Note: Excerpt from David Copperfield (c) Charles Dickens.
Chapter 27: When the Game's Been Fought
Springtime in East City was the season of mud. Less than two hundred miles from the desert, the frontier metropolis was nonetheless plagued by torrential rains that left its half-paved streets and narrow alleyways a quagmire of pits and puddles. The Eastern Academy cadets paraded in the mud, slogged through mud-choked obstacle courses, and did their daily calisthenics in the mud. They spent their evenings scraping mud off of their boots and soaking mud stains out of their uniform trousers. On Saturdays they scrubbed mud off of the barracks floors.
So of course, it was through the mud that Riza waded when the office messenger pulled her out of Tactics to greet a visitor at the gate. Riza hurried across the campus as quickly as the poor terrain allowed. She could only think of one person who would have any cause to visit her, or to think of her, or to care if she lived or died.
But it was not Mr. Mustang leaning against the wall in the lee of the watchmens' shed, chatting affably with the second-years on duty. It was Gareth Hughes.
The moment she recognized him, Riza quickened her pace to a trot, mindful of splashing her uniform with mud even as she started to panic. There was only one reason that she could think of for Gareth to leave what was left of the Hughes household to come here. There was only one piece of news that he could possibly be bringing to her – a piece of news she had been dreading since the age of nine or ten. Benjamin Hughes, the silent, damaged, solitary man who had helped her through some of the most difficult times in her childhood, was dead.
Gareth's smile faltered as he caught sight of her. Riza wanted to cry out, and bury her head against the glover's chest, and weep, but she couldn't. The other two cadets were watching, and she couldn't lose control in front of them. She squared her shoulders, glad of the now-familiar weight of her uniform upon them, reminding her of what she was and what she wished to become.
"Mr. Hughes..." she said quietly.
"Riza! Hey..." The smile returned to Gareth's lips, but there was sorrow in his eyes as he took in her trim young frame in its smoky blue shell.
Riza drew in a slow breath through her nose. "Is he... how did he..." She couldn't say it.
Gareth looked perplexed. "Didn't you get my letter?" he asked. "I wrote two weeks ago."
"No," Riza said, fighting the urge to break down. The eyes of the other two cadets seemed to be boring into her. "No, I didn't."
"Damn the post!" the man exclaimed. "It's the rebellion: it's slowed amenities to a crawl. It took two days to get here by rail: every forty miles we had to stop to let another military supply train through."
Riza couldn't bear it any longer. "Mr. Hughes, could we please... please..." She gestured vaguely across the yard. "Let's walk, please."
"If I'm allowed to," Gareth said, lolling his eye at one of the second-years.
"You're allowed to," Riza said firmly. She was not at all certain that this was the case, but she had to get away from the audience, and she knew for a fact that she was not allowed to leave the grounds without express permission. She backed away from the gate and strode quickly in the direction of the shower bunker, which would shield them from the view of the gate, of the faculty building, and of the lecture halls at once. Gareth followed her.
"I don't know if you've got any free time," he said; "but we thought, if you wanted to..."
"I'm—I'm sure I could put in for some bereavement leave," Riza mumbled frenetically, her thoughts tripping over one another. "I know he wasn't... we weren't... we weren't family, but there must be s-some regulation that allows for-f-for..."
"Hold on!" Gareth seized her by the shoulders and turned her around, staring intently down into her carmine eyes. "Riza, what are you talking about?"
"Ben." Somehow she managed to choke out the syllable. "He's..."
"No." Gareth shook his head. "No, he's not. He wanted to see you, and... and Dad and I agreed the change would do him good. He's back at the hotel: I would've brought him with me but I didn't want to risk him taking a chill, and anyway I didn't know if they'd let you out to see me. Riza, Ben's okay. He's not... not..." Even he could not bring himself to say it. "He's not."
Riza felt her knees going weak, but she stubbornly refused to succumb to the debilitating waves of relief that washed over her. "I'm glad," she exhaled, closing her eyes and nodding her head coolly. "I'm very, very glad. I... tomorrow night is my furlough, I'd be able to come out to see him then. I... it's lovely of you to come to visit."
Gareth released his grip on her arms and patted the side of her face fondly. "Sure," he said, accepting her restrain with his usual grace and understanding. "Sure. I'll come by and pick you up... when?"
"Eighteen hundred hours," Riza said. "I'd... I'm so glad..."
The glover chuckled softly. "Yeah, me too."
discidium
Master Sergeant Rosenflower looked up from his book and quirked an eyebrow. "Got a date, Hawkeye?" he asked.
Riza flushed, tugging at the hem of her jacket. "No, sir," she said. "Not exactly, sir."
"Family in town?"
"No... not family, sir." The civilian clothes felt so strange: she hadn't worn them since September. Around her the other girls were decking themselves out in their customary Tuesday night frocks, but usually Riza wore her uniform on the weekly evening off. Usually she didn't even leave the compound. There was always some class to study for, or some project to work on, or when all else failed, the obstacle course to run in the dark.
"Well, enjoy it," Rosenflower grunted. "And remember. If any of these eastern hoodlums give you trouble..."
"Yes, sir. Left to the jaw, right to the groin," Riza recited, recalling the advice that the barracks commander had offered his charges on their first night out.
"Right. Never forget, cadets: men have a weakness you can only try to imagine. Now get out of my hair and–"
"Have fun, sir," the girls chorused amid the occasional giggle. Despite his caustic nature and the occasional inappropriate comment, Rosenflower was well liked all around.
"Where are you going, Riza?" Stephanie Isaac asked as the girls left the barracks and made for the gate.
"Have you got a date? You can trust us!" added Lucy, coming up on Riza's other side.
"It's nothing," the younger girl assured them. "It's just..."
But they were at the gate now, and there stood Gareth Hughes, cap in hand. "Hey, Riza," he said, offering his arm politely. Riza didn't quite feel comfortable enough to take it.
Lucy and Stephanie exchanged a look of clarity. "Hello, Mr. Hawkeye," said Steph. "It's nice to meet you: Riza never talks about her parents."
"Oh, he's not—" Riza began.
"I'm most certainly not!" Gareth added vehemently. "Gareth Hughes at your service, ladies. I'm a family friend."
"Yes," Riza said. "A family friend."
"Sure," said Lucy. "Well, uh... nice to meet you..."
Neither girl seemed to know what to do with Riza's "family friend". As another clutch of cadets came past, Lucy and Steph vanished into the crowd.
"That was awkward," Gareth said good-naturedly. "Look, I didn't mean that your old man wasn't..."
Riza shook her head. "It's all right," she said pertly. "He wasn't. Can we please... I mean, I need to be back for curfew at twenty-three-hundred hours."
"Sure thing," said the glover. "It's not more than a mile and a half, but we could take the trolley if you wanted."
"I'd rather walk it, thank you," Riza said.
"You're a girl after my own heart," Gareth told her.
They passed the rest of the walk in silence, but at last they reached the Telegraph Hotel near East City Station. In a small room on the third floor, Benjamin Hughes was waiting.
He was settled in a shabby armchair next to the radiator, swathed in the quilt from the bed. On his lap lay a neglected piece of whittling – it looked like the early shaping of a duck. His head was resting on one bony shoulder, and Riza thought that he was asleep. But as Gareth closed the door, Ben snorted softly and raised his head.
"Riza," he said hoarsely. Then a smile creased his sad, grey face and he sat up a little straighter. "It's so good to see you."
Military dignity forgotten, Riza rushed forward, bending to embrace her friend. "Ben!" she said, feeling once again like a small child greeting the tinkers as they came back to town. "I'm so glad..."
She caught herself just in time. Ben didn't need to know that she had taken him for dead.
"I just—" He was cut off by a wet, gurgling cough. Quick as lightning Gareth whipped out a handkerchief and thrust it into his brother's hand. Ben held it to his mouth as he choked up a string of phlegm. Wiping his lips, he averted his eyes away from Riza.
"Bless you," she said, not sure how else to respond.
"It's nothing," Ben muttered. Behind him, Gareth cast Riza a dubious look. "You... you've joined the military."
The next-to-youngest of the Hughes brothers had been killed in action on the Aerugan front, around the same time that Riza's father had died. As close-knit as the family of itinerant tradesmen had been, Riza could only imagine what that loss had done to Ben – particularly given his history with Ira. She shook her head.
"I'm at the Academy," she said. "I won't be a soldier for a long time yet: more than three years. By then the war will be over. Anyway they don't like having women on the front. I'll probably end up in an office somewhere, reviewing curriculum changes or designing traffic signs." Not if she had anything to say about it. She would go wherever Mr. Mustang went: into the field, to battle, straight to hell if she had to. But Ben didn't need to know that.
She was glad of the fib, for her friend ventured a small smile. "Never thought of that," he said.
Gareth made a choking sound: he knew she was lying. Gareth had a sixth sense about that kind of thing. Their mother had died when Mr. Mustang's friend the youngest Hughes was borne, and it was Gareth who had taken on the role of matriarch for the family. Riza remembered a deeply mortifying day when she had come to the tinkers' camp thinking that she was about to die, only to learn from Gareth just what the unexpected bleeding meant. He was younger than Ben, but he looked after him, and before the family had broken up – Ira and Maes to the military, the third son Eli to government contracts in the glassgrinding industry – Gareth had looked after all of the others as well. Ben was Riza's dear friend, but Gareth was one of the few responsible adults who had helped her through her childhood.
"I'm taking classes at the university, too," Riza said, knowing that that news would please both men.
Ben shook his head wonderingly. "I always knew you'd do something like that," he said. "You're the cleverest person I know."
Riza flushed a little at the compliment. "It's really wonderful," she said; "because it's part of my training, so the military pays for it. I'd never be able to afford it otherwise."
"I wondered..." Ben said. He reached beneath the blanket and drew out a book that had been sitting on his lap. "I wondered if maybe... just like old times..."
"I'd love to," Riza said earnestly. She had fond memories of reading aloud to her friend: at a time when she was sequestered at home with a father whose idea of education was to thrust a stack of books into her hands and bid her read them, it had been cruicially important to have someone to take an interest in her efforts.
"I'll go and scare up some supper," Gareth said softly, skirting around the reunited companions and making for the door.
Riza opened the book. She could tell that the illiterate woodsman had chosen it himself: there were beautiful plate illustrations that he could enjoy on his own, even when there was no one to read to him.
"Chapter One: I Am Born," Riza began. "To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born..."
discidium
Later that evening, when supper was finished and Ben had drifted off to sleep, Gareth filled Riza in on the doings of the Hughes family since he had last written.
Absalom, the patriarch of the clan, was eking out a living in South City, but with the uncertainty and volatility of the south-eastern region near the Ishbal border, he had not been on the road for the better part of two years. This was hard on Ben, who was ill-suited to city life, but with the political situation being what it was there was no sense in taking unnecessary risks.
Gareth himself was busy: there was a good deal of work for a man of his skill, since most of the tailors, haberdashers and glovers in Southern were occupied in the war effort – but the shops still had their civilian clientele. It wasn't the kind of detailed custom work that Gare really enjoyed, but it brought in a steady income, and with the tinkering business being so slow, the family needed the money. Gareth was beginning to toy with the idea of setting up a shop – but of course, he added, Ben needed him far too much to allow time for something like that.
Eli the glassgrinder, whom Riza remembered as a notorious rake, was constantly busy with government contracts for safety goggles and rifle sights. He had once been an itinerant optician, travelling with his family and providing eyeglasses to the rural communities. Riza couldn't help but wonder what the farmers and villagers were doing without him, and it saddened her to think that the war effort was depriving Amestrian citizens of such an essential service.
Eli still found ample time for his love life, Gareth started to say before he remembered to whom he was speaking and curtailed his story.
Tiath, who with Ira's death was the last of the Brothers Hughes still living nearby, had taken a job with a photography firm, and was learning how to use a camera. Just as well, said Gareth, for he had never shown much promise as a tinker.
Mr. Mustang's friend Maes was in West City living the life of a junior officer. He didn't write home as often as Gareth wanted him to.
As he walked Riza back to the Academy, Gareth confided in her the details he had not wanted to utter within earshot of Ben, no matter how deeply he appeared to be sleeping.
"He's not well," Gareth said grimly. "That damned chest of his – the doctor in South City blames the liquor, but I don't know. I think..."
He sighed heavily, and for a minute they walked in silence.
"Is it about your mother?" Riza asked. She knew very little about the matter, but she had a nightmarish memory of her dear friend, drunk and brandishing a hunting knife while he screamed that he had murdered her.
Gareth's shoulders slumped. "You know about that," he whispered.
"I... I know that he... something about saving your little brother?"
A nod. "Maes was breach. Mam was haemorrhaging so badly, and we thought she was dead. Ben cut her open and pulled out Maes. They both would've died if he hadn't done it. They both would have died..."
Riza swallowed hard. "He had to do it," she said softly. "He had no choice."
"I know," Gareth breathed. "But there's something else... Riza, can you keep a secret? You're his friend, you need to understand, but Ben doesn't know that I know, and if it ever got back to Maes it would kill him."
Gareth, who listened so patiently to everyone else's problems and bore everyone else's burdens had never had anyone to help him shoulder his own. Riza nodded sombrely. "Of course I can," she said. "I'll never tell anyone."
"She wasn't dead when he did it. She still had a pulse: he found it in her leg. Ben cut her open while... while she was still alive."
For a moment neither walker seemed to breathe. "How did – how did you find out?" Riza asked at last.
"Ben... when he's drunk... he doesn't always remember what he says," Gareth replied. "The first time he told me, Maes was still in diapers. I had to go and bring him back to camp – Da had the little ones to take care of..." He shuddered violently.
Riza had always assumed that Ben's decline, his slow descent into misery and darkness, had begun around the time when she was eight or nine. It had never occurred to her that the two brothers had been wrestling with this demon for two dozen years.
"I'm sorry..." she said, but it was wholly inadequate.
Gareth shook his head. "It's terrible to say," he murmured, staring vacantly down the dark road ahead; "but... one day, soon, Ben is going to die. And it'll be kinder. He'll be happier. He's wanted this... for a long, long time."
Riza didn't know what to say. There was nothing that she could say. She slipped her small hand into Gareth's strong, calloused one, and squeezed consolingly.
discidium
The Hughes brothers stayed until Saturday, when Riza once again had a chance to leave the grounds and visit them. On Sunday they departed, Gareth promising to write. Riza returned to the campus alone, and life resumed as usual. There was a little teasing about her "older gentleman", but her lack of response quickly put the other girls off of the scent.
In the third week in May, Lucy Bacall snuck out of an especially boring lecture on the life and times of Fuhrer McFarland to find Riza Hawkeye on the landing below the hall. This fell into the category of Absolutely Bizarre, because Hawkeye never cut classes. Lucy approached as quietly as combat boots allowed. The younger girl stood with her back to the stairs, staring vacantly out of the window at the empty parade grounds where a cast-off newspaper danced in the wind, tumbling over the ridges of dried earth that had not very long ago been a quagmire of mud. In one small hand, she held a letter as if it were made of finest Xingese china.
"Riza?" Lucy said quietly. It was unusual for Bacall to be quiet under any circumstances, but the other cadet seemed to radiate an aura that precluded anything but the utmost sobriety. "What's wrong?"
Hawkeye turned to look over her shoulder. The extraordinary carmine eyes were shining with unshed tears, suddenly tempered with a new wisdom beyond even Hawkeye's wonted introspection.
"Nothing," she answered, so softly that Lucy could scarcely make out the words. "Nothing at all. An old friend... finally found his peace."
Then she walked away, her pristinely polished boots clicking softly on the stairs below.
