The Winter Boy

by Sally Wiener Grotta

  “What of your men? When they battle, do they fight with less savagery? Are your hostages treated better than those that they hold?”

  He did not respond, but curled up in his blanket on the other side of the fire.

  As I drifted off to sleep, I heard my voice whisper aloud what churned in my mind, before I could stop it from passing my lips. “War makes animals of all men.”

  The climb to the mountaintop glade was gentle and easy. By mid-morning, we arrived at our destination He found the first plant, dug it up and showed it to me, so we could both work the glade, seeking what we needed.

  I was emboldened by our conversations of the day before, so I ventured to return to the subject without his prompting. “Sir, I do wonder why the Murat and Mukane fight.”

  “For their fathers and brothers, sisters and children, for all our people who were murdered by the enemy.”

  “Revenge.”

  “More than revenge. Honor. Anger. Hatred.” He paused. “Yes, and revenge, too.”

  “When did it start?”

  “No one knows. It has always been.”

  “Then why did it start?”

  We sat on the ground, on either side of the glade, no longer pretending to hunt for roots.

  “The Storyteller says that, many generations ago, the border stream flowed in a different bed, one closer to our village. But the gods saw that our people flourished and were fruitful, which made them glad. So Ansit, the father of the gods, blew on the stream and sent it swimming in another bed, further north, so we might have more land for our many children. But when the Mukane saw the stream had been diverted, and their southern plains cut by it, they grew angry, not understanding that it was the will of the gods that the Murat grow. They came in the middle of the night when all Murat were asleep, oblivious that their neighbors whom they had always treated fairly had become murderous. After that bloodbath, the Murat never again attained the numbers that had gladdened the gods.” He paused. “I don’t tell the tale as well as Hanit, but that’s the essence of it.”

  “So, the cause of the war can’t teach us how to end it. Even if we knew how to turn back the stream, I don’t think it would change anything about the war.”

  “So, it will continue.” Bisrit sighed the words.

  “Sir, why do you now seek a way to end the war?”

  “Because I am the Healer.” He paused. “My mother’s words cut deeply. Your words, too. I’ve attended too many deaths that I could do nothing to combat. Then Nasserit was gone, dead like her mother and father. Or so I believed. But you returned her to me, and with her, you returned my hope, which I had thought killed long ago.” He slapped his chest with his open hand. “It’s a cancer, this hope. It eats into you, destroying what you always knew to be the truth, leaving you with a gaping hole that demands to be filled. I would fill it with peace, but then, I’ve become a foolish old man who dreams that hope might be turned to peace.”

  “No, Bisrit, neither foolish nor old, but newly young. Hope belongs to the young. It’s Nasserit’s gift to us.”

  “But it’s impossible. The stream cannot be forced into its old bed, and the dead will never again live. War is in the food we eat and the air we breathe. It has changed our people. Now they don’t even wish for peace, but enjoy battle. I know and understand, because I was the same myself, until you came.”

  I felt myself stand and walk toward Bisrit, drawn by his words and his need. We sat side by side, with my hand in his, in silence. But it was a soft, comforting silence, enfolding us rather than separating us. When he spoke, his voice was no longer gruff or commanding, but tender. “So, what are we to do, Meysrit?”

  I looked at him, uncertain whether he was speaking of the war or of this new warmth we shared. But he answered my unasked question with another. “How do we stop this war and make peace for Nasserit?”

  “We must find out what the Murat and the Mukane want more than they want the continued war,” I replied.

  “And what would that be?”

  “I don’t know, Bisrit. Perhaps we can find it together.”

  That night, he did not sleep on the other side of the fire, but in my blanket. His touch was gentle, and we enjoyed each other’s bodies fully. The next day, when we set off on our return journey, we knew our course, if not where it would lead.

  So Bisrit and I began to seek a path to peace. In the hostage pen, I talked with the Mukane. Each one I asked, “What do you want more than anything else?” Their answer, always, was “freedom.” But when I asked, “Do you want it more than fighting? Would you promise never to fight the Murat again, if you were given your freedom?” their answers ranged from jeers to angry insults.

  Bisrit fared no better among the men of the council and the villagers who came to him for healing. “The only thing that will stop these Murat in their killing,” he said as we lay together in our hut, “is when all Mukane are dead.”

  We decided to approach the question from another direction. “What would it be like if there were no more war?” I asked the Mukane and he asked the Murat.

  At first, their answers were blank stares, as though it were a thing so alien that their minds could not form around it. But, one at a time, over the days, weeks and months, I could see their faces change. My Mukane hostages would gaze into the sky, seeing the shape of peace, and their shoulders no longer bowed. The women stopped dreading childbirth for its futility. The children laughed more, even though they were enclosed in that brutal pen. And the men told tales of life as it had never been. Of what a life it could be if there were peace.

  The cancer of hope, as Bisrit had called it, was beginning to grow.

  Then, one evening, Bisrit told me that the headman Darrint had called him into his hut to ask about this nonsense that had been spreading through the village. They talked of peace, of what could be, if only war did not exist. The headman dismissed the Healer for an old fool, but Bisrit persevered. When he left the headman’s hut, he hadn’t been thrown out. Instead, he said, he left a seed of the cancer in Darrint’s uneasy heart.

  “But now what?” he asked when we were alone in our own hut.

  We sat side by side, thigh touching thigh, our faces turned to the fire. “I think Dac could be the key, though he is the most stubborn of the Mukane hostages. Still, he is their headman’s son, the only one left.”

  I felt the muscles of Bisrit’s leg tighten and throb, though he remained outwardly calm. “How can you bring yourself to work with such a man, when you still cry out at night for what he did to you?”

  I tried not to see the memories of those horrific times in my mind ~ the repeated rapes, the terror ~ though they were ever near. I turned to look at Bisrit. He took my right hand in both of his, gently, firmly.

  “If I can’t conquer my own hate, Bisrit, how can I hope to help make a better world for Nasserit?”

  “And for her sake, you will forgive him?”

  “No, never forgive. But we must move forward, and Dac could be the key.”

  “How would you proceed?”

  “There’s a bond between Thim and Dac, and Thim can be reached through his son. You know, Bisrit, I believe Thim loves his son Wen as much as we love Nasserit.”

  I saw a protest for such a comparison begin to form in his eyes. But then he thought a moment and nodded.

  The next day, in the hostage pen, I spoke with Thim’s son. “Wen, I need your help with Dac. His legs are mending, but we need to get them to heal in the right way, so he won’t be a cripple.”

  The boy looked at his father, who nodded to him. “How can I help?” Wen asked.

  “Now that he’s stronger, he resists my treatments. But you’re Mukane, and his companion’s son. He’d likely trust you enough to allow you to do what is necessary. I’d like to teach you how to massage and exercise his legs.”

  “Would you teach him more than this work on Dac’s legs?” Thim asked. “It would be good for Wen to learn the healing craft. Maybe it would keep his mind off the p
en’s fence and keep his spirit from getting old too soon.”

  I nodded to Thim, then said, “So, Wen, you have your father’s permission. What do you say?”

  “Okay.”

  “You don’t sound too enthusiastic.”

  “Well, ma’am, it’d be something to do.”

  “Fine then, come with me.”

  When Dac saw me approach, he started his daily rant. “Stay away from me, woman!” He spotted Thim and Wen behind me. “She’s a witch. They send her in here to torture us. We don’t have to let her near us.” He pushed himself up from his pallet to call out to all the prisoners. “Rise up! We can fight them. This fence isn’t so strong that it can hold Mukane!” But he fell back into a recline, still weak from his injuries.

  While I stretched his legs out to remove his bandages, I talked to Wen, ignoring Dac’s curses. “As you can see, Wen, the wounds are healing, but the muscles and flesh are knitting in a way that could make Dac a permanent cripple.”

  “Get your hands off me, bitch!”

  “We need to teach these legs to walk again.”

  “Hey, shit woman, I told you to get off me.”

  “Not just to walk, but to be strong again.”

  He started to kick at me.

  “Look, Wen, at the muscle here. Do you see that it is too tight for Dac to be able to put much strength behind his kick? He’s as weak as a baby.When we’re done with him, his legs should be able to do real damage. ”

  “I’ll show you how weak I am, whore!”

  He lifted himself onto his elbows, but Thim pushed him back down. “Dac, don’t be a fool. Can’t you tell she’s trying to help you?”

  “You’re the fool, Thim. You hear her words and forget everything. Why should she help me?”

  Fed up with his bellyaching, I addressed him directly. “If I were a sane person, I would have asked the Murat to leave you up in the mountains to die. Right now, I’m all that stands between you and a life on your belly. So shut up, before I remember too clearly how you cared for your prisoner.”

  Dac started to spit out another curt reply when Wen placed a hand on his shoulder. “Uncle, I know you’re not scared of her, ’cause you’re not scared of anything or anybody. We’ll wait and watch and see if she can do what she says. If not, no pen fence will be able to protect her. Heh?”

  Dac slapped Wen on the back. “Thim, you’ve got a good boy here, a real Mukane man.”

  I’ll never know how much of Wen’s stance that day was real and how much was his way of getting Dac to cooperate. But from then on, Dac became, if not amenable, at least less hostile. Wen learned quickly and well. Any time Dac yelled at the boy or refused to push further, Wen would force, prod, argue, even belittle the man, until all the exercises had been tackled with vigor. If I had tried to force his legs in like manner, I would have been deemed cruel. But it was what Dac needed to strengthen his legs. So I merely observed as the boy worked the man, occasionally making suggestions to Wen for adjustments to the movements.

  While I watched, I would talk with Wen about my travels, the people I had met and, mostly, what his life could be, if only this war would end. Dac pretended not to listen, and, when he did acknowledge my presence, he derided my words. I could only hope that somewhere under his blustering he heard me.

  When the boy wasn’t working with Dac’s legs, I had him do the same for other wounded men and women. He was too harsh for new injuries, but just the right challenge for those on the mend. With Wen’s help, the injured Mukane healed much more quickly. Dac eventually walked with his old swagger, even learned how to run again, though a bit lopsided. All the while, the cancer of hope grew where only anger and revenge once had flourished.

  I felt the first hint of new life in my body, in the middle of night, near the end of winter. Uncertain whether it was merely another form of hope or truly a new child, I decided not to mention it to Bisrit.

  Then I felt him stir beside me and I knew he was awake. I placed my hand on his back, so he would know I, too, did not sleep, should the thoughts that had awakened him be ones he wished to share.

  “You know, Meysrit, it’s a fool’s dream. What good will it do if we convince the entire village and all the hostages? In the Mukane village, I have no doubt the hearth talk is of war, not peace.”

  “Yes, Bisrit. But we knew it would be that way. Didn’t we?”

  “I don’t know what I knew. I never believed we’d get as far as we have, so how could I have foreseen this?”

  “We need to persuade the headman to release some of the hostages. At least Dac, Thim and Wen.”

  “That he will never do, not without an exchange,” he said.

  “We can’t wait for an exchange. We must spread the dream to their village before the war season resumes.”

  “And Dac? If he is released, will he speak for us at the Mukane council, to his father?”

  “I’m not sure, Bisrit, but I think so.”

  “We’ll need to be certain. Until we are, I cannot ask Darrint to consider releasing him.”

  “I don’t know if I can ever be sure.”

  “You must.”

  When the spring muds began to dry up, I knew we were running out of time. The war season was upon us. I sought Wen and invited him to walk with me outside the pen, as I had a few times before. It was the only way we could talk without being overheard. As we walked, I realized that I was looking up to see into his eyes. How tall he had grown over the winter, and broad in the shoulders. It was good to see that he now carried himself with pride; I could only hope that it was, in part, because my friendship was more powerful than a hostage pen.

  “Wen, I am pleased with your work. You have done well.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Please, I have told you to call me Meysrit.”

  “Yes, of course, Meysrit.”

  “Wen, you know my dream for you, for your people and the Murat.”

  “Yes. Peace.” He stared up into the trees that rustled with a coming spring storm. “But it is only that… a dream. War is the way of our peoples. They don’t know how not to fight.”

  “Wen, if you could create peace, would it be something you would want? Is it something that you want more than you want to kill Murat, even though they have held you hostage and killed so many Mukane?”

  He stared at me, and I felt that he was measuring the substance of my words. “Meysrit, I’m tired of the fighting and killing. It’s all I’ve ever known. I’ll never forget my family and friends who were butchered, but if I could do something to stop the murders, without becoming less of a man, then, yes, I want peace.”

  “What of the other hostages? What do they think of my dream? Would they prefer peace over war, if they could have it?”

  “I think many would. The women argue for it most, but you’d expect that, wouldn’t you? I’ve heard men talk as men will of what can never be. Peace. It’s a wonderful word. But how can you stop fighting without laying bare your neck to the Murat’s knives, giving the Murat victory?”

  “Still, Wen, if they could find a way toward peace without giving the Murat victory, would they prefer peace over war, even though it would mean wiping the sand of the past’s marks, ignoring their hearts’ call for vengeance?”

  “If such a way could be found, what man wouldn’t want it?”

  “Including your father?”

  “Yes, especially my father.”

  “And Dac?”

  “Dac’s a hard one to read. But, yes, I think even Dac, as long as it wouldn’t offend his pride.”

  We returned to the pen and found Thim and Dac playing noughts. Wen and I sat beside them, watching their game. Dac was obviously already beaten ~ outmaneuvered and cornered. Still, the two of them played on. Eventually, Thim made a mistake that gave Dac an opening. I had seen it happen before. Once Thim knew he had won, he would give the game to Dac.

  I turned to Wen, as though I were continuing our private conversation. I tried to make it appear th
at I didn’t care that Dac and Thim would hear our words. “Wen, how does a Mukane hold a promise?”

  “With honor, of course,” Wen answered.

  Dac looked at Thim, but neither said anything.

  “And if honoring a promise meant being ridiculed among your own people?”

  “You don’t make the vow, unless you know you will honor it.”

  “What if honoring it meant death?”

  “Then you better be sure that such a promise is worthy of your death.”

  “How could a stranger know she could trust a Mukane’s word?”

  Dac concentrated on the game, but his angry grunt seemed to be for me.

  Wen searched my face before answering. “A Mukane wouldn’t make a promise to a stranger; what hold could a stranger have on him that it could be demanded? Only a friend is worthy of a promise, and a friend would know the value of Mukane honor or be no friend of mine.”

  With their faces still buried in their game, both Dac and Thim nodded.

  “Yes, Wen, a friend would know the weight of your honor, as I do. So let me ask you one more question. If you were set free today with no exchange, no battle, but simply allowed to walk out of this pen with enough provisions to find your way home safely, would you promise to speak of peace to your people? Would you try to explain our dream to them of what life could be, if only the Mukane and Murat didn’t war?”

  “Did the Murat ask you to ask this of me?”

  “No, Wen.”

  “So, it is just another of your dreams.”

  “I believe it could be made to happen, because I believe everyone is tired of the killing. It’s a waste, not only for all who die too young, but for the living who know no other way. So, Wen, if I could persuade the Murat to release you, would you try with all that you are to convince your people that peace is better than war?”

  “Yes, Meysrit, I would. But my promise would be to you, and not to the old men of this village.”

  As though he had always been part of our conversation, I turned to Thim. “And, you, Thim, would you make such a promise to me, if I could persuade the Murat to release you?”

  “Yes, Meysrit. Not only because of any vow I would make to you, but because of one I made to myself.”