Nothing Sacred Part 14

"Good thing your own father didn't feel like that," I said a little hotly. Merridew's command posture, his certainty, had been used to bolster everyone up, hold them together, and I appreciated that, but this inhuman side of his personality irked me, all the more because I was sure that the rigidity of the ramrod backbone was in some respects a role. But I liked the instinctive behavior he'd shown, the flashes of kindness and perception he allowed himself, so I took his condition into consideration and throttled down to a safer subject. Arguing is all well and good but he'd been badly injured and I could see his jaw tightening and the teeth clenching that the lion didn't knock out, and I was afraid he might rupture something so I changed the subject. "You're third-generation military, sir?"

"Seventh, if you want to know, young lady. I had an ancestor who was a private in the seventh cav back during the Indian wars-buffalo soldiers they called them then, 'cause of the hair." He lifted a finger gingerly in the general direction of his partially scalped head. What isn't st.i.tches or wounds is still covered with matted black steel wool. "Black men couldn't be officers till our country got into the international wars, and my great-grandfathers started as sergeants but worked their way up."

"But you didn't want to have a son to carry on after you?"

"No, I ... Young woman, what makes you think there's going to be an 'after me' to carry on? And even if there is, how could I be sure my son will be like me, when he hasn't got me around to emulate?

He and his mother would be in some cozy backwater in Uzbekistan and he'd get into trouble and-"

"Sir, you're tired. I think it's depressing you. You turned out all right, didn't you? And I'll bet you never got to see your father that much ..."

"No, ma'am, I did not. My father was a true American hero; he was part of that astronaut program, did I tell you that? The high point of his career was being one of the first men to set foot on Ura.n.u.s, just before the administration changed and they called the whole thing off for good except for those little spies we all got up there in the sky. Like I said, he was a hero. Whereas I only made Colonel. And I let myself be captured. I wouldn't say that's living up to the old man."

Why had the old woman picked such an odd crew to be in her high-security camp? I wondered. A Cajun bird cleaner and medic, an orphaned test-tube baby who'd grown up to be a wife-beating infantryman, an Indian peace fighter whose specialty was demolitions, the last descendant of a family of black military aristocrats and son of the last man to set foot on another planet, and me. Why no scientists? Theirs would be the top secrets you'd think they'd want to extract from people in a top-security camp. Surely the Chinese had medics, demolitions experts, pilots and airplane mechanics of their own. Even if they didn't, they had NACAF experts on practically everything to compensate. That was part of the NACAF peace plan.

The Colonel lay staring at the ceiling, the curl of his lashes casting long candlelit shadows on his cheeks. Tears as much from physical weakness as sadness rolled ignored sideways down past his ears. I wished I had a sedative or had learned the old woman's humming trick.

GARDEN, DAY 30-FINDS.

The garden is growing at a tremendous rate. There's so much food Dr. Terton has some of her spinach taken to the yaks. Today Tatiana, the Russian woman who prefers to be called 'Tania,' found anintact beam of painted wood, still patterned with intricate red, yellow and gilt designs.

GARDEN, DAY 32.

Pema, working beside me today and chattering away as usual, suddenly started making excited noises and jumping up and down. I straightened out my weary back and aching knees and turned my stiff neck to see that she was waving a string of turquoise, silver, and coral beads. Very beautiful. Her mother made her turn them in to Taring, of course. Moments later, my fingers brushed what I thought was a rock but when I tried to dig it loose, I found it was a grimy, blackened dragon figure with an elephant's trunk.

One cheek is caved in and one tusk bent sideways, but when I sc.r.a.ped it with my fingernail, a gold streak threw the sun back into my eyes. I stuck it in my pocket. I'll show it to Taring later.

GARDEN, DAY 35.

I worked with Tea today. He is as friendly as ever, though I'm still a little leery of him and answer with as few words as possible. It's hard to stay withdrawn around him, however, and I wonder if he even notices, as he dances around and mutters to himself constantly while he examines the finds unearthed in the gardening process. My little dragon was among the first, and I quietly slipped it in with the other things uncovered since the planting area has expanded to include the entire lower slope. Among the objects in the pile on the library floor are large sections of painted wood similar to the one Tania found, gracefully posed hands, arms, legs, feet, and torsos of statues, even one golden Buddha head with hooded eyes; ornamental fixtures-candle sconces, lamps, hooks, that sort of thing, usually golden or gilded, often carved; a smashed thermos bottle; gold incense burners in the shapes of animals; kitchen utensils; dishes; and even another bathtub.

These things represented the discoveries which were reported. Anything found by a guard or seen by a guard to be unearthed by a prisoner is duly taken to Wu. But I have seen many gardeners stop to wipe their brows and secretly tuck a prize into jacket pockets, sleeves, or the bands of trousers.

I caught glimpses of some of these objects. Mostly they were smaller pieces of ornament, like my dragon; or jewelry; pieces of cloth, some plain, that I thought might have been prayer flags; and some sc.r.a.ps of elaborately patterned and colored silk. Once I found a cache of pages from Tibetan books.

Individually they would have been small enough to hide, but collectively the cache was too big to conceal and besides, I had permission to study them anyway so I reported them and Dolma came to collect them for the library.

Distractions make the concealment of the smaller finds easier. Every day now, it seems, we hear rumblings of distant avalanches-or perhaps it's sh.e.l.ling, even in this remote place? Every time something thunders or crashes, the gardening stops, those who can straighten their backs do so and scan the sky-and others stuff their clothing with some new little treasure.

Today the big find was brought in by three of the guards. Several people simultaneously had unearthed a tangle of dirty cloth-silk brocade in once-brilliant vermilions and saffrons, maroons and gilt thread. Many of the pieces, once they were dampened and smoothed from the stiff knotted wads in which they had lain for so long, were intact, though much rotted in places. The pieces were as large as bedspreads, flat on the top, scalloped on the bottom.

Tea retrieved the computer from the office again and switched into Earl Grey, back to the opening files. He blocked out a portion of the "before" picture of the compound and enlarged it. In the enlargedsection, a couple walked up a short flight of stone steps, a pretty child between them. They looked very much like Wu and Taring. Alarm bells went off in my head and I backed away from the computer. Tea threw me an inquiring look.

"Very interesting," I told him. "But I'm tired of being manipulated, thanks all the same."

"Okay," he said sadly, closing the bright eye of the screen. "I am getting it, partner. Tea speak with forked tongue, right? But I am not understanding why what I am showing you and telling you is more manipulative than what you are getting from others."

I would have said "hmph," but I already felt a little silly. He really does not seem to see what he did wrong. For an inscrutable evil jailer, he gets his feelings hurt too easily. Nevertheless, I am not going to be tricked again.

GARDEN, DAY 37.

Merridew is back at the cell and back at work, planting and picking as well as his recovering wounds will allow. To his disgust, all of the guards treat him with gentleness, solicitousness and respect.

He'd be lots happier if they'd skin him alive. Pema stayed right by him all day, helping him up and down.

He tried to shake her off but Pema does not shake easily. She brought him water so often I thought he'd drown.

GARDEN, DAY 40.

The Colonel seems to be back to his old self again. Tonight he started in again on The Great Escape. I'm really surprised they haven't pulled it off before. I've been back on-line cataloging the new finds and the work Tea is doing on the excavations, as well as keeping up with the library (which has made my journal-keeping fairly erratic). I couldn't resist accessing the Colonel's Constant Comment.

Like the others, he has war memorials of his very own- statues of him, no less, artistically incorporated with the wreckage from, his downed aircraft, The Clara Barton, in Washington, D.C., just across the Memorial Hall from the statue of his father and the other astronauts, and in Darjeeling, where his extraordinary efforts flying back and forth through constant enemy fire to provision a besieged base camp saved hundreds of military and civilian Indian lives.

My G.o.d. If anybody should be able to effect a simple little escape from a remote mountain fastness through thousands of miles of snow-covered up-and-down uninhabited, enemy-riddled and probably b.o.o.by-trapped terrain it should be this bunch. I didn't get to share my news about Lebanon with the Colonel. Danielson and Marsh beat me to it. The Colonel was no more impressed with that piece of news than he was with everything else I've told him.

So we stood around Marsh's bunk, heads together, voices quiet and urgent in the darkness-some filmmaker's view of The Conspirators, to the life.

"The kid is always hanging around you, Colonel, and everybody likes her. Maybe you could take her hostage," Danielson said.

"Very convincing," Marsh said. "He just wrecked himself to save her life and now he says, 'One false move and the kid gets it.' ""He wouldn't have to do it," Danielson, the family man, said casually.

"Oh, I don't doubt that he could. But killing her wouldn't help anything and n.o.body's going to believe we would until we do," Marsh reasoned.

"I can be pretty convincing," Danielson argued.

"I don't think we have to go to those lengths, men," the Colonel said. I was an honorary man-on probation, to be sure, but included-for the moment. "But the little girl's parents trust me now, which is pretty unprofessional of them, letting personal feelings cloud their judgment like that. Some night when they're on guard duty, we create a diversion, take their weapons and we, my friends, are out of here."

It sounds like a good plan for leaving the camp okay. I just can't help wondering (though I know better than to say so now) where it is we're supposed to be going.

PACK TRAIN RETURNS.

The pack train returned last night after all of us prisoners were tucked in. Bales of new supplies littered the foot of the garden, and all farmwork ceased while we prisoners dragged the bundles up the hill and into the command bunker, where Dolma sleepily stood by to inventory them.

We worked together in the library later that day and she kept pulling her gla.s.ses off and rubbing her eyes with her fists as if she could barely keep her eyes open. "Did you have guard duty last night?" I asked. We haven't had too much time to talk since the garden project began and she looked so worn out and troubled that I forgot to be angry with her.

"Yes, and my friend Phurbu was with the pack train. After the others had gone, she wanted to talk.

She is very worried, Viva. The helicopter was not there to meet them again. The supplies were lying half buried in the snow and in that cave, you know?"

I nodded. The one where Terton had laid the double-whammy on me over tea-for-two.

"The helicopter had been gone long enough that they saw no tracks from the runners in the snow. As Phurbu and the others were loading up to come back, they heard rifle fire in the distance and what she was sure was mortar fire, although it was hard to tell. Three times on the narrowest trail they had to dig their way through a snow slide and she said she lost count in the valleys how often they had to take a long way around because the trail was buried in avalanche. She was shaking, Viva, not only because she was tired, but because she felt so fortunate to be back here. My friend Rinchen Norbu and three other young men are walking out to the guerrilla camp to try to find out what is happening to our supply lines. For although there is not yet fighting in this area, the noises of the war have penetrated, you see, and their vibrations have set up sympathetic resonances causing more and more high avalanches. We are all much concerned."

She still had her gla.s.ses off and searched my face with bloodshot eyes so myopic they were mostly pupil, wide and despairing. Neither of us wondered aloud if the helicopter would be able to find the meeting place again, should the avalanches obscure the valley, or what would become of us if it did not.

But with the vegetables and careful husbandry of the yaks, perhaps we could survive longer than otherwise. I hoped. "Were there any more communiques?" I asked. No need to be coy now. I know they mean for me to see these things."Only negative ones," she said. "None of the measures the other countries of the world have attempted have made any impact on the quarreling Lebanese governments."

I duly pa.s.sed along the information to my cellmates that night.

"Idiots," Marsh hissed. "The Lebanese are all nuts with battle trauma-shock. They're going to waste the whole d.a.m.ned planet over a puny civil war."

"I have a family to protect," Danielson said. "I was never any good to them in peacetime but if the s.h.i.t is. .h.i.tting the fan, I want to be there to take care of them. And if the pa.s.ses are closing up, like Viv says, I say we go while the going's good."

"Right," the Colonel agreed. "Now then, men, pay attention. I've been thinking this over and I think I've come up with a pretty sound plan. Next time that woman whose kid I saved from the lion is on duty, I'll distract her while you three go forage food, extra clothing, etc. A radio would be good too, and something to heat with, a flashlight, and a map ... Viv, can we count on you for a map?"

I hesitated not because I didn't think I could get a map. I know right where to find one and it's no trick to liberate it from the pile where I've stashed it. But what use is all of this going to be with the avalanches, miles of cold and snow and more hungry days than we can carry food to cover. "Sure, Colonel," I said, knowing as I did so that it would be taken the wrong way. "But aren't you guys forgetting that we don't just have to walk as far as we walked to get in here, we'll have to walk clear across Tibet to get back to our lines-always a.s.suming they're still where we left them?"

The Colonel glowered at me. "Vanachek, you've got a negative att.i.tude. You lived back in the States too long and you're used to being coddled. We'll have to cross some bridges when we come to them."

Never mind that one of those bridges was a rope one, spanning a bottomless gorge, and might be gone by the time we reached it.

"Maybe she'd rather stay here with her little friends," Danielson said nastily. "How about it, Vanachek? Are you in or out?"

"I'm in," I said. What else could I say?

ESCAPE.

This is it. Tonight. Over the past week we've stepped up the yoga and the calisthenics, gathered extra vegetables as they grew to maturity, and have made do by eating only our ration of vegetables instead of our momos, which will keep better. I provided the map and a copy of the guard roster. Tsering comes on duty this evening.

SUPPER.

We've had an unexpected development which I thought would be a snag, but turns out to be helpful.

Instead of dispensing momos as usual, Tsering announced to the cell at large, "All prisoners will eat together now, Commandant Wu says."Instead of making it more difficult to escape, however, the new arrangement facilitated gathering the few items we've been lacking. Although we were all supposed to be marched under close guard to the dining room, the room I had first seen as some sort of a chapel, Tsering only made a pretense of it and chatted instead with the Colonel, who hastily made up some children to miss and to compare to her daughter. Long planks made tables and we sat on the floor around these, prisoners lumped according to cell, guards at their own table. Through the door I could see the bathtub from Akron, Ohio. Vegetable stew with rice and dried meat was being ladled from it.

And guess what's just around the corner? That's right, the supply room where the winter gear is stored. Through the open door we could see it hanging around the walls of the room, boots neatly paired beneath snowsuits and coats, mittens slung by straps over all.

NEXT DAY.

The plan has changed. We snag the winter gear first, and delay the escape till the next time Tsering or Samdup stands guard.

Last night in the middle of the night the Colonel feigned a bellyache, and Thibideaux called up the stairs for Tsering. As she entered the darkened cell alone, Marsh slipped out the open door behind her.

She is very relaxed around the Colonel now, poor woman, and had we been ready, and if her trust was not more valuable to us for the way we planned to betray it than her death was right then, Danielson would have killed her.

"He's mighty bad off," Thibideaux told her as the Colonel moaned and clutched his stomach and acted far sicker than he had when he was injured. "You best go get old Doc Terton, ma'am."

Then from above several people began shouting at once and two shots rang out, echoing in ricochet against the wall. I thought, My G.o.d, they're shooting Marsh.

Tsering turned on her heel and bounded up the steps and we listened to more shots and more shouting and running footsteps. Then one set of footsteps clattered down the staircase outside the cell and Marsh half fell inside, dumping an armload of clothing onto the floor. His teeth gleamed in the dark, he was grinning so widely.

"I thought they'd got you for sure," Thibideaux said.

"Nope. I just let the cat out. Tsering hates that cub, you know. I've seen her poking at it with her rifle barrel and I know she'd kill it if the old woman and Wu would let her."

"Seems like a dirty trick to play on the animal, settin' 'em all on it like that," Thibideaux said, grinning back.

"That cat can take care of itself. Have you seen that sucker lately? The old lady's been nursing it with yak milk and Taring brings it rats and now it's plenty large enough to fight back. They'd better move fast or it'll get one of them, or maybe have yak for dinner." Marsh chuckled to himself.

We stuffed the clothing into emptied sandbags in the hallway, the dirt from which we spread beneath the other bags. The other things we hid between the wall and the bags, piling the bags with the clothing in them in front.ESCAPE "Another pack train is leaving tomorrow," Dolma told me today. "This time I will be with them. This time there surely will be the helicopter and we will learn what has become of Rinchen Norbu."

Her voice is strained. I also see strain in Tea these days. He works frantically on the lower excavations. Even Wu has seemed distracted and the doctor works every day with the rest of us in the garden.

Tonight I dutifully reported Dolma's news about the pack train's departure to my cellmates.

"Then it's tonight," the Colonel said. "We have to leave tonight. We'll be the ones to meet the chopper instead of the pack train. We'll leave tonight, ahead of them, wearing their gear. They won't discover it missing until we're gone. The helicopter pilot will think we're the pack train, bundled in their gear as we will be, and we'll hijack the chopper and fly it back to our lines. Besides, the kid's father is on guard duty tonight, which makes this the most perfect possible opportunity."

I don't know whether to take my journal or to leave it. Because I must admit now that I will miss this place, that I will not forget Tea or Dolma or even Terton, I'll leave it behind. I don't really think I will survive this journey, to tell the truth. I'm in better shape than I used to be and maybe in better shape than the Colonel, who I also don't expect will survive. We'll probably be the first ones to die. The men may even ultimately leave me behind, although I think for all their rough talk they are less likely to do so than they'd have me believe. Nevertheless, I have to try, I suppose, even if there's nowhere to go. But I prefer to think of this part of me in the hands of people I may not be able to call friends, exactly, but who feel as much like friends as anyone I'm likely to have the rest of my life. There's no one back on the NAC to whom this last record of me might be carried. Eloquence eludes me. Goodbye.

PART SIX.

JOURNAL, PHASE 2.

I write the above heading as if something has changed, though in many ways it seems as if nothing has, as if what we saw, or thought we saw tonight, was some horrible collective nightmare. Here we are-most of us, all but Danielson-once more in our b.u.t.ter-lamp-brightened cell. We're still in our prison uniforms and on the surface-well, maybe nothing has changed. But I think that maybe everything has. Tonight. In the s.p.a.ce of- hours? minutes? I don't know. I just don't know. It seemed like seconds and it seemed like forever and the sky is so f.u.c.ked up that even if we were topside, I wouldn't know if it was day yet.But if it was nothing, if nothing is different, why is quiet, self-contained Marsh sitting on his bunk babbling away like a guest physics lecturer about how to safely disarm nuclear weapons, how so-and-so from such-and-such a country should have done this or that?

Why is Thibideaux sobbing and shaking, moaning as if he's in mortal pain? Why did Danielson bolt and leave the rest of us for-what? where? And why is the Colonel sitting there on his bunk with his legs crossed, pumping the top leg up and down with his bottom knee, grimacing to himself.

And why am I so cold? My fingers feel frozen around this pen and I'm sure I'll carry its imprint on my hand for the rest of my life-let's not think about that. I only wish they hadn't taken away the winter gear again. It's so cold. I can't stop shaking. I don't want to be here. I want to go home. I want my grandma. I want a joint. I want hot and cold running water and junk food and I want to sit in Sammy's bar and drink tequila and a.n.a.lyze everybody else in the whole f.u.c.king place. I want my worst worry to be whether or not I pa.s.s some stupid test or the other. But Grandma's been dead for years and home's been plowed under a long time ago and Sammy-well, if my guess is right, Sammy's long gone too.

What I don't want to think about is the sky. I don't want to think about that noise out there, that chugging gush of a noise. Poor Danielson. Poor jerk. Out of the frying pan into the fire, as they say.

Jesus, I'm funny. A G.o.dd.a.m.n scream.

Okay, so instead of sitting here babbling across my paper and freezing to death I'm going to get coherent now. As you may gather from the above, dear diary, we did not escape. We were recaptured-sort of. All but Danielson.

In the beginning, everything ran as smoothly as planned. More so. Samdup did not need persuading of any sort. He was asleep and he'd left both doors open. He'd had a hard day in the fields and he was p.o.o.ped, I suppose. I was glad. Danielson smirked down at him and crept past on feet padded with layers of fur boots and wool socks.

Marsh pulled his parka hood close to his face and melted into the boulders behind Danielson. It wasn't so cold then and I was sweating with excitement. I carried my gear, as Thibideaux carried his and the Colonel's, not just because I was too warm but because the extra clothing would make me even slower and clumsier than I already was. The Colonel hadn't worn his for the same reason, I suppose.

I had just pa.s.sed Samdup when the earth hiccupped, buckling beneath my feet, and my knees gave way so that I sat down abruptly.

Samdup fell face forward onto the ground, snorted and awakened. "Eh? What?" he said in Tibetan, pulling himself up and staring at me with sleep-bewildered eyes.

The Colonel and Thibideaux melted back, out of sight, and I dropped my gear to the ground, stood up and dusted myself off and said,"Wow, did you feel that?" first in English, then switching to Tibetan.

And I thought, right then, that maybe the others would just escape without me. That I could stand staying here without them. I wasn't afraid of being tortured or punished particularly and though I had no burning desire to stay, I just decided I wouldn't mind-possibly, I'll admit, that revelation came as a result of dreading freezing to death in the mountains and being left behind abandoned as a grisly, frozen corpse.

Samdup looked confused to see me. I tried to pretend that nothing was wrong, that I'd just popped up to see what was going on, and everyone else was still down below, where they were supposed to be.

I didn't want anybody to have to kill poor Samdup. He's been as decent to me as circ.u.mstances allow.

A rock in a black fist reached out of the darkness, aiming downward toward Samdup's head, thenstopped in midair and dropped to the ground with a thud. Involuntarily, I glanced back at the Colonel.