Tibetan Cross

by Mike Bond

  “I've been planning,” she said, “how to release your story. Maximum impact, minimum danger.”

  “Nobody'll believe it.”

  “They will when I'm through with them. I can prove it.”

  “How?”

  “Your friend – when's he due in Paris?”

  “Couple weeks.”

  “We'll be waiting. We let it out – one big bang. Set them up to come after us. When they do, that'll prove it!”

  “Prove what – that we're dead?”

  “No – we'll be safe. I can manage that. This could turn the whole bomb thing around – when people see how much at risk they are – what a bunch of murderous nitwits the CIA is – how much lying there is in the States, the ugly politics…”

  “They're endemic.” He opened the door. “Want to walk?”

  “I've got this.” She held up a blue paperback. “Did you know, aucun art ne saurait être vraiment notre s'il ne rendait à l'événement sa brutale fraîcheur, son ambiguité, son imprévisibilité, au temps son cours, au monde son opacité menaçante et somptueuse…'”

  “How can you read that shit?”

  “It's another person's mind, revealing itself as honestly as it can.”

  “You sure?” He scowled at the blue paperback. “You always just assumed it, on the plane from Teheran.”

  She giggled. “Assumed what?”

  “That I speak French. You never asked me – I've never said one word of it.”

  “Surely you must – somewhere? Maybe I just presumed. I mean darling, I'm half French – why should I assume you speak English?”

  “Some of my teachers would've told you I don't.” Still scowling, he took the goat trail to the beach, its sand already dry and warm in the hollows. He smoked, feeling its excellence distill in his bones, sharpen his muscles, lend credence to his deepest perceptions. In the sun, in the sand vibrating to the tumble of waves, there was peace.

  And I'm being shitty and cross. Have to go soon. Tinkling bells disturbed him; the goatherd's steps lisped across the sand. Cohen covered the pipe with his palm. The goat-herd squatted, wrinkled his nose. “Giorno.”

  “Fumare?” Cohen uncovered the pipe.

  “Sì.”

  They faced the sea, without words. The old man smelled of goat, sweat, sun, and the minty sage heath. The beat of the sea on the sand was hypnotic. “Due tedesci – amici,” he poked Cohen's elbow. “Perchè con boomboom?” He raised an imaginary gun to his shoulder, sighting out to sea.

  “Dove?”

  “In Vye.”

  “Chi, amici?”

  “Chi? Vostri.” He fingered Cohen's arm. “Vostri.”

  “Non sono miei amici, tedesci.”

  “Amici con la signora…”

  Cohen leaned back into the warm sand. Two Germans with guns and wives, that was another thing. “Turisti,” he said.

  The goatherd shrugged one shoulder, reached for the pipe. Cohen relit it, watched a curlew stitch a wavetop to the sky. The old man exhaled. “Non sono turisti.” He raised the imaginary rifle.

  Cohen sat up. “Due tedesci, con due signore, allora.”

  The goatherd shook his head. He poked a finger in the sand. “Vye,” he said.

  “Sì.”

  The finger moved a few inches westward. “Qui voi ed io.” He punched a second hole, pointed to himself and Cohen. Beside this second hole he punched a third. “Vostra signora.” He pointed up to the hut.

  “Sì.”

  “Allora, due tedesci,” the finger ran westward, dove into the sand. “Con boomboom.” He pointed to the hills. “Amici con vostra signora.”

  Cohen nodded, feeling a breeze run up his back. He fought the urge to turn around. The goatherd motioned with the pipe; Cohen relit it; the man inhaled and passed it back. “Perchè boomboom?”

  “Cacciare,” Cohen answered. He tried to think of the Italian for rabbit, made a rabbit ears gesture. “Lapide.”

  The goatherd's eyes widened momentarily.

  “Non si preoccupi,” Cohen smiled. “Domani.”

  “Domani,” the goatherd echoed. Cohen watched him mount the cliff after his goats, first his legs disappearing beyond the crest, then his trunk, till only his head, whitely reflecting the sun, was left.

  He forced calmness on himself, back against a palm trunk, its fronds a parasol, a downy feather twirling down the breeze. So Claire had not gone to Sitea; she had met with two Germans in the hills, two Germans with guns. How many more the goatherd hasn't seen? I am a fool beyond belief. As the untouchable said, I am blind in both eyes. He ambled through the palms and up the slope. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch.

  Woman of death. Death woman. Kali. You'll die now.

  SHE WAS SUNNING HERSELF against the hut's white southern wall, Sartre in hand, in view of the hills. “You must be hungry again,” she smiled. Beads of sweat had gathered below her hairline.

  Her thighs were amber in the sun; between them, under her skirt, a cooler whiteness. Have to get her inside, out of sight. Make her talk. Oh bitch. “C'mon inside.”

  Quickly she stood. “I'm happy here.”

  He rummaged for his wallet, counted the money, forgetting the amount. “What are you doing?” she called.

  He took a knife from the sinkboard. “Getting lunch. Where's the bread?”

  “In that cupboard thing.”

  “Can't find it. C'mere!”

  “Don't be blind.”

  He edged toward the door; she was striding for the Peugeot. “Get in here!” he yelled.

  “Going for a drive.”

  “I'll go with you.” He stuck the knife into his back pocket and moved into the sun, eyeing the hills.

  “You're a crosspatch – I'll go alone.”

  “How about a kiss?”

  She opened the car door, bright in the noon light. “Don't forget your lunch.”

  “Where to?”

  “Away from those smelly goats.” She ducked into the car. “Ciao, Theseus.”

  She reversed down the cart track, backed into a thicket, and accelerated toward Vye. Now I'm dead if I don't move fast. Should've killed her. Then they'd have shot me, and I'd have missed Paul. He glanced quickly at the scrubby, dark, ominous hills. Where are you? In the scrub? Coming up the trail? On the cliffs?

  Breeze in my face. Nobody on the cliffs. Terror in the back. Expecting a bullet. That crushing pain. No way out. God, in the trees. Safer now. Have to cross the beach. They'll shoot me. Can't stay here. They'll shoot me.

  He stepped out of the palms into sunlight. Waves glistened. White, blinding sand. No one. Can't see. Show no fear. He ambled along the beach. No terror. Little excursion. He forced himself to kneel despite the knee and found a flat stone. A booming breaker startled him; he dropped the stone. He forced himself to pick it up again and scaled it. It slapped the first wave sideways and sank.

  Hot white sand. They're leading me on. Finger tightening round the trigger – now! Boom! Christ, a wave. Can't breathe with the terror. Sand like soup, can't walk. Run – no, God, don't run!

  Shadowy wet kelp-smelling barnacled cool rocks. He sprinted through them up a raveled goat trail and around the cliff.

  10

  KILLING ME, THE KNEE. How far can I go? They're coming now. Now they come. Past the house, over the beach. Running. Up the rocks, around the cliff. Matter of minutes.

  Far above, a notch of sunlight. Gripping the knee he stumbled up the goat trail. It caved in and he fell grabbing handfuls of grass, snatched a root, arm tearing from the socket, muscles snapping, mouth full of dirt. With the dislocated arm he levered up the cliff, switched hands – they're coming now – wormed onto a ledge, raised the arm and twisted it back into the socket, biting his lip against the pain, and scrambled along the thin ledge up a ravine. Coming now, coming.

  Up the ravine over a ridge, running crippled into a meadow studded with oaks, up a dry waterfall and around a table mesa, falling in holes, knees and palms scarred, ankles thistle-torn. Can't go more. The end.


  Sun masked, black clouds. Sea and sky dim, wind damp. Southern hills, jumbled blocks, giant's ruined house, shadowed scarps, black brush whose sinister leaves the wind slashes against the ridgeline. Where are you?

  A rubbled isthmus striding northward into the sea – Are you there? Westward quilt of gray shadows over restless hills – Or there? A bird sprang from an oak branch and was torn westward by the wind – Was that you? I can't kill you all. Kill you with what?

  Biting down the pain he ran westward, thorns ripping his shins and waist. Reach that ridge. Never stop. Outdistance them. Always could. No matter the pain.

  He forced himself faster each time he stumbled, fell. They're on foot too. Watch for them ahead – road's up there somewhere. For an hour the ridge drew no closer. Suddenly it hunched its bony back up and blocked off the wind. He collapsed under an outcrop. Count to a hundred then go. One – two…

  The air redolent with sage, the coast rippling aqueous, the sea slick and restless gnawing its flank. Twenty-one – twenty-two – rain falling in sunlit smoky slanting curtains – forty-seven – forty-eight – forty-nine – jumping at her voice but it was only a falcon hunting, “Scrreee, scrreee,” – Seventy-three – seventy-four…You'll die, I promise you. Dance on men's bodies, Kali, dance – you'll die too, their flesh in your teeth – seventy-one – seventy…No, counted that already – I'll draw you into your own Hell and keep you there till it kills you. Ninety-seven – ninety-eight – he tore himself to his feet and plodded into cold, sharp rain.

  Toward sundown the rain slowed. Atop the next ridge a stone wall; he fell against it, weeping with pain. Am I crying about her or the pain? Or the failure? The stupid, childish mistake? Or the dead? Death?

  A rooster crowed beyond the wall. He lugged himself up and peered over it. Last daylight was sliding across the sea to pool beneath the western clouds; wind out of the east carried odors of thyme, oleander, and wet lichen. Beyond the wall the ridge fell down a green valley, in its center a yellowed church cloistered on its far side by two-tiered cells. Clumps of grass sprouted like warts from its terracotta roof tiles. Chickens scratched in a bare courtyard before its portals; its nearest wall supported a broken-backed thatched barn with a puddled sheepcote where a few wet ewes huddled. From the courtyard a dirt road coiled southward into the hills.

  My shield, my high tower, my refuge. Can they come after me here? Am I safe?

  No one moved along the colonnaded cloister, or settled the quiet sheep into the barn for the night. No lights stole through the small, thick windows; no vesper tolled from the pitted belfry. The rooster crowed again, his stony echo bouncing up the valley. A meager puff of white eased from a rock chimney at the far end of the barn and dissipated in the paling light.

  He slipped and skidded down the flinty slope and across the barnyard, thin yellow chickens trotting like heralds before him. A door at the barn end was ajar; from it emanated a smoky glimmer. He knocked. A chair dragged on stone; a shuffle approached. A muddy-eyed crone with silver chin hairs opened; she tripped backward, crossing herself. She wore a black smock, her white hair plaited in a sooty bandanna over one shoulder; in one claw she held a half-plucked chicken, its head bobbing, its glassy eye protruding like a marble. He made a motion for food and rest; she leaped forward and swung the chicken to bar the door; he wedged it open.

  She crossed herself again and backed away. He glanced down: his trousers were bloody, his arms and chest mud-streaked and torn by thorns, his shoes rain- and blood-filled. A hesitant step approached, a grimy crooked-shouldered man. Cohen repeated his request.

  “Sitea,” the hunchback whispered, pointing westward over the valley rim. Cohen shook his head, nodded up at the clouds, fished a handful of coins from his pocket.

  The hunchback retreated. “Padre?” Cohen said, glancing at the church.

  The hunchback pointed him through a door into a spacious, frigid baptistry. Before the nave an oaken table was graced by a single candle. In its unsure light glimmered a plate, fork, knife, and white napkin. A breeze toward the door brought the aroma of stale incense and the enclosed fetor of damp stone and rotting wood.

  Beyond the baptistry a plank staircase led from the cloister up to a tier of empty cells. In the first, coils of dry thorn atop a board bed, an icon weeping rain. He started up to the second tier. A young, bearded priest wearing a threadbare cassock and pendulous silver cross met him halfway. For a third time Cohen made his request. The priest scowled and shook his head. He spoke quickly, Cohen understanding only “Sitea.”

  “Vroxi,” Cohen answered, remembering the goatherd's word, pointed to the black sky. Again the rooster crowed, muffled by the claustral walls. Cohen rolled up his trouser leg to show the priest his wound, offered coins from his pocket. The priest crossed himself.

  “In the time of trouble,” Cohen said, “He shall hide me in his pavilion,” but the priest shook his head uncomprehendingly and remounted the stairs, over his shoulder calling, “Sitea, trianta hiliometra.”

  He dragged his injured leg up the dirt road into the darkening hills. Thirty kilometers by road – twenty miles – how many through the scrub? The Lord is my light and salvation – whom should I fear? The Lord's my life refuge – He will conceal me in the shelter of His tent – though war be waged upon me, even then will I trust. Preserve my life and rescue me, O God.

  LIGHT RAKED THE SLOPE, catching out bushes like sentries sleeping at their posts. He dove from the road, the light dipped over his back, crossed the road, mounted the far slope, and traversed back, snatching yellow from spiky leaves. Rocks rattled on steel.

  With a flash it was on him again. A rumbling engine and the crackle of gravel as a car crested the ridge and nosed down the road toward the church. It was long and light-colored, its engine fighting the transmission on the downgrade. It dropped beyond a hillock into the valley of the church. Night returned; he waited for his vision to renew, jumping as a bird twittered cautiously.

  He crawled from the road into the scrub. The headlights darted back over the ridge, the car moving slower, black shadows flitting before it. He squinted to see better. The black shadows were two men running before the car, their heads bent to peer at the road. He stumbled to his feet; pain knocked him out. He woke lying in thorns. So intimate, earth. This brush – no pain at all. Will it be like this at the end?

  Voices on the road, play of light over the scrub. They see me? English! – they're speaking English! Help – save me! No. Be still!

  “Here!” That word – someone's coming. “Sam!” – they're calling – “Sam!” Coming to save. He pulled himself free of the thorns, up on his feet, wavering.

  “Sam Cohen – you out there?” A sepulchral voice, made ghastly by night, a man's barrel voice. “Sam, you need help! We've come to save you!”

  He grabbed the thorns, tripping. The light swept past, blinding; he fell covering his eyes as out of the blackness came thunder, the air hot with zipping, pinging, shattered earth and singing stone, wailing of smashed branches, tintinnabular staccato of rifles dying into the hills. “That's him!” a voice screaming. “He's down! He's down!”

  Another voice: “Move in, move in.”

  Oh God the silence. Now swish of branch on clothing. Light, probing like a dentist's tool. Save me, lamb to be slaughtered. This terrible strength to snake through the thorn scrub, each curling leaf and stem bright overhead.

  Running feet, crunching boughs, voices everywhere. Now a streambed – dry – crawling like a gutted bear down this stony, scaly, choking earth. Nearest voice fifty yards and closing – “No blood!” it yells. “Can't find no blood.”

  “Not here,” another voice. “Not here neither.”

  Again the sepulchral basso profundo, further back but louder, everywhere. “Split up and comb it good! He's on his last legs – the priest said so – I want him now!”

  Easy, really, to keep going. Place one hand ahead, hoping for a rock, root, anything to hold. Pull with that arm, dragging this heavy body, th
is ruined leg, scrape the earth, dragging thorn and bones of long-dead scrub. Switch hands, do it again. Oh Christ that's the bad shoulder – reach out the other hand and pull again. Voices closer. Find a rock, anything. Kill them. Into the bushes – goat trail. They won't see it. Jesus – footsteps behind me.

  “Whatcha got, Tony?”

  “Nothin’ – old gully.”

  “Zig's split to bring the dogs. Be here by two.”

  “From where?”

  “Ankara. Flown in. Kaynines. Be over by morning.”

  “Still no blood?”

  “Shit, man. No blood. Musta missed.”

  “For sure, man, he went down with the first round.”

  “It was a long shot –”

  “Yeah.” A low chuckle. “Shoulda had nightscopes.” Down the gully the voices traveled, softening. Dogs. Dogs at two a.m. Be over by morning. My last night.

  Keep going you cowardly bastard. You little legpissing chickenshit mommalicker pantysmelling meatbeater. Don't you dare ask God for help. You lache – froussard – poltron – trouillard – don't ask anyone! Depend on yourself. Alex's shit-eating Polack grin, “Either your body's your friend or it ain't.” Body, be my friend. Take me, save me.

  The goat trail wound tighter and tighter into the scrub. Up now a gentle slope, rain on his shoulder like the lightest embrace. Easier for dogs now – wet smell. Voices back there, half mile behind. Waiting for the dogs. With a stick clenched between his teeth to bite back the pain, he drove himself to run, down a long brushy slope northward toward the sea.

  Clouds clearing, shiver of moonlight over the sea. To the right, a blinking buoy. Wind shifting, warmer, from the west. It's two now? Where's the dogs?

  Smell of cold foamy waves. Rumble and thrash on rock, shudder of earth. Can't follow my scent into the sea. Think I've drowned. He cut eastward, leading the dogs back toward the church valley, a great wounded circle.

  Can hear sea down there. He peered over the cliff. How far? With each thudding wave, pebbles fell from the edge. He reached out and down: Nothing.

  Distant baying – the wind? He scrambled from the cliff, leg jammed in brush. Down this edge. Toward the sea. Dogs – can hear them now. Quick, lower. Steeper. That flash of white's the sea. So far down? Christ, too steep. Dogs homing in. It's a cliff. Can't get down.