Marshlands (12 page)

Have you eaten?
I ask.

I'm not hungry
, he says.

Not hungry? Since when are you not hungry?

Then he salutes like one of the soldiers from the barracks. Very odd.

Come, Chigger
, I say,
we'll have a drink together and you can tell me about your trip
.

My invitation poses a dilemma. I can see that he wants to blurt out his report and go, but he's seduced by the idea of a cool drink.

Marshmen aren't welcome in the officers' club, so I take him to the canteen. Even there, he and I aren't wanted. By the time I've ordered our drinks and returned to the table, several of the soldiers have left. The radio has been switched off, along with the ineffective electric fan, whose red streamers flutter and go limp.

I hand Chigger one of the soft drinks he loves so much. He sets it on the table and picks at the label.

I thought you liked this brand
, I say. I'm trying not to lose my patience, but really, this new behavior is childish in the extreme. Where, I wonder, has the old Chigger gone?

I like beer now
, he says nonchalantly, casting a sidelong glance at me to see how I'll react.

Beer is not good for you
, I say.

You mean they don't serve my kind alcohol
, he says.

No. I mean that beer is not good for you. Since when do you tell me what I mean? Or imply that I haven't spoken my true mind?

Chigger blushes, but holds his head defiantly. He really has undergone an amazing transformation.

So tell me
, I say, trying to assume the old tone of familiarity,
what did you learn?

He opens the soft drink thoughtfully, using his strong white teeth as a bottle opener. It makes me cringe to see him do it, but I hold my tongue.

I learned plenty
, he says slyly,
but it was expensive
.

Stop it
, I say.

Stop what?
he asks.

Stop acting like—

A marshman?

Like a scoundrel
.

He frowns, then raises his bottle and gulps it down.

Tell me about Ghilad
, I say.
They claim he was an insurgent
.

Perhaps he was
.

Meaning?

Chigger holds up the empty bottle.
I'm still thirsty
, he says.

*   *   *

Chigger starts by explaining that the rice farmer relies on water for the propagation of his crop. I don't interrupt him, although I know far more about rice farming than he does. I want him to keep talking. Talking seems to be a cure. He's more like himself with every word.

The trouble began, Chigger says, at the beginning of the rainy season, when the seedlings had just been transplanted and needed to be kept wet. Ghilad paid his headman, as always, for his allotment of water, but when it was time for his field to be flooded, he learned that the headman had accepted his payment in bad faith. A new levee was under construction. There was no more water to be had; not in that season, or any season in the future.

I'm not familiar with this new levee
, I say.
Is it military or civilian?

Chigger shrugs, holding out his palms like a set of scales.
That's neither here nor there
, he says. Ghilad simply did what any marshman would do. One night, he took a pick and shovel to it, and by morning, his fields were properly flooded. As they always had been in the past, year upon year.

Remember
, Chigger says, as if the whole story turns on this crucial point,
he'd paid his headman for the water!

The headman complained to the army's regional commander, who dispatched a crew to patch the levee and reinforce it with concrete.

Ah
, I say,
a military levee
.

Chigger pauses for dramatic effect. His eyes take on a priestly seriousness.
How
, he asks,
will Ghilad overcome this new obstacle?

The answer lies in cheap concrete: too much sand, too much gravel, nowhere near enough cement—scarcely stronger than dried mud! The occupying army has been tricked again, this time into buying substandard concrete. It's a reliable comic turn for a story among the marshmen.

A few blows with a sledgehammer, followed by another night's work with pick and shovel, and the water is flowing again.

But this second breach is taken more seriously. An attack on an earthen levee is one thing. An attack on a levee reinforced not just with concrete, but with the faith and credit of the army of occupation, requires a response.

Why don't I know about this levee?

Chigger frowns at my interruption, then continues his tale. The regional commander answers with a third levee of high-quality reinforced concrete, with a tower overlooking Ghilad's fields, and hires watchmen from a rival tribe.

Unfortunately
, he says,
Ghilad can't count on support from his tribe, thanks to his mother's cleft lip
.
And without it, a lone marshman is powerless against these kinds of forces
.

By this, I understand Chigger to mean the forces of fate, not the levee and watchtower, which are merely its agents.

Nevertheless
, Chigger says,
he does not bow down
.

Ghilad's final act of insurgency involves explosives. The cost of this black market ordnance, filched from an army depot, is staggering. To pay for it, he borrows a fortune at usurious rates. Not only that, but the reinforced concrete is difficult to penetrate with sledgehammer and pick. When morning comes, Ghilad is forced to abandon his digging and plant the explosives in a shallow hole.

The sentries find the homemade device and attempt to defuse it, but they're clumsy. There's an explosion. No one is killed, but one of them loses a thumb and three fingers to the blast. As luck would have it, the maimed man turns out to be a part-time informant for the occupiers, with nearly the status of an occupying soldier himself.

What was there to do?
Chigger asks.
Ghilad ran and hid. Despite his unpopularity, some saw him as a freedom fighter, although with a poor understanding of the larger conflict
.
In the end, someone must have turned him in. A marshman who doesn't wish to be found is like a reed among reeds.

I've never heard Chigger use the phrase “freedom fighter.” It's chilling. Even worse is the admiration in his voice.

What if the maimed man were from your tribe?
I ask.
Would you feel differently?
Chigger answers carefully, as if the soldier sweeping the floor behind us were secretly a court stenographer.
There is merit on both sides
, he says
. But the stars favor the farmer, whose work is more honest.

It's a shrewd answer, delivered in the manner of a soothsayer. Chigger has a great future as a headman, if there's any power left in his people's hands when his time comes.

*   *   *

One of the native porters, a wiry man I once treated for a burst eardrum, comes to fetch me the next morning. I invite him into the tent, but he refuses, looking nervously over my shoulder for any sign of the laundress.

The general is here
, he says, dashing off like a frightened child.

The whole camp has turned out for the inspection, which is under way in the hospital yard. Curtis has brought one of his mounts, an immense stallion imported from the homeland, the better to impress the soldiers of the garrison, who vie with one another to have a picture taken by his saddle.

He cuts a fine figure on his steed. Even the marshmen are impressed, although they watch the proceedings from a safe distance. All except Paul, who clamors for the general's attention as eagerly as any of the soldiers. And in fact they pass him forward on their shoulders. He has become a kind of mascot.

Curtis acknowledges the boy with a crisp salute. The men applaud the gesture. This exchange between their general and the obedient marsh boy can only be a good omen.

One of the soldiers takes the general's reins and points in my direction. Curtis thanks him, then trots over, waving farewell to the men with his pristine cap. Their faces glisten with the heat of the day. It has been a long time since they wore their uniforms buttoned up, with proper shoes on their feet.

Curtis is glowing, too, as he climbs down to greet me. It's easy to see why he inspires such loyalty. He loves fighting men, even lazy ones like ours.

“Administrator,” he says offhandedly, rubbing the horse's jaw.

“Does the camp meet with your approval?”

“Actually, I'm here to have a word about that rice farmer.”

We walk to the communal trough, where Curtis pumps water for his horse, stroking its flanks contemplatively as it drinks. Most mornings there's a long line at the water, but today it's deserted. Marshmen are surely watching, though.

“There's been a misunderstanding,” I say. “He wasn't an insurgent.”

“No?” Curtis asks, picking a burr from the horse's twitching ear. “What would you call him, then?”

“A farmer trying to water his crops. The source of the problem seems to have been a water dispute.”

“No,” Curtis says, “the source of the problem was a lack of respect.”

“Watering a field is hardly an act of war.”

“That's debatable,” he says, squinting at the sun. “At any rate, there was indeed a misunderstanding. We're not in the business of returning insurgent remains. Sends the wrong message. My men shouldn't have abandoned the corpse. As soon as they were informed of their error, they rectified it.”

He reaches into a saddlebag and pulls out an envelope with a paltry amount of scrip. “This is for the mother,” he says. “It's more than she's entitled to. Make it clear that this is the end of it. And another thing,” he says, climbing back into the saddle. “You're going to be working with us again, just like before. It's either that, or you're finished here.”

Steadying myself with the reins, I ask, “What if she wants to know where her son is buried?”

Curtis takes them from my hand and says, “Tell her to follow the crows.”

*   *   *

I spend the day raising cash—emptying my strongbox, calling in old loans, even selling my precious cape gun to a surgeon who has long coveted it. At dusk, I'm at the lean-tos, my pockets bulging with bills. The laundress is perched on a boulder by the river, bathing her feet in muddy water. A heap of soiled laundry lies untouched nearby in a basket.

I spoke with the general
, I say, showing her the sheaf of bills.
He wants you to have this
.

She looks wistfully at the money, but doesn't take it.

I sit down next to her, but there isn't room. I slip, sinking to the ankle in warm muck.

Is there anyone more powerful?
she asks.

No
, I say.

Then Ghilad is lost?

Take this
, I say, forcing the money into her hand.
We can still have a burial. We'll bury his favorite things. I've heard of people doing it that way.

No
, she says firmly. Aggressively, even.
That kind of thing isn't for us.

5

Toward morning, there's a distant rumble. I bury my face in my pillow, dreaming of the sudden downpours that scour the grasses at the edge of the lake, releasing their musk.

But the rains haven't come. A few moments later, the gelid ground heaves.

Officers and porters pour out of their tents half dressed. The word “earthquake” is in the air, but then someone spots a column of fire on the horizon in the direction of the gas pipeline.

This isn't the first time the pipeline has been breached. The thieves lack the tools to cut it safely. They use hammer drills, grinders, sometimes even torches. A crowd will have gathered in anticipation of free fuel. There will be casualties.

Soon the first makeshift ambulance arrives: a flatbed truck. We smell the wounded before we see them. Third-degree burn victims, seven of them, their clothes still smoking. Of these, three are dead, three are critical, and one is a hysterical toddler fused to his mother's thigh by a melted jerrican. The mother is dead, the flesh on her back burnt down to the spine. It seems she died protecting the child from the blast. It's horrifying and heartrending and we cut them apart and move on.

The next group arrives in the back of a poultry truck, piled in among reeking crates. Then another truck arrives, and another. The ward overflows into the yard, which is soon heaped with empty burn kits.

As the hours pass, the cries intensify, assaulting the ears like a flock of starlings that never settles. At a certain point, I look up to find an armored convoy barreling down on us. Personnel carriers skid to a halt in front of the hospital, raising clouds of dust. We cover our patients as best we can while soldiers from Protective Services dismount and race across the grounds. Their trucks are left idling. Diesel fumes fill the air, even as the dust settles.

I approach the drivers and ask them to shut off their engines, but they refuse to hear me. They don't even roll down their windows.

The soldiers move in sudden evasive spurts, taking cover where they find it, as if this were a battlefield.

Fine
, I think,
let them play at their war-making
. I have a hospital to run.

Then one of my surgeons comes to tell me that patients are being removed from the ward.

“And taken where?” I ask.

The surgeon shrugs. His hands are covered in gore and burn ointment. I hold a canteen to his lips. He drinks it dry, then tells me that we're dangerously low on everything.