Lamia (7 page)

“You’re bleeding.  Let me dress that for you.”

She turned her face towards me and her stare rooted me to my seat.  I wondered what Maria had become
but since she was not answering to the name by which I knew her, I decided to use the name she preferred.

“Lamia, may I dress your wound?”

“What do you want from me?”

“Nothing, I just want to help you.”

“Are you afraid of me?”

“Should I be?”

“So, you’re not afraid of me and you want to help me.  Give me water.”

I quickly opened one of my water bottles and held it for her as she drank deeply.  I wondered when she had last been given a drink.

“Now untie me.”

This time I was frightened but I could not see her tied to that chair all night.  I walked around the chair and untied her hands.  She barely moved.  Then I untied her legs.  As the ropes slipped away, she jumped to her feet, a little unsteady at having been sitting for so long.  Th
en she leaped across the floor
and
grabbed some bread and fruit from the table
, devouring the first few morsels in an instant
.  When she realised that I would make no attempt at stopping her, she took a few more pieces and returned to her chair.

“You may dress my leg now,” she said with an air of authority.

I removed a bandage and some antiseptic and proceeded to clean the wound.  It was quite deep and I was amazed that she made no complaint when I touched it.  I removed the wind-up torch from my bag and scanned the room for some clean water.  I did not want to use all the drinking water because I was not sure when I would get a refill.  There was a ewer and a basin on a table in the corner.  I brought it over and began to irrigate the wound properly.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked abruptly.  “What do you want from me?”

“I just want to talk to you.  Perhaps help you if you will let me.”

“You can’t do anything for me.  They’re going to execute me tomorrow.
  Why don’t you come along and watch how a queen dies.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way.  I can help you to plead your case.”

“Why?  After all I am guilty of everything they’ve charged me with and more.  Don’t worry, they might execute me but they can’t kill the Lamia.”

“Maria, there must be something I can do for you.”

“Why do you insist on calling me Maria?  I’ve told you, I’m Lamia!”

I had finished dressing her leg and I happened to flick my torch over her face.  She was not only beautiful, but she was now magnificent!  Her startling makeup
and her hair in tresses
transformed her into a match for any queen
.  She was right; she was now the Lamia.

“I’d like to talk to you about her, if that’s all right.”

“About who?”

“Maria, whose parents were missionaries and who were killed by the guardianes.”

“Why do you want to hear about Maria?  Wouldn’t you prefer to hear about the Lamia?”

“Maria was my friend and I’d like to know what happened to her.”

I handed her a few coca leaves and some slices of lime
which she chew
ed
as she began to recall.

“What happened when the guardianes came?” I asked.

“It was a hot day,” she recalled.  “Maria had just brought some drinks for the workers.  They were building a house for a couple who had just married.”

I
t
was
a little confusing hearing her talk about Maria in the third person.  Was she denying that she was Maria?

“The guardianes
had been visiting the village regularly, warning Michael and Patricia not to advise the local farmers to grow coffee.  They had never actually advised this.  All they did was listen to the farmers, sympathise and try to add a few words of support.
”

“So what made the difference the last time they came?”

“The last time they knew exactly why they were there.  They were ordered to destroy the mission.  They raided the medicines and set light to every house and the chapel.  They chased people away with their palillo dentados, striking men women and children.  Then they forced Maria and her parents to go with them.”

“So Michael and Patricia were still alive then?  I thought they died in the village.”

“No, they took all three of them in their vehicle, to a
mansion
some distance from a town.  It was a mansion with high walls and tall gates.  They threw them into a room and locked the door.”

“
Was it just an empty
room?”

“No, there were three beds, each with an old mattress
a sink with running water and a toilet with a bath in a separate room.  They must have had their own water supply.  The strangest thing was that the wardrobes had lots of clothes, both male and female.  The clothes were old and had obviously been there for some time.”

“Did they
offer any explanation about the kidnap
?”

“These people don’t give reasons.  They just do whatever they feel like doing.  They’re above the law.”

“You must have been very frightened.”

“No, Michael, Patricia and Maria were very frightened.”

“Yes of course,” I said as I passed her a
Pandequeso
.  Still, Maria must have been terrified.”

She put her head in the air as a sign of contempt.

“Maria was weak.  She was no match for these men.”

“Did they do something to her then.”

“No, at least not at first.  They pretty well left her alone.
  It was Patricia they started with.”

I noticed that she had begun to relax more although she still did not admit an as
sociation with Maria.
  She seemed somewhat detached from her past.  It was as if she was telling someone else’s story.  She peeled a banana and took a sip of
water
, knowing that she was totally in control of the situation. 
Occasionally s
he would stare intently at me which made me feel very uneasy.  As I squirmed in my seat, a flicker of a smile would grace her lips and her body would once again relax in the certainty that she was still in charge.  I wondered how she could be so calm on the eve of her execution, but there was a lot I would know of the fair Lamia and the only way was to let her tell me the full story.

“So what did they do to Patricia?”

“It started on that first night.  The men were cooking
on a large barbecue
in the garden
at the front of the house.  Maria watched them through the window as they became more drunk and louder, until Patricia called her away.  A little later the door unlocked and
two men entered.  They grabbed hold of Patricia and began to drag her out.  John tried to stop them but he was punched to the ground.  Then one of the men removed his studded belt and began to beat
John
.  Finally he stopped, tied John’s hands and led them both outside, while Maria just sat there and did nothing.”

“Well what could she do?” I asked, thinking that she was being far too hard on her former self.

Lamia just raised her head aloft, a cold expression freezing her silhouette as a marble statue.

“She could have done something!  I mean, she just sat there while her parents were being attacked!”

“She must have been terrified!”

Lamia spat on the floor in contempt.

“She couldn’t even watch from the window for very long.  She saw them tie John
to an overhanging branch while they started to abuse Patricia.  Every time he looked away or shouted at them to leave her alone, he was beaten by the studded belt.  They made him watch as they stripped his wife naked and held her down while they all took turns on her.  Maria curled up in her bed, blocking her ears as her parent’s ordeal went on into the early morning.”

“At least their ordeal was over then.  How long did it take them to recover?”

“Their ordeal went on for five nights.  Every night they dreaded the key in the door.  On the second night, one of the men grabbed Maria.  She calmly began to go with him until one of the others told him that ‘the blond one was not to be touched.  She was
Mateo’s’.  It was then clear that Maria had been kidnapped to order and that John and Patricia were to be killed anyway
, because of their influence on the farmers.

They were brought back a little after midnight.  John had not been beaten
so badly as
he was on the first night, because Patricia had begged him to keep quiet.

They spent some time in the bathroom as John helped Patricia to wash.  It was a hot night and Maria lay on the bed in an old pair of shorts she had found and an equally old tee-shirt.  Her parents came out of the bathroom and John lay on the bed next to her and gave her a hug.  Patricia sat at the foot of the bed.  John
had
tears
in his eyes
as he told Maria that she must do everything she cou
ld to survive.

Then she felt Patricia tugging at her shorts, eventually pulling them off.  Maria tried to struggle but Patricia lay across her legs.  John was
crying
as he told Maria not to look and that this had to be done for her own good.  Then she felt something being pushed inside her
.  She whimpered as it penetrated her again and again.  She tried to struggle but she was held firmly
and
she
simply had to bear the pain. 
Eventually they left her alone, sobbing on her bed.  She pulled out the candle and a trickle of blood followed.  Patricia then returned to Maria and pinned her to the bed by her shoulders.  She told her she had to do this to herself every night, so that the men wouldn’t hurt her as much
when they came for her
.

You look shocked.”

I must have gone pale because Lamia passed me the water bottle.  I was not quite sure what to expect when I first spoke to this woman.  My sheltered life at university (in which I thought I was so free), had not prepared me for such violent actions.

I helped myself to more coca leaves and another slice of lime.

“Shall I go on?” she asked and I just nodded.  “
Maria was used to obeying.  She would have gone with the men without any struggle.
  Every night she obediently use
d
the candle, punishing herself as
she listened to her parent’s
suffering.  By the fourth night she did not need any lubrication and by the fifth night feelings of guilt swept over her
.  Maria
listened to her mother’s screams, while
her
movements
no longer felt like a punishment.  The next morning her parents were led away and she never saw them again.
”

CHAPTER 6

Lamia appeared to hate her previous self.  There were no charitable inclusions when she referred to Maria.  She told the story as
s
he
would gossip about someone
she
did not like.  I felt that I had to defend the honour of the girl I once knew.

“Lamia, Maria was a lovely girl.  Sometimes when a person goes through a traumatic experience, that person can act totally out of character.  It is the shock of the events that triggers the survival instinct.”