Place of Peace

Everything in life matters. Everything you do, every tiny moment, every word you say, every single letter of that word. Get one thing wrong, and all you’re left with is a lie.

This is what the woman is thinking as she steps out from the heat of the car and in to the dust of the roadway. It’s a thought, picked up from a printing error, embedded somewhere in the social page of yesterday’s Tanganyika Standard. The item, under the heading On Leave, talked about how Major H Brown, OBE., and his wife Mrs Brown, are setting sail on the Bernadine de St. Pierre, from Dar es Salaam, for spell in Europe. The woman knows the Brown’s, but only in that way that every Brit, in this town is well aware of who the others are, where they live, which part of the home country they came from, what they do, and who they do it with. The announcement went on to explain that Major Brown, who had lately served as a member on the Man-Power Committee appointed by His Excellency the Governor, had played a prominent role in public life – only the words didn’t say public life, they said public lie, and ever since the woman stepped out from the bungalow that has been her home for the last seven years, this thought has run round and round in her head.

Now, as she stands and straightens her back, she isn’t thinking about the more urgent content of the article on the editorial page opposite, although much of that needs to be thought about. She isn’t pondering the implications of that article’s statement, that Russia is considering an alliance with the British and the French, over a possible threat from Germany towards Finland and the Baltic States. Nor is she brooding over the implications in the piece that runs alongside it, the piece that urges everyone back in England, with the means to do so, to stockpile a weeks’ reserve supply of non-perishable food in their own home. To this woman, in this place, at this time, as she gradually makes her way, from the car and into the crowd, all of that seems irrelevant. It’s too distant, it all relates to someone else’s world.

Above the woman’s head, as she places one foot in front of the other, sea-birds’ wheel and screech. She looks up, squinting against the scorch of the sun. She sniffs in a short breath, and notes the weight of her heart, as it swings in the cavity of her chest like a wrecking ball, bruising her ribs and blocking the inward flow of air.

She tries to keep herself steady as she walks, but every time she places her right foot on the ground she has to grit her teeth and limp slightly. This is because a sharp pain that starts in the bed of her nail, is driving itself through her big toe and onwards into her foot.

This isn’t a new problem. She hasn’t been able to walk properly since the day the baby was born. Today all she can do is hobble.

Things have changed recently: become more serious, but this problem with her foot didn’t start as a bodily predicament, and neither was it a choice. What the woman really needs is a new pair of shoes. She has needed them for a while, but with the way things are, there is nothing to be had in the shops.

Everything is in short supply.

Everywhere is closing down.

Everyone is busy, moving on, or evolving.

It’s true that all those little businesses in Uhindini are scrambling after opportunities, but what they really want is to cash in on the bigger jobs that are emerging out of the growing turmoil of approaching war. In truth, part of the woman’s problem has been practical; it would be too dangerous for her, as a white woman, a European, to venture alone into the mysterious sights and smells of Little India these days. A leather worker in any one of those lean-to shacks, would be skilful enough to fix her problem, even if only temporarily, and for just a few shillings. But there have been too many reports of chaos caused by surges of immigrant natives running through those narrow streets, too many tales of bag-snatchers and pickpockets in the dark alleys of the commercial zone. These are tumultuous times for everyone.

There is another side to the woman’s problem though, and this is one she has brought upon herself. Recently, her shame has meant she hasn’t felt able to ask someone else to go in her stead. Many would have done, some out of the kindness of their hearts, and others for the chance to look at her and judge. Either would have got the job done, but the woman couldn’t face it, so instead she has left the shoe as it is. She’s left it too late, and now she has no option but put up with what she has, and wait until she gets back home to England.

Her limp is getting harder to disguise these days. The sole of her right shoe has almost entirely disintegrated. Now, every time she presses down to take a step, the soft outside of her foot slips into the gap around the edge, only to be pinched between the hard, hot ground and the sharp cracked leather. If forced, she would have to admit to having been complicit in the decisions around new shoes, and whether or not to repair, she would have to regard part of the pain as her own responsibility. What is different about today is that even though she has tied the laces as loosely as she can, she can still feel the blackening nail of her big toe as it rises from its bruised bed, and pushes hard against the shoe’s rounded leather end.

This is a change. This is new damage. It happened this morning, when the suitcase she was carrying slipped from her hand, and landed on her toe. She hadn’t cried when that happened, even though the impact had shot through her, like a burning bullet, leaving her whole foot smarting and throbbing. It wasn’t the pain that got to her. It was the shock, the unexpectedness of the injury, and when it did get to her, it caused her to drop her guard. She had crumpled to the floor. Slumped like an old tweed coat. She had curled in on herself, with her hand squeezing her painful toe, and her face pressed so hard against her knee that the pressure on her eye socket had caused a starburst behind her eye.

That was when she’d wept. Not cried, not sobbed, but properly wept, for the first time in what could have been years.

She had hidden her face, so that no one would notice. No one had. They were all too busy living out their own dramas to notice something as trivial as a few tears caused by a stubbed toe.

And that isn’t surprising, because today is the day that Bill and the boys are setting sail for England.

Once Leila had recovered from the shock of the suitcase on her foot, she’d pulled herself up and sat on a packing case to watch the others. For a few minutes, she’d floated above herself, there in the hallway, with its white painted walls and parquet flooring set out in the Herringbone style. She’d noted the closed aspect of Bill’s face as he stalked through the rooms, looking at everything for one last time, and she’d wondered what exactly there was inside his heart.

His own limp was worse than usual.

His lips set even thinner, blue eyes averted.

He was already long gone.

The boys though, they were buzzing. They’ve been up since sunrise, bouncing off each other. Winding each other up over the adventure that is spreading out in front of them. They are too young to understand that they are nothing more than feathers, being puffed up into the centre of a hurricane, less important even than dust in the fallout of global politics that is swirling around the world.

Now that they are all at the quayside, Leila’s eyes feel tight and sore. She scrunches them up, cracking the crust around their edges. The sensation makes her want to sneeze. She draws in a breath, and holds it, counting to ten. The air in her nose is fish and tar. It tickles.

The irritation passes.

Above her head, silhouetted gulls are falling leaves against the cerulean sky. A flaming yellow sun chips away at her hair, digging through the dark chestnut strands, searching for scraps of fugitive skin, while a breeze, so light that it’s barely perceptible, whittles its way between the bodies that heave and jostle all around, to tease her cheek with its gentle fingers.

In front of the woman, the swell of the crowd is a river running over rapids. A golden foam of people, pushed and pulled towards their own escape, while she is caught in its passage like a stone. She, and the baby, will stay behind, and travel later. They’ve been separated out together. Left to knock along the bottom of the out-flow, beneath all of this excitement, rolling alone, trapped in a little bubble of their very own. It isn’t personal, she tells herself. There just isn’t room for them all to go together. Not a single ship has the space left for a family of five. So, she, Leila, along with the baby with no name, will stay behind, and wait for a later passage.

Leila glances down at the baby’s face. His fine ginger lashes rest lightly on soft pink cheeks, and his tiny, perfect nostrils, flare white with each inward breath. Drawing in each new experience. All the smells of the quay: salt and smoke in the distance, oil, dirt and sweat all around. The woman, the mother, she breathes in too. She’s testing the air, to keep him safe. As if that could ever be possible.

Looking up again she scans the scene in front of her. She’s struck by how, just below the surface of this flow of travellers, a flurry of Indian dockworkers appear like fish. Short and fast, their musky agile bodies move like minnows in among the other, bigger shoals. They dash around purposefully, carrying cases, pushing trolleys, earning the last of the easy money by servicing the mayhem of evacuation.

The woman presses on through the crowd. Before her, she can see the little troop of her family. At the head of the group is the tall, capable outline of Jonah, with the slighter, lighter, wirier Abraham at his shoulder. Their heads shine black against the light, floating clearly like glass buoys in a bubbling sea of anxious jetsam. What the woman can’t see, but still knows, is that beneath the waves, both of these men are holding a suitcase in each of their strong dark hands.

Following these two men, tucked in behind Jonah, the woman can just make out the square shoulders of Bill, set stubbornly against the world. His brown trilby sticks firmly to his head. His angry back is shouting resistance, tilting with each step, and in each of his hands, again hidden from view, is the hand of a small boy. Her boys: heading off to sea without her.

From her vantage point, it looks as if their little group slices easily through the churn of the crowd, parting it smoothly like the prow of a ship, but the noises, pushing against her from all sides, are a contradiction. They hum in a symphony of discord: the rumble of motors, people’s voices calling, sirens and bells. They all sound off against each other, and all at once. No co-operation at all.

The woman pushes on, limping more heavily. Each breath tugs in her ribcage, she’s dragging her heart behind her now. It feels as if it’s pulling her back, trying to slow her down. She wishes that there was an anchor she could drop, a brake lever somewhere, that she could wrench and cause everything to stop. Maybe then they could turn, go back to where things had started to go wrong, and fix them.

Someone jolts into her, crashes against her arm where it wraps around the baby. The mother stumbles slightly, and nearly falls.

‘Hey! Mind where you’re going!’ Her own snapping voice is a stranger’s as she recovers her footing. But, straightening, she continues on, glancing down to check the sleeping baby. His eyes flicker open to look back at her. Dark and strange and puzzled, they stared up into her face and she feels a surge of love rising from somewhere deep inside.

‘Hello, baby.’ She says. This time, her voice comes out soft, it arrives of its own volition, and the lines of disquiet beside her almond eyes melt for a moment.

‘What a world is this to be born into, eh? And, what a time.’

Up ahead, at the water’s edge, not far away now, a row of massive ships rest against the harbour wall, their funnels are turrets that reach way up into the shimmering heat. They block everything else from view as they wait to be colonised by passengers and goods. Mother and baby move closer and as they do, the liners seem rise, to grow up behind the wooden frame of the dock. Dark and tall, sheer as a rock face, they tower above the people still milling around below. Squinting her eye, the woman searches out the name on the vessel closest to her: Llandovery Castle.

Just then a smell of spices wafts past. She looks across, and down a dark snicket between wooden warehouses. Someone has rigged up a cooking stove. A thin black dog is standing beside the weasley wizened cook. He is looking up. The dog has scabs on his skin and his coat is dull with dust, but his face is full of hope and pleading, waiting, praying, expecting that something lucky might fall from the pan.

The thought and smell of food makes Leila retch. Her skin is damp and clammy. She is losing ground. Her legs are still moving her through the crowd, but more and more slowly. A gap is starting to form between her and the rest of the group. Strangers are beginning to seep in and fill the space between her and them.

Through a gap in the crowd, she can see that up ahead the boys are skipping, dancing around their father like balloons on short strings. Their little legs shine opal under their identical dark and pale, shirts and shorts. Their little brown curls bouncing with them.

As they draw closer to ships, the woman watches as the boys twist their necks to look up. High above a sailor is leaning over the railing, he waves down at them. His white peaked-cap is glinting, bright in the sun. The boys both turn to their father at the same time. They both tug his arm and call up to him, pointing back at the ship. Bill bends his head towards Charlie to hear what he has to say. John knows the form. He holds himself back, and an invisible rope of disappointment tightens around him like a tether. The child stands watching his brother for a moment before pulling half-heartedly at his father’s arm, asking for some attention too. Bill resists for as long as he can, then turns sharply.

‘Now, just a minute young man! Wait your turn!’ Over the jabber of the crowd, the mother can see her husband’s flushed face, but only imagine the impatience of his words.

The babe in her arms gives a squawk. She looks down at him without changing her pace. His face is red and contorted. He writhes in her arms, winding himself up to cry. Another squawk. Oh no, she thinks. A crying baby, at this time, that’s all that’s needed to make Bill really cross. She pulls the shawl up to cover the baby’s head, to protect him from the sun. Then, she lifts him up against her shoulder and rubs his back to keep him going a little longer.

In front of her, she can see the queue starting to form. People in jackets and hats, men, women, children, they are waiting to board. Jonah is looking back and beckoning to his Master.

Suddenly, through the crowd, comes the hurrying shape of a woman. The flash of her green dress is jewel amid the dull browns and greys of the travelling folk and porters. Her head is wrapped in a silk scarf of pale lemon, and her dark glasses, intended as a disguise perhaps, just make her stand further out in her glamour. She pushes her way towards Bill, touches him on the arm. He looks up surprised. Pleased. Flustered.

What does any of this matter now?

Leila stops to watch them, the wrecking ball in her chest splinters against her ribs as Nancy leans in towards Bill, and talks rapidly into his ear. Her cheeks are flushed like the skin of a ripening peach. A wayward strand of hair escapes from the pale lemon scarf and whispers in the air between them. In her hand, the woman has a piece of paper, an envelope perhaps. Without changing her position, she pushes it into Bill’s hand. Then, as quickly as she appeared, the woman slips away again, the light of her headscarf curling through the crowd like a piece of litter being pushed along the pavement by the breeze. Bill glances furtively to the left and to the right, then tucks the envelope into his jacket pocket and carries on, as if nothing untoward has happened at all.

Our woman moves forward again, she catches up with her family. Jonah is handing the cases over to a porter and pointing back towards the group. Bill is reaching in his pocket for their papers, and the boys seem to have forgotten that she ever existed.

‘Are we going to get on now, Dad?’

‘Are we getting on?’

‘It’s called ‘boarding’, when you get on to a ship.’ Bill corrects them. ‘You say ‘Are we boarding now? Well, the answer is, in a minute or two. Now, go and give your mother a kiss. You’ll see her again back in England.’

Bill shoots a look in her direction, the flush of his encounter still on his cheeks, an expression of what could be embarrassment, or even disgust, lurks in his eyes, as he pushes the boys towards her.

Leila feels herself blush. She looks around in a panic. She wants to hand the baby to someone, but she knows that Bill will never offer to take him. Her nose is starting to run, and tears are backing up behind her eyes. She catches the tightness of his lips, the exasperation on his face, and, as he notices her emotion, he turns away again, shaking his head.

‘Pull yourself together Leila, for goodness sake. Do it for the children, if nothing else.’ Bill speaks under his breath, as Jonah, free of luggage now, and reading something of the situation unfolding between his Master and Mistress, steps forward to take the baby. As he does so, Leila drops to her knees, pulls the twins close to her body, gathers up the tender feel of them, and swallows in the softness of their smell.

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