The Disappeared Read online

  By the third session, the anxiety was beginning to affect me. I had to know, to be involved. This was my idea and I should be the one taking responsibility for it. The connection I’d felt to my father had ebbed, my grasp on his memory faltered. I needed to get it back.

  I was the last one to arrive at the meeting. It had already begun when I crept in and tried to hide at the back. Simon noticed my arrival and raised his eyebrow, asking me a silent question. I looked away, focusing on pulling up a chair beside a girl who was gazing at him with open admiration. He was talking about the riots that broke out shortly after the military took over the country. Riots that had been brutally put down.

  ‘Many have tried to make an accurate count of the death toll, but it’s always been impossible. Death records were falsified or abandoned. Families were too afraid to report their loved ones missing. It was the beginning of the disappearances.’

  The students began to murmur. I wondered how many of them had lost someone. It made me sad that they were probably too young to remember what life was like before. They wouldn’t know the freedom education could provide, or how to cultivate their own opinions without the government watching over their shoulders.

  Simon’s whole demeanour had changed. He was no longer the frustrated professor, peddling lies to his students, worn and close to giving up. Instead he was alive; everything about him seemed vital. The girl beside me never once took her eyes from him and I understood her feelings. My heart fluttered at the passion in his voice.

  Apart from my neighbour, all the students were taking notes. I looked at them uneasily as they scribbled down these words that had the power to destroy lives. I couldn’t help but wonder who else might have access; if they guarded their books or were careless with them.

  A young man sitting across from me raised his hand. ‘What do you think things would be like now, if the military hadn’t taken over?’

  Simon gave a wry smile and looked out of the window for a moment, as he gathered his thoughts. ‘That’s a difficult question, Jerome. There are so many things that were affected when the new regime took over; for example, they completely strangled innovation throughout the country. Overnight, whole industries were gone. Now any new technology is developed solely by the government and sold abroad. And the internet is a shadow of what it was twenty years ago. The government quickly killed off social media and access to any unapproved websites. It’s become merely another tool for propaganda. We might as well be living in Nineteen Eighty-Four.’

  The students looked sideways at each other, not understanding the reference. Simon caught their confused expressions and began to elaborate. ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four was a novel written by a man called George Orwell, published in the late 1940s. Orwell imagined what the world would be like in the future, as surveillance technology became commonplace and the government grew more controlling. It’s ironic really. He was thirty years or so out with the date, but his vision was surprisingly accurate.’

  Simon gave a sharp laugh. ‘And that’s another difference for you. When I was at university, Nineteen Eighty-Four was considered a classic. Almost everyone had heard of it, even if they hadn’t read it. Now it’s banned and none of you are aware that it ever existed.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘Do you know what reality television is?’

  The girl beside me spoke up tentatively. ‘The programmes that follow everyday people going about their jobs, to give young people an idea of what to do after they finish their education.’

  Simon smiled and she flushed. ‘That’s what reality television is now, but when it first began it was very different. George Orwell’s vision actually played a huge part, as one of the earliest reality shows was called Big Brother, a term that had been coined by Orwell in his book.’

  The students sat forward, fascinated by this snippet of cultural information. I shook my head, remembering a few episodes of Celebrity Big Brother I’d seen as a child, back when we still had a television and six hundred Sky channels.

  ‘The programme followed a group of people who were brought to live in a house built inside a television studio. There were cameras in every room and the contestants were filmed around the clock. They had to perform various tasks and each week someone would be voted off, until the public decided on the winner, who received prize money of… what was, I think, about £100,000.’

  The students gasped. I looked around the room at their shocked expressions. That was more money than they could hope to earn in twenty years, with wages so low. I remembered when, not long after the First General’s takeover, it had cost almost £100 to buy a punnet of strawberries. The ports and airports were closed to foreign trade and there were few people to pick the fruit. It withered in the fields.

  Simon nodded. ‘That’s right. Where the programme started supposedly as a social experiment, many people entered the house in the hope of getting famous. Quite a number succeeded – to some extent at least. And Big Brother was only one reality show. There must have been hundreds.’

  ‘Were these people very important or talented? If they became famous by going on television like that,’ one boy asked.

  Simon smirked. ‘I’m afraid not. In fact, as reality TV became a phenomenon, it was seen as a way for anyone to become rich and famous, mostly through doing very little. That’s one thing I’m not sad to have consigned to history.’

  The students seemed inspired by these random pieces of information and asked endless questions, wanting to know all the gory details. Simon answered them with good humour, often making the group laugh loudly. I could see why he enjoyed teaching them.

  It had been growing dark for a while before anyone appeared to notice. Simon glanced at his watch, his eyebrows raised. ‘Well, I didn’t realise it was so late. I think this would be a good place to finish for today. Shall we meet again this Thursday, at the same time?’

  Murmurs of assent ran around the room as the students began closing their notebooks and stuffing them into bags. They left quietly, in pairs or alone, calling out their goodbyes. The girl beside me was the last to leave. She lingered, tidying her things agonisingly slowly and throwing surreptitious glances my way, as though waiting for me to leave. I folded my arms and gave her a level gaze. With a sigh, she got up and put on her jacket.

  ‘Bye Simon; thanks, that was so interesting.’ She beamed at him.

  He smiled back at her. ‘Goodnight Elizabeth. I’ll see you on Thursday.’

  I stood up and crossed the room to stand beside Simon. As she left the room, the girl glared at me over her shoulder.

  I put my arms around his neck. ‘I think someone has a little crush on you.’

  His back was stiff. ‘She’s just eager to learn.’

  ‘I don’t think she’d be as keen in one of my classes,’ I teased.

  His voice was cool. ‘As long as she learns something, I’m happy.’ He broke free of my embrace and began to clean the whiteboard. ‘And you aren’t the one teaching this class.’

  A pang of guilt washed over me. ‘You know I’m sorry about that, I didn’t mean for it to happen.’

  He made a disgusted sound. ‘You could have got us both caught with your carelessness. You know, I’m not sure you ever really wanted to do this.’ He paused. ‘Did you get caught on purpose so you’d have an excuse to stop?’

  His words were like a punch in the gut.

  ‘Of course not!’ I exclaimed. But even as I said it, I wondered if it was really true. I knew better than to take notes – I’d had to be careful my whole life. And just when the stakes were raised for both of us, I messed things up.

  But it must be worse for Simon. I’d pushed him into this. I’d made him start this class that he had no desire to teach, and then I’d been forced to pull out. I had no choice, it was true. But that didn’t make me feel any better, when I lay in bed beside him, gazing at the hard curve of his spine, at his body, pulled as far away from me as it could get on the narrow mattress. I was too afraid to touch him after the first rejection, the tensin
g of his shoulders and the way he shifted from beneath my fingertips.

  I embraced him more tightly, relieved that he was allowing me to get this close. Resting my cheek against his chest, I spoke softly. ‘I don’t know any more whether I meant it to happen and that’s the truth. Coming to your classes, it makes me realise things I never thought of. I see all the things that could go wrong. Did you see them all taking notes? What happens if someone else sees what they’ve written? It could be dangerous for you… and for them.’

  He sighed heavily and his breath ruffled my hair. ‘What did you think would happen? You must have realised we’d be taking a risk: us and them. They’re all responsible young adults, I wouldn’t have invited them here if I thought they would be careless with the knowledge I’m sharing. They’re all well aware of the consequences.’

  I broke away from him. ‘How aware can they be? None of them have ever been to the prisons. I bet they’re all from nice, respectable families who have never put a foot wrong.’

  He scowled. ‘Like me, you mean?’

  I looked away. ‘That’s not what I’m saying.’

  ‘Actually, there are several of these students who have lost relatives. You only have to look around you to see that we’re all victims of this regime, not only the ones who have been kidnapped.’

  I shook my head. ‘It’s not the same and you know it. How old are these kids? Eighteen? Nineteen? They were babies when things changed. This world is all they’ve ever known. It doesn’t mean the same thing to them as it does to us.’

  He was angry now. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. Maybe they don’t remember what it was like to have a smartphone and a Facebook page. To be able to go out drinking on Saturday nights, go backpacking round South East Asia or get a mortgage. But they know that things in this country aren’t right. They can see that people are suffering, that things are broken and we have to make a change. In a few years, no one will remember what it was like before. That’s why we need them to care. You were right about this, Clara. You were right. We need to educate them, to tell them the truth, because it’s going to fall to them to change things.’

  He stared at me heatedly, waiting for my reaction. I began to cry. ‘I’m worried about you, Simon. Can’t you see that? I couldn’t take it if anything were to happen. I made you do this.’

  As suddenly as it had begun, his anger was gone. He grasped me tightly, clutching me against him as though this embrace would be enough to prevent anyone from tearing us apart.

  ‘Nothing is going to happen to me, darling. I’m not going anywhere. I promise.’

  I wished I could believe him.

  Eight

  Sometimes we would sit together, on the roof of our building, watching the world as it went slowly by.

  We had discovered one day – completely by accident – that one of the other residents kept a garden upstairs. It wasn’t much to speak of: a few evergreen plants in plastic pots; a small, blossom-covered tree that was dangerously close to overgrowing; an old wooden bench that was cracked and weather worn. But it was peaceful.

  The garden was carefully tucked away around a corner, where there was no reason for anyone to go. There was a steam pipe there and the heat helped the plants to thrive, bringing a splash of tropical colour to the dreary setting. Someone had begun to paint flashes of graffiti on the wall; there was an elaborate heart, anatomical yet stylised, with a rising sun emerging behind it. A scrollwork banner unfurled across the front, with the word ‘Lumière’ written on it. It reminded me of the retro tattoos that were popular when I was young.

  And the view: ours was a tall building, taller than those around it. From the roof, you could see for miles across the city. We would bring a bottle of wine and a couple of candles upstairs with us and drink as the sun went down, watching the lights twinkling as the city drifted towards the night. Sometimes there would be a power cut and we’d sit for hours with only the stars for company.

  That evening we were drinking wine, straight from the bottle. I put it to my lips and took a long swallow, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. I passed the bottle to Simon.

  Most of our conversations these days revolved around the class. We’d both grown to accept that it was his now. Although I had pushed him into it, I’d never seen him this enthusiastic about something. I’d never seen him this alive. He bloomed, while my insides shrivelled with worry.

  ‘But how did you find them all? How could you know that they would be willing to join the class?’

  I waited while he drank. Instead of handing me the wine, he put the bottle on the floor and stared out at the city.

  ‘It’s hard to say. It was like osmosis; a feeling that they might understand. I had no intention of going through with it, at first. I only agreed to keep you happy. But you wore down my reservations. And once you’d suggested it, the idea was always there, just below the surface. That gave me time to develop a sense of my students. I would notice the details: the things they would say during class, or in their essays, the subjects they chose to write about.’

  He got up and wandered over to the roof edge, his elbows on the wall as he took in the view. I picked up the wine and went to stand beside him.

  ‘Some of them play it so safe, only writing about things that won’t draw any attention to them. They keep to the core parts of the curriculum – the empowerment of the working classes, or the return to family values, regurgitating the party’s ideas. They would never be interested in my classes. But the ones who skirt the boundaries of what they are permitted to study, they’re much cleverer. They never actually say anything they shouldn’t, but a practised eye can trace the thread of their idea, beyond the bounds of propaganda. Some of them still value human rights. Those are the students who know how to think for themselves. Their discontent is almost transparent.’

  He turned to me earnestly. ‘In a sense, I’m helping them. If I can see what they’re thinking, it won’t be long before someone else manages it; someone more dangerous. I don’t just talk about the past, I teach them how to hide; how to hold onto themselves and their private thoughts, without revealing them.’

  I leaned forward to take in the view, so I could hide my face from him. It made sense. You didn’t need to verbalise a thought for it to make you a target; attitude was enough.

  We were silent for a long time, growing cold as the night deepened its hold. The sounds of the city seemed far away. We finished the wine, passing the bottle back and forth until the last dregs were gone. My cheeks grew warm; I threaded my arm through Simon’s and pressed my cheek against his shoulder. He brought his other hand up and gripped mine tightly.

  Somewhere in the distance there was a flash of light. A volley of gunfire rang out, the sound carrying across the city. We stood frozen, wondering who was out there, in the night.

  When the sirens came, we blew out the candles and retreated downstairs in the darkness, still holding on to each other.

  *

  ‘When the military first took to the streets, I don’t think anyone realised how serious the situation was.’

  Simon was sitting on the desk at the front of the classroom, his students gathered around him in a semicircle. Behind him, the blackboard was covered in obscure mathematical calculations, some of them erased where a hand had wiped them away. A faded poster for a maths challenge was stuck on the wall, curled up at one corner. I sat beside the desk, so I could only see one side of Simon’s face as he spoke.

  ‘The military hadn’t been active in our own country for so long, it was outside people’s scope of experience. At first, some people took it as a joke. Others were offended and railed about it in the newspapers. Many more ignored the situation, trusting things would soon be back to normal. It was only after the change in government was announced that we began to worry, that creeping sense of doubt giving way to unease. That’s when the people began to take to the streets in protest.’

  It was late in the afternoon and darkness was beginning to descend. Simon
had pressed me to come along to his next class, to find out more about the things they discussed in their classroom, after everyone else had gone home.

  Elizabeth raised her hand. ‘What happened to those people? The ones who protested – were they all killed?’

  ‘Actually, no, they weren’t.’ Simon gave a tight smile. ‘At first the new regime was civilised. Don’t forget, the soldiers on the ground were a part of the previous army. They were regular young men and women with families, who had enjoyed the same freedoms as the rest of us. They could vote, they could buy a house, go abroad for holidays, whatever they wanted. At first, they were following orders from their commanders, and those orders seemed reasonable. There was a real threat of terrorism that had been growing for years. It reached the point where people were afraid to go on public transport, or visit certain places. The media whipped everyone up into a frenzy of hysteria. So those soldiers, they thought they were protecting us from an outside threat. They didn’t realise then that it was their own leaders who were about to do the damage.’

  Elizabeth frowned. ‘So how did they get all the soldiers to behave the way they did? Killing ordinary people and stuff?’

  Before Simon could respond, Jerome stepped in to answer the question. ‘There was a lot of retraining, cajoling, threats to their families, that kind of thing. But they also made examples out of people.’

  Simon was nodding. ‘Yes, Jerome’s right. The soldiers were like everyone else in that, if they didn’t support the junta, if they didn’t follow orders, they were punished. Often their whole family would be wiped out, or sent to prison too, as an example to the others of what could happen. That particular tactic had always worked well in the Communist states.’

  ‘That wasn’t all though,’ Jerome interrupted. He looked angry. ‘It was before I was born, but my mum told me the story. Not long after the coup, when the protests were starting to take place, my uncle was out on the streets with some of his friends. He wasn’t much older than I am now. They were all students; my mum said it was almost like a lark for them, a day out to London to join in the protests.’