Love & Sex in a Minefield
Page 16
The look in Paul’s eyes is one of bewilderment. He’s entranced.
“Her fire poker was a support strut taken from a NATO tank, while the grate in the fireplace was part of an old engine block from her first car—a communist Trabant.
“And it’s not just the Europeans. The Japanese do the same thing. I met the most amazing couple in Munich. Sofia and Jacob. They helped us through customs in Germany.”
Our entrées arrive, and I pick at mine, more interested in talking than eating.
“Jimmy was sick. He threw up over the floor as we waited in line. No one helped. Can you believe that?”
Paul is genuinely interested in me as I regale him with stories of our adventure. From the way I’m speaking, you’d think I was recounting a journey of several years rather than a few days.
“I’m distraught. I’m trying to clean up the mess as the vomit soaks into the carpet. People are pushing past. It’s hot. Oh, the stench, and then out of nowhere this woman in a pantsuit pulls me out of the line and takes me to the front. We cut the line on easily a hundred people. I assumed she worked for German customs, but she was just another passenger.”
“Damn,” Paul says between bites.
“Compassion, you know? You see someone in distress, and you help them, right? I mean, that’s just what you do, only no one did that for me. Not the people in line, not the customs officials, no one but Sofia.”
Paul nods, and I feel closer to him than I have in years.
“We caught up over coffee after we cleared customs, and she gave me a souvenir she picked up in Japan—a broken plate.”
“Ah,” Paul says, smiling and seeing the connection.
“It’s beautiful—far more beautiful now than it ever was.”
Paul’s nodding a lot, but I don’t feel as though it’s forced on his part. He’s genuinely intrigued.
“They fuse the broken pieces together with precious metals—gold, silver, platinum.”
“We’re going to need some superglue,” he says, gesturing to the fragments loosely arranged on the tablecloth.
“And some gold,” I say.
“And some gold... So this… this is us?” he asks, pointing with his knife.
“Yep.” I put my fork down for a moment. “You know, you’re not the only one that got bored.”
Paul swallows a lump in his throat. There’s an awkward silence. I sip at my champagne to deflect from the intensity of the moment.
“I am sorry,” he says. His hands are shaking. “I know you don’t want to hear that. I know these are nothing more than hollow words, and I don’t pretend to understand the pain I’ve put you through. It’s… it’s been a crazy time.”
“It’s been crazy, all right,” I say, holding up a bandaged hand and gesturing to the side of my face.
“So wha—” Paul stops himself.
“No, go ahead,” I say. “Ask anything you want.”
“I mean… I just have no idea what it’s like to live somewhere there are minefields. It’s just… it’s like something from another world, you know? Just doesn’t seem real.”
“Oh, it’s real,” I say. “All too real.”
“What was it like?”
“The minefield?” I ask as the waiter takes our plates. “That’s the crazy thing. Minefields look like any other patch of dirt and grass. Nothing sinister. Birds sing in the trees. Moths flutter in the breeze. I even saw a doe walking through one of the fields.”
“It didn’t set off any of the mines?” Paul asks.
“No,” I say, knowing far more about landmines than I should. My words echo those of Anton. “They set the pressure switches between five and ten kilos. Ten if you’re lucky.”
“And the guy that rescued Jimmy? What was his name?”
I want to say Anton, but the name that drifts from my lips is, “Tarik.” A tear rolls down my cheek. Anton would understand. To me, Anton’s an ideal. Tarik is reality. Anton will forever hold a place in my heart, but I need to move on. Anton holds me back. Tarik allows me to go on.
“They said he was a criminal—a murderer.”
“They’re wrong.”
Paul nods. That’s all he needs to hear, but I feel I have to clear the air.
“What are we? Are we the sum total of all that has gone before us in life? Or can we be more than that?”
The waiter sets down the main course.
“Does his past negate what he did for our son?”
“No,” Paul replies. For a cop, this is a big call.
“We’re more than our past,” I say, taking a bite of salad. I wait until I’ve finished chewing before adding, “We are what we choose in the present.”
“We are,” Paul agrees, realizing I’m not talking about Anton anymore.
There’s silence as we eat. I’m not sure either of us knows quite how tonight is going to end. Paul looks up, peering over my shoulder, and smiles.
“Seems we’ve got company,” he says. I turn and look. Dozens of camera flashes erupt as the maître d’ and several of the waiters hold their arms outstretched, pushing the photographers back out the door. The maître d’ closes the restaurant door, barring their entry regardless of their protests. “You’re a celebrity.”
To which I say, “Tomorrow, I’m yesterday’s news, and they’ll forget all about me.”
We continue eating, but both of us glance at the phone transmitting the live feed of our conversation. The counter is in the hundreds of thousands, and the pace with which it’s increasing seems to be accelerating.
“Must be a slow news day,” I say.
“Nothing on TV,” Paul says. “I guess this is like reality TV.”
“Reality TV is anything but real,” I say, running my hand back and forth through the air, alternating as I point at the two of us, saying, “This... This is real.”
Paul says, “Real guns. Real bullets. Real landmines.”
“Real hurt.” I sigh, mourning for Anton. “Real people living and dying.”
I’ve lost my appetite. I wipe my lips with my napkin, and take a sip of champagne. Paul peers at me with curiosity, knowing the conversation has struck a raw nerve.
“We live in minefields,” I say. “All of us. We’re never sure what will happen with the next step. Landmines, car crash, cancer—it really doesn’t matter what comes our way—the point is there’s nothing that guarantees tomorrow will unfold as yesterday once did. All we have is today... Maybe that’s our biggest problem. We’re complacent—living as though there will always be a tomorrow, but there won’t.”
Paul puts his knife and fork down, wiping his mouth with his napkin. I doubt he’s full. He’s genuinely intrigued by what I’m saying.
“And so here we are, the two of us, living the best years of our lives. We’ll never have this time over again. We get just one shot at life.” A tear runs down my cheek. “Life is too precious to waste. Regardless of what happened between you and Helen, I choose not to hate you… I love you.”
Paul puts his elbows on the table, leaning forward and resting his chin on his hands.
“I’m not looking for an apology. I don’t want to hear you say sorry a million times, and I don’t want to lord this over you, or claim some pious right to dispense forgiveness. Me? What am I looking for? I’m looking to hold onto now. I want someone who has the courage to live today—not in the mistakes of the past, not in the delusions of the future—today.”
Paul reaches across the table and takes my hand. His fingers are warm. He caresses the back of my hand with his thumb. He picks his words with sober deliberation.
“Today... I can live today.” His eyes glaze over as he pauses, lost within his own memories. “Do you know what happened to me today? Back at the academy, they teach us to remain detached, but today… A perp robs a store. Gets shot by first responders. I’m backup—third on the scene. Guy’s lying face down in the street. Blood runs in the gutter. Everyone’s got their firearm trained on him. Jesus... You’d think we’d taken d
own a mob boss or something—or a robot maybe—not a human being. He bleeds out while we wait for the paramedics. Dies with barely a quiver of his hand.”
Paul’s top lip shakes.
“But he’s a perp. He’s not human, not like you and me. He’s a criminal.”
Paul bites his lip, torn by what he’s telling me. “For him, there’s no tomorrow. Us police officers? We go back to the station, file a report, head home for dinner, watch some TV. Sleep, and do it all again tomorrow.”
Paul takes a deep breath. Now, it’s me gently rubbing the back of his hand.
“I can’t go on like that.” His hand is shaking. “There’s got to be—”
“More.”
“Yes.”
“There is,” I say. “We live in a society that values courage. Daring and heroics may make for good movies, but not life. There’s only one thing we’ll be remembered for...”
To his credit, Paul doesn’t guess at an answer, so I tell him what Anton and Sofia taught me, “Kindness.”
Paul’s lower lip quivers as he speaks. “To protect and serve. I guess they’re both acts of kindness when you think about it. Tough love.”
“But love nonetheless,” I say. “You—You’re on the front line, but it’s not a war.”
“No, it’s not,” he replies. “We have to be hard—decisive.”
“But also human.”
He nods. “Kindness, huh?”
“Kindness,” I say. “Consideration. Without that, life is wasted.”
The waiter comes over, and collects our plates. “Would you like dessert?”
“No thanks,” I reply, finishing my water but not my wine. The bottle of champagne is still over half full, but neither of us care.
“Would you like a lift to your folks’ place?” Paul asks, collecting the shattered pieces of plate as we get to our feet.
I look him in the eye and speak softly, saying, “I want to go home.” A tear runs down his cheek. I’ve never seen Paul cry. He stands there with his shoulders hunched and his head hung low as he sobs, holding the shards of a broken plate in his hand. I rest my hands on his arms and lean in, kissing him softly on the cheek, tasting the bitter tang of his tears on my lips.
I whisper, “It’s okay.” Paul nods, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. None of this goes unnoticed by either the staff or the customers. It’s not every day a grown man cries, let alone a uniformed police officer. Paul puts his arm around me as we walk to the front desk. He pulls out his wallet while the maître d’ works the register. One of the waiters comes over with a small box and takes the pieces of broken china from him, placing them carefully on a pile of tissues arranged in the box. Clearly, they’ve been watching the broadcast from the kitchen and understand the significance to us.
“Oh, wait... Your phone,” I say, leaving him to pay as I rush back to the table. There are over ten million viewers, so I hold the phone up close to my face, smiling as I say, “Good night.”
Paul pays and we walk out of the restaurant. Most of the media have gone, but a few photographers snap pictures of us. I don’t care. The live broadcast stole their thunder.
“What day is it?” I ask, taking hold of Paul’s arm as the cool of the night descends.
“It’s the 27th, why?”
“No, not the date. The day.”
“Monday.”
“Hah,” I say.
“Why?”
“Nothing... It’s… I think I’m beginning to like Mondays.”
Paul laughs. “Just when I thought I had you figured out.”
“Oh,” I say, needling him in the ribs and having a bit of fun, “You think you can figure me out, do you, Dr. Freud?”
“Not anymore.”
Mondays are starting to look up. Maybe there really is a happily ever after.
Several of the streetlights beside the police station have blown and haven’t been fixed. The stars are visible in the dark of night. Paul catches me looking up as we walk down the street.
“Did you see that?” he asks as a thin streak of light briefly pierces the night high above us, flaring as it travels in an arc towards the horizon. As quickly as it came, the meteor is gone, disappearing into the darkness. “Beautiful, huh?”
“Yes, it is.”
The End
Afterword
Thank you for your kind support.
Emma Hallam will be back on the 30th of April with Love & Sex in an Antique Bookstore, exclusive on Amazon. The ebook is available for pre-order at the reduced price of 99c, so order your copy today.
Although this story is a work of fiction, there are elements based on my own personal experience, such as coming to the aid of a single mother in a dreary customs hall after her son vomited on the carpet. It still amazes me that hundreds of people and several customs officials looked on without any sympathy for this poor woman’s plight. We have to do better.
Minefields still exist in far too many countries. From the lands of the former Yugoslavia to the plains of Africa and the jungles of Asia, the scourge of forgotten wars are still with us. Often, mines are eclipsed by what’s conveniently obfuscated as ‘unexploded ordinance’ like ‘cluster munitions.’ They’re bombs. Their sole purpose is to kill. With 98% of the casualties being civilians, the use of cluster bombs is arguably a war crime. Individual cluster bomblets are the size of a baseball. Each one is no bigger than a child’s toy but capable of maiming and killing.
That countries like Vietnam are still struggling with ‘unexploded ordinance’ highlights that the decision to go to war carries a responsibility beyond a mere generation. Armies move on. Locals don’t. Wars scar countries for the best part of a century.
Our world is shrinking. Whereas in the 1800s, it took months to sail around the world, now we can fly half way around the planet in barely a day. The internet has reduced the distance between us even further. Now, we’re connected to a global village, and yet all too often we’re still strangers in a crowd.
Is infidelity an unforgivable sin? Perhaps, at times, the answer is yes, but it doesn’t need to be that way. Like the Japanese Kintsujuroi, I’d like to think a broken marriage isn’t the end, that couples can recover, but I don’t doubt the effort and commitment involved on both sides. Our lives are horribly short. The best years of our lives should contain the greatest memories, not ones full of bitterness and regret.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this story as much as I have. Please take the time to leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. Unlike big name authors, I don’t have a budget of gazillions to reach new readers, so please, take the time to tell someone about this story. Feel free to share quotes on social media.
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Table of Contents
Love & Sex in a Minefield
Chapter 01: Home Sweet Home
Chapter 02: Mom & Dad
Chapter 03: Mom
Chapter 04: Flights
Chapter 05: Bosnia
Chapter 06: Minefields
Chapter 07: Soccer
Chapter 08: Moonlight
Chapter 09: Viral
Chapter 10: Goodbyes
Chapter 11: Homecoming Queen
Afterword