The Abrupt Physics of Dying Read online

  In the distance, a clutch of trees in a barren landscape, a desert plain, Yemen perhaps, but these are mopane tress. Ovamboland? He is searching for a place to shelter the abandoned children who huddle around him, feed and clothe them. He has money, bills from half a dozen nations, paper coloured with childhood drawings. Enough to do something. The desert is littered with abandoned military equipment, rocket launchers with empty rails, the charred bodies of tanks. There is old oilfield equipment also, a water tanker on its side, sand flowing from a gaping wound in its steel vessel. The skin of the plain has been cut open, the material scraped into long rilles that frame a white track. Near the trees, at the side of the road, there is a vehicle. It lies on its back, wheels to the sky. He walks towards it. It is a Ratel, an armoured transport. He knows what he will find, has been here so many times before. He tries to turn away, but he is drawn in. Now he can see the holed belly, the blown-out hatch. And there is the space in the twisted metal. He will never forget that opening, the bodies inside limp and torn and still, the blood everywhere, beading on the metal, so much of it, such a deep, vivid red, its earthy sweet smell, the driver unconscious but breathing still behind the wheel.

  A flash of light, a hollow clang and then darkness again, the crumbling firewall of a nightmare. He lay on the concrete floor and listened, eyes straining, blinded by the sudden illumination. Water. He could smell it. He got to his knees and groped ahead until his hand touched something cool. A cup. He sniffed the contents and lifted it to his mouth. The liquid flowed across his tongue and down his throat, pure and sweet, the most perfect thing in creation. Three gulps and it was gone. He crawled to the edge of the cell and leaned back against the wall and raised his knees to his chest and stared out into the darkness. He had crossed a threshold. Here, it was disequilibrium that held sway. Everything was coming apart. It had happened quickly.

  His body’s natural functioning continued. Without a toilet, he was reduced to squatting in the corner of the cell. Time was measured now only by the seemingly random deliveries of water and foul, inedible food, and the accumulating puddle of piss and shit in the corner. The stench of his own body amazed him. He was soon driven to the far corner, from which he seldom ventured, save to scurry over and recover the precious cup of water that appeared at the door.

  He could feel himself weakening. The gash in his head had opened further, and was probably infected. He hadn’t eaten since before talking to Ali. The smell of his own faeces kept him in a permanent state of nausea. He began to lapse in and out of consciousness, until he could no longer tell where the dreams ended and the reality of his existence began.

  Sometime later he awoke on the concrete floor. The dreams had gone. He sat up, took a deep breath, felt the pulse of his heart, even and strong. Four times light had come. If he replaced the empty bowls by the door, they were taken away and brought back full. If he did not put them in their initial positions, the door was closed as soon as it was opened. The pattern was regular, he could see it now, morning and night. Two days he had been here, then. His body had already started to adapt to the rhythm. The next delivery was coming soon. It would start with the distant rattle of keys on a chain, the turning of a lock. Then footsteps approaching, boots on concrete, two sets, one crisp and sharp, the other shuffling. A key would rattle in the door lock, then after a moment the bolt would slide, hang up for a second, and then grind into place. One guard, the sharp walker, would open the door – he was the key man – and swing it open about six inches on quiet hinges. A blinding wedge of light would shoot across the floor and onto the far wall. Now he knew that the ceiling was high, perhaps three metres. At first he had closed his eyes, but then he began to gather information about his cell. On the third visit he had noticed a vent or window of some sort near the top of the far wall. Four times now he had seen it, concentrated on it. And in those few seconds of illumination, Shuffler would step forward and retrieve the bowls, his small dark hand reaching into the cell to pluck up each bowl in turn. Then he would clang two metal bowls onto the floor and slide each forward in turn with his sandalled foot, spilling some of the water. Then back, three shuffled steps and the slam as darkness came again.

  With this clarity came a realisation: these people, whoever they were, had no intention of communicating with him. They were not after information that he might have, they did not want money or political leverage. He was being removed, made to disappear in a place where vanishing was commonplace, left to rot.

  The fifth delivery came, same pattern, same timing, the flash of light, a star exploding, and then darkness again. Clay sat in his corner and ate the paste from the bowl, pushing his face into the mould, reaching with his tongue. He dared not use his fingers, by now surely crawling with E-coli or worse. He drank, used the rest of the water to wash the back of his head, letting it drip from the bowl onto the wound, listening to the sound the droplets made as they ran from his matted hair and hit the floor.

  After a while he stood and walked to the other side of the cell. He put his hands to the wall, moved them across its rough surface, feeling for any imperfection, imagining its construction. Rendered breeze block, he guessed. That meant seams. He worked across the surface with his fingertips like a blind man, found a horizontal furrow about chest high, traced it along, gauging its depth. He found the place where the furrow was deepest, pushed his thumbnail into the groove and scored the cement. With his fingertip he tested the spot, felt for some expression. Nothing. He stepped back to the far side of the room, found his water bowl, brought its edge to bear on the groove, worked away with short hard strokes. Soon he could feel powder on his fingers. His pulse took a jump. He worked the bowl harder, with both hands, like a carpenter over a plane. The noise it made filled his ears, echoing from every surface, but he kept on. After a while he felt something raining on his feet, reached down to touch it, a soft fine powder. Cement. He worked until his arms were burning, retreated to his corner, rested.

  Four times he returned to the spot, worked the edge of the bowl into the deepening groove, felt the mortar coming away, falling to the floor. He worked his finger into the rough opening between two blocks. It was no more than half a centimetre deep and a couple long, but it was enough. He swung his foot up and dug his two middle toes into the groove, and wedging his left hand against the adjacent wall, levered himself up until he was standing face to the wall. He reached up with his right hand and found the lip of the vent, swung his other hand over, and pulled himself up until his head was level with its base, his feet dangling. It was actually a recess in the wall, an opening about the size of a small suitcase. He rotated a wing up onto the ledge and extended his arm. His hand flailed in the void – it was deeper than he could reach. He hung there for a moment, breathing hard, resting.

  Something crawled over his hand, brushed the hairs on his forearm, the lightest touch. He stilled himself, held his breath. A current of cool air reached him, flowed over his arm. It was coming from the end of the vent. Even over the reek of shit and urine, he could smell the outside, clean and fresh, the scents of early morning coming on this small current. He pushed his head into the vent, breathed deep, tried to fill himself with it. Perhaps this was ground level, his cell a basement, this a window well of some sort. He tried to wriggle his way in, wedge himself into the space, but the opening was too small, his shoulders too wide.

  For a moment he hung there, not wanting to leave the flow of fresh air, until finally he could hold on no longer and dropped exhausted to the floor. He huddled in his corner, breathing hard, covered in sweat, cursing the darkness. He would have to find another way.

  The Chemicals of Violence

  Twice more the light came, and with it water and food. He ate the paste quickly now, gobbling it down, his body’s demand for calories overruling his senses’ recoil. Each time was the same, the door opening inwards, Shuffler’s hands reaching in, then his right foot sliding in the fresh bowls. Clay started to measure the placement of his empty bowls, moving them a c
ouple of centimetres further from the wall with each successive delivery. And each time Shuffler reached in a little further.

  Three days he had been here now, best guess. Not once had anyone spoken to him, or even entered his cell. The longer it went on, the weaker he got. He knew he had to act soon. He sat by the door and waited. They would come soon with water and food.

  When he heard the footsteps, sometime later, he stood and positioned himself in the opposite corner of the cell so that he would be able to see Sharp and Shuffler as they opened the door and exchanged the bowls. He knew now that this corner would not be illuminated when the door opened, he would be in darkness. Clay crouched with his back to the corner, his hands over his eyes so that only a slit remained, and counted out the timing of the sounds, key, lock, close, ten steps sharp, twelve steps shuffle, stop, key, bolt. The door opened. Sharp was small, half Clay’s size, with baggy trousers and a thick moustache. He held open the door. Shuffler was taller, heavier, but not by much. Shuffler crouched down, reached in for the bowls. For a fraction of a second his head hovered on the threshold next to the steel doorframe, and then he pulled back, laid down the bowls, scraped them across the floor.

  Clay sat in the darkness, trying to recall every detail. Neither man wore a uniform. Who were they? He had seen no weapons, but he hadn’t had a clear view. Either man could have been carrying a sidearm. It didn’t matter. Time passed. Clay rehearsed, playing the scene over and over in his mind. He dozed, woke, emptied his bowels, washed his hands with the water he had saved for this purpose, paced. It was coming. He placed the empty bowls a centimetre further away from the door than before, moved to the far wall. Soon now. He limbered up, stretched, felt his muscles work, broke a sweat.

  The far door clanged shut. Clay moved to the hinge side of the door and waited against the far wall, his heart racing. He breathed deep, tried to steady himself. Sharp and Shuffler approached, their daily routine. Clay counted the steps. The bolt slid back, light burst into the cell. Shuffler reached in and picked up the first bowl. Clay waited until Shuffler’s hand disappeared, counted three, then charged. He hit the door at full pace, driving all his weight through into his shoulder. It was as if someone had driven a splintered stake between his ribs. The steel plate snapped forward on its hinges just as Shuffler reached in for the second bowl. Clay felt a hard bump as the door knocked Sharp aside and then a spongy thud as the edge smashed into Shuffler’s arm, pinning it against the steel frame. Shuffler screamed in agony as Clay leaned into the door, crushing the bone. Then he wrenched the door open, and half-blinded by the light and the pain piercing his side, pivoted around and threw himself through the opening.

  Sharp was crouching on one knee, trying to stand, when Clay hit him with a full body tackle. The impact snapped Sharp back at the waist, sending his head down hard onto the concrete with a crack. Clay felt the man’s body go limp. Shuffler was lying on his back, holding his arm, screaming in pain, oblivious. Clay jumped to his feet, lined up Shuffler’s head and let go a withering side kick to the jaw. A tooth skipped out across the floor. Shuffler groaned and fell quiet. It had all taken a matter of seconds.

  Clay hunched over, heart pounding. He was trembling. That old exhilaration pumped through him, a rampant overdose, the exquisite chemicals of violence blurring the pain, burning away every disguise. This was who he was. What war had made him. He tried to steady himself. He filled his lungs, held it, exhaled. He surveyed the room, a corridor. At the far end another door. He fumbled with Sharp’s jacket, found a set of keys in the pocket, walked to the door. With trembling hands he tried a key, two, three, the metal rattling against the housing. He looked back at the two men lying on the concrete under the harsh fluorescent light. He shuddered, tried another key. The lock turned. He pushed open the door and looked into a dimly lit stairway. Rough concrete flights, formwork imprints. He closed the door behind him, bolted the door and started up the stairs, naked but for a pair of shorts. Two flights and another door, a different key. Warm night air flooded over him as he stood staring out into a dark alleyway. He flung away the key and started to run.

  He ran through the night, moving through empty streets and across stony fields, the cloudglow of the city in the distance his only compass. At first he moved well, fear taking over now, urging him on. But he was weak, he had lost blood, eaten little, and after a while he slowed to a walk, panting, the sweat coagulating cold and tacky on his skin.

  He crossed a field of ploughed up stubble towards a stone wall. Beyond, a row of stunted trees, another field, the lights of Aden glowing on the horizon. Far off, a line of red tracers arced silently into the sky, and then seconds later the staccato sound of machine-gun fire came shifting on the breeze, and it was like belonging. He stumbled to the wall. It was waist-high, hand-laid, unmortared. He wiped his eyes. To his left, stones arranged in a small arc barbed out from the wall, a palm-leaf cover laid over, a shepherd’s hide. He dropped to his knees, crawled into the space, curled up and closed his eyes and let the night erase him.

  Part III

  This Will Hurt a Bit

  21st May. Somewhere outside Aden, Southern Yemen

  Someone was calling his name, somewhere in the distance. He tried to push it away, but each time the voice cycled back, again and again until he was mired in it, enmeshed. There was a vague sensation of being cradled, lifted from the ground. And then he was drinking, the water flowing down his throat and splashing cool over his face and neck, filling his cells. Again the voice calling his name. Open your eyes.

  They are open.

  ‘Clay, wake up. It’s me, Hussein.’

  It was a long time before he could stand. Hussein coaxed him up, bracing his shoulder under Clay’s arm on the undamaged side, hobbling him to an opening in the stone wall. Hussein lowered him to the ground, propped him up against the stones, pulled out a small Maglite and examined his face, eyes and the back of his head.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.’ Hussein tapped a Marlboro from a half-crushed softpack and offered it. Clay raised his arm to wave no and dropped it again with a sharp breath.

  ‘You missed all the fun,’ Clay said.

  Hussein stood, smiled. ‘Wait here.’

  Clay reached up, grabbed Hussein’s arm. ‘How long was I in there?’

  ‘It took me six days to find out where they’d taken you.’ Hussein exhaled a long curl of smoke. ‘And when I got there, you were gone.’

  Six days. He put his head in his hands.

  ‘Well done, by the way, getting out.’

  Clay looked up as if through a squall, tried to shift his weight, winced. The ember of a cigarette flared. Clay could smell tobacco smoke swirling about him. Vertigo loomed.

  ‘Don’t try to move,’ said Hussein. ‘Wait here. I’ll be back.’ And then he was gone.

  After a while Clay wobbled to his feet, felt his soles raw against the coolness of the dirt. The sky was lightening, dawn a few hours off. The country here was flat, a tapestry of stone-walled fields pierced by the dark remnants of volcanic intrusions, dykes and sills, blood-red cinder cones. Stone watchtowers loomed over the fields like medieval sentinels. A vehicle approached, headlights searching across the landscape. Clay hid his eyes as the Pajero pulled up alongside him. Hussein wrapped a jacket around his shoulders and helped him into the passenger seat. Soon they were speeding along the highway, direction Aden.

  ‘Who were they?’ Clay finally managed.

  Hussein frowned. ‘They just follow orders.’

  ‘Whose orders?’

  ‘Someone at the Ministry of Oil, here in Aden. I don’t know who.’

  ‘Petro-Tex.’

  ‘Whoever it is, they are not pleased with you,’ said Hussein. ‘Giving out information a little too freely.’

  ‘Ali,’ whispered Clay. ‘You’d think he’d care a little more about his own bloody people.’

  Hussein glanced over at him. He looked surprised. ‘Would you?’ He stressed the first word.

  Clay l
eaned forward and cradled his head in his hands. ‘No.’ He closed his eyes and let a wave of pain warp through his skull. His head had started to bleed again; he could feel the blood running slick and warm down the back of his neck. Hussein handed him a rag, and he jammed it onto the wound, held it down hard with his head between his knees, wobbling on the edge of consciousness.

  On the outskirts of the city Hussein stopped the car and led him into a crumbling Soviet-era concrete building and up three flights of grimy steps to a dimly lit corridor. Hussein rapped on a door. An old man answered, let them in. He was dressed in a cheap woollen suit and a tie that looked as if it had never been unknotted. The apartment was cramped, every space covered in books or boxes. Hussein spoke to the man in a language Clay could not identify – was it Farsi? The old man gestured towards the kitchen, pulled out a chair and guided Clay to it.

  The old man stood before him, reached up and placed his hand on Clay’s jaw, turned his head to one side, then the other. Without saying a word, he looked into Clay’s eyes, opened his mouth and peered inside, and then tilted his head forward to examine the wound. Then the old man went to the kitchen and returned with a basin of tepid water and a towel. He washed Clay’s head gently, wringing out the cloth in the basin, the water swirling red. He cut away the matted hair with scissors, continued cleaning the wound. The antiseptic burned like fire.

  Clay could feel the suture thread tugging at his scalp as the old man worked. It took a long time. After, the old man bandaged his head with a compress and gauze, and sewed his lip. The pain was flawless, detailed.

  ‘This will hurt a bit,’ the old man said afterwards.

  Clay laughed. The old man smiled.

  The old man examined Clay’s ribs. He pointed to the scar in his side.