15. The scent of blood
It's as if Ishvar is an event outside of time, a separate life from the one he lives in now. Perhaps, in a way, this is true.
But it creeps up upon him at the oddest times; he could be buying flowers for Elysia or shopping for groceries and the smells and sounds of the market will churn and blur until he has fallen back through the years. Walking through the restaurant court, he tastes the skim of grease on his lips and remembers the taste of roasted human flesh. Past the butcher shop, past some obscure church reeking animal sacrifice, and he remembers the stench of blood cooking in the hot air around him, that same sort of iron decay.
He is a soldier; he is a scientist. Even as the smell becomes an unwelcome taste in the back of his throat, he stands firm against the rising tide of memory. It is a thing to be endured, although at times Riza comes to him, so shaken as he is, like a stoic's wife. She watched with dark, knowing eyes as he drinks, steadily and with purpose, until he is in an unmoving stupor for he night. Then she moves to drape his overcoat about his shoulders, kiss his forehead, and depart for her own bed.
In the morning, they will have their respective aches: those of the heart, the head. Still, they are soldiers; they do not stop for these small, devastating distractions and phantom pains, smells in the head and incessantly twitching fingers.
Such things are to be endured.