‘Allo?’
‘Hello, Rania.’
‘Claymore. How are you?’
‘I saw my friend today. I went to her grave.’
‘Your friend?’
‘A lady I knew when I was here before. A long time ago.’
‘Je suis desolée, Claymore.’
‘You would have liked her, Rania. She was a lot like you. A writer.’
Silence on the end of the line, her breathing.
‘I tried, Rania. I told them everything.’
‘The commission?’
‘They’re not going to give me amnesty.’
A deep breath. ‘I am sorry, Claymore.’
‘They’re going to charge me. They want to put me in jail.’
‘Mon Dieu, Claymore. I am so sorry.’
‘You knew.’
Silence on the end of the line.
‘You knew, Rania. Why didn’t you warn me?’
‘What are you talking about, Claymore?’
‘Back in Yemen when we first met, you told me you’d seen my SADF service record. Do you remember? It wasn’t that long ago, Rania.’
‘Then you knew I’d been dishonourably discharged. That they had linked me with COAST, had accused me of war crimes.’
She was crying, now. ‘I saw the dishonourable discharge report, but that is all. There was nothing else. Nothing about the reasons why. Claymore, I didn’t know. Je te jure.’
Clay breathed, listened to the sound of her tears.
‘Mon Dieu, if I had seen something like that, do you not think I would have mentioned it?’
Clay said nothing, stood staring into the depths of his memory.
‘Claymore?’
‘I’m sorry, Rania. I just assumed … I shouldn’t have.’ Again, he’d been too quick to judge, to lash out.
Silence, for a while, and then: ‘What will you do?’
‘Run.’
‘No, Claymore. Stay where you are. Please. I will come to you, chéri. Give me a few days. It will take me some time to organise a babysitter, flights. It will be so good to see you again.’
Clay grabbed the balcony’s handrail, steadied himself against the distant blue of the horizon, that unperturbable line between ocean and sky that stretched to the ends of the world.
‘Claymore?’
‘You have a child.’
‘I should have told you. I did not know how to reach you. I am married, Clay. I have a son.
All that this meant washed through him, a torrent.
‘Chéri, are you there?’
That word of hers: chéri. He closed his eyes, said: ‘I’m happy for you, Rania.’ He was.
‘You would like him, Clay. You would like them both.’
‘I wrote to you.’ He shouldn’t have said it.
‘I know, Claymore. I am sorry.’
Clay watched a family, a couple with two young children, walk hand in hand through the hotel garden towards the beach.
‘I can be there by the twenty-eighth,’ she said.
Clay filled his lungs, exhaled until there was nothing left. ‘I’ll write it out for you instead, everything. I’ll post it to you. There are photos, too, notes and documents. Proof. I kept the originals. You can use it any way you like. Just tell it.’
‘Claymore, chéri. I will. But I want to see you. There is so much we need to discuss. I should never have left it as I did.’
‘No, Rania.’ No. He would write it. He would write it as truly and completely as he could. And then maybe she would understand.
She was crying now, deep sobs coming across the line. ‘I can be in Maputo in three days. Just give me three days. Please, chéri. Please.’
‘I won’t be here when you arrive.’
‘Non, Clay. Please.’
‘It’s okay, Rania. It’s too dangerous. You have your family to think of. This is best. I shouldn’t have asked you. I’m sorry.’
Rania sighed. All the energy that had crackled through the line a moment ago was gone. Her voice came flat and resigned. ‘What will you do?’
‘Try to keep going.’
‘Where? Will I ever see you again?’
‘I don’t know, Ra. I don’t know.’
‘Claymore, please.’
‘Will you write it, Ra?’
‘You know that I will, chéri.’
Clay put down the phone, walked to the table and picked up the handgun, felt its weight in his hand and stared out at the sea. He had done what he had said he would. He had kept his promise. Rania would write the story, and the world would finally know the truth. And then, maybe one day, the dead and their wandering spirits would rest, and there would be peace.
But now, it was time to run.