A Brighter Fear (18 page)

I felt my jaw drop, felt my stomach lurch, my breath disappear, my head spin. I stared at it, turning slowly one way, then the other, a gleam of colour against the beige city.

The colour of her eyes.

How many years was it since I had seen that necklace? Six now? Nearly seven? I remembered Papa’s story about it, I remembered the photograph of the three of us together, the necklace dangling around Mama’s neck, resting on her chest. I had never seen her without it, nor it without her.

“Where did you get that?” I breathed, my chest stuttering, my head swimming as I moved towards him. “Where did you get it?” I ordered.

He took a step back. “I was given it.”

“Liar,” I spat.

“No, no, no. I was given it. She asked me to take it, she asked me to bring it here, to Joe. She asked me to give it to Joe.”

Tears streamed down my face. I knew what this meant. “Who did?” I shouted, staring at his face, at his mouth, his lips, hoping and praying that they didn’t form the words that I didn’t want to hear. “Who asked you?”

He stared at me.

“Who did?” I screamed, stepping towards him, my face close to his, ordering him.

“Sacha. Her name was Sacha.”

I fell to my knees and everything spun around me, this man, the house, the street, the city, flew around me.

When I woke, I was lying in my garden, on a small piece of clear earth on the other side of the house. As my eyes drew into focus, I saw a red petal from the bougainvillea squashed under a pile of stones, and for a second, before reality and memory kicked in, I marvelled over it.

And next to it lay the necklace; Mama’s necklace, green stone, filigreed gold. I sat up. The man was close by, his back against what remained of our kitchen wall.

“You passed out,” he said. “I carried you over to the shade. I hope you don’t mind.”

I shook my head and I lifted the necklace from the floor and rested it in my palm. I don’t think I had ever held it before. I ran my fingers around the edge, along the gold, then on to the stone, feeling the smoothness of it, the coolness. I imagined Mama doing the same. And I stared into it, all the hints of colours hidden inside, a sliver of orange, a line of black, a speckle of gold; it was like staring into Mama’s eyes, into her soul.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

I looked at him through my tears, yet with a sense of relief in my heart. Had I known this? Had I accepted this a long time ago? That really she was dead?

“It was four years ago,” the man said.

I looked at him, astonished.

“I promised her I’d return it, and I meant to before, but…” He shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I wanted to tell someone the truth. Tell Joseph, your papa, the truth, what really happened to her, but I couldn’t while I was a soldier, it wasn’t safe. I thought about selling it, because every time,
every
time I looked at it, I saw her face staring back at me, begging and pleading with me to end it. But it seemed so wrong. Soldiers shouldn’t do that. They shouldn’t shoot civilians, even if they are prisoners.” He shrugged, pausing, watching my reaction, wiping the sweat from his brow.

“I didn’t know what she’d done, or was supposed to have done. It wasn’t up to me to punish the prisoners, or for any other soldier. But we were told to. To do the most horrendous things. When I met Sacha she was dying, hanging on, but in so much pain. And I couldn’t do anything. I don’t know when she’d last eaten, or drunk anything, and she was lying there in the sun, her eyes pleading with me, scars across her face and body. Maybe she saw the weakness in me. I wasn’t a good soldier. She was trying to say something, and I bent down to her. She asked me to kill her. To shoot her. She gave me the necklace, told me to give it to Joseph and asked me to kill her.”

He closed his eyes for a long moment.

“And so I did. I did what she asked me to do. Every time I looked at that necklace afterwards, I saw her, her eyes, searching through me, and I heard her ask that question, over and over, and I heard the bang of my own gun and saw her soul leave her eyes.”

I listened to his every word, and every word I believed. This soldier, this man, perhaps I should have hated him, for killing Mama.

Yet I felt relief. Guilty relief. That I knew, finally. That she was no longer suffering.

I was grateful.

I didn’t think of all those years we waited, not knowing, still hoping, keeping her alive if only in our memories, because it didn’t matter any more. It mattered only that she was free. At last.

I only wish Papa could’ve known.

We sat together in the shade of my broken house, the man and me, and he asked me about Papa, and I told him. I told him everything. About school, university, my friendship with Layla, about Papa’s job, living with Hana, Aziz being abducted, about Steve, the money, and the escape I nearly took.

And he listened, he laughed in the right places, and he sympathised in others. And when the sun began to head back down, he insisted on walking me home. He would tell Hana and Aziz, he said, he would explain.

As I walk down the street now, I leave behind me what is left of my house, its crumbling walls, its broken windows, the glass littering the floor; a flattened wardrobe that held Mama’s clothes, a fallen shelf that had supported Papa’s books. But I take with me the memories, of my life with my family, I carry them in my head, photos inked on to my brain that I will never let fade.

So much has been taken, so many lives, so much trust, so many friends. And so much time I’ve spent waiting, for Mama, for Papa, for war to start, for the bombs to fall, for death to catch me.

For democracy, for freedom.

For war to end, for peace to come.

I walk home through the destruction and loss, the tears and the pain of this city, this country, and I see these people who I live alongside with their fear as visible as the torment in their eyes.

But there
is
hope amongst this madness.

And there
are
good people amongst the bad.

I know there are.

Because I’ve been lucky enough to find both.

And I’ve been lucky enough to see that flicker of hope burning brighter than any fear.

I raise my hand to Mama’s necklace hanging around my neck; I rub my fingers against the green stone, the filigreed gold resting on my chest, and I feel her walking with me, and I feel Papa at her side.

I glance to this man walking next to me now, this man who tells me his name is David. And as I take a deep breath and lift my head a little higher, I wonder if he will have a role to play in my future. I wonder what future Baghdad will hold for me. I wonder what university will bring. I wonder what friendships I will find.

I wonder.

With hope, I wonder.

Copyright

First published in paperback in Great Britain by HarperCollins
Children’s Books
2012

HarperCollins
Children’s Books
is a division of HarperCollins
Publishers
Ltd

77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

The HarperCollins Children’s Books website is

www.harpercollins.co.uk

1

Copyright © Kerry Drewery 2012

ISBN: 978-0-00-744657-5

EPub Edition © MAY 2012 ISBN: 9780007446582

Epub Version 1

MAY 2012

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