Tamaruq by E. J. Swift Read Free Book Online Page B

painstakingly written out her speech. She glances at it once, then screws the paper up into a ball. She gathers her breath.
    ‘I used to live over there, with those people.’
    ‘Louder,’ hisses Dien.
    ‘I used to live over there,’ she shouts. The room reacts with jeers, but others shush them. She says it a third time, quieter this time, forcing the volume of the room to lower, until an abrupt, ambivalent hush settles. The westerners watch her mistrustfully, accusingly.
    ‘I used to live over there. There was a man I knew, a westerner. His name was Vikram. For a while, he lived where I lived. But he was never at home there. You know what they call people who cross over – what we call them. Airlifts. And Vikram – he could never find a balance. He was torn between two places.’
    She gathers the courage to let her gaze settle on individuals, forcing herself to meet their eyes. Some look away but others hold her gaze. These westerners. These westerners, who she does not know.
    ‘I understand now how he felt. I don’t belong there any more. I can’t go back. You’re wondering what I’m doing here when the o’dio says I’m dead. Well, I could tell you how but the only thing that matters is that I was rescued, by two of you. Two westerners, who were kind to me. Who didn’t know, or care, who I was. They only wanted to help. Only, I’ve realized I don’t belong here either. I don’t belong anywhere.’
    The room has fallen silent, enough to hear the sound of the wind whining through the shutters, the distant blare of a waterbus horn.
    ‘I’ll tell you something,’ she says quietly. ‘My brother – my twin – he went mad. That’s the truth. I didn’t want to believe it but it’s what happened, he went mad, and he killed himself. I know, I know, I shouldn’t speak of it. We never speak about that. But it happened. He believed in horses. He heard them speaking to him. Sometimes I see them and I think I might be going mad too, and then I think, no. It’s just this place. This city. What it does to us.’
    She wavers. Dien is at her side, nodding encouragingly. She remembers Vikram, his voice falling onto the ears of the Council, his confidence in the face of impossibility. Both their confidence, that they could make something happen. She cannot help glancing at the photograph on the wall.
    ‘I’m here today without any expectations. I can’t condone the things my family did. The things I did, without knowing. Or maybe I knew but I didn’t care enough to stop. It doesn’t really matter which, I did them. And to be honest with you, I’m here because I was blackmailed into being here.
    ‘But now that I am here, I realize I can do something. This city isn’t a fair place – but it could be. It could become what it was meant to be, a long time ago. I can help. I can’t give you much but I can give you my voice, if you’ll have it. I’ll fight for you. I’ll give you whatever I have left, because I owe it, to that man.’ She points at the photograph. ‘I owe it to Vikram Bai, who I loved, and never told. And I owe it to all of you.’
    She gazes around.
    ‘That’s all I’ve got. There’s nothing else.’
    In the ensuing silence, Adelaide senses the mood in the room teetering, tipped to go either way with the least bit of provocation. Has she done enough?
    A woman with grey hair says, ‘Why have you brought her here, Dien?’
    Dien answers the question directly.
    ‘Because we can use her.’ She glances at Adelaide. ‘And because, despite everything, I think she means what she says.’
    The room divides into clusters of mutterings. Adelaide hears, quite distinctly, a voice saying, ‘We should just kill her now and be done with it.’ And someone else: ‘What about the prophecies? What if it’s her?’
    Her life hangs now on her ability to act a part, or to tell the truth, or some convergence of the two.
    She waits. Dien waits.
    A man at the bar says, ‘You haven’t said you’re