Twilight

by Brendan DuBois

  I felt like warning Miriam that advice from my father usually had some sort of price tag attached to it, but I let it slide. Miriam said, “All right. Advice I can take.”

  My father looked at us both. “Don’t stay in the States. Go somewhere else.”

  I said, “All right. Advice taken.”

  A smile from the old guy. “Fair enough.” He glanced at his watch, said, “Time’s not waiting. There’s a chartered flight leaving for Toronto in the hour. Sure you can’t come?”

  “Positive,” I said.

  “A pity.” My father got up, leaned over and gave Miriam a peck on her cheek. Then he held out his hand. I gave it a firm shake and he said, “Write more, Samuel, won’t you?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Good. You two take care, and remember what I said. Get out of the States.”

  He walked away, past the long line of aid people and soldiers and doctors still waiting for breakfast. Then he was gone.

  Miriam said, “He’s certainly something, Samuel.”

  “That he is,” I said. “That he is.”

  WHEN I BROUGHT the dirty dishes up to the washing station, there was a woman standing there, scraping a dirty plate viciously with a knife. I looked, and then looked again. Karen Tilley.

  “Hey,” I said. “Karen, how are you?”

  She looked up at me from her chore, her red hair unwashed and a tangled mess. “I’m breathing, I guess. How the hell are you?”

  “I’m doing all right, considering—”

  Karen tossed the plate into a gray plastic bin filled with other dishes, making a loud rattling noise. “Hell, I think you’re doing just fine, pal, just fucking fine. You’re standing here, breathing and living and everything seems to be working right. You’re not dead, shot and left behind—shot dead for the crime of being in this hellhole and trying to help people.”

  I put the tray of dirty dishes down gingerly, started cleaning them as well. “I’m sorry about Sanjay, Karen.”

  She snorted. “Spare me your fake sympathy.”

  “Nothing fake about it. Sanjay … I can’t believe what he did there, toward the end.”

  “Bullshit,” she said, now tossing the silverware into a bucket half-filled with greasy water. “I know what you all thought about me and Sanjay. Slutty American woman, spreading her legs for a little exotic flesh from the Far East.”

  “Not true. You and he were professionals. I didn’t care what you did in your tents at night. And I know what he did when the shooting took place, that he thought I was coming back and he—”

  It was as if Karen wasn’t listening to a single word I had said, as if this talk had been prepared for days. She said, “Well, the hell with all of you. Sanjay and me, we had something special, something romantic, something to call our own out there, and it’s gone. Thanks to you.”

  I froze, a dirty oatmeal bowl in my hand. “Me?”

  “Of course you, you moron,” she said, wiping her hands on her sweater. “I know exactly what happened, how you had to be Mr. Helpful, Mr. Goodie-Two-Shoes, Mr. I’m-So-Sweet. You had to get up that morning and make some hot water so that your girlfriend and Charlie and Jean-Paul and Peter would all look up to you, would think, hey, this kid’s worth it. A little hot coffee to score points. Right?”

  “No, I was just boiling the water to—”

  “Asshole,” Karen said, stretching out the two-syllable word. “If you hadn’t gone out like that, to play Boy Scout, we would have skipped breakfast, I know we would. But we had to wait for you to come back, so there we were, sitting out in the open, dumb and hungry, waiting for you. We waited, Sammy, boy did we wait, and you know what happened next, right?”

  “I managed to warn you, by—”

  “And if you hadn’t gone out, there wouldn’t have been anything to warn us about, right? No hot water, no breakfast, just a quick pack-up and we’re gone. Well, congratulations, Sammy, you got to do a good deed and you got a good man killed in the process. Fuck you very much.”

  Karen turned and stalked away, and I just stood there. I suppose a hero in a movie or a made-for-television film would have gone after her to plead his case, to try to explain further, but I was tired. Miriam was back there, waiting for me.

  And, after all, I was no hero.

  Not at all.

  I DID N’T FEEL like talking any more about Karen or Sanjay or anything to do with that day, so I found Miriam and we went outside to a small hillside park near the hospital complex. It was sunny, there was no wind, and it felt more like a pleasant late September day than a late October one. We sat on a picnic table and held hands, and we looked down to the parking lot crowded with APCs, military trucks and a number of ambulances. On a wide lawn on the far side of the parking lot was a small tent city, with some banners flying. I picked out the Red Cross, the UN and one flag that looked German. Wire fencing and guard posts enclosed the parking lot, and there was the steady drone of engines at work.

  Miriam leaned against me and said, “Did you ever come here, to the United States, before the troubles?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Plenty of times.”

  “What for?” she asked. “Tourism? To do stories for your newspaper?”

  “The truth?”

  “Of course, the truth.”

  I looked into her eyes. “It sounds silly, but this is the truth: I used to go to the States like most Canadians did. For the shopping.”

  “Shopping?” Miriam sounded incredulous.

  “Sure, shopping. The prices were reasonable and you didn’t have the incredible taxes we Canucks have to put up with to pay for a creaky national healthcare system.”

  She put her arm round my shoulders. “I always wanted to come here, you know. Had a chance once, as a high-school student, but I got sick and couldn’t make it. And when I did eventually come here, well, it was during a very unhappy time. Right after the Security Council resolution authorizing the intervention. I had often dreamed of coming here to the States as a tourist. It never occurred to me that I would be coming here to look for mass graves. Not in my wildest nightmares.”

  Or looking for evidence of the people behind the attacks. That was extra—God, was that extra.

  Miriam looked around at the scenery, squeezed my shoulder. “Such a big, prosperous and unhappy land. I saw a magazine illustration, last year, before the bombings. It showed a county-by-county breakdown of how the vote for President went. A big divide, with lots of hate, mistrust and bad feelings on both sides. And nobody had the will, the vision, to bridge that gap.”

  I put a hand on her leg, gave it a squeeze. Below us some vehicles were moving around by the main entrance to the hospital parking lot. I said, “We had the same problem for a while, too. Rural versus urban, the west coast versus the maritimes, the Quebecois versus everybody else. Lucky for us, we managed to muddle through.”

  “Mmm,” she murmured. “Muddle through. I like the sound of that. Tell me, Samuel, what do you think will happen here next?”

  I was thinking of what to say when the noise level started to increase. Now there were soldiers down there, coming out of some of the tents. Then came the distant sound of approaching helicopters. I shifted and put my own arm around Miriam.

  “Something’s going on, isn’t it?” she said simply.

  “Yes.”

  “A guess?”

  “I have no idea.”

  She broke free from my grasp. “Then come along. I want to know what’s happening.”

  I got up from the picnic table and followed Miriam down to the large parking lot, though I really wanted to grab her and take her back to my room. I didn’t like the sudden burst of noise and activity but my old reporter’s curiosity was being tickled. Something was indeed going on.

  We made our way down the hill and were soon on the pavement of the parking lot. People started moving about, most of them in uniform, and none seemed to be in a mood to talk. Then, luck of luck, Miriam cried out, “Peter!” and, sure enough, the
re he was. He looked at us both and then at me and said, “You know, Samuel, you are doing much better than I could ever have imagined.”

  “Well, I like to surprise people. What’s going on here?”

  Peter looked around, his hands on his hips. “You mean all this moving around, all these soldiers marching to and fro?”

  “Yes,” Miriam said. “What’s up?”

  “Very simple, really,” Peter said. “You see, the militias are coming.”

  I felt cold again and Miriam brought her hand up to her mouth. Peter laughed. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you. What I should have said is that representatives of the militias are heading over. You see, the negotiations are almost complete.”

  “The armistice,” I said.

  Peter nodded. “So true. The armistice is back on, so I’m told, but there’s going to be a very steep price.”

  “What’s that?” Miriam asked.

  Peter said, “The militia leaders, the ones being held at The Hague. They get sprung, a day ahead of schedule, before any last attempt to find Site A. And in exchange for freeing those bloody murderers the armistice is revived.”

  “That’s a hell of a price,” I said.

  Peter nodded again. “True, mate—and I’m sorry to say that it’s a price that’s going to be paid.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The three of us went up by the guarded entrance to the parking lot where there were two columns of armed soldiers flanking both sides of the main gate, the lines stretching into the lot itself. They looked to be Polish troops and I said, “Please don’t tell me that’s what I think it is, Peter.”

  “It surely is,” he said. “An honor guard, if you can believe it. A guard of honor for a group of men who don’t even know the meaning of the word. Not on your life.”

  Miriam slipped an arm through mine. “I think I’m going to become ill, right here.”

  Peter said, “Then I just might get sick right with you, dear.”

  I squeezed her arm and she said, “Do you want to leave?”

  “No,” I said. “I have to see this. I really do. I can’t believe they’re treating them like this.”

  “Who can?” Peter said.

  So we waited some more while other people drifted over to where we stood by the main gate. Some ambulances were moved, to make room for the visitors, I suppose.

  I turned to Peter. “Any news about Jean-Paul?”

  “What kind of news you looking for?”

  “Oh, an arrest, conviction, a public confession of his crimes. That’d be a start.”

  Peter said, “He’s in France now, probably getting some tough questioning from some members of the French government.”

  “Over his betrayal?” Miriam asked.

  “Oh, hell, no,” Peter said. “They’re going after him because of his real crime, which was embarrassing the French. Everything else is secondary.”

  “Peter, you are such a cynic,” Miriam said.

  “No, dear, I’m a realist.”

  The gate was one of those with a sliding fence portion and now it started moving with a rattle of machinery. The Polish troops stood at attention, though I was pleased to see that, judging from the expressions on some of their faces, they would have preferred to point their rifles toward the gate rather than up in the air. Among us were other aid workers, some soldiers not on immediate duty and various nurses and doctors, some of them in their emergency-room garb. One doctor, smoking a cigarette, said to a nurse, “I swear, Gretchen, if those soldiers weren’t there I’d take a scalpel and slit the throat of the first one I see.”

  If Gretchen said anything by way of a reply I didn’t hear it. What we all did hear was the sound of engines and some of us moved back, away from the gate. An APC came through the gate first, followed by another. Both were flying UN banners from their radio whip antennas. Then came a black SUV of some sort with a blue flag that looked like the flag of New York state flying from its radio antenna, and that was followed by a black Cadillac with tinted windows. Three more APCs brought up the rear of the little convoy, and then, overhead, four helicopters circled in a wide sweep. All had weapons of some sort, either protruding from the open doorways on the side or in pods slung underneath.

  Peter leaned toward me and shouted over the engine noise. “Not a bad little display, eh?”

  “Trying to prove something?” I shouted back.

  “Sure,” he said. “Wanting to let the militias know the firepower that’s out there, in case the armistice talks don’t finish up. But it’s all for show. All for show. By the end of the day, peace will be upon this land once again.”

  The helicopters hovered for a while and then flew off, lowering the noise level considerably. Miriam’s arm was still linked through mine and I said, “What kind of peace? They’ll still be digging up bodies and bones for the next decade.”

  “Sure they will,” Peter said. “But this expensive intervention by NATO forces will be over, the United States will be welcomed back into the ranks of civilized nations, and the true business of this planet—feeding the hunger of the transnational corporations, led by the biggest economic power in the world—will resume. That is, if they decide to reengage with the world.”

  And then Peter looked at me, with a gaze that said much more would go on: that the true story of how this country had been crippled and who was behind it may still stay secret for a long time to come.

  Miriam said, “If I stay with you any longer, Peter, I’m afraid I’ll become as cynical as you.”

  Peter smirked, a look that once would have angered me but now just looked right. “Miriam, if you stay with me any longer, perhaps this boy won’t interest you any more.”

  She laughed. “Oh, I doubt that.”

  I loved what she had just said, and I also loved the look on Peter’s face, which was why I missed the first few seconds of the paramilitaries emerging from their two vehicles. The SUV had guards of a sort, but the word must have come down from somewhere, because their guns were slung over their shoulders rather than held at the ready. All four doors to the Cadillac opened up, and as well as the driver four militia types got out, a woman and three men. They had no weapons, and their uniforms were clean and pressed. One of them came around to look at us, a guy in his late thirties with a closely trimmed beard. I looked at him and he looked at me, and I actually felt my knees sag as though the ligaments and muscles there had just turned into taffy.

  He smiled and called out, “Hey, Samuel! Good to see you!”

  Peter and Miriam looked at me, and Peter was the first to ask: “Samuel, do you know that man? Was he one of your captors?”

  I kept on looking at that comfortable-looking and happy face. “No, worse than that,” I said.

  Miriam asked, “How could have it been worse?”

  I shook my head. “He was a cellmate.”

  And sure enough, walking over to greet me was Gary Nealon, supposed schoolteacher and fellow prisoner, now wearing the familiar militia uniform—with stars on his collars.

  THERE WAS A tussle of sorts when some of the Polish soldiers got between us as I went over to see him. But then there was some talking back and forth and I made it to the Cadillac as Gary’s three companions talked to a couple of UN suits. Gary was smiling widely, looking me up and down.

  “Man, you look pretty good,” he said. “How’s it going?”

  “You bastard,” I said.

  “Nope, my birth certificate’s all in order,” he said. “Can you say the same?”

  I think I would have taken another few steps forward and started strangling him had it not been for the sharp-eyed militia guards who were keeping watch on me, and the equally sharp-eyed Polish troops keeping watch on the guards.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I can say the same. You son of a bitch, you were a plant, weren’t you? A plant to get information from me.”

  Gary’s eyes were bright and shiny. “Very good, Samuel. Boy, you must be a smart one to have figured that
out right now, with me standing right in front of you. Tell me, you still make a list each year for Santa Claus? You didn’t have a clue, did you, young fella, all those hours in the school bus. I had to put up with a cold mattress and bad food, all to see if I could plumb that eager young idealistic—and eventually empty—mind. The things I do for my people as head of intelligence.”

  My fists were clenched. “Like killing their neighbors?”

  “Like protecting them, that’s what, when the feds and the state couldn’t do a damn thing when the hordes started streaming in,” Gary said, looking around him. “Our real neighbors were protected. We took care of the trespassers. Nobody else could do it so we stepped up to the plate and got the job done. Boy, look at all the angry faces out there. You’d think they lived here or something.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He smirked, and even with the armed men keeping an eye on us I wanted to punch out his lights so bad I could taste it. Gary said, “Look at all of them, parading around. Foreigners. Like they belong here. Get a good look, Samuel, ’cause by this time tomorrow this group will be heading out.”

  “Some of those people are Americans, working for the UN,” I said.

  “Then they’re not true Americans, are they?”

  “Jesus, you jerk, what the hell was that all about, back at the school bus?” I demanded, stepping closer to him, even getting a whiff of cologne from him.

  “What do you think?” he shot back. “Intelligence gathering, that’s what.”

  “From me?”

  “Sure,” Gary said. “What do you think, anybody’s going to believe your story, that you were just a lost, innocent UN worker, wandering around the landscape? Do you?”

  “That was the truth, and you know it.”

  Another laugh, another urge from me to punch him out. “Sure you were, and I was convinced you were something else. You did pretty good with Colonel Saunders and his boys, but let me tell you, if you’d stayed there one more day, then it would have gotten real rough. Think you would have been able to maintain a cover story if they brought out the knives and broken glass?”