomly pulling out something, then the pack quickly exchanging hands. A tampon flung away towards a corner, fought for by the children, who mistook it for a thing to eat or play with. She half raised a hand, opened her mouth to protest, then stopped. It didn’t matter. A pack of condoms came out, the women smirked. A cotton pantie she’d already worn, recyclable. She’d thought she would find a suitable place to dump it. A force of habit, even when there was so much garbage littered about and stinking in the streets. The women held it to their waists, each in turn, the big one and the tall younger one, then put it aside along with the fresh one, for future use. Comb, toothbrush, toothpaste came out; jeans, shirt; medicines. A packet of biscuits, a couple of which were pulled out and nibbled by the women, the remaining lobbed carelessly in the direction of the grateful children; two packets of gum, a chocolate bar, an apple, and a can of sardines; batteries, penknife, spoon. She watched them put away some of her things, then stuff everything else into the backpack and shove it aside.
She was hungry and uncomfortable and faintly stinking, having wet herself in that terrifying moment when two pairs of hands sprang out from the dark hole in the wall and grabbed her and pulled her in. Her sensible eyeglasses, all-purpose pocket knife, and phone were snatched from her first, and she saw them now lying not far from her on the bench, gleaming faintly. She dared not reach for them. She rubbed her arm where the younger woman had bitten her, not hard but tenderly, as though to feel her flesh. The teeth had grazed her skin, the tongue had licked the dirt off her skin. She knew the women of this neighbourhood, though not these two, and had bantered with the children, who had followed her around and took gum from her. They must all know her. What would they do to her? She did not fear the women; it was the militia who frightened her. Everything about them was menace. Their open stares, their rippling strength and cocked weapons, their swaggering. She had believed herself to be immune from them, a journalist from there, under one of the watchful eyes in the sky, who could be rescued if necessary. What an illusion that was.
Some men of the militia came over a little later and roughly questioned the two women, and after what seemed like a bout of bargaining took away the pack, phone, and knife and half the chocolate, which had been stowed away. One of the boys went with them. The men barely cast a glance at her. She was like a captive chicken or goat, awaiting slaughter in her dark corner.
#46
The Gentle Warrior
And you, Presley, where will you hide, you who are theirs, though you don’t know it yet? Where will you go, you who have no family or friends? Surrender to them, their Frankenstein, let them stitch you up and render you harmless. Live. Live? Live as who?
I cannot imagine you, Presley.
I dare not imagine you, Presley.
Still, you’ve got under my skin…
Who were you, Presley, who’s that lurking under your skin?
Stepping out of the Sunflower Centre, having dismissed his consultant, suddenly he no longer felt certain of himself. Should he go back and say to the doc, I’ve changed my mind, Doc, I need help? He meant well, the doc, he wanted to help. It was cool and cloudy, a brisk wind blew. Dry fall leaves were scattered about on the pathway and the grass. A passenger plane roared overhead, flying quite low. He glanced upward, read the tail logo. Pan American, recognized, vaguely. He hesitated a step, then kept walking towards the street.
It’s midnight, and the lion is out stalking.
Damn it. But he smiled, and instantly began to hum a song, to resist the intrusion. This was one of the defences he had developed. The song was by Aboubakar Touré. Marhaba, marhaba, marhaba…, he sang. He pulled a bike off a rack and rode it to the transit station. The effort and concentration calmed him. At the station he parked and caught a transit to Miller Street; reaching there he walked to the Brewery Tower and announced himself at the security office. He proceeded to the lockers where he changed into his uniform and then walked out to take up his duties, relieving with an apology the guard who had been waiting for him at the check-in desk on the main floor.
A message on his phone startled him. He was to report immediately to a clinic called Abdo about an urgent personal matter. Would this have anything to do with his recurring thoughts? Who else besides the clinic knew about them?…He had had a faint notion as he left the centre that he was being watched. He had dismissed it as silly. Now he felt vulnerable. Sitting behind his high desk, watching through the monitor the multitudes passing to and fro, he himself felt exposed. Even the man he had relieved, he suspected, had looked at him askance. But why? What had he done? He looked up Abdo Clinic. He thought he should hide.