‘What’s really going on here?’
There is a smallness about the captain, a terrible banality; he could have been an accountant in a former life. But he has a gun. And that, of course, changes everything. Your husband is elegantly calm, even daring another bubble-gum pop.
‘I haven’t a clue what their real names are. They’ve forgotten them. They could be anyone, from any side, any religion, they’re shell-shocked. Your boy’ — he indicates Pin — ‘saw them and snuck them in. They play together. I’ve come to get my lot out, I don’t want them here, I want them back on the streets.’ He sighs. ‘I like kids. I help them. They help me … forget.’
‘Who are you all?’
‘I found them on the street. They’ve been living rough. They have names, nicknames, that’s all I know.’ And he gives the secret family names that only the two of you use for them, to comfort, to cherish, to envelop, that are sewn deep into the fabric of this quilt and into your heart. And the captain raises his gun and your Motl grins his easy roguish smile and says, ‘Let them go; as for me, well, you can do what you want,’ and at that, the butt of the pistol is rammed hard at his face.
His beautiful face.
A rag doll, sliding into a stop, eyes rolling, so much blood so much blood so much blood. All the children rush to him but, ‘Don’t!’ the captain barks, whipping the pistol back. ‘Get him out,’ he says to a sidekick and your Motl’s weight is lifted by two soldiers like a sack of rubbish now and one soldier doesn’t have a proper grip and your man, your darling man, is slipping messily to the floor and is hauled up again and pulled along the corridor, with great effort, as if his entire body has sucked into it some enormous, unearthly weight, his final taunt, and his feet in their old green sneakers are dragged through the sticky wet, so much, smearing it in great red streaky tyre tracks and his rag doll slump follows the black pipes of the ceiling that disappear into the building’s dark humming heart and he raises his head, once, and that gives you hope, there is life, life, life, and then his sneakers bounce like a puppet’s and turn a corner and snag and are yanked free and are gone. Gone.
Everything, suddenly, is very still. As if something has been blown out. A great goodness, a huge force.
‘Daddy!’ Tidge howls, ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.’
The angels know you well.