Twilight (13 page)

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Authors: Brendan DuBois

BOOK: Twilight
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“What's going on?” I asked, and Miriam said, “Oh. To the left.”
I slowed down and stopped, and we all got out. Charlie stood there, weapon at the ready, and he said, “By the side of the car. Now.”
The other Land Cruisers stopped. Our little group assembled behind Charlie and I saw what he had noticed. The brush and grass on the left side of the road had been disturbed and there were fresh tire tracks. I sniffed the air and said, “I smell smoke.”
“So do I,” Miriam said.
Jean-Paul came up and said, “Charlie?”
“I think we might find something, if you give me a minute,” he said.
“All right,” Jean-Paul said.
Of course, Charlie wanted all of us to stay behind but none of us were listening to him. We straggled after him, our pathetic little parade following
our armed Grand Marshal, and then Miriam grabbed my hand again as we all spotted the rear end of a white van. An attempt had been made to burn it but whatever fire there had been had since died out. But the van was still smoldering, the windows were shattered, and the side door was open. The stench of burned plastic and scorched metal was stronger now. Charlie motioned us back with his free hand, but we kept walking forward. Bullet holes had perforated the side and front of the van. I circled around and saw a shape in the front seat, slumped over. Charlie went over to check and then Sanjay was there, saying, “Is he wounded? Is there something we can do?”
Charlie shook his head. “Don't think medical science knows how to fix blown-off heads, now, does it?”
I stepped closer, recognizing the shape and clothing of Mick, the cameraman, and nothing else. He was slumped over the steering wheel, his arms dangling down, and something in my stomach did a queasy flip-flop as I noticed the pulped mass of bone and brain and blood and hair that had once been his head. Just a few hours ago, this combination of muscle and tissue and ligament had been breathing and living, talking to me about being a cameraman in the service of journalism. Now it was all dead flesh, growing colder and colder with every passing minute.
Peter finally spoke, saying, “Anybody see the producer woman? Alice?”
“No,” I said. “Not yet. Maybe she went straight, like you thought.”
If Peter heard me, he didn't say anything. He started going through the brush and bramble, and then Karen yelled out, “Over here! Over here!”
We ran up the side of a small hill, to a place where the grass hadn't grown up as much. The woman called Alice was lying there, eyes staring up blankly, legs spread wide open. Her arms had been staked to the ground. Her slacks were gone and a pair of white cotton panties was tangled around one ankle. Her blouse had been torn and it looked like someone—or several someones—had worked on her torso with knives. The area around her had been trampled and disturbed, and there were empty bottles of Budweiser beer scattered about.
“The bastards,” Karen whispered. “The filthy, murdering bastards.”
Sanjay whispered back, “What about the cease-fire agreement? What about the truce?”
“Guess somebody didn't get the word,” I said.
Jean-Paul slowly walked up to join us. He was carrying several satchels and dropped them on the ground. “Charlie?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Is this place relatively secure?”
Charlie looked up at him as though Jean-Paul had just announced that he intended to flap his wings and fly to the moon. “That's a hell of a word,
‘relatively',” he said. “You want my advice, we all get back in our wheels and head back to the highway. This place is going to the shits pretty quick, and I can't defend a crew like you by myself.”
“True,” Jean-Paul said, kneeling down on the dirt and unzipping the bags. “But we have work to do, right here. And we cannot leave. Peter? Miriam? Karen? Samuel?”
I looked at the group. Peter was stolid, not showing any emotion, but the others looked like the poor producer woman had, a few hours ago. Terrified and wanting to go someplace safe, someplace away from this madness. I took a breath, walked over to my own bag. I took out my Sony and said, “I'm ready to go to work.”
Miriam joined me. “So am I.”
Karen said, “Oh, fuck. I guess I am, too.”
 
 
HOURS LATER, AS
we were cleaning up, I stood next to Miriam and said, “I have a proposition for you.”
“That sounds interesting,” she said, wiping her hands dry with a dirty towel.
“Would you care to share my tent tonight?” I asked.
She smiled and nudged me with her elbow. “Do you have something naughty planned?”
I coughed and took the soiled towel from her. “I wish I could say that. But I don't want to be with Sanjay tonight and have him play musical tents again, and Peter is about ready to strangle me, and the other two … Well, Miriam, you went right to the top of the list.”
I winced as I dried off my own hands. The fingers and palms were blistered from having dug three shallow graves for the Australian television crew. Karen and Sanjay and Peter and Miriam had gotten tissue samples, swabs and even some latent fingerprints from the burned-out and shot-up van. I had done my own work with camera and computer, but I'd had no success when I'd tried later to upload the information. Either the satellite uplink was malfunctioning or maybe the jamming from the militias was active again. Working with the camera this time, I was grateful for having the viewfinder between my eyes and what was on the ground before me. The burned-out van, the shattered body of Mick and the brutalized and violated body of Alice seemed only to exist in the space beyond the camera, and I found that comforting.
Now we were parked under an oak tree, a number of klicks away from the shooting site. We were drawn up in the by now familiar triangular formation. After maneuvering our way into some woods, Charlie had gone
out with us and directed us to drag branches and pieces of brush around to hide the fact that we had gone in among the trees. We had a cold dinner of cheese, bread and water, and a cold wash-up, and by then I was exhausted.
Miriam nudged me again. “All right. That's a deal, then. I'll share your tent tonight.”
“Thanks.”
Miriam smiled. “My pleasure.”
I wanted to believe her.
 
 
JEAN-PAUL GATHERED US
together and said, “I … I am tired, as are all of you. We will be here tonight, and tomorrow we make our way back to the highway. I … I …”
I stood there, hands in my coat pocket, shivering, wishing we could have built a fire. But there would be no fire tonight, not even something hot to heat up water. We were standing in a loose semicircle, Sanjay holding a cupped flashlight, throwing off just a little illumination. Then my throat tightened as I saw that Jean-Paul's eyes were filling with tears. I felt bad for a moment, about all the times I had thought poorly of him. Poor guy was just overwhelmed. He coughed into his hand, rocked back and forth on his heels for a moment, and then went on. “I … I am very proud of you, all of you. Get a good night's sleep.”
We went back to the tents, one beside each Land Cruiser. Sanjay was heading toward the closest one. “Not so fast,” I said.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“What I mean is that I've already made other arrangements,” I said. “My tent-mate tonight is Miriam.”
“Oh … really?”
“Yep.”
“Then where am I to sleep?”
I was very tired and wanted to end this quickly. “Shit, Sanjay, sleep on a rock for all I care. Go crawl in with Karen.”
He shook his head. “That may not be possible. We had a fight earlier.”
“Well, there might be some people in New Delhi who'd be happy with that—wouldn't they?”
Sanjay muttered something and stalked off. I wish I could say I felt bad about it, but sometimes wishes just don't come true. All in all, I felt pretty good, considering.
M
iriam climbed into the tent soon after I got settled in. I aided her with my own small flashlight, cupping the beam with my hand to keep the glow down. Her blonde hair was loose and her cotton nightgown was dark green, and when she was in I shut the light off.
“Samuel?”
“Still here,” I said.
I felt her body shaking beside me. “It's damn cold.”
“It sure is.”
“Can we do something about it?”
In the darkness I smiled. “To quote someone you know quite well, do you plan something naughty?”
“Not at this moment,” she said.
So we went back and forth for a bit, and unzipped our bags and tossed them together, and Miriam cuddled up against me, putting her head on my chest. Her fine hair tickled my nose and I inhaled the scent, feeling a knot of tension at the base of my skull start to loosen up. I thought about other women, mostly college women I had known, from York University or the University of Toronto. And Pamela, a copy editor at the features desk back at the
Star
. Right now they all blended together in one flash of memory. Lots of laughs, lots of giggles, cell phone numbers exchanged and quick
couplings in a rented flat somewhere. Nothing like now. Nothing like Miriam. Nothing at all.
“It gets quite cold back home,” she said.
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“I love skating, especially on the canals,” she said. “It's flat and beautiful, and you can skate for hours and hours. There are warming shacks and little restaurants where you can get hot cocoa or spiced wine to drink … Oh, I do miss that … You must skate, am I right?”
“What makes you think that?”
Miriam laughed. “You're Canadian. I thought all Canadians skated.”
I gently squeezed her shoulder. “Well, you got me. You're right. I
do
skate, though it's been a while. But no canal skating. Just frozen ponds and lakes.”
“Did you play ice hockey?”
“Didn't have the coordination,” I said. “I can skate a fair piece, but trying to skate while holding a stick, chasing a puck, when other people on skates are getting in your way … nope, I just loved skating. Being out there, gliding, enjoying the breeze in my face.”
“Me, too,” she said, and we lay there for a while, just breathing. I felt her move and then her chin was resting on my chest. “Samuel …”
“Mmm?”
“You did something brave today.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. I … I think we were all waiting for someone to say something, something about leaving, but you followed Jean-Paul. You said we should stay and do our job. You were the first one to say that. And I found that very brave.”
I didn't know what to say. I touched her hair with my free hand and then moved down to the smoothness of her cheek. She gave a slight intake of breath as my hand reached her lips and my forefinger gently stroked the skin beneath her nose. Her mouth opened slightly. I felt the touch of her tongue and I leaned up and kissed her. It was a miracle, moving in the darkness like that, but our lips met, gently for a moment or two, and then, with a sudden intensity that I think surprised us both, we gasped and embraced, our arms and legs entwined.
“Oh, please …” she said.
“Miriam. Whatever you want. Whatever.”
She kissed me again. “Stop talking. Please.”
“Yes.”
Miriam pressed harder against me, now lying on top of me, supporting herself on her elbows, breathing more harshly, her hair falling about me.
I held her head with one hand and with the other moved up her side, cupping a breast, feeling the nipple stiffen. I gently pinched and rubbed, and then started unbuttoning her nightgown. In turn, she tugged down my pajama bottoms, freeing me, and I gasped as her hand held me tight. There was more confused tumbling around as she eased off her panties and then she said, “Samuel, Samuel,” and slid down upon me. I gasped at the sensation, feeling the cold staleness of the tent air and the sleeping bags around me, and how it contrasted with the sweet, wet and hot delight of Miriam's inner warmth. She rocked back and forth, moaning and whispering to me, and I whispered back, holding her tight as both of us forgot everything that was going on, save for within those few safe feet inside the tent.
“Miriam …”
“Shhh,” she said. “Just don't stop. Please.”
“Of course.”
 
 
LATER SHE WAS
cuddled up with me again, idly scratching my neck and chin. Her bare breasts were pressed pleasantly against my chest, and she said, “That was a delight.”
“It was the best.”
“Not too naughty?”
I bent to kiss the top of her head.
“No, not too naughty, not at all.”
“Mmm,” she said. “Ask you a question?”
“Go ahead.”
“Jean-Paul mentioned something earlier, about you and your father. He said he knew your father. Is that true?”
Talk about killing the moment.
Thanks, Dad.
“Yes, it is true.”
“So is that why you are here? Because of your father?”
“Partially true,” I said, trying to remember everything Miriam and I had just done a few minutes earlier, trying to recall each taste, each scent, each sensation. Nothing like the other few women in my life. Not even close.
She started scratching my ear. “How is that? Partially, I mean.”
“I guess I joined up because of what he did and what he didn't do.”
“Somalia,” she said simply.
“Yep.”
“Would you like to tell me about it?”
“Not really,” I said.
“Ah,” Miriam said, now gently tugging at my ear. “But will you anyway?”
I licked my lips, tasting the subtle essence of her. “All right—I guess. He was in Somalia. He was in the Canadian Army, in charge of the Canadian peacekeepers, in a neighborhood of Mogadishu. These Canadians were supposed to be the very best, the elite. And they were, which made the scandal later so much harder to accept.”
“What scandal?” she asked quietly.
I took a breath. “The compound where the Canadians were staying was hit every night by thieves. Petty thievery, mostly. Food and clothing. But the army guys got upset. They captured a couple of the offenders. Kids, really. The army guys were furious. They tortured them with knives and then took them out to a dump and shot them. The thievery quieted right down. It took months before the story came out. A videotape of the soldiers brutalizing the Somalis turned up. But my dad … he knew all about it.”
“Samuel,” she whispered.
“And then he tried to cover it up, and then he tried to defend what the troops did. In the end a couple of the soldiers were dismissed and did quiet jail time. My dad was allowed to resign quietly, and that was that. My dad. And that was the military he wanted me to join. To keep up the family tradition. Some family. Some tradition.”
“So why are you here? To make amends?”
I squeezed Miriam's bare shoulder. “Maybe a pop psychologist would say so. I don't know. All I know is that I felt I had to come here, to make a contribution, to do more than just write stories about the latest club opening, or the wives of the Blue Jays raising money for American refugees. That's all, and that's why.”
“And your mother?”
“Mom … well, she left my dad a few years back, when I was in college. She's living in Florida, I think, at some seaside community. Finding herself after all these years. Pretty safe—the strike last spring didn't affect her or her friends that much.”
“Mmm,” Miriam said, her breathing slowing down some.
I held her like that for a while, and said, “Miriam?”
“Mmm?” came the questioning tone.
“I need to tell you something,” I said. “About Peter. I think he's working for somebody else, somebody else besides the UN. I caught him this morning, talking to someone over a concealed radio. He didn't see me but I saw him. Do you know anything about that?”
No answer.
“Miriam?”
Her breathing was regular and slow so I decided to let her sleep. I closed
my eyes, shifted her weight some, and kissed the top of her head. I squeezed her tight. She murmured something and we stayed like that, all the night through.
 
 
WHEN MORNING CAME
Miriam had rolled away from me and was sleeping deeply. I crawled out of the tent, carrying my clothes, coat and shoes in my hand, and in the dew-wet cold morning I got dressed, shivering. It was still and quiet in this early part of the day. The dirty Land Cruisers were streaked with dew, as were the tents. There was a cough and Charlie approached, weapon slung over his shoulder.
“Nice show,” he said.
“Glad I could help.”
He rubbed his hands together and said, “A long night.”
“Anything going on?”
Charlie turned his head up to the gray sky. “Jets overhead, twice during the night. Some ordnance was dropped, up to the north.”
“Think the cease-fire's over?”
He said, “What we saw yesterday, sure as hell looks like somebody's decided to toss away the agreement. Damn, it's cold!”
I said, “Why don't I get coffee going?”
Charlie said, “Don't tempt me, Samuel. You know I don't want an unshielded flame. Some of these militias, they have thermal-imaging devices they've stolen from the Reserves or National Guard.”
I motioned to a trail that led past the oak tree we were parked under. “Down there, there's a little rocky hollow. Saw it when I went on a bathroom break before hitting the sack. I could get the gas stove there, heat up a bucket of water. Won't take long and I'm sure you and everybody else could use something hot.”
Charlie smiled. “OK, against my better judgment. Just don't take too long.”
“I won't.”
 
 
CHARLIE HELPED ME
get the stove and some water out of the cluttered rear of one of the Land Cruisers and I walked the short distance away from the campsite. As I walked away, Miriam emerged, yawning, and blew a kiss in my direction. I waved and felt warm and tingly inside. A damn good feeling.
Along the narrow trail there was a rock outcropping, behind which was a little hollow. I set up the stove and lit it. It hissed into life quickly. I put
an empty metal coffee pot over the stove, filled it with water from a plastic jug, and sat down to wait. I drew my knees up to my chin and wrapped my arms around my legs, shivered, and watched the stove do its work. I closed my eyes and was delightfully rocked again by the memory of last night, recalling the sounds and tastes and sensations of Miriam, dear Miriam. I kept my eyes closed, imagining us getting out to the highway in an hour or so, getting picked up by a UN convoy, and maybe, just maybe, getting back in time to take Miriam out to a real dinner at a real restaurant. No more cold meals, no more reconstituted stew or mystery meat. A real meal, complete with tablecloth and silverware.
I opened my eyes, heard the rustle of creatures in the leaves and the harsh call of a blue jay. Steam was rising from the top of the coffee pot, the lid rattling softly in the stillness of the rocky area. I turned the stove off and picked up the coffee pot with a folded-over handkerchief. It felt hot through the cloth, and I knew that in a couple of minutes our little group would have coffee with our meager breakfast. A nice thought, and I would make sure Miriam got the first cup.
I went around the rock outcropping, out onto the trail—and damn near slammed into the back of a line of armed men.
 
 
THEIR UNIFORMS WERE
torn and muddy and had no UN crests on the shoulders or sleeves, and I noticed right away that everybody was carrying a different kind of weapon. Militia, I thought, about a dozen of them, heading up to our campsite. Just then the guy at the rear of the line noticed me. He started turning toward me, ready to yell out a warning to his comrades, his rifle swinging round with him.
I tossed the hot water in his face, dropped the coffee pot and ran like hell into the woods.
He screamed. There was the harsh crack of a rifleshot, then another and then a whole fucking chorus of gunfire as I ran into the woods, hunched down, my back suddenly feeling exposed and extremely itchy as I cursed myself for leaving my flak vest and helmet back at the tent. I swung to the right, past the trunks of some pine trees. There were snapping sounds and thunking noises as the fatal pieces of metal traveling toward me at thousands of feet per second struck branches or tree trunks instead.

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