Dead of Night

CHAPTER TWELVE

Miriam 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, cellphone 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 towards 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 towards me at thousands of feet per second struck branches or tree trunks instead.

I ran and ran, thinking I should head up to the left to warn the others. But then there was more gunfire, and the flat, heavy sound of an explosion. Charlie. Charlie was fighting back.

I stopped, leaned back against a birch tree, breathing hard. More gunfire. Another explosion. Distant yells. A gunshot or two. And then…

Car engines. Starting up. Revving up. Now moving off, now fading away, now quiet.

I clenched my fists, waiting. More quiet.

I was alone.

For an hour or so I stayed in a hidey-hole where a tangle of tree trunks had fallen together near a swampy area. I crawled in and waited, trying to calm my harsh breathing, trying to quiet the thumping in my chest. I closed my eyes for a moment, just a second, really, trying to remember last night and Miriam. But all I saw was that line of armed militiamen, heading up to our campsite. I crouched as low as I could, trying to stop moving, trying to stop the rustling of leaves and branches. I waited, my throat dry and my chest tight. I looked up overhead at a tiny patch of gray, where the clouds still blocked the sky. I blinked and waited some more.

Some more gunshots, up on the hill where we had just been.

I waited some more. I coughed and rubbed my face.

The wind rose, rattling some branches, making me think that people were out there, waiting for me. I kept watch on the faint patch of gray.

I checked my coat. The pockets were empty. No hat. No gloves. No food. No water.

I eased back out of the hidey-hole, looked around. Poplars, bare blueberry bushes, dead swamp grass. Nothing else. I stood up, still breathing hard. I rubbed at cramps in my legs, tried to gauge where the sun was, up there beyond the clouds. The smart thing would be to start moving, moving real slowly, taking my time, heading out to the highway. Hide there by the roadway, wait for a UN convoy to come by. That would be the smart thing.

I rubbed my face again, looked at where I had come through, and gauged something else: where our campsite had been.

I didn’t feel very smart.

But I did feel right.

I moved in that direction.

It was slow going, pausing and waiting. I remembered a time when I was twelve or thirteen, going on a disastrous deer hunt with my father. One of those father-son bonding rituals that are supposed to bring one closer to one’s dad or son, and which usually did exactly the opposite with us. I learned a lot of things back then—how I hated being cold and wet, how I hated getting up early and standing among the dark trees, and how I hated seeing an innocent deer being blown away by riflefire—but I also learned how to move through the woods. I learned to move as quietly as possible, pausing every now and then to look at the trees and brush and openings. I learned to look for shapes that didn’t belong, that marred the background, because usually it meant that Man or his works were nearby. And the particular examples of Man and his works crawling around here this fine day were bent on slaughtering me and my workmates.

In any event, my caution meant that a fifteen-minute stroll back to our campsite took almost two hours, and that was no problem at all.

I came to a point where the trail emerged into the tiny clearing and I waited, kneeling behind a tree trunk, fists clenched on my thighs. One of the Land Cruisers was there, resting on flattened tires, windshield glass blown out and its white sides peppered with shrapnel and bullet holes. A couple of collapsed tents were strewn around, along with bits of clothing and other belongings.

But that wasn’t what was bothering me.

The body beyond the Land Cruiser was bothering me.

I looked around, trying to see if anybody could be there, watching the scene. I knew I was balancing a couple of possibilities: possibility one was that a couple of the militiamen were hanging back, to see if I or any other UN worker was returning. Possibility two—the one I was gambling on — was that having completed their ambush they were now on the move, on the chance that a UN rapid-response force was riding to a belated rescue.

The body was still there.

I got up again and walked into the campsite, right up to the body near the shot-up Land Cruiser. I felt terribly exposed, like a naked Christian dumped in the middle of the Colosseum, and I wasn’t sure if any lions or gladiators were around. But still, there was that body.

I got closer, looked down.

Sanjay Prith stared up at me, his eyes open and sightless.

I knelt down, automatically touched his throat, though the torn-up condition of his abdomen and lower legs told the story. Blood had caked and pooled around him. I hoped he had died quickly. His skin was dry and cold to the touch.

‘Sorry, Sanjay,’ I said. ‘Sorry you had to end up here, so far from home.’

I closed his eyes with my hand, tears starting to form in my own eyes. I moved closer to him, whispering, ‘If I’m ever contacted by anybody from New Delhi I’ll tell them you were a hero, a true gentleman who did everything by the book. And I’ll mean every word of that.’

I stayed only a few minutes longer. A thought came to me that I should dig a grave for Sanjay, or at least cover him up, but a colder part of me took over. No, it could not be done. I didn’t want to leave any evidence that I had been here.

The Land Cruiser was a charred hulk. The upholstery had burned away and the exposed bare springs of the seats looked odd. Among the debris of the campsite, I could see that our tents had been shot through and sliced by bayonets, as had the sleeping bags. I sniffed, and became nauseous as I saw that the attackers had relieved themselves on the scraps of the tents and sleeping bags, shitting and pissing everywhere. There was no food, no water, nothing I could take away with me. Just the soiled cloth and empty brass casings of cartridges, their dull brass color looking icy.

I also saw some blood trails leading back into the woods, and that colder part of me came back. I hoped that Charlie had charged a hefty toll before leaving.

I went back to my own tent, saw that my gear had been trashed as well. My Heinlein book was soaked through and its pages had been torn, but the Orwell book had survived. I stuffed it in an inside coat pocket—and then I saw some-thing else that made my hands start shaking again.

A green flannel nightgown, tom and bloody.

Miriam.

I brought it up to my face. Then I let the cloth drop, and walked away from the campsite, not looking back once.

It was a long afternoon. I headed away from the campsite, staying away from the road, moving at my own pace through the woods. I kept going at a constant rate, taking the time to scan around me as I tried to head toward the highway. As I moved I strained my ears to pick up any sound from the forest around me, waiting to hear a faint voice, a branch snapping or the sound of a rifle bolt being slammed home. And as I moved my thoughts whirled around in two separate vortices: anger and fear at the ambush I had survived, and anger and fear at having been abandoned. I knew the latter emotions made no sense at all. What could I have expected? That Charlie and the others would stay there, hoping I would make a triumphant return? Hell, no, they made the right decision, hard as it was. Leave me and the body of Sanjay behind. No doubt Charlie had taken control, and had made the tough and right decisions.

Still, I didn’t like the feeling.

As the light started to fade I smelled something familiar, the stink of something that had burned. Then I saw spaces among the trees opening up and I noticed that a whole swath of birch and pine had burned away. Another battle site? I came closer, intrigued despite myself, and saw that large areas of earth had been churned up by chunks of metal. I stopped, looked around and up and saw how branches and trunks had been ripped down.

I looked back at the pieces of metal, saw the remains of an airplane engine.

Aircraft-debris field, a rational part of me observed. A jet had crashed here.

I walked around the crash site, sniffing again the old odor of fuel and plastic and metal, burned and crumpled and destroyed. Movies and television shows always depicted aircraft crash sites as being neat, with fuselage and other parts readily identifiable. But everything here was so charred and mixed up that it was hard to tell what the hell each item had once been. And just when I was ready to give up I came across a piece of wing. It had been charred along most of one side but I made out a national emblem: a black Maltese cross.

German, then, I realized as I looked down on the wing fragment. And I remembered that overpass, how it had been dropped and how the freeway on-ramps had been chewed up. A German Tornado, on a NATO mission to bomb that overpass — a mission that hadn’t ended well.

I kept on moving, heading toward where I hoped the highway was.