The time passed quickly and I read more of the book. Its structure was curious, hinged in its middle, folded around a singular event that was both explicatory and mystifying. It felt very much like my own life, everything came back to that central hinge, filtered through a singular lens of before and after.
Despite the apparent connection to my own travails it gave me a queasy, unpleasant feeling to read such obvious fictions. To imagine some creature not only having the time but the inclination to invent these tenacious lies. Had I watched a film where the author had walked into the river, her pockets laden with rocks?
There was a small bell rigged up in next to the door and every time I pressed it someone would appear to ask what I wanted. Having the bell there delighted me and aside from the obvious limitations of my captivity I think I would have been perfectly happy there for some time, simply ringing the bell and waiting on the arrival of a man.
The men had clearly been ordered to cater to my wishes. I was tempted to make outrageous demands ask for sweet meats or beverages that would be impossible to deliver but they all had such idiotic expressions that I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
I presumed that the leader must have some other place to sleep as he only appeared once in the time it took to reach Bonmont. He was very straightforward. I had been unsure if he would visit at all but in the end I suppose he had to, for the moral of the men.
He was altogether more hesitant than in my fantasy. He paused as he removed his clothes.
‘You understand,’ he said.
I couldn’t think of any answer for a question like that. I could see that he would not take me as I had imagined.
He was gentle with me and unduly worried about my wellbeing, as if afraid of hurting me. How many others had he taken in that layer? We were both animals after all. I did my best to excite his passion. I trembled, I cowered, I breathed fearfully, I did everything to become insipid, inspire his anger, provoke him, but he remained stiff, courteous. There was a fire in him but I was unable to ignite it.
It was only later that I realised he was probably mindful of my connection to Abel. He was afraid of the consequences, afraid that anything more than professional rigour, any enjoyment, would put him in a weak position later, could kill him. He was probably right.
By the time we reached Bonmont I had nearly finished the book. I wondered if the author had ever visited the long vanished place that bore the protagonists name. It seemed strange now that a location could have any sort of meaningful name, anything other than sand to distinguish the landscape.
The vehicle stopped. The door was opened and there was no dust.
We were parked inside a hangar. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the gloom outside. Assembled in front of the vehicle’s door stood a group of men who I took to be the unit I had been travelling with. They had stripped down from their thick, dust covered military garb and now wore slack civilian clothes.
Without exception they looked tough. They bore that masculine resolve, a chiselled willpower that I could not help but find attractive. I remembered their hands all over me, lifting me through the sand, and I smiled from my captivity in the rear of the cabin. They shifted deferentially.
The leader appeared behind them.
‘We will stop here for a few days,’ he said. ‘We will use the time to find the information we need.’
I stepped out of the rear of the vehicle and into the hangar. The men stepped aside. The air was clear but without the vehicles filter there were inevitably particulates in suspension. I could taste the dry dust as it entered my nose.
‘It appears a small number of inhabitants have remained in the town.’ He ignored the other men talking directly to me. ‘I would like you to join me in interrogating them.’
‘What makes you think they will talk to you,’ I said. I wanted to see how he reacted, in front of the men. ‘I can speak to them on my own.’
I could sense the men tense at my disobedience. It gave me a thrill, to be disobedient, to mock his power. They could pounce on me and punish me, pound me senseless but instead they had to stand and take my facetious swipes.
He didn’t respond to my comment but curtly turned his attention to two of his men, his deputies I presumed. He made a precise motion with the glove of his right hand, a command, an order related to me. I did not understand what it signified but presumed I was to be watched.
It was a joke in any case, this captivity. They knew that I was no more their prisoner than they were mine. Where could any one of us wander off to? I was not going to walk out into the dust any more than they would, tied as we were to the task of finding Abel.
As my eyes adjusted to the gloom of the hangar I was able to see the rest of their vehicles, dark steel beasts, huddled in formation, ready to make an escape should things go wrong with the locals.
In total they had five vehicles. The leader’s was the biggest, from my new vantage I could tell its true girth, it housed more than one living quarter such as I had been held in. Presumably it was from this vehicle that he ran operations. It looked like it might even hold some form of communication device.
All the trucks were heavily armoured but two of them were more like tanks. A light force like this would still need the ability to defend itself, to tackle blockades or road blocks, to threaten indigenous populations that they might encounter. What would the people of Bonmont be able to tell us?
At another signal from the leader the men disbanded, disappearing back into the vehicles to prepare the crates for loading. Only the leader and his two deputies remained. He took my hand. I was surprised that he would be so delicate, in front of his men.
‘We can work together,’ he said, lowering his gaze on to me. ‘We all want the same thing after all.’
‘What makes you think that?’ I was probing him hoping that he would react, shout at me, strike me, but he simply smiled and dropped my hand.
He led me to the rear of the hangar, his deputies following several paces behind. A door led into a passage, stairs, plastic sheets and connecting tarpaulins hastily taped to form shelter, store rooms, dark corners, a warren of makeshift corridors constructed to ensure a route around the town without the need to step outside.
Although the makeshift passageways did keep the worst of the storm from our faces the air was still thick with dust. Only the most intensive of purification could stop the finer particles from finding their way into a space. I wrapped my thin scarf across my nose and mouth to prevent coughing.
We walked slowly, close together, like a couple might, going out for an evening in the old days. I fought the urge to slip my hand in the crook of his arm. We were not there for pleasure. His kind face focused straight ahead, intent on his purpose, the information he needed, the next step.
Turn by turn we entered buildings that were more substantial, stone and concrete replaced plastic sheeting as walls. We pushed passed sealed double doors. There was no-one around and yet electric lights shone from the roof.
‘They have energy,’ he said, a grim look on his face.
Energy was everything, even in the best placed cities there was a constant struggle for power. I wondered what sort of people lived here that could afford to waste light so frivolously. What secret had they retained to power these unneeded bulbs?
A distant sound started to filter down the corridors, a frothing hubbub, shouts of delight, exclamations. Hesitant pictures formed in my mind. I had imagined no more than a few weakened survivors out here but now I could see there might be some more substantial force. Could Abel be here? I had assumed he was somewhere further out but had we not travelled far enough already? Was everywhere not a wilderness now in any case?