In those brown eyes she'd known for years, ever since she'd been a little girl. But it wouldn't be her first guess. No, she didn't expect her own uncle to be the one who'd kill her. Her father? She would bet her money on him but Bear? Well, life was full of surprises…
She was kneeling on the cold ground, looking into the eyes of her uncle. She knew he had already made that decision and there was no going back. He had to do it. She just wanted it to be fast. Painless. And who knew… Maybe it was just another dream.
"Let me disappear. I will just disappear, I will never come back. You will never hear of me again…
"I'm sorry. It's too late…"
Simone's heart was beating fast. There was nothing she could do to save herself. She wouldn't run from him, no… Not in the forest, not on those heels. And how far would she get anyway? It was probably better to have it done fast, a quick death, rather than freeze to death slowly or be eaten by wolves.
"Please… Please, don't do it…"
But she had nothing to offer. There had never really been anything to offer, that was a sad fact. In a weird, weird way she could understand his decision. It sort of made sense. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Wind was blowing above her head and the forest was quiet. That was it… And she wished to see the moon. Suddenly it was the only thought she had in mind. One last look at the full moon, silver and huge. The always-watching eye… And he really wouldn't come?
Gunshots cut through the still air like fireworks. Dammit, she wouldn't guess she could hear it. She always thought you were dead first.
"Damn…"
Simone opened her eyes and realized it hadn't been Bear's gun. Her uncle was looking around, leaning against a tree. Simone stared at him in surprise. The gunshots came again and with that sharp sound she finally came to her senses. It was then or never.
While she ran through the woods with more gunshots following she thought of it as if it were a movie scene. Because that shit couldn't be happening to her, that was fucking insane. Not only her own uncle wanted to kill her but somehow he failed and she was running through woods on the highest fucking heels she had. Dammit, why had she taken those fucking useless boots?!
She knew she would collapse anytime and found some sort of a relief in that fact. She would run as far as she could and then it wasn't her problem anymore. How… How did it get so fucked up? How could she so fuck up? More or less every decision she had made up to the current point was the stupidest shit ever. And then she was given another chance? What a waste!
She fell on the ground some minutes later, so exhausted she was just catching her breath, wheezing like an old vacuum cleaner. She leaned against a tree and took the boots off, immediately wishing not to. Her feet were a big bloody mess. Sobbing and moaning she pulled the boots back up, her eyes closed, just breathing deeply till her heartbeat slowed down. She looked around. The sun had already been gone and the woods were quickly getting dark. Fucking great. What was that good for again? It would really be much better to die there with Bear. She had no sense of orientation, no clothes, no money… She was fucking screwed. One thing she knew - no more running.
She wrapped her coat around as tight as she could, trembling from coldness and exhaustion. What was that coat so damn small for? So everyone could see her tits? Not exactly a life saving feature at the moment.
Simone fought the urge to cry. All the creaking, haunting sounds around made her blood even colder and she put her hands on her ears and started humming. There was that song… She loved it, she had been listening to it the other day… One of her greatest favourites…
"When your baby leaves you all alone...
And nobody calls you on the phone…
Doncha feel like crying…"
Fucking inappropriate, she thought. What was making all the sounds? Some animals? Night birds? Ghosts? That was stupid, what would ghosts do in a forest. Was it wind? Wind in the trees? Moving branches? And what happened to Bear? Was he still after her? No… No, he must have known she would die here anyway… She herself knew it… Fuck! Where were all those sounds around coming from? All the wheezing, creaking… Moaning… And Simone kept humming. Kept humming that fucking song…
A pair of hands grabbed her shoulders and her heart just stopped. She screamed and would swear that was her end. She sort of tried to fight, punching the air and darkness while still having her eyes closed, thinking how ridiculous that must have looked.
"It's me."
Simone opened her eyes. All she could see of him was a black silhouette with no face.
"Shit! Jesus fucking Christ! You scared the shit out of me, dammit!"
She punched him a few more times and he caught her arms.
"We have to go," Hanzee said.
"No way… I can't fucking move, my feet -"
"We have to," he said. "Get up."
He got her on her feet and started moving away.
"No! Wait, don't leave me here!" she ran forward, yelping in pain as that re-opened all the wounds and blisters on her feet. She grabbed his arm.
"I can't walk!"
"You must," he said. And they walked. Every step was an excruciating torment. She was sure that at the end of all that shit, she would only have a pair of white bones instead of feet. But she walked. Hanging on him like a sack of potatoes, not asking anything, just walking. Hours. Centuries. The wind was howling, the sticks cracking under her boots. She felt her heart up in her throat, the taste of iron in her mouth. After every further step she took she believed she couldn't walk any longer. But she did. Somehow she did.
At one point Hanzee finally stopped. Simone had no idea where they were and why that was a better place than that one before but she couldn't care less.
"Sit down," Hanzee said. Simone just fell on her ass as if somebody cut her legs off. She leaned herself against a tree, her whole body aching like in fire. She looked into the pitch black around and her heart raced again. Where did he disappear to? How could he even see anything in that damn forest?
"Hey… Where are you... " her voice was breaking with exhaustion. He appeared by her side, a figure made only of smoke and shadow.
"We'll wait here till morning," he said and didn't have to tell her twice. She had absolutely no strength left, she couldn't make one more step. What the fuck was going on…
At that moment, flames flickered through the darkness. Beautiful, red and gold flames. Simone crawled toward them like a wounded animal, stretching her weakened arms to the heat. Never before would she imagine that simple fire could make her so happy.
"What happened? What's with Bear?" she asked. "Did you kill him? What's going on?"
"Rest, we'll go on in the morning."
"Are they after us?"
"It's safe for now," he said. "Use that time."
Simone fell silent. She had no power to open her mouth anyway. She was lying on her hip, as close to the fire as possible without burning herself, shaking but craving the warmness of the fire. She found it ridiculous to fall asleep in the forest and in that coldness and she kept drifting in and out of her fitful slumber. Hanzee was sitting on the opposite side of the fire, his face illuminated with the dancing flames. Simone couldn't distinguish whether she was sleeping or awake anymore. All there was was the face in front of her. His face over the fire, completely still and yet so vigilant. It was hypnotic. She felt like floating in darkness with only the sound of the cracking fire and that face watching her. She heard a song, a strange throaty humming coming from the depths of the earth. The song was embracing her, the melody felt ancient and soothing. Who was singing it? It wasn't a human, was it? Was it the wind? Or the ghosts? The spirits?
"Are you singing?"
"You had a dream."
"Yeah… There was somebody singing…"
"Sleep."
"I wanted to disappear, you know… Think that's happening right now…"
Simone put her arm under her head, her eyes focused on the flames. She wasn't even cold anymore. It was hard for her to accept that as reality because everything around was so dreamy. The sounds of the forest and howling of the wind, the fire crackling, sparks flying in the darkness. And Hanzee's face somewhere in front of her, unchanging, as if carved in wood. At that moment she wouldn't be so surprised if all that was some sort of a strange limbo and she had after all been shot by her uncle. There was one thing she knew - everything she had or was used to was gone.
"Do you believe in spirits?" she asked. "Your people believed in them, didn't they?"
"They did."
"Do you?"
He was silent. Simone was looking over the fire at him.
"That's cool, you know… I think that makes much more sense than most of the other bullshit… Ever since I lost that baby I kept imagining it… A little happy ghost somewhere near me… Was really easy to believe that… Really easy… It would be a girl, you know. A cute little blondie and her name would be Marlene…"
Simone sighed.
"Do you think they are here now? The spirits? All around us, in a circle?" she asked.
"Spirits of whom?"
"People we loved. Or people who loved us. I think at least my mother is here. And my baby girl… I would dance with them. You know, like these spirit dances your people do, dancing around the fire at night…"
She held her arm up, waving from side to side, watching the sparks flying above the flames.
"It would be beautiful. The dance of the spirits… Would you dance with me, Indian?"
He got up and walked to the fire to put more wood in it. He looked her in the eyes shortly and she returned the look.
"What's Hanyewi?" she asked. "You didn't think I'd forget it now, did you? Will never forget that talk we had, you know…"
He didn't reply but merely sat back.
"You won't tell me? Not even now?" she asked. Why, she thought. What was it, Indian. What had I ever done that made you save me?
"You know I was praying you'd appear? I was kinda expecting you…"
Simone laughed.
"Sounds stupid, right? Would only make sense if Bear finished me off. Us both. No good can come from us. We shouldn't really be alive. You cannot think the world will be a better place with us in it."
"Would you rather be dead?"
"Oh, shit, no… No, no, no… That's the thing. I wanna live. I'm just saying the person you're saving is pretty shitty. All I care about is myself. I've never cared about anybody else but myself. Saving Simone. That's a fucking suicide, you know. There's no real reason I should be alive. I don't deserve a happy ending. Neither do you but you at least earn your living. I'm more like a parasite. But you are a survivor."
"You think?" he asked.
"Yeah, totally."
Hanzee too was looking into the flames. The key to his thoughts, she pondered. That key had most likely never been made.
"I met a man once, in Vietnam," he said. "He was a native - a village boy not younger than seventeen. He couldn't fight, the only thing he knew was farming. We met him a couple of times. He would give us eggs or milk… Calling us his những người giải phóng."
"And what the fuck is that? Sorry, my Vietnamese is quite rusty."
"Liberators," Hanzee said. "He had six siblings, he was the oldest. We had a camp nearby and some mornings he would come with breakfast. We named him the Waiter. We wanted to move before the wet season would come. But the bombing came first. His village was wiped off. There was nothing left but a big hole in the ground. Everything he had was in that hole. Everyone he knew, every single member of his family. Nobody else from that village made it. We found him hiding in a tree. He was just on his way to our camp. And when he saw us he started crying. He kept hugging us. Over and over, saying cám ơn. Thank you."
Simone listened to him in silence. Even the wind was quiet then, the trees rustling softly.
"Sometimes I still remember him, the Waiter."
"Why?" she asked.
"I couldn't understand it. What made him so happy."
"It must have been hell…" Simone said. "Back there."
"Not much of a difference."
"You've already killed like thousands of people, right?"
He didn't reply and Simone suddenly felt colder. What the hell were the two of them doing there? What brought them there? What the fuck were two such… wrecks… lingering on... But somehow, and she couldn't explain that, it made sense. Somehow they were supposed to be there, at that moment. Ever since she'd known him she had that strange feeling… There was something between them. A vague connection…
"I was thinking… about the spirits. About my daughter. Do you believe there are more possibilities? More versions of one person? Wonder how I'd be if I kept the baby… She'd be like two years now… And you…Where would you be if you never met my grandpa… Didn't start working for him… I wonder about these crossroads, you know. That we only have this one chance in life. I don't think that's fair. I think we should get more chances. It's not always easy to know what's right. And at some point you just cannot try again. It's not always your fault but then… then it's just too late… I shouldn't have been so damn lazy… So damn stupid…"
"Get some sleep," Hanzee said. "I'll wake you early."
"With muffins and coffee, please. And a big fat joint."
Simone closed her eyes. She listened to the fire and wind and the spirits came back and so did the humming, the earthly song, which embraced her and carried her into the dark limbo…
She dreamed about heavy rains washing everything away, soaking her to the bone as she was standing alone in the middle of an endless forest. With the song coming closer and the spirits approaching. A woman, tall and pretty, was watching her. Was it her? And there was a blond girl in a blue dress by her side. Simone watched the girl walk closer. Her little baby girl… Marlene… The girl took Simone's hand and led her to the flames and all three of them started dancing, dancing in a circle around the fire and Simone could feel the hand of her daughter so vividly, she could feel the flesh and bone and blood pulsing. And she felt such love, such incredibly strong, overwhelming love. She was laughing, tears running down her face as she danced with her daughter around the fire, holding her precious hand. The mother and child… The holy connection, the pure link. So sacred… Only made of love and that love had come from far away, not from people or god but from nature, from the universe. There was only goodness, such purifying goodness… Marlene came to her and made her better, she made her good. The mother and child… Oh, she wanted to be that woman. To go back, as far as she could, to reverse and take a different path. She wanted so much to be a good person… But the voice in her head, the suppressed voice of reason, was saying something else. It was just too late.
Simone blinked, awakened suddenly, her stomach hurting from the sickening certainty of their hopelessness. She squinted her eyes. The flames flickered and shimmered into the night and his face was behind them, watching her, his eyes dark and still. He fit into the forest. An animal on guard. A waiting wolf… And it calmed her down. His presence calmed her down. She felt safe with him. She had always had…