Amsterdam 2020 (Amsterdam Series Book 2) (18 page)

She turns angrily to Kaart, as if it is his fault.  “There's no way he can continue like this.  We're going to have to risk the train when we get to Roermond.  At Nijmegen we'll get out.  There should be a shoe store there.  We'll hike again until we get to Zwolle.”

She figures as soon as they get to the station, she'll call Pim to see if he can arrange for a car outside of Zwolle.  She is a little embarrassed at how many favors she asks of him.  He always comes through for her.  She sees no way around it.  In any case, they will have to hike the eighteen miles between Groningen and Delfzijl, gangrenous foot or not.  The roads are heavily patrolled.  They will probably have to hike at night.

“We'll just have to take it slow.”

They trudge through a forest of Scots pine.  Some enterprising farmers, who gave up their land for the Varken Weg, have planted quick-growing commercial trees among the pig graves, intending to harvest them after the war.  Many trees are already twenty feet high, the trunks only a few feet apart. 

Instead of lifting as the sun rises, the fog grows thicker.  Moisture drips from the pine needles.  They can only see a few feet in front of them.  Hours pass, their feet plod forward, their backs begin to ache.  An eerie muted hush falls over the woods.

Instinctively they try to walk softly, six feet between them, Salima now in the lead.  She can barely make out the path, but her feet trudge on, fighting drowsiness.  All she can think of is keeping up the plodding rhythm, one step, then the next, and then the next. 

A mourning dove deep in the woods sounds a loud, a three pulse fog horn.  Another tooting bird close by.  One of the scientists trips over a root and catches himself.

Sensing something, Salima holds up her hand for everyone to stop. 

A startled pheasant breaks from under a beech, with a frightening rattle of wings.  Sounds of bushes shaking, twigs snapping, the crack of a thick branch.  Clumps of mud thudding on the ground. 

Then a low grunt. 

She smells them before she sees them—a dense, musky smell.  Another grunt, and six brindle piglets come trotting toward them, noses in the air, curious and adorable.  Salima stops abruptly, and motions the others to get behind trees. 

“
Ga weg!  Ga weg!”
Kaart hollers, clapping his hands and stomping about.

“Quiet!  What are you doing?” she hisses at him. 

A loud series of low thunderous grunts, like the grinding awake of an old outboard motor.  A head pokes out of a thicket.

Sixty feet away, a huge half ton boar glares at them with tiny red-rimmed eyes, pawing the ground, wagging its black snout, grunting.  Salima slowly backs up, pulling Kaart with her.

The boar charges, as sudden as an explosion, yellow tusks flashing, grunting angrily. 

The hikers leap in opposite directions as it crashes past, so closely Salima feels the hairy brush of its long coat and the warmth of its body.  It spins on its tiny cloven feet with surprising agility and charges back, a blast of muscular fury. 

Salima grabs Kaart's rifle and shoves him out of the way in one gesture, then aims and shoots.  Right between the eyes.  The great boar stumbles with a shattering scream, then topples to the ground, skidding several feet before coming to a stop, flinging clumps of mud and grass.

The piglets scamper into the forest, wheezing and shrieking.  The four listen until the squeals fade away and the forest is silent again.

The whole thing lasts only a minute or so, but it feels like a major assault.  All three men bend over, hands on their knees, trying to catch their breath.  Kaart recovers first.  He walks over to the twitching animal and kicks it.  “Jesus Christ!  What a monster!  He must weigh half a ton!  You just dropped him.  Where the fuck did you learn to shoot like that?  Like a fucking pro.”

“Is everyone all right?”  Salima kneels by the boar, surprised at how hairy it is, almost like a bear.  It was a lucky shot.  She hasn't shot a rifle or gun since she was twelve.  Apparently she still has the instinct.  

But could she do it again?

It starts to rain, a cold wet wind goes through their coats, icy droplets stabbing their exposed faces and hands.

Suddenly Salima feels completely drained, and wants nothing more than to make a nest of pine needles and fall asleep.  Her body shivers.  Hunger twists her empty stomach.  “Let's stop at the next farm,” she suggests, turning to Kaart.  “We'll tell them there is a fresh boar to dress.  They'll be glad for that, and might hide until nightfall.  I'm beat.”

#

The next day, after a short train ride, a hiking boot purchase, and many hours of walking, they make camp at the edge of a ridge.  Here the Varken Weg runs into the Hoge Veluwe National Park in the heart of the country. 

The gnashing rain and bitter cold of the previous day gives way to hazy sunshine.  Everyone is less grumpy.  Salima feels safe enough to relax a bit and allow a fire.

The two scientists wander off to fetch firewood, and Kaart claims he's going to shoot a mouflon.  They had passed a dozen or so of the sheep, and had stopped to admire their great round horns. 

Salima goes to the stream for water.  Chlorinde Dioxide tablets take four hours to work, so setting water to purify is one of the first things she does.  Water for the evening meal, water for tomorrow.  She fills a pot and water bladders, drops in the tablets, and rests, soaking in the sun.  Buttercup and blue columbine flutter by the edge.  Tiny red flowers on long grass-like stems create an inviting blanket.  She leans on her hands, closes her eyes, and tips back her head. 

She has always loved these woods.  It's where her father took her to hunt.

Pieter was an avid hunter, which was unusual for a Dutchman.  At that time, the country overwhelmingly disapproved of hunting.  Every year various groups petitioned the Minister of Land, Nature, and Fishing to prohibit the barbaric practice.  Pieter paid no mind.  He had learned to hunt on his family's estate in Gelderland, before it became a National Park.  Hunting connected his family to their heritage. 

By seven Salima knew how to disassemble a rifle, clean and oil it, and load it.  Dutch law said you had to be eighteen to get a hunting license, but Pieter taught her to shoot at nine, and began taking her on hunting trips. 
At ten she learned to skin and gut a rabbit, pluck a goose, and dress a deer.  A year later, she downed her first stag. 

She was a naturally good shot, and practiced after school shooting rats on Uncle Sander's farm with a .22 caliber rifle.

Hunting season opened on October 15
th
for hare,
pheasant, wood pigeon, and mallard duck.  Often on weekends they went to forested areas near the German border.  Several times a year, they went to Norway to hunt elk with two or three of his buddies.  Often they hunted in the snow, the temperature hovering around zero, the snow crunching beneath their snowshoes. 

She never felt closer to her father than when they hunted.

At night, when they sprawled around the camp fire, a gentle stupor hung over them after a long day of hunting, a rich meal of roasted venison, and strong liquor.  Rafik always brought a guitar and played Turkish ballads.  Salima loved the low rumble of their voices, how they chaffed one another, almost to the point of fighting, then backed off good-naturedly.  She loved the gravity of their middle-aged bodies, how their clothes and beards smelled of wood fire and tobacco.  She loved their percussive hugs, slapping each other on the back.  And when someone stumbled, the roar of laughter.

They seemed funnier and more relaxed than when they were with their wives and girlfriends.  And surprisingly candid.  One man wanted a divorce, but couldn't bear to leave his kids.  Another planned to quit his job as soon as his Internet business took off.  Another couldn't get over the death of his father.  Another talked about his ex-wife until everyone told him to either go fuck her or shut up already.

Happy memories make Salima sleepy and sluggish.  She gazes at the water with fuzzy focus, enjoying the setting sun on her shoulders, the smell of warmed grasses, the sounds of birds. 

She nearly dozes off, when she feels a cold metal barrel press behind her ear.

“Get up whore.”  Slowly she turns, the barrel moving sharply under her chin.  She sees a face dark against the sun. 

There are two of them—deserters, still in their gray uniforms, dirty and torn, without their red turbans.  Both armed with AK-47s and pistols, grinning broadly at their unexpected find.

“Unveiled and dressed like a man.  You wouldn't be one of those Resistance bastards, now would you?”  She doesn't respond.  “A gypsy maybe?”  He leans his cheek against hers, his breath stinking of dead rats.  “What did that last bitch say she was doing?”

“Looking for mushrooms,” prompted the other.

“Before we raped the living piss out of her.  You wanna go first?”

“Nah, go ahead.  I'll keep the rifle on her.”

The first one shoves her to the ground with his foot, and she struggles.  He kneels on her thighs, undoing her belt.  He slaps her across her face, and she cries out.  While he leans back, trying to yank down her pants, she squirms, working her left hand behind her back to her shoulder holster and hunting knife.  He slaps her again.  “Hold still, bitch.  It'll go easier for ya.”

She relaxes as if obeying him, calmed by the familiar feel of a knife handle in her palm.  She squints, focusing through her tearing eyes, planning her next move.  Waiting until the right moment.

His filthy fingers work his zipper with one hand, leaning on her shoulder with the other, then wrenches apart her thighs.  “You like a good fuck, don't ya.  I can tell.”

Hand on his cock, the soldier fumbles between her legs.  She arches her back and throws one arm around his neck, as if overcome.

The other soldier looks away, distracted by cries from men in the distance.  “Joris.  Someone's coming.”

In one swift gesture, she whips out the knife, jabs hard up under his right ribcage, jiggling it back and forth into his liver.  The sharp blade makes a squelching sound.  Joris yelps, squirming to get away, punching her face and shoulders.  She wraps her legs around him, squeezing tight, and pushes the knife deeper.  His body bucks, blood spurting over her.

Confused, the other soldier doesn't risk a shot and kicks at her.  She endures the pain, and holds on until she feels the body weaken, his shoulders going limp.  She pushes the body off, grabs the second soldier's rifle by the barrel, turns it, and shoots him point blank in the head. 

The second soldier collapses on top of her, twitching, the blood of both men soaking her clothes.

In a moment, Kaart runs up to her.  “Lina!  Jesus Christ!”

“Get these creeps off of me,” she hollers with disgust. 

He pulls her out from underneath the corpses.  Both of them tremble with nerves and shock.  “Are you all right?”

With complete lack of modesty, she pulls off her clothes and runs into the stream, kneels in the water, splashing her face and arms.  The cold takes her breath away.  She plunges her clothes in the water, rinses out the blood, and slaps them against a rock to dry.  

“Get the fire started,” Kaart yells to the others as he runs back to camp.  He returns with a blanket, which he wraps around her, leading her to the bank.  She is shivering.  “Lina, I'm sorry.  We shouldn't have left you.”

“It's fine.  I'm fine.”

She collapses by the fire shaking and numb.  Even as her skin warms she shivers; she trembles with anger, but not exactly sure why.  For being vulnerable.  For all the women abused by stinking rotten men.  For her people, passive, polite, and cultured, who, like Kaart, don't even know how to defend themselves.  How did they ever stand a chance?

Silently the others go about making dinner with a rabbit Kaart managed to shoot, adding wild parsnips and onions, and half a bottle of wine, found at the camp of the deserters.  They'd been bandits for awhile and had quite a stash of forbidden goods taken from smugglers, mostly booze.  Kaart hands each of them a fifth of scotch, and plops down beside Salima.

“You had to kill 'em, you know.  You okay?  You didn't have a choice.”

Salima goes oddly mute, responding to Kaart's questions with huffing noises.  The stew and scotch warm her, but everything seems dreamlike, as though nothing were real around her.  She starts giggling, and looks at their worried faces.  “That's what comes from not wearing the veil,” she says, tittering insanely.  Raucous guffaws take hold of her until she has to hold her sides. 

The men look at one another and drink their Scotch. 

A Dangerous Game

In three days they quietly deliver the scientists to a
postbode
in Delfzijl, who will take them the rest of the way to Denmark.  Kaart and Salima make their way back to Amsterdam separately.  She takes the train.  Kaart stays with a friend, who drives him back the next day.

Salima returns home utterly shaken and overwhelmed.  Her skin feels cold, her stomach nauseated, her thoughts oddly detached.  She sees her fingers tremble as she turns on a light switch, and realizes her body is quietly shivering.  Must be delayed symptoms of shock.

Everything looks too sharp, two dimensional, a collage of magazine cutouts.  She almost feels drunk.