Bodily Harm (39 page)

The cell heats up. Rennie begins to sweat. The stench from the bucket is overpowering now. Rennie wonders when she’ll stop noticing it. You can get used to almost anything.

She’s wondering when someone in authority will arrive, someone she can talk to, someone she can inform of her presence. If they only realize she’s here, who she is, they’ll get her out. The policeman did not look like someone in authority. She’s convinced of her right to be released, but she knows that not everyone will see it exactly that way.

About midmorning, judging by the sun, two other policemen arrive outside the door. One is black, one brownish pink. They seem friendlier than the first one, they grin as they unlock the door.

“Take the bucket and come with us,” says the pink one. Rennie thinks they’re talking to her. She comes forward.

“I wonder if I could see the supervisor,” she says.

“We not talking to you,” the black one says rudely. “She the one.”

“Hi there, Sammy,” Lora says. “Hold your horses.” She goes out with them, carrying the bucket of piss.

Lora is gone a long time. When she comes back she has a clean bucket. Rennie, who’s been imagining atrocities, says, “What happened?”

“Nothing to it,” says Lora. “You just empty out the bucket. There’s a hole in the ground out there. I saw some of the others, they were doing the same thing.” She sets the bucket down in its old place and comes over to the dry corner to sit down.

“Prince is on the floor above us,” she says. “They’re fixing it up for me to see him, maybe in a couple of days.” She’s happy about this, she’s excited. Rennie’s envious. She would like to feel like that.

“Guess what?” says Lora. “They got Marsdon.”

“Oh,” says Rennie. “Is he in here?”

“I mean he’s dead,” says Lora. “Somebody shot him.”

“The men on Ste. Agathe?” says Rennie. She thinks of Marsdon running through the scrub, up the hill in his slippery leather boots, nine or ten men after him, while the police boat comes into the harbour, they’d want to get him while they still had time.

“No,” says Lora. “The story is it was the cops. Ellis.”

“I thought he was working for the
CIA
,” says Rennie. “I thought he was an agent.”

“There’s a lot of stories,” says Lora. “The
CIA
, Ellis, what’s the difference? Anyway Ellis didn’t want him talking about how he set it up, Ellis wants everyone to believe it was real. Nothing like a
revolution to make the States piss money, and they’ve done it already, Canada just gave a great big lump of cash to Ellis, they told me, it said on the radio. Foreign aid. He can use it to finance his dope trade.” She pauses, keeping an eye on Rennie. “Some of them are saying that Paul shot Minnow,” she says.

“You don’t believe that,” says Rennie.

“Who knows?” says Lora.

“Why would he do that?” says Rennie.

“
CIA
,” says Lora. “He was the one bringing in the guns for Marsdon, eh?”

“Come on,” says Rennie.

Lora laughs. “You believed it once,” she says. “I’m just telling you what they’re saying. Guess what else?”

“What?” says Rennie, not wanting to.

“They think you’re a spy,” says Lora. She chuckles, a little insultingly.

“Who does?” says Rennie. “The police?”

“Everyone,” says Lora, grinning. “Just, they haven’t figured out who for yet.”

“How did you hear all this?” Rennie says. “It’s ridiculous.”

Lora looks at her and smiles. From the pocket of her skirt she takes out a fresh package of cigarettes, Benson and Hedges, and a box of Swedish matches. “Same place I got these,” she says. “I told you I had my ass covered.”

Rennie’s tired of guessing games. “How?” she says.

“I’m a dealer, remember?” says Lora. “So I made a deal.”

“Who on earth with?” says Rennie, who can’t imagine it.

“Those two cops, the ones who came just now?” says Lora. “Morton and Sammy. I knew they’d be here sooner or later; it took them a while to work it out but now they’re in charge of us. They don’t want us in with the others. They were selling for me on St. Antoine, they were my protection. Nobody knew except Paul. They
sure as hell don’t want anyone else around here finding out about that.” She lights one of her new cigarettes, tosses the match onto the damp floor. “They were in on the shipments. They knew what was coming in and when, they knew the guns were coming up from Colombia along with the grass, they knew what was in Elva’s boxes, they didn’t know all about it but they knew enough, and they didn’t tell, how could they without blowing their own act wide open? Ellis wouldn’t like that. He’d think that was treachery. A little dealing he could understand but not that. Dealing they’d just get canned. That, they’d get offed. So I’ve got them by the nuts.”

“Can they get us out?” Rennie says.

“I don’t want to push it,” says Lora. “I don’t want to make them jumpy, they’re jumpy enough already. Anyway they want me here, they can keep an eye on me better. They don’t want anyone else to get hold of me and start squeezing; who knows, the first hot cigarette on the foot and everything might come squirting out. They’ll take good care of me though, they know I won’t go down alone, I told them that. If I go I take somebody with me.”

“What’s to stop them from just burying you quietly in the back yard?” says Rennie.

“Nothing at all,” says Lora. She finds this funny. “Pure bluff. I told them I had someone on the outside who’s checking up on me.”

“Do you?” says Rennie.

“Well,” says Lora, “there’s always Paul. Wherever he is.”

Neither of them wants to talk about that.

They’re eating, lunch, cold rice and chicken backs, boiled, Rennie thinks, but not enough. Pink juice runs out. Lora gnaws with relish, licking her fingers. Rennie doesn’t feel too well.

“You can have the rest of mine,” she says.

“Why waste it?” says Lora.

“Maybe we could ask them to cook it more,” says Rennie.

“Ask who?” says Lora.

Rennie hasn’t thought about it. Surely there must be someone to ask.

“It could be a lot worse, is what I always say,” says Lora. “Where there’s life there’s hope. It’s better than a lot of the people get at home, think of it that way.”

Rennie tries to but without much success. Lora is eating the rest of Rennie’s chicken back now. She aims a bone at the bucket, misses, wipes her hands on her skirt. The nails are grey, the skin around them nibbled. Rennie looks away. Now they will have stale chicken to smell, as well as everything else.

“We could ask them about the tea,” says Rennie.

“What?” says Lora, her mouth full.

“The salt in the tea,” says Rennie. “You could tell them they made a mistake.”

“Hell, no,” says Lora. “That wasn’t a mistake, that was orders. They’re doing it on purpose.”

“Why would they do that?” says Rennie. The poor food she can understand, but this seems gratuitous. Malicious.

Lora shrugs. “Because they can,” she says.

It’s dusk. They’ve had supper, a piece of bread, the salty tea, water which tastes like rancid butter, a cupful each. The mosquitoes are here. Outside the grated window they can hear the pigs, up there in the yard; as Rennie watches, a curious snout pokes through.

Neither of them is saying anything. Rennie can smell their bodies, unwashed flesh, and the putrid smell from the bucket, Lora is out of cigarettes for the time being, she’s picking at her fingers,
Rennie can see her out of the corners of her eyes, it’s an irritating habit, they’ve both run out, run down. She’s having trouble remembering which day this is, they should have begun when they got here, scratches on the wall, perhaps this is the day her ticket expires, her twenty-one-day excursion. Maybe now someone will come looking for her, maybe she will be rescued. If she can only keep believing it, then it will happen.

She hopes they’ll do it soon, she’s deteriorating, she knows this because right now she’s daydreaming about food, not even real food, not spinach salads with bacon and mushrooms and a glass of dry white wine, but Colonel Sanders chicken, McDonald’s hamburgers, doughnuts filmed with ersatz chocolate and shreds of stale coconut, thick nasty cups of ancient coffee, the dregs, her mouth’s watering at the thought of it, potato chips, candy bars from subway magazine stands, Mars, Rowntree’s coated raisins, silently and voluptuously she repeats the names, how can she? She sleepwalks along Yonge Street, into one franchise after another.
No-frills Snak Pak
. Maybe she’s delirious.

She switches to a jigsaw puzzle, in her head, the top border, the ones with the flat edges, it’s always the sky, one piece fits into another, fits into another, interlocking, pure blue.

“Try getting a comb for us,” says Rennie. “If you can.”

“I tried before,” says Lora, “People slash their wrists with them. They don’t want any funny deaths in here, not if they can help it. Some church or other is poking around.”

“How about a brush?” says Rennie.

“You got any money?” says Lora, with a small laugh.

Rennie looks at her, she’s thinner now and filthy, there’s no other
word for it, the white blouse is grey, the purple skirt is damp and greasy, dark moons under the eyes, they both smell, there’s a sore on Lora’s leg that won’t heal, her hair is matted. Rennie knows how she herself must look. She thinks they should do exercises, but when she suggested it, Lora said, “What for?” and Rennie doesn’t have the strength to do them by herself. What she really wants is a toothbrush. A mirror. Someone who could get them out.

“I could braid it,” she says.

“What?” says Lora. It’s harder and harder to keep her attention.

“I could braid your hair,” says Rennie. “At least that would untangle it.”

“Okay,” says Lora. She’s restless, she’s out of cigarettes again, the flesh around her nails is raw. “I wish we could get some news in here,” she says. “You can’t trust what they tell you. I’m tired of this place.”

Rennie doesn’t remember hearing her complain before. It seems like a bad omen. She begins on the hair, it’s like pulling strands of wool apart.

“Go easy,” says Lora. “At least we don’t have lice.”

“Yet,” says Rennie. Now they’re laughing, it’s idiotic, they can hardly stop. There’s no reason for it. When they finish, Rennie keeps going with the hair. She’s making it into two long frizzy braids. “What do you dream about?” she says to Lora.

“Lots of stuff,” says Lora. “Being on a boat. My mother. Sometimes I dream about having a baby. Except I never know what to do with it, you know? I think I’d like it though. When I get out of here and I get Prince out maybe that’s what we’ll do. They think it’s funny here if you have a baby after you’re about twenty-five though. For them that’s old. But I don’t care, let them laugh. Elva will like it, she’s always bugging me to have a son for Prince.”

Rennie finishes with one of the braids and starts on the other. “If we had some beads,” she says, “I could do you up like a Rasta.”

“Tinfoil,” says Lora. “Some of the girls use that on the ends. When you get out, can you do something for me?”

“What makes you think I’ll be out any sooner than you?” says Rennie.

“Oh, you will,” says Lora. She says this wistfully, fatalistically, as if it’s just a fact of life that everyone knows about.

Instead of cheering Rennie up this makes her anxious. She winds the two braids around Lora’s head. “There,” she says. “You look like a German milkmaid. Except I’ve got nothing to pin them with.”

“Tell someone I’m here,” says Lora. “Tell someone what happened.”

Rennie lets go of the braids. “Who should I tell?” says Rennie.

“I don’t know,” says Lora. “Someone.”

Lora’s face is streaked with dirt. Perhaps later they can take turns wiping off each other’s faces with the salty tea.