The Med

by David Poyer

  At last the group broke up. He was second through the door. His head lifted and a wary look took his face as he saw her.

  “Go upstairs.”

  “I came down to talk to you.”

  “I can’t help you.”

  “I want you to talk to me.”

  “We have nothing to say.”

  “Oh, yes we do.” She took a breath. How to make him listen? She remembered something Dan had told her. His “command voice,” the tone he used aboard ship when he gave orders. Another of the inanities they taught him at Annapolis, she had supposed.

  “Look, you bastard. You’re going to talk to me, and now. First, I want to know why you took my friends.”

  “Oh,” he said. His expression changed. He glanced backward, then nodded unwillingly. “In there.”

  My God, she thought, it works.

  The bare walls of the stairwell echoed, and she lowered her voice, remembering the guard above. The za’im leaned against the wall, his eyes on his feet. He looked hostile, like a man cornered by a debtor who asks for more.

  “Hanna—this is not right, what you’re doing.”

  “I think you do not understand what is going on here. I am a fighter. This is a war for our country.”

  “I don’t care what it is. This isn’t the way to fight.” She took a breath; no anger, no emotion now; she had to be calm, she had to reason with him. “Yesterday you shot, your men shot, a doctor, a harmless old man. Today you’re going to shoot two archaeologists, one of them a woman. This is a war? Wars are fought between armed men. You think that’s going to make the Turks release your men? That’s going to make the Jews leave Israel? Not a chance. This isn’t even terrorism, Hanna, because it hasn’t any chance of working. It’s just murder.”

  He kept looking at his shoes. He scowled.

  “Hanna—”

  “Ma kint lazim hinte’i.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I should not have made love to you.”

  “What?”

  “It was not a right thing to do.”

  She saw suddenly, and cursed herself for not seeing it before: what his reluctance and averted face meant. He was an Arab. To him, now, she was just a whore, a soiled piece of female flesh. A sudden need to laugh hysterically came over her. She glanced up the stairwell, its dimming upward flights, and had a sudden feeling that this was, had to be, unreal; arguing with this stranger, this terrorist, the same way she did with her husband; having him turn guilty and perverse on her, the way Nan did sometimes.… “Look,” she said, forcing her feelings inside somewhere. She put her hand on his arm, feeling at the same moment his heat and the trickle of sweat along her own ribs. “Leave that aside, what happened last night. Just listen.

  “I don’t know what these other men, this committee, are telling you to do. But these are your men. Not theirs. You can refuse to go on with this. They tell you to do it now, but when—when peace comes, you’ll be a criminal.”

  “It is my duty,” he said, turning his eyes upward, away from hers.

  “Duty doesn’t mean murder! Someday you’ll make a mistake, and they’ll catch you and hang you. Terrorists don’t live long, whoever wins. And I don’t—I don’t want you to die.”

  She could not say herself, now, how much of what she was saying was true. And it didn’t matter. She would say anything, do anything, if it worked.

  “I don’t care about my life. If the party says that what we do will win us back Palestine, that it will bring the Revolution one day closer, then it is my duty to do it.”

  Duty. The word rang heavy in the stairwell. Where had she heard it before? “But this is crazy,” she said again, then stopped. She was failing. It was true, what Moira said; they were too imbued with hate to see reason. Or what an American saw as reason, anyway, she reminded herself.

  There remained only one way, and it was easy; so easy that she felt ashamed, both for her and for him. She reached up slowly to brush his dark hair back. He stirred at her touch, but still looked down, away, not at her.

  She drew his lips downward to hers, and felt him resist. Resist; and then yield.

  They stood together in the heat and stench of the stairwell for a long time.

  “You’ll let me talk to my friends, at least, won’t you?” she asked him at last.

  He took his hands away from her, nodding, looking relieved. She followed his broad back, wanting to touch the patch of sweat between his shoulder blades, out into the lobby. They went past the desk and down a short hall to a door marked établissement in faded lettering. A guard, the youngest one, stood up from a squat as the Majd came up, grinning and giving him a half-salute. Although he carried a rifle it still shocked her a little to see one so young with a cigarette in his mouth.

  “He’s in here,” said Harisah. “They both are. Now I have to go. Things may be happening soon. Go back to your room when you’re done with your friends. Go back to your little girl. Susan—”

  “What?”

  “I may not see you again.”

  “What do you mean?” She glanced at Junior; he was still grinning, glancing from her to his leader, but it was evident from his expression that he did not understand their words.

  “The Syrians have left. I think that means we may be attacked soon.”

  “Attacked—” she stopped.

  “If we are,” he said somberly, “I will fight till I and all my men are dead. That is sharaf—honor. I became a soldier, a fighter, to fight this battle. There are others in our party than those here. You see? If we fight here, even if we lose, we strengthen them for next time. And we may win. I can die for that. I have to; I have promised.”

  So neat, so wrapped up, she thought. There’s no way he can lose, even if he dies. And abruptly she felt angry. It was so fucking masculine. Soldier or terrorist, it was all the same. “Duty” and “glory” and “victory,” and meanwhile people dying, with families, with dreams of their own. Or just people … like old Stanweis. And Moira. And Cook.

  And he was so eager, not just to take the lives of others, but to give his own. That was the tragedy.

  “Yes, I see,” she said, forcing a smile. “But if you think we’ll be attacked—what happens to us? Can’t you let us go? Won’t you? For me?”

  He hesitated for a long time. Then he said, “I wish … I wish now I had done that. But I was angry. I can’t now. Not in front of my men.”

  “Won’t you at least think about it? If we’re attacked?”

  “I will think about it.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you. Thank you.”

  “But one more thing,” he said.

  She waited, in the close air of the corridor, smelling him and herself.

  “If fighting starts here, stay in your room. Understand? There are men like Ihab”—he jerked his head back toward the boy—“and the man I punished, who have been told that you are our enemies; and I cannot be everywhere. Don’t come down to help your friends. Don’t come down to the lobby. Wait till it is over, until it stops. If we win, I will come and find you. If we lose, don’t go back to the plane.”

  “The plane?”

  “Even after the fighting is over.” He leaned closer over her, lowering his voice, although the guard still looked on blankly. “Do you understand?”

  “No, I don’t. Why not? If anything happens, why shouldn’t we try to get out?”

  “Listen to me, stupid woman! I am trying to help you. Don’t go out of your room. Don’t go back to the airplane.”

  “I’ll go wherever we’ll be safe,” Susan said. She straightened her back, and a little of her courage came back from wherever it had gone when she saw old Stanweis die. “I’m responsible for my daughter. I’m not promising anything where she’s concerned.”

  “All right, all right.” He waved one hand in an irritated gesture. “Are all American women as stubborn as you? Look. I will make you a deal. All right? If you stay here, in the hotel, I will try to protect you. Yo
u and the child. You see? If you stay in the room with her I will make sure no one hurts you. Is good enough? Will you be happy then?”

  “You’ll protect us yourself?”

  “That’s what I say. Yes.”

  And it was strange. It was what she had wanted, yet not dared to hope for. It was more than he had any reason to promise. Yet now as she looked up at his face in silence, in the cavelike dimness of the corridor, despite what he was, she did not doubt him at all. He would stay with them and protect them. It seemed natural. It was the way it should be. And she knew that despite his unwillingness to acknowledge it, it had not been only hers, that feeling of last night, that sense that there was something unspoken and complex between them. He felt it too, and he would stay. The knowledge flooded her, made her light, free, until beside her the guard sniffled and she remembered Moira.

  But you could push a man, this man, only so far. “Thank you,” she said again. “I knew you … cared for me.”

  “I care only for my people,” he said stiffly, but she knew that he was not really speaking to her now; it was for the guard, or more truly for some yet-unyielding part of himself. The way he stood, his hands gripping and releasing the stock of the rifle, told her that.

  “Can I see them now?” she asked him.

  “Yes. Go in. I will tell the guard to let you come out.”

  Lieberman and Cook were sitting behind an incongruous oak desk, the manager’s, apparently, looking out a barred window into the square. The guard followed her in. They both moved silently. As she came up to the desk, feeling the hot, still air cut at her face, neither of them heard. They were not speaking, not moving, just sitting together in green leather chairs. She saw just before she reached them that their hands were locked.

  From outside, through the bars, a stutter of distant shots filtered into the room.

  “Ox?”

  They both turned, but their hands stayed together. Moira’s face was streaked with tears, glistening trails through the dirt, and her eyes were wide and wet.

  Susan went to her and hugged her, and then, almost as an afterthought, kissed Michael. She paused then, uncertain what to do. She wanted to tell Moira about Harisah’s promise, but that seemed cruel. Instead she perched herself on a corner of the desk and said, too brightly, “Well, it’s not so bad down here, is it? There don’t seem to be as many flies.”

  “No.” Moira didn’t smile.

  “What’s happening?” said Cook. He looked excited, his cheeks flamed with color; she had never seen him so keyed up. “Can you see anything? Who’s doing all the firing?”

  “We can’t see anything. It’s coming from out in the mountains. Harisah says there might be an attack.”

  Their eyes sought hers for a moment; then the falsity of hope, the futility of it, struck them all at the same moment. There was a small space for silence. Susan looked down at the desktop; Moira looked away; Cook played with the dial of a rusty safe, left and right, left and right.

  “How’s Nancy?” muttered Lieberman.

  “All right … she’s all right.”

  “She’s the one you have to watch out for,” said the Ox. “This can really scar her, Betts. Forever. Trauma—”

  “Right now, I’m going to worry about keeping her from physical danger, Moira. That’s enough for me, right now. And there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for that.”

  Her friend lifted her head, and for a long moment they looked at each other across the desk. Susan knew what she was thinking, knew what Moira thought she meant. Well, that isn’t the way it is, she thought. But it’s a simple way to explain. And one not even the Ox can fault. Let it stand.

  “Betts. I want you to be real careful with him.”

  “I will be.”

  “He’s a murderer. He—”

  “You’ve said all that before, Moira. And I’m not disagreeing. I know you’re right, now. I don’t think he’s all bad. But what’s good in him is enlisted in the service of evil—like all the Germans who fought for Hitler.”

  “All right. I won’t argue about that. But there’s one more thing. What are you going to do about Dan?”

  “Dan?”

  “Remember him? What are you going to do when this is over?”

  “I guess … I guess, Moira, maybe that’s over, too.”

  It was the first time she had said it, even to herself.

  The Ox narrowed her eyes at her. “If that’s your decision. But I want you to do something for me, if we make it through this. Because I care about you. And that’s this: Think about it again, later, when this is over. Just be sure. To find someone you can love through … good and bad, well, that’s not so easy anymore.”

  She and Cook turned back to each other, and Susan stood for a moment in the hot silence, feeling suddenly excluded, left out. She watched their hands creep together across the desktop, creep and meet and intertwine again, tight, tight.

  They were still together, waiting, when the sound crept into the room. At first it was a humming, a far drone, just below the threshold of hearing. But it grew. Cook noticed it first, as if his senses were more finely drawn than theirs; he lifted his head, turned toward the window.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. There’s something out past the airstrip. Raising dust. A car, maybe—”

  It grew swiftly, climbing the scale as it neared. Grew, and then was lost in a popping vibration that made them all look at one another, suddenly, and then jump forward to the sill.

  Out of the southern sky a moving thing buzzed forward, drawn as if along a wire from the open desert valley toward the hotel. It grew swiftly, and then, suddenly, resolved itself into a small helicopter. It dipped, and as their eyes followed it, a gout of smoke blew free from its engine and unrolled toward them. But then their eyes dropped from it to something beyond, moving across the desert beyond the airstrip.

  “It’s a goddamn tank or something,” said Cook.

  “Where?”

  “Beyond the plane. We couldn’t see it coming because it was behind it. Wait. There’s a whole fucking line of them! Jesus! Do you think they’re ours? Do we have green things with pointed noses?”

  At that moment the clatter of the aircraft turned to a roar as it passed over the square, and the world outside disappeared in a whirling storm of dust and black smoke.

  “Susan!” Moira turned to her, her face white. “Get upstairs. Get with Nan! Now!”

  And with the sound of beating wings in her ears, terror in her heart, she fled through the empty corridors of the hotel, tears streaming down her face.

  33

  Ash Shummari, Syria

  The strike element entered Syria that afternoon without knowing it. Baked within steel boxes, jolted half-unconscious over mountain roads, there was no way they could have known.

  Will Givens couldn’t tell. In fact he was asleep. Fatigue, heat, and the reaction to his first hostile fire made a powerful soporific. He snored through the last miles, slumped against another trooper on the hard bench inside the ’track. At times he would open his eyes, on the worst stretches of downhill road, but he never came fully awake. Only halfway, to a fevered place of dreaming, where he would linger and then slide back again into the hot maw of darkness, seeing again and again a bloody scrap of flesh.…

  He did not see the border station, its white-and-green-striped crossing-guard down, but its windows empty, abandoned; did not see the lead amtrac take it at full speed, smashing the poured-concrete guard post, tearing through wood and glass and barbed wire.

  At some indeterminate time Cutford jerked him awake in the roaring din of the ’track’s interior. No. Not roaring. The engine was at a high idle, and they were squatting stationary on level ground. As Will realized this the ramp banged down aft. He ducked his head to look out, catching a breath of hot fresh air, and said “Where are we, man?”

  “I think it’s the place we’re going to,” said Hernandez seriously to the whole interior of the ’track.

/>   “Better stay inside,” the A-driver called back, as Cut-ford made a move for the hatch. “They’re talkin’ on the radio. They ain’t sure this is the right coordinates.”

  “Fucken officers. They sure it’s the right country?”

  The driver straightened back into the turret, his back stiff. Cutford turned round once more, like a dog about to lie down, and lowered himself unwillingly back onto the seat, glaring out the open rear, of the ’track.

  Givens watched him briefly, nodding, and then curled back into sleep. Or tried to. But the change of air had brought him back to wakefulness. As he peered past Cutford’s shadowed bulk he saw mountains in the distance, the range they had crossed.

  “Noncoms dismount,” someone shouted outside. “Muster for precombat brief.”

  “They love to jerk their jaws, don’t they,” muttered Silkworth. Will looked back at him. The Silk grinned for just a moment, just as he had in a cathouse in Sicily; and then he swung on the rest of the men and was a sergeant again. “Come on, Cutford. Rest of you boys, hang tight.”

  Will saw the corporal pause for a moment at the hatch, as if unwilling to leave the shelter of metal walls, and then move into a lope, lifting his M-16 to high port. Through the open rear hatch, as if in a frame, he could see the noncoms from the other ’tracks arrive two by two and form a rough circle around the command jeep. Silkworth and Cutford joined them as the colonel, with two other officers beside him, spread a map out before them on the hood of the vehicle.

  Will looked at the sky. It was still blue, still clear except for smoke a few hills over. He relaxed for a moment, glancing at Harner, who had lit a cigarette and was sucking smoke into his nostrils, and then looked out again at the sky. On the ship it had meant freedom, the only thing in his life that was the same as home. Now he found himself remembering how the projectiles had appeared against it, nothing more than specks, like the negatives of stars, but aimed at him.

  As if to reinforce his unease the popcorn rattle of automatic weapons sounded some distance off. The marines, packed close, yet drew slightly closer. Givens began to feel a primitive need. He was debating jumping out of the vehicle, just for a moment, when the sergeant reappeared in the open rampway. One of the colonel’s staff officers, a major, had come back from the jeep with him, and now stood behind him.