Page 56 of A Life Imagined
“Go on, get out of here.”
“No,” Rayan said, standing his ground.“I’ve got at least ten people in our service office who don’t feel safe crossing your riot line.”
A series of panicked shrieks came from behind them, and Rayan turned to see a plume of black smoke rising from deeper inside the camp.Someone screamed “Fire!”and then people began to run.
Rayan abandoned the officer and doubled back to the cabin.He thumped his fist hard against the door.“Everyone out—we need to leave.”
Asmarina opened the door, and together they ushered the group out into the surge of evacuees.Rayan was helping an elderly woman down the steps when a rock hit the front window of the cabin, sending splinters branching across the glass.Rayan looked over to see a cluster of boys standing nearby, their hands filled with rocks and broken bricks which they were hurling at the police.
In the distance, Rayan heard the rising wail of approaching sirens.When there’s a chance the city might burn down, then they decide to interfere.
The police were shoving people back, herding them into a single column.One cop had his baton out and was swinging it wildly through the air, telling people to move faster.He caught a young man on the back and sent him sprawling.
Rayan pulled the kid to his feet then snatched the baton from the cop’s hand and tossed it to the ground.“Enough.They’re already frightened.”
The policeman’s mouth twisted, and he knocked his riot shield hard into Rayan’s shoulder, throwing him backward.“You—get out of here!”
Rayan flared with anger.He shoved against the shield with both hands, and it slammed into the visor of the man’s helmet, snapping his head back.Within seconds, two cops had Rayan by the arms and were yanking them behind his back.
Asmarina elbowed her way through the crowd toward them.“Stop!He’s an aid worker.You’ve got no right—let him go!”
Rayan heard someone yell, and then a brick whizzed past his ear and landed with a thud in the dirt by one of the officer’s feet.
“Asmarina!”Rayan called out.“It’s not safe.Keep walking.Go find Laurent.”
“I’m not leaving you with these thugs.”
Another projectile hurtled by, and she ducked.The two police officers pushed Rayan through the crowd.He could hear Asmarina following close behind.One of the cops began reading him his rights, and Rayan silently cursed his own rashness.Mathias was going to kill him.
“Unlawful force?”Asmarina echoed the charge the officer had cited.“I just saw you bludgeon a kid!”
“Would you like us to arrest you too?”
“Go ahead and try.”
Rayan scanned the crowd ahead for Farhan and the girls.He’d just caught sight of Zahra’s pink sweater when something slammed into the side of his head, causing his vision to go black.For a moment, it was as if he was falling, and then his sight returned, and he swayed on his feet, the chaos of the camp flooding back.
The officer dropped Rayan’s wrists as he lifted his shield to protect himself.A river of warmth was running down the side of Rayan’s face.He raised a hand to his temple, and it came away dark red.He felt a stickiness gathering in the dip between his shoulder blades, soaking through the neck of his shirt.
And then Rayan was back at the old house in Maskinongé, lying in the grass and staring up at the cloudless sky as the front of his T-shirt bloomed with blood.It had been a stifling summer’s day.His mother had gone to lie down, and he and Tahir were slinking around the house, hot and bored.Their father was passed out in his easy chair with the TV on, head thrown back, snoring loudly.
Rayan’s father had a utility knife that he always carried around in his pocket, the kind with little tools that folded out—corkscrew, knife, screwdriver.The knife was one of his prized possessions, and Rayan and his brother had long been fascinated by it.They would watch with rapt attention when their father took it out once a month and meticulously cleaned and sharpened each tool.That day, Tahir decided to steal it.
Rayan was reluctant at first, but his brother talked him around.They would only look at it and then put it back before their father noticed it was gone.In the years that followed, Rayan returned often to that ill-fated decision—the single flap of a butterfly’s wings that set into motion a series of other, more horrific events.Because if he’d said no, Tahir wouldn’t have taken the knife.Boyish rebellion was no fun without someone there to witness.
Rayan had kept a lookout, eyes trained on his sleeping father’s face, while Tahir ducked behind the chair and carefully slid the knife from the man’s pocket.They scurried off outside with their prize.Crouched in the long grass behind the house, they were so absorbed in the task of unfolding each tool and inspecting it that they didn’t hear their father approaching.He was furious.Not the clumsy, drunken fury Rayan was used to but a dark, simmering anger.
“You’re a pair of filthy thieves.And I didn’t raise thieves, not under my roof.Whose idea was it?”
When neither of them answered, his father decided to forgo the belt he was partial to using and opted instead for his hands.As they cowered before him, crying and sniveling, he asked again.
This time Rayan answered.“It was mine.”
His father looked at him for a long time, and Rayan’s stomach squirmed.“You’re a liar,” he said finally.“A liar and a thief.I know it was him.You’re always trailing around like his little accomplice.”He reached into his pocket and removed the knife he’d retrieved from the grass.“And now you’re going to learn your lesson, boy.Careful who you stick your neck out for.I’ll make sure you don’t forget.”
Perhaps it was because he kept the knife in such good condition, as though needed for more than just popping the cap off a stubborn beer bottle.Or maybe his father had underestimated the easy give of a child’s throat.He’d come at Rayan with the strength of a man, only to find his flesh soft and pliant.
The blood began to gush, and the front of Rayan’s T-shirt turned sodden, sticking to his chest.He saw the fear in his father’s eyes then.He remembered that look more than the pain.His mother came rushing outside screaming and pummeled the man with her fists.His father clumsily wrapped the gash across Rayan’s neck, and then they sped to the hospital in Montreal.Rayan had lain in the back seat of the car with his head on his mother’s lap, staring up at the tears rolling down her cheeks.
