Dead of Night

by Brendan DuBois

  ‘I know how it is,’ he said softly. ‘You see this home and you wonder who they were. You wonder what kind of man the father was, you wonder how the mother treated their children. You wonder how old the children were, what kind of games they played, how they lived here. You wonder what it was like when the men with guns broke in. Who they were. Angry refugees from one of the cities? Or angry neighbors, upset that this family had given aid and comfort to those now considered enemies, outsiders? Then you wonder what happened. Was the mother raped in front of the children? Was the father killed first? Were the children taken away? You wonder how men could do this to people who were fellow citizens of their country, who were civilians, simple farmers. Fellow Americans, as they would say. Samuel, you are wondering all this, and you cannot let it happen.’

  My words sounded like they were being strangled in my throat before I uttered them. ‘How? How do you do that?’

  Sanjay looked around him, looking so serious and proper, even though he was still wearing his helmet and body armor. ‘By doing what we are doing. By remembering them, by paying witness. You do your job as best as you can, but you don’t dwell on what you can’t see. You cannot let your imagination take over. You have to do your job with what is there. Trust me, that is more than enough.’

  I just nodded, picked up my camera. Like before, in the bam, I took photos of the living room and the blood spatters and the bullet holes. I went to the other rooms as well, a children’s room and a bedroom for the parents upstairs, where the fires had been set and had sputtered out. The smell of burned wood was nauseating. I made a special point of taking photographs of the few framed pictures I could find: photos of weddings, of school graduations, of family celebrations. I tried to heed Sanjay’s advice not to dwell on the implications of what I was taking shots of. I just made sure that the photos were in focus and were framed properly and had the correct captions. In a narrow hallway I moved between Jean-Paul and Karen in mid-conversation, with Jean-Paul being his usual pompous self:

  ‘…Agree with Peter, we can’t spend all this time here with no bodies, no additional evidence. Site A is supposed to have more than a hundred bodies and the evidence ...’

  ‘... Won’t ignore this site. So, sorry, Karen, but that’s the way it’s going to be ...’

  Back in the living room Sanjay was processing some of his own information in his laptop, while I took additional photographs of the bloody clothing that had been left behind. These photographs would go in specially bound books prepared by the International Red Cross. With many records being destroyed in villages and towns here in New York and other places as well, especially those in the immediate footprint of the EMPs from the airborne nukes, these books were often the best source of information left. Sometime, somewhere, some trembling survivors would leaf through these photos and find a baby sock or a man’s shoe or a woman’s frock that they could identify, and one poor family’s fate would be transferred from ‘unidentified’ to ‘identified’. Again, not much of a peacekeeping function, but as record keepers we could not be beat.

  Then I found myself alone on the front steps of the house, having downloaded and uplinked the latest photographs and captions. I found I could not spend another second in that dead place. My hands were threatening to shake so I clasped them in my lap. Outside, Charlie was leaning against the fender of one of the Toyota Land Cruisers, sipping yet another cup of coffee. He looked over at me and then went back to his coffee. Behind me the door swung open and Jean-Paul sat down next to me.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘Taking a quick break, eh?’

  I just nodded, fearful that if I opened my mouth I might throw up. Not a way to impress one’s supervisor, even if it was just Jean-Paul.

  He reached under his parka, took out a packet of Gauloise cigarettes. He lit one and asked, ‘A smoke, Samuel?’

  ‘No. thank you,’ I said, grateful that I could get those words out without choking on them.

  The smell of the harsh French tobacco was almost comforting and Jean-Paul clasped both his large hands together, holding the cigarette in his rubber-gloved fingers. He said, ‘The first time is always the worst. Always. No matter what you see in the future, this will be the worst of the lot. That should give you some comfort.’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t blame yourself, then.’

  ‘Sorry, I do,’ I said, my voice getting stronger. ‘Hell, there aren’t even any bodies in there, but I still feel like puking on my feet. And some of my photos suck, because my hands are shaking so much that the pictures come out blurry. A hell of a thing to be doing. And compared to what you guys do...’

  Jean-Paul took a puff of his cigarette. ‘We have you, and that is fine. And still, despite everything you’ve said, here you are.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I don’t think I’m doing shit.’

  ‘No, that’s not true,’ he said. ‘What you are doing is important. What we all do here is important, but you are the record keeper. Months and years from now, our reports with their formal and stale language about bullet holes and decomposed bodies and clothing identifications will be forgotten. But your photos and your reports and your journals will be read for ever, to show the world what has happened here.’

  ‘Why? So it doesn’t happen again? Faint damn chance of that, and you know it.’

  Another puff of his cigarette. ‘If there is to be any progress, we cannot ignore what has happened. Sometimes we can prevent the atrocities, and sometimes we cannot. And when we cannot, we comfort the survivors and prosecute the criminals. A little thing, perhaps, but better than doing nothing at all. We are not a perfect organization, the UN. We never have been. But we are a start.’

  ‘True ... but this is different. I’ve been in the States, many times. To come here like this, to see them like this ...’

  ‘I know. In some ways it is the hardest, eh? As so-called civilized men, we believe in “the other”. That only bad things can happen in certain backward places. In the Sudan. In the Balkans. Not the Adirondacks. But under pressure—after the spring bombings—even the most advanced places can collapse.’

  I rubbed my hands together, not sure what to say next, and Jean-Paul said, ‘I know your father. How is he?’

  ‘All right, I suppose. Where did you know him from?’

  ‘In Mogadishu.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, not wanting to say any more.

  Jean-Paul dropped the cigarette butt on the brown grass, ground it out with his boot heel. ‘If you write to him, tell him I said hello, will you?’

  ‘If I write, I will.’

  ‘Another thing—but not to be mentioned in any letter to him.’

  ‘All right,’ I said.

  ‘The thing that happened to him after Mogadishu ... Not his fault. For what it’s worth, I think what happened to him was unfair. All right?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘But you’ll excuse me if I don’t agree with you. It was his fault. From start to finish. He was the CO. Period.’

  ‘And that will have to be discussed at another time,’ Jean-Paul said, opening the door. ‘Look. Take some more time off. Go for a little walk. Keep in view of the farmhouse and Charlie and don’t go into the woods. But clear your head some, all right?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, and when the door slammed behind him, I looked out again to the little dirt driveway and Charlie still standing there, our coffee-drinking sentinel.

  ~ * ~

  I followed Jean-Paul’s suggestion and got up and walked around the muddy yard, looking at the empty clotheslines, the thin ropes moving slightly in the breeze, and at an overturned tricycle, and a picnic table with peeling green paint. The woods were mostly pine, about fifty meters away from the rear of the house, and it just seemed right to me that the men with guns had come out of these woods sometime during the night, for that was when they preferred to work. At night, when everything was dark and everything was permissible, especially if you were from far away, you were hungry, and you wanted to take what you
didn’t have.

  I went behind the barn and saw that the fog had burned off so much that I could make out a rise in the land, some distance away, and two other farmhouses on the crest of the ridge. Woodsmoke eddied up from chimneys at each of the houses, and I wondered who was in those two homes. Were they local refugees, back home now because of the accord and because of the UN force? Or were they survivors of what had happened, only now emerging from root cellars and hidden shelters in the forest, having been terrorized here after fleeing one of the big cities?

  Or maybe they were collaborators or former members of the militias, who had kept watch on their neighbors all these years so that when the night fell after last spring’s attack and the knives and guns came out they could so efficiently do their work. How could they still be there, I thought, just hundreds of meters away from this massacre site? Hadn’t they seen the men with guns come across the fields, or drive up in pickup trucks and cars? Hadn’t they heard the shouts, the screams, the gunshots? Hadn’t they seen the muzzle flash of gunfire, the flames coming out of the windows, the smoke billowing from the house?

  Hadn’t they noticed a damn thing?

  Out behind the barn the tilled earth stretched away, and I walked for a while in the muddy soil, remembering again the farms back home in Ontario, farms larger and better maintained than this one. But, even then, I felt a pang of homesickness as I trudged across the field, trying to clear my head. My fingers ached from working my equipment and my head ached from the helmet and my shoulders and back ached from the body armor, and for about the thousandth time since I came in-country I wondered why in hell I had volunteered.

  Then I tripped and fell into the mud.

  I stood up. ‘Moron,’ I said to myself, and I looked down, wondering what I had tripped over. Something in the dirt. I nudged it with the edge of my boot.

  A woman’s shoe.

  I stepped back as if the damn thing was electrified. I looked around this part of the field and saw that something was wrong, very wrong.

  The dirt didn’t make sense.

  All across the field were muddy furrows, running straight and true from the rear of the barn to the nearest fence. But in this place, where I had tripped, the dirt was different.

  It had been disturbed, and recently.

  I turned and ran back to the farmhouse. Halfway there my chinstrap came loose and I had to hold on to my helmet with a free hand while the mud stuck to my racing feet.

  ~ * ~

  Peter frowned as he moved the thin metal probe up and down in the dirt. ‘Looks like we’ve got something here, Jean-Paul. Dirt’s moving around easy enough, and I’m getting soft resistance at the other end.’

  Jean-Paul had another cigarette between his fingers. ‘Good. Miriam?’

  She was on her knees in the mud, gently probing with a flexible thin hose that she dipped in and out of the dirt. The clear plastic tube ran back to a small open case, which she examined. There were dials and digital readouts and I stood there, still breathing heavily from my burdened run back to the farmhouse. Karen and Sanjay and even Charlie were standing nearby, in a semicircle. Karen and Sanjay looked angry. Only Charlie looked calm, but with him I would never think that I could guess what was going on behind those quiet eyes.

  ‘Decomposition gases,’ Miriam said. ‘There’s decaying flesh under here. Less than a meter, I’d guess.’

  Another nod from Jean-Paul. ‘Very good. Peter, are there shovels in that barn over there?’

  Peter stood there, the probe resting on his shoulder. He was staring down at where Miriam was working.

  ‘Peter?’ Jean-Paul asked. ‘Did you not hear me?’

  At first Peter’s voice was so quiet that I almost didn’t hear him. ‘…Difference does it make, Jean-Paul? You know why we’re here, why another half-dozen teams are out wandering the countryside. Looking for Site A. Does this look like Site A? Does it?’

  Jean-Paul took a drag from his cigarette. ‘No, it is not Site A. But it is something. We will do what we are tasked to do, and continue our work.’

  ‘But it’s a waste of time!’ Peter said, and I could make out Karen and Sanjay nodding in agreement. ‘We’ve got a week to find Site A, and we shouldn’t be wasting our resources here.’

  Jean-Paul’s voice was quiet and firm. ‘You’ll have us leave them here, forgotten and in the muck?’

  Karen spoke up in Peter’s defense. ‘No, we won’t forget them. Make a report and list this site for further excavation. We should leave here and get to work on finding Site A. This is just one more farm family, Jean-Paul. You know how important Site A is to the High Commissioner.’

  Jean-Paul looked at all of us through his black-rimmed glasses. ‘Yes, I do. Perhaps better than the rest of you. And if any of you are someday assigned to supervise a field team, then you can do as you please. But this field team is under my direction. And I direct that we begin the excavation. Now. Understood? No more time for questions. No more time for back talk. Or you will be relieved of your duties and will be sent out on the next chartered flight to your respective home country. Understood?’

  I wasn’t sure but I think Charlie was enjoying this little demonstration of the UN in action, for he turned away for a moment, as if to hide the amusement on his face. Peter muttered something under his breath, jammed the thin metal probe back into the ground, and strode over to the barn. After a minute or two he came back, carrying two shovels under his arm. He tossed one at me—which I caught, thankfully—and glared at me.

  You found this spot,’ he said. ‘Least you could do is start digging.’

  I said nothing, just took the shovel and got to work. A few seconds later Peter joined me.

  ~ * ~

  The digging was hard going, even though it was clear that the soil had been freshly turned over. The earth was thick and muddy and wet, and large chunks of it stuck to the shovel blade. I found that after just a few minutes of work I was sweating underneath the body armor and my helmet. My hands began to get sore, and the sounds—the sickening squishing and plopping noises as chunks of mud were piled up to the side — were obscene. As Peter and I dug we kept quiet. Then Karen and Sanjay went to one of the Toyota Land Cruisers and came back, each carrying a long dark object, which they unrolled on the wet ground, speaking not a word. Rubberized body bags, in two sizes, for adults or children. How thoughtful.

  I dug and dug, my wrists and hands aching, and I wished for a break. But I wasn’t about to give Peter the satisfaction of seeing me give up first, so I concentrated on the digging and every now and then raised my eyes to see what was going on around us. I saw Karen and Sanjay laying out the body bags. I saw Miriam looking at the readouts on her black box. I saw Jean-Paul and Charlie talking to each other in low voices. I saw another flock of ravens going overhead, croaking at us as they flew to sit in the nearby pine trees, to watch what we were uncovering for them.

  ‘Time for a break,’ Peter gasped, and I shoveled two more loads of muck out before agreeing.

  ‘Sure,’ I said, feeling good that I had outlasted our moody Brit. ‘Time for a break.’

  Peter got out of the hole, walked to the side of the barn and leaned back against the dark wood. I stayed in the hole, toying with the soil. Miriam came over and said, ‘How are you doing, Samuel?’

  ‘I’ve had better days,’ I said.

  ‘Look, you see that?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Those white streaks, in the soil. Not good, not good at all.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She shivered and then hugged herself. ‘Lime. Helps speed up decomposition. The militias do that to hide the evidence.’

  I suppose I should have waited for Peter to return, but Miriam was looking at me and I felt like I had to do something. I started digging again and then it was as though the earth beneath me belched, for something foul and sour started wafting up. I gagged and clambered out of the trench, and Miriam called out, ‘Jean-Paul, we’re getting close now, very c
lose.’

  She reached into her coat pocket, took out a small container of a white salve. She unscrewed the top and said, ‘Over here, Samuel. Just for a moment. For the smell.’

  Miriam delicately inserted her index finger into the open jar and pulled out a dollop of the salve on the end of her finger. She gingerly smeared the gunk on my upper lip, right under both nostrils, and a blast of peppermint seemed to roar right through my nose and into my head. I looked at the jar. Vicks VapoRub. She managed a smile and I smiled back at her, standing in a muddy field with the odor of decaying flesh now all around us, and the moment was so intimate that I wished I didn’t have to move.