Night Of Knives

Chapter 6

Veronica spends the next three days in a haze of sickness, sometimes groaning weakly, sometimes staggering back to the toilet bucket. Between bouts of illness she lies on the ground and waits to die or get better. They seem like equally desirable options. At least she is not alone in her misery, Jacob is afflicted too. The others are unaffected: they are more travelled, or have been in Africa longer, and are thus less vulnerable to exotic stomach bugs.

Veronica soon begins to feel that she has been sick and chained to a rock in this cave for months. It doesn't take long for a routine to develop. They are woken by the shimmering dawn, rise, and try to shake off their stiffness. Derek actually does calisthenics every morning. The two guards outside are changed. An expressionless teenager comes in laden with pineapples and pocho, and takes out the toilet bucket; and then nothing else of note happens until dusk, when the guards are changed again.

Veronica is vaguely aware that the tension and tedium would be excruciating if she were well. She watches blearily on both occasions that Derek ventures outside the waterfall to ask about Gabriel, and is chased back in with more shouts. She listens as the others speculate anxiously and endlessly about what's going to happen. But mostly she just lies there, weak and wretched.

After the first night they don't actually need each other's body heat, but they still sleep huddled up against another. They need each other's closeness. Veronica understands now why solitary confinement can be such an awful punishment. Being alone isn't so bad by itself; but being alone in a prison, facing a dozen grim futures - she would lose her mind. Things are bad enough as is. Veronica is almost grateful for the illness that keeps her mind mercifully fogged. Lucidity is the last thing she wants right now. What she wants is to close her eyes and go into a coma until one way or another this is all finally over.

She is aware, even in her fugue state, that Derek and Susan are now spending almost all their time within touching distance of one another. Veronica wishes he was spending his time with her instead. It isn't jealousy, not really. It's simply that being near Derek lightens her feeling of doom.

On the third day Veronica manages to rouse herself enough to inspect the others' wounds. They don't look good. The whip wounds on both Jacob and Diane are growing inflamed and filling with pus, clear signs of infection. Veronica doubts their systems will be able to fight off the infections unaided; Jacob is young but sick, Diane is old and weak, their environment is filthy, and neither is getting enough food. It won't be long before blood poisoning and gangrene become real concerns.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, Veronica lies half-conscious, barely aware of a background conversation. It is a sudden transition to silence that rouses her. She looks up. One of their abductors has entered the cave. Veronica recognizes him as the first one she saw, emerging like a shadow from the jungle. Now instead of a rifle he carries a small steaming kettle and something wrapped in a piece of cloth.

The captives watch him tensely, as they might a wild animal, a leopard or a cobra. He makes his way straight for Veronica. Michael and Diane back slowly away. Derek takes a step forward. Veronica watches wide-eyed as the man kneels beside her. She can see the vertical tribal scars on his face. He puts down the kettle and a small cracked cup, then uses his free hand to make wriggling motions in front of his belly, and mimes drinking from the cup. She stares at him, slowly comprehending. He repeats his motions.

"OK," she says slowly. "Yes. Oui. I understand."

His smile reveals that he is missing several teeth. He puts down the rag and unwraps it, revealing a pineapple-sized clump of steaming plant matter, various grasses and barks mixed together and recently steeped in boiling water. He mimes cutting himself, then putting the plants on the cut. Veronica nods and repeats her understanding. Their abductor smiles goodbye, stands, turns, and departs.