I Live With You (8 page)

The minute I think this, I think Una. This is her town. My men look happy, too. This is not only easier, but lots more fun than herding a new crop of boys.

Last time I came down at copulation time I found her—or she found me, she usually does. She’s a little old for copulation day, but I didn’t want anybody but her. After copulation, I did things for her, repaired a roof leak, fixed a broken table leg…. Then I took her over again, though it wasn’t needed, and caused my squad to have to wait for me. Got me a lot of lewd remarks, but I felt extraordinarily happy anyway.

Sometimes on boys night I wonder, what if I stole Una along with boys? What if I dressed her as a boy and brought her to some secret hiding place on our side of the mountain? There are lots of unused caves. Once our armies occupied them all, but that was long ago. Both us and our enemies seem to be dwindling. Every year there are fewer and fewer suitable boys.

Una always seems glad to see me even though I’m ugly and small. (My size is a disadvantage for a soldier, though less so now that I have rank, but the ugliness… that’s how I can tell which are my sons… small, ugly boys, both of them. Too bad for them. But I’ve managed well even so, all the way up to colonel.)

Una was my first. I was her first, too. I felt sorry for her, having to have me for her beginning to be a woman. We were little more than children. We hardly knew what we were doing or how to do it. Afterwards she cried. I felt like crying myself but I had learned not to. Not just learned it with the squad, but I had learned it even before they took me from my mother. I wanted to be taken. I roamed far out into the scrub, waiting for them to come and get me.

The pain in my hip started when I was one of those boys. It wasn’t from a wound in a skirmish with the enemy, but from a fight among ourselves. Our leaders were happy when we fought each other. We’d have gotten soft and lazy if we didn’t. I keep my mouth shut about my injury. I kept my mouth shut even when I got it. I thought if they knew I could be so easily hurt they’d send me back. Later, I thought if they knew about it, I might not be allowed to come on our raids. Later still I thought I might not be able to be a colonel. I don’t let myself limp though sometimes that makes me more breathless than I should be. So far it doesn’t seem as if anybody’s noticed.

We regroup. I say, “Fellow nipples and fellow pillows….” Everybody laughs. “When have they ever stopped men? Look how womanish the walls are. They’ll crumble as we climb.” I scrape at a part with the tip of my cane. (As a colonel, I’m allowed to have a cane if I wish instead of a swagger stick.)

We’re not sure if the women want to stop copulation day or boy gathering day. We hope it’s the latter.

Boost up the smallest boy with a rope on hooks. The rest of us follow.

I used to be that smallest boy. I always went first and highest. Times like this I was glad for my size. I got medals for that. I don’t wear any of them. I like playing at being one of the boys. Being small and being a colonel is a good example for some. If they knew about my bum leg I’d be an even better example of how far you can get with disabilities.

We scale the walls and drop into the edges of a vegetable garden. We walk carefully around tomatoes and strawberry plants, squash and beans. After that, raspberry bushes tear at our pants and untie our high-tops as we go by. There’s a row of barbed wire just beyond the raspberries. Easy to push down.

I feel sad that the women want to keep us out so badly. I wonder, does Una want me not to come? Except they know we’re as determined as mothers. At least I am when it comes to Una.

Una has always been nice to me. I often wonder why she likes me. I can understand somebody liking me now that I’m a colonel with silver on my epaulets, and a silver handled cane, but she liked me when I was nothing but a runty boy. She’s small, too. I always think Una and I fit together except for one thing, she’s beautiful.

We swarm in, turn, each to our favorite place, the younger ones to what’s left over, usually other young ones. But then here we are, swarming back again, into their central square, the place with the well, and stone benches, and their one and only tree. Around the tree are the graves of babies. The benches are the mourning benches. We sit on them or on the ground. There’s nobody here, not a single woman nor girl nor baby.

Then there’s the sound of shooting. We move from the central square—we can’t see anything from there. We hide

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behind the houses at the edges of the gardens. Our enemy stands along the top of the wall. We’re ambushed. We flop down. We have no rifles with us and only two pistols, mine and my lieutenant’s. This wasn’t supposed to be a skirmish. We have our daggers, of course.

Those along the wall don’t seem to be very good shots. I raised my pistol. I’m thinking to show them what a good shot really is. But my lieutenant yells, “Stop! Don’t shoot. It’s mothers!”

Women all along the wall! And with guns. Hiding under wall-colored shields. Whoever heard of such a thing.

They shoot, but a lot are missing, I think on purpose. After all, we may be the enemy, but we’re the fathers of many of their girls and many of them. I wonder which one is Una.

The women are angrier than we thought. Perhaps they’re tired of losing their boys to us and to the other side. I wouldn’t put it past them not to be on any side whatsoever.

Our boys begin to yell their war cry but in a half hearted way. But then … one shot… a real shot this time. Good shot, too. One wonders how a woman could have done it. One wonders if it was a man who taught her. The boys are stunned. To think that one of their mothers or one of their sisters would shoot to kill. This is real. We hadn’t thought they’d harm us any more than we ever really harm them.

It was my lieutenant they killed. One bloodless shot to the head. For that boy’s sake I’m glad at least no pain. He was wearing his ceremonial hat. I wasn’t wearing mine. I never liked that fancy heavy hat. I suppose they really wanted to kill me, but had to take second best since they couldn’t tell which one I was. Una would know which one was me.

The boys scatter—back to the center square with its mourning tree. The women can’t see them back there. I stay to check on the dead lieutenant and to get his dagger and pistol. Then I limp back to where the boys are waiting for me to tell them what to do. Limp. I relax into it. I don’t care who sees. I haven’t exactly given up, though perhaps I have when it comes to my future. I’ll most likely be demoted. To be captured by women…. All twenty of us. If I can’t get out of this in an efficient and capable way, there goes my career.

I hope they have the sense to come rescue us with a large group. They’ll have to make a serious effort. I hope they don’t try to fight and at the same time try to save the women for future use.

But then we hear shooting again and we look out from behind the huts near the wall and see the women have turned their guns outwards. At first we think it’s us, come to rescue us, but it’s not. That’s not our battle cry, not our drum beats…. We can’t see from behind the walls so some of us go up on the roofs. There’s no danger, all the rifles are facing outwards, but our boys would have braved the roof without a word, as they always do.

It’s not our red and blue banners. It’s their ugly green and white. It’s the enemy come to take advantage of our capture. We wish the women would get out of the way and let us go so we could fight for ourselves. Those women are breaking every rule of battle. They’re lying flat along their wall. Nobody can get a fair shot at them.

It goes on and on. We get tired of watching and retreat to the square. We reconnoiter food from the kitchens. We eat better than we usually do. The food is so good we wish the women would let up a bit so we can enjoy it without that racket. Where did they get all these weapons? They must have found our ammunition caves and those of our enemy, too.

The women do a pretty good job. By nightfall our enemy has fled back into their mountains and the women are still on top of their wall. It looks as if they’re going to spend the night up there. It’s a wide wall. Not as badly built as I told the boys it was.

We find beds for ourselves, all of them better than our usual sleeping pads. I go to Una’s hut and lie where I had

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hoped to have a copulation.

Cats prowl and yowl. All sorts of things live with the women. Goats wander the streets and come in any house they want to. All the animals expect food everywhere. Like the women, our boys are soft hearted. They feed every creature that comes by. I don’t let on that I do too.

This whole thing makes me sad. Worried. If I could just have Una in my arms, I might be able to sleep. I have a “day dream” of her creeping in to me in the middle of the night. I wouldn’t even care if we had a copulation or not.

In the morning boys climb to the roofs again to see what’s up. They describe women lying under shields all along the walls and they can see some of the enemy lying dead away from the walls. I need to climb up and see for myself. Besides it’s good for the boys to see me taking the same chances they do.

I send the boys off and I take their place. I look down on the women along the wall. I see several rifles pointed at me. I stand like a hero. I dare them to shoot. I take all the time I want. I see wall sections less crowded with women. I take out my notebook (no leader is ever without one) and draw a diagram. I take my time until I have the whole wall mapped out.

I could take out my pistol and threaten them. I could shoot one but it wouldn’t be very manly to take advantage of my high point. Were they men I’d do it. But then they do the unmanly thing. They shoot me. My leg. My good leg. I go down, flat on the roof. At first I feel nothing but the shock… as if I’d been hit with a hammer. All I know is I can’t stand up. Then I see blood.

Though they’re on the wall, they’re lower. They can’t see me as long as I keep down. I crawl to the edge where boys help me. They carry me back to Una’s bed. I feel I’m about to pass out or throw up and I become aware that I’ve soiled myself. I don’t want the boys to see. I’ve always been a source of strength and inspiration in spite of or because of my size.

One of those boys is Hob, come to help me, my arm across his shoulders. I lean in pain but keep my groans to myself.

“Sir? Colonel?”

“I’m fine. Will be. Go.”

I wish I could ask him if he really is my son. They say sometimes the women know and tell the boys.

“Don’t you want us to …”

“No. Go. Now. And shut the door.”

They leave just in time. I throw up over the side of the bed. I lie back—Una’s pillow all sweated up not to mention what I’ve done to her quilt.

Una can make potions for pain. I wish I knew which, of the herbs hanging from her ceiling, might help me. But I’d not be able to reach them anyway.

I lie, half conscious, for I don’t know how long. Every time I sit up to examine my leg, I feel nausea again and have to lie back. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to lead a charge or a raid for boys or a copulation day. And I always thought, when I became a general (and lately I felt sure I’d be one) maybe I’d find out what we’re fighting for—beyond, that is, the usual rhetoric we use to make ourselves feel superior. Now I suppose I’ll never know the real reasons.

The boys knock. I rouse myself and say, “Come.” Try, that is. At first my voice won’t sound out at all and then it sounds more like a groan than a word. The boys tell me the women have called down from the wall. They want to send in a spokesman. The boys want to let him in and then hold him hostage so that we’ll all be let out safely.

I tell them the women will probably send in a woman.

That bothers the boys. They must have had torture or killing in mind but now they look worried.

“Tell them yes,” I say.

It must smell terrible in here. I even smell terrible to myself, and it’s uncomfortable sitting in my own mess. I prop myself up as best I can. I hope I can keep to my senses. I hope I don’t throw up in the middle of it. I put my dagger, unsheathed, under the pillow.

At first I think the boys were right, it’s a man, of course a man. Where would they have found him, and is he from our side or theirs? That’s important. I can’t tell by the colors. He’s all in tan and gray. He’s not wearing any stripes at all so I can’t tell his rank. He stands, at ease. More than at ease, utterly relaxed, and in front of a colonel.

But then … I can’t believe it, it’s Una. I should have known. Dressed as a man down to the boots. I have such a sense of relief and after that joy. Everything will be all right now.

I tell the boys to get out and shut the door.

I reach for her, but the look on her face stops me.

“You shot me in the leg on purpose, didn’t you! My good leg!”

“I meant to shoot the bad one.”

She opens all the windows, and the door again, too, and shoos the boys away.

“Let me see.”

She’s gentle. As I knew she’d be.

“I’ll get the bullet out, but first I’ll clean you up.” She hands me leaves to chew for pain.

As she leans, so close above me, her hair falls out of her cap and brushes my face, gets in my mouth as it does when we have copulation day. I reach to touch her breast but she pushes me away.

I should kill her for the glory of it… the leader of the women. I’d not be thought a failure then. I’d be made a general in no time.

But, as she pulls away the soiled quilts, she finds my dagger first thing. She puts it in the drawer with her kitchen knives.

I think again how… (and we all know, only too well) how love is a dangerous thing and can spoil the best of plans. Even as I think it, I want to spoil the very plans I think of. I mean if she’s the leader then I could deal with her right now, as she leans over me—even without my dagger. They may be good shots, but can they wrestle a man? Even a wounded one?

“I chose you because I thought, of all of them, you might listen.”

“You know I won’t ever be let come down to copulation day again.”

“Don’t go back then. Stay here and copulate.”

“I have often thought to bring you up to the mountain dressed as a man. I have a place all picked out.”