Dark Sky Falling

by Richard Ryker

  “I wouldn’t worry. A beautiful and very smart girl like you won’t have a hard time finding someone when you grow up.”

  “Like you.”

  “Huh?”

  “You are beautiful and smart. But you aren’t married.”

  “You’re the expert,” Stormy said. “You tell me.”

  “Insecure. Low self-esteem. Settling for less for years, then afraid to love someone for real,” Madina said.

  Stormy smiled, but tears were forming in her eyes. “You’re right, it does sound like a movie.”

  “Lots of movies.”

  “Alright, Dr. Phil, it’s time for me to get some sleep.”

  “Who is Dr. Phil?”

  “Never mind…”

  ***

  Salman left the house after the argument with his father. Marcus was grateful for the evening’s dark silence as he lay on the floor of Salman’s bedroom, imagining his reunion with Alyssa. Would she be different when they found her? Would she look different? Of course not. The truth was he had no idea what Alyssa was facing right now. Somehow, they would work past this, just like they had made it through Anna’s death, together.

  The door opened and Salman walked into the room. His foot caught against Marcus’s leg.

  “Sorry,” Salman said. “I thought you were sleeping on the bed.”

  “I’m fine here.”

  “You sure?” Salman said as he lay down on the bed.

  Several moments passed and Marcus could sense that Salman was still fuming about the argument with this father.

  “Your father cares about you,” Marcus said. “That’s why he is so concerned.”

  “Hmm.”

  Marcus waited, but no response came. He knew he should stay out of the family’s conflict. But it was clear that Salman’s father loved him so genuinely…was so worried about this son. And Salman was throwing his life away because of what strangers had told him about his father. “You should think about what he said about college, for example—”

  “Go to college and learn about how it’s done in the west you mean? No thanks. Someone has to protect the mothers and sisters of our people. Instead of doing the will of the corporations.”

  “How are you going to support a family without a job? And a good job takes education.”

  “You sound like my father,” Salman said.

  Marcus smiled in the dark. “I probably do.”

  “You Americans don’t understand,” Salman said. “You have your freedom. You have so much freedom you get to decide who else is free.”

  “I’m sure we would like to help the Chechens but it’s not that simple. It doesn’t help when you…when the rebels do terrorist acts against innocent people.”

  “If terrorism is harming innocent people—women and children and old men—on purpose, then the Russians are terrorists with ballistic missiles.”

  “I don’t know what the answer is,” Marcus said, knowing there was no way to win this argument. Salman might be right. But Marcus wasn’t there to change the plight of the Chechens. If that seemed heartless, so be it. “I just want my daughter back.”

  There was a long pause while Marcus waited for a response. He thought perhaps Salman had fallen asleep, until he said, “You know why Kamila is so crazy don’t you?”

  “She has a mental illness, among other reasons.”

  “Why does she have a mental illness? Because of what the Russians did to her. I remember Kamila when I was a boy. She was always different, but everyone in the family says she wasn’t sick like that until the bombs. Then the Russians came and you know what they do to girls.” He made a spitting sound. “Pigs.”

  Marcus didn’t respond, so Salman continued. “When the freedom fighters were able to clear the city of the Russian filth, we all thought it was over. Then more missiles came and that’s when she lost her mother and sister—your wife’s mother and sister. That’s when her father disappeared into the mountains. He was lucky. He knew his family had died. Others still wonder if their mother or father or brother is in one of Kadyrov’s secret prisons. So that’s why Kamila is crazy, and that’s why your daughter is in Chechnya and not safe at home in America. You can thank Putin for that.”

  Marcus’s chest muscles flinched. Who was this kid to involve Alyssa in his ideological tirade? “My daughter has nothing to do with your politics.”

  Salman’s voice calmed. “I am sorry. But you must understand. Wasn’t your wife one of us?”

  One of us? Marcus had never considered Anna one of “them”. Maybe because she had so distanced herself, not just from the politics of Chechnya, but from her own people…her own family. Was it her way of escaping the terrors of living in such a place? Kamila had lost her mind—had Anna just run away?

  “She was half Chechen.”

  “You say half as if it is a bad thing,” Salman said.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Here is what I know, and you and my father can think me a fool. We have to stay together. No one of us can survive without our brother. If just one of us gives up, then that just makes the resistance that much easier to break. Then we are slaves to the Russians, not just for the past hundred years but for the next hundred years as well. Your country won its freedom many years ago. I know this from history. Now it is our turn.”

  With that, Salman turned over and was silent.

  Marcus lay awake for a long time, thinking about Anna and her family, and how strange it was that the blood of these people, Anna’s family, also ran through his own daughter. It made sense that they would help him, that he could trust them to help him find Alyssa.

  Salman was right, America had won its freedom, and that’s one reason why Anna had moved there, had decided to raise a family in the United States, not here among the war ravished remains of Chechnya. He would be grateful for the Chechens who did help him rescue Alyssa. But if Salman did what he said he was going to do, Marcus, Alyssa, and Stormy would be on their way back home soon.

  Chapter 37

  Kamila climbed the stairs that led to her father, Alyssa behind her. Her mind swirled with a mix of fear, excitement, even anger. Anger because she knew her father was going to reject her, despite the fact that she had brought him his granddaughter, that Kamila had survived America and returned home to him.

  She slowed her pace. Remember, you are in control. He is going to accept Alyssa as your gift to him. Then, he will take care of you and the girl.

  The stairs opened into a long, bare room.

  At one end, far to the right, her father sat in a large chair near a fireplace, his camo uniform clean and pressed as always, his head pointed toward the floor as if he were napping. His beard had gone gray. He was alone. A rifle leaned against the chair, within easy reach.

  Kamila took a few steps forward, then waited.

  “Come,” he commanded.

  Forgetting her planned self-restraint, Kamila skipped over to his chair and grabbed his arm. “Father,” she exclaimed. “I missed you.”

  He raised his head and took a careful look at Kamila, from her feet up to her head covering, and back down again, never making eye contact. “America has fed you well.”

  “Stop it,” she said, tapping him on the arm, although she knew it was not meant to be in jest. “I want you to meet someone.” Kamila turned and motioned to Alyssa. “Come, girl. Meet your grandfather.”

  Alyssa approached and stood in front of him.

  “This is Alyssa. She is your granddaughter.”

  Kamila waited for him to congratulate her. To thank her and tell her what a good daughter she was.

  She held her smile under the weight of the silence that followed.

  “It’s not like that,” Kamila said. “She’s not my daughter…nothing like that father. She’s Anna’s daughter.”

  “Give him a kiss,” she said in English. Her father would not understand English.

  “No,” Alyssa said.
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  She wouldn’t let the girl ruin this. Not after all they had been through. “I said do it.” She shoved Alyssa toward her father.

  “Let her be,” her father said, putting his hand up. “And stop chewing your hair. It’s disgusting.”

  Kamila unwrapped the hair from her finger and let it fall back in place. “I’ve brought her home to you, to us, to live with us. You don’t understand—”

  “I DO understand,” he shouted. “That you, who calls herself my daughter, has kidnapped an American. And worse, has brought her here so that the entire world will be looking in these mountains for the crazy Chechen and the little urchin she stole.”

  The oxygen in the room escaped as swiftly as air from a punctured balloon. “I did not kidnap her. The girl’s father died. Anna died then the father died. I was…I was the only one left to care for her. I was alone with the infidels and I had to come home. I thought you would be happy…”

  He glared past Kamila with those uncaring, menacing eyes that told her, you are nothing and I still despise you. She had always wondered how a person could hate something that, to them, did not exist. How many times had she wanted to rip his eyes out of his head, feed them to him in the lamb stew she made for him every week. Those eyes were useless anyway: they saw nothing, just like his ears heard nothing.

  “You may think me an old man, daughter, but I am not a fool. Even up here we have the news.”

  “What news?”

  “One of the soldiers comes to me and says, isn’t that Kamila, your daughter on the news? I say I don’t know what he’s talking about. My daughter is in America. No, he says, look at this newspaper article online. There it is—Kamila Shashani and her American niece. And the father searching for them in Chechnya. Not to mention, she killed an American Embassy staff.”

  “But—”

  “It wasn’t enough for you to leave this place, and abandon your family too, but you had to bring more death back with you? That’s what this means, Kamila. The Russians are going to come looking for revenge, to make an example of anyone associated with the Chechen who killed the American in Moscow. You are going to leave, now.”

  Leave and go where? Yes, her father was not a kind man, and it was foolish of her to expect him to be grateful for bringing Alyssa here. But telling Kamila to leave? What was she going to do? Her father was supposed to have the answers, to tell her what to do now that she had come home. Instead, he was abandoning her. Again.

  “You never listen to me,” Kamila said. “You never listen to anyone. My whole life was about Anna or about how you missed mother and my sister. What about me? Who cares about me? Not you. Who is going to take care of me?” She took a step forward and was loomed over him now. “Who let me be raped by Russians?”

  “Lies….those are lies…” He said the words, but his eyes moved to the scar on Kamila’s cheek, where the soldiers had cut her for fighting back. He knew.

  “That’s right, father. Your daughter was raped by Russians again and again and again.” He wasn’t looking at her now. Something powerful and awful rose up within her, and she knew she was in control. This power spoke to her, Punish him, make him feel what you feel. “Every time I went to the market, to run an errand for you, all the times you didn’t care where I was because you were more worried about your stupid resistance movement—”

  He stood and towered over her. “Silence!”

  “I raised myself and you let them deflower me. Do you like that word, father? Do you know what it means?”

  “This is not true,” he said, shaking his head. His expression was one of a man trying very hard to appear calm. He had no right, didn’t deserve to act so calm and unaffected.

  “Guess what,” she said. “You can go screw yourself, and maybe I’ll go out and get abused some more. Maybe by one of your own soldiers…”

  He raised his hand to strike her but she did not flinch. “Go ahead. I’ve had worse.”

  He lowered his hand.

  Alyssa spoke, but not to Kamila. “Can you help me find my father? I want to go home.” Alyssa took a step toward him.

  “Shut up, girl. He can’t understand you.”

  “Please. Kamila isn’t safe. She killed someone.”

  Kamila pulled Alyssa’s arm. “He wants us to leave. He doesn’t want anything to do with us.”

  “I don’t care,” Alyssa said. “I want to go home.”

  Kamila’s father looked from Alyssa to Kamila. “What is she saying?”

  “She wants to leave,” Kamila said. “And so do I. Goodbye, father.”

  Kamila turned and began walking toward the stairs. She looked back, but Alyssa was still standing next to Kamila’s father.

  “Come.”

  “No.”

  Kamila grabbed her by the back of her neck, and pressed her toward the stairs. Her father put his hand on the barrel of the rifle leaning against his chair.

  “Are you going to shoot me father?”

  “What is the girl saying?”

  “She’s being bad, father. She just needs good discipline. Like you gave to me.”

  He wouldn’t shoot her. He wanted her gone, that was all.

  Kamila didn’t need him anyway. She would take the girl and give her to someone who cared, or who at least might find her useful. Kamila had no home, had never had a home, here or in America—why should the girl have something Kamila never had?

  Kamila’s father didn’t deserve Kamila or Alyssa, and either did Marcus.

  She pulled the girl down the stairs and out of the house.

  Chapter 38

  They departed Salman’s house just after sunrise. Marcus thanked the family and Stormy said her goodbyes to Madina. It seemed Stormy and Salman’s sister had struck up a friendship during their brief time together. Salman’s parents pleaded with him to be careful, but his only response was a dismissive sigh.

  “He can be rash,” Salman’s father said quietly to Marcus. “Please, look after him as if he were your own son.”

  “I will,” Marcus said.

  The sun had just breached the eastern horizon and the hills cast a shadow over the Sunzha River valley. Traffic was tight and it took almost an hour to get to open road. Eventually they made it into the foothills where the only other cars were farmer’s trucks and army transports.

  They were silent for much of the time because Salman was blasting some horrid-sounding Chechen pop music through blown speakers. Outside of the city, the road narrowed and began to rise up toward the foothills. Alyssa was somewhere in those mountains, waiting for her father to come rescue her.

  “Soon, very soon,” Marcus whispered under his breath.

  His gaze moved away from the mountains when they slowed as Salman shifted the car down.

  “Checkpoint,” Salman said. “I guess I should have asked if you had papers.”

  “For Russia,” Stormy said.

  “Good enough. I think.”

  “You think?”

  “Shh.”

  Salman rolled down the window.

  “Wait,” he said to the man who approached the car. The man had an automatic weapon hanging from his shoulder, but was not in uniform. He wore a faded green coat and pants and a hat that didn’t match. Salman reached into the glove compartment and retrieved his papers.

  The soldier looked at the papers then nodded. “What about them?”

  Marcus and Stormy handed their documents to the soldier who looked at them briefly, then gave them back. “Go,” he said.

  “It won’t always be that easy,” Salman said as they drove away from the checkpoint.

  “Is that the army?” Marcus asked.

  “Militia…like a local army. The Chechens hired by the Russians to keep everyone in check. They aren’t even paid enough to buy good uniforms, but they are still willing to turn on their own people.”

  Half an hour later they turned off the main highway onto another road—still paved but narrower. “T
his way we avoid the real roadblocks,” he said.

  “Real?” Marcus asked.

  “The Russian military. This will join back up with the main highway, but far past the point where roadblocks are.”

  For the next hour their little car struggled up several switchbacks, until they met up with the highway again. They had traveled less than a mile on the main road when the Lada suddenly edged to the right, bouncing with the unevenness of a flat tire.

  “Crap!” Salman exclaimed. He pulled over into a small grassy area between the road and the forest.

  They stood staring at the passenger side front tire.

  “You have a spare?” Marcus asked.

  “Of course,” Salman said defensively. “I am prepared.”

  Marcus helped Salman change the tire.

  Stormy stood behind them. “You want me to get lunch out now since we’ve stopped?”

  “Sure,” Marcus replied.

  Salman’s mother had packed them enough food for lunch and dinner.

  When they were done with the tire, they leaned against the car, eating the flatbread, cheese, and meat. Marcus folded his like a gyro.

  “Tell your mother thank you,” Stormy said.

  Salman didn’t reply. Marcus glanced at him.

  Salman was looking at something further down the highway.

  “What is it?”

  “A big truck”, he said, “A transport.”

  “What kind?”

  “Russian. Away from the road! Come!”

  They followed him several yards into the forest, each of them knelt down behind one of the suddenly too-thin birch trees.

  “Don’t move, no matter what,” Salman said.

  Marcus peered around the corner of the tree as two transports rolled up the highway. The roar of the trucks’ engines was so overwhelming, it made any other conversation pointless.

  The first transport jerked into a lower gear as it approached the Lada. A soldier shouted something as the second truck came to a stop behind the first. Three men hopped out of the first truck. Surrounding the Lada, they looked inside, then up and down the highway. One picked up a wrapper Marcus had left on the car. After considering it a moment, he tossed it aside.