Time Slave Page 9

He did so. She smiled.

  He seemed angry with her. She flushed slightly. Doubtless Gunther had made his report.

  But she smiled her prettiest and lifted the spoon left on the tray.

  "I tried to hide a fork today," she said. "And now look," she pouted, "I have only this spoon to eat with. I feel silly, eating meat with a spoon. They treat me like I was a child."

  "Oh?" asked William. He looked at her, closely,

  "See if you can't get them, tomorrow, not tonight, to let me have a fork again."

  "You don't need it," said William.

  "Don't be cruel to me, William," she said.

  "Herjellsen must have given them their orders," he said.

  "See if you can get him to change them tomorrow, when he is in a better mood," she wheedled. She smiled at him.

  William basked in her smile.

  "You are quite beautiful," he said, "when you smile. Very well, tomorrow I will ask Herjellsen to permit you to have the proper utensils."

  "Thank you, William," she breathed.

  "But no knife, mind you," laughed William.

  "Oh, of course not," she laughed, "—Master!"

  "You make a pretty slave, Brenda," said William.

  Brenda Hamilton fell to her knees before him, and put her head to his feet. "The slave is grateful to her master," she laughed.

  William looked down at her. "I see," he said, "that it is a social misfortune that the institution of female slavery was abolished."

  Brenda looked up at him, deferentially. "Yes, Master," she said.

  "Last night," said William, suddenly, angrily, "you were on your knees before Gunther."

  She looked up at him, agonized.

  "Don't get up," said William.

  She put her head down.

  "Beg me to fuck you," said William.

  "Please, William," she whispered.

  "Do it," he said, "you little whore."

  "No!" she wept. "I wanted to be had by Gunther. I wanted it! I needed it!"

  "And you don't need it from me," said William.

  "Please, William," she said, "I like you—you're the only one who is kind to me. I like you. I do like you!" She lifted her eyes to him.

  "Say it," said William. "I want to hear it."

  "I—I beg you to fuck me, William," whispered Brenda Hamilton.

  "Slut!" said William.

  He picked up the tray and mug, and spoon, and angrily left the room.

  He did not look back.

  Elated, Brenda Hamilton ran to the light switch and turned it off., and went to the mattress and took the fork from it. The first check, she knew, would not come until eleven o'clock. She counted the minutes, as carefully as she could, while she worked in the closet, as silently as she could, digging at the plaster, flaking it away. Giving herself a margin of safety she went and lay down in the cot, as though asleep. She hated each wasted minute lying there, but, at last, some ten minutes after she had lain down, she sensed the flashlight in the room, through the window, and falling on her apparently sleeping body. When it had left she leaped to her feet and began her work again. It was shortly before midnight, and the second check, when she came to the coating of stucco that formed the outside of the hut. She returned to the cot, a sleeping prisoner. When the light had passed again, she returned to the work. It took only some fifteen minutes to work away enough of the stucco to make a hole large enough for her to crawl through. This would give her, if she were successful in escaping the compound, a lead of only some forty-five minutes. She slipped from the building. She looked back. She must leave the hole exposed. There was nothing with which to conceal it. She hoped it would not be noted. The compound was lit by the four lights on poles, illuminating the dirt grounds, making them seem hard and yellow. The hole was on the side of the building, away from the light. She hoped it would not be noticed.

  She went to the end of the small building. Then she fell to her stomach in the shadows at the side of the building.

  Between her and the fence one of the blacks was walking his rounds, his rifle over his shoulder.

  She remained lying there for some minutes. She counted the seconds between his rounds. She was in tears. She would not have time to get to the fence and tunnel under the wire. Then, in her counting, the guard did not pass when she expected him to. Her heart leaped. Perhaps he had stopped somewhere, to relieve himself, or drink, or smoke, or chat with his partner, perhaps at the gate.

  She scurried from hiding and began, with her hands and her fork, to dig frenziedly at the wire. The ground was dry and soft, powdery. In a matter of two or three minutes, on her stomach, she slithered under the hanging wire. A barb ripped through the shoulder of her dress and she cried out half blinded with sparks and pain. There had been a crackling, and her inadvertent cry of terror and pain. She scrambled to her feet, stunned, sick, her vision swimming with blasts of light, and vomited in the dust, and then, stumbling, fled into the darkness.

  Apparently her cry and the crackling of the sparks had not been heard.

  Outside the compound, sick, some hundred yards away, she collapsed in the brush and looked back.

  No one was coming. There was no pursuit. The compound was large. No one had apparently heard her.

  She threw up again from the shock of the fence. She wanted only to lie down and rest.

  She staggered to her feet.

  She began to stumble through the brush.

  It had been a nightmare of running, but Brenda Hamilton, at three forty in the morning, reached a road, her legs bleeding, dust in her hair, her body coated with dirt.

  She lay beside the road, gasping, on the side away from the direction from which she had come.

  She could scarcely breathe, she could scarcely move her body.

  The dress was half torn from her.

  What now if there were no vehicle? There might not be any. This was not a commonly traveled road. It was late at night. When she had been with Gunther and William in the Land Rover, in all their driving, they had passed no vehicle.

  She moaned.

  She would die in the bush, without food and water. She feared leopards, and snakes. She knew no way to a village.

  She could walk the road. It would lead somewhere. But she, having stopped, found it almost impossible to get to her feet. She closed her eyes.

  Then, from the distance, she heard a vehicle, coming down the road.

  Her heart leaped, and she crawled to the side of the road.

  She saw the two headlights. She heard the engine. The vehicle was coming with rapidity.

  What if it would not stop for her?

  Painfully she stood up, on the surface of the road, gasping. The gravel hurt her feet.

  They must stop for her!

  The headlights were approaching rapidly.

  They were hurrying. They would not stop!

  But they would! She would flag them down! They must stop! They must!

  The headlights were now looming, like eyes. She heard the grinding of the gravel under the wheels of the vehicle, the thick roar of the engine.

  She stood out, almost in the center of the road, and lifted her hand.

  She waved wildly.

  She lifted both of her arms and ran toward the headlights, weeping.

  They must stop!

  To her joy she heard the driver remove his foot from the accelerator and heard the scattering and crunching of gravel under the tires as the vehicle began to slow down.

  She ran toward it, illuminated in its headlights, as it ground to a halt.

  "Help me!" she cried.

  She stopped.

  The Land Rover was stopped now, the motor still running. Gunther leaped out, onto the road.

  She screamed and turned, and streaked into the brush. She ran and ran.

  She heard the Land Rover start again, turn off the road. She saw it plowing after her.

  She darted through the brush, crying.

  It dodged small trees, suddenly bright in its headlights
, it rode over brush, through dips and high grass, jolting, falling and climbing.

  Running, she heard the engine behind her, the breaking of brush, the sound of the tires.

  Suddenly she was illuminated in the headlights.

  She was terrified they would run her down. Then the Land Rover turned to one side, her left, as she ran, and was behind her and on the left.

  She ran, stumbling. She felt herself caught in the blaze of the hand searchlight mounted near the front, right window.

  "Wir haben sie!" she heard Gunther cry, elated. He almost never spoke German.

  She heard the crack of the compressed-air rifle and was suddenly stung in the side. She was knocked off her feet by the impact and rolled for more than a dozen feet. Then she scrambled to her feet again, and began to run again, stumbling. She heard the Land Rover following her, slowly. She ran for perhaps a hundred yards, and then fell, and got up and, slowly, began to stumble away again. The Land Rover seemed to move almost at her very side. She was conscious of the headlights on the brush. She was aware that she, herself, was illuminated in the hand searchlight at the side of the vehicle. With her fingers, reeling, she felt the dart sunk in her side. It had penetrated the thin cotton dress and had fastened itself deeply in her flesh. She stumbled, and fell. She heard the Land Rover stop. She tried to crawl away, and then fell to her stomach. She fought to keep conscious. She knew she lay in the light of the hand searchlight. She heard the door of the Land Rover open. She heard booted feet leap to the ground. She heard the booted feet approach her. Her right hand, first, was dragged behind her body and snapped in a handcuff, and then her left. She lay cuffed. A hand forcibly jerked out the dart. She heard it placed in the pocket of a leather jacket. Then she felt herself being lifted lightly to a man's shoulders, her head over his back, and carried to the Land Rover.

  She moaned, and fell unconscious.

  6

  Dr. Brenda Hamilton awakened.

  She lay on her side on the cot. Her left hand, extended, lay under the curved iron bar at the top of the cot; her right hand lay beside her face; she looked at the slender, small fingers; it seemed so small, so delicate compared to that of Gunther, or William, or Herjellsen, to a man's hand.

  The half light of late afternoon, golden, hazy, filtering, dimly illuminated the room.

  The white-washed interior seemed golden and dim. She looked up at the arched roof, its beams, the corrugated tin. It was hot, terribly hot. She remembered that she seldom spent time in her quarters before sundown. She remembered that she had, once, awakened similarly. She remembered then that she was a prisoner.

  She tried to move her hand, her left hand. Something jerked at it. She heard a steel cuff slide on iron. She sat up. She was handcuffed to the iron bar at the head of the cot.

  She sat wearily at the edge of the cot. She wanted to relieve herself. She looked across the room to the wastes bucket.

  She got up, to pull the cot to the side of the room. It remained fixed.

  It had been bolted to the floor. It was aligned with the floor boards designated by Gunther. She smiled. The alignment of the cot was no longer her responsibility.

  She considered, briefly, urinating on the floor, or soiling the mattress.

  She would not do so.

  She knew she was, at the slightest sign of insubordination, subject to physical discipline, and that it would be, unhesitantly, administered. She wondered what they would do to her for having attempted to escape.

  How foolishly she had run to their arms. How easily she had been recaptured.

  She remembered the Land Rover pursuing her, terrifying her, loud and roaring, through the midnight bush, the glare of its lights, the sting of the anesthetic bullet, Gunther's cuffs.

  She looked at the girl in the mirror, facing her, sitting on the edge of the cot, a steel cuff confining her to it. The girl was weary, filthy, her dress torn, her hair awry and filled with dust; her face was dirty; her hands were dirty, and there was dirt, from digging, black, under the fingernails; her legs were covered, too, with dirt, and scratches and blood.

  They had brought her in as she was, from the bush, thrown her on the cot, handcuffed her to it, and left.

  She was hungry, and thirsty, and wanted to relieve herself, and clean her body.

  She lay back, on her side, her legs drawn up, on the striped mattress, on the cot, her left hand under the curved iron bar at its head.

  She smelled her body. She smelled, too, fresh plaster. The hut, she conjectured, where she had broken through it, through the closet, had been repaired.

  She closed her eyes against the heat.

  Then, almost against her will, she opened her eyes, wanting to look again in the mirror. Lying on her side she regarded herself, her head and hair, her figure, the curve of her hip and waist, the dress well up her thighs, the curves of her legs and ankles. She looked at herself, sullenly. She did not jerk at the handcuff. She lay quietly, secured. She had not escaped.

  At six P.M. the door was unlocked.

  The large black, who had beaten her, entered. His companion entered behind him.

  Behind them came Herjellsen, and Gunther and William.

  Brenda sat up.

  Gunther came to her and unlocked the cuff from her left wrist.

  Hamilton rubbed her wrist.

  Herjellsen motioned for Dr. Brenda Hamilton to lie across the cot, as she had before, her hands on the floor, her head down.

  The smaller black then dragged the dress up over her body, and half over her head, confining her arms in it.

  "Beat her," said Herjellsen.

  While the men watched, the larger black, with his belt, doubled, struck her, sharply, below the small of the back, fifteen times.

  The beating, Hamilton knew, was not intended to be physically punishing. It was intended to be emotionally humiliating. It was. But, too, it stung, terribly. She could not keep tears from her eyes. She felt like a child. She knew it was not a man's beating, but a woman's beating. In tears, she realized it was more in the nature of a severe rebuke for naughtiness than anything else. It meant, clearly, that they were not particularly annoyed with her, that she had not worried them, that her escape attempt had not been, and was not, taken seriously. Her effort, to herself, though foiled, had been momentous, desperate. Now it was being punished, sharply, but trivially. She supposed she was being punished at all, only because she had been insubordinate, and they felt that something in response, however trivial, should be done to her. She asked herself if this was all her escape attempt was worth to them, all it had earned her.

  The beating also told her that she was a woman, not worth the severe discipline that might be accorded a male.

  That, too, humiliated her.

  It taught her in a new way that she was a female, only a female.

  She wept, too, because Gunther and William were watching. How could she face them again?

  The last blow fell.

  Gunther pulled her, she still tangled in her dress, sobbing, to her side. Her left wrist was jerked to the vicinity of the iron bar at the head of the cot. She felt it locked again in the cuff that dangled there.

  She was confined as before.

  The men left.

  She, furious, frustrated, helpless, felt like a punished child. She wept. She was furious at what men could do to women, if they wished. She hated their strength, and her own weakness. They can treat us like children, she wept.

  "I hate you!" she cried.

  Then she was afraid that they might hear her, and return to punish her again. "I hate you," she whispered. "I hate you." But mostly she hated herself, that she was a woman.

  How could she ever again face Gunther and William?

  Then she knew how she could face them again, and only how she could face them again, only as a woman—a woman —and one they had seen being beaten.

  Then, after a time, she no longer hated being a woman. She lay on the thin, flat, striped mattress, on her side, her wrist helplessly hand
cuffed .to the iron bar at the head of the simple cot, and looked at herself in the mirror. Her small, luscious, curved body, captive, formed a remarkable contrast to the thin, flat mattress, its linearity, the plainness of the iron cot, on which she was confined. She studied herself in the mirror, her head and hair, the deliciousness of her body, her legs, the slenderness of her ankles. Then no longer did she hate that she was a woman. She found it again, strangely perhaps, a precious thing to be. And she found herself, too, strangely enough, pleased-that men were strong enough to do to her what they had done. She found herself, for some strange reason, pleased that one sex was so much weaker than the other. And, perhaps most strange of all, she found herself pleased that she was of the weaker sex.

  She found, as she lay on the cot, captive, handcuffed to it, that the strength of men excited her, that she found it profoundly and unaccountably exciting.

  I love it that there are men, she whispered to herself. I love it. I love it!

  At ten P.M. the door was again unlocked.

  The large black, he who had beaten her, again entered. Lying on the cot, she cringed. But he carried a large piece of bread in one hand and a tin mug of water in the other. Brenda saw, briefly, his companion behind him, before the door closed.

  He approached her.

  She regarded him with fear.

  "Sit up," he said.

  She did so. She winced.

  "Open your mouth," he said.

  She did so.

  He thrust the bread into her mouth, whole.

  He waited until she had, half choking, swallowed it down. Then he held the tin mug for her. She drank.

  Before he left, with his foot, he shoved the wastes bucket to the cot.

  For four days Hamilton saw no one but the blacks, and her feedings consisted of bread and water, each given to her as they had been the first time.

  Sometimes, smiling, she tried to engage them in conversation, but they did not speak to her.

  Once, angrily, she cried out, "Speak when you're spoken to, Boy!"

  He turned, slowly, toward her.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry!"

  His hand struck her, knocking her forcibly to her right. She was jerked up short by the handcuff, taut, on her left wrist. He pulled her to her knees at the side of the cot, facing him. "I'm sorry!" she cried. Her lip was cut on her teeth. He pointed to his feet. She kissed them. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry!"