The Wound
by Anissa M. Bouziane
Art by Leah Oates
Cheers and applause boomed up towards the once-gilded frescos of the Teatro Colonial, as Rita strode off the stage with a generous wave to her audience and a short flick of the wrist in the direction of the young woman who had just moderated her talk on press freedoms. The wrist gesture clearly meant: follow me. The young woman immediately obliged, and scurried backstage despite a few loud voices still shouting questions.
‘I really need a smoke,’ Rita said. Seeking out the red light of an exit, she added, ‘experience has taught me not to let Q&As drag on too long after this sort of event.’
‘You are absolutely right,’ the young woman replied, as she stuffed her clipboard and notes into a leather satchel slung over her shoulder. The satchel, along with the khaki pants and blue blazer the young woman wore, were an obvious imitation of Rita’s iconic journalist’s get-up – a type of sartorial homage donned by aspiring female investigative reporters to which the older woman had long ago become accustomed. ‘I’m really sorry about the last question,’ the young woman said, ‘I should have avoided giving those government stooges the opportunity to harangue you…’
‘Nonsense, debunking the logic of authoritarianism is my stock in trade. Only as moderator you should have put a stop to the Q&A ten minutes before that bald fellow got the mic. The conservative students had already defended the government’s position on the Global Uprising. We had covered the full spectrum of announced issues. The event had run its course by the eighth question from the audience.’
‘I’m so sorry…’
‘Stop apologising, you’re a journalism student. You’ll learn, just as I once did.’
By now the two women were standing outside the stage door. Throngs of people poured out of the main gates into the warm-hearted light of the Shinning City-by-the-Sea. Nearby, a tarp-covered military truck exerted just enough coercive pressure to keep the crowd moving swiftly away from the Teatro. Rita lit a cigarette. ‘You want one?’ she said, motioning with her half-empty pack towards the journalism student. The younger woman refused with a shake of her head. ‘Good,’ Rita said, ‘not all my self-destructive habits are worth adopting.’ Rita took a long drag, then, holding her breath, she looked quizzically at the young woman before her. Seemingly without exhaling she asked, ‘Is your name really…’
‘Nadia.’
Rita exhaled, nodding, ‘Nadia.’ A sea breeze wafted up the hill from the sparkling bay down below, dissipating the cigarette smoke, sending it up among fluttering banners that read, Student Organizing Committee Teach-In: Covering Politics in a Time of Social Unrest. ‘I knew a Nadia long ago, in this same city…’
The Nadia-dressed-like-Rita seized the occasion to pivot away from the botched Q&A. ‘I really meant it when I said that all of us here at the University are so excited that you chose to come back to your home town. When I suggested inviting you, no one on the committee thought you would say yes.’
‘I surprised myself,’ Rita replied, crushing her barely-smoked cigarette under her boot. The wind picked up, and the banners flapped like sails, causing Rita to feel the pull of the Shinning City’s palm-tree lined corniche and to long for the sip of a smooth drink that she might imbibe while sitting on a beach-side barstool somewhere down the hill. ‘Costa del Sol,’ said Rita.
‘Excuse me?’
‘There used to be a beach-side bar down on the corniche called Costa del Sol.’
‘Oh, yes, of course,’ replied the young woman. ‘It’s still there.’
‘Shall we go for a drink?’
Nadia’s face seemed to light up, ‘Professor…’
‘I’m not your Professor,’ Rita interrupted. ‘I’m a professor in a fancy university across the ocean, because I received fancy prizes for digging- up truth where most people didn’t want me to look. I’m not your professor. Call me Rita.’
Slightly taken aback, Nadia responded, ‘Rita…’
The older woman looked at her watch. ‘What was I thinking? I can’t go down to the corniche. I promised my sister, Sarah, I’d have an early dinner with her at Le Majestique.’ She repeated, ‘What was I thinking?’ then shook her head at no one in particular, adding, ‘Plus I fly out tomorrow at dawn.’
‘I too am forgetting my obligations,’ said Nadia, flustered, ‘the other students are holding a sit-in this evening at the National University gates. A friend of mine, Adam, spoke of it during the Q&A. You might recall him? A tall man in the formal dress of the Desert Tribes. He spoke of how the University students were taking non-violent action in support of the Global Uprising.’
Rita nodded.
‘Adam has partnered with his best friend Izzy, to found the Indigenous Students’ Union. They are the force behind the sit-in. It is their hope that the Global Uprising will also bring attention to the battle against deforestation of our Rainforest and the strip-mining of our South. Maybe you can come with me to lend support to the cause before you go to dinner with your sister?’
Rita’s smile was only slightly sardonic. On any other day she would have said: I don’t lend support to causes, I observe them. But today, still filled with nostalgia for the Costa del Sol and for a long-dead Nadia, Rita glanced again at her watch and acquiesced. She and this new Nadia then walked out of the Teatro, passing beside the tarp-covered military truck. ‘I guess I’ve got an hour or so to kill,’ Rita said, uncharacteristically neglecting to notice that the very same bald man who had harassed her during the Q&A slithered out of the truck’s passenger seat and followed the two women as they walked towards the University.
Le Majestique was a hotel that dated back to the colonial period. Rita carried with her a memory of sitting at the Majestique’s oak bar and listening to the tinkling sound of the ice cubes in the crystal glass of the very first gin and tonic she ever laid lips to. Little surprise then that she had insisted her assistant reserve the Majestique’s Presidential Suite with its mousharabieh panelling and balcony view of palm-tree tops and sparkling bay beyond. Le Majestique sat on the other side of the ancient acropolis, timeless reminder of the Shinning City’s dilapidated democratic heritage. Rita’s favourite hotel was sandwiched between the French Consulate and the National University. ‘I’ve got to walk in this direction regardless,’ Rita thought to herself. What she said, though, was, ‘You do understand that I’m a journalist, not an activist?’
The younger woman looked at Rita perplexed. ‘But your writings have given us the moral compass we so need in an age of rampant corruption and dishonesty.’ Nadia paused, then added, ‘You can’t say you’re not an activist when you’re an icon of gay rights.’
Now Rita’s smile was sardonic. ‘I didn’t choose to be an icon. I just chose to be myself.’
The younger woman did not reply. She and Rita walked in silence, taking long strides, leaving the acropolis on the hill behind them. Even now, neither woman noticed that the bald man from the Q&A had been following them since they had passed the gates of the Teatro Colonial. Turning onto Avenida d’Espagna, Rita could not hold back a flood of images and sounds from the last time she had strolled upon these cobblestones.
She had been with her father, both walking briskly, their handsome profiles like two sides of the same coin: she carrying herself like him, with a sense of ownership of the very air she breathed - unapologetic inhabitant of the world around her. The trouble was her world and his were so very different, though they covered the same space. ‘I have made arrangements for you to wed the Chancellor’s eldest son. The ceremony is set for next summer, as soon as you finish your first year of university abroad.’ Rita had refused. This dispute was not new. She would not budge, but neither would he. They kept walking, heading for the French Consulate, where she was to pick up her student visa — plans had been set for her to study at La Sorbonne. Their footsteps struck the cobbled sidewalk in unison.
‘Father I will not marry the Chancellor’s son,’ Rita dared to reply. ‘I will never marry anyone’s son.’ Her father kept moving as if he had not heard Rita’s words. Was there something of her in him that he did not want to acknowledge? Or worse, something that he wanted to battle as hard as he battled her?
The night before Rita left for La Sorbonne, the fight with her father became a great war.
‘I will never marry a man,’ she hollered.
‘In the name of your departed mother, why?’
‘Because I love a woman!’
Rita had left and had not returned until now, decades later. She did not regret those words, they were her truth. Truth would become her guiding principle. What she regretted was the one word she uttered when she should have remained silent. ‘Who?’ he had asked. ‘Nadia,’ she had replied.
‘Nadia,’ Rita repeated to herself, unaware that the woman walking next to her would hear.
‘Yes?’
‘To love according to one’s heart, regardless of… It was sin against god and country.’
‘It still is.’
Both women heard the chanting of protestors long before they could see the crowds amassed on Liberation Plaza beneath the columns of the French Consulate. Several military trucks similar to the one outside the Teatro Colonial were posted at the exits to the roundabout.
‘I thought this was supposed to be a peaceful sit-in?’ said Rita, instantly aware that she was woefully ill-equipped: no flack-jacket, no press-badge, no gas-mask. She turned and her eyes locked with the bald man from the Teatro. He stood his ground, no longer caring to avoid detection. Across the Plaza, near the Consulate gates Rita spotted a TV camera van: with some luck it might be an international crew, possibly friends. A fire truck rumbled down Avenida d’Espagna, water cannons blasting everything in its way, a phalanx of army trucks close behind. Rita grabbed Nadia’s hand. ‘Run!’ she cried, as she tugged the younger woman away from the bald man and water cannons and plunged deep into the crowd towards the vehicle labeled TV.
In the chaos at the heart of Liberation Plaza, Nadia and Rita happened upon Adam and Izzy, the student organisers of the University sit-in. ‘Imagine finding you here!’ Nadia called out to them, trying to be heard above the cacophony of chanting and sirens.
‘The revolution will succeed, because it will be televised!’ hollered Adam. Then, recognising Rita, he took hold of her hand in warm greeting, shaking it vigorously, and added, ‘Professor, I’m so honoured that you have chosen to join us in the struggle.’
‘Adam,’ said Rita, stilling his hand in both of hers. ‘The television might not save your revolution, but it might save us. Help us reach that TV crew by the Consulate gates, then you must flee — to the desert or to the jungle, but do not stay here, you cannot win faced with such overwhelming force.’
By now the crowd was so dense that moving from one end of the Plaza to the other necessitated that Adam elbow some, that Izzy push others, and that Rita keep pulling Nadia by the hand, hoping maybe to slip into the Consulate, if not through the front gate, then through the back one that gave on to the road leading down from Le Majestique. Rita and the Nadia-of-her-youth had often taken that road.
It was unclear to Rita how the bald guy from the Teatro had managed to move so swiftly, but he materialised from behind the vehicle marked TV just as Rita, Nadia, Izzy, and Adam made it across the Plaza. Instantly, the idea of a television crew providing salvation evaporated, for the bald guy opened the van’s back door to released a line of armed men in riot gear. ‘So much for press freedoms,’ thought Rita. The crowd, moving as if of its own volition swerved at the sight of the men in arms.
A tear gas canister exploded, frightening Nadia, who let go of Rita’s hand. As Rita tried to cover her mouth and nose with her shirt, she saw Nadia drift away with Adam. Izzy wrapped his shesh scarf around Rita’s face and told her not to worry.
‘Should something happen to me,’ Rita yelled, her voice muffled by the shesh, ‘make sure to call me sister Sarah. She lives with my father in the Governor’s Mansion. You’ll find her number in my phone.’
Shots burst out, followed by deafening explosions. Howls of pain and cries of horror echoed through the wide avenues and the winding streets of the Shinning City-by-the-Sea. Rita saw Nadia leap in her direction, only to watch the young woman’s body crumple to the ground. At that very moment liquid fire engulfed Rita’s back. Pain blinded her. Rita’s skin went ice-cold. Her breath escaped her – then… nothing.
Leah Oates, Transitory Space photographic series
Rita lay face down on her bed, while her sister, Sarah, sat on the edge of the mattress, tending to a wound on Rita’s back. At Sarah’s feet was a black-leather doctor’s bag, like those seen in old Hollywood films.
‘You see, your pharmacy degree has finally come in handy,’ Rita spoke into her pillow, gripping it tightly to aid in mastering the pain.
‘You know I hate the sight of blood,’ replied Sarah, as she removed stained gauze from above Rita’s still-bleeding wound and tossed the used gauze into a trash bin now overflowing with medical waste.
Rita grimaced, but loosened her grip on the pillow. ‘Well good thing the Governor has made it easy for you not to practise your chosen profession.’
Using clean gauze, Sarah pressed down hard on Rita’s wound, causing her sister to cry out in pain. ‘We agreed not to talk about him,’ Sarah hissed through clenched teeth.
Taking a deep breath, Rita released her muscle tension and went limp before coming back to her senses and replying, ‘Indeed, let us pretend father does not know I am here. So, how is your husband?’
‘In the South.’
‘Leading his mining expeditions?’
‘He owns the mines, he doesn’t run them.’
‘Just like he owns farms in the jungle but doesn’t manage them?’
‘Rita, do you want me to cauterise this wound, or do you want me to let you bleed to death?’
Rita smiled despite her pain. ‘Do you remember that game we used to play with Nadia? Je declare la guerre?’
Sarah laughed, it made her face look very much like her sister’s. Little wonder they had been taken for twins when small. ‘I declare war. How could I forget? You were the very best at it — conquered huge swaths of driveway, marked them yours with the brightest coloured chalk.’
‘Did you know that Nadia found that game frightening?’ said Rita.
Sarah, who had begun to search for some medical instrument in her bag, paused. She shook her head sadly, then, as she located what she had been looking for, she added, ‘Nadia always squirmed at the sound of your vociferous proclamations of war.’
‘Then I killed her?’
‘That’s not what I’m saying.’
‘No, he killed her.’
Sarah put her hand gently on the small of her sister’s back, beneath the open gash, object of her ministrations. ‘Nadia killed herself, Rita. You know that. Ultimately the choice was hers. Not his. Not yours.’
‘I think another Nadia died today because of me,’ Rita mumbled into her pillow.
‘No,’ replied Sarah, ‘the deaths today must be placed at the Governor’s feet.’
Rita tried to turn over and face her sister, but an all-encompassing pain took hold of her body, preventing the slightest movement.
‘His men initiated the riot,’ Sarah explained.
Questions coursed through Rita like pulsating electroshocks: Was the bald man from the Teatro sent by her father? Was she the intended target of an assassin’s bullet? Nadia — was her death an accident? Adam and Izzy, had they fled to the South? Had they been jailed? Who notified Sarah? Who brought Rita back to Le Majestique?
Rita was incapable of voice. Sarah pretended not to notice and continued to staunch the bleeding of her sister’s wound. Outside beyond the balcony, above the palm trees, seagulls squawked loudly at each other. Sarah whispered, ‘how many times have I had to patch you up?’
‘Broken toe,’ mumbled Rita.
Sarah nodded. ‘My bed post was the culprit.’
‘Cactus spikes.’
‘I told you not to harvest prickly pears.’
‘Mangled ankle.’
‘Who roller-blades home after playing a four-set match on a sprained ankle?’
‘Scorpion bite.’
‘Thank goodness Nadia had the wherewithal to capture the darn thing in a jar, otherwise I would never have known how to treat you.’
‘Broken tooth,’ added Rita.
‘No way I could fix that.’ Sarah took hold of Rita’s chin delicately and turned her sister’s face towards hers. ‘Show me,’ she said, ‘did you ever decide to get it capped?’ Rita smiled showing a chipped front tooth. ‘Silly, girl,’ said Sarah, and she ran her long fingers through the fuzzy buzz-cut that was all Rita allowed of her once lustrous hair.
‘It reminds me that there is some fool out there who has a piece of my tooth in his skull,’ Rita explained.
‘And you wonder why Nadia thought you too combative?’
Rita’s muscles weakened, and she sank her face back into the pillow. ‘How bad is it?’ her muffled voice inquired.
‘I think it has stopped bleeding,’ replied Sarah, lifting the gauze swab she had been holding firmly against the wound. ‘If it had been a few inches closer to your spine, I think…’ she didn’t finish her sentence.
‘Show me.’
‘What?’
‘I want to see how bad it is,’ said Rita.
‘But you can barely walk,’ replied Sarah.
‘Grab my phone,’ Rita ordered with a flick of her wrist in the direction of the nearest nightstand. ‘Take a photo. Show me.’
Sarah obliged. She took hold of Rita’s phone, stood over her sister’s back, and snapped a photograph. Following the smartphone’s artificial shutter click, Rita repeated, ‘Show me.’
It took a fair degree of effort for Rita to grip the phone in her left hand and inch it up towards her face, but once she did, she observed the image in silence. For how long? No one could say. The silence deepened, and Rita felt as if she were diving into it. Ultimately she resurfaced, and — still staring at the photo — whispered, ‘Blessed Mother.’ There was no doubt in Rita’s mind that the wound had been caused by a bullet. The entry point was clearly delineated. The projectile had grazed the spine, piercing the mid-back. Blood had stopped oozing. The flesh around the wound was pale, bruised, and greying. The flesh looked…lifeless.
The phone slipped from Rita’s hand.
Leah Oates, Transitory Space photographic series
Rita’s last breath leaves her, and with it go her imaginings of what might have happened had her sister’s frantic race across the wounded city not been impeded by military roadblocks. As Rita’s phone hits the floor, it can be heard ringing. No one answers the call. Over and over again, the phone sings a little tune Rita had chosen because it reminded her of the island music played at Costa del Sol. The smartphone flashes the same name, again and again, with every repeated call: Sarah.
Someone is pounding on the hotel room door. ‘Rita!’ a female voice calls out, but there is no response. ‘Rita!’ The phone continues to ring. The pounding now turns into a banging, several people have gathered on the opposite side of the door, but only the woman calls out, ‘Rita! Rita! Open the door Rita!’ More hammering against the door, ‘It’s me, Sarah!’
A white-gloved hand slips a key-pass through the electronic lock, and the hotel room door swings wide open.
Sarah lets out a deafening scream. Face down on the bed lies Rita’s lifeless body.
Leah Oates, Transitory Space photographic series
