by Frank Huyler
“I am better with handguns. But I am okay with a rifle also.”
We sipped at our rum, and he lit a cigarette.
“In the old days there was tourism in the northern areas,” he said, after a bit. “And mountain climbing. Now there is much less.”
“Is it really that valuable?” I asked. “Does it matter which side has it?”
“It is complex,” he said. “There are resources, but also it is about other things.”
“Such as?”
“It is about national interests,” he said. “About wrongs. These are important.”
I made a dismissive sound.
“When you look at your country,” he replied sharply, “and the wars it has fought, how many were not the same?”
“Some were just, and some were unjust,” I said. “Which one is this?”
“A just one, of course. There have been many provocations. And it is not so much a war.”
“What is it then?”
“It is an almost war.”
“I was never in the military,” I said, after a while, “but it seems to me that in order to be a good soldier you have to enjoy it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have to enjoy killing the enemy.”
He thought for a moment.
“You must enjoy aiming the gun,” he said at last. “But pulling the trigger—that is duty. It is not the same.”
“Do you enjoy pulling the trigger?”
He looked uncomfortable, and, suddenly, a bit sheepish.
“I don’t know,” he said.
He chewed on the corner of his mustache.
“I need to do it,” he continued, finally. “At least once. For the experience. It is important to understand what it is like in combat. That is where you find out who you are. Whether you are cool under fire.”
“What if you’re not?”
“Yes,” he said, and smiled. “That is a big problem.”
His desire for the experience of war, even to kill another soldier, would have disgusted Elise. I could picture her shaking her head, looking away. But I understood him perfectly.
“Just imagine,” I said, “all the young officers on the other side thinking exactly the same thing.”
He inclined his head, and didn’t answer me. No doubt it was a strain on him—small talk with foreigners, the ambivalence he must have felt toward us and toward himself as well, so far from the action.
“My English,” he’d said, “is helpful to me in many ways. But sometimes it is not so good to speak so well.” I’d been complimenting him, shortly after we first met.
“Why is that?”
“I am a soldier,” he’d replied. “But really this is civilian work.”
I didn’t press him, but I was reminded of a television interview given by the leader of the country I’d seen before I’d left. The general spoke perfect English—I’d seen him on TV before—but he gave the interview through an interpreter. He talked about national identity, of past wrongs, of provocations. But, he said, he was a man of peace. He said he was looking forward to a fruitful discussion with the foreign secretary, and hoped only that the other side would be as open to compromise. He wore his uniform, he looked drawn and severe, he was speaking to the endlessly restless crowd at his back—of that I had no doubt—and every word was in his native tongue.
The tea had gone through me. I stood, retrieved my jacket from where it lay on the top of the table.
“You are going to bed?”
“I’m going to the bathroom.”
“Oh,” he said. “Then I will go with you.”
We stepped out of the tent together, into the darkness that had abruptly fallen over the valley. The moon was half full, and I didn’t need the headlamp in my pocket.
To the south, all the stars were up. For an instant I thought of those long-ago summers on the Michigan lakes, where I’d sit with Eric in our canoe and try to pick out constellations that trembled through the haze that rose from the surface. We’d sit quietly, and drift among the fish rings, shining our flashlight on the book, feeling the cold of the water seep through the aluminum at our feet.
But at that height, the stars were close to their pure state, untouched by anything, let alone the forests of the upper peninsula, or the voice of my son as a child, or other people’s fires in the campgrounds through the trees.
To the north, however, the sky was blank, and I realized there were clouds moving toward us through the darkness.
“There is a front coming,” Rai said, pointing. “I listened to the radio this afternoon. There will be snow, I think.”
“The tents look old,” I replied.
“They will be okay,” he said. “The snow is very dry.”
Elise’s tent was dark, and we walked past in silence so as not to wake her. Soon we were out in the field, the dining tent glowing in the distance behind us. The rest of the camp was invisible.
Rai stopped then, turned carefully away from me, and unzipped his fly. His urine splashed loudly on the ground, and it must have embarrassed him, because he stopped midstream and walked farther into the dark before continuing. It was not the kind of thing a Westerner would have done, I thought, as I emptied my bladder into the ground at my feet. His physical modesty, his unease—had women been present, his discomfort would have been natural. But there were only the two of us, on a dark night. He must have been listening to me, also, because he returned only when I’d finished.
I kept walking, and he followed. The blank part of the sky lent promise to the air. We walked for a while, in silence, and then he lit a cigarette, letting out a stream of smoke that mingled with his breath in the cold.
“When are they going to come?” I asked. “Why aren’t they here?”
Rai sighed.
“It is difficult to communicate with them,” he said. “They are scattered across a wide area. It will take time. We must be patient.”
“At least a few of them should have shown up by now,” I said, but he did not reply.
We reached the first of the shadowy tents on the field. No wind, for the moment, but I imagined that would change soon, and by morning they would all be flapping and shaking.
“Does it ever rain up here?” I asked.
“Not at this time,” he said.
“So the trees in the village and the crops—is that all irrigation?”
“Yes,” he said. “Irrigation from the river. They have many channels. It is an old village.”
“How old?”
“I don’t know. A long time, I think.” He paused. “They are very backward people.”
“They’ve stayed away from us. I expected them to be more curious.”
“They do not like us,” he said. “They are afraid.”
“Why? What are they afraid of?”
He turned to look at me.
“They are afraid of the army,” he said. “And also they are afraid that when these tents are full they will have no wood and their animals will be stolen.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I know them,” he said.
I thought for a moment.
“Are you worried about them?” I asked.
He laughed.
“No,” he said, “I am not worried. There are too few. Perhaps forty men. And they have nowhere else to go. And they know I have a satellite phone.” He smiled. “I told them that I can have a company of soldiers here in two hours if there is any trouble. It is always the same in the tribal areas.”
“Is that why the camp is by such a small village?”
“Yes, Doctor, that is why. There are some larger villages in this region. But there are always more problems then.”
The moon began to pass back and forth behind clouds. It would get very dark for an instant, then brighten again.
Rai stretched, then pressed a button on his cheap watch to light up the time. It was early, but I felt the day’s work catching up with me.
“I’d l
ike to give a clinic to the village,” I said. “I’m doing nothing. I’m sure some of them could use my help.”
He hesitated in the darkness.
“If you wish,” he said, finally. “But if you give them anything, they will ask you for more. Always they are this way. You should know this.”
“Can we do it tomorrow?” I said.
He took a last drag on his cigarette, then threw it down and ground it out with his boot.
“If you wish,” he said, finally.
“I know Elise wants to draw their blood for her study, also. She’ll pay them to do it. Will that be a problem?”
“If you pay them,” he said, with reluctance, “probably it will be okay.”
“Good.”
He stared moodily out into the dark.
“Well, then,” I said awkwardly, “good night.”
“Good night,” he replied, and I left him there, standing among the rows of empty tents. I wondered what was in his thoughts, as I took out my headlamp for the first time, and let it play over the ground at my feet on the way back to my bed. Probably he was simply planning ahead, thinking of all those who soon would be sleeping in the empty tents all around him—the water they would need, and the fuel, the problems of the latrines, and how they would be fed, and when they would learn that we were there.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The next morning the sky was a low steely gray, with swirling mist at the tips of the ridges. It was cold without the sun, and clammy, as if the sea were nearby. There was no wind.
“It is going to snow,” Rai said, at breakfast. “Maybe it is better not to go to the village today.”
“If it starts snowing too much we can come back,” I said, wondering why it had come over me so strongly—the need to work, to get started at last.
Elise nodded eagerly as she finished her bowl of oatmeal.
“I am ready,” she said. “I have my case.”
Rai sighed, and shook his head, but then he stood.
“Okay,” he said. “If you want to go, then we will go.”
I had a bag—antibiotics, ointments, a few rolls of gauze. Anti-histamines and anti-inflammatories. I’d filled it before breakfast, enjoying the heft and sense of purpose it gave me.
“It will be cold today,” Rai said. “Dress warmly.”
He put on a green wool hat, and produced mittens from the pockets of his army parka, and then we all stood up and left the tent.
Already the villagers were out on the field, working on tents, and we paused to watch them for a moment.
“Do you need to stay here with them?” I asked Rai, realizing that our departure would require them to work on unsupervised. But Rai shook his head.
“They know what to do now,” he said. “They will be okay.”
There was no path leading from the camp to the village. As we picked our way down the rocky slope toward the river, the sky grew darker, and for the first time there were a few tiny flakes of snow in the air. The sound of the rushing water came up to meet us as we descended to the bank, where a thin path appeared before us. Looking up I saw that the mist now covered the tops of the ridges entirely.
Soon the village was in plain sight. The houses stood at a bend in the river, where the water widened and slowed. Beyond the village lay the terraced fields, with their new green crops, dull in the gray light and the low clouds. Smoke rose. Beyond, in the fields, figures were working.
As we neared the village, a dog barked, and the first of the children appeared. They seemed to come from nowhere—one moment we were walking alone, and the next they were upon us. Four or five of them, with their high-pitched voices. Unlike the adult men, there was no wariness, and in a moment they were tugging at our sleeves and peering at us and pulling at our day packs. Rai turned on them, shouting fiercely, and they fell back.
The children looked perhaps eight or nine. Their hair was reddish black, their eyes dark and wide. For the moment they looked fed, but this, I knew, was seasonal, and I had no doubt that they’d gotten by on the barest of food at times, and that their growth was stunted as a result. So they were small for their ages, and this gave them an odd, preternatural air. If they moved well, and quickly, and spoke in long passages, it was because they were far older than they appeared to be. There was nothing attractive about them. They hardly seemed like children at all, in fact, but some other human form altogether. When they stepped up close, pulling at my clothes, with their flowing noses and red-black hair and grubby fingers, the desire to shove them off with inappropriate force was difficult to resist.
Elise fumbled in her pack, then pulled a bag of candy from it with a look of expectation on her face. She opened the bag and began tossing the hard candy to the children, who followed us closely.
They fell on it. A kind of reflex, I think—they must not have had much experience with such gifts in the past. They snatched off the wrappers and put the candy in their mouths. But after a few seconds, with dismay on their faces, they began spitting out the candy on the ground and wiping their mouths on the backs of their hands.
“What did you give them?” I asked. I was tempted to laugh, but Elise looked crestfallen.
She handed me the bag. I put one in my mouth.
“It’s sour,” I said. “Maybe that’s it.”
Rai looked on, and said nothing.
“Do you have any caramels? Maybe they’d like those better.”
“I have some at the camp,” she said. “But I only bring these now.”
From the heights of the ridge, the village had looked lovely and clean, but up close it was as filthy as the children it produced. We followed the main path to the center, with narrower alleys branching off between the houses beside it. An overflowing stream ran through the middle of the path, diverted from the river, turning the earth to freezing mud. Offal, somewhere, and the vague odor of excrement, and little bits of refuse carried by the clear water out toward the fields beyond. There was the smell of smoke and snow in the air, and the gray sky seemed close and thick overhead. The children were shouting, and a moment later the men began to emerge from the homes beside us. There were six or seven of them, bearded, restrained, murmuring to one another. They had weapons on their shoulders—mostly antique rifles, a century old or more, but several carried battered AK-47s. There were women also, watching through the windows, or standing in the doors, but they did not approach. Other dogs barked, but we did not seen them, and I imagined that they were tied up behind nearby walls.
Rai addressed one of the men. He spoke calmly and at length as we stood there, the villagers gathering steadily around us. We’d reached the village center, at a confluence of paths. The houses around us were brown mud, with narrow slits for windows.
The man Rai addressed wore a dark blanket over his thin shoulders, and a tight wool cap. His teeth were yellow and long, and his eyes, like his beard, were gray. Unlike the others around him, he was unarmed.
The man listened intently, and then he bowed and came forward, and took Rai’s hand in both of his own, and shook it gently. The others stared at Elise and me, murmuring to one another, as the children milled around them. The man spoke, and gestured, then spoke again.
“What’s he saying?” I asked Rai.
“He is the head of the village,” Rai replied. “He is offering us some tea.”
“Did you tell him why we’re here?”
“Of course,” Rai replied.
More discussions ensued. A few minutes passed, and then the young man who had entered the house returned with a plastic tray. On it were a few clear chipped glasses, and a single charred and battered metal teapot.
He poured it for us one by one. I blew on the small hot glass in my hands, smiling and nodding, hesitating, but then I sipped, as did Rai and Elise and the village headman. The tea was black, bitter, and hot.
The headman spoke again.
“He is sorry they have no sugar,” Rai said. “He is apologizing.”
“Tell him not to worry,
” I replied. “That the tea is very good.”
Rai did as I asked. We stood and drank, as they watched us. I wondered why we had not been invited inside.
The minutes dragged on. Rai went back and forth with them, gesturing, and each time he spoke the men would murmur among themselves in low voices, as if discussing his words. Elise and I stamped our feet in the cold, waiting, and my impatience grew.
“What’s taking so long?” I asked Rai.
“They are always like this,” he said. “They are deciding what to do. Everything takes time with them.”
“We should start,” I said. “Or we can come back later if they like.”
To my surprise, Rai translated my words.
The head of the village looked at me, and then he turned and said something over his shoulder to the others behind him.
A light snow began to fall. We waited, and finally a man emerged from another house with a rough unstained wooden table in his hands. Two boys followed, carrying a similar wood bench between them. The headman spoke again.
“He says it is best if we go to the orchard,” Rai said.
The orchard had high mud walls, and stood pressed against the village. We wound our way through one of the narrow alleys to a pair of unplaned wooden doors in the wall. To my surprise, the doors were padlocked, with a rusty link of chain between them. The headman produced a key, opened the lock, heaved aside the doors, and gestured for us to enter.
“Why is it locked?” I asked Rai.
“So the apricots will not be stolen, of course,” he said. I wondered who the thieves might be, and who owned the apricots, but I said nothing.
The wall around the orchard traced a rough circle perhaps thirty yards in diameter. The wall was high—nearly ten feet, smooth and brown. Part of the creek had been diverted beneath the wall, and then divided again into a dozen or so smaller channels, like a bed of capillaries, before converging again and flowing out beneath the wall toward the fields beyond. The ground underfoot was soft with old leaves. Tangles of calf-high grass and weeds grew in profusion.
The apricot trees stood at irregular intervals, ten or so feet apart from one another, and cast their branches out above our heads. The trees themselves were perhaps thirty feet high, and oddly delicate, with their gray-green leaves, and their trunks little larger than my waist. Overhead, in the density of the trees, hundreds of yellow-orange apricots hung from the branches, glowing against the heavy gray sky overhead.