With the tip of his finger, the commandant pushed a small photo across the plywood desk toward Ruslan. A pressure lantern hung from a hook above the desk, hissing out a hot white light. The stained photo was a mug shot of a man with one dead white eye.
“Don’t know him,” Ruslan said.
“Your mother’s half brother. Your uncle. A rebel.”
“I don’t know any rebels.”
The commandant leaned back and twirled an unlit cigarette in his fingers. “What good Acehnese boy doesn’t know his own family?” he asked with mocking incredulity.
Ruslan looked up at him. Something swished its tail in his heart. Keep your head, he told himself. Father is okay, he is in Meulaboh, that’s the important thing.
The commandant laughed. “Oh, you’re giving me that look. I know that look. I’ve seen it in lots of rebel eyes. When I’m done with them, they don’t have it anymore.”
Another, larger swish, but what emerged in Ruslan’s heart was not anger, but scorn tinged with pity. Ruslan put a finger on the photo and pushed it over to the commandant’s side of the table. “This is the world before. Now the world is different. This doesn’t matter anymore.”
The commandant stuck the cigarette in his mouth and rose to his feet to press the tip against the hot lantern glass. The tip smoldered and then glowed. He inhaled deeply and sat back down in a billow of smoke. He stared flatly at Ruslan. Ruslan held his gaze.
“You’re just a boy,” the commandant said. “Who are you to be telling me what matters?”
Ruslan didn’t reply.
The commandant exhaled another cloud of smoke and then lunged across the table, smashing Ruslan on the cheek with his clenched fist. The blow sent Ruslan sprawling to the floor, where he lay stunned. He heard, as if from a great distance, the commandant laughing and telling one of his men to take Ruslan away and guard him until morning. The soldier put an arm under his shoulders and yanked him to his feet.
The soldier tied his hands with rope and led him into the night to tether him to a tree, as if he were a goat. “Sorry,” the soldier muttered, and left him there. When the pain of his cheek subsided, Ruslan worked at the rope around his hands, but the knots were too tight. He sat down in the dirt and watched the moon rise into the sky. Sarah would be at the truck by now, waiting for him. He hoped she remembered what he’d told her, to start for the hill when he didn’t show. She had to get Peter proper help as soon as she could. Ruslan was an artist, and an artist bravely sees the truth of things. What Ruslan could see was death’s long arm stealing closer to the boy.
The soldier slipped out of the trees and knelt by him. “You are right,” he whispered to Ruslan. “Some things don’t matter anymore.” He cut Ruslan’s binds with a knife. “Go now, and quickly. The commandant doesn’t sleep well. He might call you back any moment. God be with you, with us all.” The soldier stole back into the trees.
Ruslan ran in a half crouch down the hill, flexing his painful hands. Sarah wasn’t in the parking lot. Good. She’d have started on her way.
He cracked open the driver’s door and edged inside. The keys weren’t in the ignition, and they weren’t in the glove box. He was annoyed at this—who would want to steal a lousy dump truck? Where could anybody take it, anyway? But no matter. He knew how to hot-wire, one of the benefits of having a mechanic for a father. He felt underneath the dashboard and pulled out the ignition wires. It was impossible to tell the colors in this light. He picked two and stripped them with his teeth.
From up the hill came the commandant’s harsh and penetrating voice. “Go find him, now. Don’t come back without him.”
The wires didn’t work. He picked another one. Through the windshield he could see a dozen men starting to search the hill, working their way down.
Finally, on his third try, the engine turned over. He jammed the gears into reverse and backed out of the lot faster than a devil out of a mosque. On the hill, soldiers shouted and began running. He shoved the gear into first. A shadow jumped through the open passenger window, and in his alarm Ruslan nearly banged his head on the cab’s roof. But it was only Peter’s spooky orange cat. “Can you make us vanish from sight?” he muttered. A gun fired, the bullet clanging into the metal bed of the truck. Ruslan stepped on the accelerator, thrusting through the gears. “Come on, come on, come on,” he urged. The truck leisurely picked up speed, tires kicking up a cloud of moonlit dust.
He had no idea where Sarah and Peter were, but surely they were using the road, which was the only cleared path toward the hill. After a minute he switched on the headlights, the better to spot them. He caught a flash of something ducking behind a mound of dirt and braked hard to a stop, the cloud of dust filling up the cab. He called out, “Sarah, Sarah, it’s me, quick, get in, get in.”
She emerged from the side of the road, Peter in her arms, and ran to the truck, coughing at the dust. Ruslan flung open the passenger-side door and grabbed Peter from her. Sarah hadn’t even closed the door when he stomped on the accelerator.
“Hey, it’s Surf Cat,” Peter said. “Catch any owls?”
In the side view mirrors, Ruslan could see through the dust the headlights of motor scooters slowly growing brighter as they gave chase. He cursed himself for not having spiked their tires. A burst of gunfire chattered over the engine’s roar. He pushed Peter’s head down onto Sarah’s lap.
The graveyard flashed by, the excavator looking like a sleeping beast. The truck came to the end of the cleared road and barreled over clumps of swamp grass that the tsunami had scattered on the asphalt. The road dipped into a greasy swamp, oily swirls reflecting in the truck’s headlights. Ruslan shoved the brake pedal to the floor. The truck shuddered and squealed to a stop. A hundred yards beyond, Ruslan could see the road rise up again out of the swamp and continue on. He had no idea how deep the swamp was.
Over the idling engine, he could hear the whine of the motor scooters growing louder. In the side view mirrors the beam of their headlights grew brighter and brighter.