I Live With You (15 page)

I’m not in pain. There’s only this weakness and shaking, and I’m not thinking properly. I know there are important things I should be doing. There’s a lost war I’m supposed to be fighting. I think how I had the chance at their general and didn’t kill him. One of my friends may die trying to do what I didn’t do.

Then I think: Was there a stream? How nice if a stream. I’ll sit on the bank. I’ll lie in the grass and look up along the tree trunks again. Birds will come. Perhaps another magpie.

I’m wobbling worse than ever. Everything is wavy, the hall stretches and shrinks. There’s a door at the end of it. If I’m going to collapse, and I am, I must do it where I’m hidden and preferably outside.

The door is heavy. I have to use all my weight. Outdoors, I fall down four steps, then crawl, squashing pansies, into the lilacs beside them. I feel again the joy of not having to stay awake—not having to do anything. Back in our caves we were always on guard. I was always too tired.

But then women come and sit on the steps above me. I can’t see them, but I can hear them. They sound young.

(“They just lost a patient.” “Somebody died?” “No, you nut, I said, lost. They say he’s crazy. They couldn’t keep him covered up and they couldn’t keep his bandages on.”

“Is he crazy-dangerous?” “Yes. They say he wanted to kill the general but the general shot first.”)

No, no, that’s not how it was. I saved him. If not for me he’d be dead. And I’m not crazy.

It’s important that they know I decided not to shoot. But I haven’t the energy to say anything.

(“They’re
all
crazy.” “They ought to be locked up.” “They shouldn’t be here. They ought to be in prison.” “If I find him….”) She must have made a gesture.

(“You couldn’t.” “Sure I could. I still can.” “Knowing you, you’d fall in love. Look at that crazy baldheaded guy you fell for just because he kept staring at you. He stared like that because he was crazy!” “I’ve got more sense than that. Besides he was one of
them
. And look at
your
guy.” “Oh Beth!”)

Beth!

I love their voices and that name. It’s been so long since I’ve been this close to anybody female. I want that laughing and that youth. I’m not so old myself. The one who liked bald heads… her voice was low, not like some women. I’m not much to look at, but at least I’m not bald. I need for them to know that, except for me, their general would be dead and those three boys stolen away to our side.

If I had the energy I would get up and tell them I saved him. I’d say, under all these bandages I’m not bald. And that I want to love. And I want to be the loved one.

I drag myself out. They jump when they see me. They’re both beautiful. I knew they would be. I could tell by their voices. One is dressed as a nurse. That one has long black hair put up in a bun under her little cap. The other has freckles and curly reddish hair as short as a boy’s.

I can’t stand up, but I rise to my knees. This isn’t the time for a speech but I do it anyway. “We’ve never been otherwise than kind. I saved the general out of kindness.”

The one that’s not dressed as a nurse is staring at me in horror. Then I see she has no thumbs.

We always thought that was a good idea—the cutting off of thumbs. We thought it was kind. Other groups have cut off hands and sometimes feet. We don’t ever do that. We wouldn’t consider those.

She should be glad she only lost her thumbs, but she comes towards me in a fury. As if to choke me. I wonder if she can, with those hands. The other tries to hold her back.

“Stop! Beth! He can hardly stand up, for heaven’s sake.”

I have more right to be angry than she has. They called our triumphal arch their own and made us march through it as part of
their
victory parade. We were torn and dirty (that’s how they wanted us to be) while they were all cleaned up and dressed in their best. We were forced to march over our own banners. Behind us, in our beat-up trucks, were our captured weapons. They sang songs of victory. Their trumpets sounded the charge. Their drums beat death.

They thought it would teach us a lesson. It did. We’ll never surrender.

Beth finally gets free of the nurse and attacks me. She’s stronger than I ever thought a woman could be. Or perhaps I’m weaker than I usually am. And she knows how to fight. She’s been a soldier. She knows all sorts of tricks. She’s on top, kneeing me in the wrong place. Her fists still work fine as fists. I curl up.

There’s yelling. Orderlies come with needles. Not for her, the one attacking, the one going absolutely crazy, but for me and I haven’t even been fighting back. I’m just all curled up.

Next thing I know someone is saying, “Son, son,” and trying to wake me up.

I’m in pain, which I hadn’t been when there was just the wound in my head. Now I ache all over.

“Son!”

I open my eyes. It’s the general. Leaning over me.

Is he calling me his son or does he call all younger men son? He’s holding a straw to my lips. He’s right, I’m thirsty. I could love him just for this drink of cool water. I could almost change sides for such pleasure.

He looks like a farmer, weathered, lined face, hands scared and swollen from frostbite. I recognize it all.

I wish he hadn’t said Son.

Then he says, “My assassin,” but he doesn’t say it in a bad way. He puts the glass down and holds my wrist. The skin of his palms feels rough—like a farmer’s.

“Son, what’s your name?”

“_____”

“I need to know what caves you come from.”

“_____”

“The war is over!”

“_____”

He shakes my shoulder. “It’s
over!”

“_____”

“Long as you’re in those caves, nobody is safe. We’d smoke them out. They won’t be hurt.”

They call that snuffing. “Go ahead. Cut off my hands.”

He snorts and lets go of me. Goes to the window. He’s looking out at the garden.

“Smoke! You’d burn them out. And you think they won’t come out shooting?”

The dark haired nurse is there. I’d not noticed her before. I need for her to know I saved the general. I raise myself on my elbows. “Tell them I saved you.” I yell it. “I didn’t shoot. Admit it. I saved you.”

He turns back towards me, thinking.

“Remember?”

He’s thinking back to when we stared down each other’s gun barrels.

“I didn’t shoot. That was on purpose.”

“May… be.”

He doesn’t know what to believe. He turns to my garden, to my naked girl, and I lie back down.

There’s broth. The nurse is about to hold the straw for me, but the general comes and takes it from her. Sits down again to hold it.

“Could be. You waited, I did see that.”

To him the war is really over. Easy to think so when you’re on the winning side.

“You could come up with me and help us get your comrades out. They’d come out for you.”

“But then what?”

“Just the two of us? Just get their weapons.”

“That’s what you
say.”

The window is open. Even here, from my bed, I can feel the breeze. I can smell the lilacs. “Is somebody out there singing?”

The nurse says, “Oh, that’s Beth.”

“I want to go into the garden. If only for a moment.”

“Take him out as soon I leave.”

“Can I take his bandage off? I don’t want Beth or the other patients and orderlies to know who he is. I’m afraid they might attack him.”

“Do it.”

Then he tells her, “Take good care of my assassin.” He squeezes my shoulder and winks as if we were in this together.

After he leaves, the nurse takes the bandages off and puts on two smaller ones.

They’ve shaved my head because of my wound, but also my beard. In our caves it’s hard to find ways to shave. We were proud of being hairy. It identified us as wild mountain men who would never surrender. We were even proud of being dirty.

I tell the nurse to bring me a mirror.

I’m shocked. I look so old and worn out and starved and sick. I’m greenish under my tan, and there are circles around my eyes. I have to watch myself touching myself to make sure I’m me. I wonder if my comrades would recognize me. The general and I could go up to the caves to bring them out and they wouldn’t know me anyway.

“Can you walk to the wheelchair?”

I’m so shocked by how I look I wonder if I can.

“Don’t you want to go?

“Come on, it’ll do you good.

“I have other patients. I can’t wait all day.” She says it, even so, with tolerance. She would wait.

I walk to the chair. I’m much stronger than I was before. I tell her I want to be near the fountain.

It is beautiful. Even better than I expected. Blossoms are still blowing down. They’re all over my lap before we even get to the fountain. Birds. There’s one little bird with red on his head. Maybe a finch. The birds around our caves in the mountains are different. Juncos and jays. The nurse pushes me right next to the naked marble girl and leaves. Across from me, on the other side of the fountain, is Beth, still singing to herself.

There are only a few people around. Some on benches, some in wheelchairs, wrapped up tight, as I am, but except for Beth, I’m the only one near the fountain. If she looked right at me she’d not recognize me without my turban of bandages.

She doesn’t pay any attention to me. She sits on the edge of the pool, leaning, with her mutilated hands in the water. I wonder if they hurt and if the cool soothes them.

I watch her. If she’s the one fell in love because of being stared at, maybe she’ll fall in love with me. But she pays no attention. I’m just another of the patients. I suppose she is, too, though her hands seem healed. She sounds happy right now, but I know she’s not. I saw the rage and horror underneath.

I listen to her and to the splashing of the fountain. The sun glitters on the droplets and the pool is almost to bright to look at. Here with the naked girl beside me and Beth leaning across from me, I should feel happy but my thoughts are on thumbs.

I think how it might be. You can’t choke people. Can’t peel potatoes. Hard to cut your meat. Hard to raise your glass. Can’t screw things in. Can’t tie your shoes. Would it be hard to hold a pistol? Some ways, having only one hand might be better than no thumbs.

But we didn’t do that to just anybody. She’d have to have been a killer, too.

Maybe we found her assassinating one of ours so we made it hard for her to do it again.

Beth hasn’t looked at me once. I want to do something to make her see me.

I throw the blanket aside and get up—too fast again. I almost fall in the fountain, dizzy. But then I jump in. I don’t know what I think I’m doing. Making Beth look at me—at least that.

The water is over my knees and icy enough to make me gasp. It must come straight from the mountains. The cold wakes me out of my craziness. Why did I do this? I could have just called to her. They said I was crazy. Maybe I am.

Beth jumps in, too, splashes across to me and pulls at my clothes with her thumbless fists, to get me out of there.

“Are you crazy? What are you trying to do?” But then she gets that look you have for
really
crazy people. Like you have to be careful what you say. She says, “You’re fine. You have a headwound. That makes your thinking muddled. You’ll be fine.”

She helps me into the wheelchair as if I’m a sick old man and starts to wheel me back.

“I
have
to stay in the garden.”

“You have to get dried off. I do, too.”

“Please wait. It’s not cold. I don’t know when they’ll let me come out again.”

“Well….” She sits on the edge of the pool next to me. “Maybe for a minute.”

“I haven’t talked to anybody since I came here. I mean really talked. Please.”

She leans close to me, tucking me in. Obviously she doesn’t know I’m the one she attacked. She has apple blossoms in her hair. I’m in love already. Not that I wasn’t back when I first saw her—felt her, bony, against me.

“I like your singing.”

“I used to sing.”

“Did they do this to you because you were singing enemy songs? People have done things as ridiculous as that but I didn’t think we ever would.”

“I was a bodyguard for the general. He’s my uncle.”

I ask her what her name is, though I know it already. I say, “I’m Len.” I really am. I won’t tell the general, but I tell her.

It turns out she’s been helping in the hospital ever since she was here for her mutilated hands. “I’m more trouble than I’m worth, but I try. They let me think I’m helping.”

She’s sitting so close our knees touch now and then.

I never believed in that heaven for old soldiers, though some did. I begin to think it’s really true and this is the maiden assigned to me, just the kind I like the best. And it smells so good of damp earth and new-cut grass. Reminds me of haying time. But if a heaven, why, then, is my wound still here, my bruises aching, and her thumbs still gone?

“I could stay out here forever. Maybe this is forever. Maybe this is heaven. I hope it is.”

“Don’t count on it.”

“After all, I did die back under the juniper. I thought I did.”

I see her suddenly understanding.

“It’s
you!”

I brace myself to be attacked but she sits quietly.

“It
is
you!”

“What did you do that we did this to you? There has to be a reason.”

“You did a lot more than just cut my thumbs.”

I know what she means.

“I’m here now partly because of that. What
you
people did. Not so much because of thumbs, though that, too.”

She gets up but I grab her wrist. “I would never.”

“We were just the enemy. We weren’t even human. We were dirt under your boots.”

“What do you think we were to you? Even now, you hunt us out and call us rock rats. But I didn’t. I wouldn’t.”

Actually I never had the chance. I might have. We thought of them as hardly human. We said they ate grubs and rats. We said they copulated with animals. But I was never sure if that was true.

She tries to pull away but I’m strong now. I can hold her. “Please. I would never. I wouldn’t.”

“There’s no kinder man than the general and you wanted to kill him.”