The third death was the hardest since I was present for it which occurred, here, in the desert. Not far from the Benghazi bar, not far from the fortune teller's shop, not far from where I was currently standing. Not in some distant European section where our country was fighting, but here, near her. Everything always seemed to converge in this one spot.
We had been in Libya for only a few months when he fell. I was preparing for the next day's battle when the jasmine visited me late in the evening. I knew since there were only two of us remaining, one of us would not be here to see the sun set the next day. I thought it ironic the death would be in Libya, the desert I had dismissed to her during the reading. I remembered saying how there was nothing in the desert, yet within the day it would claim one of our lives.
The two of us had been in combat several times together and we usually had fought near each other. However, this time we fought in different areas and I was unaware how he had fared. I finally heard through headquarters that his unit had taken heavy casualties and his fate was unknown.
When the battle was over and there was the deathly calm that always seems to follow, I made the decision to search for him. I knew he would still be alive and waiting for me, expecting me to be there for his final moments. I had to find him, to be there for what should be the concluding death from our group.
I searched for some time, into the evening even though it was dangerous for me to do so alone. I don't know how I actually found him; it was only by chance I finally spotted him, on the battlefield's edge. He was off to the side, in the shadow of a burning vehicle, calmly waiting, almost as if he knew I would appear and he wouldn't allow himself the comfort of dying until I arrived. She had warned me his death would be the most difficult, but I still wasn't prepared for how he had been brought down.
He had been cut down, literally almost in two, from the heavy enemy fire. His entrails were exposed and he was drenched in blood. How he was still alive, I could not even begin to imagine. The pain must have been over whelming. I had already seen much death and destruction on the battlefields, but this would be the first time I would see a close, personal friend taken away in such a horrific way. If he had been a horse, I would have immediately shot him, to put both of us out of our misery. Why men are so humane to animals and not to our fellow selves will always remain a mystery to me.
When I found him, I tore off my goggles and slowly approached him. I willed myself to give him the respect the dying man deserved and not bring any shame upon either one of us. I was appalled to see his once magnificent body broken and torn into pieces. And I had the horrible knowledge that there was nothing neither I nor anyone of this world could do for him.
I stripped off my jacket and gently placed it under his head to cushion it from the coarse sand and pebbles. I knelt down beside him, and he clenched my arm with a fierce strength as if he was willing my life into his dying body. He was trying to talk, but the blood in his mouth made it difficult. He couldn't properly speak and the words came out garbled.
"Ellery…" was all I could barely whisper, his name caught in my throat. I didn't know if he would even be able to hear my voice above the sound of the burning vehicles and the occasional exploding munitions. His eyes bored into me, and I could tell he was desperately trying to form words. When he was finally able to articulate, I realized that he had remembered that night, too.
"Is this what…the woman divulged to you?" his words staggered out in short bursts. "You must remember her. The woman fortune teller…our last night in Benghazi before the war. You were the only one she spoke to about the war…did she say that I would be killed, I would not survive? Along with the others? I know the other two are already dead. The fortune teller spoke to you mostly in Arabic…the rest of us couldn't understand what she was saying to you. Are you to be the only one to live through this?"
I agonized over the next few seconds as to what to tell him. An easy lie so he could die in peace and give my conscious a trouble-free break? Or tell him the truth, for my soul and my honor's sake? My honor finally won out and I gave him a slight nod of my head, unable to speak the words.
"Ah, that's what I thought," he said clearly, the blood somehow gone from his mouth. "Then you must ensure the rest of what she said also comes to be true. The American is the key. He will be here sooner than you think," he said with a slight smile as the breath left his lips and the light from his eyes for the final time. His body relaxed and his hand released my arm. My arm was covered in his blood and the desert was stained black with it.
I stood up, looking down at his peaceful body. He had escaped along with the others, but I was still here, left to continue fighting in an ever escalating war. After several minutes, I finally turned and left in the darkness. My jacket remained with him; I did not want to disturb his resting head, did not want his head to make contact with the desert's sand and debris.
For the briefest of moments I felt lost and confused and then I forced myself to gather my strength and control my emotions. That very evening I notified my sister what had happened, mentioning I had been with him when he had left this world for a better place. It was one of the few times I wrote home about death in any of my letters. I had not wanted to be the one to notify her of his death, but I felt it was my duty to the both of them since I knew she would take his death extremely hard.
I had introduced the two of them when he came to our house for a weekend, in one of those carefree periods before the war. She had instantly been attracted to him and they had seriously dated over time and eventually became engaged. My thoughts would sometimes wonder if he would have been my brother-in-law if life had been different, if there had been no war, if we had lived in a country not caught up in this mindless conflict.
I've written dozens of letters over the course of the war notifying loved ones regarding their loss, but this one always remained the most difficult one I wrote. This letter was so personal and had touched me so greatly, reaching out to me from across the years. When I received her reply weeks later, it was heart-wrenching in its despair and extremely uncharacteristic of her.
She cursed the war and the faceless enemy who had killed him. She cursed me for not being there when he needed me in combat, and for not being able to save him afterwards. And finally, she cursed God for taking him away from her for the ridiculous reasons of war. She seemed to forget I, too, was caught up in the war, fighting for something beyond what the simple mindless propaganda could never articulate.
I looked at the photograph after I wrote her; I don't believe the ink on my letter was even dry yet. I debated sending her the photograph, so she would have something tangible of him, but eventually I decided against it. The photograph, I knew down deep inside, belonged with me. It was meant to stay with me. If something happened to me, it would find its way to her then as a reminder of the both of us.
Sometimes, I speculated about someone else looking at the photograph instead of me and what they would see within its simple white border and dog-eared corners. Occasionally, I wondered what had happened to the other three copies. If they were tossed carelessly in a drawer back home, or had my friends carried them in their possessions like I had? Or had they been thrown away years ago and mine was the only surviving copy? Had their families looked at them, wondering about where the photograph was taken, what was happening at that particular moment when the three of us were captured for posterity in black and white?
Looking at the photograph brought me back to what my friend had said. I was uneasy at his mention of the American. How could he have known about the American, but not the rest of her prophecy? I had, of, course, never mentioned anything to anyone What she had said that night. I believed he had only known the silly things she had told him about his mock future.
But yet, there was no denying he had mentioned the American. In fact, he had focused on the American. But what role could he possibly have and why would he be so important to me? Except for the occasional few fighting on both sides, the Americans hadn't yet entered the war so this part remained a mystery for me. He could be one of those few already fighting, but I had not come across any of those few. No, my analytical side made me believe he would not be one of those.
But my friend said he would arrive soon, so I continued to wait for the American, confident that he would materialize at the moment when he was needed, when he was meant to appear. When the United States did enter the war, I knew it was only a matter of time before our paths would cross. I was confident I would recognize him when he finally stepped into my life. But before he made his appearance and solved that part of the riddle, there were other things I believed needed to be finalized here in the desert first.
I tried to find the fortune teller at the first opportunity I had when we again held Benghazi, but she also was gone and I never was able to find her. I easily found the bar, and I could feel the memories from that night so long ago but seeming just like yesterday. I stood next to the small table where I had once sat with Miss Arlene on that carefree night, grinning in spite of myself at the lusty thoughts I had had regarding her.
From the bar, I went in search of the fortune teller's shop. Surprisingly, on my first attempt, I found it, still next to the bakery, just as I remembered it on the dead end street. Apparently, I hadn't been as drunk as I thought that night.
But the shop was shuttered and she wasn't there. Being in uniform, I pushed my authority and forced open the locked door knowing that no one would challenge me. But the shop was dusty and deserted and obviously no one had been in there for years. For a brief moment I thought I caught the fleeting scent of her jasmine perfume, but then it disappeared and couldn't tell if it had been for real or just my hopeful imagination. I went next store to the bakery, to inquire about her, desperately wanting to find her. My soul craved to find her; it needed to find her, to have some type of closure.
The baker, who I vaguely remembered buying bread so from long ago, stepped forward cautiously to see what I wanted. His family cowered behind the counter, obviously scared of the tall uniformed soldier who was seeking something in a simple bakery.
"The woman, who was next door before the war, where is she?" I asked quietly in Arabic to the man, as I towered over him. "It is very important for me to find her. I must speak with her."
"A woman next door? What woman are you talking about?" the man asked, with the question written all over his face.
"The fortune teller!" I screamed, slamming my hand down on the counter for emphasis. At the sound of my strong voice, they all jumped. "Before the war, there was a woman fortune teller next to your bakery. I met her one night and she read my fortune."
"That shop has been empty for over ten years; there's never been a woman there. Before it closed, it was a tailor's shop turning out cheap suits for you…tourists. But I do remember you, quite clearly. You were here with your three infidel friends." He spat on the ground for emphasis as he said this. I thought he was rather bold to do this considering the fact I was obviously armed and extremely on edge.
"The four of you were drunk and you stopped by late one night and underpaid me for several loaves of bread. I guess you four never thought some of us have to work hard for a living, that we don't have everything given to us by rich fathers, like what has happened with you. Yes, you were here, but younger then, and not in uniform.
"Are you drunk now like you were then? Drunk with victory and power? So before you paid pennies for what you wanted, now that you are the current victors, have you come to take it for free? Mark my words, both sides will eventually lose in the long run. In the mean time, I pray to Allah that both sides will kill as many as possible so there will be fewer of all of you to return here in the future." He was becoming bolder with the more words he spoke.
"And your three friends? Where are they? Terrorizing other natives like you or taking 'things' that don't belong to them? Or are they dead? I hope they are all dead, just as I pray death will visit you soon." I had ignored his diatribe up to then, not caring in the least what he thought of our cause or the other side's, for that matter. He could believe what he wished as long as he provided me what I wanted. But his words regarding death drove home to me and bored into my soul. They were too close for comfort. I felt control slipping from myself and I began to lose the reality of the situation.
"For a man who will be dead in the next few seconds, this is not the time for you to express your political thoughts. I do not know what type of game you and she are playing, but I want it to end. Or things will not go well for you and your family. Now I want the woman, and I will not ask for her again," I said with deadly calm, this time not raising my voice.
"But I've already told you the truth. There is no woman! How many times do I have to tell you? Leave us in peace and go back to your madness." At his denial, I fluidly drew my weapon, my patience completely gone. His eyes suddenly grew wide with fright and he began to stammer in a dialect I didn't understand. I quickly armed the gun for emphasis and aimed it a few inches from his head. I looked him directly in the eye, not bothering to say anything else.
"Here! If you must have a woman, take my daughter! But then leave us afterwards. We want nothing to do with your war or you, for that matter. I wish all of your kind had stayed in Europe, leaving the desert to us Arabs." He shoved his daughter toward me, a young girl maybe all of the age of twelve.
I was instantly disgusted with myself for what I had become and immediately put away the weapon. I thought of my mother and sister, realizing what the war could bring to them if our homeland was invaded and we lost the war. And my father? What would he think of his only son's actions? He would save the baker the trouble of killing me by doing it himself for bringing such shame upon our family. I gently placed my hands on the young girl's shoulders, moving her to rejoin her family.
"Please forgive me," I said as I ran my hand over my tired face. I turned and quickly left the bakery, realizing my quest to find her had been strangely fulfilled. I was not meant to find her. No, I was not meant to see her ever again.
And yes, it was within the year after I visited the shop, the American finally appeared. Right on schedule, just like what the both of them had predicted. Again, not far from Benghazi, here in the Libyan desert.