Post Story, 4.1. across the mountains

I had more or less given up looking for him, the six months I had been traveling around Europe looking for him had come to an end. I had been told at different points that he had committed suicide or killed. The last two times on successive days before I began traveling south towards the port. I arranged, through phone calls and emails to meet with Freya Starr in a neutral gallery space, stopping in the cafetiere, I never went into the gallery proper. I held the door open for an old african woman who limped out through the door. The tables hadn’t been cleared of used crockery recently. A young woman was arranging piles of cards in one corner. A middle aged woman, perhaps ten or even twenty years older than me waved at me across the room. Join me, she said. I am Freya Starr, call me Freya. We talked across the table, introducing ourselves. She had a paper map of the district opened in front of her. Everyone calls me Freya she said, everyone. She ordered some drinks with a careful gesture to the person behind the counter. Listen Freya, I said, I would like to know everything you know about what happened. Everything? she said, that is very little to know. I want to know what happened to him… tell me. In the silence I then asked Freya about why she said he, Clive was a suicide. “What were his motives were they personal or political ?“ The only answer I had received were that they didn’t know his personal motives. “But you were close by, you must have known more than this…” They said nothing whilst stroking their eyebrows looking vacantly at me. “These eyes saw nothing, there was nothing to see.” Freya’s husband opened the door across the gallery and looked in. Freya waved him away without a word and he promptly left and went out into the street. Eventually we fell into silence, she based on her refusal to talk about her statement of “truth” and me because I could not believe what she was saying. She lit a cigarette and drawing the smoky drug into her lungs said. it’s all spam, you know its all spam. I think I sighed deeply. Tell me about this spam, only you can tell me about this. Freya stood up and waved for more coffee, blowing smoke out the open window into the street. OK she said, OK. She looked at the smoke dispersing into the street as if it was important. He didn’t die waiting for the police to come as people say, the truth is something different. I thought about touching her, holding her wrist or forearm to encourage her to tell the truth. An empty gesture I thought, Freya please tell me, i said. Often I am here looking out onto the street, i watch the people and the stray cats. They keep me here. You might not understand. These things remind me of home, that place I can never return to. Most of my family and friends died their during the recent ascendancy of the fascists, I was a prisoner in a politicaaal prison during that period. Even now i have some family who were guards and police then who won’t speak to me. They don’t care what i did or didn’t do for democracy. They let me out towards the end of the period, put me into exile in the far north on an island facing towards the atlantic. Anyway there I was watching the sea, the tides when he appeared, he said his name was cliv, the secret police were dumping him on the island, his face was swollen and he looked grey and exhausted, bruised and beaten. They threw him out of the car, pointed at the house he had to stay in, the police station is at the docks. He could scarcely walk. Freya went quiet stubbing out the cigarette, sipping the espresso. Anyway what happened was that he went into the house and slept to escape the pain. The next day or so he slept and ate and began to think he might live. He was desperate and fragile, tortured and abused. I was told to keep an eye on him, reporting back to the secret police, in those days everyone was police in some form. After a few days I was instructed to give him access to the media, email, etc. They started sending him threatening messages, spam threatening death and torture. Every few days they would send someone round to beat him. Nobody paid any attention to what they were doing. There was a riot on the mainland and they sent some of the students onto the island, hey had run out of jail cells, and one of them committed suicide, in the room next door. They didn’t care, except curse it was close to the end of the fascist regime, so they were beginning to worry about killing the children of the bourgeoisie . Freya was looking scared, dampness on her face, she couldn’t stop speaking, she had to confess. So I gave him a raincoat, a pair of shoes and told them he was the dead students brother, so the ambulance took them away and at the accident and emergency clinic on the mainland he simply walked away and vanished. They thought the dead student was him… Did someone order you to do it Freya ? Who was behind it? She looked defensively at me. I wondered if this anti-fascist gesture was the most important thing of her life. So i asked again, Did someone order you to do it Freya ? The organization, she said, the organization instructed me. Who was it exactly ? She looked at me carefully wondering if she should tell me. It was so long ago, things have changed. Just tell me then, i replied, it was the man from Parisol. Are they still there ? I asked. She wrote down an address on the napkin. Try here, she said, he was here last i heard. Thankyou I said to her, I’ll try once more. I thought about standing up and leaving. Is that everything she asked ? I think so unless you have anything else to tell me. No, nothing at all, she replied. I wondered if there was anything else she knew, but really that was enough I thought. I stood up and began leaving. I’ll go first, I said. She stood up wanting to shake my hand. I ignored her. And walked away. Goodbye Freya I said. Goodbye, she said her hand falling to her side disappointed. You mustn’t think I am a communist, that would be a mistake I was just there. I don’t, I said, not many people are communists here.