by CK Collins
———Doesn’t matter what, son, stay with Callie. Keep her warm.
* * *
“Ephraim, pal.”
He comes over and says my name. I always like how he says my name.
“So, I have to tell you . . .”
“Are you need water?”
“I have to tell you — it’s a girl, pal.”
He stares at me.
“I can tell.”
The storm feels like it’s letting up. Or not, who knows — can’t count on anything in this country.
“You want to know her name? I decided on a name.”
Contraction. Close my eyes, knuckles, breathe, breathe. Goddammit. Ephraim’s hand on my shoulder, rubbing my back. “That’s good. Thank you.”
It eases.
“Thanks pal.” I sit up, find my breath. “Okay. Or would you rather it be a surprise, the name? I like surprises. Not everybody does.”
“Surprises I like.”
“I thought a lot about it. The name. I am capable of planning, believe it or not. It’s . . . it’s from this place, this beautiful place. I think it’ll be good.”
“It will be good, Callie.”
“Yeah.” I squeeze his hand. “It’ll be good.”
* * *
She’s here.
The door opens.
Down to a basement, ears ringing, water at his ankles and rising. Another step and the floor falls away. His face in water, flailing, but regaining his feet. Sloshing forward, water at his thighs. His torch finds stairs and a door.
Dry corridor. Struggling to breathe his panic down.
This building — it’s Dominion Hall. His first university class was right down that hall. Senior practicum was two flights up those stairs. Disiri in the lobby outside the reading room. Disiri sitting by the Queen’s marble feet, eating her kiwi.
He forces himself up. A heavy rain, but the wind is slack. Water drips from ceiling leaks. He turns the corner and is hit — sprawled, arms pinned — a knee in his back.
A whisper: “Murai?”
“Yes.”
“Where are the rest?”
“I don’t know.”
The knee sharper in his back. “Don’t protect them.”
“I’m not. We crashed. I got out, I ran. I don’t know what happened to them.”
“How many?”
“Four.”
“Armed?”
“Guns and knives.”
“Do they know it’s this building?”
“I don’t think so.”
A long pause, then the pressure lifts. “How did you know where?”
“An urge. That’s all it’s ever been.”
* * *
There is on Callie’s face such of sweat. She rocks. So hard is her grip. To the baby she is speaking in whispers I do not know.
I say to her the storm is tired, it is leaving. But, Ashma, she is not hearing. She is harder breathing. She is rocking. Water drips on us.
Callie.
Rocking, gripping — wide her eyes.
———no
Callie
———oh my god
We shatter
* * *
Come of brutal heaven shred. All torn and tearing, stabbing brutal thrown. Twist and ripping ripping screaming hit———
none
* * *
Ashma
Of holding Callie I tried.
I was weak.
Far in the dark is a fire glow. I am battered but moving in this cold rain falling.
A person. Two together.
I am afraid. But too tired for hiding.
From how he moves, I come to see it is Sule. And the man, when they are near I see his face. It is the father of Callie’s baby. I do not understand, and there is no time of explaining.
For Callie we look.
* * *
Distant fires illuminate the dripping wreckage in flickering red. The rain is weak.
The wind lunges.
Prowling.
It’s Rika who finds her — flung against a stanchion — cut and unconscious. He clears wreckage and wipes at blood.
The man and boy — he sees them and stands.
“She’s alive.”
They look relieved. Because they don’t yet feel the truth. Because they don’t know Ikidris.
Rika wishes he could be silent. “The wind, do you see? The way it’s lurching. Gusting this way, that way — it’s prowling, like a vawdra — it’s sniffing for the baby.”
He looks down at her, trying to grasp what he felt once before. “But it can’t find the scent.”
They stare at him.
“There’s no scent because there’s no baby. It gave up. It let go. The world was too much.”
* * *
Ashma, inside of Callie is death. You are gone of her womb and she is cold.
I look for a place to take her from the rain.
Sule points. Electric flashes.
Hilm Hivaa.
Sule asks has he been taught a code.
———Yeah. It’s one long and two short if I’m coming to them. Two short, two long if they should come to me.
———If we’re taken, what do you think will happen?
———The two of you they’ll shoot. And her, if they know the baby’s dead . . .
The signal again.
———I’ll tell them to come. You can ambush them.
But that is not possible, and Sule explains it. We have not weapons and do not know their number. To this, the father says a thing in words that are strange to me. Sule shakes his head. But the father is again saying his idea, fast and sure.
Sule does not like it. But the signal of Hilm Hivaa is a second time and Sule decides we have not a better way.
The father is off to a far position and gives a signal of answer.
A wait.
New flashes, and back to us he climbs.
———Alright.
———Murai, you’re sure about this?
———They’re waiting for me.
We are no words in the rain and whipping wind.
Callie moves. She is waking.
The father looks at her in expression I do not understand. He touches her hand. And goes to Hilm Hivaa.
* * *
Rika clambers over debris. Rain falls heavy, but the rage of wind is gone. Two flashes to the right. He’s some time finding a route. He sees the driver.
“Hands on your head.”
From behind, a hand over his mouth. He’s pulled behind a toppled motorcoach. A third viyka, the one who was with him in the back seat, conducts reconnaissance to ensure he’s come alone. Their remaining weapons are spread in the rear of the coach.
The gaan is not with them. His band is on the driver. “Talk.”
“She’s alive. Hurt. But alive.”
“The child?”
“Almost here. Soon. She needs hospital now.”
“Who else is there?”
“Two of them. The boy. And a man, he says his name is Sule. He knows you’re here. Told me to offer a deal.”
“Did he then?”
“He says if you come one at a time, unarmed, he won’t shoot. We get her to hospital together — that’s what matters most — and we sort it out from there. Says that’s what Sidaarik would want.”
“Cheeky bastard. How are they armed?”
“I don’t know. They’re hiding a cache of something.” Pointing to one of two AK-47s in the coach: “The boy, I know, has one of those. He’s taken a position somewhere, they wouldn’t let me see where.”
The driver dabs at the clotting gash under his ear. Uncomfortable with leadership, trying to calculate.
Rika presses: “It’s almost dawn. We’ll have MDF, then. Guard troops, fire, Red Cross. Time is not on our side. I have a plan.”
“Us turning over to a boy and old man is not going to happen.”
“That’s not the plan. Do it my way and they won’t see you coming.”
“It’s us who won’t see what’s coming. Ambush that sounds like.”
“Your man, Sidaarik made me a promise. I bring him Callie and a healthy baby — that’s the deal. That’s how I get what’s mine. Follow me, and we can catch them from behind.”
“Bollocks — just said you don’t know where the boy is.”
“But I do know which way he’s facing. He’s facing this way. Because they think there’s no other route. But there is.”
They advance low to the ground. Without lights. A wide arc around the wreckage until they reach the basement door. Rika opens it, rifle muzzle in his back, and lets a viyka shine a light in. Rika is made to enter first.
At the fourth step, he hits water. Two steps more, and it’s at his waist. “We just need to wade through.”
“How far?”
“This hall and then one turn. I went the wrong way before, dead end. But I found the stairs.”
They slosh down the corridor. At the turn, he accelerates to get ahead. The plunge — he knows it’s coming but still it shocks him. Water at his shoulder. By now, Sule has barricaded the exit.
A viyka falls. A viyka curses.
“Sorry. Almost there.”
He’s meant to get up the stairs before them. He’s meant to get inside and fast seal the door with the boy. That was the plan, but he knew he could not get far enough ahead.
They’re two metres behind, flashing their lights, toting their weapons above the water.
He turns them left, away from the stairs, deeper into dark corridors.
Another plunge. Head against the ceiling. Water rising. He switches off his light. He swims. Beyond their frail lights and drowning shouts. He swims down.
To the bottomless place. And her love.
* * *
From under the door, water seeps.
The father of Callie’s baby is returned to You, Ashma.
I find Sule and Callie. He has made a roof for her. She is awake but of hidden face, sobbing.
In a whisper I tell Sule of the dying. My hand he takes of prayer.
For Rika Murai, who was loved by Callie, we say a prayer.
For the violence that Sule has done tonight, we say a prayer to the God that is of Sule’s own devotion.
The sun is risen up. A light rain on us falls.
Ashma, I have failed in what You have gave me to do. But who I feel sorry for is not You or the world. Who I feel sorry for is Callie. Because Callie was going to be a mother. And now she is curled and sobbing so low that no one, not even You, can hear.
15 May
* * *
Liashe, Masalay
A week after the storm, scaffolds have spread like iron ivy on the battered buildings of the Church and University. There is everywhere hammering and the din of machinery, and it is hot. As Tchori crosses the plaza, a copper sheet dangling over the torn basilica roof reflects the declining sun like a signaling mirror.
Into the byway, which remains damage-clogged. Branches and broken shingles carpeting the stones. The stink of rotting garbage and standing water. She steps carefully to avoid glass and the mouldering nubs of mariden. A toppled tree has wedged against a bus pole, partially blocking the walk. She bends low and scampers past, made wet by sodden leaves.
Brother Carodai is there, waiting on the bench opposite his flat. When she reaches him, he explains, “My flat has developed an odour.”
“Mould, I’m sure — it’s not healthy for you to stay there, Brother.”
“Likely so.”
“I’m so sorry about all your books.”
A smile of resignation. “Dove, have you heard more of your family?”
“Near a day waiting on connection, but I did finally get my da.”
“You were worried about your uncle and his family . . .”
A shake of the head and she looks away.
“Oh child.”
“Their whole shelter — fifty souls, all buried.”
“Tchori my dear — I am so very sorry.”
“My ma, she’s not . . . her baby brother, you know . . .” A deep breath. Hot, avoiding eye contact. “Everyone else made it through, though. Not their property but them.”
“And your lad?”
“Right, yeah, good mostly. Such a big family. Waiting for word about his sister. Right to the north of Parias Bay last anyone heard. Bit of a layabout truly — sweet, all and whole do adore Sajesti — only never quite dependable, her. Likely just hasn’t gotten around to making contact.”
“Particularly with such difficulty getting a line.”
“Exactly. Right.”
“A sense of when they can get out of the shelters?”
“Kistu’s parents and brothers are in home as of yesterday. Broken windows, torn roof. All recoverable but the china and telly. For my parents, they’ve not been allowed into their flat, so an enigma that. Spent yesterday queuing for cold cogis and water and the loo. Stiff upper lip, of course — missed his calling, my da, not being British during the Blitz.”
“There was the talk of cholera. Has that been confirmed?”
“Yeah, confirmed that it’s bollocks. But the travel ban is extended through Sunday next.”
“Frustrating. But probably wise.”
They’re silent a moment. Looking at her bag, he tilts his head. “Success?”
“Success. Yes.” Nervous, she shifts the bag to her other shoulder. All the way back from the tobacconist, she felt the tin bumping against her hip, taunting her with what it contained.
“Brother, I’m not optimistic.”
“Yesterday you were.”
“Well, that was yesterday. If the news were good, we’d have heard. He’d have found a way — a couple positive words, anything. Am I wrong?”
“No.” He stands and she steadies him. A breeze carrying the odour of fouled water.
“Brother . . . you’ve no feelings of guilt?”
A sober nod, as if he expected the question. “We did not bring this about, dove. We haven’t that power.”
“No, we’ve not caused it, but . . .”
“My dear, we’ve more than enough to grieve over without adding unmerited guilt. Agreed?”
“Alright.”
“I intend to hold you to that. Now, stroll with me, won’t you? This letter calls for more dulcet surroundings.”
Although she’d prefer to rest her sore feet, Tchori follows Carodai on a zigzag path around detritus and puddles, through alleys and dim passageways, until they emerge, ten minutes on and quite to her amazement, in gorgeous sun at the Hermit’s Well.
“Brother — this is lovely.”
“It is.”
“I’ve not been here but once. On official tour.”
“Yes, well they obstructed the original entrance with that elephantine conservatory. I came here my first day in Liashe. About this time of day, in fact. The day before my interrogation.”
“You weren’t in preparation?”
“Preparation is the sort of prudent thing you would do, Miss Vidaayit. I was not prudent. I was excited. And I’d made a friend.”
“Ah.”
“Yes, well. I’d met him already, in Sagaro at the regional exams. Only briefly, but he made an impression. No one else from our cohort advanced to interrogation. I learned that when I saw him on the boat from Patchil-Kinaat. We talked all the way.
“I remember we purchased bread somewhere, bread and cheese. And, that’s right, oranges. There used to be a grove behind Sellin Hall. Can you even imagine, a grove in the heart of the city? What is it now, an office building? Now he — you may not believe this, Tchori — but he vociferated against picking the oranges: We didn’t know if they were properly edible, we hadn’t permission, etcetera. All very reasonable objections, but I was certain. Undeterred.
