Secrets in the Fire Read online

  Her hand reached Maria. Sofia caught hold of her sister.

  ‘I’m in so much pain,’ Maria said. ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘It’s night-time,’ Sofia said. ‘We’ll go home tomorrow.’

  Maria sat up in bed.

  ‘I’m going home now,’ she said.

  Then she lay down. She looked at Sofia.

  Then she closed her eyes.

  Sofia knew that Maria had died. Her hand twitched. Then she was gone.

  Sofia screamed.

  The woman by the window woke and stood up. She turned on the light and looked at Sofia. Then she looked at Maria.

  She tried to remove Sofia’s hand. But Sofia wouldn’t let go.

  Then she sank into the darkness again. Maria was somewhere down there, she knew that.

  It would soon be morning.

  Then everything would be back to normal. They’d hurry out to the fields where Mama Lydia would already be squatting with her hoe.

  Then it would be afternoon and they’d walk to school.

  Everything would be as usual.

  If only the fires inside her would stop burning.

  She never noticed the white-clad people who walked into the room. She never saw Doctor Raul stand quietly by Maria’s bed and shake his head.

  She never saw them transferring Maria to a trolley and wheeling her from the room.

  She never saw that they covered her with a clean, unused sheet.

  Doctor Raul had brought the sheet with him from his own home. He hadn’t wanted Maria to be covered by a sheet that was ripped and dirty.

  The next time Sofia woke it was daytime. The sun was shining in through the window. She could hear cars outside.

  Then she discovered that Maria was gone. Her bed was empty.

  She vaguely remembered what had happened during the night.

  Maria has gone home, she thought. She’s left me here. All by myself. Why has she done that?

  A nurse came into the room.

  ‘Where’s Maria?’ Sofia asked.

  ‘Maria’s dead,’ the nurse said.

  Sofia shook her head.

  ‘She’s gone home,’ Sofia said. ‘She’s not dead.’

  At that moment Doctor Raul came in. Sofia didn’t know his name. He looked kind, but his face was drawn with weariness.

  ‘Where’s Maria?’ Sofia asked.

  Doctor Raul crouched by her bed.

  ‘Your sister was very tired,’ he said. ‘She had such terrible injuries that all she wanted to do was to sleep. That’s what she’s doing right now. She’s no longer in pain. I think we should be happy about that, even though we’re sad that she’s gone. She was in so much pain, Sofia. That’s why Maria is dead.’

  Sofia looked into his eyes.

  He stroked her forehead gently.

  ‘Your Mama Lydia is out there,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and get her.’

  Doctor Raul left the room and closed the door. Outside, in the corridor, Lydia sat hunched on the floor in despair. José-Maria stood next to her.

  Doctor Raul squatted in front of Lydia.

  ‘You have to think about Sofia now,’ he said. ‘Go in to see her. But don’t cry, don’t scream. Remember that Sofia is very ill.’

  Lydia nodded. José-Maria had to pull her up from the floor. Then he helped her into the room where Sofia lay.

  They said almost nothing to each other. José-Maria stood at the back of the room. He watched how Lydia stroked Sofia with her hands, and how Sofia followed Lydia’s face with her eyes.

  Then Lydia left. Out in the corridor, she fainted.

  Two days later the doctors removed Sofia’s right leg from just above the knee. They couldn’t save it. They still hoped she could keep the other leg, although it was also badly injured.

  Four days later, Doctor Raul realised they wouldn’t be able to save the other leg after all. The next day he removed it from just below the knee.

  Sofia still wasn’t aware that she no longer had legs.

  The night after the second operation she was drifting on the underground ocean. The fires continued to burn inside her. Two nurses came into her room. She heard their footsteps, and noticed how they lifted the sheet and examined her body.

  Then she heard them talking to each other.

  ‘It would have been better for her to have died like her sister,’ said one of the voices.

  ‘What kind of life is waiting for her in the future?’ said the other.

  Then the room went quiet. The footsteps moved away from her and the door closed.

  Sofia opened her eyes.

  Had they been talking about her? Why would it have been best if she had died too? Why wasn’t Maria’s death enough?

  She noticed something strange about her body. It wasn’t only the burning fires. She ran her hand carefully down her chest and belly, across all the bandages, and continued down one of her legs.

  It stopped at her knee. Her leg was gone.

  They’ve removed it, she thought fearfully.

  They’ve taken one of my legs away from me.

  CHAPTER SIX

  SOFIA SAT LOOKING into the fire.

  She was dreaming, but everything seemed so real that she could smell the burnt wood, the grass and the soil.

  She didn’t look for secrets in the fire this time. She looked for Muazena’s face amongst the flames. She wanted to ask about the leg that had disappeared, the leg that someone had taken away from her.

  But Muazena’s face wasn’t there. Sofia sat and stared into the fire until there was nothing but smouldering coals. And then darkness.

  When she woke, there was a new day. The pains came and went in waves. Again she felt with her hand beneath the sheet. The leg was gone. At her knee there was only a stump, wrapped in bandage.

  She was very tired. The pain throbbed. She was too tired to think about what had happened to her leg. It felt as if she’d been running a long way and needed to catch her breath. Maybe she’d run so fast that one of her legs got left behind? Maybe it would soon be back in its place below the knee?

  Doctor Raul came into her room. She recognised him now, although she still didn’t know his name. But he always sat by her bed so that his face was close to her own. He smiled. He looked tired. Wasn’t there a bed where he could lie down and rest?

  ‘How are you, Sofia?’ he asked.

  ‘Someone has taken one of my legs,’ she answered.

  She spoke so softly that he barely heard what she was saying. He leaned closer and asked her to repeat it.

  ‘One of my legs is gone,’ Sofia said.

  He looked into her tired eyes. Her face was covered with cuts from the explosion. He felt the rage in his heart again. This is a child who has been deprived of the ability to run, he thought. An African girl who will never dance again.

  He realised that she thought only one of her legs was gone. She still hadn’t noticed that they had also removed the second one.

  He knew he would have to tell her. That would be better than letting her find out for herself when she was alone.

  He wished he didn’t have to. He wished he would never again have to see a girl like Sofia in a hospital bed, torn to pieces by a landmine.

  Even so, he dared to believe that this girl would survive. There was still a risk that she could get infections. But he thought she might make it. She had an unusual strength. Of course, he would never fully understand the torment she was enduring – but she was strong.

  Strength had nothing to do with a man being able to lift a hundred kilos above his head.

  Strength was a child who survived treading on a landmine.

  He’d heard from the nurses that Sofia rarely cried. She suffered silently through all the pain.

  Doctor Raul leaned close to her.

  ‘It’s not only one of your legs that is gone,’ he said. ‘We had to remove the other one, too. If we hadn’t, you would never have recovered. But I can promise that you’ll get two fine artificial legs. And you’ll
be able to walk again, Sofia. I promise you that. You’ll get two new legs. They’ll be your best friends for the rest of your life.’

  He looked at her face.

  ‘Do you understand what I’m telling you?’ he asked.

  Sofia didn’t take her eyes off him. She explored her body with her hand. The other leg was gone too. She looked at Doctor Raul.

  ‘I want my legs back,’ she said.

  ‘You’ll get new legs,’ Doctor Raul answered.

  ‘I don’t want new ones,’ she said. ‘I want my old ones.’

  She hadn’t the energy to say anything else. The pain was too great. A nurse gave her something to drink. She was soon asleep.

  In Sofia’s restless dreams, Maria was still alive. But the images were shattered and confusing. The white dress was hanging on José-Maria’s clothesline. There were many white dresses hanging there, but no sheets. Totio was treadling his sewing machine. Lydia was crushing corn. Sofia kept looking for Maria the whole time. But she had always just disappeared, was always invisible. Sofia knew Maria was there, but she couldn’t see her.

  Sometimes when she woke up the pain was almost gone. If she lay totally still, without moving, it almost felt like normal.

  It was at those moments, when the pain had ceased for a while, that she thought she should speak to José-Maria. She wanted to tell him that it was she who had taken the sheet. If she confessed, he would surely help her to get her old legs back.

  He came to the hospital twice a week with Lydia. He usually came into her room on his own before fetching Lydia from the corridor.

  Sofia told him the next time he visited.

  At first he thought she was delirious. What was this sheet she was talking about? A white dress for Maria?

  Then he realised she had taken a sheet from his clothesline. The sheet had become a dress for Maria, who was now dead.

  José-Maria remembered seeing the white rags on Maria’s body as she lay face down on the path where the mine had exploded. But he had never noticed that a sheet had disappeared.

  Sofia looked frightened. It was important that he took her seriously.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t think about that now.’

  ‘In that case, maybe I could get my legs back,’ Sofia said.

  José-Maria was touched. This was a remarkable girl, lying there in bed, tiny and pale. He thought, even black people can turn pale with pain and sorrow. ‘You’ll get new legs,’ he said. ‘Your old legs couldn’t manage any longer.’

  Then he went out to the corridor to fetch Lydia.

  ‘She knows her legs are gone,’ he told her. ‘It’s important that you remember she’ll be getting new legs.’

  Lydia was sitting on the floor in the corridor. It was crowded with people.

  ‘How is she going to manage?’ she asked. ‘We’re so poor.’

  ‘Let her recover first,’ José-Maria said. ‘Then we can start thinking about the future. Go in and see her now! Don’t cry. Don’t shout. Tell her the whole village is waiting for her to come home.’

  It was always difficult for Lydia to visit Sofia: to see her suffering face, to think that underneath the sheet her legs were gone. She felt so helpless. And what was her life going to be like later on – having Sofia back in the village without legs? Sometimes she felt she’d lost everything in life. She had once been young, as young as Sofia. She had met Hapakatanda and they’d lived a good life together. Then the bandits had come out of the darkness and everything had changed. Ever since then they had been running away. And just when she finally felt she could start building a new life with her children, horror had struck again.

  Would it never end? Would the rest of her life be nothing but worry and pain?

  Sofia’s spirits always lifted when Mama Lydia came. She didn’t like being alone in her room. She hadn’t the energy to say too much herself, but she listened to Lydia, who talked without a break. Lydia talked about Alfredo, and about the maize that was ready to be harvested. But she never mentioned Maria. Finally, when she ran out of things to say, the room fell silent. A lonely fly buzzed above Sofia’s face. Lydia, who had been sitting on the floor beside the bed, got up and stroked her lightly on one of her cheeks.

  ‘I’ll come back soon,’ she said.

  Sofia nodded. When she moved her head the pain returned. She had to will herself not to start screaming. She didn’t want Lydia to hear.

  The same night, as Sofia lay alone in her room drifting on the underground waves, and as Lydia slept huddled with Alfredo on the floor of the hut, José-Maria sat on the bed in his room holding a small crucifix. A single lamp lit the room.

  José-Maria was a priest. He believed in God. Long ago, when he was growing up in Brazil, he had decided to be ordained. Several years later he’d been sent as a missionary to Africa, to a country where there was a civil war and many people were suffering.

  Several years had passed since then. José-Maria sometimes thought that he had problems with his God. He had difficulties coming to terms with what happened to people.

  Or was it the other way around? Was it God that had a problem with José-Maria?

  He often sat with the crucifix at night, trying to talk to God.

  This particular night he was talking about Sofia. He tried to understand why a small child should have to suffer as she had. Why did her sister have to die?

  He thought he could hear a tired voice inside himself. It was as if he himself were talking, but as a very old man. The voice was old and rusty, the words vague as forgotten whispers.

  God is a mystery, he thought. The silence I meet is God’s own despair.

  José-Maria sat with his crucifix in his hand far into the night.

  Then he turned off the lamp.

  Some weeks passed. Sofia drifted on the underground waves less and less often. The pains grew weaker. She was sometimes hungry and started sitting up in bed to eat. One day, when she was alone, she pulled the sheet away and saw with her own eyes that her legs were gone. The knees were wrapped in big bandages.

  There was something peculiar about the parts of the legs that were gone. She could still feel them, all the way down to her feet.

  They’re calling me, she thought.

  They’re just as lonely as I am.

  The same day she asked Doctor Raul what had happened to her legs.

  Her question surprised him. However, one thing he had learnt about Sofia was that it was best to tell the truth.

  ‘Your legs are dead,’ he said. ‘They were dead but you’re alive. We burnt them. Then we buried them.’

  Sofia thought about what he’d said for a long time.

  ‘I hope you buried them next to Maria,’ she said.

  Doctor Raul nodded slowly.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘We did bury them next to Maria.’

  The next day, Sofia was allowed up for the first time. How long she’d been lying in her bed, she didn’t know. She hoped it had been a long time. The more time that had passed since Maria’s death, the easier it was to think about her. One of the nurses lifted Sofia into a rusty old wheelchair with crooked wheels. Then she pushed Sofia out through the door. The corridor was full of sick people. It smelt of sweat and wounds.

  ‘You need some fresh air,’ said the nurse, whose name was Mariza.

  They came out onto the pavement outside the hospital. Sofia looked with surprise at the cars passing on the street, the tall buildings, and all the people hurrying by. Mariza put the wheelchair close to the hospital wall.

  ‘You can sit here and watch,’ she said smiling. ‘I’ll come and fetch you later.’

  She wrapped a dirty blanket around Sofia’s legs. Sofia hoped no one would be able to see that she didn’t have legs any more.

  Then she was alone.

  She had no memories of coming to the city. The last thing she remembered was that she and Maria had been running along the path leading to the fields.

  She suddenly realised she had absolutely no
idea what had happened. Why was Maria dead? Why didn’t she have her legs any more? Why hadn’t anyone told her what had happened?

  Had the bandits returned?

  Her thoughts wandered back and forth while she sat in the wheelchair outside the hospital. All around her, women were sitting on the pavement with various goods spread in front of them. Some had made small tables from cardboard boxes. They were selling oranges and apples, onions and peas, pieces of chocolate and maize. Some also had cans of beer. Every now and then, someone would stop and buy something. The women chatted to each other the whole time, breast-feeding their children and arranging their goods.

  Suddenly Sofia noticed someone talking to her in her own language. It was a woman who was sitting quite close by. She offered Sofia half an orange. Sofia shook her head: she didn’t have any money to pay for it. Then she realised she was being given the orange. She accepted it.

  ‘What happened to you?’ asked the woman. She was young and had a brilliant smile.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sofia answered. ‘Something happened to my legs. And Maria died.’

  ‘Was that your mother?’

  ‘My sister.’

  ‘Yo Mammanû, inû,’ the woman wailed. ‘The war kills everyone. What’s your name?’

  ‘Sofia Alface.’

  ‘My name is Miranda,’ the woman said. ‘I’ll be your friend.’

  The orange tasted better than anything Sofia had ever eaten. She looked at the woman and suddenly she couldn’t help laughing.

  But it sounded strange.

  She had almost forgotten how to laugh.

  The following week, Mariza wheeled Sofia outside once in the morning and again in the afternoon. Miranda was there every day. Sometimes Doctor Raul came out onto the street to smoke a cigarette. Once he gave Miranda some banknotes.

  Miranda kept giving Sofia oranges, and she realised that Doctor Raul was paying for them.

  Sofia soon knew all the women who surrounded her on the street. The called out when Mariza came with the wheelchair and sometimes, when they had errands to run, they let Sofia sit with some of the smallest children in her lap. She was usually sitting outside on the street when Mama Lydia and José-Maria came to visit.