Veil of Silence (16 page)

She sipped at it, looking into the glass like she didn’t really know what to do with it after she had taken a drink.

“Is something wrong, Captain?” another voice was heard, a woman’s.

“The water is so clear,” she commented.

“The water wasn’t clear where you were?” she asked.

“Yes, it was straight from the streams in the mountains.  There were some that the tribe knew we shouldn’t drink from.  I don’t know how they knew, but I accidentally drank from one and ended up with the worst dysentery,” she confided with a rueful little grin.

“Are you ready to go on?” Captain McKellan’s voice asked.

“Yes,” she smiled and nodded and took another sip before continuing.   She told about how she was taken into the mountains, how the tribe lived in caves and they avoided most people.  She found out later that the pieces of the helicopter had been buried so that it wouldn’t be found and so that people wouldn’t come there to investigate.  Even the vestiges of the explosion had been hidden, first by the tribe, and then by time. 

“How do you know that?” another voice asked, interrupting her tale, confirming Heather’s thought that there were others in the room behind the camera.

“I heard the women talking about how their husbands had buried the debris they had found, how they found me and the others.  They stopped talking when they saw that I could hear them.  I never did find out what happened to the others,” she said, looking sad.

“These people, they weren’t insurgents?” Captain McKellan’s voice clarified.

She shook her head.  “No, they seemed to be avoiding the fighting.  They didn’t want their sons fighting a war they didn’t understand.  They didn’t agree with it.”

“They weren’t Afghan people?”

“Yes, they were, but they didn’t want their sons killed for a war they didn’t agree with.  We spent winters in the caves, hiding from people.  Summers were spent on the plains or traveling.”

“How did they travel…jeeps and trucks?”

She shook her head again.  “No, the only time I ever saw a jeep was the last day I was there when I stole it.  They rode horses and kept to themselves.  There are other nomadic tribes like that.  They would meet up in the summer and their young people would be paired off.  There are many that feel that way.”

“They don’t want to fight?”  Captain McKellan asked and Heather wondered if that might be important information.

“No, their people don’t want to see their sons go off into the world.  Anyone different,” she sounded like she was talking about herself, “was squashed or their modern thoughts ridiculed.  I tried to introduce some modern conveniences, even making a paddle wheel in the stream for my son, and they broke it.”  Her own voice broke as she remembered.

“How were you treated?” Captain Lamar asked.

“Badly,” she admitted.  Her voice took on a hollow note.  “I was given to the chief of this clan.  His name was Zabi.  He stopped the rapes from the other men when he claimed me.  That didn’t mean he didn’t rape me himself.  I learned later he took me because he felt I as an American warrior woman.  He felt I was a challenge.”

Heather’s heart was in her throat, crying inside for what her wife had endured.  Her hand was on her chest as she watched her wife try not to have any emotion as she told what had happened to her.

“Did you fight him?  Did you try to escape?” Captain McKellan asked.

She nodded.  Her voice remained a monotone showing no emotion.  “I tried many times.  I didn’t know where I was.  They beat me horribly.”

“And you couldn’t escape?”

“I was watched.  All the time I was watched.  When I managed to escape a few times they beat me on the soles of my feet.  It makes it so painful that you can’t walk.  Then they would beat me for not working.”

“Did the beatings stop?” the woman’s voice from the other side of the camera asked

“Only when I became pregnant that first year.  Zabi was thrilled because his first wife was barren.  She was older than he was.  She resented me and the attention he gave me.”

“Did she beat you too?”

Marsha nodded.  She looked tired.  “She stopped when Zabi commanded her to.  He was disappointed that my first child was a girl child.  He,” she closed her eyes at the memory, “was on me as soon as I was no longer unclean.  I lost that baby because of his beatings.”

Heather was horrified at what Marsha had gone through.  The details weren’t there, but the simple story she told was bad enough that her imagination could fill in the blanks.  The camera caught the pain that the retelling of the story was causing.

“The next baby was the longed-for son.  My son. 
My
son,” she repeated.  “My children were given to the first wife, Malekah.  They were treated as though she had given birth to them.”  She closed her eyes again.  “This one they hoped for another boy.”  She rubbed her stomach protectively.  “All the men want boys to come after them.”

She flinched at something and Heather wondered what was going through her mind. She looked over at what Heather guessed was Captain McKellan and asked, “Could we take a break?”

“Of course,” he agreed and the video went blank.  Heather looked up and saw Marsha leaning against the entryway to the living room.  Both women had tears in their eyes.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“I have something to tell you,” Heather began later that evening after the children were in bed.

Marsha tensed, even though nothing about Heather’s demeanor indicated anything might be coming that was going to upset her.  Her fevered imagination was putting together tidbits that her wife had told her since she returned home.  She’d dated others, maybe there was someone else.

“When you first disappeared, they didn’t tell me.  It was only after I inquired as to why I hadn’t heard from you that they finally told me.  You promised to contact me from the base before you shipped out for home,” she reminded Marsha and the black-haired woman nodded.

“I know they repealed DADT and we are allowed to be married in the service now, but they certainly don’t treat us equally,” she said with a tone of bitterness.  “I had to do all the asking and they didn’t tell me much.  After I made a nuisance of myself, a casualty assistance officer came to see me.”

At the word casualty, Marsha started to frown.  “Did they think I was dead?”

“They didn’t know where you were.  There was no sign of the downed helicopter, no crash site, and no survivors.  They just didn’t know.”  She started picking at the frayed edge of her jeans.  She’d pulled her leg up for comfort on the couch and she played with the fronds as she continued her story.  “He explained that he was assigned by the army to assist me in every way possible during the time while my loved one was missing or captured.  Now, it hadn’t occurred to me that you were captured until then.  I thought you were just hurt and unable to make contact with the army.”  She looked up to see Marsha’s reaction to her thoughts.  The black-haired woman looked concerned.  “He explained to me that he was my immediate source for ensuring that I understand all the resources available to me, both military and non-military.  He told me that he would be the one to go to for updates on your status, if there were any.”

“Who had you been going to?”

“Well, when the army stonewalled me, I did try to go through official channels.  I went to your commanding officer.  That was Colonel Brenson, right?”

Marsha nodded, remembering that sharp old bird.  She hadn’t seen him since she got back.  She wondered what had happened to him in the five years she’d been gone.  She waited for Heather to continue.

“He gave me a lot of information.  What I should or shouldn’t say to the news media if they asked.”

“Did they ask?”  Marsha was curious now how her disappearance had been related to the public, much less to her wife.

Heather nodded.  “At first they were on the front lawn, but the police got them to back off to the sidewalk.  We couldn’t go out for weeks because of it.”

“Did you say anything to them?”

“No, the casualty assistance officer—his name was Sergeant Wiggins—he told me not to grant any on camera interviews while they believed you were being held captive.”

“So they thought even then I was being held captive?”

Heather shrugged.  “They spoke in such nonspecific ways that I don’t know what they believed.  I think they wanted me to draw my own conclusions so that they could deny them later.  They asked that I not impede any investigation.  I think the only reason they did anything at all was because I was making a nuisance of myself by asking where you were and what was going on.  It took a while to even find out that your helicopter had gone down.”  Her eyes were pleading for Marsha to understand.

Marsha reached out to stop Heather’s insistent playing with the fronds on her jeans and to hold her hand, encouraging her to go on.

“He pointed out that I
could
give interviews, that I was
free
to talk to the media any time I wanted.  He also pointed that with that kind of freedom there was a heavy burden of responsibility.”

Something about how Heather was reciting this story bothered Marsha.  “Did you feel threatened by that?”

She nodded as she looked into Marsha’s amazing chocolate brown eyes.  “Yes, exactly like that.  He was giving me the official word according to their standard operating procedure, but it was also a warning.  He’d say things like ‘their main concern was your welfare.  If I discussed personal things, our marriage, our child, etc., this could be information that whoever had you might wish to have revealed to them.’  They hinted your captors could use it against you if they got hold of it.”

Marsha was getting angry.  She told herself not to react yet as she needed to hear everything Heather had to say.  She hadn’t liked how the army treated her or her wife thus far, and she was going to give Captain McKellan an earful tomorrow.  “What about your parents or mine?”  She frowned, realizing she should call her own and let them know she was alive.

“I believe Sergeant Wiggins visited them as well to impart how important it was to not to say anything that could be used against you.”

“Did anyone say anything?”

Heather nodded.  “Your parents did after they felt they weren’t getting enough information or cooperation.  They created a big hoopla about things.  They didn’t request the help of an experienced public affairs officer as Wiggins had recommended, and the media twisted things.  The media wanted to know what secret mission you were on, who was on the chopper with you, everything.”  She swallowed as she looked down to the hand that was holding hers.  It was then she realized that the ring that Marsha always wore, to signify their everlasting love, was missing.  There wasn’t even a tan mark to show it had been there.  Unconsciously, her fingers started caressing Marsha’s hand and zoned in on the spot where her wedding ring had been and rubbed.

“Well, my parents aren’t known for their silence,” Marsha answered, not to excuse them, but to admit in a sarcastic way that she was sure it was a time bomb.

“Well, that’s another story,” Heather warned.  She continued with her story.  “He kept telling me I could grant interviews, but that there would be repercussions.  After I refused time and time again to grant any interviews, they went to your parents.  I saw the circus that became.  They gave any and all interviews when asked.  Asking, begging really, for your return.  Showing pictures of Hayley.  It was awful.  The more I refused, the more they persisted.”

Marsha could imagine.  She’d seen the feeding frenzy the media often enacted at the expense of those they intended to interview over the years.  She now wondered if anyone was reporting her return?  She’d have to ask Captain McKellan about that.

“They even told the media about the in vitro fertilization and that Hayley was
your
daughter.  They implied I was
just
raising her
for you.”

“They did what?”  Marsha was incensed and started to rise from the couch.

Heather held onto her hand, tugging her back to the couch.  “Relax, there is nothing you can do about it now.”

“How dare they?” she asked, her eyes blazing.

Heather found the look strangely arousing.  She swallowed.  She had to get this all out and there was more…and worse.  “They wanted to know who the father was.”

“My parents?”

Heather nodded and then added, “And the media.”

“What did you say?”

“I told all of them it was none of their business.  I’m as much Hayley’s mom as you are.”

Marsha smiled, imagining her feisty wife telling them exactly that.  “Yes, you are.”

Heather smiled in return.  It hadn’t been a pleasant time.  “Your parents seemed to think that the more attention they drew to your case, the more interviews they gave, the sooner you would come home.”

“Well, that worked out well, didn’t it?” she asked sarcastically.  She knew her parents hadn’t been happy about her being a lesbian, much less having a child ‘out of wedlock.’  Pointing out that she was married to Heather didn’t seem to change that opinion.

Heather chuckled at her wife’s sarcasm.  She leaned up with her free hand to caress her cheek.  “Easy slugger, there’s more.”