by Ken Hansen
Yohanan glanced out the window, barely able to keep his eyes open. The early March thaw had melted most of the snow, but the barren trees and the dormant grasses now cast a bleak brown hue over the landscape, desperately awaiting the renewal of spring. He slowly tilted his head toward the window, but before he could close his own eyes, he saw two little eyes staring at him from two seats to his front. When Yohanan smiled, the eyes quickly disappeared in front of the seat back, only to reappear a few seconds later, this time revealing beneath them a set of prominent freckles belonging to a very young boy. Yohanan quickly raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth wide, which again caused the head of the boy to duck for cover. He heard the ratcheting of mechanical gears, and a few seconds later, a small metallic toy appeared above the seat, caressed by tiny, awkward fingers. It depicted an ancient Viking and Aztec engaged in eternal combat, repeatedly clanging their swords against one another as the spiral spring within the clockwork mechanism unwound its worldly tension. When Yohanan let out a simulated shriek of fear, a giggling sound emanated from the forward seat, followed quickly by the appearance of the boy’s now guarded face. Yohanan smiled gently and nodded to the boy. The boy grinned ear-to-ear and waved.
A woman sitting to the left of the boy looked back at Yohanan with a disapproving scowl while physically forcing the boy to sit and look forward. She tried to grab the toy out of the boy’s hand, but he wrenched it away from her and held it tight to his chest. She leaned over the boy and whispered something in the ear of a man with three interlocking drinking horns tattooed on the back of his neck. The man turned slowly toward Yohanan and glared.
When the conductor reached the family, the man flicked his head toward Yohanan while looking at the conductor. “Are there still no seats available in the other cars so we can leave the filth in this car?”
“Yes sir. A few have opened up in the rear.”
The man stood and corralled his son by his shirt collar, nearly dragging him toward the rear of the car, with the woman trailing a step behind, her eyes staring at Yohanan from above a handkerchief she held over her mouth and nose.
Yohanan felt the heat of anger rising within him, but he remembered Isa’s words and suppressed it. He turned to watch them leave and was rewarded with a slow wave, twinkling eyes and a sly smile from the little boy as he opened his other hand to once again reveal the wind-up toy. Yohanan winked to the boy and nodded to himself as a different kind of warmth flowed through his chest. Our future belongs to the children. We must stop schooling them in hatred. They are the foundation of a new beginning.
Returning his head to the window, Yohanan nodded off to sleep. He was awakened by a bright flash that caught his eye from the ridge above the train. He stared intently and saw the movement of what appeared to be two prone bodies dressed in camouflage. One of the prone figures held binoculars, which reflected the late afternoon sun back toward the train. The other had what looked like a black box. Yohanan’s fists clenched. No!
As he stood, an explosion rocked the train behind him, forcing it to an abrupt stop and catapulting him into the forward door. He might have passed out from his concussed brain, but the piercing sounds of huge chunks of metal squealing, crashing, and ripping apart would not let his body bring him relief. It sounded like a chain reaction of explosions competing with each other for his attention, eventually commingling in his ears as they grew louder and less distinct, and finally ending with a few intermittent bangs. Then silence for a few seconds as the all too familiar scents of smoke and burning flesh and blood began to fill his nostrils. A cacophony of screams and shrieks and squeals attacked his ears.
Yohanan managed to pull himself up. The train car was still upright, though it seemed askew on the track, with the trailing car at nearly a right angle to it. As he stood, the hammer in his head nearly pounded him back to the floor, but he caught himself on the door handle, slid it open, and stumbled out of the train. The locomotive to the front remained upright and on the rails. He turned and beheld the carnage to the rear. It looked as if God himself had picked up the cars in His Hands and dropped them in a refuse pile, their huge carcasses visibly expelling their last few breaths of heat into the cool March air. No, not God, not with this destruction.
He fought off the dizziness and nausea as the screams of women and children drew him ever closer toward the devastation. He looked up at the ridge, but the Demosep operatives, those agents of hate, had long disappeared into the wilderness. When he reached the first overturned car, he saw a young woman lying halfway out of one of the broken windows, blood covering her face. He shook his head slowly. When she coughed a fountain of blood, he knew she would be dead soon. He shivered. What kind of future is ever possible when this is our present?
He continued toward the back of the pile and found others who might be saved and tried to tend to their wounds just enough to leave them living and then move on to the ocean of humanity that lay further back within just moments of death.
In the fourth car back, Yohanan came upon the tattooed Juteslam man who had insulted him. The man lay impaled on a long piece of metal scrap peeled like a potato skin off the car in front. He heard a groan nearby and found the man’s wife under another dead body, her arm twisted backward, broken. When he dug her out of the pile, her eyelids fluttered as she struggled to regain consciousness. As he laid her on the grass just outside the car, she opened her eyes fully, reaching both arms toward him. “No, Ædle! My little ædlehelten!”
Yohanan felt the energy surge through him as he leapt back into the car’s interior. He searched among the bloody piles of broken bodies, but the boy was not among them. Where could he have gone? He glanced outside to see if the boy had been thrown clear of the wreckage, but there was just too much rubble. He heard a tapping to the front of the car and noticed a door in the corner. The toilet. The boy might have survived in that enclosed little space. Yohanan raced forward, tripping madly over the piles of dead bodies and severed limbs. When he grabbed for the handle, it broke off in his hands. Another small tap sounded from within. Yohanan shouted, “ædle, is that you?” No verbal reply came, but another tap followed.
His heartbeat racing, Yohanan scanned the car and found a splintered metal seat support that he poked between the door and its jamb. When he shoved this lever with all of his weight, he fell to the side while the door sprung open. Scrambling to his feet, he saw the boy’s smiling reflection in the broken mirror on the wall. He moved closer and saw the boy’s hand lying open, palm up. Resting on it, the metal toy fell silent as it tapped out the remaining energy from its last wind. But it did not matter, for the boy did not hear or see the warriors finish their battle. He could not. A triangle-shaped piece of the mirror had broken away from the wall and sliced several inches into his neck. Yohanan fell to his knees and wept.
Chapter 54
The late winter sun had not yet settled below the mountaintops just west of Shenandoah when Yohanan took his familiar place on the platform in the center of the town square. The crowded square was already full of Tetepians anticipating another rousing speech from the man who had been the political mouthpiece of the Demosep movement for several years. He forced a smile and nodded at a few friends milling in the crowd. Everyone’s anticipation might undermine their willingness to accept his new message—one he knew would differ so greatly from his past pronouncements. Maybe he could use that anticipation to his favor. He closed his eyes, and images of death, both old and new, still flashed through his brain. I must make them understand.
Yohanan took a deep breath and raised his arms to quiet the crowd. “My old friends, my brothers and sisters in arms, my fellow Tetepians, I come here today to speak to you of a Great Truth. It is a truth that has come to me slowly and only through much pain. It is a truth that many of you may not wish to hear. But it is a truth that resides in our very souls.
“Tonight, I do not speak of our suffering, for you already know the nature of this malady all too well. Yes, we have suffered here in the hint
erlands of Tetepe for nearly fifty years, but that is a truth you need not hear me utter. You already know it in every ounce of your being.
“Nor do I speak of our democracy, for you already know of our great hope for the future of mankind. Yes, we have governed ourselves with justice and civility these past two centuries, but that is a truth not you, but the world, must hear. You already feel it deep in the recesses of your hearts.
“And I do not speak of our patriotism, for you already know we have all fought arm in arm for our country. Yes, we have tethered our lives and our fortunes to one another these past fifty years, but that is a truth that need not be mentioned. You already sense the warmth of its cloak every time we meet.
“No doubt, these beliefs remain as guideposts to each and every one of you. For we have all suffered, we have all chosen freedom, we have all acted as patriots. I will not ask you today to shrink even one uncia from any of these truths. You will need them not just tonight but tomorrow and every day that follows. You will need them to give you strength so that you may have the courage to accept the Great Truth that I reveal to you here today.
“I already hear some of you asking, ‘What is this Great Truth?’ I will come to that shortly. But first, please allow me to indulge in a little personal history. Most of you know much of my story. Who here remembers the day my parents were killed?”
A few in the crowd raised their hands and shook their heads.
Yohanan went on, “I recall the tragedy all too vividly: every day in my thoughts and every night in my dreams. Yes, I became famous around the world because of a picture of me and my wailing sister on the cover of Tempus. But while my own grief became a clarion call for our movement, we all know that you and I are really no different. For though no journalist was there to capture it, most of you have felt that horrid pain all the same.”
Many in the crowd nodded their heads. A few of their faces were already full of tears.
“Now how did I respond to this agony? Probably the same as you: with deep, unabashed hatred, a hatred for the men who shelled my house, a hatred for Skjöldr and his lieutenants, and, yes, a hatred for all the Juteslam people. And all these years that hatred has been carried in my heart, in the depths of my soul.”
Yohanan put his hands to his heart and looked at the crowd. He noticed an athletic, blond woman was slowly weaving her way toward the stage.
He held his hands out wide. “That hatred became the engine of nearly every significant action I have taken in the past ten years. It drove me to join hand in hand with the Demoseps in their battles against the Juteslams. This engine of hate heated my brain to its boiling point, so the focal point of my thoughts became revenge upon the Juteslams at nearly any cost. It fostered the growth of a cancer on my soul, so it could undo what conscience I had left and allow me to commit truly unspeakable acts. And it led me blindfolded to Great Jutland Square on a warm summer’s eve, only to confront me with a horror revisited from ten years before of innocent blood spilled in front of children who screamed in agony and grief. But this time the blood was Juteslam blood, and this time the grief turned to thoughts of revenge against me and you and every single person standing here today. And that same glowing hatred forced me to witness my second father, the gentle Quintillus, publicly murdered. I have seen so many killed. By them, by us, by all who hate.
“So where has that hatred brought me? Where has it brought us? What good has this hatred done for us or for our people? I am not the first Tetepian to hate the Juteslams. This hatred began over fifty years ago. I have no doubt that this hatred fills most of your hearts today. So I ask you these simple questions, my fellow Tetepians: Has this hatred served us well? Has it returned us to our homes in the coastal cities? Has it improved our lives? Has it given us hope? Has it saved us from despair?”
Yohanan paused for effect. “NO! It has not and it never will. That is the Great Truth. My hatred—your hatred—has led us only to further death and misery.”
Yohanan nodded sadly and surveyed the crowd. He saw the blond woman push her way past two burly supporters and disappear behind a stone column. He continued, “If this hatred has proven so self destructive, then why do we embrace it so? I will tell you why—because it is just too damn easy. When we are grief-stricken, our defenses lie open and the evil of hatred finds no door to bar its entry through the gate to our souls. There, while we are still weakened, it gains its foothold and begins to corrupt us from within. It acts like a virus in our brains that insidiously rescripts our thoughts so deeply that we cannot even tell a metamorphosis has occurred. And it is only with great courage, with great foresight, and with great wisdom that we can expunge this evil from our midst.
“And so I challenge each of you to see through the mist to the ugly snarl of this hatred that now chews at your soul. Seeing is only the first step, but a critical one, for until you can see this Great Truth, you will never be able to confront it. I warn you now that this step will not come easy. You must search the truth of your suffering, examine the goals of your democracy, and appreciate the pride of your patriotism. These truths do not conflict with the Great Truth. If you truly understand each of these truths, you will see that they do not support but oppose hatred. You, too, must oppose hatred and fight it with every fiber of your being. It took me ten long years to understand this Great Truth, but our Father in Heaven, our Lord and our God, has helped me to see it. With His guidance, you too will see it, and we together may rid ourselves of this evil and condemn it to its natural resting place in hell.”
Several of the Demosep leaders shook their heads. Spittle was dribbling out of one leader’s mouth and another’s veins strained out his neck. Yohanan bit his lip hard. What would these men do when they were still so consumed by anger?
A woman Yohanan did not recognize walked forward and asked, “Do you agree that God teaches us to hate evil?”
“Yes, yes,” Yohanan nodded, smiling as he stepped closer to the woman. “You should hate evil in all of its manifestations.”
“But the Juteslams have murdered our friends and family without remorse. They are evil. And if they are evil, then by your own words, God demands that we hate them!” Some in the crowd cheered this proclamation.
Yohanan smiled gently and raised his arms to hush the crowd. “This logic of yours seems to ring true, but in the end it sounds a false note. Do not succumb to its phony charms! All of us can agree that some Juteslams committed evil deeds, but that does not condemn them all. No more than the evil deeds of some of us should condemn us all. Quintillus, himself once reminded me, ‘Juteslams are people too. Despite the propaganda, they don’t all hate you. They are innocents, and surely they do not deserve to die.’ I heard him then, yet I did not feel the truth of his words. He was right, but none of us have listened. We, the Demoseps, have killed many innocent Juteslams ourselves over the years because of our glowing hatred. Who are we to kill innocents and then condemn others for doing the same?”
One of the Demosep leaders yelled, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth! These are commanded in our Torah. How can we be wrong to follow God’s lead?”
Yohanan responded at once, “Whose eye and whose tooth? Do you think God tells you to take the eye of any innocent Juteslam because another Juteslam has taken your brother’s eye? No. This statement from our Torah was never meant as a call for revenge. It was a limit upon the punishment of individual criminals so society would not unjustly take out its vengeance upon them. Who are we to condemn all of the Juteslams for the crimes of the few? The killing of innocents must stop!”
Raanan stepped forward and climbed the edge of the platform. “Enough of this traitorous talk. If we do not fight, the Juteslams shall either carry us away in chains or slaughter us like lambs. You said this yourself in this very spot, but now, in your weakness after Quintillus’s death, you urge the opposite and condemn us for defending ourselves against these monsters.” He waved his arms toward the crowd. “Do you wish to be in chains?”
The crowd erupted with cries of “We are not slaves! We are not lambs! Traitor!” Then a few others began yelling, “Quiet, let Yohanan speak!” and “Hear him out!” and “Shut up, it’s Yohanan. You’re a traitor for saying that!”
With the crowd throbbing behind him, Raanan glared at Yohanan, his fists clenched. “You little coward. You see what our people believe.”
Yohanan wiped his forehead and gestured to the crowd. “I am no coward. I am no traitor, Raanan. You seem all too willing to claim treason when someone disagrees with you—or worse, to cover up your own failures. You raised the specter of treason against Eliezer to cover up your disastrous plan in New Jutland Square. When will you accept the blame for that instead of pointing the finger at a man we all know never once wavered in his sacrifice for our cause?”
“I could not have known of his treachery,” Raanan yelled.
“His treachery,” Yohanan continued. “The poor man could not defend himself against your charges because you chose to be his immediate executioner, without the benefit of a trial before his peers. If there were a treasonous act, that was it. It would be all too easy for me to ascribe your action to the blind hatred that I have denounced today. However, I fear your actions belie a motive even more sinister.”
“You liar! You coward!” Raanan began lunging forward, his arms outstretched, but a few Yohanan supporters jumped between the two and pulled Raanan back into the crowd.
“No, Raanan, you speak of fighting again with the Juteslams, but where has it gotten us these last 50 years? It is insanity for we Tetepians to continue in the same old ways and believe the outcome will change.” Yohanan waved his arms and looked around at the crowd. “Are any of you truly happy? Has this way—this path of destruction Raanan still advocates—has it led to anything other than misery?”
The crowd grew eerily silent.
Yohanan continued, “Raanan says you must continue this fight as you have or you will perish or be placed in chains. But this way of thinking will bring only more heartache and suffering. I am here to tell you there is another way. If the Juteslams try to invade our communities with their armies, then, yes, we must defend them. Warriors die in battle to protect their homes. But we must not kill the innocents. There has been no real war here for over forty years, yet people keep dying just the same. Some are fellow Tetepians. Some are Juteslams. Some are just little children.” Yohanan swallowed hard and bit his lip, his eyes watering. “We kill each other and what does the world see? They see us as shaitaanists murdering innocent Juteslams and the Juteslams pounding us back with long-range shells in retribution. They see us only as the instigators, but they see the Juteslams as the defenders of their own land. Without the world on our side, we are doomed to failure. We must change that view. We must stop the killing!”
