The Angels Weep - Smith Wilbur - Страница 135

"Whatever alarmed the "boys" must have been a false alarm. The village is quiet. There is no sign of the security forces." Neither of the men answered and she made mugs of cocoa for them.

"There is a film on television at nine o'clock, The Railway Children." "I'm tired," Samson said. He was still angry with her.

"I am tired also," Gideon whispered, and Samson helped him towards the front bedroom. He looked back from the doorway and Constance gave him such a pathetically appealing glance that he felt his anger towards her falter.

He lay in the narrow iron bed across from the old man, and in the darkness listened to the small sounds from the kitchen as Constance cleaned up and set out-the breakfast for the next morning. Then the door to her small back bedroom closed.

Samson waited until the old man began to snore before he rose silently. He draped the rough woollen blanket over his naked shoulders, left the bedroom and went to Constance's room. The door was unlocked. It swung open to his touch and he heard her sit up quickly in the bed.

"It is me," he said quietly.

"I was so afraid you would not come." He reached out and touched her naked skin. It was cool and velvety soft. She took his fingers and drew him down towards her, and he felt the last vestige of his resentment shrivel away.

"I am sorry," she whispered.

"It does not matter," he said. "I could not have hidden for ever." "You will go?" "If I do not then they will take my grandfather, and that will not satisfy them." "That is not the reason you will go.

You will go for the same reason that I did. Because I had to." The smooth length of her body was as naked as his own. When she moved, her breasts jostled against his chest, and he felt the heat beginning to flow through her.

"Are they taking you into the bush? "he asked.

"No. Not yet. I am ordered to remain here. There is to be work for me here." "I am glad." He brushed her throat with his lips. In the bush her chances would be very slim. The security forces were maintaining a kill-ratio of over thirty to one.

"I heard Comrade Tebe give- you an hour and a place. Do you think they will use you in the bush?" "I do not know. I think they will take me for training first." "This may be our last night together for a long time," she whispered, and he did not reply but traced her spine in its valley of velvety pliant muscle down to the deep cleft of her buttocks.

"I want you to place a son in my womb," she whispered. "I want you to give me something to cherish while we are apart." "It is an offence against law and custom." "There is no law in this land except the gun, there is no custom except that which we care to observe."

Constance rolled under him and clasped him within her long hard limbs.

"Yet in the midst of all this death we must preserve life. Give me your child, my heart, give him to me tonight, for there may be no other nights for us." Samson woke in a blaze of nightmare. Light flooded the tiny room, striking through the threadbare curtain over the single window and casting harsh moving shadows on the bare whitewashed wall.

Constance clung to him. Her body still hot and moist from their loving, and her eyes soft with sleep. From outside a monstrous distorted voice blared orders.

"This is the Rhodesian army. All people are to come out of their houses immediately. Do not run. Do not hide. No innocent person will be harmed. Come out of your houses immediately. Hold up your hands.

Do not run. Do not attempt to hide." "Get dressed," Samson told Constance. "Then help me with the old man." She staggered, still half-asleep, to the corner cupboard and pulled a plain pink cotton shift down over her nude body. Then, barefoot, she followed Samson to the front bedroom. He was dressed only in a pair of khaki shorts and he was helping Gideon to rise. Outside the cottage the loudhailers were screeching in their metallic stentorian voices.

"Come out immediately. Innocent people will not be harmed. Do not run." " Constance spread a woollen blanket over the old man's shoulders, then between them they led him through the living-room to the front porch. Samson unlocked the door and stepped out, holding both hands high, palms forward, and the blinding white beam of a searchlight fixed on him, so that he was forced to protect his face with one hand. "Bring Grandfather." Constance led the old man out of the front door and the three of" them stood close together in a pathetic huddle, blinded by the light and confused by the repeated bellow of the loud-hailer.

"Do not run. Do not attempt to hide." The row of staff cottages had been surrounded. The searchlights beamed out of the darkness and picked out the little family groups of the teachers and nursing staff and their families as they clung together for comfort, most of them covered only with flimsy night-clothes or hastily draped blankets.

From the impenetrable darkness behind the searchlight, figures emerged, moving like panthers, alert and predatory. One of them vaulted over the veranda railing and flattened against the wall, using Samson's body to shield himself from the doorway and the windows.

"Three of you. Is that all?" he demanded in Sindebele. He was a lean, powerful-looking man in battle-smock and jungle hat. His face and hands were painted with night camouflage so it was impossible to tell whether he was black or white.

"Only three, "Samson replied.

The man had an FN rifle on his hip, the barrel swinging slightly to cover them all.

"If there is anybody in the building, say so quickly, otherwise they will be killed." "There is nobody." The soldier called an order and his troopers went in simultaneously through the back and front doors and side windows. They swept through the cottage in seconds, working as a skilled team, covering each other. Satisfied that it was clear, they scattered back into the darkness and left the three on the veranda.