‘I managed to warn you, by—’
‘And if you hadn’t gone out, there wouldn’t have been anything to warn us about, right? No hot water, no breakfast, just a quick pack-up and we’re gone. Well, congratulations, Sammy, you got to do a good deed and you got a good man killed in the process. Fuck you very much.’
Karen turned and stalked away, and I just stood there. I suppose a hero in a movie or a made-for-television film would have gone after her to plead his case, to try to explain further, but I was tired. Miriam was back there, waiting for me.
And, after all, I was no hero.
Not at all.
I didn’t feel like talking any more about Karen or Sanjay or anything to do with that day, so I found Miriam and we went outside to a small hillside park near the hospital complex. It was sunny, there was no wind, and it felt more like a pleasant late September day than a late October one. We sat on a picnic table and held hands, and we looked down to the parking lot crowded with APCs, military trucks and a number of ambulances. On a wide lawn on the far side of the parking lot was a small tent city, with some banners flying. I picked out the Red Cross, the UN and one flag that looked German. Wire fencing and guard posts enclosed the parking lot, and there was the steady drone of engines at work.
Miriam leaned against me and said, ‘Did you ever come here, to the United States, before the troubles?’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Plenty of times.’
‘What for?’ she asked. ‘Tourism? To do stories for your newspaper?’
‘The truth?’
‘Of course, the truth.’
I looked into her eyes. ‘It sounds silly, but this is the truth: I used to go to the States like most Canadians did. For the shopping.’
‘Shopping?’ Miriam sounded incredulous.
‘Sure, shopping. The prices were reasonable and you didn’t have the incredible taxes we Canucks have to put up with to pay for a creaky national healthcare system.’
She put her arm round my shoulders. ‘I always wanted to come here, you know. Had a chance once, as a high-school student, but I got sick and couldn’t make it. And when I did eventually come here, well, it was during a very unhappy time. Right after the Security Council resolution authorizing the intervention. I had often dreamed of coming here to the States as a tourist. It never occurred to me that I would be coming here to look for mass graves. Not in my wildest nightmares.’
Or looking for evidence of the people behind the attacks. That was extra—God, was that extra.
Miriam looked around at the scenery, squeezed my shoulder. ‘Such a big, prosperous and unhappy land. I saw a magazine illustration, last year, before the bombings. It showed a county-by-county breakdown of how the vote for President went. A big divide, with lots of hate, mistrust and bad feelings on both sides. And nobody had the will, the vision, to bridge that gap.’
I put a hand on her leg, gave it a squeeze. Below us some vehicles were moving around by the main entrance to the hospital parking lot. I said, ‘We had the same problem for a while, too. Rural versus urban, the west coast versus the maritimes, the Quebecois versus everybody else. Lucky for us, we managed to muddle through.’
‘Mmm,’ she murmured. ‘Muddle through. I like the sound of that. Tell me, Samuel, what do you think will happen here next?’
I was thinking of what to say when the noise level started to increase. Now there were soldiers down there, coming out of some of the tents. Then came the distant sound of approaching helicopters. I shifted and put my own arm around Miriam.
‘Something’s going on, isn’t it?’ she said simply.
‘Yes.’
‘A guess?’
‘I have no idea.’
She broke free from my grasp. ‘Then come along. I want to know what’s happening.’
I got up from the picnic table and followed Miriam down to the large parking lot, though I really wanted to grab her and take her back to my room. I didn’t like the sudden burst of noise and activity but my old reporter’s curiosity was being tickled. Something was indeed going on.
We made our way down the hill and were soon on the pavement of the parking lot. People started moving about, most of them in uniform, and none seemed to be in a mood to talk. Then, luck of luck, Miriam cried out, ‘Peter!’ and, sure enough, there he was. He looked at us both and then at me and said, ‘You know, Samuel, you are doing much better than I could ever have imagined.’
‘Well, I like to surprise people. What’s going on here?’
Peter looked around, his hands on his hips. ‘You mean all this moving around, all these soldiers marching to and fro?’
‘Yes,’ Miriam said. ‘What’s up?’
‘Very simple, really,’ Peter said. ‘You see, the militias are coming.’
I felt cold again and Miriam brought her hand up to her mouth. Peter laughed. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you. What I should have said is that representatives of the militias are heading over. You see, the negotiations are almost complete.’
‘The armistice,’ I said.
Peter nodded. ‘So true. The armistice is back on, so I’m told, but there’s going to be a very steep price.’
‘What’s that?’ Miriam asked.
Peter said, ‘The militia leaders, the ones being held at The Hague. They get sprung, a day ahead of schedule, before any last attempt to find Site A. And in exchange for freeing those bloody murderers the armistice is revived.’
‘That’s a hell of a price,’ I said.
Peter nodded again. ‘True, mate—and I’m sorry to say that it’s a price that’s going to be paid.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The three of us went up by the guarded entrance to the parking lot where there were two columns of armed soldiers flanking both sides of the main gate, the lines stretching into the lot itself. They looked to be Polish troops and I said, ‘Please don’t tell me that’s what I think it is, Peter.’
‘It surely is,’ he said. ‘An honor guard, if you can believe it. A guard of honor for a group of men who don’t even know the meaning of the word. Not on your life.’
Miriam slipped an arm through mine. ‘I think I’m going to become ill, right here.’
Peter said, ‘Then I just might get sick right with you, dear.’
I squeezed her arm and she said, ‘Do you want to leave?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I have to see this. I really do. I can’t believe they’re treating them like this.’
‘Who can?’ Peter said.
So we waited some more while other people drifted over to where we stood by the main gate. Some ambulances were moved, to make room for the visitors, I suppose.
I turned to Peter. ‘Any news about Jean-Paul?’
‘What kind of news you looking for?’
‘Oh, an arrest, conviction, a public confession of his crimes. That’d be a start.’
Peter said, ‘He’s in France now, probably getting some tough questioning from some members of the French government.’
‘Over his betrayal?’ Miriam asked.
‘Oh, hell, no,’ Peter said. ‘They’re going after him because of his real crime, which was embarrassing the French. Everything else is secondary.’
‘Peter, you are such a cynic,’ Miriam said.
‘No, dear, I’m a realist.’
The gate was one of those with a sliding fence portion and now it started moving with a rattle of machinery. The Polish troops stood at attention, though I was pleased to see that, judging from the expressions on some of their faces, they would have preferred to point their rifles toward the gate rather than up in the air. Among us were other aid workers, some soldiers not on immediate duty and various nurses and doctors, some of them in their emergency-room garb. One doctor, smoking a cigarette, said to a nurse, ‘I swear, Gretchen, if those soldiers weren’t there I’d take a scalpel and slit the throat of the first one I see.’