‘Ssshhh. Calm now, Micka. Are you injured?’
‘No.’
‘Is the child okay? You said it’s one of the babies?’
‘Yeah, it’s…tiny.’
‘Okay. Now, I need you to give me your location. Are you close to the foxhole?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t…’ I want to die. I think I want to die. No, I want to sleep. Sleeping would be good enough. Have one of Ben’s drinks and drift into oblivion, forget the bodies strewn across the forest floor, forget the girl, forget this whole damned war and just go home and sleep and wake up as if everything had only been a bad dream. But Ben is dead and there’ll be no more drinks, no more funny conversations to share with him.
‘Micka, your position.’ His voice is soft but insisted enough to make me turn my head and assess the distance. ‘About four hundred metres from the foxhole, moving south.’
He’s silent for a moment. No shots are fired, no shells are detonated. All that remains are cries of pain.
‘Move. I’ll cover your back,’ he says and a pop sounds in my earbud. At once, the few men left alive answer by screaming louder, but no one fires. They are done for today.
‘Let me know when you are close to the stream,’ he says.
‘Okay. It will take a while, though.’
‘Are you okay? Your injuries?’
‘Yeah. Don’t worry.’
‘I’ll finish this here,’ he says.
The Bullshit Army is good and done for. Shouldn’t I be happy now?
‘A boy with explosives ran past me a few minutes ago — didn’t see me. He looks…crazy. Don’t get too close to him.’ Don’t try to help him, is what I mean but can’t say.
I crawl another three hundred metres, then walk hunched over. No need to make myself move slowly, the pain in my leg and side force a snail’s pace on me. The child moves only once in a while. I don’t know much about babies, but this one seems too small and too subdued.
When I reach the riverbed, I fill my canteen, then gently push the ghillie aside. I gulp. The child is so small. How the heck did it survive until now? I dip my finger into the stream and notice how dirty my skin is. I rub it clean on my pants, and offer the child water, drop by drop. The tiny mouth greedily sucks off the liquid.
Where the heck can I get milk? What did the girl think when she gave her child to me? That I keep a flock of goats around the corner?
The small body is wrapped in a length of fabric, barely keeping it warm. I undress it. ‘A girl,’ I huff. ‘No wonder she wanted you away from this hellhole.’
A chuckle rolls up my throat. I said “hell” and my stupid reflexes immediately rise up, ready to punish myself for saying a banned word. Frowning, I lower the baby into the cold stream. She squeaks while I wash her soiled bottom. There’s an angry rash between her legs, up her butt cheeks and the lower part of her back. Faint red dots cover her entire body. She feels a little too warm in my hands. I cup water into my palm and offer it to her. She sucks at my skin and I try to inch fluid in between her lips. It doesn’t work all too well.
Unhappy, her wailing rises in pitch. I open the top of my ghillie suit and tuck her in. ‘There. You’ll be warm in a second,’ I tell her.
‘I’m here,’ Runner says and for a moment I’m confused because I don’t know what “here” means, until I realise he didn’t speak through my earbud. He’s right behind me.
When he approaches, I stand. Neither of us knows what to say. He squints at the odd position of my arm, reaches out and moves the ghillie aside. His face darkens at once, his hand drops.
I stare at him, my chin set, and feet firmly planted in the dirt. He seems to try to read my mind. And then, all he says is, ‘Come,’ and hooks his arm around my waist, helping me walk.
Now that he’s here, I almost break down sobbing. I feel his hand tightening around my hip and I whisper, ‘How many left?’
‘None,’ he says and we begin walking.
He picks a fruit from a tree and hands it to me. I offer it to the child. She sucks on it, but soon spits it out.
‘We’ll get down to the coast, contact our forces, and have the child evacuated,’ he says.
I know what that means. No milk for days. And that’s when a thought creeps in, one I cannot erase, one that sticks to the inside of my skull like excrement. Wouldn’t it be better if she’d died with her mother?
I gaze up at the treetops and breathe in the earthy scents of the forest. Who can know? I tell myself. Death and silence are accurate and unchanging while life wildly dances around them, one foot in the air, one on the ground, and chaos plays the tune.
This will be a long walk, and the child doesn’t seem to be comfortable in my arm with the strap of my ruck rubbing on her cheek and the ghillie tickling her nose. ‘Wait a moment,’ I say to Runner, shrug off my pack, and lay her on the soft forest floor. She blinks at nothing in particular and sticks a tiny fist into her mouth. I take a fresh shirt from my ruck and cut the lower half off, move the ghillie aside, sling the shirt bit over one shoulder and fold her into it.
‘I can carry her,’ Runner offers.
‘No.’ I almost take a step back. ‘Later, maybe.’
He holds out his hand. ‘Your rifle, then?’ His expression is as bewildered as I feel. I pass him my weapon, he helps me shoulder my ruck, and we march downhill. He has to point out obstacles for me, because I have problems seeing where to place my feet with the small package wrapped to my stomach.
It doesn’t take long for the wailing to begin again. I offer her my pinky and she angrily cries in return. Runner hands me a piece of fruit, but the protest grows even louder.
And so we walk unspeaking, with the bouts of hungry disapproval piercing the silence. Not even an hour into our hike, I feel warm moisture on my stomach. ‘I need to find water,’ I tell him and he changes direction at once.
Not long and we come across a stream. I toss the ruck on the ground, kneel and take the child out of the sling to dab the urine off her inflamed bottom. Seeing the poor condition she’s in, I’m left to wonder if her mother even had the energy or knowledge to take good care of her daughter. Did she give birth all alone? Did the men let her heal before she had to warm their beds again? Did she have any hope her daughter would survive this war?
When a hand touches my shoulder softly, I realise that the only hope she’d ever had came in the shape of a girl with a gun and a ghillie, just moments before she walked into her own death. Until she found me, she must have believed her daughter would die with her.
‘We’ll rest for an hour to eat and drink,’ Runner says and busies himself with our provisions. ‘We’ll move at daytime and sleep at night. We’re faster that way.’
When his back is turned to me, I rub the stinging from my eyes, tuck the baby into the crook of my arm, and splash her fiercely red butt cheeks with water. She hates it, tugs at the small ivory dog at my throat, and screams until her face is purple. Her mouth keeps searching for her mother’s breast, but finds only my sleeve. ‘I’m sorry, little one. It’ll be warm and cozy in a bit. Just give me a minute.’
It doesn’t matter what I say, she has a very different opinion of how her life should be and that what she wants should be given to her this very moment. I gently rub her skin clean and dry her with my shirt sleeve.
‘Aren’t you mad at me?’ I ask Runner without turning to look at him.
‘Why would I be?’
‘Because I lost control. I stopped firing and retreated before our job was done. I didn’t behave like a good…’
‘Sniper?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What would have changed if you’d left her behind?’ he asks.
I can’t answer that. I can’t even imagine leaving a tiny human being on a battle field, knowing she’d be trampled on or hit by a shell.
‘She’s too small and too quiet,’ I whisper as if saying it aloud would make things worse.
‘In only three days we’ll meet our forces. The girl’
s chances are good.’
‘I hope Kat can find a mother for her. At least a bit of goat milk before she…’
‘Yeah,’ he says. Neither of us knows if Kat is still alive, and there’s no use theorising what might happen.
I look down at the girl. Her eyes flutter shut. She’s nuzzled in the crook of my arm, her bottom drying in the warm breeze. I don’t dare move for the fear of waking her. But we have to eat and get moving soon.
‘Can you take her for a moment?’
He holds out his arm and she fits in snugly. He’s done this before. What a contrast — the tiny girl in Runner’s strong arms.
I turn away from him, pull off my wet shirt and wash it in the stream, rub the urine off my stomach and change into a dry shirt, and strap the wet shirt on the outside of my ruck. We eat in silence, then Runner leads the way downhill.
Whenever I gaze down at the child huddled against my stomach, I’m struck by her fragility. She looks like a tiny, wrinkled bird just hatched from its egg.
———
The night is horrible. Runner checks the sutures on my leg and side while the baby screams in my arms. She’s hoarse and refuses all fruits and water we offer her. Her skin is hot and sweaty. I want to cry with her, but all I do is hold her and repeat the most useless words, ‘I’ll make it better. Soon, I’ll make it better.’
When Runner takes her from me, rocks her softly and hums a lullaby, she and I doze off together.
Before daybreak, we are on the move again.
‘She’s yellow,’ I say, once the sun stands high enough to filter through the trees. Her fever has been bouncing up and down for hours now, and she keeps refusing all water. ‘The rash is covering her all over.’
‘Two days,’ he answers, and I know it’s too long. Her small body has no reserves left.
I stop walking. I can’t take another step without telling him I’ve done him wrong. ‘I hurt you and I’m sorry. I know it was hard and you took one life to save another. I can’t even imagine how it must have felt to kill the boy, and I know that he would have died no matter what you did, but…but still, it was hard and you hurt because you did it, and…I punched you.’
He stands still, his head lowered and slightly tilted in my direction as if to hear better.
‘And,’ I continue, ‘I hated you for killing him, although I have no right to. No one has. I understood this only when I…’
‘When you, too, had to pull the trigger on a child,’ he finishes the sentence for me.
I nod, begin to walk, and brush his hand as I pass him. He presses it briefly before letting go.
When the second night falls and I sit down with the baby girl in my arms, she barely moves. Runner told me earlier that he believes she has Dengue fever. He didn’t need to say that there’s nothing we can do. I could see it already.
Once he set up his hammock and spread the tarp high above it, he says, ‘Come.’
I hand the child to him and lie down. When he places her on my chest, I pull up my shirt for her. I should have done this much earlier. That’s all she ever wanted. Skin on warm skin. I cradle her in my arm, her head on my breast, her cheek resting against my nipple. Her heartbeat is that of a bird. I cover her small fist with my rough and calloused hand, and tuck her soft bottom in the bend of my elbow. Runner drapes a blanket over us, swings the hammock, and hums his lullaby.
‘Basheer,’ he says after a long moment. ‘That was my name when I was a boy. Before the BSA killed my family.’
‘Basheer.’ Quietly, I repeat his name, roll it around in my mouth and taste it. It feels as if the bark of one of the ancient trees rasps against my tongue.
Runner pushes air from his lungs in a low hiss. ‘It’s been twenty years since I last spoke my name or heard anyone speak it. Thank you.’ He reaches out and holds my hand for a moment, then leans against a tree and wraps his arms around his chest.
‘Twenty years? How old are you?’ I ask.
‘I’m not sure. Where I was born, birthdays didn’t matter. Often, we were happy enough to see the next day. Elmar said, when he found me I couldn’t have been older than seven or eight.’
‘You taste of forest,’ I say without thinking.
He turns his head and pulls up an eyebrow. ‘I do what?’
‘I… To me, all words have flavours. “Basheer” tastes of forest. Go to that cypress over there, chip a piece of bark off, and lick the inside.’ I point.
Without hesitation he pushes away from the trunk, the corners of his mouth twitching. I watch him drive his knife into the tree, working a piece of bark off. He returns to my side, holds the bark up to his nose and sniffs, then sticks his tongue out and runs it over the reddish wood.
‘Describe the taste.’
‘Dry, hard, slightly sweet — which is odd — lightly acidic, too, maybe?’ He shrugs and shakes his head. ‘It’s difficult to describe. Complex and not quite comparable to most flavours I know.’
‘Precisely. That’s my problem with words. Their flavours can be so unique or so complex that I cannot describe them. “Runner” for example.’
He bends forward, curiosity shining in his eyes.
‘The raw and intact yolk of a freshly laid duck egg, still warm, rolling around in my mouth.’ I blush and turn my head away when I see him grin.
‘Sensual,’ he whispers. He doesn’t comment on the odd fact that I run around in the woods, licking trees.
‘I thought of giving her a name. But then…I didn’t. The flavour would always…’ I swallow, but the lump in my throat doesn’t go away.
‘Give her to me for a little while,’ he says.
I place her into the cradle of his arms, roll up in a ball, and let go of the world.
Sometime past midnight, he touches my shoulder to wake me. ‘It’s time,’ he says.
The baby’s breathing is laboured — an almost inaudible stuttering. I take her from him and place her on my chest, feeling the flutter of her heart and lungs against the steady rhythm of life thrumming inside my own body.
When the first sunlight kisses the trees, her heart twitches its last. I watch the orange rays set the foliage on fire, watch it travel down along the twigs and branches, until the small body on my breast grows as cold as the morning. Only then do I dare to speak.
‘Runner?’
His shoulders jerk and his eyes snap open. He lifts his head from his arm and pushes himself up.
I move the blanket aside to let him see her face. He nods once and holds his hand out to help me out of the hammock. We walk to the stream. He kneels and starts digging a hole at the base of an ancient tree. The soil is soft and moist, but the thick roots prevent his hands from digging deep.
I lay her down, wishing I believed in the magic of an afterlife. Her tiny body in the cold soil looks abandoned. I hug myself and wait until he’s smoothed earth and leaves over the grave.
I don’t know what to say or do, so I remain rooted to the spot. He washes his hands in the stream, splashes cold water into his face, and stands.
Something pushes me and I can’t help it any longer. I step forward, wrap my arms around him, and bury my face in the crook of his neck. He holds me, breathing hard. He’s fighting. I’ve never seen him cry and I don’t think I ever will.
The pressure around my shoulders increases; he breathes into my hair and presses his lips to my temple. The weather is changing. Dramatically. I don’t know what’s happening. Quivering, I push away and run.
My feet move faster. Faster, until my injured leg screams in agony. I don’t want to see anyone. I want the rain to cleanse me. I tear my clothes off and leave them where they fall. I don’t know if I’ll ever return, and I don’t care, either. Anything that’s not now, is irrelevant. One foot in front of the other. Twigs, leaves, mud. My toes dig into the soil. My hands pick up clay and rub it on my arms, my breasts, my stomach, while I keep limping awkwardly. My slowness drives me mad. My being here drives me mad. I need to get away, but I can’t. I kneel, bury my face
in the dirt and roll onto my back. I don’t want to see my scars. I’d rather be dirty than what I really am: ugly, cut-up, crisscrossed, dotted. I am the manifestation of violence. I am The Fog.
Clay turns my skin and hair grey, patched with the red and brown hues of dead foliage. I want to be an old tree, giving birth to leaves and blossoms, providing a home for beetles and moss.
Runner calls for me, his anxious voice coming nearer with every breath. He walks past, not five metres from where I lie, yet he doesn’t see me. I close my eyes and imagine butterflies landing on my stomach. How can I make my toes root deeply into the earth? Wouldn’t life be wonderful if birds built a nest in my hair and on my outstretched arms?
His footfalls approach and come to a halt next to me.
I open my eyes.
He kneels. ‘How can I… I wish I could…’ He rakes a hand through his hair then drops his arm to his side. ‘Micka?’
‘I want to be a tree,’ I croak.
He lies down, his shoulder touching mine. Together, we gaze up at the foliage waving in the mild breeze. ‘Do you want me to leave?’ he asks.
Do I?
I sit up. Dirt and leaves are covering me, hiding me. I gaze down at him. His arm is folded behind his head and there’s a deep sadness in his eyes. But no sign of the turmoil that threatens to rip me apart. I need his calmness now. Need it like a drowning girl needs a steady float atop the wild ocean.
I touch his chest. He observes my fingers trailing down his shirt, pushing it up a little, and dipping into the hollow of his navel. I wonder when he’ll push my hand away.
But he doesn’t.
He pulls off his shirt, drops it among twigs and mud, and reaches out to pick a leaf off my stomach — a soft touch. Heat rushes through me. I want to feel his weight on me; I want him to push all air from my aching chest. I want to be pressed down into the soft forest floor, my body trembling against his.
His hand wanders farther up and picks a leaf off my right breast, then caresses the dirt off my lips. His gaze is insecure.
I know why — because it’s only me underneath the camouflage.
Fog: The Climate Fiction Saga Page 18
