Short Story - Waiting for the Hunter

This story was written some time ago for a competition in blogosphere - the competition, however, was cancelled and the story has lingered in my files since then. Given some of my recent posts on child abuse, I decided it was time it had an outing.

Waiting for the Hunter

A sun without warmth beat down. Light reflected from mirrored peaks, blinding the sky. A road wound through plains of dust and bushes of barbed wire rolled like tumble weeds across the landscape. A voice, disembodied, broken, keened through air thickened by memories of pain. This is her valley of despair.

#

Truths entwined with untruths, the constant inference of decadence… She remembers…. Enduring memories…

#

He is her father’s friend. She doesn’t like him. They are on holiday in Nice. She is nine years old and is expected to behave like a young lady. Days are spent having long lunches and seeing the sights. It’s boring. But she’s a good girl. She gazes at the sea and makes up stories in her head. He is delighted by her. She is frightened of him. She doesn’t understand why. There is something about him that makes her want to run away, especially when he gets too close to her.

It’s a balmy autumn night. She and her parents are in his hotel room. His wife and her parents are on the balcony, he comes inside. She is lying on the couch, supposedly asleep. She senses him coming. Tenses, shuts her eyes tight. He leans over her, whispers her name. She lies dead still, barely breathing. He strokes her hair and she wants to scream. He kisses her, letting his breath drift over her ear. She is terrified. He goes away. She wants to cry but is too afraid to. He is a bad man. She knows this.

They return home and for a few months she doesn’t see him. He and Daddy have argued. She’s glad. But then Daddy tells her Uncle Victor is coming for supper. He says, I know you don’t like Victor, Sam, I don’t know why, but he’s my friend and you must try and be nice to him. He’s never been unkind to you. So I want you to behave like a young lady. Nice and polite. Really, he says, turning to her mother, I don’t know why she has such a thing about Victor.

Her skin turns cold and clammy, her tummy clenches into a knot. She asks if she can spend the night at Jilly’s house. Don’t be silly, says her mother, it’s a school night.

So she says she’s not feeling well. And she doesn’t look well. She is pale, her breathing ragged. She is sent to bed.

Lying in the dark, her teddy clutched in her arms, she hears him arrive. He’s on his own. For a while she lies in terror until she realises he’s not coming down the passage. She drifts into an uneasy sleep.

It feels like she has only been asleep a few minutes when she hears her name being whispered.

“Hello Sammy. Hello, little one.”

She feels his hand on her head.

She stiffens, keeps her eyes shut. He’ll go away if she stays asleep. She lies as still as she can, hardly daring to breath.

She feels his hand run over her body. He sighs. It is a shuddering sound. Inside her the fear monster stamps its feet and bellows. Her tummy clenches and then turns to mush. She wants to scream but she daren’t. She holds her body tight, holding her terror to her. Her nails dig into her palms, so hard it hurts.

He gets off the bed. She hears him kneel on the floor, feels his face draw level with hers. His breath is on her cheek. It is warm. She doesn’t like the way he smells. She stifles a dry heave. He’s not moving away. She can hear the rubbing of material but she doesn’t know what it is.

“Sammy, little one, wake up, my darling…”

She feigns deep sleep. She must not screw her eyes tight shut, he’ll know she’s just pretending. She must lie as still as she can. She must make her breathing normal. She tries to listen to her breath but it’s hard, so hard. His face is over hers. She feels his lips touch hers… then his tongue pushes at her lips.

She screams. Thrashes and lashes out at him.

She hears her mother’s voice.

“Sammy! Victor! What are you doing in here?”

“I’m sorry, Mary, I just wanted to see how she was.”

“I told you she wasn’t feeling well.”

“I didn’t mean to frighten her. I’m sorry, Sammy, I’m sorry I scared you.”

You’re not, she thinks. You’re not. You’re a bad man. I know.

He backs out of the room and she notices he’s tucking his shirt into his trousers. He blows her a kiss and a chill washes over her.

“I think we must get the doctor tomorrow, Sam. Look at you, you’re like a sheet.”

She hugs her teddy to her, sobbing without tears. Her eyes are wide, wild. She knows. But she also knows she is powerless, alone. How can she tell anyone what she knows? They’ll never believe her. It’s not like he’s hurt her. He’s only frightened her and she knows what grown-ups say about that. They say, “Don’t be silly, Sam, you’re just imagining things.”

Whenever they visit him, he watches her. She can feel how he can’t keep his eyes off her. Whenever he can, he comes close to her, brushes against her, finds an excuse to touch her or kiss her. But he’s good. No one notices anything. Only she knows. And he knows. She knows he’s waiting for her - will always wait for her. She longs to grow up or die. She doesn’t mind which. So long as she can escape him.

There’s a party at Victor’s house. There is no babysitter so her parents take her with them. They say she can stay up for a while and must then go to sleep in the spare room. At nine o’clock her mother, a wine glass in her hand, takes her to the room.

“But I’m not tired, Mommy.”

“You just lie down and go to sleep. You be a good girl. See.”

She nods. She knows it’s hopeless.

She lies in the dark. Waiting. The minutes tick by. Hope stirs in her. Perhaps he won’t come. So many people, perhaps he’s too busy. A sigh of relief begins to shudder through her. The door opens, just a crack and a beam of light spills onto the carpet. He has come. He pushes open the door. Closes it behind him and she hears the key turn in the lock.

“I’ve brought you some crisps, Sam. Some cola too. I know you’re still awake.”

He sits down beside her. She can see his form. The moon is bright outside, shining through the curtains.

“I’m tired, Sammy, so tired. All those people. All Aunt Angela’s friends. I hate parties. Too much noise. My head hurts.” He stretches out on the bed beside her.

Her heart pounds. She doesn’t know what to do. She’s been brought up to be a young lady. To be polite to grown-ups. And Victor is her daddy’s best friend. How many times hasn’t Daddy said, be nice to Victor, Sam. Why, she wonders, does her daddy want her to be nice to Victor. She doesn’t want to be nice to him. She wants to hit him, scream at him, make him go away. But she doesn’t know how.

He rolls over, pulls her small body against his. She hears his breath, ragged, heavy. Terror engulfs her. His hands are everywhere, she feels a thing she’s never felt before pressing against her. The blood pounds in her veins. Something inside her shatters and she retreats within herself, numbed. From afar she hears his voice.

“Sammy, I’ve waited for this for so long.”

#

Samantha Clarion stares at the old man lying in the bed. He is dying. And she is watching him die.

He’d called her six months before to say he thought he might be ill, to say he didn’t want to be put into a nursing home. Would she please make sure that never happened to him? He didn’t want to be dependent on anyone, didn’t want anyone wiping his arse. He planned to commit suicide. It would be their secret, he’d said. He told her he’d built up a stash of narcotics. He said she mustn’t tell anyone, and if she had to, would she help him? Samantha said yes.

But now he was in a nursing home - utterly dependent on the strangers around him to feed him, to wipe his arse. Samantha stood at the foot of his bed and watched him.

“The drugs, Sammy, where are the drugs? Give them to me.”

She shook her head.

“You promised to help me.”

She shrugged.

“Please, Sammy, please, I want to die. I don’t want to suffer like this. I can’t stand the indignity. I don’t trust these people. They'll hurt me, neglect me... Let me die, Sammy.”

She stared at him, her face impassive.

“Why are you doing this to me?” His breath was ragged, shallow.

She turned away to the window, gazing through it. A beam of gold pierced through, touching her with unexpected warmth, brightening the space around her. Outside, summer sparkled, beckoning her and voices laughed with echoes of grateful joy.

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Because I’ve waited for this for so long.”

There Goes Childhood

I was seven years old when I decided I would never have children - because the world was a bad and wicked place and no child deserved to come into that. I remember the moment exactly. I was standing in the garden of my grandparents' landlady. She was thin and mean - and she hated children. I don't know why. But she did. The decision came upon me in a flash and I have held to it and never regretted it. In fact, as an adult looking around at the insanity of the world, I am glad I took the decision I did. Last month I posted a rather harrowing piece about the sexual abuse of a young girl. More recently, Baino posted a piece about paedophilia and child porn. Cruelty towards children and child abuse are unquestionably amongst the greatest challenges facing all societies today. None of us are immune and we cannot afford to be.

When I posted Lee Ann’s story it was October and several of us were participating in Phoctober. It occurred to me then that it might be a gesture to children everywhere to have one day where we all posted photos paying tribute to children and childhood. Then I stopped and thought. How would we know some screwball wouldn’t come along and perve over our innocently posted images? Moreover, how might we be viewed in going out taking photos of children at play - and posting them on our blogs? Might we be seen as potential molesters, kidnappers or paedophiles? Then I stopped and thought some more. Just what sort of societies do we actually live in where we even have to worry about that? What could be more natural that photographing children at play – god knows, there are plenty of such images all over the internet. But as Baino said in her reply to my comment on her post, "Over here cameras are often banned at children's sports carnivals and swim meets for fear that some pervert might take inappropriate photographs." So, obviously I am not alone in my concern for what parents and others might think if I stood in the park and watched and photographed children at play and then posted those pictures here. It is a sad indictment of society. And as for those who would perve over the images of children… Well therein lies the rub, doesn’t it? Recent blitzes in various countries have resulted in the arrest of many paedophiles. (See Baino's post.) In France alone, in October this year, 300 people were arrested for trafficking in child porn.

In South Africa, child abuse is a major issue. Both the violent history of our apartheid past, the belief in virgin-cures for AIDS and HIV (which are of pandemic proportions here), drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, and overcrowding make child abuse a very serious concern. If you are up to it, I suggest you read about young "Lerato" and baby Tshepang. It is alleged that there are 20 000 child rapes in South Africa every year - this is a 400% increase in a decade and a half. In fact the rape of children is now so constant that it is not even news. What is of startling concern is that some of these instances of horrific abuse are conducted by children. As I drove along the other day a headline banner shrieked, "Laaitjie rapes baby". A "laaitjie" is a boy child of about 8 - 13 years old. A few days later, another headline banner yelled, "Gang of boys rapes little girl". If they start like this, how do they go on? And let me point out that these boys are children in the communities, they are not interlopers from some other neighbourhood.

Many years ago, a psychologist friend told me she was leaving South Africa. She couldn't, she said, in all good conscience, raise her young daughter here. She had recently returned from a conference in Johannesburg where one of the speakers had told of a young boy who had been beaten to death for crossing "territory". His attackers were the same age their victim - between eight and ten years old. The children dragged the body of their victim away and hid it. They returned a few days later and proceeded to eat the body. At the time, I refused to believe the story was true - though why my friend should have made up something so horrific was beyond me. Today, as I see continual reports of abuse of children by both adults and children, I yet again remember my friend's words.

Of course, one does well to remember that it is not just those from the impoverished parts of a society that are affected. Child abuse is as rampant in wealthy homes as it is in poor homes. Child abuse knows no social boundaries. Yet wherever it occurs, it is a symptom of a sick society. The fact that it is apparent that child abuse is so on the increase - not just here, but globally - must surely tell us something - yet another thing - about the state of our world. Why any sane person would willfully inflict pain and suffering on a child can only speak of far greater and deeper pains, fears and psychological traumas - experienced by the perpetrator. Circles within circles, or, as I said before, what Alice Miller calls the poisonous pedagogy. Let's also remember that child abuse isn't just about sexual abuse - there is also emotional and psychological abuse and neglect - a festering form of abuse that leaves no visible scars but which scars deeply - usually because it can continue for a lifetime, as well as physical abuse and neglect.

And so, I end this post by saying I have no images of children to show you - for the very reasons I first mentioned. What I have instead, are pictures captured almost furtively at a festival and then played with in the digital darkroom so that the original subject matter is pretty much unrecognisable - and certainly nothing worth perving over. It may be a creative way of dealing with the subject, but it also strikes me as rather sad that I felt I needed to handle the images this way.

Lee-Ann's Story

She comes from a one horse town in the middle of nowhere. It is a place that has stood still in time. The land is arid and harsh. Dust sweeps along the roads of the village and billows through the broken windows of the magistrate’s court. The people are narrow, closed and hard. Her family owns the town. Her grandfather is the commandant.
She is ten years old and has been sexually abused by her uncle. No one listens to her cries. No one hears her words. Her pain and agony are invisible to them. They must be. They do not want to know. It is something they cannot admit to. Their ears are closed to all that may amount to a scandal. They protect their own. Yet they sacrifice their own too. They tell her she is wrong. They say her uncle is a wonderful man. They tell her she must listen to Grandfather for he knows best. Nothing happened to her, they say. She imagined it all, like a bad dream. Her grandma bakes her rusks – hard, dry, tasteless things – but she believes they are delicious. She agrees all must be well, for they say so.
She buries her pain, turns it inward, lets it fester in a place where she can never digest it. She endures life. Her step-father molests her continually. She says, he loved me, he gave me far more than fatherly love. He was kind to me…

#

She is twenty, her name is Lee-Ann and she comes to the city to study. She is a silent, withdrawn girl, painfully thin. She asks if she may stay with an aunt and uncle. They take her in and immediately sense something is amiss. She is anorexic, she is wasting away. The ache within her is desperate to be released. Safe, for the first time in her life, it bubbles out of her. Her aunt and uncle book her into a clinic. She is counseled, she is given love and safety. Her story pours from her in a torrent of agony, finally able to find release.
She returns to the home of her aunt and uncle. She receives weekly counseling. She gains a little weight. She is given special meals, she is nurtured. She begins to enjoy life. She laughs, she dances, she smiles. Her aunt helps her with her homework. She learns. She is beautiful and she is safe within this loving and protected environment. She starts the long journey of healing.
It is good, says her psychiatrist, if she doesn’t make this shift now she will be dead in two years. Keep supporting her.
Her aunt and uncle, only too willing to reach out and help this shattered waif, give her everything they are able to. They give her a wonderful 21st birthday party, they buy her tickets to a WWE event, they buy her new clothes and continue to support her in every way they can. They want her to be whole.
Her mother comes to visit. There is no interaction between mother and child – she does not enquire after her daughter’s well being – it is as though her daughter does not exist, as though the world begins and ends with the mother and her fitness regime. She talks about how sore her hips are – from an excess of training. She exercises everyday, sometimes all day. She trains hard, as though she is chasing away demons. She is. She tells her sister-in-law how she too was abused. But she is worried, the family secret is out… She returns home.
Lee-Ann’s aunt is called away to the UK on family business. Will she be okay staying with her uncle? Would she prefer to stay with her uncle’s sister, they ask her? No, she says, she is safe here. She will look after her uncle and they will have a fine time together.
In the dusty arid town in the middle of nowhere there is a family crisis. Those people, far away in the city, they know about Lee-Ann’s abuse. What is worse, they believe her. They will talk. Others will know. This could rock the family - destroy their hold on their one horse town. The family with its connections in police and army swing into action. Small minds think small, no further than the end of their own nose.
The police arrive at the home of Lee-Ann’s aunt and uncle. They’ve had reports, they say, that he is holding the girl hostage. Her uncle is appalled. He denies the accusation, points to her bedroom, invites them to speak to her. They tell her they’ve come to take her away, because they know she is in danger here. They ask her if there’s anything she wants to say. She turns to her uncle and tells him she appreciates how much he and her aunt have done for her. How much it means to her and she turns away. Her uncle is told not to touch her clothes or any of her things – it is all evidence. He is devastated.
She is returned to her family in the middle of nowhere, thrown back to the lions in their den. Only lions would have more honour, show more protection of their young.
Her uncle tries to make sense of what has happened but he’s not given a chance. He receives word that a court interdict has been sought to prevent him from seeing his niece ever again. It is claimed that he has been abusing her. He is gutted.
His wife returns. They speak to their lawyers and drive hundreds of miles through barren nothingness to the place that is nowhere.
The villagers stare at them, these city folk in their smart clothes. They are a threat. The police eyeball them, bellow instructions at them. They are strangers in a surreal show. They are made to wait, to sit quietly and watch the dust gather as it drifts through the paneless windows of the magistrate’s court.
Lee-Ann’s uncle is called before the prosecutor. He is grilled, given the third-degree. He states the facts of the matter. Explains the history, provides affidavits. The prosecutor, doing her job, doesn’t believe him. He persists, answers the same questions over and over again. Lee-Ann enters the court room. She has lost weight. She is pale, her beauty fading.
“Has this man ever harmed you?” the prosecutor asks.
“No,” she whispers staring at her feet.
“Has he threatened you ever?”
“No,” she murmurs.
“Did you ever feel unsafe with him?”
“No.”
“Was he unkind to you?”
“No.”
“Then why are you seeking an interdict against him?”
“Because I must,” she whispers, a wild look flickering in her eyes. “I have to.”
The family has drawn together. Their reputation will be upheld. Lee Ann will do as she is instructed. She may not think for herself. It has been forbidden. The dreadful secret will not be revealed. The rot will stop – it will be erased from existence as though it never existed. Lee Ann will be the sacrificial lamb, offered up to protect the reputation of a family that is twisted and corrupt. Her life has no value. Her pain counts for nothing. Her silence is everything. It is likely she will be dead in less than two years.


This is a true story – Lee-Ann’s aunt told me about it yesterday. I don’t know Lee-Ann, I barely know her aunt, but she needed to tell her story. And I, my heart aching and overwhelmed by human injustice and cruelty have to tell it to you so that we know and remember who and what we are and what we do to our children. Lee Ann and her uncle have jointly signed a document saying that neither will ever contact the other again. Her one lifeline has been cut off from her. The people who could have helped her to heal have been forcibly removed from her life. Her psychiatrist has said it is very likely she will not survive. This is child abuse. This is human sacrifice. This is the insanity of the world in which we live – for events like these happen everyday and everywhere. This is in the nature of our humanity. This is Lee-Ann’s story and the story of thousands of other children like her. And their stories must be told, for the rot must stop.


It is Phoktober and I've chosen the two images above as symbolic of Lee-Ann's story - the first with the light and the shadow on either side of a newly opened white daisy, the second showing the bugs destroying the heart of a white daisy.