Where the path had widened there were some park benches, and a small metal and wood hut that had refreshments/souvenirs displayed on a red, white and blue sign overhead. Above the tarpaulin was a rock overhang, and the place was thick with evergreens and brush. Not much chance of air surveillance finding anything out. Miriam put down her bag and started taking some things out. ‘This will help,’ she said. ‘Trust me, I know.’
She opened up a little glass bottle of some type of cold cream, which she smeared on my upper lip and in each nostril. Vicks VapoRub rides again. Just like that time -ages ago, it seemed—when we had excavated those cows back at that burned-out farm. The smell was overwhelming, but it was a heavy mint scent that at least overwhelmed everything else. She did the same with Charlie and Peter, and then passed out little paper face-masks as though we were heading into surgery or some damn thing. Lastly, rubber gloves and clear safety glasses. I put everything on, feeling hot and uncomfortable and not quite understanding how the mine-clearing crew could be doing their job. More people were coming up behind us on the path, and they weren’t as prepared as Miriam, for most had handkerchiefs around their faces.
One of the mine-clearing crew came up to me and pulled up his gas mask, his face red and sweating, his black hair sticking to his wet forehead. He said in a thick accent, ‘Things OK here. You want us to open it up?’
I nodded, too stunned to appreciate that he had asked me instead of Peter or Miriam or anybody else. ‘Yeah, open it up.’
He turned and shouted something—in Slovakian, maybe?—and two of the crew went to one side of the tarpaulin. Ropes and turnbuckles were holding down the side of the heavy canvas, and the mine-clearing crew went to work. The ropes snapped free and two men grabbed a corner and started pulling it back. And damn it if there wasn’t an awful gurgling, burping noise as the foul air inside the mine entrance was set free. I got dizzy and walked a few steps, took a deep breath, removed my face-mask, and threw up on the ground. My breakfast came up in three heavy spasms, and I felt enormously embarrassed until I stood up, wiped my face with a coat sleeve and looked around. Except for the men with the gas masks and Charlie, everyone else was standing there as well, a wet mess on the ground around their feet, their eyes glassy and their lips shiny-wet with saliva.
We waited some more while an engineering crew came up with large round metal blower fans, which they set up at the mine entrance. Another engineering crew went to work with a generator, powering up the lights within the mine shaft. With the tarpaulin gone, I could make out the round entrance fairly well. There were timbers holding up the sides and the roof, and it looked big enough to drive a truck into. The low roar of the fans was swamped some by the sound of the helicopters hovering overhead and that of the vehicles moving around in the parking lot. General Hale came over to me and said, ‘The air quality in there is about as good as it’s going to get. Since you led us here, I think protocol should be damned and you should have first crack at taking a look. That all right, son?’
I picked up my gear and said, ‘Only if Peter and Miriam and Charlie go with me. They’re my crew.’
‘Of course,’ Hale said.
The three of them, all dressed like me with face-masks and rubber gloves and safety glasses, joined me as we went up the dirt roadway into the entrance of the mine. The walls and the roof were rough-hewn rock. The blower fans were switched off and a small crowd of a couple of dozen watched us go in. Temporary lights had been set up at the entrance to provide even more light, and I froze as we took just one step in, for I had seen a small child on the ground. Miriam bumped into me and said, ‘What’s wrong?’ I just looked down at the tiny figure and then squatted down on the ground. The doll weighed almost nothing, and its long blonde braids and its cloth face were dirty. I looked ahead to the shapes lying there, stretching out into the darkness, and I stood up, the doll in my hands.
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ I said. ‘But everything’s wrong.’
‘Yes,’ Miriam said.
I looked over at Peter and Charlie, who seemed to be waiting for me to do something. Even with all that was no doubt going on inside his head, Peter stood still, no real expression on his face. So I went ahead, turned round and said, ‘Welcome to Site A.’
And one of the horrible things, though I’m not sure if it was the worst thing or not, was how damn easy this was going to be. The militia units or rogue state police or whoever had been in charge here had created an efficient system. The mine shaft went in for a couple of hundred meters and there was still enough room to walk down the middle. On each side, lined up one after another, were the bodies, wrapped in green plastic garbage bags secured with twine. The smell was horrific, a deep, thick odor of decay and sweet-sourness that seemed to ooze right into our pores. The light overhead came from single light bulbs dangling from long power lines, and they wavered some in the air flow, making the shadows quake upon the long lines of dead men, women and children. I wasn’t sure what was worse: the sight of all those green-wrapped bodies, stretching out, or the sight of the wet stone floor where the bodily fluids had been leaking out. We walked in slowly, using flashlights to help light our way, and I had to look away each time there was a shorter bundle lying next to a longer one.
Peter led the way and Miriam was beside me. She pulled my head close and said, ‘The hate, my God, so much hate.’
Charlie was behind us, his face cold and impassive, and I knew that if we’d been back at the hospital parking lot he would have opened fire in an instant on the militia representatives who were waiting there, hoping for another armistice.
Then the path ended, at an exhibit of rusting old machinery. There were no more bodies. Just the gloom of the mine shaft, now descending at a steeper angle. Peter leaned in, flashed his light down there, and said, his voice muffled, ‘There might be more, tossed down the shaft. We’ll have to send a crew in there with lights and ropes.’
Miriam looked back at the little round spot of light that was the entrance to the tunnel. I stood beside her and shifted my duffel bag from one shoulder to the other. I knew we had work to do, I knew my gear was ready to be pulled out and used, but the sheer scale of everything overwhelmed me. It was like trying to excavate a house foundation using nothing more than a teaspoon.
‘Two hundred and twelve,’ Peter announced.
‘Excuse me?’ I said.
‘Two hundred and twelve,’ he said. ‘That’s how many bodies are in here. Look, we’ve got work to do. We’ve got to get that engineer unit in here, make sure the bodies aren’t booby-trapped, and we’ve got to do everything we can before night falls.’
Charlie said, ‘I think you’re too late, man. It’s already twilight. Can’t you see?’
I think Peter was going to say something about it not even being noontime yet, but he looked at Charlie’s face and knew what he meant. I could only imagine what it must be like to see so many of your countrymen laid out like that, dead, for the crime of being hungry and being from away and for being different. That was all.
For being different.
Several hours later I was on an exposed piece of rock that was getting some late-afternoon sun, near the entrance of the mine shaft. The two helicopters were still overhead, doing their patrol work, making sure, I guess, that nobody was creeping around to steal the bodies. I’d taken off my gloves, safety glasses and mask and they were in a little pile at my feet, and the cream over my lip and in my nostrils was doing its job as best it could. I had a liter bottle of mineral water, which I was sipping slowly. I was into some sort of nutty routine where I would take a gulp of water, swish it around, spit it out, then take another gulp, and then swallow it. I think I was fooling myself into thinking that maybe I was rinsing out whatever bacteria and odors were coming in from the open mine shaft before I swallowed the next gulp of water.