by David Hearne
Like a cowboy on a frisky horse, Lawson swayed with the motion of the dinghy in the roller-coaster swells. Salt spray from the waves’ fury glistened on his cheeks, but he kept the bow pointed at the moonlight-silhouetted figures at the dock’s edge.
It was a risky run. With the threat of war imminent, Iraqi forces had increased surveillance along the dock area. But it was a risk worth taking. The endless roar of the breakers dampened the high-pitched whine of the dinghy’s outboard motor. Forward in the dinghy was Addas, a Basra native who fled before the 1991 war when Saddam Hussein massacred so many of the Basra Shiites. He had once worked in the harbor, and knew the docks intimately.
At the bow Addas adjusted to the dinghy’s bounce and sway and scanned the dock area with binoculars. Above the harbor, a capricious moon peaked shyly though the low clouds, illuminating the waves and white breakers and the waiting fugitives. Quickly, he scanned both flanks, looking for guards. And found none.
From her vantage point on the dock, Zoe stood a good ten feet above the incoming tide, scanning the darkness for the dinghy. Poor light made it difficult to see the incoming dinghy riding the breakwater swells. Then the clouds parted and rays of moonlight illuminated Lawson’s small craft on the billowing waves.
As it neared the deepwater dock, the dinghy plowed through the last of the whitewater crests, showering the crew with face-numbing salt spray. One moment large swells lifted the boat, exposing it to the constant wind, and then plummeted it back into a trough with bone-jarring force. Lawson was glad his craft was a rubber inflatable. No wooden boat could have survived the rough seas.
As the stern lifted and the propeller cleared the surface, the outboard motor whined angrily. But the drone resumed as the stern settled back in the water. With each new swell, the dinghy’s four-man crew moved to counterbalance the surges and keep the craft afloat. Addas cursed in guttural Arabic as sea spray soaked him, but he held his post and continued to call out course corrections.
When they gained the dock’s deep shadows, the swells eased and the dinghy made for the vertical ladder leading down to the water. As quickly as she could, Zoe descended the rusted rungs, and eager hands guided her aboard the dinghy. Ibrahim followed quickly behind her.
When they were both on board, Lawson called out, “Everyone safe?”
“Yes, go!” Zoe almost screamed, “Just go!”
Fighting the incoming tide, Lawson nosed the dinghy about. When it cleared the pilings, he gunned the outboard for the open sea and his twin-masted yacht. Amidships, Ibrahim hugged Zoe, as much for warmth as reassurance. His teeth chattered, and he trembled from the cold salt spray and the chilling wind.
On the dock, lights flashed and a bullhorn voice in Arabic ordered them to stop, to turn around, and return to the dock. Addas translated, but Lawson had no intention of obeying. At full throttle, the dinghy forced its way through the incoming waves. Zoe felt a spine-tingling elation as she embraced Ibrahim, felt his arms tighten about her in response.
Shots rang out. Bullets ripped the waves’ surface near the dinghy as the soldiers search for their target. The staccato bark of heavier caliber guns drowned out smaller rifle fire, and tracers hit the waves. But they were long shots, and the dinghy proved a quickly diminishing target.
Ibrahim drew her close, kissed her, and her tears of happiness mingled with the salt spray. A lone bullet suddenly punched through an air chamber in the dinghy, and Ibrahim stiffened. Hissing air added to the cacophony of the outboard motor and gunshots, but though the craft listed, it remained afloat and droned its way seaward for the safety of the outer darkness.
Drawing her close, Ibrahim pressed salty lips to her ear. “Remember always, I love you. Now and forever.”
Zoe sensed something was terribly wrong. When he slumped in her arms, she screamed his name. She shook him again and again, but he made no answer. His head fell back, and moonlight illuminated his face as the dark blood spilled from his mouth.
“No, it can’t be,” she cried. “Not now! I just found you.”
Wild fear surged through Zoe. Vainly she sought some spark of life. But there was none. No pulse. No breath. When her brain finally registered that Ibrahim was dead, she screamed, a mindless cry of agony that rent the darkness. Tears came in a rush, her face warped by an anguish she could not contain.
Hands gripped her shoulders, but she wrenched away. Zoe clung to the lifeless body as if she could will life back into Ibrahim. He had been her anchor these past months. There for her when she needed him. Now he was gone.
Another hand gripped her shoulder. This one, more insistent, shook her, penetrated her grief. She turned to find Lawson’s face near her own.
Over the roar of the outboard, he made her understand. “They will come after us in powered launches. We need all the speed we can make, and we are losing air.”
Lawson shook her again. “Do you understand? We must let him go.” Then, in a stronger, harsher voice, he demanded, “For us to survive, you must let him go. Now!”
Crewmen pried Zoe’s hands from Ibrahim, rolled his body onto the dinghy side. Ignoring the blood, she covered his unresponsive lips with one last kiss, and then forced herself to let him go and sit back. Just let it happen. Addas gave Ibrahim a gentle shove, the body sliding over the side to be swallowed by the waves and the darkness. Gone without a trace.
New tears came, and Zoe sobbed uncontrollably. Oblivious to the final race for the yacht, she was mired in a nightmare, a hopeless maze of torment with no possible escape. Incapable of changing her future, she railed at the futility of her existence. At her pain. At life itself. At its cruelty.
But in the depths of her grief, Ibrahim spoke to her. His words echoed clearly through her mind as if she heard them with her ears. She clung to them, knowing they held the key to her future.
“We do what we must and call it survival.”
Zoe clutched them to her like a talisman. Then, beyond caring, she found she had no strength left, no will to fight. With a sigh of exhaustion, she lost consciousness and collapsed to the floor of the dinghy.
* * * *
I shivered perhaps from my confusion of what Vince had narrated, or simply from watching the snow falling and blanketing the windowsills with tuffs of white. The town hall had actually gotten colder this afternoon. It was old and drafty and the semi-repaired broken window did not help. Blasts of cold air chilled the room as the big doors opened and closed letting people in and out of the auditorium.
I worried about Katherine. If she was not found by now, she might very well be frozen. With the carnage that I had seen on TV, I doubted that she would have dressed for this type of weather before escaping. If she escaped, that is.
Over the town hall’s intercom, a message was announced that power lines had fallen in North Charlestown and electricity would be off for up to 4 hours while repair crews replaced the down lines.
The TV was still flickering the same footage of the campaign bus and the aftermath of the attack. While a reporter was enumerating some of the former attacks on Katherine, an older lady sitting near my table suddenly began to whisper audibly, “Oh, my god above, oh, my God; my God what evil did she do to bring down your wrath?” The woman wore a sweater that read, ‘Redeemed by His Blood’. In her gnarled hands, she tightly clutched a bible. A man sat beside her, probably her husband who had bowed his head and folded his hands in prayer. He had tufted eyebrows, and thinning white hair.
As she watched the news she became more agitated and said loudly, “God has taken her for her wicked ways. Thank you Jesus.”
“Amen,” the man next to her said.
My eyes met hers and it seemed the auditorium had gone totally silent accept the battering of the wind against the building and her piercing voice. “She is an abomination, “she hissed. “She defiles the scripture and has brought death upon the people around her.”
The air now seemed bitterly cold and all the people sitting around me were transfixed by her hissing voice as she c
ontinued to denounce Katherine as a heathen and a doomed woman. The man with her smiled and shook his head in agreement.
She appeared to sneer at us and said, “It is a bad time for her to be out in this winter snow. Maybe she has fallen through thin ice on the Connecticut River?” The woman stroked her bible and rolled her eyes as if possessed. Her tone was gloating and her words incensed me as she reveled over Katherine’s misfortune.
Her eyes fixed on us and her tongue flickered over her thin lips before she continued, “The scripture tells us that a woman’s ordained role is to be submissive to man and Laforge has rebelled against God by running for President.” She paused and sort of snickered, “Her husband is dead because he did not lead his family, and he let his wife challenge her place in God’s divine order. God’s design for women is not to be changed by man’s whim. She is to be submissive to man. It is written in 1 Corinthians 11:3”
A young man shouted over to her, “Shut the hell up, you fucking loony.”
My fists were tightly clenched on my table as her caustic remarks continued.
“God flooded my soul with the message that Laforge is something evil, a heretic that has lost her way. I have felt the spirit flowing through me. God has spoken to me in dreams and told me to bring you these messages.” Her companion smiled and looked at her adoringly.
As she rambled on, icy anger swept through me. Her rantings were now muffled by the protest of others who cursed her and told her to shut up.
Security personnel moved closer to her, she held the Bible up over her head with one hand and said, “The Holy Ghost will demand that you turn away from this abomination of a woman.” She paused for a second, looking up at a window and then said, “Do you see Jesus’ image there in the swirling snow on the window pane?”
My heartbeat was thin now, with rapid palpitation as I tried to block her irritating voice from my consciousness. Suddenly, two security officers stood in front of her. Color drained from her face and her eyes widened. Her hands tremble slightly as she reached for her glass of water. She looked up at the looming security officers and flung the glass at them. People shrieked in happiness as two burly security officers finally escorted her and her companion out of the auditorium.
My wife looked disapprovingly at me as I quietly uttered a “holy shit, amen” as the woman’s voice faded into the distance.
Part Eight
Escape to the States
The town hall had grown considerably quieter since the incident with the strange woman wishing the wrath of God on Katherine. Beside her preaching and venomous diatribes, she had been an odd looking character. One peculiarity was her practice of closing her eyes for a period of time and then suddenly popping them open as if she was trying to catch a glimpse of her heavenly friends.
With the return of quiet, my mind struggled again over Katherine’s disappearance, and I felt myself becoming increasingly agitated. My wife was reading the Boston Globe, and Tom and Vince had gone to the concession stand, while I sat staring into my empty coffee cup. Next to us a woman was cleaning the soiled table where the crazy old lady had been sitting. Just as the attendant was removing the dirty tablecloth, I stood up to stretch my cramped legs. There on the far side of the table something caught my attention. As I squinted down at its aged surface, I could clearly make out a heart with my initials and K.L. carved into it. For a moment, I was transfixed by this discovery and was gripped by some mad compulsion to stop the attendant from covering it, but I quickly regained my composure. Apparently, my demeanor did not go totally unnoticed because she looked at me with a perplexed expression as she continued to spread the tablecloth. I knew this table. It was the same one that decades ago, Katherine, and I had sat at one special night. With my mind flooding with memories. I sat back down. My fingers caressed the top of my cup while I relived that night.
It had been the annual ‘Winter Wonderland’ dance. A chance for every girl to wear a formal and look her best and Katherine was stunning. It was our senior year, and I was her default date to the dismay of many of the other seniors. She had temporarily broken up with her college boyfriend, and I guess she felt I was a safe date to be with on that occasion. It was during a period of time when I was very much infatuated with her.
That night I was the envy of most of the guys. She was beautiful and I was so proud to be holding her close and dancing with her. I never liked dancing that much, but that night was different. As we danced, Katherine would press against me while we moved wordlessly across the floor, swept away into our own separate worlds. Sometimes my cheek would touch her cool face and her fingertips would brush softly against my neck and shoulders producing a disquieting sensation that made my heart thump harder against my ribs. As we danced, her dress would flare out and glitter from the sparkling lights illuminating the dance floor. She was beautiful, and that night any one could have seen the wistfulness in my eyes for her.
When I was with Katherine, I felt we almost melted together. Her perfume, softness and beauty enchanted me, and I felt something that I had never felt before with any girl. I reigned in my urge to tell her my feelings, because I knew she thought we were just friends and that was why she went with me.
All I could think about every time her red lips spoke was how much I wanted to kiss them. Hanging from the entrance to the hall was mistletoe, and I kept trying to devise a way to get us under it, so I could kiss her.
I wanted to really kiss her, but as the night waned away so did my chances, and finally it was time to go. We gathered our coats and started to walk out with another couple, and just as they stepped under the mistletoe they kissed. I pounced on the situation and grabbed Katherine tightly and pressed my lips to hers. I kissed her with all the passion, I dared to display. She held me tightly at that moment and kissed me back, but then pulled away smiling coyly. She reached up and touched my nose and said, “This was fun being with you tonight. I need to help you find a girlfriend that deserves a great guy like you.” Her eyebrows were knitted in curiosity as she peered up at me, and I don’t remember what I replied, but I realized that she did not feel the same way I did.
Never had I hated walking Katherine home so much as I did that night. As we walked home, the sky felt huge and heavy overhead, an alien and endless canopy of sadness. Her fingers wove together with mine, and I felt her warmth, but I knew this was just friends holding hands. I tried to make small talk about the dance and who was there, but beneath it all was that crushing feeling of rejection. And I knew she didn’t even realize how deep my feelings were toward her.
When we arrived at Katherine’s doorstep, she thrust her face toward mine, and I found myself awkwardly kissing her once more. She held herself against me for a moment or two while her cool lips pressed against mine. Then our lips parted and she smiled sweetly up at me and whispered, “Good Night.” I stood there watching her enter her house feeling the cold winter air against my moist eyes. The smell of her perfume lingered in the air around me and my lips still tasted of her lipstick. As I walked away from her house, I shivered and silently cried for the loss I had just endured.
From that night on I had never kissed her again until last night when we visited her on her campaign bus. It was a platonic kiss, but it was on my lips, and it did stir old memories. I realized that much of what I’ve been doing for her during this campaign was because I still had very deep feelings for her that I could not share with anyone. I loved my wife dearly, but some part of me still had these foolish feelings towards Katherine. Last night as I talked to Ira and watched my wife help Katherine touch up her hair, terrible guilt tore at my consciousness. Ira picked up a carafe of wine and poured me another glass and asked, “Can you believe your old high school friend is now running for President?” His question made me wince like I had gotten a small paper cut. I hadn’t a clue of how to reply, but I did. “We all thought she was special, and I guess we were correct.”
Ira spoke with a gentle curiosity that made me feel even more uncomfortable sitting with
him and his wife, the probable next President of the United States.
Just as I was reminiscing that night, Vince plopped a fresh cup of coffee down in front of me along with an apple fritter and asked, “You ready to hear a bit more about her escape from Iraq?”
I looked up at him thinking that was a dumb question, but politely said, “Of course, Vince! Let’s hear it.”
My wife looked up from her paper and waited for him to begin.
Vince sat silent for a while and gulped down some of his coffee.
Once Ibrahim was dead she quickly returned to her self-preservation mode. They had to carry her onto the Black Phantom and into a cabin because she had lost consciousness after he was killed. Wilson was concerned that something worse was wrong with her, and that he could be in a very serious situation. But about 24 hours later with the water washing against the yacht’s hull with a sibilant siren’s song, she finally awoke. Oddly enough, she did not cry or act confused, but simply opened her eyes and quietly looked about the cabin. Finally, she sighed and slowly stretched her arms and legs like a cat, wincing as her left arm and hip responded with stiffness and dull pain.
That will pass, she told herself. Soon you’ll be your old self. Then she grimaced, coming fully awake. “That can’t happen”, she declared silently, “You never were your old self. You never were Katherine Laforge.”
Ignoring the pain in her hip, she pushed back the bed coverings, and slid across the silk sheets. The luxurious sensation against her bare body brought a sharp intake of breath. Kat’s memories of other beds spiraled through her mind, but she purposefully held them at bay. She wanted this moment to be hers and hers alone. This moment and many others. A lifetime of them.
