Bodily Harm

  "You goin' to let that bastard win?" It's Marsdon, almost a shriek. "You let him fool you? So many years he betray the people, you goin' to betray the people too?"

  Dr. Minnow is making a speech; his voice rises and falls, rises and falls. He, after all, has more experience as well as more seats, he will be the leader of the opposition, if nothing else. Why should he back down in favour of Prince? He cannot let the Justice Party swing in the direction of Castro.

  "Castro!" Marsdon yells. "All you tell me is Castro! Prince no Castro!"

  Why here? Rennie asked. I'm the connection, Paul told her. Rennie wishes they would turn down the volume. She's not doing too well with the murderers, but she's eighty percent on the victims: two blondes with pale translucent skin, mouths like red gashes and swelling breasts bursting through their dresses, two tempestuous redheads with eyes of green smouldering fire and skin like clotted cream, each carefully arranged on floor or bed like a still life, not quite naked, clothing dishevelled to suggest rape, though there was no rape in the forties, finger-marks livid around the throat - they loved livid - or a wound still oozing, preferably in the left breast. Dead but not molested. The private eyes finding them (two hot-tempered Irishmen, one Greek, two plain Americans) describe each detail of the body fully, lushly, as if running their tongues over it; all that flesh, totally helpless because totally dead. Each of them expresses outrage at the crime, even though the victim provoked it. Rennie finds it curiously innocent, this hypocritical outrage. It's sweetly outmoded, like hand-kissing.

  After a while Rennie hears the sound of chairs being scraped back, and then it's quiet. Then Paul comes into the room and starts taking off his clothes, as if nothing at all has happened. He peels the T-shirt off first, drops it to the floor. Already it seems to her a familiar gesture. Rennie counts: she's known him five days.

  "What happened?" she says. "What were they doing?"

  "Dealing," says Paul. "Minnow won. As of fifteen minutes ago, he's the new prime minister. They've all gone off to have a party."

  "Marsdon backed down?"

  "No," says Paul. "He didn't exactly back down. He said he was doing it for the good of the people. There was some disagreement about who the people were, but you have to expect that."

  "Did Prince just sort of abdicate?" says Rennie.

  "Prince didn't do anything," Paul says. "Marsdon did it for him. Marsdon's going to be Minister of Tourism, and they sawed off at Justice Minister for Prince. That's why Marsdon didn't struggle too hard. He wants to see the look on the face of the current Justice Minister. They hate each other like shit."

  He disappears into the bathroom and Rennie can hear him brushing his teeth. "You don't seem too happy," she calls.

  Paul comes out again. He walks flat-footed, heavily towards the bed. He's older than she thought. "Why should I be?" he says.

  "Dr. Minnow's a good man," says Rennie. This is true, he is a good man, and it's not his fault that goodness of his kind makes her twitchy. It's like being with someone on a diet, which always makes her lust for chocolate mousse and real whipped cream.

  "Good men can be a pain in the ass," says Paul. "They're hard to deal with. He's a politician so he's a user, they have to be, but he's less of a user than most. He believes in democracy and fair play and all those ideas the British left here along with cricket, he really does believe that shit. He thinks guns are playing dirty."

  "What do you think?" says Rennie. She's back to interviewing him.

  Paul's sitting on the edge of the bed, as if reluctant to get into it. "It doesn't matter what I think," he says. "I'm neutral. What matters right now is what the other side thinks. What Ellis thinks."

  "What does Ellis think?" says Rennie.

  "That remains to be seen," says Paul. "He's not going to like it."

  "What about Prince?" says Rennie.

  "Prince is a believer," says Paul. "He supplies the belief. He thinks that's all you need."

  Now at last he does get into the bed, crawling under the mosquito net, tucking it in before turning to her. He's tired, no doubt of that, and Rennie suddenly finds this very suburban. All he needs are some striped pyjamas and a heart attack and the picture will be complete. He's not the one who's giving that impression though. It's her own solicitude, faked. She knows something he doesn't know, she knows she's leaving. She'll be on the afternoon boat tomorrow, and everything in between is just filler. Maybe she'll tell him she has a headache. She could use some sleep.

  Still, doubt is what you should give other people the benefit of, or that's the theory. She owes him something: he was the one who gave her back her body; wasn't he? Although he doesn't know it. Rennie puts her hands on him. It can be, after all, a sort of comfort. A kindness.

  "What do you dream about?" Rennie says. It's her last wish, it's all she really wants to know.

  "I told you," Paul says.

  "But you lied," says Rennie.

  For a while Paul doesn't say anything. "I dream about a hole in the ground," he says finally.

  "What else?" says Rennie.

  "That's all," says Paul. "It's just a hole in the ground, with the earth that's been dug out. It's quite large, there are trees around it. I'm walking towards it. There's a pile of shoes off to the side."

  "Then what?" says Rennie.

  "Then I wake up," says Paul.

  Rennie hears it before she realizes what it is. At first she thinks it's rain. It is rain, but something more. Paul is out of the bed before she is. Rennie goes into the bathroom for a large towel, which she wraps around her. The pounding at the door goes on, and the voice.

  When she gets to the livingroom what she sees is Paul, stark naked, and Lora with her arms around him. She's dripping wet.

  Rennie stands with her mouth open, holding her towel around her, while Paul grapples with Lora, pushing her away from him, holding her at arms' length, shaking her. She's crying. "Oh God, oh Christ," she says.

  "What is it?" says Rennie. "Is she sick?"

  "Minnow's been shot," Paul says, over the top of Lora's head.

  Rennie goes cold. "That's incredible!" she says. She feels as if someone's just told her the Martians have landed. It must be a put-on, an elaborate joke.

  "They shot him from behind," says Lora. "In the back of the head. Right out on the road and everything."

  "Who would do it?" Rennie says. She thinks of the men, the followers, the ones with mirror sunglasses. She tries to focus on something useful she could do. Maybe she should make some tea, for Lora.

  "Get your clothes on," Paul says to her.

  Lora starts to cry again. "It's so crummy," she says. "The fuckers. I never thought they'd go that far."

  Dr. Minnow is in a closed coffin in the livingroom. The coffin is dark wood, plain; it rests on two kitchen chairs, one at either end. On top of the coffin there's a pair of scissors, open, and Rennie wonders whether they are part of some ritual, some ceremony she doesn't know about, or whether someone's just forgotten them.

  The coffin is like a stage prop, an emblem out of some horrible little morality play; only they've forgotten to say what the moral is. At any moment the lid will pop up and Dr. Minnow will be sitting there, smiling and nodding, as if he's pulled off a beautiful joke. Only this does not happen.

  Rennie is in the livingroom with the women, who sit on chairs or on the floor, children sleeping in their laps, or stand against the wall. It's one o'clock at night. There are other women in the kitchen, making coffee and setting out plates for the food that the women have brought: Rennie can see them through the open doorway. It's a lot like Griswold, it's a lot like her grandmother's funeral, except in Griswold you ate after the burial, not before, and you did the hymn-singing in church. Here they do it whenever they feel like it: one starts, the others join in, three-part harmony. Someone's playing the mouth-organ.

  Dr. Minnow's wife has the place of honour beside the coffin; she cries and cries, she makes no attempt to hide it, nobody disapproves. This, too, is differe
nt from Griswold: sniffling was all right, into a handkerchief, but not this open crying, raw desolation, this nakedness of the face. It wasn't decent. If you went on like that they gave you a pill and told you to go upstairs and lie down.

  "Why this happen?" the wife says, over and over again. "Why this happen?"

  Elva is sitting beside her, holding her hand, which she rubs gently between her own two hands, massaging the fingers. "I see him into this world," she says. "Now I see him out of it."

  Two women come out of the kitchen, carrying a tray with mugs of coffee. Rennie takes one, and some banana bread and a coconut cookie. It's her second mug of coffee. She's sitting on the floor, her legs are going to sleep beneath her.

  She feels guilty and useless, guilty because useless. She thinks of all the history that's lying there in the coffin, wasted, a hole blown through it. It seems to her a very tacky way to die. Now she knows why he wanted her to write about this place: so there would be less chance of this happening, to him.

  "Should we be doing anything?" she whispers to Lora, who's sitting beside her.

  "Who knows?" says Lora. "I never went to one of these before."

  "How long does it go on?" says Rennie.

  "All night," says Lora.

  "Why this happen?" says the wife again.

  "It was his time," says one of the women.

  "No," says Elva. "A Judas here."

  The women stir uneasily. Someone begins to sing:

  "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine,

  Oh what a foretaste of Glory divine,

  Perfect salvation, sent from above,

  Washed in his goodness, lost in his love."

  Rennie is uneasy. It's hot in the room and too crowded, it smells of cinnamon and coffee and sweat, a sweet, stuffy, unhealthy smell, clogged with emotion, and it's getting so much like Griswold she can't bear it. What did she die of? Cancer, praise the Lord. That was the kind of thing they said. She stands up, as unobtrusively as she can, and edges towards the porch, out the door that stands mercifully open.

  The men are outside, on the concrete porch that runs around three sides of the house. The drink here is not coffee; in the dim porch light the bottles gleam, passing from hand to hand. There are more men, down below in the garden, there's a crowd, gathering, some of them have torches, there are voices, tense, rising.

  Paul is out there, a conspicuous white face, standing to one side. He spots Rennie and pulls her back against the wall beside him. "You should be in with the women," he says.

  Rennie chooses to take this not as a put-down but as a social hint. "I couldn't breathe," she says. "What's going on down there?"

  "Nothing yet," says Paul. "They're mad as hell though. Minnow was from Ste. Agathe. A lot of people here are related to him."

  Someone's carrying a chair over to the porch railing. A man climbs up on it and looks down at the upturned faces. It's Marsdon. The voices quiet.

  "Who kill this man?" he says.

  "Ellis," someone calls, and the crowd chants, "Ellis, Ellis."

  "Judas," says Marsdon, almost a shout.

  "Judas. Judas."

  Marsdon raises his hands and the chanting stops.

  "How many more times?" he says. "How much more, how many more dead? Minnow a good man. We are going to wait till he kill all of us, every one? We been asking, many times, we get nothing. Now we gonna take."

  There's shouting, an enraged cheer, then one clear voice: "Tear down Babylon!" In the dark below, bodies begin to move. Marsdon bends, stands up again; in his hands is a compact little machine gun.

  "Shit," says Paul. "I told them not to do that."

  "Do what?" says Rennie. "What are they going to do?" She can feel her heart going, she doesn't understand. Massive involvement.

  "They don't have enough guns," says Paul. "It's as simple as that. I don't know where Prince is, he'll have to stop them."

  "What if he can't?" says Rennie.

  "Then he'll have to lead them," says Paul. He pushes off from the wall. "Go back to the house," he says.

  "I don't know the way," says Rennie. They came in a jeep.

  "Lora does," says Paul.

  "What about you?" says Rennie.

  "Don't worry," says Paul. "I'll be fine."

  They go by the back streets, Lora first, then Rennie. The only place to be, in Lora's opinion, is out of the way. It's muddy here from the rain but they don't bother to pick their way around the water-filled potholes, there's no time and it's hard to see. The only light comes from the small concrete-block houses set at intervals back from the road. The road is deserted, the action is a couple of streets farther down towards the sea. They hear shouting, the smash of glass.

  "Bank windows," says Lora. "I bet you anything."

  They cross a side street. For a moment there's a glimpse of torches. "Don't let them see you is my motto," says Lora. "In the dark anyone's fair game. They can apologize afterwards but who cares, eh? There's going to be a few old scores settled, no matter what else they do."

  Now they can hear gunfire, irregular and staccato, and after a minute the feeble lights in the houses flicker and go out, the underlying hum in the air shudders and cuts. "There goes the power plant," says Lora. "They'll take over that and the police station, there's only two policemen on Ste. Agathe anyway so it shouldn't be that hard. There isn't a hell of a lot else to take over around here. Maybe they'll smash up the Lime Tree and get drunk on the free booze."

  "I can't see," says Rennie. Her sandals are muddy, the bottom of her skirt is dripping; she's more disgusted than frightened. Window-breaking, juvenile delinquency, that's all it is, this tiny riot.

  "Come on," says Lora. She gropes for Rennie's arm, pulls her along. "They'll be up here in a minute, they'll be after Ellis's people. We'll take the path."

  Rennie stumbles after her. She's disoriented, she has no idea where they are, even the stars are different here. It's slow going without a moon. Branches heavy with damp flowers brush against her, the smells are still alien. She pushes through the leaves, slipping on the wet earth of the path. Below them is the road. Through the undergrowth she can see moving lights now, flashlights, torches, and hurrying figures. It's almost like a festival.

  When they finally reach the house it's completely dark.

  "Damn," says Rennie. "We locked it when we went out and Paul's got the key. We'll have to break in."

  But Lora's already at the door, pushing. "It's open," she says.

  As soon as they're inside the door there's a sharp glare, sudden, against their eyes. Rennie almost screams.

  "It's only you," says Paul. He lowers the flashlight.

  "How in shit did you get back here ahead of us?" says Lora.

  "Took the jeep," says Paul. To Rennie he says, "Get your things."

  "Where's Prince?" says Lora.

  "Down there being a hero," says Paul. "They've got the two policemen tied up with clothesline, and they're declaring an independent state. Marsdon's writing a proclamation and they want to send it out over my radio. They're asking Grenada to recognize them. There's even some talk of invading St. Antoine."

  "You've got to be kidding," says Lora. "How the shit would they do that?"

  "In the fishing boats," says Paul, "plus whatever other boats they can grab. They've got a bunch of Swedish tourists in the police station, and those two German women who are making one hell of a fuss. They've requisitioned them. Hostages."

  "Can't you stop them?" says Lora.

  "You think I haven't tried?" says Paul. "They won't listen to me any more. They think they've won. It's way out of control. Go into the bedroom," he says to Rennie, "and get your stuff. There's a candle in there. I'm taking you over to St. Antoine, you can get the morning plane out. If you were smart," he says to Lora, "you'd go with her. You've still got your passport." Rennie lets herself be ordered. This is his scene after all, his business; he's the one who's supposed to know what to do next. She hopes he does.

  She feels her way along the
hall into the bedroom. There isn't much to pack. It might as well be a hotel room; it has the same emptiness, the same melancholy aura of a space that has been used but not lived in. The bed is tangled, abandoned. She can't remember having slept in it.

  The jeep is parked on the road in front of the house. They go down the stone steps, hurrying, their feet in the strong beam of the flashlight.

  Paul has one of the small machine guns; he carries it casually, like a lunch pail. To Rennie it looks like a toy, the kind you aren't supposed to give little boys for Christmas. She doesn't believe it could go off, and surely if it did nothing would come out of it but rubber bullets. She's afraid, but even her fear seems inappropriate. Surely they are not in any real danger. She tries hard for annoyance: perhaps she should feel interrupted.

  Just before they climb into the jeep Paul heaves something overarm into the darkness of the rock garden.

  "What was that?" says Lora.

  "I killed the radio," says Paul. "I called my boats first. They're staying away. I don't want anyone calling St. Antoine, I don't want any welcoming committees in the harbour when we get there."

  "Who'd do that?" says Lora.

  "I've got a few ideas," says Paul.

  The motor catches and the headlights go on and they drive down the road, which is empty. Paul doesn't go all the way into the town. Instead he parks beside a stone wall.

  "Go down to the shore and wait beside the pier," he says. "I'll pick you up there in about fifteen minutes. I'll get us a boat."

  "Your boats are all out," says Lora.

  "I didn't say mine," says Paul. "I'll jump the motor."

  He's younger, alive in a way he hasn't been before. He loves it, thinks Rennie. That's why we get into these messes: because they love it.

  He helps them over the stone wall and passes Rennie's bags down to her. She feels stupid lugging her camera: what is there to take pictures of now?

  "Don't talk," says Lora. Rennie sees where they are: they're in the garden at the back of the Lime Tree. They find the path and feel their way down it. The hotel is dark and silent; behind a few of the windows candles flicker. The bar is deserted, the patio littered with broken glass. Along the beach, towards the town, they can hear singing. It's men, it's not a hymn.

  The tide's going out, there are several yards of wet beach. The waves are strangely luminous. Rennie wants to look at this, she's heard about it, phosphorescence.