Heaven's Edge by Romesh Gunesekera Read Free Book Online Page A

passed and I was beginning to feel I should make an effort to see a bit more of the region inland, even if I couldn’t get to all the places I had first wanted to. Locating the hotel on the local map and matching the details to the older one I had brought with me on the boat was proving difficult. I had barely managed to identify the region where Eldon’s Eden, perhaps even Lee’s graveyard, might be when she rushed in and locked the door behind her. Her eyes were swollen, her voice shrivelled. ‘Kill me, Marc, before I really become like one of those bastards.’
    I tried to soothe her, but she twisted around and unstrapped her butterfly knife. ‘Quickly,’ she hissed, ‘now, before it’s too late.’ I had to grasp her hand and force her fingers apart as only a lover could, tearing the skin on the web between her thumb and forefinger.
    â€˜Let go. It’s my knife.’ Her face was thin, tense; watching me while watching out. ‘They’ve destroyed the hatchery, my seedlings, the nursery, everything.’
    Was that smoke in her hair? My hand seemed to burn where I touched her, but I did not let go.
    â€˜I want to kill every one of them. Tusker, that bastard first …’ She bit her lip until blood appeared.
    I wanted then, as I do now, to lick it clean; staunch theflow. Her pulse was in my hands. She dug into my skin with her fingers. I untangled the strands of her long warm hair. ‘I don’t believe in death,’ the rich comforting voice of my childhood’s guardian echoed in my throat. ‘You know that.’
    She pulled away from me and moved slowly to the window. Beyond the bare, parched lawn of the hotel garden, the beach cowered as the surf smashed the shore, splitting each grain of sand against each other. ‘They’ve destroyed the whole farm. All the animals. Every little bird. The hut was blazing. My garuda … everything gone. Now they’ll be after me.’
    I saw again the burnt farmstead she’d shown me, and tried to keep her vale from merging into it in my mind. ‘We’d better get to that special enclave in the city, an embassy.’
    She stared at me as if I was mad. ‘They won’t help me. You know secret farmers like me are not their interest. Even Jaz …’
    â€˜What about that place in the south then, where you said no one goes any more?’
    A stray sunbeam lit her eye. ‘Samandia? Yes, we might be safe in Samandia.’ She wiped her hand across her face. There was ash on her cheek.
    I told her to slip out around the side of the hotel and wait by the gate while I fetched the keys to the hotel jeep from the bellboy’s box. She nodded, looking for once, a little uncertain. Her breath, warm, tinged with blood, seemed to be still. I left her as I never ever want to leave her again.
    When I couldn’t find the keys in the box, I stupidly searched all the drawers of the unattended reception desk instead of going into the office straight away. I was in a panic. I wished I hadn’t let her keep her knife, given the state she was in. By the time I found the keys and raced tothe gate, I was too late. I turned to look back once more at the old hotel and saw a shadow on the terrace raise a gun. I jumped, crying out. The path turned red, the insides of my eyelids redder. An icy chemical flooded the pores of my shoulder before I even felt the puncture of the soldier’s dart; a cool, light, feeling of night descending, a curdled sky swelling in my veins. There was pain. My every membrane quivered like a pricked inner ear.

II
Maravil
    Â 
    When I regained consciousness, I found myself on a metal bed. It was daylight, and hot. I could see only sky through the small windows of the grey wall opposite. There were ten beds in the ward and one other patient: a small figure with a bandage around his chest. A stout woman in a nurse’s uniform guarded the door. I wasn’t sure