The Destructors

Navigius is It, which means I have to hide well. If I didn’t know better, I would say my brother has a sixth sense when it came to me. Last year, on my fifteenth birthday, we were playing hide and seek, and I had camouflaged myself with some dead leaves and climbed high up a tree but he found me within minutes. I knew he didn’t cheat because I saw him counting with his head buried in his lap. Perhaps it is nominative determinism. Or something in the stars. (Mother would not approve of me saying that, of course).

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” I hear him taunt.

It’s a childish game but it was Rusticus’ choice and it is his birthday.

I have found a large barrel outside the tavern. It’s a fairly obvious choice but the benefit is I can drink some of its contents whilst I wait to be found – hopefully not for a good mouthfuls.

I managed three.

“Might have guessed you’d find the nearest beer barrel.”

“It’s cider.”

“Fair enough. Come on, you’re the last.”

“The last? I’ve only just found this place – you must have been watching everyone.”

“I just know what everyone thinks like.”

He pulled me up and we joined the others.

“What now?”

“I’ve got a game that’ll test your nerves.”

“Oh yeah?”

“You have to go, knock on someone’s door and then run away before they can get to it.”

“That’s really lame, Julius – even for you.”

“I think I can improve on it,” I say.

“How?”

“Well, you knock on someone’s door but then you have to say something silly to them but keep a straight face.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Like, ‘I’m looking for Yuri. Is your Yuri in?’ Urine, geddit?”

“That’s lame. Try, ‘Lee Keybaum’”

There is a general pause before we get it.

“All right then.”

I take up the proverbial gauntlet and knock on the door of the apothecary, deliver my message, deadpan, and receive an apology from the incumbent.

Lart wrings my hand.

“That was awesome!”

Soon, all of us are doing it up and down the street. A few doors are slammed in the face – Rusticus can’t keep a straight face and has his ear pinched, hard, but manages to wriggle free.

We are so caught up in our mischief that no one has bothered to take note of which doors have been knocked on. Navigius catches a heavy blow from the farrier. Luckily, he didn’t have his hammer in his hand.

Oh no, now he does.

“Run!”

We sprint as fast as we can down the street and into the trees, not daring to look back until we are sure we are quite alone and we throw ourselves down on our backs and laugh loudly.

“Did you see his face?”

“It was as red as that poker!”

“Brilliant!”

Our pants and laughter run their course until we are all quite calm.

“What now? I don’t think we should go back to town.”

“No. Let’s go scrumping,” says Rusticus.

“I don’t think there are any apples here.”

“No,” I say, “but there’s a pear orchard close. It belongs to our neighbours.”

I catch Navigius’ eye and he furrows his dark brow but it is only for a moment and then he volunteers to lead the way and we are soon skipping through the fields until we come to their wall.

Our neighbours’ garden is nothing compared to our own vineyard. It’s pitiful, really.

The wall is easy to scale. Only Rusticus needs a leg up. Soon, all five of us are on the other side, looking at the tree.

“To be honest, I’ve seen better,” says Lart. He always puts a downer on things.

“Yeah, they don’t look very nice, to be honest. Let’s leave it. Your parents will give us something, won’t they?”

“That’s hardly the point.”

“What do you mean?”

“We didn’t come here because we were hungry, we came because we’re The Destroyers! So we’d better start . . . y’know . . . destroying.”

Marcus has been our ringleader for a while. Someone has to be, I guess. He’s always very lucky when it comes to not getting caught. But I think he would still do most of it anyway – even if he were caught. I like that about him. I admire it. I want to be like him.

I have been so caught up in the moment, and so caught up with the idea of being liked and valued by this gang of ruffians I have fallen in with, that I have not really considered the fruit until now. Now, I regard the pears: They don’t look very juicy. They’re smaller than the ones in our garden and not as vibrant. They look like they’re the sort that have lots of string in them, or are as hard as wood when you bite into them. Not my sort of thing at all. No one in their right mind would want to take one. Not to eat it, at least.

But I want them. I want to take them. I desperately want to reach out my hand, right now, and pluck one.

As I stand and follow the trunk up, noting how it branches off, I think of all the different ways our lives could turn out. Rusticus is only eleven but he is training for the military already. I wonder if he will be a fierce soldier, or die in his first battle.

My brother plays the fool but I know he enjoys his studies. Lart is . . . well, Lart.

Was he always so? Was Marcus always the one who egged us on and then stood back, as he is, now? Like the serpent in that story of Mother’s?

It comes back to me now – dimly: a tree; forbidden fruit. A challenge. A lying god. A choice. But not an African god, nor an African fruit. What had that to do with me?

The evening sun catches the leaves of the tree and, for a moment, the fruit seems golden.

Then, a cloud passes, and I see it for what it is: dull and mottled. But still forbidden. Not mine.

I slowly put my hand to the trunk and start shaking the boughs with the other boys. My hand is camouflaged against the dark bark – as if I and the tree are one, and the shaking is a liberation of an alien burden, rather than pilfering.

“Ouch!” The first one has hit Rusticus square on the head. We shake harder.

“That’s it, lads! They’re coming down fast, now!”

It’s raining pears. Each thud that we hear encourages to shake the tree more vigorously until there are more on the ground than we can possibly eat, or carry off.

I pick up the one which looks the juiciest and take a bite. It is sharp and the texture is, predictably, woody. I spit it out.

The others have done the same. Only Lart has eaten a whole pear.

“They’re not ripe yet.”

“No kidding.”

“What now?”

“Let’s feed them to the pigs,” I say, and fashion my tunic into something that can carry a good dozen pears.

Somehow, we manage to carry them off, although many drop along the way and are bruised by the time we reach the swine. We make a sport of throwing them at the hogs, rather than to them.

“See if you can get it on the snout!”

I miss. I’m not very good at throwing.

“So much for pearls before swine. They’re loving these pears!” shouts Rusticus, enthusiastically. I think he thinks he is being clever. He isn’t. But he’s only eleven.

I manage to get my last shot right between the eyes of an old, spotted sow, who grunts at me.

“You’re welcome,” I jeer.

The swineherd has heard the commotion and comes towards us, brandishing a club. We make another dash for it and break fellowship.

As we walk home, I notice Navigius has secreted a single pear up his sleeve.

“What you got that for?”

“Supper.”

“Don’t be silly. They tasted foul.”

“Good enough for pigs.”

“Yeah. Quite.”

Navigius stops in his tracks.

“Are we any better?”

I look at him for a moment, uncertain as to whether he is in earnest.

“Ha! Pulling your leg, little brother. Come on: last one home’s a loser!”

We race.

I win (just).

Mother is waiting for us.

Even from this distance, I can see the tired disappointment in her eyes. She has been praying for me to accept her religion. I can’t see it happening. I don’t know why it should matter but it does to her. I think I will always have to disappoint her in that, but I am sorry to disappoint her in this, now.

“Augustine,” she says, stressing the second syllable of my name as she always does when she is communicating her hurt: “Augustine, just what have you been doing?”