Chapter
THE BUGLE SIGNALS the start of two minutes of silence. The city hushes around Archie. Then it’s over, and the noise of daily life resumes as the crowd disperses. Archie knows he’s to meet Andrew and the others, yet his heart contracting in pain resists. He feels better in Andrew’s company; he feels less alone when with the others. Their energies lighten him, pull him into life, and willingly he submits. Yet his heart wants to fold inwards, curl up like a fetus, warm and safe in its sac of ribs. People are dangerous, his heart lies to him. And he hears it as truth. Andrew is both a safe place to be and dangerous; always Archie must war against the lie taking hold. Most of the time he loses that war, but today he yearns to obey Andrew’s command no matter how much his heart squeezes into itself until pain shards strike paths throughout his muscles and joints.
Archie shifts slightly at his post behind Old City Hall.
Archie arrests himself. He stands erect, his eyes scanning the faces, the movements, the sounds, the smells of returning cars as they roar out their exhaust. He can’t seem to move; his boots, like glue, fasten him to the wet sidewalk. Two men in green dress uniforms of RCR march toward him. He wants to say something, to show respect to members of the Royal Canadian Regiment, the oldest regular force infantry regiment in Canada. But he cannot. One of them sidles his eyes towards him as they stride past. The man stops, and his companion slows and turns around to stand next to him.
“Hello soldier,” the first one says. “May I help you?”
Archie is stunned. He spots the rank on the man’s right sleeve and unconsciously straightens his upper back and neck. Archie says: “I’m looking for my old commanding officer, sir.”
“At ease, soldier.” The officer hesitates, searching for signs of rank or what brigade Archie belongs to, but Archie had put no identifying patches on his outer jacket sleeves that morning. He’d taken them off his dress uniform the day he left New Mexico. “Which regiment?”
Archie tells him. The officer nods and tells Archie he saw Andrew and two other people with him on the other side of Old City Hall. He leans forward and points around the back northeast corner of the old pink-stone building. Archie follows his finger, and his feet release themselves from the wet and begin moving toward Bay Street and Alexander.
Archie flows with others on the narrow sidewalk, holding himself in check, his self-control reset by the encounter. Poppies on jackets glow red in the resuming rain. The plastic flowers’ centres are like black holes. Some half dangle on their precarious pins; some are embedded, their pins weaving in and out, in and out of their wool-coat homes. Eleven o’clock is done; poppies are meant to be off. Fury flares into Archie’s breast, and so when he spots Nadine’s ex hunting around, swerving between people, his face turning this way and that, his eyes searching every person he passes—for him? No, Nadine!—Archie lengthens his stride, puffs out his chest, sucks in his stomach, and swings his arms straight, propelling himself right at the ex. Archie lifts his right arm and holds it ahead of him in one of its forward-momentum swings as he approaches from behind. Archie grabs the back of the ex’s collar and thrusts it up, lifting the man up onto his tippy toes. He allows his momentum to keep him going and to propel the ex ahead of him. He executes a sharp right turn as he stretches his right arm upward, raising the man so that his toes leave the asphalt road long enough for him to turn with Archie ahead of him. The ex windmills his arms, trying to grab backward purchase on Archie. But Archie’s arms are like trunks of iron; even at full extension, his longer arms are the stronger. Archie and Nadine’s ex arrive at the north end of Nathan Phillips Square, where Archie drops the man. The ex’s legs buckle, and he lands on his hands while Archie glares at him, his fingers curling and uncurling to extend fully out like two sets of five daggers. The man springs up and twists around, yelling: “Hey! Whatdya do that for?”
“You were stalking Nadine.”
“I don’t stalk.”
“What were you doing?”
“I was looking for her. Is it a crime to look for her?”
“Yes.”
The ex blinks; hidden blood swells its conduits and floods up his neck to his cheeks to disappear into his hairline. He shouts, spitting thick saliva at Archie’s face: “No! It’s not!”
Archie doesn’t flinch. He assesses the chances of shooting him dead, solving Nadine’s problem finally. Pistol. Death. The ultimate solution. Does he want to be caught? No, he answers himself. He’s not ready yet. He hasn’t found Andrew yet, and his mission is to meet up with Andrew, David, and Nadine, not to be detained or execute his inevitable release from himself.
Archie cocks his head and lowers his thick, black lashes to ponder the ex through them. The man involuntarily takes a step backwards and shrinks within himself. Perhaps shooting him would do him a favour: it will release Nadine’s ex from his pain, too. Emotions are eating him up inside. The ex can’t help himself; it seems like he needs to look for Nadine, look for reasons that she left him, reasons that have nothing to do with Archie but that keep him innocent, the one not responsible, the one not to blame for his misery. Perhaps shooting him quickly, taking the pistol out of its conceal carry in one swift action and pulling the trigger before he even has time to blink is the best option.
The ex is a dangerous man.
He can’t help himself.
Perhaps he’s mentally ill.
They say that the mentally ill would rather harm themselves than another.
This man wants to harm Nadine.
He is not mentally ill.
He’s just bad.
And men turned dangerous by their emotions deserve to be shot, to preserve the good of society.
Nadine’s ex has stopped breathing. His red-shot eyes bulge unblinking, glued to Archie’s impassive face with their lowered lids and irises darkening to obsidian. Archie notes the man’s fear, unconsciously shifts his weight forward, and lengthens his torso muscles, making his average-height frame seem to tower over Nadine’s ex.
Archie sends his mind into his skin’s receptors to perceive the energy in the air through his clothing. He senses people walking by, intent on their destinations, lost in their iPhones and Androids, busy talking to each other, none noticing him. He attunes his mind to the sounds his ears capture: fences scrape and scream against asphalt and concrete as workers remove them from their stations and pack them up. The workers, too, don’t notice the two men frozen in their mental dance of prey and predator.
But as swift as Archie is—and he practiced on the battlefields of Afghanistan many times—saved his combat unit’s lives one time because of his speed and accuracy—Archie knows that once the pistol explodes the bullet out its muzzle, blasting the sound barrier, it will alert all the ears around him. They will to a person notice, except the ones wearing earbuds or colossal headphones pumping isolating music into their heads. People will lift their heads and look around, querying gun shot or car backfiring? And they will spot him with a man dead on the ground at his feet.
Archie doesn’t have a silencer.
Archie rues the error, the omission. But then he’s not sure he could’ve fit a silencer at the end of his Sig inside his left-hand pants pocket.
Archie decides, and Nadine’s ex comes to life. The ex turns on his heels and runs, weaving in and out between sets of twos and threes as the crowd surges north. Archie watches him go.
When the ex is lost to his view, Archie releases all the tension in his abdomen, legs, and arms with one command: Relax. Archie swivels on his heels. He walks casually south, scanning the crowd for the familiar faces of Andrew, David, and Nadine. The people coming towards him unconsciously change directions as they approach. Archie doesn’t notice. I should tell Andrew of the encounter, Archie thinks. Transparency is crucial to the smooth operation of a combat unit, even in civilian life. I owe Andrew that much.
A SHOUT CAUSES Archie to whirl. He spots Andrew waving at him to come over towards the south end of the vast Nathan Phillips Square. Archie walks measuredly toward them; his heart burns to reverse course, to be alone in his pain. His feet slow. Andrew watches, and his eyes capture Archie’s and pull him to them. David has his head down over his iPhone. Nadine has her iPhone out, too. Archie fights the pain and draws near. He halts in front of Andrew, clicks his feet, and salutes smartly. Andrew salutes back and tells him to be at ease. Suddenly, the pain seeps out of Archie’s body like brakes releasing their pressure. He’s glad he obeyed Andrew.
“David and Nadine are discussing where to have lunch,” Andrew says, jerking his head toward the two. Archie shifts his eyes to look at them then back up at Andrew. Andrew is tall, filled out with muscle and flesh but not fat. Archie usually defers to his commanding officer, but the thought of lunch brings bile up into his throat. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to be excused.”
“No,” Andrew replies.
Nadine raises her head and regards the two men with guarded eyes.
Archie’s eyes widen. Andrew normally lets him be. But not today. Archie shifts his feet closer to each other. “I’m not hungry, sir.”
“You can have a drink while we eat, Archie.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Today is not a good day to be alone.”
Archie’s iPhone pings in his pocket. Archie slides it out and reads the message on the lock screen. “Nadine needs us all there.”
Archie’s mouth sours. He slides his right thumb across the message on the screen, quickly types in his passcode, and launches Signal. He replies: “I’ve seen her ex. Dispatched him. She doesn’t need me there.”
David doesn’t lift his head from his iPhone as he reads Archie’s message and replies. Andrew waits, watching David’s thumbs typing in a blur. Nadine’s eyes are darting here and there. Archie notices. His iPhone pings in his hand. He reads: “What happened?”
Archie types back: “Nothing.”
Seconds later, another ping: “He’s persistent. Nadine can’t get rid of him. Why would you?”
“I have my weapon, and he knows it.”
From David’s almost-silent breath in, Archie knows when David has read his message. David lifts his head and scrutinizes his face. Archie returns his look impassively. David darts his eyes towards Andrew then drops his head back to his iPhone. Andrew unlocks his iPhone and waits. Ever since they returned from Afghanistan, David has said not one word, has verbalized nothing but breath sounds. He can’t even sigh heavily. Instead, he messages them all through Signal. Not email, not regular text messaging, not through social media, but Signal only. Signal’s name is a flag to his muteness; its privacy and security a revolt against constant attack. The three of them accepted his voice shutting down. As long as he still talks to them, in whatever manner makes him comfortable, is good with them. Andrew and David finish their conversation. Andrew turns back to Archie: “You’re joining us. It’s unanimous.”
Nadine states: “The women in Afghanistan were only free behind doors, under ceilings, inside their walls. There, they joined each other. Not alone.”
The three men slowly turn their heads to blink confusedly at her. Nadine fixes her gaze on the sky overhead laden with clouds’ tears. She says: “They saw us the same as their oppressors. Men arbitrarily killing their men, bombing their homes. One of them told me this on my fourth visit to her home as she served me tea. It was so murky in there, except for her dress.” Nadine lowers her eyes to the men’s height and meets their astonished gaze.
Andrew tells her: “We went to save the women and girls. We gave them the freedom to access education. We weren’t their oppressors.”
Archie isn’t sure what to think. Nadine has always been straightforward, not prone to embellishment. And Andrew’s Canadian platoon was nothing like his American one.
Nadine replies: “That’s what she told me, sir. She showed me photos of her male relatives, all dead from our allies. They were creased from how often she stared at them. She missed them, and all she had left were their photos.”
“The Taliban were their oppressors.”
“She said you are all the same. She said what difference did we make, except we allied ourselves with the ones who beat us and stole from us, I mean, them.”
Andrew compresses his lips. Archie holds his breath as he glances at Nadine then back to Andrew. David stands stock still. Andrew says: “Alright, I concede there were some irregularities. But we were there to save them from the Taliban. We worked with the locals to bring education to the women and girls. We liberated them from oppressive dress codes. We sat in circles with the men to be accepted by each local community. Women no longer had to worry about being whipped because their ankles showed! You were there, Nadine. I concede being a woman you had a privilege the rest of us didn’t have. But our intentions were good.”
“They wanted us to leave.”
“We did.” Andrew’s clipped voice leaves no room for dissent. “We went to help them, Sergeant, and we did that while we could.”
Nadine’s features fall into impassivity. Her spine stiffens, and she clasps her iPhone with both hands behind her back. Nadine shifts her booted feet into the at-ease position. Apart but rigidly holding her erect.
Andrew repeats: “We went to help them, Sergeant. We listened. We helped. They weren’t alone in their struggle.”
“Yes sir,” Nadine replies.
Archie shoots his eyes towards Nadine, who returns his stare with an empty one of her own. Archie’s heart flips. His conscious mind rejects what he sees. Archie blurts: “Okay.”
Puzzlement draws Andrew’s eyebrows up as he shifts his gaze to Archie. “Okay what?”
“Okay, I’ll join you, sir. For lunch.”
Andrew relaxes his shoulders and smiles at Archie. “Good!” he exclaims as he claps Archie on his upper back and clasps his shoulder before letting go. Andrew gestures with his iPhone, and the four gather in a four-sided circle, facing each other, heads down over their respective iPhones, to argue silently through group messaging where to go.
The four pick Fran’s on College.