Invisible Armies

by Jon Evans

  “Are you okay?” The question sounds idiotic even as it leaves her lips.

  “Water,” he rasps. “Is there any water?”

  She brings him the water bucket, helps him sit up, which he does wincingly. She cups water in her hands and lets him drink from them.

  “Thank you,” he says.

  “How are you? Do you think you’ll be okay?”

  He tries to shrug. “Define okay. I don’t think there’s anything permanent. No broken bones. Who are you?”

  “My name’s Danielle. I’m American.”

  “Who are you with?”

  “With? I’m not with anyone.”

  He looks at her and, amazingly, manages to quirk a half-smile. “No shit,” he says. “Then you really are in trouble.” His accent is strange but his English is fluent.

  “Who are you with?”

  He wriggles a little, adjusting his position to the least uncomfortable alternative, before answering. “Justice International. We’re a small NGO. We organize oppressed peoples to prevent human rights violations. And, you can see, if we’re very lucky, we get to become human rights violations.”

  He pauses to spit blood into the corner. She cannot believe he is being flip after the beating she just saw him receive. His lips are swollen and distended, she thinks at least one of his eyes will swell shut, the tattoos on his muscled arms and torso are half-obscured by ragged cuts and bruises, his dark crew-cut hair stained with blood. She takes her shirt off, dips it in the water bucket, and stoops next to him, intending to clean him up a little.

  “Let it clot first,” he says. “You’ll waste your time. And shirt.”

  She asks, “This sort of thing happen to you a lot?” His sardonic tone is infectious, and makes the situation a little easier to bear. As does his presence. He is both a distraction and an welcome indication that the situation is more complex than she had previously realized.

  “More than I’d like.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Laurent.”

  She interprets it as a woman’s name at first, then realizes. “Are you French?”

  “French Canadian. Originally.”

  “Was that some martial art out there?”

  “Several of them.”

  “Did they teach you that at Justice International?”

  “No. The French Foreign Legion.”

  She looks at him. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “So is Laurent your old name or your new name?”

  “New.”

  “What’s your old name?”

  He half-smiles. “Ask when you know me better.”

  “You think we’ll have time for that?”

  “They haven’t killed us yet.”

  She sits back. “Who are they?”

  “You don’t know?”

  She shakes her head.

  He says, “Local thugs. Literally. Thug is an Indian word. They’re Kishkinda’s unofficial muscle. Dirty deeds done dirt cheap, and fully deniable. Disappearances, torture, murder. This district’s been at war for years. Small, cold, but vicious. The mine and the money made it worse, but it’s much older. Caste, politics, last century’s blood feuds. Why don’t you know this already? Are you really a lost tourist?”

  Danielle explains.

  “Christ on a tabernacle,” Laurent says. “Bad case of wrong place wrong time, eh?”

  “I guess.”

  “Who’s this Keiran? What’s his interest?”

  “I don’t know. I used to date him. He’s a computer expert. He’s doing some work for these antiglobalization protestors who want to shut down the mine. They wanted to bring Jayalitha over to England. I guess to help them.”

  “Jayalitha is dead.”

  Danielle sucks in breath sharply at this confirmation. “Did they kill her?”

  “Yes. I knew her. She was collecting evidence about the damage the tailings are doing. Slow poison. Cancer. Birth defects. It’s like Chernobyl squared. Ten thousand people live where they dump the tailings. Most not even connected by road. Jayalitha went to every village, documented everything, taped interviews, photographs, evidence. She could go where we couldn’t. So they killed her.”

  “Jesus,” Danielle says inadequately. “What do you think they’ll do with us?”

  Laurent shrugs. “One hand, you’d think if they want to kill us, we’d be too busy being dead to be chatting. So, jail or deportation. Bothering to plant drugs on you, that’s a good sign. Other hand, maybe it’s just delay, for our execution the decision must come from higher up, they’re waiting on that.”

  “They don’t have any reason to kill us.”

  “They have lots of reasons. One, it’s easier. Two, we won’t bother them again. Three, deterrent for other do-gooders. Unless we become martyrs. Ever wanted your face on a protest poster?”

  “No,” Danielle says. “I’ll fucking kill him.”

  He looks at her. “Who?”

  “Keiran. If I get out of this I’ll…” She stops, unable to think of a revenge suitable to the immensity of his mistake.

  “Don’t be hard on him,” Laurent says. “He just fucked up. Easy to do from far away.”

  “I don’t want to die here.”

  “It’s amazing. We have so much in common.”

  “How can you joke?” she asks.

  “How can you not?”

  She nods, slowly.

  Chapter 5

  Laurent and Danielle sit companionably next to one another, beneath the window, their backs to the wall, out of the sun. Occasionally she mops sweat off both of them with her shirt. At least all his cuts, mostly small and ragged, have now clotted shut. She feels weak from hunger and the brain-sapping heat, and they are almost out of water, but these things do not worry her. She has too many worries already, there is no room for any more.

  “What brought you to India?” he asks.

  “I got a job. In Bangalore.”

  “Why take it? I’d think Americans wouldn’t come.”

  “I don’t know. I was in law school, NYU, and I couldn’t stand it any more. I don’t know why. I guess I needed to do something drastic. So I came here. Then I quit the job and went to a yoga ashram in Goa. It’s not as flaky as it sounds. I’m not like one of those New Age ayurvedic women.”

  “Right this moment it doesn’t much matter to me if you are,” Laurent says drily.

  “I guess not. Anyways I was doing yoga teacher training at this ashram. I just graduated last week. I was just about to leave, go back to Boston, as soon as I got the certificate.”

  “And Keiran knew you were in India, so he emailed you to deliver Jayalitha’s passport,” Laurent says. Danielle nods. “No indication there might be trouble?”

  “No. All he said was that the roads were bad and I might want to go with a friend from the ashram or bring a driver. But after four months in an ashram what I really wanted was to get away from everyone else for a little while, and I was feeling all Little Miss Invincible Biker Chick. Yeah. That worked out well, huh?”

  Laurent smiles. “So you were to give Jayalitha her passport and then leave? Only that?”

  “No. I was supposed to help her get back to Goa and put her on a plane to England. We were supposed to be in the airport right now. And here I am. Locked up, and beat up, and fucking starving. I’m glad you’re here. If you weren’t I’d be going nuts right now.”

  “I’m glad you are here too,” Laurent says solemnly.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I was collecting groundwater samples in a village not far from here. One of the villagers must have informed on me. I woke up surrounded.”

  “How did you go from the French Foreign Legion to that village?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Danielle looks at him. “You got something better to do with your time?”

  “Perhaps not.”

  “Actually,” she says, “begin at the beginning. Why join the Foreign Legion i
n the first place?”

  Laurent shrugs. “I had an unhappy childhood.”

  “Unhappy how?”

  “In the usual ways. Followed by a troubled youth. Again in the usual ways. My story is simple. I wanted to be someone else. And the Legion offered a way. And a certain glamour. And extremity. I’ve always been drawn to extremes. I despise the ordinary. So here I am, extraordinarily uncomfortable. I don’t suppose you know how to pick locks?”

  “Sorry. They don’t teach you that in the Legion?”

  “They do, but these Indian cuffs are unusual. I don’t think I can open them while in them. Do you have anything that might work as a pick?”

  She shakes her head. “They took my day pack. And my travel pouch. I’ve still got my wallet. Nothing much useful in there. Some coins. Shoelaces. That’s about it.”

  “No underwire in your bra?”

  “Sorry. Sports bra. I was dressed for comfort not style.”

  “Pity.” He looks at her consideringly. “You know, even under the circumstances, you are remarkably pretty.”

  Danielle half-laughs. “Are you actually hitting on me?”

  “I’m stating unarguable facts. Another is, we must escape.”

  “Feel free.”

  “Thank you.” He gets to his feet and surveys their cell. After a moment he turns on one foot and kicks sideways at the door, lightly, not so much a blow as the application of pressure. Then he moves beside the window, and carefully examines the corrugated ceiling, there only an inch higher than his head.

  “Aluminum,” he mutters. “Steel is much stronger than aluminum.”

  “Great. Got any steel?”

  “Yes. On my wrists.”

  “Taking us back to the no-lockpick problem.”

  “Your earring.”

  Danielle blinks. It has been years since she has removed the crescent-moon earring from her right ear. She has lost awareness of its existence as a separate thing from herself.

  “Take it out,” Laurent says. “Time for a crash course in lockpicking.”

  * * *

  It takes two frustrating hours, in which Danielle repeats the same tiny motions again and again, and impales her thumb a dozen times on the hook of her earring, before his left cuff finally pops loose.

  “Got it,” she says, too tired to be triumphant. The concentration required by the process, added to her weakened state, has made her dizzy. She sags back against the wall as Laurent takes the earring and applies it to the other cuff. It takes him less than a minute. He flexes his newly freed wrists in front of him experimentally, still holding the handcuffs, a heavy Indian design that looks like a pair of chained-together horseshoes, locked by cylinders shaped like huge bullets.

  “Now what?” she asks.

  Laurent picks up her bloodstained shirt, wraps it around his right hand, pulls the loops of the handcuffs over that cushion, and walks to a corner next to the window, where the ceiling is lowest. His strong jaw, deep-set eyes, solid build and long, muscle-knotted arms combine with his ragged cuts and purpling bruises to make him look almost simian, half man half beast. If she had not seen it herself Danielle would not believe him capable of the kind of martial grace he showed outside.

  “Now,” he says, “brute force and ignorance.”

  He makes a handcuff-strengthened fist, takes a few deep breaths. Then he crouches slightly and, exhaling sharply, unleashes a textbook uppercut into the ceiling, near one of the iron prongs that connect roof and wall. The clang! is so loud that Danielle instinctively covers her ears.

  The impact strength of steel is three times that of aluminum, the roof is old and thin, and Laurent is strong, highly motivated, and skilled. Most of the force of the punch comes from his powerful legs. It has to go somewhere. It goes into a visible dent that flattens part of one of the corrugations. The next punch causes that whole area of the roof to crawl slightly upwards on the rusted iron prong that anchors it. Laurent keeps punching, getting into a rhythm, breathing deeply, crouching, then, on the exhale, uncoiling upwards with all his strength. Danielle hears the men left to guard them outside, chattering worriedly between the metronomic clangs. So much for sneaking out.

  The rebar prongs that support the roof have been flattened slightly, so that their tops are a few millimetres wider than the rest of their length. This prevents the aluminum from just sliding off, but does not long prevent it from tearing free of the first prong, under the pressure of Laurent’s onslaught. He moves to the next length of rusted rebar and continues to punch. He is breathing hard, now, but his motions are as elegant as before. Soon the roof breaks free of this rebar anchor as well. He continues, machinelike, despite the beating he took only a few hours earlier, the cuts and swollen bruises all over his face and body. Danielle finally realizes that Laurent actually means to peel a corner of the roof off the hut and go over the wall.

  He does not stop until the roof has been torn from four anchor prongs, two on either side of a corner. Then, breathing hard, he reaches up towards the ceiling, only an inch taller than his head, and simply pushes. For a moment all his muscles stand out in sharp relief. Then, with a roaring, tearing sound, the whole corner of the roof folds upwards to an almost perpendicular angle, opening up a triangle of space some two feet on a side, allowing in a blinding ray of noontime light that silhouettes him dramatically.

  Laurent stops to catch his breath. Danielle stares at him in awe.

  “Thank low Indian standards,” he says hoarsely. “Wouldn’t have worked on a Western roof.”

  Outside, their guards hold a nervous-sounding conversation. She expects them to charge in, but they do nothing. Maybe they have been ordered not to open the door under any circumstances. She knows from her six weeks at Infosys that few Indians delegate authority well, and many of their low-level workers seem almost physically incapable of showing initiative or dealing with unexpected situations. She hopes her captors fall into that group.

  “Any water left?” he asks.

  “A little.”

  He drains the last puddle from the water bucket.

  “What do we do now?” she asks.

  “Now it’s like World War One. Wait for the right moment, then go over the wall.”

  She looks at the wall.

  “Can you climb that?” he asks.

  “If I need to.”

  He smiles. “Good girl.”

  Considering what he’s just done, she decides to let his patronizing tone slide. “How long do we wait?” she asks, her voice low.

  “Long enough to be unexpected,” he says in a normal voice.

  Ten seconds pass. Fifteen. Twenty. Then, without warning, Laurent vaults onto the wall like a gymnast.

  From his crouch atop the wall, first he jumps straight up, and Danielle sees the end of a lathi describe an arc through the space beneath his airborne legs. Then he leaps down and Danielle hears the collision of bodies. Without allowing herself to think, she grabs the rebar prongs herself, engages moolabundha and uttayanabundha, the yogic names for muscular locks in the pelvic floor and abdomen that provide the body with the internal leverage she needs right now, draws herself most of the way up the wall, brings her right leg up above her head to brace against a third prong, and uses that lever to pull herself over the top.

  On the other side, Laurent and one of the guards stand opposite one another, both holding lathis. The other two guards already lie senseless on the ground. Both Laurent and his opponent turn and stare at Danielle for a moment, amazed by her appearance. Then Laurent strikes out, quick as a cobra, there is a dull rapping noise, and the third guard falls.

  “I didn’t think you’d climb it so fast,” Laurent says as Danielle lowers herself to the ground.

  “I thought you might need help. I guess not.”

  “No. But thanks for good intentions. We need to go before they wake.”

  Danielle says, “I couldn’t agree more. Which way?”

  “A village, over that hill. They’re friends. I hope. Don’t b
e happy yet. We’re not safe. We won’t be safe for some time. They’ll be after us within the hour.”

  Chapter 6

  The village is a collection of a dozen single-room structures made of branches, vines, and thatch, located in a flat patch between two ridges, on either side of a thin stream. As Danielle and Laurent approach, holding commandeered lathis, they join a half-dozen women, wrapped in dull shapeless cloths, returning to the village with spine-warping loads of firewood on their heads. The men who wait for them wear dhotis, like pale kilts, stained with years of wear and filth. Most are shirtless, but a few wear tattered T-shirts.

  Both men and women seem less curious about their battered white visitors than Danielle would have expected. Maybe they are too exhausted; the women must walk for hours to find firewood, there are few trees in these stony highlands. Maybe, after growing up in a place like this, they are incapable of being curious, they have never developed enough imagination.

  Chickens, pigs, and dogs pick their way among and inside the buildings. Small, ragged fields line either side of the stream, to the end of the valley. Danielle doesn’t know much about farming, but even she can tell that the crops here are sparse and stunted. A few bullocks graze further afield. Every thatched hut has a few plastic buckets and watering cans, metal pots and implements, candles, cigarette lighters, empty whisky bottles that Danielle is appalled to see – how can anyone in a place as poor as this spend money on whisky? A few of the huts are adorned with Bollywood movie posters, and colourful pictures of deities, Ganesh and Krishna and Lakshmi, decorated with marigolds, are found in nearly every one. A simple wooden cart, four wheels on a frame, the most elaborate machine in the village, stands next to the single dirt track that leads away from the village, over a ridge and to the north.

  It would be bad enough without the sicknesses. But those are everywhere. Of the sixty people in this village, fully a third have a visible illness or deformity. Children missing legs. Adults with rubbery, cancerous growths on their throats, abdomens, faces. Limbs so devoid of muscle they are only bone wrapped in skin. Men and women whose every breaths are loud, rasping struggles, overcoming deformations in their throats. Babies born missing an eye, or with faces warped like melted plastic. It is like visiting a leper colony. Danielle’s exhilaration at being alive, at having escaped, slowly dissipates into appalled horror. She has never even imagined misery like this.