5
It was evening by the time Elizabeth reached the village, and she judged it already too late to set out for headquarters. She had no will to return there anyway, and there was somewhere she could sleep in the village.
The main street was empty of people; unusual, for this time of day was a popular one with the people for sitting in the dust outside their houses and talking idly while they drank the strong, resinous wine that was all they could ferment round here.
There was a noise coming from the church, and she headed that way. Inside, most of the men of the village were gathered, and a few of the women. One or two of these were crying.
“What’s going on?” Elizabeth said to Father dos Santos.
“Those men came back,” he said. “They’ve offered a deal.”
He was standing well to one side, obviously incapable of influencing the people in any way.
Elizabeth tried to catch the gist of the discussion, but there was much shouting, and even Luiz, who stood prominently near the wrecked altar, could not make himself heard over the hubbub. Elizabeth caught his eye, and at once he came over.
“Well?”
“The men came today, Menina Khan. We are agreeing to their terms.”
“It doesn’t sound like there’s much agreement. What are their terms?”
“Fair.”
He started to head back towards the altar, but Elizabeth caught his arm.
“What did they want?” she said.
“They will give us many medicines, and a lot of food. There is more of the fertilizer, and they say they will help repair the church, though that is not wished by us.”
He was looking at her evasively, his gaze flickering up to her eyes, then away, then back again.
“And in return?”
“Only a little.”
“Come on, Luiz. What did they want?”
“Ten of our women. Is nothing.”
She stared at him in amazement. “What did you — ?”
“They will be well looked after. They will make them healthy, and when they return to us they will bring more food.”
“And what do the women say to that?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “They are not happy.”
“I’ll bet they’re not.” She looked over at the six women who were present. They stood in a small group, and the men nearest to them were already looking sheepish. “What do they want them for?”
“We do not ask.”
“Because you think you know.” She turned to dos Santos. “What’s going to happen?”
“They’ve already made up their minds,” he said.
“But why? Surely they can’t seriously consider trading their wives and daughters for a few sacks of grain?”
Luiz said: “We need what they offer.”
“But we have already promised you food. There is a doctor on his way now.”
“Yes… and so you have promised. Two months you have been here and very little food, no doctor. These men are honourable, because we can tell.”
He turned his back on her, and returned to the front of the crowd. In a moment he called for a vote by show of hands. The deal was confirmed, and none of the women voted.
Elizabeth passed a restless night, although by the time she rose in the morning she knew what she was going to do.
The day had produced a volume of unexpected developments. Ironically, the one development of which she had felt instinctively confident had not materialized. Now that the encounter with Helward had taken on a new perspective, she could put words to what she had expected: the stirring inside her had been a physical restlessness, and she had ridden down to the river in full expectation of being seduced by him. It could still have happened until that moment the fanatical expression had taken his eyes; even now she still experienced stirrings of that sensation — not fear, not amazement, somewhere between — whenever she recalled the shouted conversation under the trees.
“What about the sun?” still echoed.
Undoubtedly there was more to the scene than had appeared. Helward’s behaviour the day before had been different; she had tapped then a hidden sensitivity, and he had responded the way any man would. There was no sign of the presumed mania then. And not until she talked to him about his life, or her life, had he reacted that way.
And there was the mystery about the computer paper. There was only one computer within a thousand miles of here, and she knew where it was and what it was used for. It didn’t use paper print-outs, and it certainly wasn’t an IBM. She knew of IBMs; anyone who was trained in the basics of computers had heard of them, but no machine had been made by them since the Crash. Certainly the only ones intact, if not working, were in museums.
Finally, the deal proposed by the men who had visited the village had been wholly unanticipated, at least by her, although when she remembered Luiz’s expression after he had first spoken to the men she felt sure that he had had at least an inkling of what had been expected by way of payment.
Somehow, all must be connected. She knew the men who had come to the village were from the same place as Helward, and that his behaviour was linked in some way with this deal.
There remained the question of her own involvement in this.
Technically, the village and its people were the responsibility of her and dos Santos. There had been a visit from one of the supervisors from headquarters in the early days, but much of the attention of the hierarchy was directed towards overseeing the repair of a big harbour on the coast. In theory, she was in the charge of dos Santos, but he was a local man who had been one of the several hundred students who had been crammed through the government theological college in an effort to take religion back to the outlying regions. Religion was the traditional opiate here, and the missionary work was given a high priority. But the facts of the situation spoke for themselves: dos Santos’s work would take years, and for most of the first few years he would be working uphill towards re-establishing the church as the social and spiritual leadership of the community. The villagers tolerated him, but it was of Luiz they took notice, and, to a certain extent, herself.
It would be equally useless to look to headquarters for guidance. Although the establishment was run by good and sincere men, their work was still so new that they had not yet taken their heads out of the clouds of theory; a plain, human problem like women bartered for food would not be in their scope.
If any action were to be taken, it would have to be on her own initiative.
The decision did not come quickly; throughout that long, warm night she did what she could to separate the pros and cons, the risks and the benefits, and however she looked at it her chosen course of action seemed to be the only one.
She rose early, and went down to Maria’s house. She had to be quick: the men had said they would be coming soon after sunrise.
Maria was awake, her baby was crying. She knew of the decision taken the night before, and she questioned Elizabeth about it as soon as she arrived.
“No time for that,” Elizabeth said brusquely. “I want some clothes.”
“But yours are so beautiful.”
“I want something of yours… anything will do.”
Grumbling speculatively, Maria found a selection of rough garments, and laid them out for Elizabeth’s inspection. They were all well-used, and probably none had ever seen soap and water. For Elizabeth’s purpose they were ideal. She selected a ragged, loose-fitting skirt and an off-white shirt that had presumably once belonged to one of the men.
She slipped off her own clothes, including her underwear, and pulled on Maria’s. She folded her own clothes into a neat pile, and gave them to Maria to look after for her until she returned.
“But you look no better than a village girl!”
“Right.”
She looked at the baby to make sure it was not ill, then went through with Maria the daily routines she should follow. Maria, as ever, pretended to listen, although Elizabeth knew she would forget everything as soon as she was not there to watch her. Had she not reared three children already?