“This is the general’s baby.”
“The general does as he wishes.”
Sisi gives a little yelp of surprise.
The old man picks up the rifle and holds it, again as if to shoot us if we make a false move. “Come.”
We go in, goats and all, past another rickety, rotting door.
There’s no “inside” to the place—just one side of the wall and the other. There’s the side where there’s nothing but cliffs, and this side, rocky and full of rubble. It’s the same as headquarters, just as dirty and full of garbage—smells just as bad, except headquarters is flat.
There are men all over, all of them ragged and thin and old. Most are squatting over smoky fires. (I wonder how long our goats will last.) Those who are walking are hobbling over the rubble. Some use their rifles as canes. At first I think they’re all the enemy but then I see our uniforms are there, too. There’s the yellow-brown goat’s wool tams of their side and the navy blue caps of our side.
The old soldier puts us in a tent with a little heater. It has a wall of stones up to about three feet and then a canvas roof. I can just barely stand up at the center. There are two cots. I ask if we can have supper. The old man says it might be possible.
The minute we’re alone Sisi says, “Why didn’t you tell me you’re having a baby. I thought you were just getting fat. I’m glad. I always wanted somebody else.”
We wait. Nothing happens. Sisi says she knew coming here was a bad thing, and, “Why couldn’t we stay down there and have the baby?”
“We can’t. The women don’t want an enemy’s baby around.”
Sisi puts her hands on my stomach. Just then the baby kicks. She yelps again. Says, “I love you,” and gives my stomach a kiss.
Finally they bring us food—brought by another old man very like the first. He brings outer cabbage-leaves and goat cheese. They have no better fare up here. Or maybe just not for us.
We wait again. It gets dark. No one brings us a light. There’s nothing to do but try to sleep. Sisi and I cuddle up on one of the cots. Sisi falls asleep right away. I’ve had a hard time sleeping ever since I brought Sebastian in on my cart.
He comes in the middle of the night. Bringing a lamp.
Finally.
We hug. Or rather I hug. I surprise him with it. It feels like hugging a board. He’s been too busy being a general. He sees… feels right away the shape I’m in. It takes a minute before he lets go—softens into a different kind of man, his arms around me, his lips against my neck. Finally we sit on the other cot. We whisper. Sisi still sleeps.
“Why are you here? You’re not that old.”
“Why are you?”
“I was looking for you.”
“I’m going back. I’ll pick up the rest of your prisoners on the way down. I’ll bring the old men the battle they’ve been hoping for. I’ll take you home on the way down.”
“I can’t go home like this. Why can’t we go off together, someplace where there’s no war? But which side will these old men be fighting for?”
“Their own side … a third side. A side to end all wars.”
“End wars by war?”
“Remember these are their fathers. The men look up to them.”
“You’ll swarm down from the hills and attack our men from the rear?”
“We will.”
“These old men are the ones who started the war in the first place.”
He just grunts.
“You never had a real life either, did you?”
He grunts again.
“You think of think of nothing but war. Let’s stop. Let’s run away.”
“We’ll wipe out your terraces on the way down. They’re so steep it won’t take much. One landslide would sweep them all away. Since your hut is the highest, it will be wiped away, too.”
“I wish you’d wipe away the whole valley. Cover the garbage with nice clean gravel. I’m so tired. If this baby is a boy….”
The old men are eager to get to fighting. They’re making sure all the old rifles are in good shape.
Everybody is busy. The whole place is changing. At the prospect of fighting again they’re all standing straighter, doing exercises, push-ups and squats, marching around the area—as best they can over the rocks and rubble. Trumpets are sounding again. They’re practicing the charge, though they’re still sounding out a lot of wobbles and burbles.
They put Sisi and me in one of the redoubts. The stone walls make it colder and damper than the tents. We have a room to ourselves and one narrow window. Sebastian comes every night. We don’t make love—I’m too uncomfortable and he’s too tired, but he warms me in his arms. There’s no doubt he needs somebody to hold him. He still wakes up yelling now and then, or sometimes has a long series of groans as he sleeps. I always think: Why don’t we run away? but I don’t say it.
Sisi comes in with us whenever Sebastian yells. It doesn’t matter anymore. Besides, it’s warmer for all of us.
And all this time he’s looking even gaunter than before. The circles under his eyes, darker than ever. This doesn’t make sense. The third side will make everything worse. It’ll be more of a shambles than it already is. I think he thinks so, too.
One evening I say, “Please, please, please,” hardly meaning to. And he says, “What?”
He thinks I mean something about myself, says, “I’ll see to it that you’re looked after.”
“No, I mean you. What about you?”
But I’m worried about myself, too. What will happen when my time comes? Not one of these men will know how to help me. And I have not taken very good care of myself. I’m cold all the time—even with Sebastian’s arms around me. He finds me a sweater. Olive drab. One of his own I suppose, and it isn’t as if he isn’t cold himself. He looks worried all the time now. I wonder if he thinks none of his plans will work.
I run away to have the baby. I don’t want anybody with me. I climb yet higher. I find a sheltered spot as far from everybody as I can. I hide behind rocks. (There aren’t any trees up here.) I don’t bring a lamp. I don’t bring anything. I just go. Fast as I can. I feel dread. Fear. I don’t know why. I don’t even make sense to myself. These men are too old. Too warlike. It’s as if, if the baby is a boy, they’ll take it from me right away.
I thought it wouldn’t take so long this second time, but by the time the baby finally comes, it’s gotten dark. I can’t see it. I think I did everything right. I wrap the baby in my cloak and in Sebastian’s old sweater. I put it to my breast. The baby has a full head of hair. Our babies are usually bald. This is the enemy’s child for sure.
In the morning I’m too worn out to try and get back. Besides, I don’t want to go back. I don’t feel like moving at all. Off and on I sleep. Later—much later—I hear people crunching and sliding on the scree. Panting. It’s a hard climb. I’m in a little depression surrounded by boulders. I chose this spot specially. It’s hidden and cozy.
I hear people calling out to each other, and calling for me, too. They’re noisy. I’m glad I came up here and hid. I don’t answer. I move even farther under the stones nearby. When it gets to be twilight, the people leave and I feel safer. I sleep again.
I wake when I hear tiny noises of pebbles trickling down. I see a light, a tiny dim light wobbling back and forth. I’m even more frightened than I was earlier. It comes closer.
“Mara.” He calls in a whisper. As though not wanting to scare me. But I am scared.
Then the little light flashes in my eyes, hesitates there, blinding me. And then it’s lowered.
“Mara.”
He doesn’t touch me. He turns the light out and sits nearby looking up at the stars. He doesn’t speak. Hardly moves. When he does start to talk it’s as though to a frightened animal. First it’s about looking at the stars and the new moon. Then, “I have food and blankets. I even have a little stove. I saw where you were when we came looking for you earlier. I thought to come back later alone. Can I light the stove?
”
But I can’t answer.
“I’ll light the stove. You’ll feel better after you have something to eat. It’s been two days. You’re starving.”
It’s a tiny stove but burns bright and bluish. He leans close, over a small pan. Again, as in front of our fireplace, I see the light flickering in his eyes but this time it shines blue and scary. But the soup smells good.
Just then the baby starts to cry. He holds still as though afraid to scare me. He even stops stirring the soup. I put the baby to breast. I refuse to look at him. I refuse to smell the soup.
When it’s ready he squats beside me. “Just a sip or two. You’ll feel better.”
But I don’t want to feel better. Why feel better when there’s nothing to look forward to anyway?
It does smell good. He holds out the spoon. I sip. I go on sipping.
He treats me like a child. Says, “Good girl.” I’m surprised he doesn’t pat me on the head. I can see all this as if from over my own shoulder, but I can’t react. I do feel better though.
After the soup he hands me tea. “I’d like to bring you back in the morning. Can you manage it?”
I can’t nod.
He wraps me in blankets, me and the baby together, lies down and pulls me to him so his chest is my pillow. I have no will at all. I let him. He keeps on talking softly and as if it doesn’t matter what he says, and it doesn’t. I’ve done the same for Sisi when she was sick, and even for my donkey.
“You were good to me. You fed me. You held me. You…. And then you…. And then you….” I don’t listen to the words. I sleep.
When I wake, the baby’s gone. I panic. I look to see if I’ve rolled on it or tossed it away in my sleep, but Sebastian has it. He’s sitting nearby, cleaning it up with canteen water. It did need cleaning. He has white cloths to wrap it in. He came prepared for it and for me. He’s talking to it as he talked to me—a lot of nothing. How many other babies has he fathered?
He looks up and smiles.
I don’t smile back.
“I’ll bring you tea in a minute. It’s made.” He wraps the baby in clean cloths and brings it to me. He props me up against blankets, my back against a rock, then brings tea and crackers. He crouches beside me and watches me eat.
After I nurse the baby, we start down. I don’t want to go back but I don’t know what else to do. I keep having the idea I must make decisions. But all I think is: Think! and then I don’t do it.
He’s not a big man, but he’s wiry and strong. Sometimes he carries me and the baby—both his pack and me on his back. It’s soothing—to have my arms around his neck and to feel the movement of being carried.
When we stop to rest and eat I say, “I won’t go back.”
“You need rest and care.”
“I can’t go back. Everybody knows.”
“They know this is my boy.”
“Boy?”
He gives me a odd look. And then an even odder one, “What about Sisi?”
Sisi! Ever since I started up to hide and have the baby I’ve forgotten she existed.
“She came with us yesterday to help look for you. Didn’t you hear her calling ‘Ma’?”
Poor Sisi. I did hear. That must have been that lost goat sound.
Just in these three days things have changed at the fort. They’re making black banners and hats with a zigzag of red. Like lightening and like blood. They’re making flags that say, THE DEAD. And they do look dead. They could be dead. Why didn’t I see that before? Bloodshot eyes, leathery skin, bony as skeletons…. They paint their faces a jaundiced yellow, though most of them look yellow anyway. They put charcoal around their already sunken eyes. If they’re not really dead, they’ll do for dead.
They’ll advance in three waves. The first wave will pick up the other prisoners and take the pistols from their overseers. The second wave will fan out in a long line and loosen boulders to start the landslide. After the slide that destroys the terraces, the third wave will rush down, to and through headquarters, and hit our army from the back. They’ll count on surprise and higher ground. They’ll count on the fact that they’re the dead.
If they’re already dead they can’t be killed over again …. Can they?
But killing each other—nothing new in that even if three sides instead of two.
I get better. I can talk again. I nod, smile, though it feels like I’m pretending.
Sebastian promises to run away with us as soon as this battle is over—off to some land where nobody knows him. That scares me more than if he hadn’t said it. I know how it works with the last time for things. It means he’s a dead man. If he survives to do as he promised…. I’ll believe it when I see it.
The night before they’re to go into battle he cries. Who would have thought it, a general? I feel all the more that I don’t want him to leave. I say, “Why not go right now? Cross the mountains. You want to. They can do this by themselves. If they really are the dead, they can do it.”
Of course he thinks it all depends on him.
He’s done for. I think he knows it.
We need more prisoners than usual to help rebuild the terraces. I build a little shed by my doorway almost as big as my donkey shed. I can house four. Several of us go down for more men.
Nothing has changed. Nobody seems to care anymore that my black-haired little boy is one of the enemy’s. I suppose he’s just one more soldier for our side. Nobody says a word about me coming back. They even help me repair my cottage. Sisi helps. I get better though I still have the sense I’m watching everything over my own left shoulder.
I don’t think the dead were really the dead … or they died all over again. Or they were blown to bits. Maybe by their own rusty rifles. They weren’t ghosts. I don’t even wish they had been.
At headquarters we pick out new men. I see one that might be Sebastian—he wears a general’s uniform. But I don’t dare take anyone in as bad shape as this one. They wouldn’t let me, anyway. I give him a drink of water. I wrap the old olive drab sweater around him. Whoever it is won’t last long. It’s a waste of a good sweater. One I especially liked for sentimental reasons.
JOSEPHINE
TOP OF LIST … ALWAYS at the top of list, rain or shine, day or night: Find Josephine. Nothing can be done until she’s back here at the Old Folks Home where she belongs. Talent night she’s our main attraction. We couldn’t do much without her. She wobbles on her slack wire but she hasn’t fallen yet. The ceiling is so high she can do the slack wire act in there in the living room though she has to watch out for the chandelier. She’s not much higher than four or five feet up. When she sings she tinkles out the music on a toy xylophone. Once she brought her wind chimes down to the living room, put them in front of a fan and sang to that.
We pretend not to see how wobbly she is. Everybody else is worse. She’s the only one with the courage to dance and sing no matter what. Or maybe it’s not courage, just innocence.
Because of Josephine we often have townspeople visiting our performances. We don’t know if they come to admire her or to laugh … at her and at us.
I’m the emcee, stage manager, entertainment committee. I’m less important than those who perform. I suppose I do have some poise, though I’ve been told I rock from foot to foot. Why would the Administrator pick a man like me for finding Josephine? Why pick somebody who has a limp?
No, I am the perfect person to send off to find her. Somebody she can have a good laugh at. She’ll trip me and I’ll be looking up from the sidewalk, right into her greenish-tan eyes. There she’ll be, found at last, but she’ll run off somewhere else before I can get up and hobble after her.
We live in a grand, though ancient mansion. It was the summer house of millionaires. They donated it to the town for us old people. The living room and dining room are often closed off—too hard to heat.
The breakfast room is the room everyone loves best and spends the most time in. It has windows on three sides with window seats under them. F
ive tables—enough for all of us. But I’m hardly ever in this room except to eat, nor is Josephine. Too many card games and too much bingo.
Josephine seldom comes out of her room except to eat and on show-and-tell night. (That’s the only time we open the living room and let the heat come up.) Or she comes out to run away. She’s always lost. If not right now, then she would be in another minute.
I wish I wouldn’t have to be the one to find her. For the sake of the doing of a good deed, I do it.
She often says, “If not for you finding me, I’d not bother getting lost in the first place.” I know that’s true. When I find her (or should I say, when she lets herself be found) there’s such a look of… well, it’s complicated, disdain, but if that were all I wouldn’t do it. There’s relief, too. You’d think I’d find finding her worth it for that look, and I might if it wasn’t for my arthritis. I’ve been using a cane lately. (Josephine gets lost in any kind of weather. Thank God tonight it’s clear.)
You’d think by now the people in the neighborhood would bring her back when she strays, but they don’t. They’re afraid of her. Her hair is wild, the look in her eyes is wild and she makes nasty comments on their noses. She doesn’t dress like anybody else. So many scarves you can’t tell if she has a dress on under them or not. That must unnerve them. And the dress, which is under them, is more like a scarf than a dress. Everything she wears is like that, and it’s always pinkish or pumpkin colored or baby blue. She always wears big dangly glittery earrings.
I step out on the porch. I admire the night for a few minutes as I always do. I hobble down the front steps. Our mansion has a few acres around it and trees so you can think yourself in the country, but no sooner out the gate and you’re in town.
Sometimes I think Josephine is hiding just around the corner, watching me try to find her right from the start. Probably wondering which direction I’ll look in first. Loving how my shirt tail’s out, my belt unbuckled still. (I came straight from my bed.) Loving, especially, my big sigh.
I Live With You Page 17