Disclaimer: I don't own anything at all.
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'Who is he who dies without death? Are you going to the kingdom of the dead people? " (The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto VIII, 84-85)
Operation "Iraqi Freedom" 4th Infantry Division Headquarter,
Tikrit,
Iraq, 2007
The tent was immersed in silence, broken only by the quiet laughter of a group of soldiers in a corner, intent on telling something that Richard could not hear lying on his cot, his arms crossed behind his head, lost in the images of the day just passed.
On the other side of the world Christmas had just passed, and he decided to open a book that he kept under his cot to extract the last letter from his family for that holiday, accompanied by a recent ultrasound of Susan: his sister would have had a boy, shortly thereafter, and Richard wondered when he would be able to see him while some of his comrades hoped to drown the melancholy of distance from home - and probably exorcise the mourning of losses that day - in a very bad rum bought under the counter.
"Shit, guys, I guess it's a mess." Everyone turned to the high-colored military just returned to the tent. Richard put the letter down and stood up on his elbows, without getting up from the cot: the boy's return was quite expected.
"Well, did you understand something, Baker?" One of the group asked, approaching him.
"General Connor is gone now, Coleman is still inside." He communicated that, and a red-haired boy with eyes brushed his eyes.
"Now?" Churches in disbelief.
"You mean they were in there ... how much, six hours?"
"More or less." Agreed another, shrugging. Baker was silent for a long moment.
"Major Tenou was pissed off black, a genuine beast."
"I believe it, I think Connor fucked him for good." He commented, crossing his arms, but Baker shook his head.
"You do not understand, it's Tenou fucking as much as Coleman as General Connor." The Major's screams were heard from outside, not even a reply from the two little lambs.
A couple laughed, and Banks decided to get up from the cot, approaching the little group.
"And now?" He went back to ask the red-haired guy.
"Is not that going to move him?"
"I mean," he shrugged, "Connor is still a general, screaming at him like that ... "
"If they transfer the Major, I'll take my leave." One broke out, and gradually everyone began to nod, pleading for the cause.
"Bullshit, it's that Tenou is a bloody hell, I'll tell you." They turned to the boy who had spoken, a Minnesota guy standing at the back of the group and shaking his head.
"He thinks God knows what god on earth only because he knows he can call his father and get rid of the mess, but he can not afford to do the good and bad weather with superiors just for his surname."
"Major Tenou does not make good or bad weather, as you say, hiding behind his name." Richard decided it was time to intervene, stepping forward. "If he put forward his opinions, it's because he was right, the bullshit made it by the central command, certainly not us." Nor did he stop for a second.
"Not even him."
"If the central command decided so, Tenou is not a damn thing to believe that the opposite was right, we are here to execute orders."
"Execute orders?" Banks was thrilled.
"Let me understand, Gibbs, if they told you to shoot a mob of civilians, would you do it because you're doing the orders?"
"Okay, guys, let's be calm," Baker began, putting himself between Richard and the other, whose tones had become dangerously hot.
"We are all a bit shaken, after today and-"
"I did not come up here to make some fucking questions." Gibbs interrupted him, overlooking the dormitory. Richard's eyes were a crack.
"Do you know who said 'I only executed orders'," the Nazis said in Nuremberg. "
"You're giving me the Nazi, uh?" Gibbs approached Richard charging, and two soldiers blocked him while Banks was kept still by Baker.
"You are a fanatical son of a bitch, Gibbs!" The boy burst out, and the other tugged at his constrictors. "And I should get insulted by you, Richard, but fuck you!"
"Guys, stop it." The red-haired boy tried to quell the spirits, but Gibbs continued undeterred.
"Just because you are always with Tenou you think so much superior to us? Today you are soiled with blood as much as me, asshole!"
"Now stop!" Baker's vocation resounded in the tent so loud that it seemed to Richard to have echoed it, even though it was an impossible thing according to all the laws of physics.
"What the fuck is on your mind? Do you want to send in containment, uh? The silence took over the excited moments, and after a long moment - and a sign from Baker - Gibbs was freed from the grip of the other two soldiers.
"Okay, I'm calm," he began to say, stroking his shirt." I'm calm. "
"Go for a ride, Gibbs." The other ordered him, pushing him toward the entrance of the tent, and he disappeared into the darkness of the camp without having to repeat it.
"Forget it, Richard, you know what it's like." Baker accompanied the words with a pat on the back, and Banks just smiled at the gesture of the imposing comrade. They remained silent, then the red opened his mouth to speak.
"Well, but Gibbs is not that he was wrong." At the sidelong glances he received a little from everyone, he hastened to finish the sentence.
"About Tenou, I mean."
"They will not move him, but not because he's a daddy's son. Tenou grew up with the war, he seemed born to be at the front, and his father told him how not to get his feet on his head. " Baker answered, crossing his arms to his chest.
"I can assure you that, if he could, the Major would give away his last name." Nobody replied to Richard's words, which he continued.
"It's not as they say. Tenou can not count on his father's support and, indeed, if he does some bullshit, the General would be the first to attack him. I'm sure. "
"Why do you defend him so much, Richard?" Banks looked puzzled at the boy who had just asked him the question.
"It's not that Tenou likes boys, and you and him ..."
Richard laughed at that not so veiled supposition, more than anything because if the Major had liked men there would have been nothing strange; indeed, it would have been completely normal. He tried to hide the reaction to that thought, while a chorus of protests poured over the author of the comment. "Come on, let's imagine!" Another broke.
"I mean, did you see him, fuck? That's the classic guy who has all the cunt he wants to snap his fingers." Then, glancing at the dormitory, he shook his head.
"But what do you want to know, I bet women run away when they see you." Everyone laughed, and Richard shook his head.
"Major Tenou is a good person." He then said, drawing attention to himself. "We forget it, but it bears the burden of many burdens alone, and it's in a difficult position."
"And when do things like today happen?" Richard was silent for a moment, reflecting on the decisions made by Tenou that day. Then he shook his head, spreading his arms. "We are human beings, Baker, we all make mistakes." He pulled a sigh, and grabbing the field jacket started toward the exit of the tent. "I need to get some air myself too." He bumped into Gibbs, who was coming back, and he did not even give him a glance. He crossed the space between the various aligned tents, reaching the building where Haruka's office was located: there was no light from the window, and he imagined that Colonel Coleman had gone too, and Tenou had finally given in to the call of the branda, to indulge in a well-deserved rest after a day like this.
He turned to go back, and won the idea that his doubts and questions would remain unanswered. But an image reappeared in a corner of his mind, and, looking back at the window, his eyes narrowed in the effort to focus on the detail that had made him retrace his steps, he could see a faint glow give the room a nuance. purple. He smiled, and went into what had been the main structure of the ex-factory, and walking as quietly as he could get to the door of the Major's office. He swallowed, knocking on knuckles. He got no answer, so he opened the door creaking noisily. Richard closed his eyes as he buried his neck between his shoulders, the disturbing noise amplified by the silence of the building.
"Richard, Silent like an elephant." The soldier was surprised by how Tenou recognized him instantly, then smiled at the joke. Peering into the darkness of the office, lit only by a small field torch placed horizontally under the window, he wondered where the hell his superior was since there seemed no trace.
Then he spotted a pair of legs spilling out where the desk stopped, and approached the cabinet.
"How did you understand that it was me?" He asked, surprised when the other was in his field of vision, long on the floor, the backs of her hands crossed over her forehead. She was still wearing the dirty field uniform of Iraqi civilians, and her face smeared with sand and dust.
"Who else could it be at this hour, so daring?" Richard smiled, then the realization hit him. "What's on the ground?"
"It helps me to reflect, when I have too many thoughts in my head." That remained thoughtful.
"Do you feel good?" Haruka sighed, and bent her neck a little to meet her gaze.
"You know Banks, you're the first to ask me." The boy shrugged, embarrassed. Then he crossed his legs and sat down next to Tenou, scratching his black mop.
"Why are you here?"
"I wanted to see how you were doing, today was a heavy day, and then the meeting with Coleman and Connor ..." She did not move, but grunted in the name of the two superiors.
"Will they punish you, Major?" Haruka did not answer, and Richard felt encouraged to continue. "We saw the Connor leave with his tail between his legs, and felt-"
"They will not punish me, Richard." The other interrupted him, sitting down and accompanying the gesture with a loud 'Ouff'.
"They know they were wrong, but they had to make a big voice with someone wide enough to take responsibility for when this story comes to the media." A slight smile curled Tenou's lips.
"Only they chose the wrong person to overthrow their shit." Richard did not reply, lacing his hands around his knees. They remained silent for a long moment, and when he spoke Haruka had to work hard to understand.
"What happened today, Major?" Haruka looked at him without emotion.
"You were there too, you know very well what's next"
"He understood what I mean." The other interrupted her.
"I thought our role was to help these people, Major, so I can not understand what happened this morning." Tenou took a deep breath and tilted his head back, looking at the crusted ceiling.
"Today was something that could be avoided, Richard. A sum of errors I want to believe will not be repeated, but we both know well that something similar will happen again." The other did not reply.
"I asked myself the same question, Banks, whether you want to believe it or not, see," he began to tell him after looking for the look, the same tone of a benevolent aunt. "I try to do my job the best I make decisions that will inevitably please someone and piss off others, but that's okay, because people's lives depend on those decisions, and I can not treat the subject lightly." He paused, allowing Richard to absorb everything he was saying best. "And unlike someone, like that gentleman who just left and who holds the rank of General, I still value human life." Richard did not look away from Haruka's, who continued.
"Then it happens that Baghdad decides to start bombing a village southeast of Tikrit, because according to the secret services there are dangerous terrorists, and that the so-called," Haruka raised the indices and the middle of the hands, bending them, "'smart bombs' instead of smart do not really have a cock."
Banks closed his eyes, the images of destruction and despair seen among the civilians on which their bombs had come down mercilessly.
"It's at this point, Richard, that I ask your question." Haruka's words made him open his eyes.
"If I am here to help these people, why do I find myself with a real massacre in a place under my direct jurisdiction? What am I doing, if my efforts are thwarted by those who identify a human being only as a dot on a radar? "
"You did not intervene the Military Engineers, and that building collapsed with our boys inside." Richard whispered, and the silence enveloped them, as heavy as the events they had witnessed that day. Then Haruka shook her head.
"I did not think it could come down in such a short time, and those of MSF kept saying that inside there were women, old people, children," she said. "You saw what the fuck was down there, and there was also to organize the security cordon, close the accesses but open the streets of the humanitarian corridor waiting for the arrival of the Genius would have been too high a risk, and would have created further confusion, but I could not even leave those people in there. "
Banks remained silent, and Haruka continued, running a hand through her dusty hair.
"Maybe I could handle the situation differently, Richard, but it's gone now. The silence saturated the room again.
"If there is only one thing that I am grateful to my father, that is having taught me to take on my responsibilities, and I take all of them, up to the last, for the mistakes I have committed today, without hurling them no one else, but if someone else does not do it I can not even pay for those who do not have enough balls. "
Richard looked at her, nodding. Before Haruka added,
"I mean, technically I do not even have any balls." Banks looked at her puzzled, and a light laugh came from his lips. Then he became serious.
"I trust you, Major." He told her after a long moment, and a bitter smile bent Haruka's lips. "I try to make mistakes as little as possible, Richard, but it's not easy, it's not easy at all."
"What will happen now?" The question caught her by surprise, but tried not to give it too obvious. Surely the Sunnis would not have left an unjustified massacre of unpunished civilians, and she knew that well. She just shook her head.
"I don't know, we just have to wait, we're not allowed." Richard watched Haruka stand up, and after a moment he imitated her.
"I need to take a shower, Banks, and I think it's time you go to sleep."
"Go and rest her too, Major, you look horrible." Haruka frowned, heading for her office door.
"Say a little, but did you see yourself?" She patted him on the shoulder, pushing him out of the room.
"Ah, Major." Banks called the other's attention when they were outside.
"I spoke with Colleen, down at the Oasis, and in a month they open the school, and they thought-"
"We'll take care of the escort, Richard, do not worry." Haruka reassured him, who then became thoughtful.
"In a month, did you say?" He nodded. "An exact month, January 27." A faint smile curled Haruka's lips, and after she had dismissed Richard, she began to walk slowly through the camp, the murmur of her soldiers inside the tents to accompany the crossing. She arrived at the building where the showers were located, not far from her lodgings, and after making sure no one was inside she barred the door. She opened the hot water jet inside one of the boxes, and stopped after unbuttoning the first dirty uniform button, watching the liquid hit the shower tray violently.
Her head was still full of the screams that the women had turned to her, and that Richard had translated as supplications to help them. In the eyes the image of the dead, of the buildings gutted by their own bombs. She saw the faces of every soldier of her team who had been buried by the collapse, and who had to identify herself, tearing off one of the two identification plates at the neck of the corpses in the macabre ritual that competed as the highest graduate in the field.
Boys who had sent herself into the building, to try to recover the injured. She took a step, and the amphibian was drenched, followed by the fabric of the trousers. And moving the other leg, too, she let herself be invested by the water, the wet clothes that weighed down on her. She put her hands on the wall in front of her, and bent her head, the jet that now hit her neck.
"In a month is my birthday," she murmured, covered in the noise of the shower, while the water soaked her hair and ran down her face, on her nose, between her lips. On her eyes, which she tightened up to get hurt, hoping that everything could disappear.
You included.
x
Operation "Iraqi Freedom",
'The Oasis School for Children' (Former Iraqi
Army Barraks)
Tikrit,
Iraq
27January 2008
It was sunny, that day.
Haruka narrowed her eyes to focus on the silhouettes of the children against the light that, around Colleen, hummed a tune that she could not immediately identify. She put the shotgun in her arms and after she had left with a finger the heavy bulletproof vest that stifled it in the midday heat, in the illusion of being able to breathe better, she began to approach the small group.
After two steps, she tilted her head towards the receiver hooked to one of the straps. "Alpha to Charlie, will you receive me?" 'Here Charlie. I receive strong and clear, Alpha. Step.'
She croaked the object. "How's the situation in those parts?" Step. "
'We have put roadblocks on the perimeter of the security cordon, no one can enter or leave without realizing it, sir.'
Haruka nodded as Lieutenant Russell explained to her every single movement made to ensure the highest degree of security inside the cord, within a radius of thirty kilometers of which the school that the Oasis was about to inaugurate was the center.
"All right, for the moment it seems to me there's nothing left to do."
Agreed Haruka when Charlie had concluded the explanatory phase. "The usual recommendations: well-opened eyes and shoot only if absolutely necessary. '
At the checkpoints I only put soldiers who had already done it before, as he had told me. Step.'
"Very well." The management of the blocks was a rather delicate matter, and among the various provisions on which Haruka did not transact, one was the one that only soldiers with a certain degree of experience were stationed at the outposts: the last thing she wanted was that a frightened boy started to shoot because I panicked about not knowing what to do.
"It's all, Charlie." She then said. "Alpha closes."
Haruka pushed a side key and the receiver made a noise before silencing. Now she was close to the small group of children, and shuddered when she recognized the nursery rhyme they had begun to sing.
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe Catch a tiger by the toe If he hollers let him go, Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.
She returned to her room in Washington. Her mother was holding her on the legs and tickling her, holding her by the wrists, giving her the impression that he would drop her backwards. And the smile that curved her lips disappeared when in that memory the image of the General insinuated, saying that he no longer wanted to hear that idiotic little song between the walls of his house, and the next quarrel that had been between him and her mother. Only after many years had she understood the reason for Takeshi's annoyance for that nursery rhyme.
She saw Colleen's gaze realize her presence, and in Arabic she addressed the children asking them to greet the Major Tenou together: the chorus of vocabulary did not wait and Haruka rolled her eyes, yet she could not prevent a slight smile peeked out from under the camouflage helmet. "Hello, hello." She said, moving a hand, while Colleen approached her.
"Do you know that this nursery rhyme is born with extremely racist connotations?" The woman tilted her head, crossing her arms.
"It's a little song for kids, Major, and no one here said Negro, if I'm not mistaken." Haruka glanced at the children, who were now dispersing in the company of the other volunteers.
"There is also a version against the Japanese, they sang it during the Second World War." Colleen looked at her puzzled for a second. Then she realized the name of the Major, and the connection hit her in full, leaving behind a slight exclamation of amazement.
"The air is the same, but it did more or less like this: Eeny, meeny, miny, moe / Catch a Jap by his toe / If he hollers make him say, /" I surrender, USA! "" The other did not immediately answer.
"This is beautiful, I did not know it." Haruka smiled, shrugging, and did not reply.
"Say a little, Major, will not you be a bit 'too much today?" Colleen then asked, turning right and left to embrace the whole area of the former barracks with her eyes.
Tenou glanced quickly at the soldiers stationed at the entrance gate, then at those who had dislocated the perimeter of the area, and who looked like they were bored to death.
"Better to be numerous than insufficient, Colleen."
"But what could happen, Major?" Churches, a note decidedly hopeful in the voice.
"Who would be so petty to attack a school?" The look Haruka gave her was not the most encouraging.
"I learned to expect everything in this place, Colleen." She told her flatly, and they remained silent for several moments.
"How come the children are not inside yet?" Asked then Haruka, and Colleen recovered from the discomfort of the response that the military had procured.
"We are waiting for a couple of UNICEF leaders to officially give it to you, and that they would like to talk to you, to thank you."
"Forget it, tell me I'm not there." It was the annoyance, and Colleen laughed.
"And then we're waiting for the balloons." A red light lit in a corner of Haruka's mind. "Balloons?" The other nodded.
"Yes. One of our volunteers is a friend of a guy who owned a toy store once, you know, before Saddam, austerity and everything else, he went to the birthday parties, and he got in the van full of balloons. , with which he made dogs, ducks, that kind of thing that kids like. " Haruka folded her head, receiver in hand.
"Why did not I know anything about it?"
"It was decided at the last moment, the guy did not know if this guy was willing or not to come, but I can assure you that he's okay-"
"I decide who's okay and who's not, Colleen." The frozen Haruka.
"The contingencies never bring anything good."
"You're exaggerating." Cuttered Colleen. "They're just balloons!"
"I hope you're right." She merely told her, before looking for a familiar face among her soldiers. Which she identified after a moment, together with another equally known face.
"Banks!" She called, and he took a moment to leave his interlocutor, reaching Haruka after a slight ride made difficult by the heavy equipment he wore.
"Banks, I need you to go with Colleen," instructed the boy, who nodded. Then he turned to the woman.
"Look for that volunteer, I need the extremes of the vehicle on which your joust will arrive"
"What carousel?" Richard asked, and Colleen spread her arms.
"He's not a carter, he's just a guy who will bring balloons for the kids."
"It's a nice idea, Major." Agreed the boy looking for the eyes of the superior, who rolled her eyes.
"Yeah amazing." Murmured the Major a bit because of the heat, the exhaustion, partly because she could not drive away the very strong worry that had crept into her head at the news of this variable of which she had no direct control. She felt a light step approaching her shoulders, and sensing that the person she belonged to was trying to catch her by surprise, let her do it. She smiled when a pair of hands covered her eyes.
"Guess who?" The female voice broke out, and Haruka shrugged. "I have no idea." She heard a laugh, and her voice lowered.
"Let me see," she began.
"I'm nineteen, I was born in Tikrit and I really like you." Haruka snapped her lips, and taking her hands off her eyes, she turned to look at Samira's gaze.
"It was not funny, missy, was it?"
"Are you still mad at me?" She asked the other, intertwining her hands just above her belly. Haruka remained thoughtful for a long moment.
"I'm not."
"Are you sure?"
"I've said I'm not mad at you, Samira, but I could change my mind if you stay here a bit more." The young Arab gave her a bright smile, her dark eyes equally smiling.
"Where is your chador?" Haruka asked her when she realized what the other one had different. Samira looked down, embarrassed, starting to torment herself with the index of her left hand a dark curl. "Oh, well," she began. Then she spoke in such a low voice that Haruka could not understand her. "What?"
"Richard likes my hair." She repeated in a slightly higher voice, and a smile was painted on Haruka's face.
"So you're totally embracing the western style, now, thanks that fucking moron." Samira smiled at the epithet Haruka had given to Richard, but assuming a fake angry air hit her at the bulletproof vest.
"He's not a moron. He's so nice, and sweet." Tenou smiled as the girl looked for her.
"You were right, Ruka. He's a good boy and he really cares about me."
"I know, I'm always right." She then added, and Samira tilted her head to the side, amused. But she immediately returned seriously.
"But I really, deeply like you and I do not want to make a choice"
"There's no choice, Missy." The other interrupted her, the face an impassive mask. "It's Richard, That's all." Samira did not answer right away, and she could not do it since both Richard and Colleen came back to approach Tenou.
"Major, here's the way you wanted," Banks began, pulling a small notebook out of a uniform pocket under the bulletproof, from which he tore off a sheet of paper that he handed to Haruka: that gave him a quick glance before bringing his hand to receiver and move away a few steps.
"Alpha to Charlie. I need a carpet control on the perimeter for a," she opened the paper, starting to read, "Volskswagen Transporter T3 of '79, white." The receiver was silent, then croaked the answer.
'Charlie to Alpha. Received, Lord. Any problems?'
"I hope not, but if you find him stop him, and search the vehicle before he can get here." He turned back to the triad formed by Colleen, Richard and Samira, and it was not long before the recipient came back to talk. 'Charlie to Alpha. It seems that the vehicle that has shown us is heading towards you from the south-east. Step.' Haruka snapped her lips.
"Route the blocks closer to him. Step. "
'But two stations will remain uncovered. Step'
"I know, but I have a bad feeling, I want the absolute certainty that the guy is clean, even disassemble the engine if necessary." Half an hour passed, during which Haruka reviewed the provisions of the escort at the Oasis and constantly followed any news coming from Charlie on what they had now renamed the carousel: finally came the communication that the guy was absolutely right, but Haruka could not relax. From the gate to the entrance they communicated the presence of an approaching vehicle, and Richard joined the guards, then pointing out to Tenou, who was the Transporter they were waiting for: the van was allowed to pass, and the small jolt of the half Haruka wondered why no one had thought to pave the ridge immediately after entry. The children approached running the white van from which came out a tall man, dark-skinned and beard sprayed with gray. A few kids clung to the long dress he wore, while smiling he opened the back of the Transporter, revealing cardboard boxes and a helium bottle.
"So, my friend, are you all right?" Haruka asked when she was near, and he looked at her for a moment, immediately looking away. "Do you understand me, huh?" The man looked back at her, and shook his head. He said something in Arabic, touching one of the boxes and the kids shouted for joy.
"Wait up." Haruka put the M16 between the other and the inside of the vehicle, preventing him from entering. "You do not mind if I take a look in here, do you?"
He squeezed, spreading his arms.
I heard Samira's voice a short distance from her, by the hand of a little girl aged four and a half, while the man's gaze, fixed now on the young Arab, turned from amazement to disgust.
"Tell him I do not mind, because I'm a pain the ass." Haruka stepped into the van, remaining bent so as not to bump her head, starting to move the boxes to check the walls and floor of the Transporter.
She opened one, inserting her hand that touched only the smooth and rubbery latex of deflated balloons. She took another look at the floor, then raised her eyes to inspect the inside of the roof. She grabbed the cart that held the helium tank and checked that too. She held back a moment in the middle, turning to the right and left, before deciding to go down.
"Thank you." She murmured wryly to the guy, who nodded, bending his head. It was then that she heard it: a very slight bzz, like the vibrating of a telephone. The man grabbed a handful of balloons from the box and started addressing the children, but Haruka moved it and re-slipped into the van.
She felt that vibration again, while the Arab addressed incomprehensible protests. When she tried to grab her by the bullet-proof jacket Haruka planted the reed of the M16 on her forehead: time froze at that moment, the wide-eyed children who pulled back or clung to the appalling Samira and Colleen.
"Do not touch me." It was Haruka in a dangerously low tone, while a couple of soldiers flocked, leaving their seats near the building. Haruka lowered the rifle and tried to be guided by that slight quiver. He returned to the cart with the helium bottle, which quickly unhooked from the latches and examined carefully. Then she turned her attention to the cart whose plate seemed to touch the ground in the semi-darkness of the vehicle: it turned the wheels in the air, and saw the satellite phone stopped with two large segments of gray tape to the shiny metal.
"What the fuck is this?" She cried, pulling it from the seat, starting to shake her hand. She looked at the man, now held by two soldiers, watching her without emotion. Haruka looked at the object again, and the realization hit her.
"It's a GPS, they were following its position," he murmured.
"Half in approach! Half in approach!" Someone shouted from the gate, and Haruka understood. They controlled it, so they would know where to get around the checkpoints.
"Shit!" She jumped out of the van, while the Arab had bent his head and started to sing something.
"What the fuck is he saying?" She screamed at Samira, who shook her head at the beginning. Then she looked at Haruka dismayed.
"He's praying." Fuck. "Colleen, take the children in. All inside!" She began to run toward the entrance, nodding towards her team.
"Converge! Converge immediately!" She saw the dust raised by the old Toyota approaching at full speed with a zigzag gait to avoid the blows of the guards, but now approaching the entrance.
"Keep shooting!" She ordered, but the car whose hood was now riddled with blows had mowed down a group of soldiers and passed the gate. She knelt down where she was and started shooting, and did not recognize the voice that came out of her lips when she called Banks. Then the Toyota reached the back. The roar was devastating, but Haruka only felt a part of it. Everything became silent around, as the ground grew distant, rushing before her eyes.
And finally came the darkness.
x
Silence. A glow.
Haruka? Haruka are you still sleeping?
A vortex of colors.
Violet, Blue, white.
Red. Black.
An empty sucking, and incredibly irresistible. Breathe.
As if it were easy.
A furious pulse. That vortex again.
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe
Catch a Jap by his toe
A heartbreaking scream, and then the silence.
What the fuck are you doing, Tenou! Standing!
Still a glow. And a light, blinding. Painful. She understood she had her eyes open.
If he hollers make him say, "I surrender, USA!"
She squeezed them, succumbing to the pain. Which did not come only from the eyes, now. But a little 'everywhere.
Allah Akhbar. Allah Akhbar.
She felt everything distant, jerky. As if someone enjoyed raising and lowering the volume. In a flash of conscience he wondered if she had broken gables.
Probable, yes. "Ruka !! Oh my God Ruka !!" That felt good. She tried to turn around, and she succeeded at the cost of immense suffering. She recorded someone's help in the operation, but she was too stunned to even react.
She only opened one eye, and the image of Samira bent over her shaking her, her face stained with tear-stained dust, invaded her offended pupils. "Ruka please! Wake up! Wake up, we have to go!" "Samira ..." she said in a whisper, and she grabbed her by the shreds of what had been her bulletproof vest.
"Ruka stand up, please! We have to go !!" The girl hugged her, and uttered a moan in pain when she managed to lift her torso of weight, seating her. "Richard." She murmured, and a sob came out of the other's lips.
"I do not know, I do not know, Ruka. Please, we need to go.
"Go away, Samira." That was a sensible thing to say. "Leave me here Go away." Continuous.
"Run." The slender body of the other tried to put it on its feet, without success.
"I can not leave you here."
" I can not stand up, damnit! " Samira gave another tug, and realized more pain than usual on the left side of the body. She found herself standing, trying to remember how to put one foot forward one to the other.
"C'mon Ruka." The noises were now slightly more comprehensible, even if those annoying changes in volume were always present. There was no silence, but shouts. Laments. Rapid shots were soon overlapped. He could not figure out what Samira had said, but it seemed to her that she looked like a 'fuck'.
"Go away, missy." But the other in response was tightened even more against her, holding tightly the arm she had put on her shoulders to support her: the shots were interrupted, and the screech of tires announced the arrival of someone.
"I'm with you Ruka." The girl told her, and let the warmth of the other envelop her. But that heat left her at the same time that male voices began to be recorded by her wounded ears. Someone dragged her violently and found herself bumping into the cold metal of what was supposed to be the chest of an old Jeep; the blow took her breath away, and tried to retrieve it by lying on her back. Her eyes crossed the vault of the sky, and the last thing she saw before abandoning herself to the irresistible oblivion that he called her by name was that it was sunny. But it was too bad to watch it.
x
53 km to Tikrit,
Iraq,
2008
I have been waken by iced water. A rough lashing, right on my face.
I close my eyes, blinded by the bright light which overwhelms me; words melted with whispers, my ears still shocked because of the explosion. The explosion. Is it possible, that after what happened, I survived just like that?
A movement behind me brings me on the earth again. I shout of pain, the drawn on the arm which makes me understand I have a serious trauma to my left shoulder.
Maybe it's sprained. No, it's broken. Four strong hands holds me from my wrists, arms tensed toward the dusty floor. The pain deleted all my tireness, and I can see around me: they are six, who looks over us from head to toes, laughing at me and my kneeling position.
The American kneeling ahead them.
That's the end they want to make us. All of them. Four of them have a McGuire, the others two kalashnikov. One of them, who has a long scar all over his eye, scratches his chin and sends hungry looks over another shape at the other side of the room, far from where I am.
My blood stops when I recognise her, and I can see in her eyes her fear because of my shouting.
They see I'm awake again, and one of my prisoners make me look up.
One of them slapped me, the other one spits me, the others just laughed.
Bastard motherfuckers, laughs good who laughs at the end, I thought. Telling it aloud would have just make their ego grow up, because even if I know not all of them would understand, I know at least one of them will. In fact after a while one of them with the kalashnikov asked me:
"Do you know this woman?" Translated me one with a strong Arabian accent, who seems the younger while he pointed the frightened girl on the floor.
"No" is my only answer. I even shake my head. The one who seems to be the leader spoke to him pointing me and the girl.
"Even if she took you out of that place where our brothers shahid are dead to set us free from people like you."
I think again about what happened. I remember a little bit because the darkness overwhelms my mind. "I don't know her, I said."
I look at her right into the eyes, seeing her shocked features.
God, don't look at me like that!
A pair of them laugh at the scene, and the leader speaks to her. I don't understand, but when I see the men pointing at me, I can tell they're Mekong her the same question they did to me. Her look falls on the mask which is my face. The mask which could save her life.
I see her shaking her head, then the other one keeps asking more rudely.
He points at me again and again. They stay quiet for a moment, then the leader walks toward me. After some seconds I have is gun pointing at my head. A thrill runs towards my back, but I keep quiet.
Her eyes instead, are wide open because of the terror. Then he speaks again:
"I'd you don't know him, we can shoot him then?" A sadic smile appears on his face.
But she doesn't stand at it. She's not a soldier, she's not trained for this situations, she cries, while she walks toward me.
No! No!
She said into sobs. One of them started moving to stop her, but someone tells him not to. The gun is still on my head, when she started crying into my dirty uniform, I understand it's over. She can't save herself no more. And she knows it too. Our prisoners laughs, I see one of them taking his McGuire off, followed by one who did the same with his kalashnikov. I can't speak. She does it for me, whispering to me. They take her off of me, throwing her to the wall. The push on my back becomes stronger, the pain on my shoulder almost at the top. A pair of hands takes my head turning it to face her, then they put a knife on my throat. The gun doesn't leave me. I can't move, I can't even shut my eyes.
The horror frightens me, I can't stand at it, i bit my lips making them bleed.
"Slide my throat!" I say while I feel like throwing it all out "slide this fucking throat! Just kill me!"this time I shout, and she hears it too, whispering a weak 'No'
I feel tears in my eyes.
If hell does really exists isn't far from this.
x
It really can not have happened. This is a nightmare.I repeat it constantly, while I fix the wall of my cell, a hole three meters for one closed with some boards. I feel buried alive, so little difference with a niche.They threw me here when they decided that the show was enough: I started to stomach as soon as I touched the ground.
On all fours, in a corner, supported by a rotten shoulder and wrists bound by blood-encrusted chains, I got rid of the bile that poisoned my stomach and my throat.
Now I sit in the dark, a faint light filtering from under the boards. I hear the ticking of a clock.It's a nightmare. It must be.
x
Day and night mix in here.
How much has passed? I feel like I've been in this place for years. They never came to get me, and they left Samira alone. I can not sleep. I can not sleep: if I close my eyes I see them bent over his body. Vultures ready to tear their meat.
And if I sleep I can not think: my mind has to work without interruption, or I'll go crazy. "Haruka?" Hearing to call my name collects me from the numbness that sometimes envelops me and leaves me exhausted; it is difficult for me to understand if someone has really said it or it is only the fruit of my mind.
"Haruka, can you hear me?" I approach the boards, because Samira is really calling me. "Samira," I whisper between the rock and the solid wood, not before I peeked down the corridor, cleared of the militia.
I can almost see her smile, before a sob breaks the silence.
"I'm sorry, Ruka." Are you ... apologizing? "Do not be sorry, missy." I reassure her trying to hide the total amazement that her words left behind.
"Am I disgusting?" I hear her ask, and shake my head even though she can not see me. "You're not, Samira, you're a strong," I interrupt a second, thinking about what I can say to console her.
"Wonderful girl, I'm so proud of you, missy." "Are you?"
"I really am." An oppressive silence surrounds us for a few moments. "Samira," my tone is serious, my mind back to what those beasts have done to her "They can not let them take your soul away. Do not let them do that. "
"They can not." Her voice is a whisper. "They can not be my soul is yours, Ruka."
I abandon myself sitting against the wall, tilting my head backwards. "I love you." I close my eyes, not knowing what to say. "Ruka?"
"I love you too, missy." I answer you after a long moment. And finally the realization strikes me in full: it is not a nightmare. I'm not sleeping. I am awake, and a living walk among the aberrations of the damned souls of hell.
x
"Fuck you."
I scan it well, so that everyone can hear and above all understand.
I see the right start and try to stiffen the jaw, but fuck, it hurts the same. I feel something warm on the cheek, and I imagine that the fist has opened a nice piece of skin on the cheekbone.
I hear one laugh, and when I look up I see why: Samira has turned her head, her eyes closed, unable to support the sight of someone hurting me.
"Read it." It is the young Arab talking, beating hard on a sheet resting on my legs. "Read it and we can also reconsider your situation." I look at the camera positioned on the tripod in front of me, ready to record my little speech about the unfaithful Americans and the invasion of their country, written in good handwriting on the piece of paper lying at the height of my knees.
I can only imagine that behind me, behind the chair on which my wrists and ankles are tied, there are banners and banners praising Allah, who will do their show when the video arrives on all the channels of the United States. But these do not believe in anything, I'm sure now more than ever. Among them the true Sunni Militia will be two, maximum three. Here the scum was collected: bandits, stragglers, fanatics. "Read it!" He tells me in a louder tone. Yeah, for sure. How many more soldiers had been taken prisoner in Iraq, and found with their bodies on one side and their heads on another, even though they had fully embraced the trappings of those who had captured them?
"I was not clear, maybe, F-u-c-k y-o-u." The new fist fills my mouth with blood, which I hold between my tight lips and then I spit violently on the face of my personal Tyson. That says something incomprehensible, and grabs me by the collar of his jacket.
"No!" The voice of Samira draws everyone's attention, and raises some loud laughter. "Shut the fuck up, Samira." I scold her, but she ignores me and starts talking in Arabic. She points at me, touches her chest.
The man behind the camera leans on the chair he was sitting on, listening to her amused. Then he shakes his head, nods at me and spreads his arms, turning to Samira who answers without breaking eye contact with that. He sighs, and after a vague movement of his hand I see Samira disappear with the man with the scar.
The others disperse and I stay there, confused, under the shot of a boy I had never seen before.
x
They asked me again to talk to the camera. I had thought about it a lot, wondering if my yield would somehow help Samira. I dictated the conditions, that if I had said what they wanted they would have to free her.
That I am a Major, and my head is also very much on its own. They laughed in my face, then one of my friends punched me in the stomach that I seriously believed my eyes came out of their sockets, going to rage on the organ already twisted by malnutrition. Samira intervened again, and I realized the leitmotif of her actions: she is using her body as a bargaining chip, because they do not hurt me.
I can not hear her anymore: they changed her cell. Now she is in a room you can reach through a narrow gut carved into the rock: they took me when they decided it was time to look again. The cell smells like urine and blood, and now the shoulder pain is something so strong and chronic that I got used to it.
A small wooden strip has come off the boards and I can see the grate on which a small plastic table clock is placed. And from those bars I came back to see the Iraqi sky.
x
They hooded me and dragged me out, making me walk for a seemingly endless time. The sweat impregnates my worn out uniform, and I wonder where we are going. When I remove the black cloth from my head, the sun blinds me violently: it takes me a moment to identify all the figures arranged in a circle on the dusty esplanade; circle of which I find myself inside, along with Samira, their leader and the Arabic who speaks English.
I can not help but scrutinize her face: she is tried, thinner. Yet proud, like her gaze that now seeks mine: I could not bend it.
They have not taken away the soul, and my lips bend upwards when that thought strikes me. After a moment's hesitation, Samira answers my smile. The hands of the Arab with the long scar on the eye forcefully push her shoulders, forcing her to kneel. The leader starts talking and one, after freeing me from the chains, grabs my right hand, leaving a semiautomatic palm in the palm.
"Kill her."
The voice of the translator comes without many preambles, and I look at him as if he had said a crap of epic proportions. The other continues to chat in his language unknown to me, gesticulating.
"If you want her well, kill her."
I look at the gun, then the young man again. Samira watches me impassive, despite the order given to me by that I had clearly seen her hold her breath. They are putting me to the test.
They want to blow my nerves completely. I let the weapon fall, the thud muffled by the sand.
"Give me that sheet." I almost murmur. "But let her go."
"Haruka, no!" She exclaims, but is kept in her place by her jailer. The Arab speaks again. "You do not say conditions." I am explained for the umpteenth time.
"And now we do not want any videos, you have to kill her, Major." A militiaman approaches quickly and puts the gun in my hand. "It's burnt now," he continues. "It's dirty, it's impure, it has no future." Anger crosses my veins with blood, and without thinking I raise the weapon in front of me towards the first one that happens to me: in less than no time everyone raises their Kalashnikovs, and a cry comes from Samira's lips when the cold metal of two reeds lean violently on my neck, a third on my skull.
"Ruka, please ..." whispers, a tear to rub her face. Also the scarred pointed at the Kalashnikov against it, leaving it free from its grip. The eye is one with the semiautomatic viewfinder. The metal is planted deep in the skin, but I do not care. A blow, and we end it once and for all. "Haruka!" Call Samira again, starting to crawl towards me. The soldier with the scar screams something, and holding the weight of the weapon with one hand tries to block it with the free one. But at one of my slight movements he holds her again with both limbs, forgetting Samira.
"What do you think you're doing?" Their leader challenges me by the translator's mouth. "Eight against one. At the first blow, the brain will blow your nose." I squeeze my eyes, my mind invaded by a million useless variables. Then I lower the weapon, but none of them comes off the back of my head.
"Kill her, then we'll think about the video."
I do not answer, trying to understand if there is even a chance to get by. Tell them that you are a woman.
Sure. The surprise effect could give me enough time to unload the magazine on as many bodies as possible, and try to escape with Samira.
It's crazy. But I do not have time to say, or do, anything. In a moment Samira is standing and approaching me, taking advantage of the impasse in which we find ourselves. Her hands grab mine holding the gun, and our eyes meet for a very good instant: what upsets me is the smile that bends just lips up. "I love you, Ruka."
The shot silences the shouts of the militia, and I look dismayed at the blood stain spread on her dress, at the stomach: in a reflection I leave the gun and the embrace, not to drop the body but, rather, help her to collapse .
The pain does not want to go out, and it implodes me inside, leaving behind an unconscious tremor that does not make me speak; I strain myself, but the voice does not come out. Rest a moment to look at the corpse, the mouth still bent in the last smile. And in my mind the moments of when I found her inside that house in Tikrit resurface with violent arrogance.
"Do not be afraid, Samira." I mumble brushing her hair, before they rip me away from her and incappuccino me again.
I thought I could not hurt you.
x
They are agitated.
They loaded me on a Jeep and I have the impression that we are wandering aimlessly. Sometimes we stop, to rest and eat.
One came near me while the others were asleep, and asked me in English why I did not have a beard: I explained to him that I have a hormonal dysfunction, and that I grow very slowly.
He seemed rather confused, but he left without asking me anything. It is an excuse that I have often used and to which many believe.
I see her face continually, and remorse closes my stomach. I killed her. It was all my fault from the beginning. If I had prevented her from becoming attached to me, if I had prevented her from loving me, she would now be alive. It was only my fault. The familiar noise of a helicopter enters my ears, and I hear them start screaming from the back of the Jeep. I hear bursts of machine guns, and the unmistakable sound of the engine of several Humvee in the distance.
Our people arrive, bastards.
A roar not far away and I find myself upside down, banging on the ground and rolling on the sand. I scream in pain when I fall on my shoulder, but I need my arm, damn it. I have to tighten my teeth. Excitement and adrenaline will help me. I take off the hood and at my sight opens the backlit shape of the Apache that must have unhooked the grenade, while the Humvee approach.
There are also a couple of Black Hawks in the distance, from which reinforcements are coming down. The cowards escape, but it does not end this way. It can not end this way. I come back to the side of the overturned Jeep, and effortlessly - despite the wrists tied - I pull off a bar of full iron already half torn that was on the back of the vehicle, acting as a parapet. Start running, immediately identifying the scarred who is looking for shelter to a low house that must have been a point of control of the army at the time of the dictatorship. From behind another Jeep arises an armed type of Kalashnikov, who flies against a burst.
I devote my path, running in a zig zag I avoid the blows. I play the improvised cork with both hands, the adrenaline pumped in the veins that makes the pain disappear: the iron is knocked down on his arms first, to disarm it, and then on the jaw in a cracky sound. I retrace my steps while I hear the shouts of the soldiers of the United States Army, and running towards the shed I see my fellow soldiers shooting and stopping the militiamen who tried to disperse.
I slip into the low building, which has no other exit: the scarred is trapped, and I understand from his expression that he realizes it. When he realizes my presence, he tries to defend himself, and throws himself at me. With a blow on the arm, we disarm him, but he is quick, the son of a bitch, and I find myself under his weight, the iron bar away. He punches me, and when he puts one hand on my chest to launch another, he stops. He opens his eyes, looking at me: he holds my hand on my breast, and he hears it.
How disgusting.
It's the right moment to take advantage of it: my head hits his nasal septum violently, and driving the sick arm with her healthy arm, she knocks her hands together and pulls her clenched fists on his ear. It takes off from me, and I can stand up, even recovering the bar. Even the bastard has resumed his kalashnikov and tries to shoot me, but it is too late: the iron has already impacted on his skull.
x
Portsmouth, Virginia
13 June 2008
Day 0
6.36 am
"He collapsed immediately, but I continued to hit him until his head became a bloody pulp of bones and brain matter that allowed me to no longer have that scar in front of my eyes, he had been the first to rape her and inside me I had sworn: or I would die, or he would die. No doubt. "
The sun was rising outside, and a timid light began to enter the large window of Haruka's apartment, still lying on the ground and lost in the last lines of the story that had been going on for several hours, now, without interruption.
On the television, CNN had started broadcasting the morning news for six minutes.
"The soldiers who entered the little house had to threaten to shoot me if I had not left the bar. Adrenaline prevented me from having a normal capacity for discernment, and only after a long time did I manage to tell them my name, my rank and the battalion of When they took me to the Black Hawk, to take me to Baghdad, they told me they were from the Third Infantry Division stationed at Kirkuk air base, and I knew we had always moved north. " Haruka sighed deeply, and slowly she sat up, then resting her back on the sofa, finding herself facing the girl who had silently heard her all that time: she did not have the courage to look into those blue eyes, for fear to read you a disgust that you did not believe could have endured.
She turned her head back, before continuing.
"Now you know who Haruka Tenou is, Michiru." She felt exhausted. Empty. But free, in a sense. Now the only unknown factor was the doctor's reaction, but regardless of how that would absorb what she had said, now she knew.
And the weight that had weighed down her heart for so long had been dissolved; not completely gone, but diluted in the river of words that alone had decided to go out in the open air, driven by a despair that had previously supported her, now dragged her exhausted. The silence enveloped both of them, and Michiru looked at her for a long moment, her arms fastened around the knees on which she held her chin. She could not give a name to what she felt, because the succession of emotions that the story had aroused, one that chased the other in a kind of infinite domino, now had replaced a chasm that had swallowed everything.
She had so many questions she did not know where to start, and she finally concluded she would not even start. Samira, Richard, the attack. The violence that Haruka had been forced to attend and that had been poured on her psychologically. She could not even remotely come to understand what it might have been to live those moments, but while the other was talking she had found herself with her, in that cell. She had been with her when in the last gesture of that all-encompassing love that the young Shia must have felt for Tenou, she had given up death, and Haruka had blamed her. And the horror of the offenses suffered by Haruka's eyes, mind and body had become unbearable, engulfing all sorts of other feelings.
Although it hurt her that the other carefully avoided looking at her. She moved from the pose she had never left in the last hours, and picking up the movement Haruka wondered if the other was not getting up to leave: a certain amazement came to her mind when she felt the body of the doctor next to her, and bending her head she saw her close, kneeling beside her legs.
"You should have told me." Michiru murmured to her, and, following the unstoppable impulse to touch her, placed a hand on her decorated shoulder.
"You should have told me right away, Haruka, I was here."
"I just wanted to forget." She answered softly. "I wanted to erase everything, do not think, I was so tired, Michiru." She covered her eyes with one hand, "but at any moment I saw her, I saw the loculus, and what had happened inside, and then, damn it," she interrupted, and waved a hand in a vague gesture toward the doctor, shaking the head.
"We missed you, you came, and you messed up all the plans." A slight smile bent Michiru's lips, and the other took her head in her hands, hiding her face against her knees to hide her in the eyes of the doctor. "My God, how much I hated you, Michiru, I hated you from feeling sick, because if before the silence was an illusionary palliative, you thwarted my every effort to relegate everything in a deep corner of my head." The girl listened to her without interrupting her, remembering the first times of the cure: the indifference of that perfect face that did nothing but ignore it, if not for some sporadic arrow.
She had not understood that riot was stirring behind it. "If first silence was something natural, with you it had become something I had to force myself to, and I still have to understand it, "she raised her head, and the emerald eyes looked back into the girl's blue irises. "Talking to you was something I felt natural. Something quite normal for me, that normality did not even know what it was. "
The other paused, and Michiru tried not to show how much that other confession had surprised her. Then Haruka snapped her lips, and the emerald gaze was lost in an indefinite point in the living room.
"To attack you was something I will never regret enough."
"Haruka," the doctor started, shaking her head, but Tenou spoke again. "After what happened to Samira, after what I had done for Becky, I had reduced myself to no longer distinguishing reality from the products of my mind and attacking you, just you, who wanted to help me, that you were helpless."
"You came back there that day." She reminded her of Michiru, now aware of the many Haruka's attitudes. "You swap me for one of your jailers, do not you?" She looked at her for a moment, then nodded. And further realization hit the girl, after having thought about it for a moment. "That's why you did not want to come to the hospital after we left you." Haruka nodded again, after a long moment of motionlessness. "When I realized that I had tried to kill you," she went on to say, "I realized that I had touched the bottom, and that there was no hope, I wanted everything to end, Michiru, but you practically took me by the collar, and pulled away from the darkness in which I wanted to disappear. " Michiru just smiled, and stretched her fingers to take Tenou's: the other reacted unexpectedly to the gesture, fading and almost violently moving her hands.
"It's all right." Michiru reassured her, but Haruka's eyes widened.
"But how can you still touch me, how can you want to touch me?" She asked incredulously.
"My hands are dirty, Michiru, smeared with blood, they are stained with horrible actions." But Michiru shook her head, and intertwined her fingers with those of the other.
"Your hands are very beautiful, Haruka." She said in a smile, and she looked at her in a low tone. The girl came closer, and instinctively Haruka pressed herself against the seat of the sofa, which prevented her to move back more.
"Michiru, but did you understand what I did?" She asked in a murmur. "I killed an innocent girl, I-"
"No, Haruka. She smiled at you. " Michiru interrupted her. "She smiled at you because it was you, you who in a certain sense brought her back to life, from different points of view." The doctor explained, and Haruka looked at her confused. "She knew it was the end, but she also knew that your life would depend on you, and between them, for you, your existence was worth much, much more."
"I do not-"
"She forced your finger on the trigger because she was aware that you would never have been able to do it of your own free will." Michiru continued, astonished by the lucidity with which she managed to make that analysis, after the sleepless night and the amount of information nothing short of devastating that she had acquired. "And she smiled, Haruka, because her soul would have been, finally, really yours." She looked at Tenou, who had no reaction for a long moment, until she closed her eyes.
She reopened them after endless moments, releasing two tears that slid slowly down her cheeks.
"How strange," she whispered to the sensation on her face, her broken voice. "I had never been able to cry." The doctor reached out and placed it on her face, letting her thumb wipe the salty liquid that moistened her cheek.
She crossed the green eyes of the other, perhaps now free from all that suffering, and read a certain loss.
"Michiru," Haruka murmured, serious. "I'm a freak, I'm a joke of nature." But the girl did not stop caressing her face, shaking her head. "If you are a joke of nature, then it is nature that has something wrong." The words went out in deafening silence, and Haruka winced. She put her hand to her mouth to stifle the hideous sob that had risen to her lips, but could not prevent others from breaking against the palm. And it happened, finally: the shell had cracked. And it had fallen, letting go of everything that Haruka had repressed to the limit of violence. Leaving that she was finally able to experience every emotion, from which she had distanced herself to defend herself.
A Pandora's box, from where the pain was the first to break free. Michiru felt her heart shatter in seeing her like that, totally naked in the fragility that she had always hidden behind an impassive mask sometimes, ironic and Gascon other; fragility that repressed even now that he covered his face with her hands, unable to support the shame of those tears. Something snapped in her head, and decided she would not abandon it.
That maybe Haruka did not realize it yet but needed her as much as she needed the other. She extended her arms and she squeezed her to her chest, as had happened in the corridor of the 'Four Seasons', letting it vent from bathing tears loving the fabric of the sweatshirt: the other did not oppose and indeed, let herself go in that embrace.
Michiru stroked her hair for as long as the other felt the need to free herself and even later, when Haruka, despite having held back her tears, did not leave her. And with amazement, she felt Tenou's lips touch her neck. He did not dare to move, and although the mind wondered what was right to do, the heart prevented her in every way to reject it while the lips went up to the chin line leaving behind light kisses; the warm breath of Haruka approaching her mouth until the thin distance that separated them did not dissolve.
Tenou's lips moved slowly on her own, and although she was struggling not to close her eyes, she had to yield to the suction of what was no longer the void felt until a short time before, but of the sensations that the soft lips of the other they were taking with them. She felt her fingers brush against her face, and in a fast movement that caught her by surprise - but to which she did not rebel, she found herself lying on her back, her arms at the side of her head, held firm by the hands of the other. Amazement. Uncertainty. Attraction. Suspended in a whirl of confused emotions, she clearly perceived her body reacting to that situation, and the same excitement she had felt seeing Haruka in uniform returned to visit as the other's tongue touched her lips, and she tried to insinuate herself.
Fear. Torment. Passion.
She opened them, and waited.
"MOM!!" Haruka's eyes widened, and the cry from the ringing voice opened a gash in the heavy blanket of confusion that had surrounded her the instant the first tears had left her eyes.
Mom?. She realized the presence of the body beneath her, the hands that held the wrists of Michiru, who in the meantime had opened her eyes and looked as lost as she was.
"Hotaru ..." the doctor murmured, turning her head towards the corridor door.
It is Michiru. Shit, it's Michiru! What the fuck did you do, Haruka?
"Mom!" The scream was plaintive now, and Tenou realized that, somewhere in her apartment, there must also be the daughter of her psychologist.
"Oh fuck, oh fuck, fuck!" She moved quickly away from Michiru and jumped up, stumbling almost to the low table as he stepped back as quickly as possible. "Haruka wait," the other called when she sat down, but Tenou put a hand in her hair and ran to the table, grabbing the bunch of keys that was on it: in an instant it was out of the apartment, the door that closed loudly behind her.
Alone, on the ground in Tenou's living room, she realized in an instant what had happened: they had kissed. Michiru tried to process it while touching her lips with her fingers, still soaked with the taste of Haruka. But she did not have much time to think about it, because the girl's voice returned to her ears again.
She ran into her room and found her sitting on the bed, her lower lip splayed out to the brink of anger, ready for a crying spasm. "Here I am love, I am here, all right." She began to cradle her, after embracing her. "Everything is alright."
"But-but where are we?" Asked Hotaru still dazed by sleep, hands clinging to Michiru's sweatshirt.
"Do not you remember, honey?" She asked her, and when she shook her head, she smiled. "We're at Haruka's house." Hotaru's purple eyes widened dramatically.
"Really? And why?" Because she had a panic attack, the result of the repression and denial of a series of psychological violence of which she was the victim in Iraq. Um, no. It was not the right answer, albeit the right one.
"Because Haruka has bad dreams, and he could not sleep." The child did not answer, and after rubbing her eyes, she began to look on the bed.
"Where's Luna?" She asked in panic. "She's not home alone, is she? Luna is scared!" Michiru looked around, and remembered seeing the rag doll in Hotaru's hands when she picked her up and loaded her in the car. She went back to the chest of drawers where she had left her jacket, and turning it she saw the pink ear of the bunny sticking out of her right sleeve: she must have been trapped when she had undressed the little girl.
"No, baby, here she is, she's not home alone." A big smile was stamped on Hotaru's round little face, who hugged the little doll to her chest and settled back peacefully on Tenou's bed. Michiru stroked her face and watched her go back to sleep, unaware of everything that had happened a short distance from her.
x
Portsmouth, Virginia
13 June 2008
Day 0
9,43 am
She sat on the floor, occasionally pushing one of the shiny white keys.
Sol. Mi. Does.
The cup lay abandoned on the table: Michiru smiled when, opening the pantry door, she had found several boxes of green tea. Hotaru still slept, which was strange for her; but what had just passed was an intense night, where even the little girl had been quite upset, tossed to the right and left.
She just jumped at the sound of the key in the lock, and got up from the piano as Haruka came into the house, a helmet in one hand, the uniform jacket in the other, and she threw herself badly on the couch. Tenou stopped when she saw her, stretching her fingers to touch the handle, and then pushing the door to close it.
"Oh, you're still here." She seemed surprised.
"I was worried," Michiru justified. "And Hotaru is still asleep and we're leaving as soon as we can-"
"It's not for that." Haruka interrupted her, placing the helmet next to the cup of tea. "I did not see your car."
"The parking gate was closed tonight, I left it in the parallel." Haruka nodded, and without looking at her, went to the kitchen. Michiru did not inquire further, imagining how the other should feel: first the total bare of her feelings, then that kiss. She had thought about it a lot, and realized that this had been, for Haruka, something very similar to a catharsis: a natural consequence of the events of the night. It was impossible for her to believe that it had been anything else, in light of the reaction that Tenou had had as soon as she realized it.
The return of the other in the living room interrupted the swarm of thoughts; she looked at her pale face and her dug, tested eyes. Yet brighter, if possible. She took a deep breath, and when Haruka passed close to her, Evian's inevitable bottle in hand, to head to one of the chairs next to the table, she realized that this was a tooth that had to be removed immediately.
"Listen Haruka-"
"No, hear me." She stopped her by placing her free hand on the back of the furniture, eyes in her eyes.
"I'm not a supplicant person, and you've probably even figured it out." She began to tell her, and when the bottle was empty she squeezed the plastic, deforming it, throwing it on the table. "I never prayed higher entities - if they ever really existed, I never prayed to my jailers, nor did I ever begged other people to do anything, I usually order." She bent her head a moment, before returning to look at the doctor. "But now please, Michiru, please forgive the bullshit I do not understand, and I beg your pardon."
Ah here. A bullshit that you can not understand. Sure.
Michiru heard a stinging note in Tenou's voice, and drove away that thought when she spoke again. "I need your friendship, and I do not want a senseless gesture to send everything to hell.
"It was a completely natural thing, Haruka."
"Natural a cock!" She almost shouted at her, and Michiru was surprised by the reaction. Then she crossed her arms to her chest. "Do not raise your voice with me, Major Tenou. Haruka narrowed her eyes, and after a moment she looked away from the doctor. They stood still for a long moment, until Michiru decided it was time to take matters into their own hands, if they wanted to solve it: she approached her, and when she saw Tenou walk away, she grabbed her forearms and brought her back to her.
"You were upset, Haruka, and very simply, I was there, that kiss was the all-natural channeling of the emotions that stirred you inside." Haruka thought about it, then looked at her in dismay.
"And it does not bother you a little?" The question would have deserved careful analysis: certainly that had disturbed her, but certainly not in the sense that the other implied. What should she say, when it was clear that the other should not have been a very exciting experience? She ended up smacking her lips, rolling her eyes.
"Good heavens, Haruka, I went to college, and I also went to parties that the brotherhoods organized inside the dorms, how much do you think I could be scandalized by a kiss between women?" A faint smile bent Haruka's lips, erasing her expression. A sincere smile, serene. "I'm not the Immaculate Virgin you believe." She then added, and Tenou leaned towards her.
"Well, I never thought about that one."
Michiru smiled, and stood up on her toes to hug her: the other stiffened at first, then she felt Haruka's hands resting on her waist, and her forehead on her shoulder. Neither of them found anything to say: there had been enough of words for that day. The creak of the door of the corridor led them away, and Hotaru - dressed in white pajamas with cows - peeked into the living room, the curious look that darted from one object to another of the unknown or environment.
"Hi Angel!" Michiru greeted her, taking a few steps towards the girl who, in response, ignored her completely to run and cling to Haruka's leg.
"Hi Haruka!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, and Haruka closed one eye, disturbed by the sudden cry.
"Hello wren."
"Hotaru, do not bother Haruka," Michiru began to say, but Haruka shook her head, waving a faint wave of her hand. The girl detached herself from the leg and began to inspect the living room, running first to the piano, then to the television, the sofas, the bookcase, without stopping to accompany her actions with numerous variations of 'Look, mother!'.
"Well, from an overexcited teenage girl could not get out a hyper-excited elf." Michiru shook her head at Haruka's statement, which had left her chair, her elbow on the table so that her hand could hold her head; she looked like one who would fall asleep at any moment.
"What a beautiful house!" Hotaru exclaimed when she was again near Tenou, who looked at her.
"Do you like?" The little girl nodded. Then she became thoughtful.
"Mom says you're having bad dreams." Haruka glanced quickly at Michiru, before answering.
"She's right, thank you for coming to keep me company." She told her seriously, and Hotaru smiled, clearly flattered by the thanks. "Where's your mom?"
"She died a long time ago."
"And a dad do you have it?" Hotaru urged her.
"Honey, Haruka is tired," Michiru tried to intervene, but Haruka shook her head. "It's okay, Michiru." Then she turned back to the girl.
"My dad does not want me." Hotaru looked at her without understanding. "What does it mean?"
"That he wanted a different child, and instead he had me." The child was silent for a long moment. Then she hopped up, realizing what Haruka wanted to say.
"The stork was wrong?" Haruka looked at her, and could not help but laugh.
"Yes, I would say yes." Hotaru climbed on one of the chairs, then sitting down on the table in front of it.
"My dad is in heaven and my mom is an angel." Michiru winced at that phrase that Hotaru almost said the same by reciting, and Haruka looked at the baby.
"I know, Hotaru, and you're right, your mum is just an angel." A big smile spread over Hotaru's face, before she was lifted up by Michiru.
"Do not get on people's table, Hotaru, do not be rude." She scolded her good-naturedly, then kissed her forehead. "Let's go home, now, let's leave Haruka to sleep." Haruka smiled at the loud protests that the communication aroused, and the child struggled so much that Michiru was forced to put it back on the floor: as soon as she touched it, Hotaru ran to the couch.
"Where do you keep your medicines?" She asked Haruka, who pointed straight ahead in an indefinite spot in the sleeping area. Michiru supposed they were in the bathroom and took her by the hand, accompanying her to the bedroom.
"Hotaru, can you help me put Haruka to sleep?" The little girl did not have to repeat it twice and reached Tenou in the bedroom, where Michiru also returned with a capsule, a glass of water and the phone of that in her hand.
She smiled at Hotaru's attempts to remove Haruka, sitting on the bed, the tie - and to the same number of attempts by the latter not to die stifled, and sat next to that one not before she had put everything she had in her hands on the bedside table. "I do not think you'll have trouble sleeping, but if you had to take this," she explained, pointing to the capsule. "And I want you to call me as soon as you wake up."
"All right, doc." Haruka was so exhausted that she did not argue much about the nursing treatment that her doctor was reserving.
"Hey Haruka!" She called Hotaru, and the girl waited to lie down.
"Hold on!" Tenou looked puzzled at the rag doll suspended between them, then looked at the girl. "Luna helps me when I have bad dreams." She was absorbed for a moment. "She's scared too, but then we sleep with mom." Hotaru hopped on the bed and put Luna on the pillow, and Michiru looked at her in surprise as she took that action. She let Haruka lie on the mattress before standing up and taking Hotaru in her arms, reinfiling her jacket over her pajamas.
When she left the room, Haruka was already sleeping heavily with Luna, who watched her with her mother-of-pearl gaze from the pillow beside her; and Michiru hoped that that sleep was finally free of nightmares.
x
Portsmouth, Virginia
'Michiru Kaioh, 11:30 am on June 13, 2008. Day ...' she paused, looking up at the scattered sheets of Haruka's file and the numerous boxes placed on the floor, lined up on the living room floor.
Each one day was different from the other's therapy: she was fifty-three. Logically, that of today must have been fifty-four, but in reality that night had unraveled the intricate skein that was the genesis of everything. '... Day zero.' She then said, and the recorder captured the silence of the house in the tape. Hotaru had left with Usagi, Mamoru and Chibiusa: the Chiba family had planned a picnic at the park on the beautiful day, and the decline of the invitation on her part had insisted that the child would go with them, so she could stay at home to rest. Especially after receiving a quick explanation of the events that had involved Tenou.
She resumed talking, starting with what had happened at the Four Seasons and then, in a chain, everything that Haruka had finally revealed to her about imprisonment. And she cried. She cried so much that she thought she would not be able to do it for the rest of her life, because that morning she had certainly run out of tears.
Haruka had been supported by a force that had not been able to explain, perhaps triggered by the desire to be for the other one-literally-shoulder on which to let off steam at least decent. But now, alone, it was different. She turned the horror told by Tenou into the little tape recorder, and they now closed the picture of her psychological profile. For her, however, there was nothing closed.
On the contrary, everything had become open. Wide open, to say the least. Lost in the images that formed in her mind, exhausted by the sleepless night and the weight of what she had learned, the awareness came to light, investing in full; he did not even bother to turn off the tape even though she had finished her narration. 'I'm falling in love with one of my patients,' she murmured in silence. 'I'm falling in love with my patient woman'.
Author's notes: So, it's been a long time since my last update of this fic, I'm honoured you all are liking and supporting me in keeping writing, thanks. Hope you like it, see you next time.