Three Hours(97)
‘I just got an alert that you—’
‘Are you with Rafi and Basi?’ she asks.
‘A school minibus has overturned across the drive. A branch was used as a lever. We’re moving it now.’
*
Rafi and Basi are in the boat. In the dark Rafi can feel Basi’s body gibbering with cold and he’s worried that hugging Basi close to him is just making him colder.
A knock on the door of the shed. Rafi feels Basi’s body stiffen with fear and tightens his arms around him.
Another knock-knock and the man knocking at the door is one of Assad’s men battering at their door to arrest their father and brother or he is part of Daesh or a paedophile at the camp banging on the door of their shed; he is First Murderer or Second Murderer or Third Murderer in Macbeth, a man of violence without a name who lives in the dark, who will hurt a person you love, bringing the darkness with him, falling across something bright and good so that love has a shadow.
A friendly English voice calls to them.
‘Rafi? Basi? I’m a police officer. My name’s PC Beard, can you let me in?’
English police officers are good. Nothing bad will happen. He should trust him.
‘You’re okay now, sons. Let me in. You’re safe.’
But something stops Rafi from getting out of the boat and opening the door; maybe because he’ll have to take his arms away from his little brother who’s so cold or because of his injured leg which means he doesn’t want to move and a bodily knowledge of how much they are hated, and he remembers some people here see them as less than human; as cockroaches.
The sound of a twig snapping and another.
Dots of light appear in the door as the man outside fires. Basi doesn’t know to be afraid, but Rafi uses his body to shield Basi, lying over him in the boat, because the man will get into the shed any moment. Terror is a black thing: the dead of night, the pitch of darkness; Baba and Karam’s bodies in the snow.
The sound of gunfire, rapid and loud. Basi whimpers in terror. And there are men pushing at the door, opening it, and they’re coming in and telling him and Basi to get out of the boat and that they’re safe. But they’re not. Nowhere is safe. He has his arms around Basi, just looking at Basi, protecting him, not looking at the people in the shed, not wanting to look at them.
And then he hears a woman’s voice he recognizes. ‘Rafi, it’s Rose Polstein …’
He tries to get out of the boat but his hands are numb. ‘It’s okay,’ he tells Basi. ‘We can get out of the boat now.’ He can’t feel the sides of the boat and the pain in his right leg makes him dizzy.
People in police uniforms and grey uniforms are helping him and Basi out of the boat; and someone is putting blankets around him and around Basi, soft blankets, like picnic blankets, perhaps they’ve got them from their cars, and he sees a woman who must be Rose Polstein smiling at him, not wearing a police uniform but a dress and jacket, covered in snow.
Angels are bright still.
Benny would say, Wow, man, you’re so fucking deep, and he’d say back, Hey, bro’, you’re so fucking shallow.
They’re helping him into an ambulance, Basi coming in the same one, because they won’t be separated.
He’s right though, even if Benny would tease him, because against the men who live in darkness, there’s Rose Polstein, who’s shivering, and all these other people out in the snow, and Hannah and Mr Marr and Benny and his foster parents and his other friends and teachers and the people with welcome banners.
He holds on to love, will not fear its shadow.
*
They’ve promised her that the ambulance with Rafi and Basi will stop and let her in, ‘like a bloody party bus’, the police officer said, but he was smiling. The coach with the little kids from the pottery room is leaving and Hannah waves at them as they go. Her other hand holds her mobile. Daphne gave her Mr Forbright’s number and she rings him. It rings and rings and she’s afraid he won’t answer, afraid of what that means for Mr Marr, and then he picks up.
‘Hello?’
‘Mr Forbright? It’s Hannah.’
In the silence, she daren’t ask about Mr Marr.
‘We’re on the way to hospital, Hannah.’
She thinks of her Gap T-shirt pressed into his foot and her hoody round his head, the best she could do, and wishes she’d had real bandages, wishes she’d known what to do to save him. Because even though he’s in an ambulance with proper help now, she knows that he will die. ‘Do you want to talk to him?’ Mr Forbright asks.
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll hold my phone next to him,’ Mr Forbright says.
‘Hey, Mr Marr, it’s Hannah.’
She remembers holding his hand in the library, how even when he could no longer open his eyes she’d see them moving under his eyelids, letting her know that he was still with them.
‘It was really brave what you did, getting Tobias and me into the library, not saving yourself. I didn’t tell you that. I’m sorry. We’re all safe now, Rafi and Basi too. Do you know about everyone leaving the theatre? There were loads of trees backstage, little saplings that you can carry, and we all took one. Daphne said, “Method act trees!” You can imagine how much she liked saying that, but she looked sick with worry too. And then we left the theatre by the fire-exit door straight into the woods.’