Savage Sun

Savage Sun

The Dangerous Season - Rwanda 1970 – Sunny

A shiver skimmed across Sunny’s skin, rippling anxiety through his veins. He knew she watched him – the beautiful girl with slender, golden arms and legs. Long, graceful limbs so like his own. She’d followed him from the village to this remote spot because she desired him. But he was promised to Lily and his devoted heart could not change allegiance.

Even though his back was to her, he sensed her eyes on him and her hunger. Serene was her given name but, as far he could tell, she wasn’t serene at all. He’d seen her with her friends, laughing and taunting others. Her spiteful eyes always on the prowl for anything or anyone to mock. She wore her privilege like a crown on her haughty head. She thought she was better than others. She believed in her entitlement.

He stared at the thirsting river and the dry, restless bush beyond it and yearned for the rains to come. The African heat waned as the fireball sun dropped towards the scorched, flat horizon. His body ached while his heart pined for his home. The soft pad of her feet moved closer and he prepared himself to repel her advances. A mixture of coconut oil and sweat, invaded his senses.

‘Why do you ignore me?’ she asked. Her fingers caressed the back of his cotton shirt.

He flinched and then forced his shoulders to drop. This girl must be kept onside; her family ruled the village and therefore ruled him. He’d given her no reason to follow him. His eyes hadn’t rested on her. He hadn’t engaged her in conversation, never smiled in her direction – purposefully not led her on. ‘I cannot be what you want, my heart is with another,’ he said.

Her hand withdrew and he feared he’d been too brutal but better to be cruel in order to be kind.

‘You’d choose some pathetic Hutu from your hovel of a village over me?’

The blood in his veins froze. She knew. Someone had betrayed him. His thoughts swirled in different directions – thrown into chaos by the tangle of deadly outcomes knotting through his brain. This girl held his fate on her vicious tongue. If she told of his true heritage, he’d be stoned to death or burnt at the stake. His family would starve and he would never see Lily again. He tried to swim back to the calm waters which usually orientated him but fear thundered through his being like an engorged river, muddying his mind and drowning his ability to think clearly.

‘I’ll keep your dirty secret but you must marry me,’ she said.

Her words a rain of knives. He could never marry this sneering, cruel girl, born of a race he detested. He couldn’t bear to lie with her and create his children from such a treacherous womb. He could not. He would not. He’d rather die. He remained still. Her hand was on his back again. Her feathery touch more perturbing than the most venomous tarantula.

‘Go home,’ he said, as firmly as his trembling lips would allow.

‘I am home. It is you who’s far from home. How my father would praise me if I exposed a traitor in our midst. How angry my people would be if they knew you’d been taking our food and money, when you and your kind deserve to starve like savage dogs.’

‘If that’s all I am, why do you want me?’

‘You’re a handsome savage and I want beautiful children and I always get what I want.’

‘Go home, Serene.’

‘And let you run away? Not a chance.’

He couldn’t think of anything else to do or say. Maybe he should bolt across the shallow river and risk the jaws of the hungry crocodiles. Even their deadly grip would be better than this girl’s callous embrace.

‘Forget your village. Make this your home. You will live like a king,’ she said more softly, her fingers spidering down his spine.

‘I cannot,’ he said.

‘Then know your village has been raided, burnt to the ground. Every last stinking Hutu slayed.’

Her poisonous words pierced his heart and his blood turned from cold to hot. The sun vanished and the black cloak of the Rwandan night descended.

He spun around, knocking her hand away. ‘You’re lying.’

‘I’m not lying. Those dogs in the north have been slaughtered, ask my father.’ She laughed. ‘I have your attention now.’

She did, she had all his attention. He knew the possibility of conflict had been rising but could the killings have started again? Had the Tutsi rebels destroyed his kin while he’d been serving their people?

‘You have no home to go to. You might as well stay here with me. Save yourself, at least.’ She stood there in the light of the rising moon, smiling, after telling him everything he held dear in the world had gone.

He knew, glaring into her dark, heartless eyes, she told the truth – his family were dead, Lily was dead. A shotgun of emotion exploded, momentarily fragmenting his body and mind. Then a roar rose from some primal depth and a stampede of rage burst through his arms, into his hands. His fingers grabbed her slender throat, squeezing the air from it as if she were the Tutsi invading his homeland. The glimmer of stars reflected in her bulging eyes, terror shone from them and he was glad. Terrible choking sounds followed but he didn’t stop. He was the long-awaited rains, pounding down, out of control; swept along on a ferocious wave of wrath, grief and impotence. He hadn’t been there to save them, to fight for them, to die alongside them. He was here. A useless cuckoo in a viper’s nest. A tsunami of hate surged through him. His grip tightened until her body became limp. Then, as if awoken, his hold loosened and he lay her down gently on the baked soil.

The fury seeped away and his heart bloated with regret. Tears of remorse and shame trickled down his face. Here he stood, the last of his line, staring into the vacant eyes of a dead girl. An ice borne of some frozen wasteland encased him. Seventeen and his life was over.

‘Oh Lord forgive me,’ he said, looking up into the heart of darkness. ‘Forgive me and I promise the rest of my life will be in your service.’

The cackle of a Hyena tore through the warm night. No God could forgive what he’d just done. He must face his fate alone. He was a murderer. No better than the savages who’d killed his people. He knelt beside Serene’s lifeless body and sobbed for the future he’d stolen and for the lost lives of his loved ones. He finally lay down next to her and closed his eyes, contemplating on how his own existence would end – in flames, a hail of stones or, if fortune shone on him, with the sharp edge of a machete, severing his neck from his head.

Early Spring – England 1970 - Tanya

I should have been safe in my new home but I was as vulnerable as a leaf clinging to a severed branch. A frost shivered on the apple trees in the garden below – spring’s fledgling warmth not yet strong enough to loosen winter’s icy grasp. This house I’d lived in with my mother and John appeared idyllic; a chocolate box cottage but there was nothing sweet inside. The property sat at the end of a lonely lane. Old, with thick walls, it was sure of itself. Rooted in years of history and solid like a fully grown oak. Its bare floorboards were wide and sturdy. Its ancient beams low and gnarled. My mother’s screams were imprisoned inside its impassive stone. The house would not tell its secrets and neither could I.

I was nine and about to start yet another new school. We’d crossed the border from Yorkshire into Lancashire for this new life, a better life, my mother said. Tomorrow, John would drive me the ten miles to the private school he was paying for. I knew this because he constantly reminded Mum how expensive it was and how most men wouldn’t pay for another man’s child to be educated. I would’ve rather gone to the worst or cheapest school on earth than live with John. The house was warm and filled with soft furnishings, but no amount of heat or comfort could compensate for his rages which chilled my blood and shook my sapling limbs.

Alone, sitting on my bed in the early evening, the sky already dark, I heard him. The TV blaring but his shouting louder. My hands instinctively covered my ears but I knew cruel and hateful things were being said. A book about a silver brumby, trembled on my lap. My eyes and mind unable to focus long enough to escape into the pages. I wanted the toilet but I daren’t leave my room. To move might make his voice louder, more real. I sat there for an age until the shouting finally stopped and then I crept to the door. As I reached for the handle, a scream froze my hand. Warm liquid dribbled down my leg and tears blurred my vision. I knew he was hurting my mum; I knew I should do something, but I couldn’t move. More urine seeped out. Shame, as well as terror, swirled inside my churning heart. My hand found the gold chain around my neck. I held the cross that hung from it and prayed; promising to be kind and good if God would just save us.

***

The next morning my mother woke me. ‘Time for school, Tanya,’ she said brightly, her face dark with bruises.

I no longer commented on her swollen lips or black eyes; she liked to pretend everything was fine. Keep the peace but there was a rage building in my small chest. A tiny, hot kernel of hate bloomed. Why was this happening? Why did he do this? And why did my mother stay with him? All questions I couldn’t articulate at my young age but all questions forming and bubbling like lava in my troubled blood.

Mum pushed a wayward red curl from my face and reminded me to tie my hair back, then she was gone. I washed quickly and dressed. John was waiting, I mustn’t be late.

On the way to school, I listened to John saying how I would love being privately educated. All the children would be great – kids of businessmen and professionals like doctors.

That could be handy for Mum, I thought. Maybe I’d make friends with the daughter of a doctor or even better a policeman and he’d help us runaway. John continued to talk, telling me how I must make the most of the opportunity; how I must work hard, always be polite, respectful. I remained quiet, he glanced at me.

‘Are you listening?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then repeat back what I just said.’

I did, verbatim.

‘Good,’ he said.

We pulled into a drive leading to a massive house with a plaque next to its huge oak front door – St Hellier’s School for Girls.

He parked the car. Other parents with their schoolgirl daughters were milling around: straightening coats, wrapping scarves, giving hugs and kisses goodbye.

‘Have a good day,’ John said, as I got out and walked away. Almost at the front doors, I heard him shout.

‘Tanya!’

I don’t know why the fury inside me chose to burst at that precise moment, but it did. I swung back towards him and screamed, ‘What?’

The smile left his face and his expression turned thunderous. He held out my school bag and I marched forward and took it. He didn’t say another word, he didn’t need to. The heat of his anger scorched my skin while sending an icy dread through my quivering heart. I turned back towards the school, my footsteps small and slow, already trying to prolong the day and delay the inevitable – home time.

Late Spring

At eighteen, I hardly ever thought of John and the belt that had lashed me. Mum had divorced him years ago, although, she’d gone onto have a similarly shit succession of manfriends. But I’d finally escaped my mother and her men and lived in a flat in Morecambe. I shared the space with a friend, Vanessa, or Nessa as she preferred to be called. Nessa worked in a fish and chip shop. Deep fried oil seemed to cling to her and the flat, like a sea fog refusing to evaporate.

I’d recently had my A level results and they were good – Maths A, English Literature B, and Biology B. I could go to university my teachers said, but no one I knew was going, so I never truly considered the option. Plus, I was desperate to get on with my life. Earn money, have fun, not be at the mercy of my mother and her men ever again.

I finished my shift in a local pub and headed to meet Nessa, outside the cinema. We planned to see Damien: Omen 2 and I was nervous because the first film had terrified me. A queue straggled down the pavement but Nessa wasn’t in it. I joined the end, hoping she’d turn up soon. A tall guy in front, with straight, black hair (longer than mine) glanced back at me.