Zak opens his eyes, heavy with sleep, slowly. He can barely make out the room around him in the sallow light of the early morning dawn. For an instant, he has to adjust his thinking from the distinct memories of last night’s dreams, still present in his head, to things around him and to where exactly he might be. The dreams momentarily pour over him, sending him an image of a girlfriend he knew years ago.
Zak blinks, a conscious effort to dismiss the image, and recognizes his apartment, remembering that it is in Northwest suburban Beijing, just beyond the Fourth Ring Road. From where he lays he can see a skiff of snow on the windowsill. The snow is new and the first of its kind this year. The window is cracked open because the government building is routinely overheated, and the first light of day is just beginning to shine through. At night the room is almost stifling, but by dawn it takes on a chill.
He is tangled in the sheets, but he is also tangled up with Kim, who has pulled the covering and sheet close to herself, backed herself up against him, and thrown her leg backward over his, almost to make sure that he is still there. On the other hand, it could be just to grab whatever measure of warmth she can, which is probably more likely. She would be unlikely to say she needed him to keep warm. In fact, she would be unlikely to say she needed him for anything at all.
He involuntarily hears music in his head. Kim reminds him of songs by Cake and Jet, Short Skirt Long Jacket and Are You Gonna Be My Girl. In a lot of ways that count she has become exactly that, the music that always plays in the back of his head. It accompanies him wherever he goes, whatever he does, it’s ever present and never very far away. He has come to accept that it is the background upon which he has chosen to draw the events of his life.
The two of them met on the Stanford Dish trail, which lies just above the campus in the characteristically steep Northern California hills. Stanford lies in an unincorporated area of Santa Clara County adjacent to Palo Alto, where the Dish and its trail are popular landmarks. The old lattice dish is still used to track and recalibrate ailing satellites. For the biker and runner the hills can be daunting, but they provide excellent views all the way to San Francisco.
It was two autumns ago and late in the afternoon when they literally ran into each other. The sun was low in the sky and behind the big dish, creating a dazzling sundown streaked with every color of orange. Long shadows were casting across the hills and ancient oaks, and there was a chill in the air. Kim was sitting in the well-manicured grass beneath a particularly gnarly set of old oaks along the side of the trail. She was massaging a foot when he caught sight of her.
He slowed.
“You OK?”
“Sure.” She looked up, squinting at the sun behind him.
He stopped, stooping over, his hands on his knees.
“Oh yeah? What’s up with your foot?” he asked, beginning to notice her looks. She had set her long auburn hair into a ponytail that she could poke through the back of her baseball cap and she had pulled the cap low over her eyes. She had obviously been running for a while. She had the sheen of at least a couple miles.
“Not sure. It hurts though.” She continued to rub the outer edge of her right foot.
“Take your sock off.”
She squinted up at him again. She judged that he must be fairly good looking. She was having trouble making him out against the sun.
“You’re not some kind of weird foot twist are you?” she queried, flashing a provocative smile.
“If I were it would already be too late for you to do anything about it. I’m Zak Miller.”
“Kimberly.”
“Let me take a look.”
He was still gulping air as he leaned onto one knee to look at her bare foot. He watched her face as he ran his hand along the outside, stopping at her smallest toe. It was a nice face and it was singularly bemused. He pressed the side of the toe. She winced. There was a small, hardened tissue mass there.
“Bone spur,” he pronounced with authority.
She thought his hands were cooling and felt good and she didn’t object to his take charge style. She reached down to her toe. It was some kind of crazy callous.
“That sounds bad.”
He pursed his lips.
“Not as bad as all that. I can remove it if you want.”
“Won’t it bleed and everything?”
“Naw, it shouldn’t. But I’ll need a sharp knife.”
He smiled disarmingly.
“What? No knife? You’re obviously no boy scout.”
He had never really considered this question, whether he was a boy scout or not.
“Oh, sure I am,” he replied.
They finished the trail together and back at her residence he carefully removed the bone spur from her foot. While he was doing this she watched him with considerable interest. Then she placed her hand on the back of his neck and pulled him toward her. He turned and what had been intended to be a kiss on the cheek turned out to be more. And so it began for them.
It did not erase the image of the girlfriend from his dream, the girl from six years ago, from Boston Latin and three thousand miles away. And he had tried, really tried to rid himself of anything that could remind him of her, of any picture, any email, or even any memory. Perhaps that was why the thought of her had taken up residence in his dreams. It was a form of retaliation, retaliation for trying to forget her when he knew he couldn’t.
Now they share an apartment on the eighth floor of a twelve story building, grad student housing at Tsinghua University in downtown Beijing. He disentangles himself from Kim and hits the head. When he returns Kim is out of bed and the TV is turned on.
“Well, Jim, it appears that the attack on the northern Pakistani airbase at Kamra came in the middle of the night. Several dozen Islamic militants armed with rocket propelled grenades and mortars wreaked considerable damage on both conventional aircraft and drones stationed at the well-fortified base.”
Jim Lenard, the News World morning anchor, looking fabulously well put together for such an early hour, injects characteristic pep into his manner of presentation. Cheery brightness literally jumps from the screen with caffeine infused incisiveness.
“Were any of the insurgents killed or captured?”
Jessica doesn’t miss a beat to consider the question or have to actually think of an answer. They have gone over this already off camera, so the question is really only a cue for the response.
“They got away and left no one behind. It’s remarkable really. But the base is largely for drones operating high above the Hindu Kush. They seek to identify the activities of extremist elements throughout the mountainous region, which has become an anti-government hide out with very few roads or means of access.”
“And what has been the government’s response, Jessica?”
Jessica glances downward as if to check something.
“First of all, the government says they are terrorists, but they call themselves freedom fighters and The Resistance. The Pakistani Air Force is indicating that no one was killed but there have been some injuries. Islamabad is saying the militants who took part in this heinous attack are being tracked and will not get away.”
Jim appears to harden his expression, simultaneously dropping his vocal range slightly.
“Sounds like the attack could prove to be a suicide mission of some sort.”
Jessica looks thoughtful.
“Exactly, Jim.”
Zak turns away, looking around.
“Have you seen my pants?” he kind of shouts.
Kim comes to the bedroom door while in the process of brushing her teeth. She is dressed in a sweater and jeans, has a loose braid in her hair and a hand stuck in her back pocket. He has no idea how she got put together so fast.
She looks him over.
“Front room, Romeo. Hey, let’s shake a leg, shall we?”
Chapter 4
On Fire Page 3