by Stephen Dau
17
Jezebel laid out in that field all day. It was a standoff. Seemed like every person who lived in that village was armed and holed up inside it. They wouldn’t come out, so we had to wait for the firepower to go in. And she laid out there in no-man’s-land.
She was about forty meters away, and I found that if I set my mind in the right way, I could convince myself that she had simply gotten tired and put her head down for a nap. I could pretend she was going to pop up any minute, awake and refreshed, and laugh her way back home.
I don’t know who started calling her Jezebel. We were lying in the dugout, and someone, maybe it was Gordy, nodded his head and whispered, “I’m so tired I could sleep like Jezebel over there.” And then someone chuckled. And then we all called her that. She became our mascot. Recon team Jezebel.
Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I felt responsible. When the moon came up, I went out to get her. It was this weird crescent moon that seemed to give off more light than it should have. I walked out toward her, and the silver moonlight shone off the rocks and her dress with the same intensity, so that I kept losing sight of her among the field of stones. When I got to her, I bent down to look her over. I couldn’t find a wound anywhere. For a second I thought that maybe she really was asleep. Her eyes were closed and she looked peaceful, at rest. Then I saw a tiny, dark dot on her throat. Only when I picked her up I realized there was nothing left to the back of her neck.
I lifted her and carried her as gently as I could back up to our position. The order had come down that we were going to go in, so they were all folding up their kits, hoisting their packs to their shoulders. Turner hacked at the bottom of the shallow dugout with his folding spade to make it deep enough. Probably we shouldn’t have, but it felt proper. I stepped down into the pit and placed Jezebel as easily as I could on the floor of it. I put a rock under her head to prop her up a little, but that didn’t look very comfortable, so I pulled out my green handkerchief and folded it under her head.
We pushed the dry earth on top of her. Someone whispered that prayer, the one about ashes and dust, because that’s all anyone could think of. None of us could remember the whole thing properly, so we mumbled some words to tell her how sorry we were that it had to go the way it did. And then they all filed off, down the ridge, getting ready to go in.
But I stayed there a few minutes, staring at the earth. Something caught my eye in the moonlight, a little flash on the ground, and I bent down and picked up a gray stone with a streak of white quartz in it that reflected the moon.
I still have that stone, here in my pocket. Probably it is not one of the stones Jezebel collected in her little bag that morning, and probably it didn’t fall out as we buried her.
But sometimes I pretend that it did.
18
“Maybe we can try something,” says Paul. “Something to help you explore this a little more, talk about the rest of it.”
They have been sitting for twenty minutes in silence. Jonas feels pinned to his chair like an insect.
“I already have,” he says.
“But there’s more to it, isn’t there?”
Jonas says nothing.
“Isn’t there,” says Paul again.
“Well, then, maybe you can tell me,” says Jonas at last, “because I can’t say.”
“Okay,” says Paul, “if you don’t know, maybe you can guess. Sitting here looking at the floor is not going to cut it. Picture yourself up there on the mountain. What’s going on? What’s there? What do you see? What do you hear? Lots of things might have happened. Maybe you can tell me about those things. Maybe you can tell me what might have happened. Hypothetically.”
“I don’t know that I can.”
“Try.”
19
Jonas tells Paul the same thing he told Rose Henderson while he sat in her living room, drinking juice and eating cookies.
A possibility, says Jonas. He says that maybe he left his village. Maybe he was compelled. Maybe he was forced to leave by events upon which he refused to dwell. Maybe he found himself all alone, up on the mountain, huddled in the mouth of the cave his father had told him about months earlier. Maybe he was unable, for a variety of reasons, to decide between living and dying.
And maybe at that moment, Christopher stepped onto the side of the mountain as though descending from a cloud, and built him a fire, and warmed him, and fed him, and stitched him up, and eased his pain. And then, his work done, maybe Christopher stepped back into the void, dissolved back into the air like a thought.
20
Rose runs into them sometimes, usually at a regional meeting, or a national one, because they are spread out across the country. They always seem to already know who she is, and they approach, tentatively, to introduce themselves. I knew Christopher, they say, and they surround her like a cordon, off to one side of the room, all of them nearly twice her height, and they tell her about her son.
Early on, they tell her, he developed a reputation for being the calm one, the quiet one, the deep one. In the chaos of basic training, the dirty jokes about girls and would-be girlfriends, the rowdy towel-snapping and the occasional fistfights, Christopher always maintained a mellow, almost aloof presence. Even as a noob (a newbie, they explain, as they all were at one time), he seemed to know the score better even than the gunnery sergeant. He suffered the yelling, the physical training, the hazing, with an air of detachment, as though he were watching street theater.
One of them tells her a story, not meant to alarm, he assures her, but this is what Christopher was like.
There was once a mistake made during a live-fire exercise, and a grenade went off much too close to their dugout position, showering them with dirt. In the absolute silence following the explosion, they took a hasty roll call, tallying the living, all present and accounted for, until they came to his name, and there was silence.
“Henderson,” they say. “Henderson.” They look around.
And when he finally answers, his voice is like the open wind, entirely unconcerned, and possibly even a little annoyed at being compelled to speak. There they were, all freaking out, and then there’s this voice.
“Yeah, man,” said the voice. “I’m fine.” Yeah, man, just like that. And they smile at the memory.
Rose seems happy to meet them, talk to them, seems touched even by their fumbling efforts to comfort her, and in her desire to not dwell on her own loss, her desire to accommodate them, she refrains from pointing out the irony of hearing from them about the first time, the time when her son came back.
21
Jonas blacks out. He wakes up in a boat, tied to a tree, floating in the shallows of the river, down by the Fourteenth Street bridge. Another time, he wakes up with a shout when a cigarette burns his chest, having fallen from his mouth as he nodded off. He wakes up in someone’s living room, the floor covered with people who have not yet woken. He wakes up in front of his television set, his pants bunched around his ankles. He wakes up to a dog licking his face. He wakes up next to nameless girls. He wakes to find himself covered with incomprehensible bruises. He wakes up choking on vomit. He wakes up and has no idea where he is. He wakes up to laughter, still sitting in a booth at the bar, and everyone turned to smile at him, the bright strobe of a camera flash, and it’s not until he gets home, stumbles into the bathroom, and looks in the mirror that he realizes that on his face has been drawn the face of a clown.
22
In another photo, a group of soldiers dressed in sand-colored camouflage and weighed down by gear crouch beside a low wall. The sky is overcast, and all of them except one have removed their large, dark sunglasses, which lie strapped on top of their helmets. Behind them, farther down the wall, in the background, a goat stands unconcerned in the dust.
Each of the soldiers looks in a different direction, as though they are each either keeping watch over a different quadrant or have no idea in which direction they should be looking. The soldier in the foreground grips his
weapon so tightly that his fingers have turned white at the knuckles. Because they have removed their sunglasses from their faces (all of them except one), their expressions are clearly visible. They look to be on the verge of panic.
23
The sun setting again on the mountain, Younis feels himself caught in a whirlpool.
One moment he fears for his life. He has seen it in Christopher’s eyes. He has snapped. He peers from across the fire through a suspicious mask, eyes narrowed to dark slits, glances filled with menace. Younis fears he will not live through the night. He wonders only why it has not been done already.
The next moment he fills with rage. He barely cares whether he lives. For what is his heart now but a hole, what is his life but loss, what is the sum of his entire being but absence? And who is to blame for that?
And the next moment he thinks that maybe they will go their separate ways in peace. After all, one of them saved the other’s life. That must count for something. He almost trusts him. They are victims of circumstance, and his own misfortune is theirs shared.
He tries to settle on one interpretation. He searches for an objective reality. He struggles in vain to slow the wheel of conviction spinning uncontrollably in his mind. The more he tries to get a fix on the truth, the more he is dragged in circles, unable to see clearly, unable to stop.
24
At first, Jonas thinks the letter on university stationery is an invitation to another student-faculty function. He opens it expecting to be asked to a reception or a dinner. He is pleased by this, thinks that maybe it’s what he needs, a little social interaction with people other than his regular circle. Feeling for some reason that an invitation should be opened properly, rather than simply torn, he goes to the kitchen drawer and, unable to locate a letter opener, pulls out a sharp knife.
Office of the Dean of Students
University of Pittsburgh
1275 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15601
We regret to inform you that it has become necessary to place you on academic suspension. You are welcome to apply for readmission to the university following a one-semester absence, during which time you will be required to enroll in remedial classes. Below, you will find information about the remedial classes offered by the university and the procedures for enrolling. Please note that achieving passing grades in these classes is merely a prerequisite for readmission, and they do not in and of themselves convey academic credit.
If you choose not to enroll in these remedial classes, you will be permanently suspended at the end of the next term. You will then be unable to attend the university for a period of three years, after which time you may reapply, and will be given the same status and consideration as any newly applying student.
It is also strongly recommended that you seek emotional and/or academic counseling, if you are not doing so already. It has been found that students who are unable to progress satisfactorily with their academic require ments are often affected by underlying personal problems, and that by sorting through these issues it is possible to make a successful return to academic standing. Enclosed please find information about some of the mental health services available, both through the university and in the larger community.
We wish you the best of luck for your continued progress and development. Please do not hesitate to contact our office with any questions you may have concerning this action.
Very best regards,
Roger Mineras
Dean of Students
25
We had orders.
We had orders. We had orders. We had orders. We had orders. We had orders. We had orders. We had orders. We had orders. We had orders.
Those were the guys, they said. Light ‘em up.
An order is an order. We could not risk letting them go. I’m sorry it had to go the way it did. I really am. I would change it in an instant if I could. I would go back in time and do it differently. I would ask questions. I would raise objections. I would ask to see the intel. I would pay attention to the nagging sensation in the core of my brain that was trying to tell me that something was wrong. Truly I would.
But we had orders, and they were very clear.
An order is an order.
We had orders.
26
“Hello, my name is Jonas, and I may have a problem. You know. With drinking, I guess.”
“Hello, Jonas.”
“And, Jonas, how long has it been since you’ve had a drink?”
“About an hour and a half.”
27
In this photo is Christopher, wearing the same uniform, same gun, but he does not wear the dark sunglasses and therefore it is easy to tell that it is him. He looks young. He seems to hold his weapon’s weight with difficulty. His body is turned slightly to the right as he walks through the dust, and he looks in the general direction of the camera, but off to the side and down, as though assessing something on the ground to the photographer’s right. His expression is determined, but slightly unsure, an expression which strives to betray nothing even as it betrays everything, the expression of a young boy playing poker with grown men.
Behind him, slightly blurred, is a house or mound or hill, some large object, but it is impossible to tell exactly what it is, because it is covered with people sitting, as though in an arena, watching the soldier who has suddenly appeared among them. These people, all of them men, wear beards. Some of them wear tightly wound cloth lugees wrapped around their heads, while some of them are bareheaded. To the right side of the picture, in the background, two of these men appear to be talking, whispering. They look to be amused, as though they are quietly making a wager.
28
He has had a recurring thought. A daydream. He tells it to Hakma over drinks.
They have contacted him. He walks down the fluorescent corridor. Travelers rush past him pulling wheeled suitcases or hunched under weighty backpacks. He carries no bag, nothing to hold him up at security, which he has eased through like a leaf floating through rapids. He knows what he is supposed to do. A young woman hurries ahead of him, gripping her child’s hand.
“Come on,” she says to the unconcerned boy. “They’re already boarding.”
He steps onto the swift conveyor, adjusting his balance as the belt takes over. He is being pulled along now, set in motion, no longer entirely under his own power.
He doesn’t know how they found him, how they knew he was ready.
He finds the bathroom, the one at the far end of the long corridor, the least-used. He waits for everyone to leave, for the bathroom to be empty, a lull. Then he goes over to the trash can, which is stainless steel and set into the wall. He reaches into it, rummages through damp paper towels until his hand strikes something solid, a strap, which he grabs and pulls. It is heavier than he imagined, and he struggles to pull it out of the trash.
He knows what to do.
He hauls it into a stall, locks the door, removes his jacket and shirt, lowers the vest over his shoulders, straps it around his body, heavy as the earth. Then he puts his clothes back on over it.
A voice, commanding and feminine, echoing from the tiled walls, urges him to report unattended baggage. He opens the stall door to see that the bathroom has filled with people, and he is momentarily confused, unable to find the exit. When at last he does, he joins the throng of travelers, of fathers and mothers and aunts and brothers struggling under the weight of luggage and worry, or buoyed by excitement and anticipation, or driven by determined focus, but he feels no connection to any of them, because he is already gone.
29
I thought she might make it. I really did.
I keep replaying it in my mind.
I must have been delusional. I thought something could still happen after the shooting started. I thought there would be a little break, then, a space of time during which she would trip and fall out of the way, or hear her mother calling, or turn around and get out of there at the last moment. She could have
bent down to pick up another rock. I don’t know, anything. Run light-speed across the field, back to where she came from.
Even now, in my mind, I want to yell at her to get down.
But there was no space of time, no gap. It was instant. I spoke and the guns roared. They continue to roar. I cannot get them out of my head.
She was standing there, curious and vibrant, and then she was a crumpled sack of laundry on the rocks. There was no time for anything, no gust of wind that would blow the bullets off course, no time for angels to descend from the sky and lift her off to safety.
30
Maybe, he tells Paul. Maybe he fled his village, was forced to leave. Maybe he found his way up to the cave his father had told him about. Maybe Christopher saved his life, stitched him up, built him a fire.
But then maybe at some point Christopher started to lose it. Maybe he was crazy. Maybe he thought they needed to move, or realized that they were in the wrong place; maybe he thought they needed to be somewhere else. Maybe he started freaking out because he suddenly realized that he was AWOL on some mountaintop with a wounded hajji.
Maybe Christopher insisted that they pack up, move out. Maybe they rushed to get to the top of some other hill, that hill over there, the one on top of which Christopher suddenly realized they were supposed to be. But maybe, when they got up on top of that one, Christopher realized that it was not the right hill either. Maybe he looked at a map. Maybe this happened a few times. Maybe they were tired. Maybe Christopher started thinking they were supposed to be in a valley, rather than on a mountaintop. That valley over there, and maybe they wandered all over the southern mountains, wandered for days.
