After an hour, the scene was winding down. The few civilians who’d come to see the carnage returned to their cars, mules, and wagons. Daniel rode in Ian’s car, Iggy and Seth behind them. He and Ian sank into the sofa in his room. Its stuffing protruded like the sickly shrubs dotting Fever Valley. People sometimes described rage as white- or red-hot. But the rage inside Daniel was neither of these. It wasn’t blinding, either. He had never seen more clearly. These men who, like the Russians, made both Communism and atheism into sinister caricatures, had done the unspeakable. It was one thing to be godless, but another to be soulless.
Ian filled two glasses with water. “Why was your weird buddy there?”
“Who?”
“The guy who wears too much cologne.”
“I’m not sure.” It wasn’t entirely untrue. “Ian, you have no idea what I’ve just done.”
“You did your best.”
“You don’t know that.”
“But I do, my non-Celtic friend.” Ian patted his arm. “Save the guilt for when it’s yours to own.” Roaming around the apartment, Ian found the whiskey. “I may need this tonight,” he joked, stashing it in his satchel. He gave Daniel an awkward fist bump.
The door clicked shut, and Daniel waited until Ian was gone. He picked up a flashlight and left his room. He walked through the darkened compound, awed by its silence and stillness. He made his way up an unpaved walkway. Above him, the stars were a tangled necklace of gold. He didn’t encounter a single car or truck, and there were no gadis or other travelers at this hour.
The Yassaman field was filled with ghosts now. The only living thing was Taj, squatting at its edge, contemplating these shredded flowers and bodies. Daniel nearly grazed him when he stopped the Mercedes at the edge of the road. Taj rose in the beam of Daniel’s flashlight. They stood close, face-to-face. Taj looked older. On the ground beside him was a flask, at his waist a cone-shaped pouch. Taj motioned to the poppies.
“Do you see them? The finest that have ever been grown.” He wandered into the field. From his pocket, he drew a small blade. “Maybe I can salvage a few.” He moved through the field, scoring the few poppy pods that had not been slashed or crushed. He worked fast, his hands gliding from one flower to the next. Daniel walked with him.
“Help me,” Taj said. “Grab a blade. They dropped them when they were shot.”
Sap oozed from the pods Taj could save, milky and white. By morning it would gleam like cloudy, amber-colored glass, crystallized by the sun. Suddenly he straightened, standing by a cluster of bending stalks. Voice breaking, he said, “I’m sorry for what was in the photograph.” Then, in his usual tone, he added, “It’s dangerous to have such a bad habit in the age of the Polaroid.” He turned back to his massacred world, checking for any resin that hadn’t hardened and any pod that hadn’t been scored by a blade, torn open by a bullet, or crushed by a body. Daniel realized that he was lighting the man’s way with his flashlight.
There was no reason for Daniel to be here, but he felt like he would come unmoored if he left. He looked up at the endless sable sky. The universe was expanding, even as his own world shrank. The opium trade always expanded, too, and would do so despite tonight, despite his life’s work. Taj would plant again in the winter, and the Yassaman field would thrive. Blood was the greatest fertilizer of all.