After (2 page)

“Third. I’m in charge. Any order I give must be obeyed without question. Most of my men knew me a long time before all this happened, and have learned to trust me and my decisions. It’s harder for you civilians, who don’t understand military authority and haven’t known me as long. But the rule applies to you just as it does to the men.

Anyone who disobeys an order goes into solitary for a week, and has their rations cut.

The second time someone disobeys an order, they’re turned out. To the outside. Do you understand these rules?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He smiles, his military stiffness slipping away. “Well. Please, just make yourself comfortable. The bathroom is right through there. You can have a shower.

Actually, if you don’t mind my saying so, I’d prefer that you did, before you use my bed.”

His smile is amiable. She is filthy.

“There’s a robe on the back of the door you can use. Just put your clothes outside in the hallway, and I’ll have someone collect them and launder them for you. You can have a nice long nap. Help yourself if you see anything you’d like to read. I must get back to work. Is there anything you need? Fine, I’ll send someone round in an hour to collect your laundry.”

“Major,” Eva blurts as he's about to leave. He halts, gives her his steady attention. “You said before, nineteen, counting me.”

“Yes.”

“And,” she keeps her hands still, keeps her head erect, her gaze steady, but her voice chokes and warbles, “how many are women?”

“Only you, Eva,” he answers, his voice solemn.

He leaves, locking the door behind him. Her rigidity seems to soften slightly. She goes into the bathroom, and locks that door. There is a beige flannel robe on a hook.

When she catches sight of herself in the mirror she goes still. Stares with curious awe similar to how the men had looked at her as John marched her through the compound.

She goes on staring, astonished, as she gets her clothes off, and after. Runs thin fingers over protruding collar bones, the corrugations of her ribs, her hollow belly.

She showers, taking a long time just to shampoo, rinse, and shampoo her hair again, working her fingers into the tangle of thick black curls, scrubbing her itchy scalp.

The hot water is pounding her back, and she sways for long minutes, moving the jets back and forth over her skin before taking her time with the soap, massaging and rinsing and doing it all over again and again.

Turning the water off she towels dry and pulls the robe down from the hook. She smells it. Then she presses her whole face into it and draws in a long breath. Then she puts it on, stroking her arms through the soft flannel, enveloped in it. She finds a comb and, after examining the red welt over her cheekbone ringed in blues and yellows where the soldier hit her, begins the painful struggle of unknotting her hair. Half an hour later she has won, and she goes to the eagle's bed, collapses upon it, and falls asleep, not even getting under the covers.

Hours later, as evening falls, the eagle knocks softly at the door. She is awake, having slept all afternoon. As he unlocks the door and enters, she quickly backs away from him. He sits down in an armchair and motions for her to sit down opposite him on the bed.

“Feeling rested?”

“Yes.” she replies warily. Then, “Thank you.”

With visible effort she manages a kind of smile. The eagle is looking at her intently. She looks away.

“Forgive me staring. It's just...Eva, may I ask how old you are?”

“Sixteen,” she answers after hesitating a moment.

“So young,” the eagle comments, almost wistfully. Then a faint, mirthless laugh. “I didn't see it before, under all that dirt.”

He looks like he's thinking something over. Then he returns. Becomes present.

“I know you've been through a terrible ordeal, out there. And today. And there will be times when it's very hard for you, here. But I promise you, I am looking out for you.”

Eva produces another smile and says, “Thank you.”

The eagle rises and turns his back to her, saying, “You're underage. But that hardly seems to matter, under the circumstances.” He opens a cabinet at the base of the built-in shelves housing his small library, and brings out a bottle and two glasses.

“You've survived all on your own for the last eighteen months. It doesn't seem you should be treated like a child.”

“No.” There's a cynical edge to her voice.

She rises as he uncorks the bottle and fills the glasses. The eagle turns and hands her one.

“Cheers, Eva. To you,” he says, and they clink glasses.

Eva takes a tentative sip. Then another. And another. The eagle takes in her eager drinking, but doesn't make a comment. She notices him watching her, and she meets his gaze. And a few seconds later her eyes fill up with tears.

“Eva?”

“I'm sorry,” she says, smiling, but when she blinks the tears escape down her cheeks. “It's just, I've been by myself for so long. I didn't know if I'd ever see anyone again. And now I'm here, washed and rested. Drinking wine.” And then she adds, “With you.”

And then she presses herself against him and wraps an arm—the one not holding the wine—around him. The eagle is taken aback, but after a few seconds he sets his glass down and puts his arms around her, tentatively, at first, then pulls her close against him. He strokes her hair for a moment. Then he gently sets her away from him. She seems confused. Almost unsettled. But she gives him a smile, then begins diligently sipping from her glass again.

But then she sets it down, only half empty. Smith looks from the glass to her, dismayed. But he says nothing. He takes two steps toward her. She stiffens, but doesn't back away. And then a few seconds later she touches the palm of her hand to his chest.

She's swaying a little where she stands. Her pupils are huge.

“Eva,” he says in a low, gentle voice, “would you do something for me?”

Smith picks up the bag he'd left by the door, and brings forth some beige cloth.

When he rotates his wrist the piece of cloth unfurls toward the floor and becomes a delicate, translucent nightgown.

“Would you put this on for me?”

Watching her face, he looks surprised when, after just a brief hesitation, she nods and comes to take the garment. She teeters into the bathroom and swings the door closed. Just seconds later she comes back out.

“Does it look all right?” she asks in a quiet voice either full or void of artifice.

“You look lovely.”

His words are incongruous with the sad tone of his delivery. Her look of apprehension escalates to restrained alarm.

“Here,” he proffers her abandoned wine glass.

Her hand is shaking as she takes three big swallows, like it's water or medicine.

Smith finishes off the contents of his own glass, then watches as she does the same.

“Good girl.” He takes her empty glass from her slack grip and sets it on a shelf.

“Now, come and lie down,” he says, coaxing her down onto the bed. Her breathing has quickened and her eyes are glued to him as he leans down to help her get settled. “Try and rest a little more. I've got a bit more work to do yet. I'll see you soon.”

Her eyes go wide and her hand clamps onto his wrist. She's starting to cry a little.

“Please, stay here. Stay with me.” Her voice is shrill. Panicky.

“Shhhh. Try to rest,” he whispers, gently prying her fingers from around his wrist.

“Wait!”

Smith's hand slips from the doorknob. He turns. Faces her. She is sitting up, swaying slightly like a rooted water plant in a gentle current.

“Please.” She gestures for him to come back to her. After a long hesitation Smith moves closer, sits on the edge of the bed. Her eyes lock on his, anchor her swaying body there. Slowly but perceptibly, Smith hardens.

“Don't do it,” she says, plainly trying not to cry but failing, obviously trying to be hard, but shaking. “You don't have to. And it's not right.”

“Don't do what, Eva?” His voice is low. It has a choked sound it hasn't had before.

She reaches for his hand. She's off by a little, like she's having trouble focusing.

But then she finds his hand with hers.

“Please,” she says, her voice tear-choked, her mouth straining to smile. “You stay. I won't fight you. I'll try. I don't know how, but I'll try to be good.”

“Eva. What do you think is going to happen?”

“You drugged me.”

“Yes.”

“You drugged me. You dressed me in this thing. And you're leaving.” Smith is still and silent. “You're—“ Her angry accusation withers. Fades to a terrified prophesy.

“You're giving me to them.”

She is breaking apart.

“Ssshhh, Eva.”

Smith pulls her to him, puts his arms around her, rocks her slowly, back and forth, like a frightened child.

“Nothing so awful. I promise,” he soothes. “Listen to me, Eva.” He sets her a little away from him, his eagle's gaze trying to pierce the fog of her buzz. “For two years now, every effort of mine, every thought, has been for the men. Keeping them alive. Keeping them safe. Keeping them from going crazy with fear. Trying to give them hope. That we're not the only ones left. That we're not going to grow old and die, trapped here, never even knowing if anyone else is alive out there. And I will still do that. Look after the men. But Eva, now that you're here, nothing, nothing is more important than keeping you safe. I am not going to throw you to the men like a scrap of meat for them to fight over.”

In her eyes, there's a change. Like an explosion resolving to billowing smoke, silent and slow.

“What's happening, then?” She seems to be teetering at the edge, clinging to hope, struggling not to drop into the abyss of her terror.

“Eva.”

She doesn't speak or move, really. There's just a faint change, like she's braced herself. He tells her, in a voice almost as soft as a whisper. Maybe he thinks it will scare her less, hurt her less, if he says it quietly.

Not saying anything, Eva just shakes her head, slowly, for a long time. Her look of horror, her tears, the no, no, no turning of her head back and forth doesn't stop him.

When he is done, for a minute Eva is mute, just shaking and crying but trying to hold herself together, erect.

“Smith. Smith, please. “ She is trying to be calm. Rational. To carve the terror and anger from her voice. “There's another way. There is. We just have to think.”

“I've had two years to think this through, knowing there was a chance someone, you, might turn up here one day. I've had months and months of seeing what the men are becoming to realize what sort of crisis we're facing.”

“You keep saying...what are the men becoming?”

* * * *

The hall guard tells Smith John is waiting for him in his office, then listens to the low murmur of Smith's voice, and the raised, angry voice of his visitor. The low and raised voices parry for a number of minutes, then the door opens. Smith emerges, calmly issues an order, then walks off toward the mess hall.

Twenty minutes later the company is convened—eleven men, not lined up in rows on the benches at the tables, but sitting in a broken, irregular circle on benches ringing the room. Eva's attackers are present, sitting apart, wrists bound in plastic handcuffs. One—Riggs, the leader—has a big bandage on his head.

One bench in the circle is empty and Smith repeatedly looks up from the papers on the table in front of him to eye that empty space. Some minutes later John enters the room and takes the empty seat, and the line at the edge of Smith's mouth smooths.

Another minute later the final two soldiers enter, with Eva between them. She's wearing the nightgown and shaking visibly, and except for Smith's, all eyes in the room lock onto her. There are no shouts or whistles or laughter.

Her eyes drift over face after face, all so young, so hard. Complexions of boys, eyes of weary men. Hungry men. They look as though they are devouring her life with their stares.

“Jake.”

Jake steps before the eagle. The major hands him a large ceramic jar. Jake takes the jar and stands before the first man in the circle. The man drops something metal into the jar. Jake moves around the circle, every man dropping something into the jar when he stops before them. John looks at her as he opens his fist over the jar and his token plinks down among the others. When Jake stands before the man with the bandage, the eagle speaks.

“Not him, Jake. Riggs and his men have forfeited their participation.”

The man grabs the lip of the jar with both cuffed hands and opens his mouth to protest. But he does not speak, and after a moment he releases his hold, letting Jake move on around the circle. When all the tokens have been collected, he returns to the eagle, proffering the jar. The major puts in no token, but takes the jar from the man's hands. He shakes it hard a few times, stirring the metal tabs around inside.

“Aaron Velden!” The major’s voice rings out like a sentence. Irrefutable. “That’s John’s tag.”

A din rises as the men begin talking and shouting angrily, not daring to challenge the eagle, but bickering and complaining to the air.

John—jaw clenched, chest heaving—locks eyes with Smith. They are gripped in a contest of wills while the rest of the room erupts in a frenetic swarm. The men are bickering and joking nervously as they rearrange tables and chairs and jostle the three handcuffed men into the center of a knot of soldiers. Eyes still locked on Smith, John stands, and the other seems to be daring him, with a look, to defy his will.

Eva, clutched firmly between the two soldiers who walked her in, is trying to focus, now on Smith, now on John, now on Smith again. John turns and strides toward Eva or toward the exit, and for just a moment there's a crack in Smith's calm. His expression settles back into willed serenity, though, as John, his face gray and damp, his eyes red and wild, takes hold of Eva's arm and pulls her from between the two soldiers.

“No!” she screams, trying to jerk her arm free of John's grip, trying to make eye contact with Smith.

“No!” she screams again, swinging her fist at John's face, thrashing against his grip as she tries to kick him, to knee him, to wrench herself free. Somehow she slips out of his grip, slips past the soldiers, and flings herself against Smith, who rises and catches her in a tight embrace. The soldiers that delivered her to John leap at her, trying to pry her from Smith.