Fires of Man

by Dan Levinson

  She got into the car, deep in thought.

  The others on her team were on their way home as well. Everyone needed a few weeks of rest. Faith had made calls to the Calchan embassy and to her contacts in government, but no one had been able to convince Cho’u’go to allow the dig to resume. Not all of Zenith was tribal, but the small parliamentary government in the southern part of the country exercised no authority over the tribesmen. The Zenithian government wanted the excavation to continue as much as anyone, because the exposure meant an infusion of tourist money for their small nation. However, they drew the line at displacing the natives. And Faith would not have wanted that anyway.

  A week ago, final word had come down the pipe that it was time to pack it in. Those last days had been sheer hell, exhausting physically from breaking down the entire camp, and also emotionally. Faith and the others had given three years of their lives to the project, and to see it end so prematurely had been taxing for them all.

  As the car wove its way out of the airport and onto the highway, Faith’s father began to hum. He had done that often when she was a child. Her papa’s songs never had words, only melodies he had learned from his abuela, Faith’s great-grandmother.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to be so . . .”

  “Broody?”

  “I have a lot on my mind.”

  Her papa only smiled and went on humming. She leaned over in her seat and rested her head on his shoulder. She could smell his pine aftershave—a safe smell, comforting, familiar. It meant that he was near, always ready to protect her. She hadn’t told him or her mother about her close call with Durban, and didn’t intend to; she was a grown woman, and could fight her own battles.

  But the knowledge that her father was here made her feel better.

  Durban was still in custody, denouncing her story, claiming his innocence. Though there was no admissible physical evidence to be had, the professor’s theft of a priceless gem and attempted flight were damning enough. Faith was hopeful of a conviction, but it would be months yet before the man appeared in front of a tribunal.

  She let go of those dark thoughts and instead watched the rain spatter against the windshield. The fat drops were swept away seconds later by the rhythmic, mesmerizing motion of the windshield wipers. She spent the rest of the ride home listening to her papa’s soft melody while the rain-slick highway blurred past.

  They pulled off the freeway at Exit Thirty-three, Lakeside. Faith had grown up in this town, a pleasant slice of suburbia outside metropolitan Dunover. The car proceeded down the town’s main thoroughfare, Middlebury Road, passing by coffee shops, salons, boutiques, assorted restaurants, and no fewer than three pizzerias. They turned onto Oak Drive at the light near the old movie theater, then hung a left onto Hill Avenue, the little cul-de-sac where she had grown up.

  The first thing she noticed was all the cars.

  “Papa, you didn’t,” she said.

  “Don’t look at me, mija,” he said. “Since when do I make decisions in this house? Your mother wants a party, we have a party.”

  “No,” Faith moaned. She buried her face in her father’s shoulder. “Who did she invite?”

  “Todo el mundo,” her father said grimly.

  “No,” Faith repeated. Everybody. The entire world. “I’m tired. I want to go to bed.”

  “Say hello, for your mother’s sake,” her papa said. “She made carnitas.”

  Faith perked up at this. The thought of her mama’s spicy, melt-in-your-mouth pork made her salivate. “Really?”

  “Her only child comes home the first time in three years.” Faith’s father grinned at her. “Of course she made your favorite!” He laughed. “I told her she should make everyone park on the next block. Try to act surprised.”

  Faith beamed at her father, then unleashed a long-suffering sigh. “Sí, Papa” she said. “For her.”

  Her father pulled the car into the driveway and they got out. She went to help him with the luggage, but he shooed her away. Even at fifty-seven, he was still full of vigor. He hefted her bags, one in each hand, then elbowed the trunk shut.

  They made their way up the short walk to the house, its white-painted wood exterior and green shutters exactly as she remembered. It was a small house, quaint even, but it was home.

  She hastened up the steps to the front door, the rain still falling modestly. The moment her foot hit the top step, the door swung inward.

  “Surprise!”

  A smiling mass of relatives grabbed Faith and whisked her inside, her father laughing as he followed behind. A large banner hung above the wide foyer with the phrase “Bienvenida, Faith” written on it.

  Most of her extended family was here, packed into the foyer, the open dining room on the right, and the living room. She saw most of those who had emigrated from Lancada—their country in Cotrugal—and even some who must have flown up. There was her Tía Rosanna and her cousins Carlos and Paulo. Her mother’s brother, Tío Ricardo was there, with his second wife Sofía and his three children, Luis, Milagros, and Rafael. Luis and Milagros were from Ricardo’s first marriage, which no one could talk about because that “mujer del diablo” had run off with another man. Little Rafael, his child with Sofía, was almost two, with bright eyes and an impetuous smile. It was the first time Faith had seen Rafael in person, though her mother had sent plenty of pictures.

  Some of Faith’s old school friends were there as well. She saw Max Linder, who had gone off to law school and was now a criminal prosecutor, along with his pregnant wife Elise. She also saw Armando Lamas, who waved at her sheepishly. Armando came from old oil money back in Lancada. There had been a time when Faith’s mother had been determined to set them up. Old habits died hard, apparently.

  The biggest ray of sunshine was her friend Alice. When Faith saw Alice, she ran over to catch the heavyset woman in a hug. While the woman had never been blessed with great beauty or Faith’s own genius, Faith had always admired Alice’s singular, unmatched perseverance. Or “bull-headedness” as Alice called it. She had always possessed a clear vision of what she wanted from life. Right now she was heading up a federal financial oversight committee sponsored by Senator Randall Dershel. Faith and Alice still emailed back and forth, but they had not talked or seen each other in far too long.

  Their reunion would have to wait, however. At that moment, Altagracia Elena Santia, the matriarch herself—Faith’s mother—entered from the kitchen, her gaggle of middle-aged cohorts at her side. “Ay,” she yelled when she saw Faith, “look at you, mi flaquita, you’re too thin! What have they been feeding you?” Though small and plump, Faith’s mother had enough fire and presence to fill a stadium. She rushed over, grabbed Faith’s face in her hands, and showered her with kisses.

  “Mama, please—”

  “You’re all bones; you’re like a stick, mija. Someone has to take care of you. Your friend Max’s wife, she is pregnant, did you see? And Ricardo’s little Rafael, what an angel! You need someone to look after you. And giving me some bebitos would not hurt either.”

  “Mama—”

  “Faith, you are my only child and I want grandbabies. Sí? You are thirty-two years old, mija. When I was your age, you were already eight! Don’t you think it’s time?”

  “Mama, please, can we talk about this later?” Faith begged.

  “Ay, what was I thinking? You must be starving. Better to talk on a full stomach.”

  “That’s not—”

  Faith’s mother did not hear; she was too busy flagging down Faith’s father, who at some point had procured a cervesa. When he approached, he offered Faith a surreptitious, conspiratorial wink.

  “Mi cielo,” her mother said to her father, “will you tell everyone I’m going to serve dinner?”

  “Of course,” he said. They shared an affectionate peck on the lips and then he was off.

  Before her mother could latch onto her again, Faith slipped away.

  Tucked in the corner of the dining room w
as an old wooden bureau that was now draped with a tablecloth and covered with clean wine glasses and bottles of red wine. A cooler sat on the floor nearby, containing bottles of white and a selection of crisp Cotin beers. Faith took a glass and poured herself a rich red malbec from Sequando, nearly up to the rim. She took a drink, feeling the alcohol immediately on her empty stomach.

  A sigh of relief escaped her.

  She swirled the contents of the glass and tried not to look too long at it. The dark liquid reminded her of a bottomless pit.

  She was not over the trauma of her near-death experience. Maybe she never would be. She had begun to experience intermittent bouts of claustrophobia. She would be fine one minute, and then something would set her off and she would be terrified, feeling that she was hurtling through darkness, or was trapped underground where no one could save her.

  If she ever wanted to go on a dig again, she knew she would have to get past it.

  The nightmares were even worse. Faith counted herself lucky if one night in three was restful. She had a recurring dream where she was at her own funeral, trapped in her coffin. She screamed and screamed while Durban delivered her eulogy. At the end she was lowered in the ground, and the last sound she heard before waking was dirt thumping on the coffin lid as she was buried alive. That one always gave her a cold sweat. Just thinking about it made her shudder.

  She guzzled the rest of her wine, then poured another.

  “Rough day?”

  Faith turned to see Alice standing there with an empty wine glass. Faith smiled and poured a glass for her friend. “If only just that,” she said.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Alice said.

  They clinked glasses. Faith met Alice’s eyes. There was a hint of mischief in the woman’s gaze that reminded Faith of the old days, of sharing a dorm room in college, playing pranks on their floor monitor, staying up till all hours of the night. They had been fast friends even though Faith was two and a half years younger.

  Faith could not help herself; she began to giggle.

  Alice’s lips pulled into a grin.

  Faith laughed even harder then. It was as if the mirth had just been waiting there, longing to break free. She was laughing so hard now that she had to set her glass on the bureau to keep from spilling. Alice’s shoulders began to shake with silent, barely suppressed mirth.

  Faith’s laugh became a cackle. She wrapped her arms around her middle, her sides aching. She didn’t know why, but she just couldn’t help it.

  Then Alice finally broke and let loose the thundering guffaw Faith knew her so well for.

  All eyes in the room were on them, but Faith did not care. She stumbled to Alice and threw an arm around her friend for support; if she didn’t, she thought she might have just melted to the floor. They stood there, tears of happiness trailing down their cheeks. Every time Faith thought it was about to end, she looked at Alice’s jolly, mascara-streaked face, and the mirth erupted all over again.

  As though cued by her laughter, Faith suddenly knew things would turn out all right.

  For now, she was home.

  When she returned to Chiron, she would analyze her findings, write papers for the journals, and prepare her research for publication. And maybe she would finally take up that offer of a full-time teaching position at Albrecht.

  Life would begin anew.

  44

  SONJA

  She could not stop thinking of Finn’s face. He had looked so peaceful.

  Sonja felt anything but peaceful.

  She had cried for hours, inconsolable. She had begged for it to be a bad dream; begged for God to take it back, to take her instead. There was a horrible emptiness inside her. She didn’t think anything would ever, could ever fill it.

  The recruits had been shuttled back into the city after the battle, leaving the desert outposts abandoned. Most of the recruits, including Sonja, had been moved to military-owned off-site housing in west Grisham.

  Through it all—the ATV ride back to the city, the journey to their new lodgings, the assignment of a room—Sonja was numb.

  There had been so much blood.

  She had experienced violence on a near-daily basis in her childhood, had thought she was accustomed to it. But this had been something so different, so horrifying. She could still hear the screams echoing in her ears. She could smell the stench of blood and burning buildings. She could feel the heat of the explosions on her skin. And Finn . . .

  God, Finn!

  She should’ve stopped him from going off alone. She should’ve done something when she saw him fighting. She should have been there to save him!

  It was her fault.

  Finn was dead, and it was all her fault.

  Sonja ended up in a two-person room with Bridget, a girl from her outpost. They were told to stay put in the tiny ten-by-twelve bedchamber—not that Sonja would have done otherwise, given the chance. She collapsed onto one of the hard beds, with its thin, rough woolen blanket digging at her back. She stared at the ceiling, not really looking at anything. Instead, the events of the day played out in her mind over and over again, an endless loop of apprehension and dread, worsening with each successive recollection.

  She felt like she was in hell. She wanted to crawl somewhere dark and die. Or at least not have to expend the effort of living.

  Bridget stalked around their tiny quarters like a caged cat. On any other day, that would have annoyed Sonja. Today she could hardly bring herself to notice, much less care.

  “Aren’t you gonna say something?” Bridget finally asked her.

  Sonja rolled over on her side to face the wall. She didn’t want to speak to anyone. She wanted to sleep and never wake.

  “I’m going fucking crazy here,” Bridget went on. “I’m freaking out. If I’m stuck in here one more second with nothing to do and no one to talk to, I’m gonna flip, I swear to God. Holy shit. I just . . . gotta . . . I can’t be here anymore.” Sonja heard Bridget’s breath quicken until it came in rapid gasps. “Oh my God, oh my God, I have to get out of here. Somebody, please, I have to go, I . . .” Bridget began to sob in between heaving gulps of air. Sonja had never heard anyone cry and hyperventilate at the same time.

  Sonja continued to lie in bed, knowing she should say something, lend a shoulder, anything. She could not bring herself to do it. Yet the sound of Bridget’s grief gnawed at her. Sonja had already cried every tear she could shed; now she felt only cold. Even so, the sound of the other girl’s weeping threatened to drive her insane. Reluctantly she pushed herself out of the bed and went to Bridget, who at some point had collapsed in a puddle on the linoleum floor.

  Sonja had no idea what to do. She gingerly snaked an arm around Bridget’s shoulders, feeling awkward and foolish and angry, at herself for not knowing what to do, and at Bridget for putting her in this situation. She was also afraid she would muck it up, that Bridget would scream at her to go away. She did not think she could take that.

  Instead, Bridget clung to Sonja for dear life.

  They sat there a while, Sonja’s own grief suddenly so far away. She felt she should be bawling along with Bridget, but she was only tired, so tired. Then she remembered the liquor bottle in her bag. She must have brought the bag unconsciously; she did not even remember carrying it, but it sat at the foot of her bed. She reached out, pulled it to her, and unzipped it.

  Finn’s scent swept over her—the smell of his sweat, his body. It rose from the bundled blankets in her bag.

  Sonja’s throat clenched. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest. Memories of him whirled through her—his touch; his smile; how he felt inside her.

  She would never feel him again.

  She swayed, her world tilting, ready to tumble off its axis and into a dark, empty abyss. She clawed through the blankets, groping for the bottle—an anchor against the paralyzing agony. It was all she could do to get the cap off. She took a swig, the lukewarm liquid dribbling down her chin. She didn’t care. Her mouth burned. She drank, and d
rank. When she was sated, she passed the bottle to Bridget.

  Together, they got shitfaced. At one point, someone came to inform them that food was being served downstairs, but neither was hungry. They sat and drank and talked, or didn’t talk, and drank some more. In the evening, when another young soldier came to inform them there was to be an address regarding the day’s events, he discovered the two of them hunched over the toilet in their tiny attached bathroom, holding each other’s hair as they vomited up what little their stomachs held.

  The paramedics were called, but Sonja stubbornly refused to go to the hospital. Hearing this, Bridget followed suit. Instead they were remanded to a medical station in the basement of the dormitory, trapped between four walls of concrete, hooked up to IVs to hydrate them.

  Sonja managed to bring one of the blankets from her bag. She wrapped herself in it, bunched it up beneath her nose and inhaled deeply over and over again.

  At one point, Douglass came to see her. “How you holdin’ up?” he asked her.

  She said nothing.

  “I want you to know, we brought him back. He’ll make it home to his parents.”

  His . . . parents. The thought of Finn’s family tore her apart anew. He would have people who loved him back home. Not like her. If only she could’ve traded places with him. If only . . .

  She turned to Douglass. “Will they know?” she asked. She gripped his arm. “Will they know what he did?”

  Douglass shook his head. “I can’t rightly say. Until the brass figures out how to parse all this, we’re not sure what’s going to be released to the public.”

  “But . . . his family . . . they have to know,” she said.

  “And I hope they will,” Douglass said.

  “That’s not good enough!” Sonja said.

  “It’s gonna have to be,” Douglass replied. Then he patted her hand, trying to be comforting. “I’m sorry, for what that’s worth. He was a real brave kid. He earned my respect.”