The Weight of Our Sky(40)



“Ma’am,” Vince says softly, “ma’am, if you’re in pain, we should get you to a hospital.”

The woman’s eyes fly open, and she shakes her head, her mouth set in a thin, obstinate line. “They’ll hurt me,” she whispers. “They’ll hurt my baby. I saw them, shouting and hitting and burning things. I won’t let them hurt my baby.” She curls herself up as best she can, stroking her belly, her eyes squeezed shut.

I look at Vince despairingly. “How are we going to get her out of here?” I whisper. “We can’t bring her on a motorcycle! And you’re hurt, too.” He waves away the last comment as if it doesn’t matter. I can see his mind turning over possible solutions, but when he finally opens his mouth to speak, I can tell he’s arrived at a conclusion he doesn’t like.

“We’ll have to ask them for help,” he says.

“Them?”

“Them.” He jerks his head toward the outside, and I suddenly realize who he means.

“Them? You mean the jerks who tried to shoot us?!”

He shrugs. “They’re guards,” he says. “Their job, first and foremost, is to protect citizens.”

“That was your idea of them PROTECTING us?”

“If I just went and explained to them—”

“Explain?!” All I seem able to do is throw Vince’s words back at him, just at a higher pitch and with a lot more hysterical disbelief behind them. “What if you don’t get the chance to explain?! What if they kill you first?”

They will, the Djinn whispers, and I tap quickly against my thigh to shut him up.

“You have a better idea?” he asks me.

Of course I don’t.

“I’ll show them my Red Cross badge,” he tells me. “They won’t shoot me. They’ll know I’m trying to help. They probably didn’t see it when we were riding past.” I can’t tell if he’s trying to convince me or himself.

“Sure,” I say. Because what else can I do?

I kneel down again, beside the panting woman on the floor. “My name’s Melati,” I tell her, looking her right in the eye. “This is Vincent. What’s your name?”

She exhales slowly. “Azizah,” she says, trying to keep her voice steady. “My name is Azizah. My friends call me Jee.”

“Okay, Jee,” I say, “Vince is going out to get help, and I’ll stay right here with you.”

She nods, her eyes never leaving my face. Vince turns to go. “I’ll be right back,” he says over his shoulder. Sure you will, the Djinn sneers, and reaches up to grip my heart with his cold, bony fingers.

“Will he really come back?” Jee whispers in his wake.

“Of course he will.” I reach for her hand and grasp it, trying to reassure her with my touch.

She shuts her eyes. “But he’s Chinese,” she says. “Can we really trust him?”

“I do,” I tell her. “I trust him completely.”

She subsides, leaning back against the counter and groaning as another wave of pain hits her. But the Djinn doesn’t. You trust him, do you? he says, grinning, his fingers still prodding and poking away at my heart, sending a stab of fear through it with each touch. What’s to stop him from going away and never coming back? What’s to stop him from saving his own skin? Or else, what’s to stop the soldiers from shooting him straight through the head, blasting it right off his body?

I shudder.

Best start counting, the Djinn says, tossing my heart lightly up into my throat so that it’s hard to breathe. And so I lift my bowed head, scan the shelves, and begin. One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three . . .

? ? ?

Before long, he returns, and I feel my heart wriggling itself out of the Djinn’s grasp and blossoming with joy and relief. But Vince’s face, I notice, is anything but joyful.

“I can’t get them to come,” he says, flushed and agitated. “They won’t follow me.”

The woman whimpers, clutching her belly. She’s trying her best to keep calm, not to complain, but her hands are clenched in white-knuckled fists, and beads of sweat are forming on her forehead.

I try to ignore the Djinn’s yowl of glee and grab Vince by the elbow, leading him away and out of earshot. “Didn’t you tell them it was an emergency?” I keep my voice low, so as not to worry Jee. But I don’t think she can hear us over her own grunts and moans. I don’t think she even sees us, she’s in so much pain.

“I did, Mel,” he says. “They wouldn’t come.”

“Why not?”

“They must have their reasons.”

“Bloody hell, Vincent, she needs to get to the hospital, and we can’t take her there on a motorcycle! Why didn’t you—”

“Mel,” Vince interrupts, rubbing his forehead with one hand. “They wouldn’t come no matter what I told them. Because . . . well. Because I am who I am.”

It’s only then that it dawns on me.

“Because you’re Chinese.” I say it flatly, without emotion. Because of course that’s why they won’t come. A woman and her unborn child could die at my feet right now because some Malay soldiers won’t pay any attention to a cry for help from a Chinese man. Inside me, the Djinn smiles delightedly, baring his sharp little teeth. Look at all the death you bring with you.

Hanna Alkaf's Books