Camille’s face haunted Stephen. Memories he’d buried years ago now refused to lie dormant. He dug through the bottom drawer of his desk until he finally found the worn photo. Seventeen years had passed. He’d since married, fathered two children, and made a new life for himself. And still he’d never forgotten. He knew his wife Anna would never understand the hold Camille held over him, and she would be right. He’d let ghosts from the past turn him into someone he hardly knew anymore, and in the process he’d lost both Anna and his girls.
Camille stared back at him from the picture,, reminding him of how beautiful she’d been. He wasn’t sure why he’d kept the snapshot. Perhaps as a reminder of what he’d lost—and of what he could never have.
He frowned. He knew what Camille would tell him right now if she was still alive. But while he’d always admired her zeal for life, she’d failed to understand one thing: sometimes standing up for what one believed in not only managed to hurt oneself, but also those one loved.
He’d escorted Camille home from work the day of the election, alongside houses with corrugated tin roofs and swept front yards. The roads were filled with potholes and bordered by dozens of kiosks where people sold everything from dried fish to shoelaces simply to make enough to eat one meal a day.
Bogama had become a city on the brink of war whose citizens were used to hiding behind high walls topped with razor wire. Despite the concentrated military presence, he’d never trust Camille’s safety to the dozens guarding the streets. They patrolled in uniformed groups beside tanks and other signs of the upcoming election. Huge banners blew in the wind claiming victory by both sides. Stephen was afraid no one would win. Promises from their leaders were rarely fulfilled.
He’d tried to convince Camille to leave the chaos along with the thousands of others who had already fled the capital. Anyone who could was leaving. The current president had given them little choice. At eighty-four years old, his health had deteriorated to the point where he could no longer make rational decisions, but even that hadn’t loosened his tight grip on the country. Samuel Tau had stepped up with promises to lead the country into an era of peace and development despite those who insisted the president’s son was to take the next term of power. The resulting tribal clashes had already left two hundred dead from fights in the streets between the army and the police.
Those who could afford it fled the city. Those who couldn’t leave hid in their homes, praying that God would save them and bring an end to the conflict. God chose to do neither, and Camille had ignored the warnings and insisted on staying. The children at the mission where she worked needed her, she told him. Her mother needed her. It didn’t matter that he needed her too. That he wanted to get her out and protect her.
Then what he’d feared most happened. A group of solders stopped them halfway to her house. One spun a pistol around his finger, laughing at the game of Russian roulette he played. They were drunk, loud, and focused on displaying their power. They proved it by forcing him to stand helpless as they raped and killed her in front of him.
There was nothing Stephen could have done to save her—or so he’d convinced himself as the scenario played over and over in his mind for months after her death and the bloody election that followed. President Tau might have managed to eventually squelch the uprisings when he took power, but even his lengthy rule couldn’t erase the mistrust Stephen had toward authority.
He’d heard the promises that this current election would take place without any of the horrors his country remembered. Natalie’s discovery had managed to shatter any illusions that this time would be different—that this time his country might escape another mass bloodshed. Natalie was too much like Camille. Too stubborn to leave. Too naïve to realize the consequences.
Stephen lit a match and watched the yellow flame eat at the corner of Camille’s picture. Its faded colors blended together before spilling black chunks of ash across his desk. He shook the match and tossed it beside the ashes. With his pointed accusations Patrick had been right about one thing: he’d spent his life pleasing both sides, while at the same time making no claims to either. He’d thought he’d be able to survive unscathed, but in the end it had cost him his career, and now his wife and children.
He blew out the flickering flame, then tossed the damaged photo into the metal trashcan beneath his desk. He had one card left to play, and this time he knew what he had to do.