Wolf Season
Page 20
“Garlicky, you mean. The whole place stank of garlic and onions.”
“It did not!”
She’s right. It didn’t.
Juney falls silent a moment, her singing gone. “Can you and Tariq’s mom be friends now? I want you to have a friend like I do.”
“No, I can’t be friends with her. No.”
“Why not? Why did you say that?”
“I didn’t mean it. Wasn’t thinking.” Rin pauses, knowing she owes her more. “It’s just hard when you’ve been trained to see Iraqi people as your enemy, when you’ve seen them kill . . .” She swallows. “People you love.”
“You mean Daddy, don’t you?”
“Yes, little bean. I mean Daddy.”
Juney is sitting still now, so still it isn’t like her at all. Betty wakes, no doubt sensing the tension. She sits up in the back and glares at Rin in the rearview mirror with her droopy black eyes, snout quivering.
“Juney, is something the matter?”
Juney waits a second before answering. “Mommy, I want you to listen.” Although Rin can’t look at her, having to keep her eyes on the nearly invisible and increasingly slippery road, she can feel Juney’s mind focused on her like a searchlight. “Tariq and his mom didn’t kill Daddy. Did they?”
“Not exactly. I mean no, of course not.”
“And Americans kill people, too, right?”
“Yes. I am afraid we do.”
“And we kill not just enemy people but other Americans. I heard about it at school. Kids even shoot other kids right in their own schools. Don’t they?”
“Yes,” Rin replies reluctantly. “But it’s rare.”
“Still, they’ve done it. Right?”
She sighs. “Right.”
“So does that mean you can’t ever be friends with a kid?”
Rin has no answer to that.
“Well, does it, Mommy?”
“No, little bean,” she whispers. “No, it doesn’t.”
Tariq, too, is pressing his mother for her opinion of his friends. “What do you think?” he says in their kitchen, wiping off the cookie platter, now empty of everything but crumbs. “Isn’t Juney cool?”
Naema rinses out the teapot in the sink while she considers her answer. “She is a sweet child, yes. And I see you two know how to be naughty together.” She shakes out the tea leaves stuck inside the spout. “But her mother seems troubled.”
“No she isn’t! Louis said that, too, but it’s not true. She just isn’t used to people.” Tariq hands his mother a tea glass to wash. “You’ll like her better when you get to know her, you’ll see.”
“I’m sure I will.” Naema is touched by her son’s generosity, but privately she hopes she will never have to know Mrs. Drummond at all. The woman disturbs her, not only because she is an obviously traumatized veteran, as well as ill-mannered and rough, but because she seems to touch in some way on Naema’s buried and disquieting dreams. Perhaps she has not been wise to allow Tariq to spend so much time at Rin Drummond’s house.
“I’ll tell you why I like her,” Tariq is saying. “She knows a whole lot about animals and she’s superchill with her wolves.”
“Wolves?” Naema turns a frown on him.
“I don’t mean wolves, I mean dogs. She’s got four dogs and three cats, but one died, so now she’s got only two and—”
“Tariq, you’re lying. You know I can always tell when you’re lying. Remember what your grandmother used to say? ‘The rope of lies is short’? Out with the truth now. What did you mean about wolves?”
Tariq examines the gilt enamel rimming one of the tea glasses. It is not as easy to keep up a secret life as he thought. Secrets just don’t seem to want to stay in their hiding places, no matter how hard you work to keep them there. But he tries once more. “Please don’t make me tell you, Mama. I promised I wouldn’t.”
“Whom did you promise?”
“Juney. Well, really Mrs. Drummond.”
Naema dries her hands. “Come.” She walks out of the kitchen in her newly careful way and sits on the sofa, patting the cushion beside her. Tariq trails in and sinks down, staring at his knees.
“Habibi, it is never a good sign when an adult asks a child to keep a secret. Adults should not demand such things of children. Please, don’t make me waste my breath. Just tell me the truth.” Her voice wheezes to a halt.
Tariq pulls in an extra-deep breath for her, torn between his two consciences: the one that belongs to his newly fragile mother and the one that belongs to Juney and the wolves. He sighs, kicks his legs, and rubs both hands in his curls. And then he gives in.
“All right. But it’s not a bad secret, Mama; it’s a wonderful one. A happy one!” His face is alight now. “Mrs. Drummond keeps wolves. She’s got three of them and they’re the most awesome animals in the world. They like me. I speak to them and they understand, they really do!”
“Are you making this up?”
“No, but don’t worry, she keeps them behind a great big fence, just like in a zoo, much too tall for them to jump over. Me and Juney don’t go in there with them, honest. Only Mrs. Drummond does that.”
“I do not like the sound of this. I don’t want you spending time near such dangerous animals or with a woman as disturbed as Mrs. Drummond.”
“Oh no, it’s not like that at all, Mama. She’s very nice to me and she always makes sure we’re safe.” He reaches for his mother’s braid and winds the end of it around his hand. “People don’t understand wolves. They think they’re evil. They might try to take them away or shoot them if they know about them. That’s why Juney and her mom said it’s got to be a secret. Juney needs those wolves. They both do. The wolves are like their family. They really love them, and I do, too, so please don’t stop me from going there.”
Naema knows Tariq has been unhappy in school lately, just as she knows how important Juney is to him, so she holds up her hands in defeat. “Very well, I will let you go. But first you must promise to keep well away from those wolves. And no more lying.”
“I promise. But you won’t tell anybody about the wolves, will you? Please?”
“Not even Louis? He would like to hear about this, I think.”
“Not even Louis.”
She hesitates. “All right, I will tell no one. Now, give me back my hair and go warm up the supper—it’s in the blue casserole. And make one of your delicious salads, would you? I need to lie down.”
Once he is gone, Naema stretches out on the sofa, drained by the events of the evening. That dense burl of a woman with her darting, frightened eyes. The tension thickening the air like exhaust. The discomfiting tug at the back of her memory.
She nestles deeper into the cushions, wishing Louis were here. Even if she can’t mention the wolves, she would like to talk the evening over with him, find out what he thinks of Rin and whether Tariq should spend so much time with her, for she trusts Louis to be honest with her and always has. Once, early in their acquaintance, he asked her why she trusted him like this when she hadn’t Jimmy Donnell, and she replied that were she to see every American as her enemy, she would never be able to call this country home. “You know our saying in Iraq?” she asked him. “‘Lo khuliyet, qulibet.’ If the world were empty of good people, it would end.” But in truth, her anger about the war and the murders of her brother and father and Khalil did still smolder within her like scorched earth, as did her blame of Donnell.
Naema has never forgiven herself for failing to convince Khalil not to rely on Donnell, even that last evening of her husband’s life. He had come home without warning, missing her and Tariq too acutely to stay away, and as soon as he called her, she rushed out of the kitchen and flung herself on him. “It’s a torture living like this, never knowing if you’re dead or alive,” she cried. “Tell Sergeant Donnell you refuse do this insane work any longer. It’s not worth it.”
Khalil stepped out of her arms. “There’s no need to worry, ayuni. Jimmy will keep me safe.”
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I don’t understand why you put your life in this soldier’s hands! Besides, whatever he says, you’re still doing a job that makes everybody hate you.”
Khalil frowned at her. “I didn’t come home to argue. We’ve gone over this a thousand times. And you know I do this work not only for our survival, but for my honor.”
“What honor? Have you forgotten what the Americans have done to us?”
He rubbed the crease between his eyebrows. He looked so worn, her husband; eyes sunken, trousers drooping at the waist, face as grizzled as a bandit’s. “I’ve told you. This is the only way I know to help prevent the misunderstandings that cause so many needless deaths—to make clear when people are innocent.”
“Aren’t we all innocent? Aren’t we only trying to defend ourselves?”
“You know it’s not as simple as that. But enough. I must leave early tomorrow. I need rest and I need peace.”
“I will give you peace,” she replied, folding her arms in an angry barrier. “But understand this, Khalil. If you die because of working for this soldier of yours, if you add your death to those of my brother and father, you will also kill me.”
That night, they went to bed too angry to talk. For months, she had been longing for her husband, yet all she could do was lie beside him in stubborn silence. But the following morning, she awoke ashamed. “I should have remained calmer. Forgive me?” Khalil held her, apologizing too. Yet they both knew they had resolved nothing.
After a quick breakfast, Naema stood in the doorway, watching in sorrow as Khalil crossed the courtyard to unlock the gate and greet his old father, who was waiting by the car.
“Baba, wait!” Tariq cried, and before she could stop him, he dodged past her into the street, his little legs surprisingly fast. “Baba!”
“Tariq!” she called, running to catch him. “Come back!”
Khalil turned to blow him a kiss. Then he pulled open the door.
A terrible noise. A shower of blood, more blood than she ever could have imagined. Tariq flying into her, knocking her over. Her heart liquid with terror.
23
COLLATERAL
Beth shivers in her tight black dress and heels, her matching jacket flapping in a cold wind, trying to make herself feel something—anything at all—as she squints against the October sky, washed to a brazen blue by the previous night’s rain. Whichever way she looks, she is surrounded by a pegboard of death. Row after row of upright slabs marching to the horizon, some fourteen thousand military men and women reduced to rectangles as white as their bones.
Smoothing back her hair, which she has fastened into a tidy ballerina knot on top of her head, she reaches for Flanner beside her, his shoulders two small knobs under his miniature jacket, his mouth seamed tight. The last time they stood stiff and dolled-up like this, they were waiting for Todd, too.
Louis hovers behind them, adorned in his military best, having driven them from Huntsville to the Saratoga National Cemetery, KISS FM turned up high to drown out the fact that not one of them could find a worthwhile word to say. Beth’s parents are here as well, delivered by airplane from Miami, sitting behind her in folding metal chairs, her father baggy in a royal blue suit, her mother in something chiffony and purple, both of them leathered by the Florida sun. And on their left, flanked by family and friends, sits Todd’s tall and rangy mother, hidden under a huge plate of a black straw hat. Beth wonders where the new husband is, the one who pulled Todd’s indifferent mother into even deeper indifference.
Far in front of them, in a tight-knit row amid the graves, seven marines stand at attention in their navy blue uniforms, rifles barrel up and ready, the brims of their white caps low over their eyes, chin straps seizing their jaws. Tiny toy figures, stiff as molded tin.
No sounds but the flap of Beth’s jacket and the sudden sobs of Todd’s mother; not, it seems, so indifferent after all. Behind them, a hearse waits on the road; a great, gleaming beetle, its back door lifted like a wing.
Beth tries to pull herself free of her anesthesia, regretting now that she took all those pills her doctor prescribed to help her “deal with her loss,” as he put it. (Loss? What kind of a word is that for death? You lose a wallet or a glove, not a husband.) She feels trapped in a grim circus. The marines with their rifles and shiny white caps and belts, their rows of gold buttons, their Mickey Mouse gloves. She has an overpowering urge to laugh.
Six more marines materialize from somewhere behind her in those same caps and belts and march in brisk formation over to the beetle. Lining up three to a side, they slide out the casket, draped in an American flag, and heave it onto their shoulders. The wind picks up, but otherwise all remains silent as they carry the casket toward the open grave in front of her. Their pace is slow and halting, as if they have forgotten where they are going. The flag ripples.
Beth glances at the coffin, a momentary fear drilling through her—Todd is lying in there, close enough to leap out and grab her. Those marines must be enormously strong, she thinks a second later, to carry her big brutal mess of a husband like that, as if he weighs no more than a stick.
She sways, suddenly light-headed, until a hand grips her elbow: Louis, his three fingers steadying her. His other hand, his whole one, is on Flanner’s shoulder. A stand-in dad. Why didn’t Billy come to play this role? Too busy tending his weed in California, no doubt. Billy never liked Todd. Never liked his sister, either, to tell the truth. Never liked being little brother to the high school hottie. Moved as far away as he could . . . Billy the pothead doing just fine without Huntsville or anyone in it.
Louis lowers her to a foldout chair, seating Flanner beside her and pulling his own chair up behind them. Beth’s jacket, short, linen and annoyingly buttonless, continues to flap.
The six marines are holding the coffin over the grave now, staring ahead as if hypnotized, their faces nothing but noses and chins. She finds herself counting.
Nose.
Chin.
Coffin.
Nose.
Chin.
Coffin.
Abruptly, the marines hoist the casket aloft and suspend it above their heads, as though waiting for applause. Then they slowly lower it to the bars spanning the hole beneath.
What was that, another circus trick?
Stooping, they lift the flag, straighten it, and drape it back over the coffin. For a second, Beth expects them to sit down, legs dangling into the grave, and break open fried chicken and beer. But they only spring upright again, salute, and back away. She drops her eyes to the grave, the sparkly Astroturf around it making her think of miniature golf and martinis.
The chaplain steps forward then and starts intoning about Todd’s Purple Heart, his honor and bravery, God and death, dust and ashes. Beth closes her eyes, Todd’s fingers pressing into her throat.
Shut up! I don’t give a shit about hearts and ashes.
At long last, the chaplain falls quiet. Another silence. Beth fidgets, looks at her nails, painted navy blue in honor of . . . in honor of something. A movement catches her eye. The other marines, the toy ones lined up in the distance, are raising their rifles to their shoulders in perfect synchrony. They turn. Aim.
Crack!
She starts violently.
They pull the rifles back. Align them vertically to their noses. Pause. Turn. Raise them once more.
Crack!
She starts again. Stop! she wants to shout at them. Stop that right now!
But they won’t. Again, they pull the rifles to their faces. Pause. Turn. Lift.
Crack!
She starts for a third time. Stopstopstopforchrissake . . .
She glares at the row of chins behind the rifles. What does all this useless noise have to do with her and Todd? Not the recent Todd, but the one who would curl up with her on the bedroom floor and play her his latest favorite song. “How cool this is?”
he’d say, and put on something about a woman shivering in the pines or a heart-shaped box—something strange and intriguing while he eased off her jeans, spread open her legs . . .
But when the shooting ceases and a lone bugle plays “Taps” with its iconic call to sorrow, her tears come after all. Great fat ones rolling obligingly down her face as she watches the pallbearers lift the flag off the coffin and begin to fold it. Yet she still cannot shake the sense that she is acting in a macabre circus, imitating all those war widows she has watched on television, faces distorting, eyes streaming, bodies crumpling in front of coffins and graves.
The marines fold the flag, smaller and smaller, slowly, ceremoniously, meticulously, until it has shrunk to a perfect triangle. They hand it to the chaplain, who, in turn, approaches Beth and bows, laying it as gently in her arms as if it were a newborn.
She clasps it to her stomach, weeping, feeling honored in spite of herself, even as she hates the flag, the marines, the chaplain, and, at that moment, the entire United States of America and everyone in it.
Louis is holding himself as still as he can, within and without, until this ordeal is over. Military stiff in his dress uniform, unearthed from his attic for the occasion, he sits with one hand still on Flanner’s shoulder, the other hovering by Beth’s elbow, thinking of Todd and his compliant march through the Adirondacks. Louis is certain Todd didn’t die because of the enemy sniper Beth was told had killed him. He died because he wanted to.
Louis stares out at the rows of glowing white headstones. All those thousands of dead, and all the thousands of shadowed dead unburied behind them: the bodies never recovered, the AWOLs and dishonorable discharges—the collateral damage, like Melody. And here he is, with no more to pay for his sins than the loss of two fingers, a woman he loves but will never get, and a remorse about his wife like a shard in the heart.
He feels Beth slump again, so slips his arm around her to hold her up. Flanner is slouched in his chair now, a little peg of a boy who barely understands what is happening to him. Louis glances over at Todd’s mother, a tall, lean woman yellowed by years of smoking, half-obscured by her hat, her face sliding like melted wax.