by Mark Tiro
I was a mess.
A psychic scream echoed through my mind. It shouted first, and then shrieked, one word, over and over and over.
“HER!”
Dark clouds filled my mind, but I kept on walking, around the last corner to the house where Rhys was hiding.
Focus, Sabine. Focus.
“Hello Comrade!” I smiled when he opened the door. I don’t know if it was forced or if I sounded natural. Truth is, my head was so confused, after all my thoughts and picturing to myself over how it would play out. But now that I really was here, everything—and me most of all—was just a jumbled up mess.
“Shhhh,” Rhys said as he opened the door, putting his finger to his mouth. But underneath that finger, I could see he was smiling that sweet smile I knew so well.
See, I told myself, everything is normal. Everything is going to be just fine.
“Sabine! he said, louder, after he had closed the door.
“It’s good to see you!” I said. That was awkward. Why am I so awkward? What is wrong with me? My words didn’t come out like they had when I had played them out in my mind on the way here. I think I sounded like a little school girl. But I stood there, waiting for him to make the next move.
And then… I just stood there some more. Waiting. I was hoping for the back and forth banter I had dreamed we’d so easily fall into when we’d see each other. Or at least, that was how it had always played out in my head. Then Rhys would pull me tight, to try to kiss me. I’d play hard to get, but he would never let me go. Everything would be just—
“Sabine,” he said at last. “Why are you here? You shouldn’t be here.”
“I was worried about you.” I paused, then added, “I volunteered to deliver messages for the resistance while everyone’s in hiding.”
“Sabine—why’d you do that? You shouldn’t have. And you shouldn’t have come. It’s too dangerous.” Then he looked down at the message I was holding in my hand.
“It’s paper,” I answered by reflex. A soon as I’d said it, I realized just how stupid I must’ve sounded. And so I quickly added, “It’s a message. From Elias. It says—”
“Sabine!” he retorted sharply. “Elias got you into this? I should have known.”
“No, it was my idea, I wanted to help y—“
“You’re not supposed to read those,” he rebuked me sternly. “If the Committee—no, if the Revolutionary Guard—figures out you know our comms, they’ll torture you until you talk.”
Everything was spinning out of control now. Focus Sabine. Focus. Rhys and I are soulmates. He’s just shocked, it’s a natural reaction. Any man would have it. He’ll come around, just give him space.
And so I stood there, half an arm’s length away from him, with a goofy smile on my face, waiting for him to say something. Anything.
“I’m serious Sabine.”
Not this. Anything. But not this.
“If the Committee finds out you’re running comms for resistance leadership, they’ll hurt you. They’ll do bad things to you. Why on earth would Elias put you in the middle?”
“I don’t know—” I said. He cut me off.
“I know. It’s been tough this week. And Elias is thinking the resistance needs glue to hold us together during the Committee’s crackdown. So everything we’ve done doesn’t just disintegrate without a trace. Still, I never… I mean… I… I…” He hesitated, and then his voice trailed out.
“You what?” I asked, pushing him. Maybe if I push him just a little, he’ll breakdown and open up. He’ll finally tell me how much he cares about me and how much he loves me.
What he actually said was this: “I’m sorry I got you mixed up in this. You shouldn’t be here.”
“But I wanted to. It’s important to you Rhys, and the Assembly and the people… I mean, it’s so noble, what you’re doing.” I started to blush. He cut me off, again.
“Stop. I never meant… I mean, Sabine. Please. We’ve got allies who work on the inside.”
“Inside the Hall of the Nation?” I asked, giddy.
“Yes, Sabine. In the building. They’ve just about fully stocked up on weapons for us. We’re just waiting for the right moment, we’re going to get in and take up those weapons. We’re going to take over the Hall, then the Committee, then the Assembly. To return it to the people.”
“You’re going to try, really?” I gushed.
“Sabine! Don’t you get how dangerous this is? This is no place for a—”
“Of course you’ll succeed,” I blurted. “You will. The whole nation, all the people… They’re all—”
“—They’re all what? Behind us?” He asked, his voice beginning to take on a bitter edge now. “No, they’re not. The people don’t want freedom, or liberty, or justice. They don’t want any of that stuff. They want things to be comfortable, and even more than that—they want someone else to blame for their troubles. That’s the way to power. Give the people someone else to blame—someone else who’s the cause of their problems, someone else who can be attacked, vanquished, eradicated, hated…”
“And you’ll be there, to show them that’s wrong, to lead them to a new way, to put an end to the fighting. Everyone knows the Committee is—”
“Everyone does not know, Sabine! Everyone supports the Committee!” His tone was angry now, but I knew I could make it better for him if he’d just let me. But the second I had that thought, he got even angrier. He was roaring now, louder than before. “Don’t you get it Sabine? Don’t you? The Committee has their ‘other’, and it’s us! We’re the ‘other’. It’s the resistance that they’re using to scapegoat, to unite the nation against. Us! Do you know why we’ve gone into hiding Sabine? Do you know why? From what? They’ve closed the universities, and have already rounded up everyone on the student rolls and all the professors they could find. The lawyers, the accountants…”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
“The professionals, people who’ve gone to school, anyone with a brain—the intellectuals!” He was half angry now. Half angry now, but half crying. He was starting to sob, but he was so intent on what he was saying that I tried to keep out of the way. It was like I was scared the words could knock me over flat.
At that point, I think they actually could have.
“They’re rounding up intellectuals Sabine! Anyone with glasses. Do you understand?” His words came out, fierce, but crumbling into sobs, wrapped in tears. “The Committee has started rounding up anyone who wears glasses. Disappearing them!”
“Wait, what? That’s not even a word.” Then something in me broke. I started to cry. “I’m sorry.” I said. I reached around him, to put my arm over his shoulder. He brushed it off.
“This is not about me,” he snapped. “This is about the people.”
And that’s where we both sat a while, breathing in the humid heavy air of that rainy summer. We sat in silence, waiting for whatever it was to dissipate and clear.
“Listen,” he said at last, his eyes dry. “You know, we’re counting on General de la Barca to come in once we’ve taken over. The people—no, the whole nation—still loves him. He’s our best hope for stopping this madness. But the Committee has greased the streets with blood, and blood lubricates itself. The people become blind to everything, blind to General de la Barca even. Blind to everything but catching ‘them’, the people the Committee has somehow convinced everyone is responsible for this. Catching them, and sacrificing them to their bloodlust. The people can’t get enough of watching it. It’s like sports used to be, when we were little. The Committee’s executions over the network each night are nothing more than entertainment now.”
“Well, can’t I do something to make it better?” I asked.
I waited, expecting him to say ‘no’. But I was hoping that he would look at me and say, ‘Just hold me.’
He did not say, ‘Just hold me.’
He did not say anything like it.
Instead, he just looked up and s
tared. And then he finally answered.
“Well, there is one thing you can do,” he said after a long silence. “I’m sorry to even ask you. It’s dangerous of course, but it would mean a great deal to me.” He stopped a second, and then looked up. Looked me straight in the eye. “It will mean everything to me, Sabine. I’m holed in this safe house, by the Committee’s price on our heads. Otherwise I would do it myself.”
“Of course! Anything!” I blurted out.
“Thank you. I always knew you were a good friend Sabine.”
Just a word, one little word. That little word. Friend.
The ‘f’ word.
Of course I knew. Something in me knew. Like the dread that comes from knowing you’re about to be hit by a dagger you couldn’t see, but also knowing there was nothing you could do to stop it either. I just knew.
And so I ignored the word, and all its implications.
“Sure—what is it?” I asked again.
“General de la Barca,” Rhys said, starting slowly. “He has a daughter. You will recognize her, because she is just about your age. I met her that night that you…” he said, then looked down quickly, becoming silent. He hesitated a while. At some point, he looked up again. He looked me straight in my eye, without blinking. “Listen Sabine. I met her for the first time that night that you had our great success pushing out your message. She had come to convey a message from the general. From her father. She was a messenger, just like you are now, for Elias.”
My stomach sank. I was becoming nauseous.
“Will you take a message from me and go to the general’s house? It’s for… well, it’s for—”
“For the general?” I offered cheerily. I knew it wasn’t.
“For his daughter. Will you deliver it and see she gets it?”
“Uh… I… uh…” I stammered. I wasn’t even able to give him a proper answer.
“I met her for the first time that night, and we started talking. And you know, we just kept talking. I had never met her before—hell, I had never met anyone like her before,” he said, his eyes half closed and with a smile on his face now, as if he were remembering…what?
Well that should be obvious Sabine. Her! It was her!
“I knew you’d understand Sabine. You are such a good friend,” he went on, completely oblivious to me. The dagger pushed into my heart, a little deeper now. He went on talking. “It was like we had known each other forever. We stayed late, talking even after you and everyone else there had gone home for the night.”
I turned my head and retched all over the floor.
“You must be getting sick Sabine. Probably caught a chill from the rains. You should really get that looked at. Summer colds are the worst.”
I stood there, looking at Rhys, and I forced myself to smile.
I smiled, and my heart broke.
“See,” Rhys went on, “the general has contacts around the world. He believes in our cause, but he knows we are too weak to take on the Committee now. He has arranged for his daughter to escape to friends abroad. Someone needs to accompany her—someone from the resistance. Please take this note.” Rhys scribbled something onto the back of the note I had just given him. “Please take this to her. I will meet her Saturday night, and we will slip across the border together. Please get this to her as soon as you can.”
“Uh, okay.” I stammered.
“We will be safe, and together soon. Please tell her that Sabine. And that I love her. Nothing has ever been so important to me…”
“What about the Committee meeting Rhys?” I blurted my question so that it came out more as a shout than a question. “Elias has already sent out the orders to take up positions at the meeting. Everyone in the resistance—”
“The resistance—it’s not my fight any more Sabine. My only job now is to protect the general’s daughter.”
“No! You can’t. You have to be there, inside the Hall on Sunday. Elias’ plan—well, you’re at the center of it. He says you’re the most reliable one. If you’re not there, no one will be able to link up. The resistance will be crushed. All the people will be…” My voice trailed off…
‘Killed.’
I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach and all the wind went out of me. I didn’t say any of it, and anyway—he cut me off cold.
“It will be fine,” Rhys said, an emptiness coming into focus in his eyes now. He looked off into the distance. “Anyway, the general knows we’re not strong enough. Everyone foolish enough to go in will be crushed and die. Someone needs to look after the general’s daughter. To keep her safe.”
“The general?” I blurted out again. “What about him? Is he going to abandon us all too? After everything?”
Rhys still didn’t look at me, but he answered, cold and clinical now. “He knows as well as anyone that after Elias breaks in on Sunday, the Committee will have to finish off what’s left of anyone who could pose any threat to them. No, he’s given most of his life, up until now, for the nation. But he’s no fool either. He knows how it’s all going to play out on Sunday. He’s got friends on the inside, and they’re going to break onto the main network feed Sunday, and he’s going to give one last speech to the nation. After his daughter is safely out of the country. And before the Revolutionary Guard storms in and kills them all.”
“After you’re safely out of the country?” I said. I felt my eyes narrow, concealing my rage. “After you’ve left your friends to die!” I said.
I said it and felt a rush of strength surge through me. I felt strong. Something in me broke off and fell away.
“Look at me. I want to see your eyes. Look at me!” I snapped. Then I roared! “Look at me!”
But Rhys refused to look at me. He wouldn’t look me in the eye.
Instead, he pushed the note in my hand, and then he pushed me out the door.
I stumbled back and out onto the street. The door slammed shut. As I buttoned up my coat and turned around, out toward the street, I heard the click come from behind me.
It was the sound of the lock on the door closing shut.
This isn’t so bad, I thought later that day, as I sat alone on a bench just off a playground in the city’s main park.
It was okay, actually. It was okay. I felt free.
I walked back home later that evening. The rage had subsided by now. As I walked the familiar sidewalks and streets of my city, I felt the last bit of my rage release and then disappear.
Since I had seen him talking to her that night in the tavern, somewhere in the back of my mind I had known this moment was coming. I had deluded myself, sure, but underneath, I had always known this moment would come.
Underneath my delusional exterior, where I had been trying to pretend he would come around to loving me, to pretend he hadn’t fallen in love with her—underneath all this, I knew. Underneath, I had been bracing myself. I had been bracing myself for this moment. Bracing against heartbreak, putting up defenses to the impending tragedy that this girl was to me. I alternated this with telling myself that I wanted him to be happy with her…
I was a disaster.
I had been doing anything, whatever straw I could grasp at, that might have a chance at cushioning the pain I was sure I was about to feel. Maybe because of this, in the end, it wasn’t so bad after all. Still, there was some small part of me that was sad I didn’t just let go and soar like a seagull, even if the price would have been getting crushed against the rocks when I crashed back down to earth.
He should have been with me. Me and not her! Everything would’ve turned out different.
I thought this to myself. It was not the first time I had thought this. But it was damn near the last time.
The little girl was gone. And I was what was left now. Just me, standing here alone.
Well fuck.
That didn’t have to be. The thought had turned from weakness into strength.
Well fuck.
The resistance people are all going to die now. No one is in a bett
er position to know this than me, what with all the resistance people spread out in hiding all around the city.
I could see all this now. Like a tragedy being played out in slow-motion in my mind, I could see. Maybe there’s something to do? Maybe, someone I can warn?
Everything was quiet out now. My head had cleared, and I felt lighter than before. The burden of carrying Rhys inside me had been so, so heavy.
And now it was gone.
I had dreaded the thought of him with another girl. I had denied it, resisted it. And still—it was true.
But you know what? A funny thing happened when I found out—when there was no more way for me to deny it…
It was like the greatest relief I ever had. A weight I hadn’t even known I’d been carrying, that was now gone. All that was left was an unburdened lightheartedness.
Rhys was gone, even if he still wasn’t quite gone.
I had one more note in my pocket. A note I now knew that it didn’t matter one way or the other if I delivered. Rhys was going to run off with the general’s daughter whether I delivered it or not. And every last one of the resistance fighters I had just been drinking and laughing with, now in hiding, were all about to converge on the Hall of the Nation where every one of them would be butchered and killed.
As I turned onto the street and headed to my house, I took off my cap, and let me hair tumble down over the back of my raincoat.
It’s then that it came to me; it’s then that it hit me. I knew now exactly what to do.
And this made me feel peaceful. Happy, even.
An old mechanic’s song popped into my head. I started humming the tune softly to myself. Then I opened the back door to my house and walked inside.
“Hey there Gael,” I said, sitting down on the couch just as he was getting up off it.
“I’m going to take a little nap now. There’s some cereal on the counter you can have. Just leave some for me when I get up.”