Turning Back the Sun(36)
It must have been Ivar”s blandness, his imperturbable civility, which made it impossible to sustain anger with him for long. Rayner left the cell without answering, or looking back. As the staff car moved out of the barracks, he was disgusted to realize that his dominant feeling was regret for the loss of an old friendship.
CHAPTER
16
That evening, as he walked home along the deserted river, he saw that the wreckage from the army raid still scattered the bank, as if nobody had been there since last night. But the last of the savages had gone. Their campfires had died to soft anthills of pure ash, or were smeared in a grey dust where the print of boots and bare feet overlapped. A torn blanket dangled from a branch. Some cooking pots gleamed under a bush. And once he came upon a necklace of tiny bones, broken, like vertebrae on the red earth.
In the clinic, when he had told Leszek that the army had tortured a man to death, his old partner had turned cold with recognition and said at once, “Now you must see, don”t you? You must tell that savage and the girl to go. You”ve done everything you can.”
“His blood pressure still swings over 210. He trembles all the time. If I let him go, he”ll die out there.”
But Leszek only said, “Better than dying in prison”—and the memories blanching his face lent him a cruel authority.
By now Rayner was obsessed by the two natives. For all he knew the army would seize them that night. An hour later, on the way to the hospital, he met the local priest, a stout man with frosty eyes, and told him that the military had cleared the river of savages, and what was he to do about his patient?
“In my experience these people are not converted by kindness,” the priest said.
“I”m not trying to convert them.”
“But judging by their actions, it”s wrong and dangerous to harbor them. They”re better among their own kind.”
In the hospital Rayner had approached the senior consultant warily, but the man had realized with a shock what he was asking. “That”s preposterous, Rayner! I”d no idea they were still there! You”re not only jeopardizing your own standing in the town, but that of the whole medical profession.” He had looked at Rayner as Ivar sometimes did, baffled and incredulous. Rayner began to feel he was going mad. The consultant demanded, “How many people do these savages have to murder before you repudiate them?”
He passed a sodden quilt on the riverbank, and a torn sandal; then he started to climb toward his house. Far to his left stood the copse of acacia and bloodwood trees where the natives were camped. He glared at it as he trudged up the slope. They would be sitting there, he knew, in their own impenetrable world, oblivious of the dilemma they were causing. He hunted for reasons to disown them, but found none. He prayed for them simply to leave. They were imposing on him an idiotic heroism or treachery. He might start to hate them. Yet he thought: this town”s going insane about a sick old man and a girl.
By the time he reached his villa he had no anger left, just a bleak indecision. Zo?”s cat was sitting under the porch in the fading sun. He turned into the garden to compose himself. The frangipani trees were dripping waxen blossoms into the brown grass, and all the canna lilies were in bloom.
After a while Zo? came out. In her flowered dress, with her hair loosed, she looked like the natural child of the place. But as she approached him her smile faded. “What”s wrong?”
He took her hand and began to walk. “The army have just killed one of the native prisoners. They asked me to falsify the postmortem, and I refused.”
“Ivar?”
“Not personally, I don”t think. It was the Intelligence fellows. My guess is the man fought back under torture and they killed him by mistake.” He stopped under the frangipanis, whose fall of flowers seemed somehow shocking now. “There”s not a native free in the whole town except the old man and the girl, and the soldiers may come for them any time. The old fellow wouldn”t last a day in prison. It”d be torture enough to separate him from his daughter. And she”d be raped.” He kicked at the hard earth. “But he”s still so weak that if I send them away I can”t guess his chances. He might survive, but he”d probably die.”
He turned to face her. Suddenly he realized how deeply, by laying this dilemma at her feet, he had put her on trial. He was not even sure what he wanted her to reply. He just stared into her face, whose vivid eyes overruled all trouble in it.
She simply said, “Where shall we keep them?”
As he looked at her, standing under the milky trees, he was overswept by a boyish adoration. Quaintly he balanced her fingertips on his, and kissed them.
She laughed, startled. “What”s that for?”
“You.”
She stared back at him, puzzled. She did not notice that there had been any decision. “Well, where?”
“I don”t know. They should probably be in the back bedroom. It”s sheltered from the road. We”ll find them the moment it”s dark.”
They stepped into the villa as if they were treading on glass. The huge, halting man followed the expressionless girl across the sitting room to the far door. His whole frame trembled faintly as if it were independent of him, of the life sunk deep inside. Like a mariner between islands, he faltered from table to chair to window ledge, but touched their surfaces only tentatively, as if testing their existence. “You got a good place here, eh.” He held out a hand to Zo?. “You Mrs. Doctor?” “I”m a friend.”