RUBEN, ROSA, ROBINSON, and Mona sat at the dining table; there was lamb roast for dinner, Ruben’s favorite. The news was on; the search for the missing girls was continuing, to no avail.
“The local police have been searching the area, but so far no trace of the missing sisters has been reported. One can only wonder where they are and how they are coping with these temperatures,” said the news reporter.
Ruben turned off the television. “Let’s eat, this thing is giving me the creeps.”
He looked outside. The clouds had a permanency about them, felt like doom.
“Did you tell my brother that we should eat together?”
“I did,” Rosa said. “But he said he had something important to do, that he wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.”
“That boy is a lost soul,” said Robinson, chewing his meat with considerable vigor. “Even those pigeons have more direction than him.”
“I thought you were on your Crisis Diet?” said Ruben.
“I gave it up for this special occasion.”
“I suppose it’s better if we don’t say goodbye. We’d just argue,” Ruben said before biting into the tender lamb.
“Maybe,” said Rosa.
“I’ll visit him.”
“Hah! Him? The army? He’ll last about five minutes in there!” Robinson laughed and banged the table.
Ruben was startled by Robinson hitting the table and a look of worry washed over him.
“Maybe we can send him secret messages via the pigeons,” said Robinson, getting lost in that thought for a while.
Rosa wasn’t thinking about Ruben leaving, or about Diogen. She was thinking of the missing sisters. Their family lived in the house next to where Rosa grew up; Rosa played with Anka, the girls’ mother, when they were little. She had met the girls when they were little. Small, toddling twins with bows in their hair for Sunday church service. The parents had dressed them the same, as was the habit with many twin children of the same sex, so one could never know which was which, and although they had worn different colored stud earrings, to discern them, Rosa always forgot who was wearing red, and who green. This is what she was thinking as she chewed. She thought, I’ve been to these Civil Protection exercises, I’ve done all that training. Perhaps I could do something to help. Since hearing about the disappearance, it was all she could think about. Her own daughter seemed so distant these days, Ruben was going away, Diogen was in a world of his own. I can leave food for Mona and Robinson, I won’t be away for long. Rosa felt that she might be needed, felt this urge, a pull toward the twin sisters who were God knows where, and it was so cold and snowy out there. She thought of the many ditches around their village, places where it was possible to fall in, the unreliable marshland, the rocks carved with crevasses. Animals sometimes fell in. Why couldn’t the girls? Perhaps they were on their way somewhere and fell in and now they were stuck and freezing and starving to death. Rosa’s breath grew faster and she forced herself back into the present moment; Ruben’s chin covered with grease, Robinson rolling one of his long many-filtered cigarettes, Mona lost in thought.
Mona had hidden her diary. And Rosa had found no more cigarettes. Perhaps it was all a passing phase. She felt that Mona had no need for her at the moment, that the mysteries she had to discover were hers only. There was no space for mother there. One is always so helpless against the forces of life, Rosa mused, thought of her little boy, whom she thought about every day, thought about the girls, and something somehow was connected there, the death of children the cruelest thing of all, of our own death through them, the death we touch when they leave our bodies, and the heart that, from that moment on, is nevermore one’s own.
When Ruben left in the early morning, his heart heavy from his brother’s absence, Rosa said, “This is something for you to enjoy. Be proud of yourself.”
Ruben got on the train. He was to go to the coastal town that served as the navy’s headquarters, and from there they would start their journey. Ruben felt his bowels move at the thought of meeting the President. He waved at Rosa, who, he suddenly realized, had not seemed sad to see him go, seemed actually as if she was in a hurry for him to leave, and he waved and the train moved and Rosa waved, and turned and left the station. Ruben sat down and took out the National Manifesto; he’d decided to direct his thoughts to something else. Something productive. The first page read: “The Nation can only defend itself against its enemy if it stands united. Like a bunch of twigs, one by one, they can each be broken. Together, they are impossible to destroy.”