After eight days of walking, Helen had increased her daily average to 15 kilometres. Meanwhile, Isha insisted on keeping to a routine: leave at dawn when the air was cool, find shade before the sun reached its midday height, sleep until it went back down and then walk for another hour, or until they found somewhere to stay.
While they walked, Helen remembered their first walk along the Via Francigena. Hell, in the beginning: blisters, boredom, the constant question of why she was even doing it, and then the subtle change as her cerebral and biological rhythms adapted to the slower pace.
A few hours into their ninth day she finally felt ready to articulate what she was feeling. “It’s better now,” she said. “The walking, I mean, just like the first time. Is it the same for you?”
“In some ways,” Isha replied, without committing herself entirely because her tongue had stalled on another word. Liminal, she thought, that’s it. The line drawn between what was, is and will be. The boundaries I cross with every step I take. She raised her head to breathe in the warm air, realising as she did so that until this moment she had barely noticed the terrain or its changes since leaving Calais. Her only clear memories being the deserted villages they passed through and sometimes stayed in — Guines, Licques, Amettes and all the others — dried husks of the living places they used to be. And now Bruay-la-Buissière, deserted too, except for an elderly couple sitting outside their house. […]
They set off early the next day, and Isha finally began to see the flatness of the terrain, with its infinite army of parched cornstalks […] From there, the walk to Arras passed quickly, though the closer they got, the more nervous they became. Arras would be their first large town since leaving Calais, and the first time they would try to pay for food and perhaps a hotel room using the Maxwell. […]
Their progress was slow and hesitant as they walked into the town and checked for signs of life. Some shops looked as if they could have been open not so long ago, but their shelves were empty. Helen and Isha stopped at the edge of Place des Héros, a large square that had been full of café tables the last time they were there. Helen looked up at the houses and imagined them coming to life and lumbering away. […]
“It was a friendly place,” Isha said. “We ate in a restaurant down one of the tiny side streets…” […]
“But can’t you feel the emptiness of this place now? Place des Héros. Are we the only heroes left?”
“Yes, it’s like being in a vacuum.”
Helen reflected though the word vacuum was an odd choice, it seemed entirely apt for a place that has so profoundly let go of its breath […].
The minutes ticked by on the clock in its tower above. The only sound until another, the click of a door, or perhaps the heel of a shoe on the cobblestones. Isha focused all her senses on the direction it had come from and saw shadows seeping out of a single, horizontal cellar door. “Look.”
First three, then four, then a small crowd of people had materialised and gathered around the edges of the square, inconsequentially, as if perhaps they had no right to be there. The silence seemed to hold them in its grip until a group of children, ten or so, of every age and size, burst through, their shrill voices skipping like stones across the dark shop windows. How many people were there now? Fifty? A hundred? Helen leant forward to get a better look and thought of mice pushing their noses out from under the skirting before dashing across a kitchen floor.
“Get back,” Isha whispered. “We can’t let them see us yet.”
“Why not? We should talk to them. We’ve got nothing to lose.”
Nothing to lose. The phrase came back to Isha as they walked into the centre of the square. We have nothing; ergo, we lose nothing … The adults watched as the two strangers approached, the anarchic chatter of the children silenced. She wondered what they were afraid of.
“We only want to buy some food,” Helen said, her tight throat pressing her voice into an unfamiliar timbre.
“We can pay or barter, whatever you prefer,” Isha added.
“I understand.” A young man stepped forward out of the crowd. “It’s always the same, but we don’t want your credit or your things.”
“The same?” Isha asked.
“Yes, it’s all people like you ever want. At least that’s how it starts.”
“No, it’s all we’re asking for.” She moved forward and then back as the shuffling group closed in on her.
“That’s enough!” This time, it was a woman’s voice, harsher and more commanding than the hesitant tone of the young man. “Get them out of here before it’s too late.”
Too late for what? Helen asked herself, the cold rush of fear closing like a cage around her ribs.
Future Imperfect by Babette Gallard is published by Light Eye.