He could not see the fence, but the village where he lived was not far from it. Sometimes there were noises and lights. Sometimes jets screeched past, responding to “riots”. On those days, his father would come home dusty and bleary-eyed.
His father was a guard in the camp behind the fence. It was not an easy job, but it paid for their house and their car and a vacation each year. “And early retirement with a good pension,” his mother would add. “Yes, that too,” said his father, who grew reflective as he thought about the years of guarding he still had ahead of him.
“Will we stay here when you retire?” the boy asked. He knew their village was made up mostly of guards. He didn’t know yet that guards were allowed to settle for free for the rest of their lives.
His father thought for a moment, while his mother watched and waited.
“It’s getting nicer here all the time,” his father said, looking at her. “New stores, new roads, better schools.”
The boy’s mother smiled sceptically. It was not worth arguing about now. It was well known that she preferred to live in the capital. But she could not resist saying something: “You’ve done your duty. You will have done your duty. Let someone else come here so we can go and …” She did not know what word to use to finish her sentence.
The boy and the father watched her. Sometimes, when she was in a certain mood, his mother said strange things. Once, she had said that she wished she could clap her hands and change the past.
“But then I wouldn’t be born,” said the boy.
“Oh, not you,” she assured him. “History.”
The boy did not understand history, but he worried about his father, who occasionally talked about what beasts the prisoners were, so uncivilized and violent. When the boy was younger he pictured all the prisoners as men, but recently he had learned that there were women too and children.
“Children?” he asked.
“Lots of children,” his father said, “little criminals.”
“So there are moms and dads and children?”
“Yes, the beasts are multiplying.”
“They’re families,” the boy observed tentatively, “like us.”
His father laughed scornfully: “Ha, no. Not like us.”
The boy was surprised and looked to his mother. She was shaking her head, confirming his father’s answer. They seemed so adamant, he was afraid to ask another question.
But here and there, when the mood was right, he posed his questions.
How long had the people been in prison? (They were born there.)
What did they do wrong? (They were beasts.)
When would they be let out? (That’s a hard question to answer.)
The boy didn’t understand why, but the worst thing you could be called in the schoolyard was a beast. “Are you beast?” some of the older boys would yell at one another. “Did you escape from the camp? Be careful. He’s a beast. He will eat your grandmother and your pets.”
If the teacher chided you for not washing your hands before lunch, someone would mock you: “Dirty beast.” And the teachers would intervene and say, “Don’t be mean. No name-calling.”
One day there was no school—it was a holiday—and in the late morning he went to the park to play soccer with his friends. There were strange noises in the distance, but the boys didn’t notice–they were too focused on their game–but suddenly they all stopped: gunshots, screaming. “I’m going home!” the boy yelled, and he started to run. He had never run so fast.
As he came around the corner to his street, he saw his mother rushing toward him. He had never seen her run before.
She squeezed his hand and together they dashed toward their house. Before they could get inside two men with guns ran into the yard. Noise exploded from the weapons. The boy felt the spatter of liquid on his cheek. His mother collapsed.
The boy fled into the house and squeezed himself into a corner. The men stomped in behind him, they went past him, toward the bedrooms. He didn’t want to look at them, but he couldn’t help it. The first man was thin and crooked; the other was heavier, perhaps a little older. He didn’t look like the type of man you usually saw running, but he was running now. His face was red.
He heard the men kick open the bedroom doors. A few seconds later they were back in the living room. The thin man raised his eyebrows, aimed his rifle and started to yell, but the boy did not understand the words. The other man said something to the thin man. He glanced nervously out the door and then looked at boy. His eyes were different than the thin man’s. They looked at the boy, but the thin man’s looked through him.
The two men were yelling—at each other, at him—he could not tell.
“Come here,” said the older man in the boy’s language.
The thin man raised his rifle to the boy’s head, but the older man yelled at him, and then he said to the boy, “Was that your mother?”
“Yes.”
“She’s dead now. Where’s your father?”
“I don’t know.”
“You will remember, okay, my little thief?” The tone of his voice was a confusing combination, consoling and threatening.
A phrase erupted from the thin man. He pressed the end of his rifle into the base of the boy’s skull, but the older man said something that stopped him from shooting. The boy did not understand the words, but he guessed that the old man was telling the thin man that it served them better to keep the boy alive.
The thin man protested, but the older man pushed him out the door and followed behind, gripping his heavy weapon in his hands.
The boy wanted to fall on the floor and stay there, but he thought better of it. He went to the kitchen, opened the broom closet, and squeezed past the garbage bin to a ladder. He closed everything behind him, just as his father had taught him, and climbed down. As his foot touched the ground, he suddenly felt overwhelmed. His body folded and he vomited onto the cement floor. He stumbled to a plastic mattress in the corner. Despite the muffled gunshots, he fell into a shock-induced sleep.
Two days later he heard someone upstairs in the broom closet. A voice called through the thick door of the safe room.
“Uncle?” said the boy.
Yes, it was Uncle.
The boy was taken to stay with this “uncle”, who lived on a farm, farther from the prisoner camp. He stayed there with his aunt and two cousins who were older than him.
His uncle told him that his father had been killed protecting the village from the prisoners. Many of his neighbours had also been killed.
“Animals,” said his uncle. “We will destroy them. We should have done it a long time ago. I always said that, but now we will get rid of them once and for all.”
The boy hardly spoke. There were no words inside of him, just confused emotions.
They all watched TV together. They saw the president explain that preparations were being made to “annihilate the animals”, to “wipe them off the map”.
“Bomb their homes to dust,” said one cousin.
“But let them suffer first,” said his aunt. She looked at the boy. “So they can pay for what they did to your mother and father.”
“And your friends,” said one cousin.
“And your neighbours,” said another.
A strange emotion kindled within the boy. It made him feel strong and less confused. He started to hate the prisoners. “They are animals!” he thought sometimes. He imagined that his fists grew into hammers that he would smash the face of prisoner after prisoner.
But when he awoke from his rage—because it was like a dream or a possession—he was perplexed, afraid, as if the rage might consume him, as if he might disappear into the rage.
He recoiled from the spectacle on the TV, but the set was always on so he could not help but hear it and even watch it sometimes. Apparently, the calls for revenge had been momentarily interrupted by a mob with an absurd idea. Whenever these absurd ideas were mentioned on the TV, everyone in the room laughed and mocked them.
“We may as well open the gates and say, ‘Come and slaughter us’,” one cousin said. He was not really listening to the man on the TV, who wasn’t the prime minister. The boy had never seen him before, although his name sounded familiar.
The boy leaned in to listen. “We can’t re-do what has been done, but we can work to repair. Of course, it won’t be easy.” A crowded chanted and a journalist appeared in the foreground. It was hard to hear the man with the absurd ideas, but the boy made out a few more words. “For those who think in these terms, do the cost-benefit analysis. For the price of war and occupation, we could have peace.” Suddenly, the president was on the screen again, walking slowly in front of soldiers and tanks. The boy looked at the faces of the soldiers with terror, not only for what they could do but why and how they were capable of it. It made him dizzy. He went outside, walked around the yard and breathed in the fresh air.
The boy’s family was frustrated. The attack on the prisoner camp was delayed. “Political bickering,” he heard his uncle say. “Whose country is this?” he asked angrily.
For the first few days after the boy been rescued his aunt and uncle were attentive to him, but now they looked over his head as they shared ideas about the upcoming attack.
One night when the boy went to bed his aunt and uncle did not tuck him in. It made him feel lonely. He thought of his mother and father. But the wind picked up and somehow the sound and the fresh air comforted him and he finally fell asleep.
While he was sleeping the wind grew stronger. At first it did not disturb him. He was dreaming that he was sitting around the breakfast table, talking to his mom and dad about the prisoners. But the house shook and stray raindrops blew through his window onto his face, light filled his room and a clap of thunder interrupted his dream. He woke up, realized that he was wet and closed the window. Fifteen minutes later, when the worst of the storm had passed, he fell back to sleep.
The next day there is a commotion at his new school. When the boy gets home, he finds his aunt and uncle watching the TV. They are listening to a speech. It is not the prime minister. It is the other man, the one with absurd ideas.
“It is time for a new chapter,” he says to the camera. “And we must have the courage to write it, and we must reflect deeply and do what is right, what is really right. And we must grieve. We will grieve and we will never forget, as they surely will not.”
Before he finishes, the boy’s uncle rises from his chair. He wanders through the house, lost in thought, pulling his hair. There are tears streaming down the face of the boy’s aunt. His cousins for once are silent.
The boy finds himself standing next to his aunt. He too is crying. She puts her arms around him, as much for comfort as to comfort. “I miss your mother and father,” she says. “I miss everybody.”
There is noise outside, gunshots. The boy suddenly feels cold and small, but his cousins run outside and return to reassure him. It is not prisoners; it’s neighbours, firing into the sky, letting out their anger so there is room for grief.
The next day the TV shows a kind of ceremony, held inside the prison camp. The boy’s aunt tells him that the man who wants “a new chapter” is now the prime minister. He is there, with a group of men and women, in a square in the camp, along with many prisoners and some men who are dressed how the boy’s father used to dress when he went to work.
The prime minister and one prisoner step forward. They face one another. The prime minister extends his hands, which the prisoner, after a short delay, clasps.
“You have been wronged,” says the prime minister. “Nothing can erase that, but I need to say sorry.”
The men are still holding hands. The prisoner smiles a regretful, sad smile and nods. What can he say? “Thank you,” he finally offers.
The two men turn toward the cameras.
“You have invited me,” says the prime minister to spend a few days as your guest as we discuss a path forward, a correction to the years of costly and painful misdirection.”
“Indeed. I am honoured to host you,” the prisoner confirmed. “And I look forward to our long overdue dialogue. I know and you know it will not be easy. This knot will not be easily undone, but I believe it is possible. There will be compromises. Not everyone wants to hear this, but the fact is that we cannot turn back the clock entirely, but if you are willing, we are willing.
“We are,” said the new prime minister.
That night, after the boy goes to bed more shots ring out—on both sides of the fence, but they are aimed toward the sky. The bloodthirsty do not quickly change their ways, and there is no easy cure for the pains of violence and loss.
Some say it’s impossible. For years to come, despite progress, they say it’s impossible, but the boy has hope, and when it flickers, he remembers the eyes of the “beast” who said, “Spare him, so he can remember.”
Faint Scrawls 