‘Micka?’
I fly. No, I…
* * *
Leaves above me. Stars. A face. Runner?
‘Micka?’
He brushes a finger against my cheeks.
I hurt.
‘Drink.’
A canteen is pressed to my lips, liquid trickles down my chin and neck. I take a sip. And another. My view tilts.
* * *
I wake to searing pain. Someone grunts; the funny feeling in my throat tells me it must be me making noises.
I open my eyes and see Runner fiddling with my leg. A thread, a needle — up and down. I bite my cheeks.
‘Almost done,’ he says.
‘How many left?’ I manage.
‘Stitches?’
I shake my head no.
‘Twenty-five or thirty.’
‘No, the kids. How many kids?’ I don’t give a shit about the men.
‘Six.’
Six. Less than half. Runner shot one. I shot one. The BSA blew up or slaughtered the others. How many more until this is over? I realise that I’ve begun to count our time here in lives, not days.
‘How far away are we?’ I ask.
‘From the camp? Far enough for now, as long as you don’t scream.’
I nod. ‘I must tell you something,’ I hiss through clenched teeth.
‘Not now, Micka. Later. You need to rest.’
‘It’s important. Listen. Please.’ I’m close to panic and have no clue why.
‘It’s okay.’ His hand presses mine for a short moment. It’s sticky with blood. ‘I’m listening.’ He goes back to stitching up my wounds.
I clear my throat. ‘One day in…in summer I asked… I asked my brother to take me up to the reservoir and teach me how to swim. We weren’t allowed up there, all alone, because he had epilepsy and I couldn’t swim. But I begged him anyway, bugged him for hours until he agreed. My parents had no idea we went.’
I swallow and think of the sunlight reflecting off the reservoir water. ‘It was a beautiful day and I was ready for anything. I would swim no matter how much water ended up in my windpipe.’ I squeeze my eyes shut. A curved needle is inserted into my thigh, and pushed back out. I feel the roughness of the thread. ‘I felt invincible. We played in the water, always close enough to the edge so his feet could reach the ground when he had to support me or pull me out by my hair or arm.’ The memory is sweet, but the bitter aftertaste is coming now.
‘Then, with a snap, his eyes rolled back in his head, his mouth opened wide as his head went under. He sucked in so much water. He was so stiff, so heavy. He sank like a rock. All I did was to scream. I watched him die and…and all I did was scream and save myself.’
I don’t look at Runner’s face. All I see are his hands, working on my wounds. He must be disgusted with me.
I am, too. ‘That same night, my father cut the word “die” in my back. A few years later, I learned that I’m not his daughter and that he lost his only child because of me. But…’ I huff a laugh because I don’t know what else to do. Tears try to choke me but I won’t let them.
‘I let my brother die and all I can think is “How did it feel?” and I hate myself for this. My brother was the only person I loved and I cannot remember how it felt. Because I… Since that day, I’ve been hurt so often that… It hurt so much, I stopped feeling and I forgot how… how love feels. I feel like… I feel like I’m not whole without knowing… I don’t want to die before…’
His face comes close to mine. Bloody fingers caress my cheeks. ‘You won’t die today. You’ve lost blood, yes. But no vital parts are injured.’ Black eyes gaze into mine. His serenity, his palm cupping my face, calms me.
‘Okay,’ I breathe.
He disappears from view, then reappears with a syringe. ‘I’ll give you a second shot of morphine. Your side needs a few stitches and you need sleep. Okay?’
I nod and turn my head away. Funny how one can suck up shrapnel, but gets woozy when stuck with a tiny needle.
* * *
I’m sitting at the base of a tree, my back comfortably leaning against Runner’s ruck. He stitched me up. He washed me. He cleaned and fixed my clothes, my pissed and bloody pants. Now, he’s making dinner. I dimly remember babbling something about my brother. I want to hide, but I’m sure he wouldn’t let me.
‘Have some,’ he says and holds out half of the bird he’s cooked. He holds my gaze as I take the offered food. ‘You are mortified,’ he notes.
I give him a single nod. What a great warrior I am. The warrior who pissed herself. Yuck. I look up at him and ask, ‘Why did my body betray me? Maybe I…I shouldn’t be here. I’m a wimp. I pissed my pants back there.’
He smiles. Why the heck does he smile? ‘I crapped myself in that cow carcass,’ he says. ‘I pissed my pants on my first day in battle, and another time when a shell hit so close that a building came down on me. Each time, I was lucky I survived. Your body didn’t betray you. It did everything it needed to survive. Irrelevant things like bladder control were ignored.’
My heart is racing, my mind circling around the men I’ve killed, the child. Memories of shells exploding, trees splintering, people screaming, all make me flinch in bright daylight; and the faces of the men just before my bullet opens their chests or bellies.
I press my hand to my mouth for fear of retching.
‘Will it get less difficult with time?’ I whisper.
‘The killing? Not much.’
‘I’d hoped—’
‘That you can take lives with ease?’ he stops to look at me.
‘Do you see them in your memories or in your dreams? The men you’ve shot? The faces of the children?’
‘I’ll never forget the children. The men, though…’ He doesn’t take his sharp gaze off me. ‘A few of the men keep coming back — in nightmares, memories.
‘And what do you…do then?’
‘I ask them how many women and children they’ve raped and tortured, how many kids they’ve sent into battle and how many of them they’ve blown up, how many men they’ve killed, how many families they’ve torn apart, how much land they’ve burned and contaminated.’
‘Sounds too simple,’ I croak.
‘Yeah. It’s simple. But it’s why I pull the trigger.’ He picks the skin off the bird’s breast and sticks it into his mouth, then runs his sleeve over his short-cropped beard. ‘I’ll go back in tonight.’
‘I’ll come.’
He glares at me. ‘Forget it!’ He almost spits out the food.
‘Two days left. I’ll come.’
‘You can barely walk.’
‘You help me get there. I’ll crawl into a foxhole. Not much walking needed.’
He drops the gnawed-off bone into the embers. Before he can open his mouth, I say, ‘I won’t let you go alone. If you leave me here, I’ll crawl all the way. I mean it.’
‘Sleep first.’
I flash him a grin and roll my sweater into a pillow, then place it demonstratively on the stock of his rifle. If he wants to leave at midnight, he has to wake me up.
‘You are such a…’
‘Yeah?’ I say. Oh shit, I hope I wake up when he leaves. Something tells me I’ll barely be able to move my legs then.