Page 14 of Never Tear Us Apart
‘Don’t let anyone see you’re having a breakdown. Got it,’ I say. ‘I’ve heard that one before.’
The door swings open, and a gruff British soldier in khaki shorts peers in. ‘Right then – this her?’ He gives me an appraising look and clearly finds me wanting. ‘I was hoping for more of a Mata Hari.’
I notice he is wearing a black armband readingMP. He’s military police. Something about those stark white letters sends a shiver down my spine.
‘With your permission, may I accompany our patient?’ Christina asks the sergeant. ‘She is rather fragile, and I should like to make sure she is looked after.’
‘Certainly, Miss Ratcliffe,’ he replies with a bashful smile. ‘Anything for you.’
Christina smiles at him, then turns to the little boy. ‘Darling.’ She bends down until her face is level with his. ‘Tell your mother I’ll come back again if I can when she needs me – she can send for me anytime.’
He nods as his baby sister sucks unhappily on her fingers.
I find that I don’t want to leave him, sitting there alone grappling with things he’s too young to understand. He has that particular sadness of a small, ignored child: dutiful and good, but so very sad, with a sea of anger just beneath the surface, waiting to boil into adulthood.
I look at him and see myself.
‘Hey, kid, you are a cool dude,’ I tell him, with a thumbs up.
He blinks at me but smiles, too.
‘Come along, Maia,’ Christina says, giving me a look. ‘We haven’t got all day.’
She guides me outside into the searing heat, where a battered jeep idles on the road. A line of what look like bullet-holes punctuate its flank. Reluctantly I get in.
‘Chauffeur-driven.’ Christina smiles as she climbs in next to me. ‘Weareliving in the lap of luxury, are we not?’
The jeep shrieks into gear and judders away.
Chapter Nine
Our supremely uncomfortable journey comes to an end in what I learn is the heart of Valletta, or at least what’s left of it.
It’s almost impossible to understand what I’m looking at. The last thing I remember in the waking world is looking at the black-and-white photos in the book Kathryn gave me. But those grainy, distant images have nothing to do with this shattered landscape. This is no repurposed memory.
ThisisValletta. And it is on fire.
The sun is covered by clouds of smoke and dust; the air is so thick with oil that I can taste it. Grief surges upwards from my gut into my mouth – that, and the horror of total devastation. For me, this loss is happeningnow. This whole place ravaged in an instant. I want to cry for a city I have only recently learnt to love as it will be, rebuilt, decades from now. But that has been swept away by rewinding time, and in this hour, we can’t know if Malta will survive. Memories of reality are no protection against the fear and tragedy of now.
As soon as I step out of the jeep, I start racing towards the Upper Barrakka Gardens, running from Christina and the sergeant, just needing to see. The elegant arches that once framed the perfect blue of the harbour are broken and shattered. The lush planting and colourful flower-beds are gone, replaced by rubble and heavy artillery. The military policeman shouts at me to stop, but I run on through the drifting clouds of debris. I need to see the harbour and the sea beyond. I need to know thatthat, at least, is still there.
Christina hurries behind me, calling for me to come back. I’m not doing very well at convincing her that I’m not a spy.
We stop dead against what’s left of the wall looking out over the harbour. The pale rock is scorched by fire.
Dust rises in clouds. Smoke permeates all. Ships burn, giving off noxious black fumes. The three cities across the harbour, Vittoriosa, Senglea and Cospicua, are smouldering craters, torn open for the world to gape at. Ruin is everywhere I look. I can taste the dust on my tongue, smell the fumes of a thousand fires. I can see and touch the devastation.
‘How did this happen?’ I find myself asking no one in particular, because here in this moment, it is all too real.
‘I ask myself that again and again,’ Christina says; she’s caught up with me and is leaning over the balcony to survey the scene. This isn’t new to her. She has that world-weary look of a person who is exhausted by survival. ‘You know, I arrived here by ship in ’37. I had never seen anything as beautiful as this harbour at night. I felt like Titania being sailed into fairyland. The moon was full, and its light turned each of the towers and bastions silver. And the sky was full of twinkling, golden lights, from the stars in the sky to the thousands of lanterns on the anchored ships. I felt that Malta was a timeless, magical place where knights still fought for the hand of fair ladies and where history had stopped. I never would have dreamt then that I would still be here now and that all that splendour would have been smashed to smithereens. It seems that history never stops for anyone, doesn’t it?’ Then Christina thinks for a moment. ‘But youmusthave seen this before?’
‘I only just arrived in Valletta,’ I tell her, which is true in a way.
The sight of this devastation has fired something in my racing heart: a furious, passionate anger. This is my land, whether I have known it or not. And I can’t stand to see her bleed when the future is so very far away.
‘I heard of the destruction, but this is . . .’ I expand my hand across the panorama in a hopeless gesture. Looking over my shoulder I see the MP waiting for me, arms crossed.
‘I know,’ she says. ‘I have never loved a place or a people as fiercely – its borders are etched on my heart. The Maltese have shown me how to fight a battle against the odds; it’s for them that we battle on together. What else can we do? Come on – I’d better take you back, or the sergeant will have us both shot for insurrection.’ She purposefully takes my arm and nudges me to follow her back towards the jeep. ‘Sergeant,’ Christina says when we reach it, addressing the flustered soldier. ‘No need to trouble yourself any further here. I’ll escort Maia for her interview. Now, Maia, you said you are staying with a cousin?’
