Like This, for Ever

66




‘FOUR OF US went into the school that day. My mum and dad, a local man who was our guide, and me. His name was Billy, I think, the guide. I remember him being really worried about Mum taking pictures and Dad filming. He kept trying to hurry us out, get us moving. There were lots of people around, the ones the rebel soldiers hadn’t killed. The women and the older people.

‘So not everyone was killed?’ asked the psychiatrist, Dr Evi Oliver.

‘It was the boys they wanted. They didn’t want the boys growing up and becoming government soldiers, so they killed them all, in the school, where they were probably having a maths lesson or a spelling test or something.’

‘And your parents took you into the school too?’

‘I think they forgot I was with them. They did that a lot. They had this rucksack-type thing that they put me in, and I’d be on Dad’s back or Mum’s back and they just used to get on with everything. I was on Dad’s back that day. I remember seeing Mum taking pictures of the dead boys.’

Silence. Jorge’s eyes closed. Evi waited, gave him time. Then they snapped open. ‘People have been trying to tell me that these memories I have aren’t real,’ he said. ‘That I’m making it up.’

‘I don’t think anyone believes you’re making it up,’ replied Evi. ‘What you went through is a matter of record. I think the difficulty they have is that you were very young.’

‘I’m not making it up.’

‘Of course not. Somewhere, everything you went through that day is still with you. But you describe it all in such detail. For such a small child to take all that in and retain it would be quite remarkable.’

‘I was there. I saw it. I was there.’

‘Of course you were. I think what people are suggesting is that in addition to your own memories, you’ve heard other people talking about what happened that day, maybe you’ve read about it in newspapers or on the internet. It’s possible that real memories and newspaper coverage and speculation have become—’

‘What? Mixed up?’

He was getting agitated again, rocking backwards and forwards in his chair. Evi glanced to one side to check the handset with the panic button was on the desk.

‘No,’ she said. ‘More like interwoven. But you know, it doesn’t really matter how much of what’s in your head is from actual memory and how much is acquired. What’s important is how real it is to you. Why don’t you tell me what happened after you left the school?’

Jorge reached out and drank from the plastic beaker of water on the desk in front of him. ‘We knew we had to get out of there,’ he said. ‘People started talking about how more rebels were coming, how we had to get away. Most of the villagers were leaving. There were some women – mums, I guess – who were crying over the dead boys, but everyone else was just trying to get away. They all went into the forest, but Billy said we had to follow the river to try and meet up with the government forces, so we did.’

‘And what happened then?’

‘We walked for a long time. It was hot and I was thirsty. I think I cried a lot. Maybe I fell asleep. Then I remember more soldiers. They all looked very young, not much older than the dead boys we’d seen in the school, and their uniforms were torn and dirty. They didn’t look like proper soldiers, just like kids pretending, and I think I was waiting for my dad to tell them off, to make them get out of our way, when they cut his throat.’

‘That must have been terrible.’

‘This boy, this kid, came up to him, like he was just going to have a chat, but he didn’t stop walking, he just went really close to Dad, then he lifted his hand up and there was a knife in it. Swish. My dad’s blood was flying into the air like a firework.’

‘And you were still strapped to his back?’

‘I don’t think they saw me at first. They were looking at Mum. Dad started to fall down, into the river, and I was going too, obviously, because I was on his back. Then there was shooting. I don’t remember much more. Just watching my dad’s blood make patterns in the river.’

‘The shooting was from the government soldiers, is that right?’ asked Evi.

Jorge nodded. ‘They shot all the rebel boys. Then put me and my mum in a van. We drove for hours. I was covered in Dad’s blood, but there was nothing to wash it off with. Then I think there was a plane. That’s all I can remember. Can we stop now? I want to go back to sleep.’

‘Of course,’ said Evi. ‘We’ll talk some more tomorrow.’

Jorge got up and limped to the door. The leg he’d broken the night he’d been caught was healing, but wouldn’t be sound for a few more weeks yet. In the open doorway he turned back to Evi.

‘I never wanted to hurt anyone, you know,’ he told her. ‘Not really. It was always just about the blood.’