The Girl in Green

by Derek B. Miller

  But the pain and the fear and the thirst disrupt the continuity of his thoughts. And his capacity to imagine.

  He tries to fight this domination by using techniques he imagines a Buddhist might use to meditate: the image of a flickering flame against a mahogany wall; walking along the undulating green hills of the upper coastal path by Dorset; tracking the slow descent of a single drop of condensation on a pint glass on a hot summer’s day.

  Well, a British Buddhist, anyway.

  When his phone rang in Cornwall and it was Arwood Hobbes on the other end, it did feel — if he allows himself to admit this — as though the cosmos were intervening for the first time on his behalf. Everything he was, and had failed to correct in himself, had finally reached its natural conclusion, and his family had fallen apart. And then Arwood’s disembodied voice asked him to come back to Iraq with him. To look for something. To make the dead live again. To make the world complete. And he said yes.

  Why?

  A coincidence. An echo. A midday moon in a blue sky.

  There really was no explaining it.

  Benton hears a door open to the adjacent room. There is a shuffling sound as something is pulled inside. The door is closed again and bolted. Then the uneasy silence returns.

  He can see the green dress more clearly now that the sun has risen and the room is illuminated. A warm, yellow light spreads across the ceiling. It will not touch him, but it is good to look at something connected to life.

  Benton is thirsty. He has tried to convince himself he’s not, but to no effect. Whatever the body wants, it does not stop wanting until it gets.

  He used to want many things. He wanted the MG he once purchased with his brother, Edgar. He wanted Vanessa. It wasn’t that her beauty was so overwhelming, or that her eyes glittered like the moon, or that her body was perfect beyond measure. That was for women in magazines. He always preferred three dimensions to two.

  Vanessa was lovely. It is a term that has fallen from favour, but it still means something particular. Her face was kind and intelligent and inquisitive and warming. Her eyes were healthy and bright and commanding. Her body was the kind that most young women actually have. Vanessa probably saw in it a litany of imperfections when she was naked, but they all went entirely unseen by Benton, because she was naked.

  What else had he wanted? He had wanted children. They had had Charlotte. They tried for more. After three miscarriages, they called it a day. It had been starting to affect their ability to be parents to the one they had.

  What else did he want? He had wanted to take the girl in green to the American side of the ceasefire line twenty-two years ago. He failed in that, too. Which is when he stopped wanting things. When Charlotte stood in the doorway and he heard the pauses between her heartbeats, and he could have stepped through the silence between them as though it were an eternity, he knew he could not want her to live and love him the same way he had before. The reason was simple, really. He was too weak.

  Was this what Vanessa was trying to accomplish — why he caught her in bed with another man? To make him want her again?

  The door to their bedroom in Fowey was at the end of the carpeted hall. It was very late. He had planned to stay in London that night but came back instead, although not before stopping off at the pub for a pint. He had fallen into a conversation with Lester, and the hours had slipped by. It was a black and wet night under a low sky. Coming up the stairs, he was surprised to find his bedroom door framed in light. He turned the handle quietly so as not to startle her. She’d likely fallen asleep reading a book. He wondered what she was reading these days — John Irving, maybe?

  The door didn’t creak as he slowly waved it open. The table lamp on his side of the bed gave out a weak orange light. When the door was halfway open, he heard a muffled grunt that startled him. Instinctively, he flicked on the overhead light.

  The inner door to his prison opens.

  Benton doesn’t move. He sees two men walk into the room. One takes a position by the door; the other brings in a folding chair, which he places a metre from Benton. He sits and crosses his legs, settling into a position thought effeminate by Western men.

  He holds Benton’s satchel.

  Benton looks up into his face. It is Abu Larry again. The man reaches down and unties the bandana from Benton’s head. He places his fingers between Benton’s lips and pinches the remaining cloth, pulling it slowly from his mouth so it winds like a snake.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ he says.

  Benton shakes his head. ‘No.’

  Larry removes a pistol from the satchel. It is an ancient gun, a Webley.

  ‘Who is the girl?’

  His accent is Arabic, but with British intonations again. He sounds educated. His voice is calm. He sounds deliberate and in control of his actions. He looks pitiless and calculating.

  Benton notices the present tense used in his question.

  ‘We found her by the side of the road,’ Benton says. ‘I was taking her to Domiz. There is a refugee camp there.’

  ‘Everyone is by the side of the road in Iraq. Why this girl?’

  ‘She reminds me of my niece.’

  ‘I think you’re lying to me.’

  ‘I don’t feel a strong need to tell the truth to terrorists.’

  ‘I’m not a terrorist.’

  ‘Well,’ Benton says, ‘you’re not a duck.’

  Larry shoots Benton in the leg.

  The bullet tears through the muscle of his upper right thigh, missing the femur. His body cannot decide whether to inhale for life or exhale to scream. Then, from deep in his diaphragm, the initial shudder of exquisite pain finds its voice, and he wails. The smell of his own urine fills his nostrils, and tears, from a well of moisture he didn’t know was there, burst from his eyes.

  Of course. Of course this.

  The shooter sits calmly, resting the warm pistol in his now limp hand. He is speaking softly, saying something. Benton can see his lips move. It is not loud enough to rise above the ringing in Benton’s ears.

  And his accent is too thick. Benton would only understand his own mother’s loving voice now. It was always the only voice that could reach him when he was in distress.

  ‘Listen to me. Can you hear me?’ Abu Larry claps his hands together. The other man by the door, the man with the Chinese assault rifle, stands motionless. Abu Larry’s voice remains calm. ‘Look at me.’ He uncrosses his legs and rests his boots on the floor.

  He leans forward, trying to get Benton’s attention. ‘I said, look at me.’

  Benton looks.

  ‘See if the bullet went through, Mr Bueller.’

  ‘Can’t move. Can’t look. Can’t feel.’

  Larry makes a gesture to the man by the door, who then takes out a knife and, standing behind Benton, cuts off his plastic binders.

  The feeling should be one of relief, but in fact there is even more pain. His arms have not moved in twelve hours. The first repositioning is excruciating.

  He wants to touch the back of his leg, but his hands do not obey him.

  ‘See if the bullet went through, Mr Bueller.’

  He looks at the back of his leg.

  ‘Did it go through?’

  ‘You sonofabitch.’

  ‘Good.’ He throws Benton a cloth. ‘I suggest you tie this around your leg.’

  Benton ignores the offered cloth, and instead removes a faded red bandana from his jacket pocket and presses it against the exit wound, which is larger than the entry one. He would tie it, but the pain is too great.

  ‘You’re a Jew, Mr Bueller. An assassin?’

  ‘No.’ Benton’s voice is low and weak. The throbbing has started. He needs his strength to hold his leg. Talking drains him. He is forced to listen.

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘Yes.’

&n
bsp; ‘I’ve never been shot. I have no idea what it feels like.’

  ‘Don’t lose hope.’

  ‘Are you thirsty?’ Larry asks. ‘Thirst is a horrible thing. That is something I have experienced.’

  ‘I’m thirsty,’ Benton says.

  ‘Would you like some water?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Me, too. It gets hot in here. Maybe we can find some later. The Jews want to support the Kurds and Druze, and take Arab land away from us. You are here for them?’

  ‘I’m British.’

  Benton tries to elevate his leg. There is a lot of blood, but none of it is pulsing. He does not know how much blood he can lose before passing out or dying, and he has no way to measure this, in any case.

  ‘I’m losing my blood. Can I have some blood? Or water? Yes, I’d like some water. I’ll make my own blood. The Catholics say the wine becomes blood. It’s true. Only it’s our own blood, not that of Christ.’

  He looks up at the ceiling of cheap cement and cracked white paint. ‘I have a wife named Vanessa,’ he says, for no other reason than to be sure it is said. ‘She loved me. I was mad for her. We were happy for a long time. Then I faded away from her. My daughter, too. I used to pick out her clothes with her when she was seven years old. Before she went to school. You wouldn’t believe how complicated it was.’

  Then he jerks his head to the left and vomits on the mattress. He moves his head away from it, only to vomit again. He pushes himself away from that as well, and his eyes tear again. He lets them roll down his cheeks without shame.

  Benton says, ‘You killed all those people. All those people in the breadline with the mortar. The people in the traffic jam. The police. They were little more than boys. So many. So very many. I’ve seen so many die. They say there are sixteen hundred factions in Libya now. Hundreds in Syria. You want a caliphate? Have you no perspective?’

  Abu Larry taps the Webley against his knee.

  ‘Do you speak Arabic?’ he asks in a quiet voice. ‘You don’t. I can tell. Have you ever noticed how many Arab men speak English when interviewed on CNN or BBC? Barbers. Taxi drivers. All these regular people you care about so much. And yet, when was the last time you saw a European or American ask someone a question in Arabic? You don’t speak the language of the people you are speaking for.’

  ‘I want some water.’

  ‘You think you’re superior to us. To what goes on here. You kill whoever you need to kill. Men, women, children. You became mighty powers on the bones of your enemies. There is no difference.’

  The sharpness of the pain is giving way to a debilitating throb and tenderness. He fears the coming of the next wave more than the experience of the pain itself — like stepping on a tack and waiting for the mind to register what the eyes have already understood.

  ‘We’re different, all right,’ Benton says, catching his breath and regaining himself as he puts pressure on the wound. ‘We have done terrible things. But we’ve responded by trying to make a more humane world. And we see our failures in the light of what we’re trying to achieve. To make a better way of life.’

  ‘The only way of life,’ Abu Larry says, ‘is the Koran.’

  Herb Reston is on the phone, speaking with the Iraqi government. Herb has historically been diplomatic and has a reputation for having a steady temperament, but reason has its limits. Herb’s personal philosophy for getting things done has always been a linear one that starts from the head and works its way down. First, use your brain. Then, trust your heart. If that doesn’t work, trust your gut. And when all else fails, it’s time to use your balls.

  The primary reason for his current sinking feeling is that, though well educated in the tenets of Christian charity by his mother, Herbert Reston does not suffer fools lightly.

  And he is talking to an idiot.

  ‘Kasim, if you tell me where you’re going to attack, I’ll know if my people will be safe when you do, because I know their location. All I need to know is the time and location of the planned assault. I know it’s classified, so give me a window and a zone. That’s all I need. I need to see if my people are inside it or outside it, and then I can devise a strategy.’

  ‘Yes, yes, Mr Herbert, but if you tell me where they are exactly, I will be able to tell you if they will be safe.’

  ‘I don’t want to tell you where they are, because someone in your military might choose to bomb them, since they are probably located in a terrorist safe haven, and the whole purpose of your operation is to strike them. So how about you tell me where you’re planning to attack?’

  ‘Unfortunately, Mr Herbert, it is a military operation, and I cannot share the specifics of the operation, as these are very secret. Very, very secret. So it is better if you tell me where they are. I will tell people the coordinates.’

  ‘Well, the thing is, Kasim, I’ve seen the Iraqi military in action, and I know a thing or two about how you share information and coordinate. I also know you’re mostly staffed by Shiites, and my people are probably being held by Sunnis who used to run this country under Saddam, and they slaughtered the Shiites. So forgive me if I err on the side of caution here—’

  Kasim turns it around again as though they are bartering over pirated CDs at the market. After five minutes of this, Herb gives up on specifics and tries for generalities.

  ‘Are you attacking into Ninawa?’

  ‘Oh yes, definitely.’

  ‘South of that?’

  ‘Hard to say.’

  ‘North of that?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘In the mountains?’

  ‘Maybe in the mountains. Maybe not.’

  ‘Will you be using helicopters?’

  ‘Helicopters are very effective.’

  ‘So are friends,’ Herb says, and hangs up.

  Tigger asks Herb what Kasim said, and Herb gives Tigger a look that means Kasim will not be receiving a Christmas card from the IRSG this year.

  ‘This Iraqi government is useless,’ Herb says.

  ‘Would you rather have the last government, this one, or the next one?’ Tigger asks.

  ‘The last one was hanged by its neck and deserved it; this one is corrupt, tribal, and hapless; and the next one will make Iraq the world’s first terrorist caliphate. Personally? I think we should bring the troops back in, stop worrying about what the liberals say, and recognise we’re at war with jihadist Islam and that we need to win like we won against the Communists,’ Herb says.

  ‘You want to fight more wars?’

  ‘America will do what it has to do. Because that’s the American way.’

  ‘Let me tell you a story, my friend. In the thirteenth century, a Spanish scholar named Don Juan Manuel referred to his country’s occupation by the Muslim Moors since 711 AD as the guerra fría. The cold war. It was not a war of swords, but a war of ideas. We are still in this war. But we are winning it, no matter the momentary gains of these ISIL people. You know why? Because they are surrounded by ideas they cannot fight, because they are ideas they cannot answer. On one side are the real teachings of the Prophet — love, kindness, tolerance. And on the other are Western ideas so deep, so significant, we don’t even notice them. They are the air we now breathe. And the most significant of these ideas? Romantic love. It is the most disruptive and transformative power in the history of the world. Terrorists are powerless against it. We support love, and they will lose.’

  ‘That is dreamy bullshit.’

  ‘No, no. Consider it. Think of Romeo and Juliet. “Two houses, both alike in dignity,” we are first told. Why? Because the houses are the power, and dignity is the currency of that realm. We need to know this so we can understand that what keeps the lovers apart is not a higher justice, but a higher power. And then, here come these two children who defy and disrupt the underlying social order, and who die for their efforts becaus
e their humanity cannot survive in concert with that world. The moment Shakespeare makes our sympathies go to them, the system is overturned. Personal love is very disruptive to tribal thinking. And what of Juliet? A young woman? Romantic love empowered her to be equal to a man, to choose her own destiny, to make her own choices, to be in absolute control over her own body and her own heart. It is the first truly feminist story. It validated love, and fuelled a revolution.

  ‘These people, this ISIL, we should fight them, yes. We can bomb them, yes. But that’s not a strategy for victory. This is a guerra fría. Victory lies in replacing their social order, which is why they are afraid, and they should be. And our secret weapon? It is not drones. Quite the opposite. It is women. We should free them, educate them, give them power — put a Juliet in every village. They will change the world. This is why Boko Haram is so afraid of the girls and abducts them, why the Taliban will not educate them, why ISIL murders those in Western clothes and who think freely. Women. They are how the West will win. They are how love will prevail.’

  ‘You are so relentlessly French.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I hate this waiting.’

  ‘I feel the same. But the silence upsets me more. I would rather argue with you.’

  ‘What do we know from Sharo?’ Herb asks.

  ‘He made the drop, and got back safely. Beyond that, we’re in the dark.’

  ‘What do we know from Clip?’ Herb asks.

  ‘I gave them some names, and after doing some checking they’ve agreed with my recommendation for a communicator. He’s a professor of dentistry at Hawler Medical University in Erbil. He’s from a village not far from the Sinjar Mountains. He’s Sunni, and his wife is a Kurd. Clip said that if we protect his identity, his voice will not implicate him. Apparently, his accent is so hypnotically generic that some of his patients pass out without anaesthesia.’

  ‘Why did he agree to do it?’

  ‘He hates the jihadists, and Firefly is going to pay him. It’s a win-win for him.’