I Am Not a Number by
Lisa Heathfield
My rating:
5 of 5 stars
The Traditional Party has been voted in. Ruby doesn't think her life will change too much, but her mother and stepfather aren't sure. There are more soldiers in the street, making sure that women are wearing decent clothes and that there are no lewd displays of affection, like holding hands. Then there are arm bands. Then, in the middle of the night, the buses come...
Lisa Heathfield has a gift for tackling difficult subjects in ways that children can understand. She's already taken on cults and parental abuse; in this new book her topics are nationalism and the Holocaust, obliquely. By subjecting her heroine Ruby to horrors that actually happened to prisoners in the concentration camps, Lisa shows how easy it is to fall prey to othering, and how destructive it can be. The increasing dehumanisation of Ruby and the other inmates is very difficult to read, but it's worth it if it starts conversations about this topic.
I'm also very impressed, as I often am with cult novels, at just how easy it is to alter people's thinking, especially childrens', when you control the narrative. Ruby's sister sees everything that's happening, she knows exactly how they're being treated, but because the guards give her extra biscuits she believes everything they're telling her about their political rivals.
The only thing I would have liked is more information or background on the guards. We learn a little bit about the camp commander, but the rest of the guards are an indistinguishable mass of hatred and anger. No one ever even learns any of their names. I would have liked to know how they came to think this was acceptable. But that's a tiny gripe in an otherwise gripping novel.
This isn't the only book of this type I've read, but in the others the camps are usually for people of a particular race, or religion, or skin colour. In this one, it's strictly along ideological lines, and I can't decide if that's more or less scary; that the people doing this to Ruby and the others probably
looked just like them. It's a terrifying, but very important, read.
"You'll learn discipline," the guard says. "You'll run the length of the line and back until I tell you to stop."
"Run?" I'm not at school. Why do they want me to run?
"You haven't heard me properly?" The guard steps closer and raises his whip until it's touching my cheek. "I could help by cleaning out your ears with this."
"Run, for God's sake, Ruby," I hear Mum say.
The line of leather presses into my skin.
"Fine," I say, but I don't look at my mum as I know she'll see the fear i'm trying to hide. I won't look at any of them.
I feel every set of eyes on me as I pass, so I focus on the world beyond the fence. In the distance is a mountain and I look at that. I force myself to see how it doesn't peak in a spike. Maybe it's not a proper mountain but it's more than a hill. It's round at the top and joins another, smaller one. They seem very safe. I imagine myself sitting there, hidden among their shape.
My feet pound the wet ground. It's concrete, so it's easier to get a rhythm. At the end I turn around. this way I can see the entrance to the camp. The fence is high, its barbed wire telling me everything. I hadn't noticed the watchtower close to the gate, but it's clear as anything now.There's a guard in it and the silhouette of a gun.
I concentrate on Mum's face as I run back down the line. Her eyes are wild with anger, but her face is stone. Darren holds tight to her hand and he nods at me and says something, but I don't hear it. It's enough though. He's willing me on and it gives me strength.
I know I run past Luke, but I'm too embarrassed to look at him. I'm sweaty and soaked and I know he loves me whatever, but I don't want him to see me like this. I'll have to run past him again and again, looking worse and worse, until the pig of a guard says I can stop.
My legs are beginning to burn as I turn at the end, facing the mountain again. I wish I could look more to the sky but the rain isn't stopping. So I keep going. Running on. Trying to count the sound of my feet on the ground.
"You can do this, Ruby." This time I catch Darren's words and I use them as fuel.
I'm thirsty, but the water falling on me isn't enough.
The guard doesn't tell me it's over. I've never been good at running far and my lungs feel filled with fire. Someone has lit a match in them and now every breath sparks new flames. A stitch is gripping my side.
I'm sure the rain is weakening.
But now they'll be able to see that I'm crying.
I don't mean to but I look at Luke as I pass. I wish I hadn't. It's hopeless despair on his face. His dad is holding his arm, as if stopping him from trying to help me. I won't look at him again. It's made my heart hurt worse and my tears now are for more than just agony and exhaustion and hunger.
A guard grabs me by the shoulder. I collapse into him and he wipes me away like a piece of dirt.
"You may stop," he says, pushing me back into the line between a child and an older man. "Have you learned your lesson?"
I nod, hardly able to hold my head straight.
"I didn't hear your answer," the guard shouts. "Maybe you'd like to run again? Or have you learned your lesson?"
"Yes," I say. My voice squeezes out through my spiky breathing.
"Good."
When he walks away, the man next to me puts out his arm to hold me up.
"You did well," he whispers as finally the rain begins to dry.
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