Marshlands (11 page)

Curtis isn't used to taking no for an answer. He sees my refusal as yet another misstep in a second-rate career. “Well,” he says, slapping dust from his trousers, “
someone
has to clean up this mess.”

“What mess would that be?”

He deflects the question with a roll of his eyes, as if to say,
You have no idea
.

To change the subject, I ask about the new building going up inside the gates.

“Finally, a proper detention facility,” he says. “Long overdue. Now watch yourself,” he adds, plowing through a heavy swinging door.

The sudden drop in temperature is like a plunge into water. Curtis cranes his neck. “There's usually an attendant,” he says. “But it looks like we're on our own.”

He slows to a funereal pace when we reach the storage area. It's clear that he means the tragic rhythm of the drawers to arouse my patriotism, but instead I find myself thinking about the marshman's horror of being unburied, which is considered the violation of violations. To abandon the body of a warrior on the battlefield—even a warrior of a rival tribe—is to cover one's own tribe in shame.

“In case you're wondering,” he says, “these drawers are full.”

“How is that possible?” I ask. “We haven't seen combat casualties in a very long time.”

“You're privy to a tiny corner of this conflict,” he says. “And even that you don't see with the proper vision.” He stops to open one of the drawers. The corpse is charred, its lips curled in a dry snarl. “As a matter of fact,” he says, “there's been a steady uptick in insurgent attacks.”

He opens more drawers. The bodies are riddled with shrapnel, the wounds packed with sandy debris. Some of the remains are tragically scant—a blasted jawbone, a bloodied sleeve. Many lack dog tags.

“Are we sure these are ours?” I ask.

Curtis tries to slam the drawer, but it wasn't designed to be closed in anger. It recoils against rubber bumpers, then quietly slides home. “There's a separate section for the enemy down at the end,” he says. “Knock yourself out.”

In fact, the
INSURGENT
area is full to overflowing. I find two or three corpses crammed into each drawer, sometimes haphazardly, sometimes head to toe, their broken limbs woven together to save space. At first, I do my best to separate them, straighten their clothes, cover their desiccated eyes, but even these slight changes cause the drawers to jam. As I force them shut, the sound of cracking bone makes me think of the laundress.

After an hour of fruitless searching, followed by another lost to the seemingly identical tunnels under the palace, I finally reach daylight. I've never been so happy to climb into my oven of a jeep. The spiral road winds me up and flings me into the desert. I don't breathe freely until the jagged silhouette of the palace vanishes from the rearview mirror. Dust devils race me down the pitted road.

This used to be a perilous drive, seeded with mines and improvised explosives. The surface has been patched but still gives a vehicle a good beating. As I near home, my wheels seem to gather speed. It's like I'm driving down a ramp through the centuries.

*   *   *

That night, I wonder: Is there really a new insurgency? The question sits, indigestible, in the pit of my stomach, as Betty snores quietly in her corner. I may be a foreigner, but with every wound I've sewn, every child I've bathed, I've tried to come closer. I lie on a sweat-stained quilt, thinking,
I'm bound to them, but are they bound to me?

Eventually, sleep comes, but it's disturbed by a vision of the laundress kneeling by my bed, holding a candle to her naked mouth. The guttering flame lights her face like a jack-o'-lantern, grotesquely hooking her nose, deepening her eye sockets, but above all, transforming the cleft in her lip into something huge and malignant.
I've been thinking about a surgery
, she says.

Her words fill me with joy. I want her to be joyful, too, but her eyes are black and bottomless, as inscrutable as river stones.

I wake to find Betty hovering over me.
You've been blubbering
, she says.
You shouldn't drink so much before bed. But don't worry
, she whispers, wiping my face with the sleeve of her shift,
your secret's safe with me
.

*   *   *

A letter from Protective Services arrives by courier the next day, informing me that a claim of corpse-stealing is an ancient form of extortion in the marshes; that there have been many substantiated cases of insurgents perpetrating abominations while dressed as our soldiers; and that, in any case, the laundress's son was a known insurgent with several atrocities to his name.

I'm to cease my inquiries into this matter, to focus on the efficient management of the field hospital, and, in a final phrase that makes me wince, to “desist in the delivery of medical services to the insurgency and its shadow army of supporters,
no matter the cause of injury
.”

In other words, I'm to stop treating marshmen.

“Shadow army,” “atrocities,” “abominations”—the language alone is infuriating. Do the deskbound mandarins who compose these letters even know what the words mean? “Desist in the delivery of medical services,” indeed! If a child is brought to me whose leg has been blown off by an old land mine, I'm to refuse treatment? Is that refusal not an atrocity?

I spend the day at my desk composing indignant replies, each more self-righteous than the last, but reason ultimately prevails. I'm already on thin ice with Curtis, and the thought of being transferred fills me with dread. Perhaps it's selfish to wonder what will become of my marshmen when I'm gone, but I worry all the same.

Evening finds me standing in front of a mirrored armoire, the brass buttons of my old dress whites winking back at me, a worn leather belt straining to cinch my gut.

I'm all too aware of the ridiculous figure I cut on the long walk to the lean-tos. Dark patches of sweat blossom under the arms of my ill-fitting jacket. It's not healthy for a man to feel such shortness of breath, such palpitations.

I find the laundress fully absorbed in her work folding tattered tunics and leggings. Native laundry. The other laundresses have apparently stepped in and taken the soldiers' custom. It's cruel, but this is the way of the marshes. A woman, marked for punishment at birth, has simply been served another portion of her curse.

Waiting for news has been very hard on her. In a voice barely above a whisper, she offers me a cup of river water, then turns back to her folding.

I tell her about my trip to the palace, making more of my search than there actually was. Then I show her the letter forbidding me to look any further into her son's case. I read from it, translating as I go. I stop at the part about his being an insurgent, but in the end, I blurt it out anyway, then immediately distance myself from the allegation.

She waits for more. Her hands stay busy with threadbare work clothes, folding them automatically, but eventually slowing, like a hall clock winding down.

Ghilad was a good boy
, she says.

I'm sure he was
, I say. It's strange to hear his name in the solemn quiet of the lean-to, without the reassuring clatter of a typewriter or the rustle of an official form.

The other farmers teased him because of me
, she says,
but they all envied his crops
.

Was he an only child?
It's an awkward question at this late stage, an oversight on my part that reflects a larger truth: the everyday life of this woman has no real significance in the occupiers' bureaucracy.

I had a daughter, too
, she says.
A talented seamstress. She was killed in the first days of the invasion, but they never told me how.

Two children lost to the war; both unburied.

I take her in my arms. She doesn't fight me; neither does she melt into my embrace. She goes limp, a defenseless animal in the clutches of a predator.

I whisper an apology, but it comes out in my language, not hers.

My face is suddenly hot and wet. I feel her trembling. It isn't grief, or anger, or even—heaven help me!—desire, that makes her tremble. It's my tears. I doubt she's ever seen a man cry, and surely not a foreigner. She's afraid. Or perhaps merely embarrassed.

I kneel before her, clutching her knees like a schoolboy, pressing my face into her damp skirt, and say,
I made you a promise. I mean to keep it.

Her hands eventually come to rest on my head, but don't know what to do there. They flutter for a while, then are still.

*   *   *

The laundress waits outside my tent, squatting like a woman who wishes to be swallowed by the earth. Betty will have nothing to do with her.

That creature doesn't belong here
, she says.

Nevertheless
, I say,
I have brought her
.

The camp won't stand for it.

We both know she's simply expressing a personal revulsion.
I want you to prepare a pallet for her
, I say.

Betty's hands fly to her face as if I've slapped her.
So now I'm to be her servant?

No, she's our guest. I'm asking only that you be hospitable.

You're the one who's inhospitable
, she says, gathering her things. Then, with all of her worldly goods bundled in her arms—along with a few of my own, I notice—she turns to me and says,
I hope she pleases you
.

On her way out, she spits on the laundress, who accepts the insult with a meek bow.

I'm very sorry about that
, I say, dabbing her with a handkerchief before leading her into the tent and sitting her down on the edge of my bed.
I want you to be comfortable here. If there's anything you need, just tell me. I'm counting on you to do that
.

She nods, still in a fog. By bringing her to my tent, I've elevated her to a dizzying height.

I give her water and a bar of chocolate. She sips mechanically, but doesn't unwrap the chocolate, so I do it for her.
It's good
, I say,
very sweet
. She refuses. She cannot eat before I do.

I take a bite of the chocolate, which is soft and messy. I try to make it seem delicious, but honestly, the sweetness is too much in the heat.

Now you
, I say, holding out the bar. Eating is very private for her; she manages the scarf with great skill.

The taste makes her wince. She gives the bar back, then turns away and takes a long drink of water.

No?
I say.
That's all right. We'll find something you like. Why don't you lie down now? You should rest
.

She begins to undress in front of me. She's already half naked by the time I realize what's happening.

I stay her arms, then cover her with my jacket. What I want to do is to stroke her hair and keep watch over her. But touching her, no matter how chastely, would only add to her confusion. So instead, I ask about Ghilad.
If we're to make a case
, I say,
I must know all the facts
.

She shakes her head. She doesn't want to talk about her son. She's not interested in making a case.

Do you know what a case is?
I ask.

In her mind, the matter is simple. We must find the potentate who has power over her son's corpse. We must borrow money to pay him. Then we must figure out how to pay back the enormous debt.

That's how it works here
, I say,
but not in my homeland. For us, justice isn't a matter of bribes.

She tells me she doesn't want justice. She only wants a proper burial for her son.

All of the talking has upset her. I give her a mild sedative and wait until she's asleep. Then I summon Chigger. Quietly, so as not to disturb my new guest, I tell him to go to the laundress's village and find out everything he can about Ghilad.

4

By the time Chigger returns, the laundress and I are the talk of the camp. As Betty predicted, I've become something of an outcast. My patients no longer encourage me to linger in the ward. Even the junior officers avoid me. They can understand, and even envy, a beautiful tent girl; a laundress, on the other hand—and a cleft one, at that—smacks of desperation.

The marshmen have begun to avoid me as well, except for Paul, the little fly catcher, who faithfully shows me his jar, all the while hinting that he's ready for a promotion: he wants to be my new bodyguard. I ask him if he thinks he's brave enough. He tells me he isn't afraid of anyone. He shows me a knife he made from the leaf spring of an old jeep, a miniature version of the marshman's ubiquitous curved dirk. He slashes the air with it, cursing my enemies.

There's a rumor in camp that I've cut Betty off, but it's not true. I've kept up her allowance. She hasn't suffered since she left my tent. She's gone on to become a popular entertainer at the canteen, where she sings songs full of thinly veiled references to me, hinting that I'm impotent, a pedophile, that she used to force me to wear a skirt while I slavishly painted her toenails. The songs are lively and witty, and Betty sings them well. Part of me is glad to see her make something of herself, even if it comes at my expense.

Chigger finds me in the hospital yard, sitting on a bench in the barren patch where the marshmen's tent used to stand. I've taken to spending my evenings there, often with a drink in hand and a bottle by my feet.

In the two weeks he's been gone, Chigger seems to have grown a full inch. He approaches slowly, studying the sandy ground. I make space for him on the bench.
Sit
, I say, but today he prefers to stand at attention with his hands clasped behind his back. I notice that he hasn't bothered to shave.