The Power(39)

And they pushed her. And she hit two of them, just with a little tickle of power. Just a warning.

And that was it for the cops. They pulled out their nightsticks and their guns and they started working, and Mez was screaming and her mom was screaming and there was blood all on the sidewalk and they mashed her on her head.

‘They held her down,’ says Mez, ‘and they messed her up. It was seven on one.’

Allie listens to it all very quietly. And when Mez has finished talking she says, ‘Is she alive?’

Mez nods.

‘Do you know where they’ve taken her? Which hospital?’

Mez says, ‘They didn’t take her to a hospital. They’ve taken her to the police station.’

Allie says to Roxy, ‘We’re going down there.’

Roxy says, ‘Then we have to take everyone.’

There are sixty women who walk down the street together towards the police station where they’re holding Mez’s mom. They walk quietly but quickly, and they’re filming everything – that’s the word they’ve passed around the women in the convent. Document everything. Stream it if you can. Put it online.

By the time they arrive, the police know they’re coming. There are men standing outside, holding rifles.

Allie walks up to them. She holds her hands up, palms towards them. She says, ‘We’ve come here peacefully. We want to see Rachel Latif. We want to know she’s receiving medical attention. We want her sent to a hospital.’

The senior officer, standing at the door, says, ‘Mrs Latif is being legally detained. By what power do you ask for her release?’

Allie looks to the left and to the right, along the phalanx of women she’s brought with her. There are more women arriving every minute. There are maybe two hundred and fifty here now. The news of what’s happened has passed from door to door. There have been text messages; women have seen it online and left their houses and come.

‘The only power that matters,’ she says, ‘the common laws of humanity and God. There is a badly injured woman in your cells, she needs to see a doctor.’

Roxy can feel the power crackling in the air around her. The women here are hyped up, excited, angry. She wonders if the men can feel it, too. The policemen with their rifles are nervous. Something could go bad here very easily.

The senior police officer shakes his head and says, ‘We can’t let you in. And your presence here is a threat to my officers.’

Allie says, ‘We’re here peacefully. Officer, we are peaceful. We want to see Rachel Latif, we want a doctor to treat her.’

A great muttering rises up in the crowd then falls silent, waiting.

The senior officer says, ‘If I let you see her, will you tell these women to go home?’

Allie says, ‘Let me see her first.’

Rachel Latif, when Roxy and Allie are brought to the holding cell to see her, is barely conscious. Her hair is matted with blood and she is lying on the cot in the cell, hardly moving, her breath a slow, painful rattle.

Roxy says, ‘Jesus Christ!’

Allie says, ‘Officer, this woman must be taken to a hospital immediately.’

The other policemen are watching the senior officer. More and more women are arriving outside the building every minute. The sound of them outside is like a crowd of murmuring birds, each one speaking to her neighbour, each ready to wheel at a secret signal. There are only twenty officers in this station. There’ll be several hundred women outside it within one half-hour.

Rachel Latif’s skull is cracked open. You can see the white bone shattered and the blood bubbling from her brain.

The voice says: They did it without provocation. You’ve been provoked. You could take this station, you could kill every man in it if you wanted.

Roxy takes Allie’s hand, squeezes it.

Roxy says, ‘Officer, you don’t want this to go any further. You don’t want this to be the story they tell about you. Let this woman go to a hospital.’

The police officer lets out a long, slow sigh.

The crowd outside grows noisy when Allie re-emerges, and even noisier when they hear the approaching sirens of the ambulance, nosing its way through the crowd.

Two women hoist Mother Eve on to their shoulders. She holds up her hand. The muttering grows silent.

Mother Eve speaks through Allie’s mouth and says, ‘I am taking Rachel Latif to the hospital. I will ensure she is cared for properly.’

The noise again, like grass stalks blowing. It rises up and dies away.

Mother Eve splays her fingers out, like the sign of the Hand of Fatima. She says, ‘You have done good work here and now you can go home.’

The women nod. The girls from the convent turn and walk away as one. The other women begin to follow them.

Half an hour later, when Rachel Latif is being examined in the hospital, the street outside the police station is entirely empty.

In the end, there’s no need for them to stay in the convent. It’s nice, it overlooks the sea and it’s got a certain homely feel to it, but by the time Roxy’s been there nine months Allie’s organization could have bought a hundred buildings like it and, anyway, they need somewhere bigger. There are six hundred women affiliated with the convent in this little town alone, and satellites springing up across the country, around the world. The more the authorities say she’s illegitimate, the more the old Church says she’s sent by the Devil, the more women are drawn to Mother Eve. If Allie had any doubt before this that she has been sent by God with a message for Her people, the things that have happened here have left her in no doubt. She is here to look after the women. God has appointed her to that role, and it is not for Allie to deny it.