FINAL
ISLANDS IN THE SUN
Chapter
Two
“So what did you want to become?”
The question came to her mind from an old
man whom she could hardly remember. She tried visualizing that old man. The
best she could make out was her class mates at university telling her how wise
that old man was. Very wise, they insisted.
“So what did you want to become? At his
age, I mean?”
The old man had this sinister habit of
repeating the same thing over and over.
She turned, feeling dazed. She wanted to
answer the old man’s question, tell him he was outdated; and that his kind
never lasted long.
“Miss,” came a harsh voice, and she
realized she was at a police station.
“Miss,” the constable repeated, edging her
along, into the dark confines of the station’s interview rooms. “The senior sergeants
are waiting.”
Then as if in place of reciting ‘you have
the right to remain silent’ the constable blurted out suddenly: “You bashed up
that little boy like he was an adult.”
She started.
She knew then that even she might have been
manhandled somewhere along the way.
She swore. She spat.
“The little brat was paraphrasing you grown
up apes,” she muttered under her breath.
“Constable,” a senior policeman emerged
from a room down the corridor. “Just show Miss Caswell in, will you?”
The constable instantly snapped shut his
heels and led her into what looked like a conference room for senior police
officers. Three senior sergeants looked up mournfully at her. She shrugged,
took the seat offered her.
“Someone coming for you, Miss Caswell?”
said the one who had directed the constable to lead her in. “We have an odd
case here,” he added, indicating a file on the table.
“The laws you women create in parliament,
Miss Caswell, bounce back at you like this one,” chuckled another, pushing the
file towards her.
Caswell was cracking her now bruised
knuckles. The three senior sergeants smiled.
“Let us hope someone does come for you,
Miss Caswell,” they all said, rose and went outside.
She was left alone. She flipped through the
pages. The intending charges looked ridiculously fabricated. She didn’t lie in
wait and ambush the innocent little boy. And what’s this about child abuse, for
God’s sake? She read on: complex childhood plus peer pressure, parental demands
of getting the best in life, failed emotional associations, high cost of
professional maintenance fees, boredom, aloneness, lack of social input… what
the heck is lack of social input… all these, culminating in that resort to aggression
as necessary distraction…adding, finally, that child abuse was a serious
offence.
She pushed the file away, making it look as
if she did not open it at all. The sergeant who did the chuckling seemed too
old to be employed in the police force. She wondered why aged old seniors like
him still loitered around in the public service.
She
sat there, waiting. A cleaner mopped her way in to where she was and asked her
to lift her feet so she could do the rest of the room. She obliged. After
mopping the whole room the cleaner asked if there was anything she wanted. Yes,
she wanted the senior officials attending her case immediately.
The cleaner advised her that they would be
out for a while. It was their lunch hour.
“Oh, great...”
“The people who forced you down to this
police station were remorseless, my elder,” said the cleaner.
“I don’t need your sympathy,” she said.
“That boy needed discipline.”
“Still, they shouldn’t have dragged you
here by the hand,” said the cleaner, adding “my elder” with extreme courtesy.
The cleaner had a point. People justice was
getting out of hand in Port Moresby. She looked at the cleaner closely. She
looked familiar, like someone from her part of the country. She wondered,
though, why an elderly looking cleaner like this one would address her as “my
elder”.
But as if in answer to her wondering, the
cleaner bowed slightly and said, “Our hill together, my elder.”
There was a commotion outside.
The cleaner did a sudden genuflect and remained
still, her head bowed.
The three senior sergeants made their
return to the interview room somewhat hurriedly. The fat and older one was
sweating. It was a behavior least expected of the seniors. A few security
personnel entered the police station, clicked their heels and stood at
attention. The crowd moved aside to let a woman through. The woman looked
thirtyish. She displayed a certain amount of authority about her, sniffing at
what lay before her from a height. The cleaner remained as she was. The woman
looked at the cleaner briefly then waved her to rise.
“Ku Gaesasara,” said the cleaner and rose
to stand at ease.
The woman nodded and marched into the
interview room.
“Lady Gaesasara,” said the fat old sergeant
with a bow, his palms glued together in reverence. “It is good to see you here
in person. We did not realize Miss Caswell was your client. Do forgive us.”
“There is nothing to forgive, my elder,”
said the woman. “I must rather thank you and your good officers for looking
after my client well. Is there anything you would like me to know before
I take her away?”
“Nothing that would warrant addition to
the noise the media is making about Miss Caswell, Lady Gaesasara,” said the old
sergeant, “except, of course, her file here which we shall keep for our own
records.”
“Ah, yes; the media and their usual
tirades. Very well, then, I shall leave with my client.”
As
the constable escorted her out to Lady Gaesasara’s men, the cleaner leaned over
to the woman they called Miss Caswell and whispered, “Our hill together. You
are in good hands. All charges will be dropped.”
Miss Caswell looked puzzled. She turned,
regardless, nodded her thanks to the cleaner and the constable and was whisked
out of sight.
The old man and the other sergeants
followed suit, escorting Lady Gaesasara to her car. The young constable turned
and joined them, to whom Lady Gaesasara turned and said, “And where are you
from, young man?”
“Boku, Sir.”
“Sir?”
“Lady Gaesasara.”
“And where might Boku be?”
“Inland Rigo, Lady Gaesasara.”
“Ah, yes. Where the loyal ones come from,
wouldn’t you say so, constable?”
“I heard mention of such, Lady Gaesasara.”
“As loyal as the Baniaras?”
“That also I heard mention of.”
“You heard mention of these, constable.
Don’t you have an opinion of your own?”
“That I do, sir!” said the constable
and quickly snapped shut his heels to attention. “Ku Gaesasara! Our hill together!”
The senior police officers, particularly
the old sergeant, nodded in agreement. Lady Gaesasara was visibly impressed.
The power of law, she thought.
The crowd that had brought Miss Caswell to
the station decreased in number by now. A few angry murmurs could be heard,
however. But there were no rocks or stones, nor even sticks and footwear
cast that day. And Lady Gaesasara’s party along with the police officers would then
wonder how long it would take to hold out such spates of mob justice. The saddest
thought of all that crossed Lady Gaesasara’s mind was what to do with the
little boy who had provoked a simple law-abiding woman to violence.
