Teranesia

As his mother walked around the edge of the garden, Prabir fed her more of the ladder, until he was holding it by the opposite end. She smiled at him encouragingly, but he felt his heart pounding with fear for her. Staying out of the garden was no guarantee of safety. The rectangle of cleared soil must have looked like an ideal target from the air – and maybe it was easier for a self-laying mine to penetrate the ground and cover its tracks where there was no vegetation – but there could still be others, buried anywhere at all.

As his mother approached the far corner, they both had to stretch their arms to keep their hold on the ladder, and it was soon clear that even this wouldn’t be enough. She seemed to be about to cut across the garden, but Prabir shouted out to her, ‘No! I can move closer to you!’ He gestured towards the corner nearest to him, where she’d already proved the ground safe. ‘I’ll stand over there. Then once you’ve turned the corner I can walk back towards the crate, keeping step with you.’

His mother shook her head angrily, but she was cursing herself for not thinking clearly. ‘You’re right. We’ll do it that way.’

Once they were holding the ladder across the full width of the garden, carrying it straight towards his father, Prabir began to feel hopeful. Just a few more steps and his mother would have no untried ground left to walk. He kept his eyes averted from his father’s legs, but a cool voice in his head was already daring to counsel optimism. People had survived these kinds of injuries, in remote villages in Cambodia and Afghanistan. His mother had studied human anatomy and performed surgery on experimental animals; that had to be of some use.

Prabir waited for her to put the second crate on the ground, then they lowered the ladder into place together. He didn’t doubt that the crates would take the load; there were a dozen of them scattered around the kampung, and he’d seen his father standing on them to reach things. If the ladder didn’t buckle, the one remaining problem was the far end sliding off the crate.

His mother followed his gaze.

She said, ‘You watch that, and tell me if it moves. If I shift it one way by accident, I can always shift it back.’

She took off her shoes and climbed on to the crate. The ladder’s steps were sloped so as to be horizontal when the ladder was a few degrees off vertical; the sides they presented now were curved metal, with none of the non-slip rubber that covered the tops. But as Prabir looked on, his mother found a way to balance with her feet resting on both the supporting rails and the sides of the steps. Still above the crate, she screwed her eyes shut and began swaying slightly, her arms partly raised at her sides – rehearsing the moves that would restore her equilibrium without compromising her footing, so she wouldn’t have to guess them when she was halfway across. Prabir’s throat tightened, his fear for her giving way to love and admiration. If there was anyone in the world who could do this, it was her.

She opened her eyes and started walking along the ladder.

Prabir kept his hands on his end of the ladder, pushing it down firmly against the top of the crate, and fixed his gaze on the other, unattended crate. He could feel a slight vibration with each step his mother took, but the ladder wasn’t trying to jerk sideways out of his grip. He risked a quick glance at his mother’s face; she was staring sightlessly over his head. He looked down at the opposite crate again. A wooden plank might have bowed enough to push the crates apart, its curvature redirecting the load, but the ladder was far too rigid for that. It would take the weight of both of them, easily; he was sure of that now.

His mother paused. Prabir watched her feet as she took one more step forward on her left, turning her body partly sideways so she could face his father. She dropped slowly to a crouch, then reached down towards him. The ladder was about half a metre from the ground; she could just touch his face with her fingertips.

‘Rajendra?’

He moved his head slightly in acknowledgement.

‘I’m too high to lift you from here. You’re going to have to sit up.’

There was no response. Prabir pictured his father rising from the sand into her arms, like a water man rising from the waves. But nothing happened.

‘Rajendra?’

Suddenly his father emitted a sobbing noise, and reached up with one hand and touched her forearm. She clasped his hand. ‘It’s all right, love. It’s all right.’

She turned to Prabir. ‘I’m going to try sitting down, so I can get Baba on to the ladder. But then I might not be able to stand up with him, to carry him. If I leave him on the ladder and walk back to my end, do you think the two of us could carry the ladder to the side of the garden with Baba on it – like a stretcher?’

Prabir replied instantly, ‘Yes. We can do it.’