by James Phelan
“Another bombing.”
“Another bombing,” Mendes said. “And who led the country in prayer for that?”
“I did.”
“That’s right. It was you. You belong in that position as head of a Caliphate, based here in Nigeria. You are the one who deserves to have conversations with god. Be the guiding light for the nation. For your people.”
Mendes could see Achebe rolling over all that he must in order to come to terms with this proposal. Nearly two years in the making, Steve Mendes had just delivered his punch-line. In the film script of this story, he’d just voiced the major plot path for this Achebe character to launch himself on. Now, to make sure he followed the right path.
“Have we found the militants, the bombers?” Achebe was so innocent sometimes. So foolish it was priceless. The right path was presenting itself as the only path. Beautifully.
“Militants, of course,” Mendes said. “It comes as the world oil price is escalating and several oil contracts are coming up, it will force the hands of some oil companies. They will definitely move out now. It means we can have the new blood move in, companies that will pay us more, give you more, that we can have more control over. This could not have happened at a more opportune time.”
“That’s right…”
“See, your God is guiding you,” Mendes said. “You, Brutus Achebe. You are on the right path. You must follow it. Fulfil your destiny.”
7
NEW YORK CITY
“I seriously don’t have time for this,” Fox said, fidgeting in the chair.
“The door’s there,” Dr Galen said. He closed the folder, his capped fountain pen resting on the mahogany desk. “Why don’t you go through it and take a little holiday? Come back and see me when you have more time.”
Fox was silent. He looked from Galen’s face to the desk. Bare but for his thin plastic file, a lamp, the pen, and a clear clock that faced the shrink. Third time in here and Fox knew the guy kept a close eye on that clock. A habit from what, thirty years in practice?
“I can help you, Lachlan. But it’s gotta go my way. You have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You’re a workaholic and a borderline alcoholic. None of that’s gonna fix itself in a hurry.”
Fox shot him a look. A little self-loathing smile. Realisation. He was right.
“That all?” Dr Galen asked. Fox showed him his upturned palms in surrender. The psychiatrist opened the file. “Okay. How’d the awards night go?”
“Good, it was fine,” Fox said. He knew what Galen was referring to.
Galen flicked through the file from the previous meeting’s notes, and the referral details he’d received from the GSR psychiatrist.
“You been doing drugs since I saw you last?”
Fox shook his head.
“Not used any cocaine?”
“No,” Fox said. He hadn’t touched it for over a week. He stopped his hands tapping on the arms of the chair, conscious of the body language he was putting out. He sat a little straighter.
“That’s good. How many drinks a day?”
“About the same.”
“About five or six?”
“Five, six, whatever’s in front of me.”
“You have anything you want to talk about today?”
“Not really. You know the shit that’s been troubling me.”
There was a long pause between them both. Galen looked back through fifteen pages of handwritten notes in the blue plastic folder.
“We started with—Kate, didn’t we?”
Fox nodded.
“Talked about her, what you shared with her,” Galen said, looking down his nose through his glasses as he read. “She meant a lot to you, and could have been something special. Her death was very traumatic for you, understandably.”
Fox bit his lip, nodded.
“I just—I keep thinking about that night,” Fox said. “It’s like she was just snatched from me. I mean, I’d known her for such a short time but—it’s weird, and I think I said this last week, it sometimes feels like she’s still out there.”
Galen made notes and flicked forward through the pages.
“You told me about your time in Timor. And Venice. And last week,” Galen recalled, “we began talking about your military posting in the Middle East. You touched on your first posting, in Iraq. Can we pick it up from there?”
Fox fidgeted in his chair; chewed on the inside of his cheek.
“Lachlan, I’ve treated many servicemen from Iraq. What you’re going through is not abnormal. Hell, it’s not abnormal for any young person who hasn’t seen war. Many incidents within any house in any neighbourhood here in the States can trigger what you’ve been feeling. On top of that, there are pressures on you to perform. Expectations. Exaltations. And all this is amplified by the extreme circumstances you’ve lived through.”
Fox looked at the prints on the walls, soft pastel renderings of water lilies framed behind glass.
“There were one hundred and twenty-one US Army soldiers who took their lives last year,” Galen said. “More than two thousand who either attempted suicide or deliberately hurt themselves. They’re the highest rates since records began. I’ve worked at Walter Reed, I’ve seen the worst, Lachlan.”
There were two other clocks in the room, a few old reference books housed in a timber and glass cabinet, a couple of armchairs, a lounge suite and a coffee table. Catalogue sparse.
“Lachlan, would you rather you just had an eight-hundred number to call, like those poor kids coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan? Or would you rather talk about this with me?”
All the furniture looked new, although styled in some kind of post-colonial way. Evidence that nothing was built like it used to be.
“Your central nervous system needs help, it’s crying out,” Dr Galen said. “How many hours of work are you doing per day?”
“Depends,” Fox said. “Now? I don’t know, ten, twelve?”
“Schedule?”
“Going back to Africa the day after tomorrow,” Fox said. The shrink made notes, looking at Fox while he wrote. His glasses made his eyes seem a little smaller. Gold frames. A lot of gold plating in here.
“How long for?”
“What—Nigeria? A few days or a week, maybe more. Whatever it takes.”
“What are you working on there? The extraordinary rendition stuff?”
“No, that’s over with for now,” Fox said. He was glad, too. “I’m going to Nigeria to cover the bombing of the oil building in Port Harcourt. Part of an ongoing series I’m developing on security and stability in OPEC countries. Should be a nice, quiet job.”
Galen put his pen down. His chair was a good ten centimetres higher than Fox’s, and he sat back and straightened his tie. The spots and colours clashed with his striped shirt and chequered suit.
“There’s something about these places—Africa, the Middle East, war-torn places—that defies all logic in how I feel. It’s like part of me is itching to get in the fight.”
Fox unconsciously rubbed his hands together, as if rinsing them with water.
“That’s a bit like self-imposed exposure therapy,” Galen said. “It can be helpful to be in situations that bring on your PTSD, but I’m concerned by how out of control it is. You may think you can operate there effectively but you’re probably running at half speed.”
“I feel fine when I’m there, it’s more the downtime here that gets to me,” Fox said. “Give me a street in Baghdad and I walk tall. Give me an errand to run on Fifth Avenue and I just want to head home and hole up.”
Notes were checked.
“Last week I told you to take some time out each day and do something that you enjoy.”
That brought Fox back to the present.
“I’ve been exercising more, getting back up to speed since having my arm out of the sling just a month ago,” Fox said, alert, thinking about it. “I watched a few films, although
that was a mistake—”
“Why’s that?”
“Watched my favourite Heath Ledger films over a couple of bottles of red—made me sad that I’ll never see that talent on screen again.”
“At least you’re aware of how that made you feel. It seems you’re becoming a bit more aware, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yeah, maybe,” Fox said. “I read a couple of books too. Going to the opera.”
“That’s good, all good.”
“I’m trying to be a bit more social, but, I don’t know. Just people from work, Al, a few other reporters.” Fox crossed his arms. Uncrossed them again. “I don’t know. Trying to have a laugh again, I guess.”
“Good. You make that list? Ten things you enjoy?”
He hadn’t. he’d thought about it, but hadn’t put pen to paper. It was a harder task than you’d think. Especially when there was work to be done. There was always work to be done.
“Not yet. Working on it.”
“Good.” More notes. “It’s important. Might sound simple but it will help. How’s your sleep?”
“Shit. Two, maybe three hours a night, if I’m lucky.”
“You’re still taking something for that?”
“Yeah, maybe one or two pills a night,” Fox said. “I don’t know, though—it’s been what, two weeks? I think they’re making me more nervy, anxious.”
“All right, I can prescribe you something else. Want some Valium in the meantime, to settle your nerves?”
“No, I hate the stuff,” Fox said. He shifted in his seat. There was silence for a while and then Fox’s eyes came up to meet Galen’s.
“About Iraq,” Fox said. “I unpacked some stuff at my new place, and this morning I found a letter.” He shifted in his seat again, ran fingers through his short brown hair. Let out a breath. It wasn’t like he’d thought about this much until the letter. And now—it was like a weight in his gut. Wrenching. Surprising. He felt he should be stronger than this.
“What was it?”
“A letter. A note. From about two years ago.” Fox bit his lip, scratched at the stubble on his chin. Galen’s pen was down again. “It marked an anniversary back in Iraq.”
Galen was listening. Still.
“When I was—I was first in Iraq for a few months in late ’03,” Fox said. “I was a lieutenant in the Navy. This—it isn’t something that I’ve dwelled on over the years. I mean, so much has happened between then and now. But this letter. Man, it has brought it back, you know…”
The psychiatrist had leaned back in his chair, his legs crossed at the ankles showing leather soles of shoes that didn’t see life outside a carpeted office. Fox shook his mind back on track.
“From an Iraqi woman—the letter was from an Iraqi woman. She—” Fox sat up straight, to full attention. Spoke with his hands as if wrestling the words out. “Her husband was our team’s interpreter. He was great, one of a—he got hit while we were on patrol. He just—he didn’t make it.”
Galen let Fox have some silence. Fox took a few seconds to get it together.
“Sorry, Doc, I’m all over the place, aren’t I?”
“No, you’re fine,” Galen said. His voice was quieter than before, coaxing. “What did it say?”
“The letter? Not much…” Fox said. “Brought back memories is all. All that, back then.”
More notes, more silence. Fox felt he could swim in it.
“What kind of memories?”
Fox nodded. Resolved within himself.
“Images that I saw in Iraq. The constant sounds of war. The look on Iraqis’ faces—they, these civilians, were the ones who’d been shocked and awed. You imagine what it was like for them when the bombs and missiles started raining in?”
Galen shook his head.
“And, specifically, since reading this letter I’ve been thinking about the day he died. All day today, at work, I’ve been practically useless because of it.”
“Can you tell me about that?” Galen waited patiently. “Talk about it some. Share it with me.”
“It was just after dawn. Our patrol was in a shipping dock area in southern Iraq. There was armour and grunts farther afield, air cover all over the place—we felt pretty damn safe. Four of us special-ops guys and the Iraqi. We called him AB.” Fox smiled, remembered the laughs they’d shared with this man for what, six weeks? His smile vanished. “I remember his wife’s reaction when my CO and I went to her home to deliver the news. It was the least we could do for a friend. My CO did the talking, I’d never done anything like that before. It’s something they don’t teach you in training, it’s just handed down through the ranks once you’re in the field. I’ve had to do it myself a couple of times since; it never gets any easier. This woman’s tears and those of her kids and her parents and AB’s own mother … I just fell apart, right in front of them.”
Silence. Fox stared off into the middle-distance, summoning up the remainders of the day.
“He—Abdallo, AB—he was the first person I’d seen killed up close. Same for all of us in the team. We’d seen our share of dead people before but this was real-time. This shit was real, in our faces. We tripped an IED. He never had a chance.” Fox, through all his experience and for all he’d seen, could remember the sunset of that day as clearly as if he were looking at it now. Could still taste the copper of warm flowing blood.
“I brought his wife back a container of sand. Instead of her husband, I brought her back sand. Red. Soaked in his blood. There was almost nothing left. Just blood and bits of his—his uniform remained in bigger pieces than he did.”
Fox’s eyes were wet.
“It was a monster IED. Rigged out of an old fifteen-hundred-pound bomb. A US bomb, mind you, probably a dud that crash-landed in the first Gulf War.”
Fox looked up and met Galen’s eyes. The pen was in the doctor’s hand but he wasn’t making notes.
“We were all kids. AB was twenty-five. He had a face that spoke of the surface truths of faith in the liberty and justice that were being bandied about by us coalition forces. A look that lacked the depth that had yet to be bestowed on such an innocent. In just six short weeks he’d become like a brother to us, had got us out of trouble almost every other day. We drank tea with him. Laughed with him.”
Silence. Fox exhaled.
“Did you have a ceremony?” Galen asked. “Did you have a chance to say goodbye?”
Fox nodded. Chewed his bottom lip.
“Yeah. My team wrote a message, put it in a bottle full of the sand, had one of the US ships toss it over the side in the middle of the Persian Gulf. It was a little thing, from Orwell:
But the one thing I saw in your face
No power can disinherit
No bomb that ever burst
Shatters the crystal spirit.”
Fox gave full attention to the smallest details right now. He could almost taste the air in the room.
“At his home, we’d all chipped in and left behind whatever we could. Money, MREs, blankets, fuel. Seems stupid now. His family were all in too much shock to turn it down. It’s like we said that was all he was worth. Some surplus gear. But what we left behind in Iraq was something so much more …
“We left our innocence behind.” Fox exhaled loudly, letting it out. “His family all took it in turns to scatter some sand in the back garden, said some words in a memorial service that stretched through the afternoon. My CO had left by then, but I stayed on a bit.”
“So with his family, in front of his wife, his kids, what did you say when it was your turn to scatter the sand?”
Fox looked Galen in the eyes.
“Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier’s debt;
He only lived but till he was a man;
The which no sooner had his prowess confirm’d
In the unshrinking station where he fought
But like a man he died.”
Galen made a cl
icking sound in his throat.
“Macbeth?”
Fox nodded. Continued:
“Your cause of sorrow
Must not be measured by his worth, for then
It hath no end.”
Fox was close to something now, the nub of the pain.
“Why is it I find this so insurmountable? How is it this sticks in me, stays with me, lives within me still?” Fox was full of sadness but there was some anger now too. Anger at being too slow at the time, anger at where he had placed his men that day, anger at the result. He was still fighting the result, he was battling demons that lived on within that voice in his head that would not let go.
“What am I without this? Can I forget and live on?”
“You’re not religious, are you?”
“No. My parents were raised Catholic but were never strictly practising,” Fox said, looking down at his open palms. “I can count on two hands how many times I’ve been to Mass.”
“But you sometimes go to church?”
“Rarely. Sometimes, to remember the dead. Light a few candles.”
Fox paused to consider his search for meaning.
“Do you think atheists, because of … I don’t know … their lack of restraining faith?—are they more susceptible to evil?” Fox asked. “Is that what’s clouding me now, what’s weighing so heavily? That I have some inherent evil that drives me, something faith could absolve?”
“I wouldn’t think so, but it’s hard to say. We know faith can bring with it as many problems as it solves. We must all find what works for us.”
Fox nodded.
“When I made to leave, AB’s wife spoke to me for the first time that day. After she had got her anger out on my CO and prayed what she needed to pray in the backyard, she finally spoke to me.” Fox’s eyes narrowed, recalling it all in clarity. “She asked me to do something for her. Get them, she said. Kill them. And there, in her house, I promised her that I would.”
Fox pinched the bridge of his nose, fidgeted with a hand through his hair.
“I made a promise, on a life, that I knew I couldn’t keep.” Fox looked at Galen with a hollow stare that showed something of realisation. “That’s what she asked me in that letter. She wished me peace, happiness. She wished me all kinds of divine protection. Blessed my loyalty.
