Chapter Six
Sayid wondered what all of these spectators hoped to see. Some seemed concerned about the impending fight, and they looked on wearily, like those driving by the scene of an ugly accident: not wanting to see but nevertheless drawn inexorably to the sight. Others appeared as though they were expecting to be entertained, expecting, perhaps to imbibe some kind of vicarious thrill from the exchange.
But this was not going to be anything like the movies these people had amused themselves with back home, Sayid thought. There was no pummeling from which a man might return to grasp victory at the last dramatic minute. Whoever made the first rough contact would already have the advantage; whoever got two or three good blows in a row would likely have the eventual victory. And there would be nothing graceful, nothing choreographed here…just uneven stumbling, cacophonous grunts, and base blood. Sawyer had insisted the loser would be the first to plead for mercy, the first to say, "Please stop."
Sayid had implied the fight was sophomoric, but he had agreed to it; and now that he stood awaiting Eko's word, he entirely forgot his former opinion. The adrenaline coursing through his veins drove away all present concern for propriety or morality. He wanted only to fight and to win.
His concentration broke momentarily when he noticed Kate pushing through to emerge from the crowd, one hand grasping tightly the backpack slung about her shoulder. She did not glance at Sawyer with disappointment—perhaps she had given up expecting anything of him since he had taken the guns. Instead, she looked at Sayid in much the same way she had once looked at Jack when the doctor had allowed Sayid to torture Sawyer.
The Iraqi blinked, turned away from her gaze, and re-focused on Sawyer, who now no longer looked at him with amusement. On his face was printed fierceness softened only by a strong undercurrent of satisfaction. Why did Sawyer appear so certain he would win?
Eko's great hand came down to start the fight, accompanied by the deep tones of his official voice. Sawyer was the first to move, the first to plunge forward. Sayid took only a few steps, to make sure he was not too close to the boundaries, and then he awaited the Southerner's first swing, which he ducked almost gracefully, stepping to one side, spiraling himself back to face his opponent, and brining his fist up all in one seamless motion. Perhaps there was something of the dance in the fight after all, he thought, but not for long. Sawyer's head fell back clumsily when Sayid struck his face. The strange noise of contact was always duller than Sayid expected, even after years of beating men for answers.
Sawyer was not as distraught by losing the first punch as Sayid had expected him to be. He only wiped at the small trickle of blood now slinking slowly from his nose, and he smiled. The smile unnerved Sayid, and he failed to block Sawyer's next blow, reeling back three steps from the force of the fist.
That was the last time the Iraqi permitted his concentration to be ruptured. As the fight continued, there was more dodging than hitting and several attempts to pull one another to the ground. Both men had lost all sense of the onlookers, but those who had never seen a real fight before, those who were anticipating a show, were no doubt disappointed.
At last Sayid managed to strike a blow hard enough to send Sawyer to the ground, and where the cowboy had fallen, Sayid struck him twice more. He pulled back and waited for the agreed upon words. But when Sawyer struggled to stand up, Sayid hit him again. Again the Iraqi waited for the words. And again Sawyer strained to stand.
Eko stepped forward, clearly wanting to end the fight, but he had consented to the rules before hand. There was no down count, only the words, and Sawyer had not spoken the words. The crowd had been cheering for one or the other (usually Sayid, despite the rumors and recent wariness, for Sawyer had days ago spent what little personal capital he possessed), but the people were now painfully silent.
After the cycle of beating and refusal had repeated itself three more times, Sawyer could no longer manage even to sit up. His lip was cracked; his nose was most likely broken, and he was breathing in heavy rasps. "Say it." Sayid did not yell the words in anger or in conquest—he practically whispered them, almost despondently. "Say it, Sawyer."
But Sawyer only smiled through his bleeding mouth and sputtered, "No way, no how, Mohammed."
Reluctantly Sayid hit him again, but he already knew it would be of no use. Sawyer would never say the words. Feeling like an animal caught in a trap, Sayid realized with a growing sense of dread that Sawyer was going to allow himself to be beaten to death.
Sayid knew the look of determination that brightened the fallen man's eyes: he had seen it occasionally in the faces of his victims in the dank interrogation rooms of the Republican Guard. He had seen that look, too, in Nadia's eyes. He had not hit her again after that single, initial strike, when the sight of her head reeling had set his stomach churning. But he had known from her eyes that even if he had continued to beat her, she would not have broken. He had pleaded with her to choose her own life over that of her friends, and she had refused. How could there be so much will in the world?
Sayid did not know how much more Sawyer could take. As an interrogator, the Iraqi had once misjudged the endurance of his victim; he had thought that just one more blow would elicit whatever meaningless confession the suspect was supposed to make. But it had only silenced him forever. Sayid swallowed hard when he recalled the scene, and he looked at Sawyer with gritted teeth.
This was the cowboy's last con. Sawyer had known all along that he was going to win this fight—one way or the other. He could humiliate Sayid through victory, by making him plead for mercy, or he could destroy Sayid by turning him again into a murderer, and when the Iraqi fell this time, the impact would finally shatter him, and he would be too defiled ever to rise again.
And maybe this latter course, thought Sayid, was the real victory Sawyer had coveted from the beginning: the chance to prove, though it cost him his own life, that Sayid really was the baser man. Sayid knew that Sawyer resented him, but the self-destructive depth of that resentment startled him now. He had not been anticipating this. Sawyer had told him the previous night, "You still believe you're civilized." He hadn't feared Sayid's knife then. But now…now perhaps Sawyer thought that the heat of the fight and Sayid's desire to obtain the guns would overturn that pretense, and Sawyer could at last expose to the community what he believed to be the Iraqi's true nature.
Sayid thought he had been walking a path of reformation. He had stumbled when he had tortured Sawyer, and he had regretted the fall; he had imposed a wandering penance on himself. He had been purged by his encounter with Rousseau, and he had re-entered the society of the survivors determined to start anew. But what if he only thought he had been purged? What if he had been living a kind of fleeting fantasy with Shannon, and what if Sawyer's assessment of his character was right after all? If Jack had not intervened, Sayid may perhaps have beaten Gale to death, not because he misjudged the man's endurance but because he was simply too out of control to care whether he killed him. And Sawyer must believe he was vile enough to do the same thing now, even to one of his fellow survivors.
Sayid looked down at the bloodied man, and then he looked up and caught the divided expression of judgment and compassion in Kate's features. Sawyer had already half-won, perhaps: Kate, at least, was looking upon Sayid as though he were a savage, but she had more sympathy for Sawyer than any other person on this island, and it was not too late to walk away.
Sayid stepped back. "This is over," he said.
Sawyer shook his head slightly, as much as he could managed, and muttered, "You don't get the guns until you make me say the words."
"You are beaten. Simply admit it." Sayid knew that he spoke in vain.
"No words, no guns. You have to make me say the words. We agreed."
"No guns then," answered Sayid, and he turned and pushed through the crowd, walking quickly away from the spectators, from the mangled mass that was Sawyer, and from the searing memory of a persistent past that refused to retreat more than a step behind him.