6
I awaken with a sharp inhale of air, Nadine’s name still on my lips. The once-familiar sight of her crown of curls has disappeared, and I see Bahadur asleep on the bed next to mine, frowning through a dream. I creak softly upwards from the mattress and make my way to the window of our room.
My Evan. If you are still in hiding, if you are in a place where real things exist beyond a window, or an underpass, or a set of dark stairs, let me tell you about how beautiful this morning is.
Through the cloudy glass, I can see a heavy fog sitting like risen cream above the wilted crops of long ago. A black bird flies above and below the fog in a lonely game of peekaboo. I wrap my blanket around my body and find myself turning the knob on the cottage door carefully. I actually turn a doorknob, open a door and move my body outside of a room, Evan. I am free, at this moment, to move my body from one place to another. And it feels good. I want to touch the fog myself. I head outside and the black bird flies out of sight. All insects stop their singing in fear of me, and I try to creep quietly among the reeds in the hopes that the insect songs will continue despite my presence. I fail. I can never be quiet enough for them to forgive me. Even the dew on the grass slips into the secret of the deep green as I pass.
In your mind’s eye, take your shoes off with me. Undo the muddy laces and let your feet emerge into the world. Take off your soggy socks. Wipe your feet with me, along the dew of the grass. Feel each cool blade between your liberated toes.
I look at you. You are smiling. You are saying something to me, but your voice is replaced by the sound of rustling woods.
“What did you say, my love?” I ask.
I am alone in the reeds. I hear something stirring in the woods. I follow the sound. I feel foolish, like those people who go into the dark room in horror movies, but I can’t help myself. It’s been so long since I could walk through places and spaces. It feels so good to move my legs. I touch each tree trunk as I make my way into the thick of the bush.
In a clearing of cedar, wading in a pool of fog, stands Beck in his undershirt and pyjama bottoms facing away from me. He holds a long wooden staff and stands at attention like he is about to begin a phrase of martial arts movement. Just as I am crouching down, Bahadur appears beside me. I stifle a scream. Jesus Christ. Bahadur mouths out the word “sorry.” I roll my eyes and hold my heavily beating heart in shock. We slowly shift our focus back to Beck. What the hell is he doing?
“When I do not act, I am complicit!” Beck says while simultaneously raising his staff above his head horizontally, one end in each hand. He takes a deep breath here, steps forward with a lunge and strikes down his staff.
“When I know wrong is happening, I act!”
Bahadur and I flinch at this. It feels strange to observe Beck instead of receiving the blow. Beck rocks back in his lunge as if receiving energy; his staff gracefully rocks with him.
“When the oppressed tell me I am wrong, I open my heart and change!”
With his back leg in a lunge, he kneels and raises the staff above his head.
“When change is led by the oppressed, I move aside and uplift!”
Bahadur and I look at each other, then back at Beck. He goes through the movements and phrases again and again until his undershirt is pasted on his torso with perspiration, until the fog of the morning dissipates.
When I do not act, I am complicit!
When I know wrong is happening, I act!
When the oppressed tell me I am wrong, I open my heart and change!
When change is led by the oppressed, I move aside and uplift!
Raise arms, step forward, lunge back, kneel.
Beck finally sits on the corpse of a dead tree for a moment before closing his eyes and catching his breath. Bahadur shifts slightly, and Beck startles. He looks in our direction and wipes his face on his shirt.
“Sorry. Did I wake you?”
We quietly follow Beck back to the cottage. He sees a hose running from the side of the cottage. He turns the tap on just out of curiosity and sure enough, only mud sputters out, a snake of filth. He sits himself on the porch and looks at us.
“Can we talk for a second?” Beck asks. Bahadur and I sit on the porch with him. In the heat of the rising sun, I adjust my blanket to my waist and listen.
“You didn’t wake us up. We were just watching,” I say. I look over at Bahadur, but they avoid eye contact with me and begin to pick at the crumbling siding along the cottage’s exterior.
“It’s just . . . It’s not for show. It’s for me. For people like me. For white folks. You know the creed of the Renovation, right? Through our work, our nation prospers. Through our unity, we end conflict, and all that nonsense? The Others who led the Resistance knew we had to come up with a response to that creed. The Resistance challenged us allies to train ourselves out of this behaviour just as someone might train for a marathon or learn new dance steps. It had to be embodied the way white supremacy is embodied. It wasn’t meant for you to witness. It’s more like a prayer for change, but in movement.” Beck looks out at the black bird returning to the wilted crops, this time with a companion. Up and down through the reeds.
“Bahadur, you were right about what you said yesterday. I followed orders. I am responsible for what happened. I didn’t ask questions. I have blood on my hands, too.”
I shift uncomfortably under my blanket.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me. I’m not asking you to help me feel better about what I’ve done. I know those demons are inside me. When I was in training for the Resistance, there was something the leaders said that really stuck with me. You know when someone says something important to you that just ruins you? That feels like it tears you apart and you have to put yourself together again? Anyway . . . part of our training was understanding that we are not these white saviours, because a liberation from the Renovation isn’t just a liberation for the Others. It would mean white people could be liberated from maintaining the status quo.”
He shakes out his arms and looks at them pensively. “Even that word affects me now. ‘Liberation.’ I thought about it a long time and I realized how much of a price my body has had to pay. Every day, my body works to keep itself separate from and above the Others. My body forces me to fear, to see threat in the joy of the Others. To buy all the things, to display all the objects to show how much better I am than you. It’s empty. It’s so empty. I can’t tell you how liberating it feels to work through this emptiness and allow myself to be soft, to be wrong and vulnerable. If I survive the uprising, I want to teach other white people to know this feeling. It feels like . . . like . . . taking off your backpack after wearing it for a lifetime.”
Beck looks at us directly. “In the military, I was trained to do things. To protect my body, to fight. You’re not obligated to fight alongside me. Not at all. If it were my choice, it would be us allies fighting for your safety while you all were on a beach somewhere enjoying a piña colada.”
Bahadur stifles a laugh and looks at me, trying to figure out what I am thinking of this strange testimony.
“But I would love to share how you can protect yourself. And if you do decide to fight with me, to learn to protect yourselves, I would be honoured. It will take a bit of hard work, but I can show you what I know.”