IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume
III: Responsibility
Chapter 9 Invitations to Destruction
Tuesday, June 9, 2708, continued Kief insists on creeping
out with me tonight in the dark of the moon, but the village lamps still
shine way too brightly. Light radiates
straight through the peach and yellow curtains into the clearing as we cling to
every shadow like the glow would melt us.
He holds his place as I cross the wires on a battery; then I dart back
to him. He whispers, "Can you
write a suicide note for me?" "What?" "Shhhh! Not "for me" like that! For a soldier." "Kief, I'm sure a
soldier can write for himself--they teach writing in boot camp." "Not if he doesn't
want to die." I catch the sparkle
of his winking eye. Without another word
he takes off, crouching behind this bush or that, till we come to a farmhouse
where the music of the thambriy spills out with the light from the window. "I’ve had messages from Damien,"
Kief whispers, "and sent a few back--to recruit more men for our
movement. We're too skewed to females
right now." He elbows me in the ribs. "We need to find you a boyfriend." "I don't need
a..." "Shhh." He whistles a bird-call. The singer within cuts a few verses from the
song and ends it promptly, to launch into another, somewhat nonsensical song
about various birds and their odd doings.
Suddenly I recognize the names of those creatures whose calls we mimic
for messages. He thus tells us the route
to a specific house and the information, "impaired soldier". With hardly a rustle we turn to follow the
directions given. We find the shack and
behind it many boxes of bottles waiting for recycling. The soldier quartered here must have a
drinking problem, then, made worse by living apart from his barrack-mates,
served hand and foot by peasants eager for his fall. Kief whistles a different tune this time, and
we hear one back--the one that says, "Wait." Damien must've taught our calls to those he
trusts. Dangerous business, though, with
ol' White-Sleeves around. We wait in the dark and
listen to the crickets, feeling time crawl with stealth as slowly as a
saboteur. At last a dim rushlight spills
out as a woman comes to the door and gestures us in silently. I read the hatred in her eyes and those of
her teenage daughter as she leads us to the sprawling, snoring soldier swaying
in his hammock with his mouth wide open, each snore as sour as the breeze off a
distillery. Kief pulls a little box
from the pocket of his vest. As he opens
it I recognize the dark, hand-rolled opiate-pills that Madame used to
make. He must've grabbed them on his way
out, knowing that they'd come in handy some day.
Carefully he drops one into the open mouth. The man chokes, coughs, and swallows. Kief drops another. The man tries to come awake, but Kief and the
women grab his hammock and pin him in it as he struggles. "Do it, Deirdre!"
Kief says and points with his chin at the box he'd dropped on the floor. I pick up all the dirty pills in one hand and
pinch the man's nose with the other, then dribble them in, one by one, while
Kief and the others hold the bucking body.
He can't cry out, he keeps having to gulp down pills, till he cannot
anymore, and Kief has no more need to hold him still. I shiver as I touch his neck and feel the
pulse go slower...slower...stop. The
teenager smiles. When I look into her
eyes I wonder if we let him die too easily. Then I ask for paper and
pen. The woman brings it from the
soldier's kit. I scan the scrawling
stuff that he'd written before and mimic it well enough to pass. I observe no books or writing-stuff native to
the house. Good. They'll realize that the woman can't have
done this thing, herself. I describe
remorse for how I've treated the peasantry, for how I tried to drink it all
away, how I tried to hate them and hurt them all the more to justify what I
did, how none of that worked and life had nothing left for me but shame. It feels so real as I write it—as if his
ghost has become my muse and whispers it to me. We leave the box right
where it fell beneath the soldier's hammock, and we head for the door. The girl stops us, darts to the
kitchen-corner and back with a precious bag of breakfast-beans from their
paltry store. The mother’s eyes widen,
but then she nods, and the girl hands them to us. I feel the weight of it, shifting in my
hands. In the morning all of my children
get to eat. As we steal back through
the woods I feel elated--almost dizzy with elation. I did it, and without regrets! I can do this thing, this killing, and feel
no pain. I fall into my hammock back at
camp without even cleaning my teeth and sleep like the dead till noon. Wednesday, June 10, 2708 (Noon break, and Corey has fallen asleep on a bench, dappled in
the shade of a tree. I like the
dappling—so irregular, unstructured, dancing back and forth across his sweet
face. No, this elfin boy does not belong
in the world of brick and mortar walls. I feel a breeze; it rustles solicitously over the child, shhh,
shhh, let him sleep. He couldn’t rest much
last night, after all, too excited about the ritual ahead. I take off my coat to spread over him; it’s
not yet full-on summer, though the old men say tomorrow will be warmer, they
feel the changes of the weather in their bones. Corey opens his eyes and smiles at me. “Tonight?” he asks drowsily. “Yes,” I say, smiling back, tucking the coat around him. “Just you and me. Something very special. In the cellar room. You know the way.” He sits up, rubbing his eyes.
“I can hardly wait!” I sit down beside him. “We
all must wait, but yes, good things must eventually come.” I want so badly to hug him, but gentlemen
don’t hug out in the open, in broad daylight. “You say that I’ll get a glimpse?” “Because you are special.
Yes.” “And that Hell is...beautiful?” “So beautiful that you cannot yet imagine!” He gazes up at me and says, quite simply. “I trust you.
I don’t trust the teachers.” “Wise boy,” I say, getting up and ruffling his hair. “Come along, now; the noon break’s almost
over.” Cheerfully he rises, his eyes still somewhat shadowed, his cheeks
a little flushed with the cool breeze and anticipation. He picks up his books and heads for class,
leaving my coat behind. Ah well, he will
get more than enough rest tonight.) ("You're feverish, Doctor," Sanzio
says to me over lunch. “I can see it as
a kind of rosy glow--a man like your uncle would see the cherub in you.” I feel too weak to lunge at the bars just for
a show. "That comes of living off
your own fat too long--alkalosis. But listen;
we're having ice cream for dessert--dulcina-chocolate swirl, drizzled with
chaummin syrup and sprinkled with crushed nuts.
Care to join us?" "No, thank you,"
I reply, though I feel the fever in me burn.
I don’t look up at him. Instead,
I leaf through the cookbook that he left in my cell to torment me. I can’t help it. Desserts.
It’s all about desserts. "Not the most
efficient way to fuel the body, the exclusive use of stored-up fat--but you're
a doctor, you know all about that. Or a
dentist, at least. Already the
byproducts of such inept combustion must begin to clog your kidneys. And your electrolytes must swing wildly right
now--tell me, have you hallucinated yet?" "As a matter of fact,
I thought I had the loveliest feast, right here in my cell.” I admire a glossy cherry enthroned on soft
ripples of whipped cream; my hand caresses the slick paper as if my fingertips
could taste. “Sorry to turn down your
invitation, but I feel quite full." "Liar," he says
genially, as though to a friend.
"I've watched the yearning in your eyes as you follow the trays of
food. You know, of course, that people
who try to lose weight by unrelieved fasting die frequently of heart
attacks." "I know." "Of course you
do--many gluttons memorize that fact, as an excuse not to diet at all." I set the book aside. "But you won't let it go that far. I can't tell you anything dead." "I've miscalculated
before," he says, and grins. "But you won't this
time." "No, I won't. I want you to live long enough for your
wicked uncle's time to run out. I know
your vulnerabilities, now, Dr. De Groot.
I have seen you take off your shirt." And he says nothing more, as the grim-faced
women bring the ice cream around. And I
resist the temptation to cup the inoperable hernia protectively in my hand.) |
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