Billy tilted his head to one side. “I don’t think they were totally against people eating meat. Given how many of us there used to be, it must have been damn hard to check if all the farm animals lived in good conditions and were killed humanely.”
I nodded. After all, it was natural for carnivores to eat meat. Sure, people could survive on a plant based diet but, all things considered, did it really matter if a sheep was killed by a man or a beast of prey? It was the circle of life. The biggest problem had been the size of the population which the meat and animal product market had to satisfy, and the economical and ethical issues that came with it. Since people wanted things as convenient as possible, they cared less and less about how the animals were treated.
They’re just animals anyway!
How many times had I heard that argument from people?
It used to drive Connie crazy, she would wail: How can they look away from the atrocities they sentenced the animals to? How can they justify that to themselves?
Maybe I wasn’t an activist like she was, but I certainly wasn’t immune to the suffering of animals. That’s why I would drive forty kilometres out of Perth to pick up meat and eggs–and stuff my freezer full while I was at it–on a farm with various certificates ensuring it gave the animals first rate care before humanely killing them and preparing them for the market.
The wheels in my head whirled. I wanted to present a long list of reasons why The Collective and other animal loving people including me had fought against animal cruelty, but in the end I thought: What does it matter now? It’s over! Instead I said: “Well, we should make sure our people do their best.”
“Absolutely,” he mumbled and pulled another fish out. “This should be enough. I don’t think we can fit any more into the bags.”
There wasn’t enough fish to feed everyone in the community, but plenty to make a thick fish soup, and that was sure to be enough to satisfy everyone. It was close to midday when we were walking back to the settlement.
“I’m starving. I hope they left us some breakfast,” I said and slid my fingers under the straps to relieve my shoulders. The backpack grew heavier by the minute.
We headed into the kitchen, but before we had time to put our things down, a bright-eyed María hurried towards us.
“Frank, Billy, you won’t believe this!” she exclaimed, breathless. “We have a visitor!”
“Who?” Billy asked, while I was thinking: But there’s no way the group has already returned from the tree? “Somebody came here? Right into the camp?”
María was clearly savouring the moment of our ignorance and deliberately took her time with the answer. Her face bore the classic expression of I know something you don’t!
“Who?” I encouraged her.
She took a breath and I mentally filled the moment of suspense with a drum roll. “A woman from our list, one of the missing ones! Her name is Sanne… Come on!”
She pushed us towards the kitchen which we were headed for anyway. We took off our bags as soon as we came in and searched for Nadia in the group of people standing by a table. All it took was for us to mention the fish and she jumped up with an excited Great! and took over our catch.
The welcoming committee was sitting around the table with a woman I’d never seen before. For a split second I stood there frozen, her face looked so much like Connie’s. But this wasn’t my daughter I reminded myself, it couldn’t be. Anyway, Sanne’s hair was blond and much longer than Connie’s.
She was clearly starving, she and her daughter, an exact copy of her, were stuffing themselves with whatever was in the bowls in front of them, their spoons flicking to their mouths at lightning speed. I had been hungry myself but now I all but forgot about food. Because it was impossible to miss the small bundle tied to Sanne’s chest. It was an old ragged scarf tied behind her dirty neck and under her arm, and in it was–could this be possible? –a baby.
This woman definitely didn’t spend the six months in her allocated shelter! I thought. And then: A baby?
“You can’t make this stuff up,” Billy commented, as stunned as I was.
I sat down on an empty chair and waited for the woman and her little girl to finish eating. Sanne acknowledged us by nodding but she was probably too hungry to put the spoon away and choose conversation over food.
“Could I get a little more, please?” she asked and there was so much fear in her voice, it broke my heart.
What on earth has she been through that made her so scared? I’d had very little to complain about–definitely not the underground shelter which now seemed more than comfortable.
Nadia was ready to comply but Nelson stopped her. “If you can keep all of this down for half an hour, you can definitely have more. But it’d be better to go slow at first, especially if you’ve…” He searched for words, “not had, um, enough food recently.”
It was obvious from the way he was speaking that the woman had only arrived at the camp a moment before Billy and I returned from the river. If she’d been eating soup since then she probably hadn’t had much time to talk about anything.
“Sanne,” I spoke to her softly. I don’t know why, but I felt like she should be treated like a scared hurt animal. Carefully and from afar. She must have experienced a lot of the things
