House of Ashes (17 page)

‘Since I was very small. Mih mother, she had too many of us. She always telling us so. She tell us if only God would take some of us away. If some of us dead, then she could be happy. So I
run away.’

Ashes didn’t reply.

‘Mih mother’s name is Mercy. Mercy Loretta Green. Ten children. Ten different men. Ten fathers. I never go know who mih real father is. But mih mother is called Mercy
Green.’

‘And you? What your real name?’

‘Joseph. Joseph Green. I get mih nickname on the street.’

Ashes said nothing. The City of Silk was the City of Nicknames. Everybody had one, including him.

‘You want to know the truth?’

Ashes turned to look at him. His face was serious and full and sad.

‘When I shoot that woman upstairs, it was like I shoot mih mother dead. I shoot she for . . . not wanting me. I shoot she in a fury. Something come over me.’

Ashes said, ‘Come, nuh.’

He knelt down in front of the stained glass window and waited. Breeze followed his example.

‘Jesus won’t mind if we pray here?’

‘No. None of them God fellers care who praying to who, really. They all friends up there and none of them are like . . . casting for votes. Is just good we pray anyhow.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yes.’

Ashes relaxed his chest cavity and he closed his eyes. Tears fell. ‘I sorry too,’ he said.

Then that feeling came, the wingbeat thrum of a hummingbird, or a quiet, gentle feeling from outside passing in. The world seemed to change colour; it became brighter and he felt light and
clean, and then came the opening, the porous feeling of another part of him, the part which was soul. He connected with that part of himself, the part which was like God, all Gods, any God, with
the divine soul of the world. He sensed that part of him swell and he put his hand on his heart. He looked across at Breeze and saw a sullen face, silver with tears. In Breeze he saw another soul,
another boy who had replaced him and his brother River. Breeze, who had shot his mother dead, would somehow live. He felt sure of it. And with this Ashes felt an old anguish lift upwards and he
said
Praise be to God
.

In what used to be the tearoom, Hal and Greg Mason and two of the other men had set themselves up as a band. Hal was using his gun like a base cello, balancing the butt on the
floor and playing an imaginary bow across the slim neck of the gun. Greg had the butt of his gun cocked against his chin, the nose pointed outwards. He was playing his bow like the gun was a
violin. The two other men, two fellers from the compound Ashes barely knew, had balanced their guns across their knees like guitars. They were laughing and singing and Ashes thought that seeing Hal
behave all jokey like this was so very disappointing. For the first time since it all began, Ashes felt let down by him. Maybe Hal wasn’t a cut above. Maybe he was just a common man. The four
fellers sang an old American song . . .
baby, baby, baby
. . . rock and roll or something, and they laughed and Ashes could see that Breeze also looked disappointed.

Hal and some of the brothers closest to him knew the game was now completely over. It had been over within twelve hours of the revolution. Things had dragged out. Now they’d really given
up. No army convoy had come that day to pick up hostages. The army were now demanding ‘unconditional surrender’ through the megaphone.
Lay down your arms and come out one by
one
, that was the only deal now available to the brothers. They weren’t going to start shooting anyone in there, no bodies thrown over the balcony on Day Four. The place was a wreck and
the gunmen and the hostages were all exhausted. The brothers were too demoralised for anything so dramatic. Besides, if Hal now issued such a command, he faced resistance. Ashes had had enough. He
wanted to go home now, back to his old life. The stench in the place was the worst part. Everyone now wore a handkerchief over their mouth and nose. It wasn’t possible to be inside of there
without this protection.

The sun began to go down and as it did the wind picked up. The City of Silk was a city which had grown itself on the swamp flats of a curved lip of a wide bay. Now and then it was possible to
smell the sea in the gulf, even from the hot, busy streets. On Saturdays he would go down to the vegetable market on Chanders Street to buy yams and patchoi and pumpkin and he would stand for a few
moments with his head raised so he could catch the scent of the sea not so far away. Now Ashes could tell it was going to rain by the sound of the ruffled up wind and the slight saltiness in the
air. The sea in the gulf would be getting a little churned up. Finally, some rain. The pain in his thigh would start up again.

He thought of his wife Jade and their sons and he imagined the possibility of slipping out of the House of Power and past the army outside to pay them all a visit. Or maybe he should just give
himself up and walk out. He had split himself from his family. His soul had followed the Leader and the part of him that was man had put his family second. Now he’d lost his family and his
Leader was trapped in the television station and Hal was playing his gun like a cello.

Maybe a strong political conscience runs in the family
, the doctor had said. He wondered about this. He remembered how River had infected him with his stories about black power in Sans
Amen and ideas of a New Society; how, in America, black people had marched, had been changing everything. He and River had stacks of Phantom comic books under their beds. Mostly they admired his
Oath of the Skull, an oath which Phantom had inherited from his father, to do battle with the forces of evil forever. That was the Phantom’s job. Every son of Phantom inherited this position,
to be a fighter for freedom and justice. It was like a line of spiritual freedom fighters, the mission of fighting for social justice handed down generations from father to son. Ashes and River had
talked a lot about where and how to get a Phantom costume, if they could ask their mother to sew one for them in purple silk. But then there was the problem that they both wanted to be the Phantom.
There couldn’t be two of them. So they agreed that as River was older, River would get the costume first, if they ever made one; they agreed that Ashes could borrow the costume now and
then.

That idea of a costume died because River soon took to the hills; he got swept up with the likes of Greg Mason and his band of men. Greg Mason was the only member of that gang still alive.
During the last few days Ashes had come to understand that he himself was a revolutionary in spirit only. He had been afraid of his own gun. Unlike Breeze, he hadn’t shot anyone, not by
accident or on purpose because his gun hadn’t even been loaded. Only now Ashes knew that he would never make a good Phantom or wear a purple suit. That was all childhood rubbish. His brother
was dead and many years later he had got himself into a hell of a messy situation.

It began to rain. A faint velvety roar from the dark skies over Sans Amen. Rain always made him feel guilty and aware of his sins, the
nafs
, the way he could be overrun. Rain made his
groin sear with pain. The wound he had received as a teenage boy ached, the pain of the death of his innocence. His desire to be alone with his thoughts was overwhelming. He could no longer
tolerate the claustrophobic conditions and the stench of the chamber. When no one was looking, Ashes quietly slipped away and headed to the ground floor of the House to sleep. It wasn’t safe
descending to street level but the solitude was worth the risk.

In the library with the blue velvet carpet he lay himself down to sleep. His thoughts drifted to his own mother and father; they had been wise parents, happy with each other, fair. He had been
lucky; they had been good to him and his brother and kind to each other. There was a contentment in their lives together, as though they had chosen right and had been pleased with their lot in
life; that ended when River was shot.

Ashes drifted off. In his dreams he saw a car, a big, stately, official-looking limo with the Prime Minister inside. It was travelling down a dirt track past a green field. A flock of big black
birds were attacking it for some reason. The driver got out and tried to shoo them away, but the birds kept pecking at the windscreen and the driver said aloud, ‘Something terrible is going
to happen today, Mr Prime Minister.’ Then he saw his wife, Jade. She was climbing up a ladder and waving goodbye to him. She had his sons with her and they were waving goodbye too. They
climbed all the levels of the ladder up to the sky and disappeared, waving. And then the dream was filled with trees, silk cotton trees, and he saw thousands of them, and from each one dangled a
purple suit. The silk cotton trees had spun these purple suits of their own accord. They had sprouted the suits, and then Queen Victoria came into the dream and she cut all the suits down off the
trees, harvesting them, and saying, ‘This won’t do.’ She threw the purple suits into the gulf and said, ‘Now let’s drink some tea.’ She began to drink tea with
Hal and the Leader and then the three of them were painting the House of Power red and then Queen Victoria said, ‘This colour won’t do either’ and the Leader shot her crown clean
off her head. The Leader said, ‘Ha, you see I know how to use a gun.’ Queen Victoria looked stupefied and then the Leader said, ‘Tea? I can bake a cake too. Let’s have tea
and cake.’ Then the silk cotton trees appeared again, thousands of them along the banks of the City of Silk, and from each one hung the body of a man. The men’s bodies were dangling in
the breeze coming in off the gulf. In the hands of each of these men was a long, slim violin.

Rain. A moody, grisly rain had moved in over the City of Silk. Rain like millions of needles in the air, steaming up the place. It was everywhere, rain swarming across the city
like bees scouting for a new home to settle on. The clouds were smoky and dark. The City was empty now except for the army; streets upon streets of blackened, shelled-out buildings, sheets of
galvanised tin pelted on the ground. It was as if barbarians had sacked the city, but instead the city’s own residents had risen up and gorged themselves on the everyday items they
couldn’t afford: beds and tableware and microwave ovens and toasters and groceries. They had debased their own city. No one had joined in the efforts of the gunmen. Not one citizen had so
much as paused to throw a stone or sing out a cry in solidarity for their bravery and their courage or their ideas. It was apparent to Ashes that people weren’t as oppressed as he’d
imagined. They were just poor. Maybe that was different to being oppressed. Maybe he would have to read more books about the subject of poverty. The poor had risen up, indeed. But only to grab what
they thought they needed.

Inside the House they had switched the lights on. It felt chilly too. All of a sudden the city was in no mood to play host to a revolution. And the Prime Minister, it was also apparent, was
dying. He was shivering uncontrollably and was more or less blind. He still didn’t want to abandon his duties, he still planned to stay, but now everyone, even many of the brothers, felt he
should be released. For humanitarian reasons. Mrs Gonzales had been nursing him as best she could. But now she broke.

‘Ayyyyy,’ she said to Hal. ‘You. Mr Big Shot. Mr Army Suit.’

Hal came over to where she was sitting with the PM.

‘You see this?’ she said. She meant the PM; he looked three quarters dead. He would be dead soon if not medically treated. His face was a blur of purple and mauve.

‘If you doh let him go
now
, ah go jump out de damn window of this damn place.’

Hal looked as though he was listening closely to this new threat.

‘Ah go strip naked an ah go jump. Plain so. In protest of your barbaric ways and your lawlessness. You all can go to the devil. I happy to take mih own life to make this
protest.’

With this she began to rise up to her feet and pluck at her clothes.

‘Ayyyyy, lady. Stop.’

‘Stop?’

‘We going to send him out, doh worry.’

‘You do it now or I go jump and put one hex on allayuh. I’ll cuss you to high hell an back. Ah go jump if you doh release the PM. Ah go die with putting one hex on your
arses.’

The men didn’t like the sound of this threat and neither did Hal. The men were convinced Mrs Gonzales possessed obeah powers by then. Some of them said they’d checked the broom
cupboard before she appeared and no woman had been inside. Others said she had the foot of a goat in one of her boots, that she was concealing it, that she was a Diablesse. Many of them had started
to call the PM ‘Mr Prime Minister’ since the bombing the day before. The army had come to rescue him and this, at last, had provoked some respect. Some saw that if they got rid of the
PM then the army wouldn’t bomb them so badly again. Giving him up meant the army might leave them alone for the time being. It would buy a little more time. Others felt to hold on to him
meant they would be safer.

Hal seemed to know it was time to let him go. He called Breeze to him and said, ‘I need to ask you to do something.’

Breeze had a new demeanour. He was plainly not so enamored with Hal anymore.

He came and said, ‘What?’

Hal said, ‘Ay.’

But Breeze didn’t correct his attitude.

‘You need to take this flag here, see, and wave it from one of the big windows over the balcony in the front. We go call a truce. We handing over the Prime Minister. He need to go to
hospital. We need to send him out.’

‘You want me to wave a peace flag?’

‘Yeah.’

‘When?’

‘Now.’

Ashes felt relieved. At last a giving up, this was progress. This is what the army were hoping they would do; it was a wise decision. It meant the PM would live.

Breeze took the stick and two of the armed brothers went with him through the maze of corridors, and the next thing Ashes saw the broomstick with the white T-shirt poke out from the window above
the balcony of the House. It hung rather limply, like it didn’t mean what it was trying to say; it was saying, ‘Okay, nuh, give us a chance.’ It looked like a rag, sorry for
itself. Then Ashes realised that he
was
sorry for himself.