On the riverside of promise (11 page)

As he did so, Nicole had already reappeared,
this time with a Beretta in hand; she moved along hugging the walls
with all the care in the world.

Ethan could see the sunlight etching shadows
inside the church, but not a shadow moved. As he came closer he
yelled:

“Sisters! Mother superior! Is everyone
alright?”

As he reached the church door, he saw the
trembling figures of a few of the sisters. Some of them sat still,
frozen in shock. Two of them lay down, around a pool of blood. One
of them was the mother superior; her sisters had closed her eyes
and covered her with cloth from the Holy Table. The other sister
was a young thing, perhaps the younger of them all. She was lying
in front of the mother superior, her body mangled horribly; she had
thrown herself in the way of the bullets but that had not been
enough. It never really is, Ethan thought almost cynically.

Nicole was breathing laboriously when she
came next to Ethan. He spared a glance at her, but said nothing. As
her breathing returned to normal, she lowered her Beretta and
slumped herself against a large wooden chair, drenched in sweat and
dirt. She had the smell of gunpowder about her.

One of the nuns, still bent over the mother
superior’s body turned to him and asked Ethan with a croaky
voice:

“Is it over?”

He nodded almost absentmindedly. Then he
turned to look at Nicole and asked her with a deep frown and an
almost unforgiving stare:

“I thought you would do something
stupid.”

She shook her head and looked him squarely in
the eye. He saw the truth behind that glazed look and those weary
words, when she said:

“Have some decency. Let’s talk outside if we
must.”

Ethan nodded, made the sign of the cross and
walked outside towards the Rover. The sun was starting to fill most
of the courtyard. As the adrenaline rush wore off, the smell of
blood and gunpowder assaulted his nostrils. He tried not to inhale
too deeply and focused his stare on the church tower, ridden with
bullet marks. He heard something drop behind him; he turned and saw
Nicole on her knees, heaving her guts. He fought the compulsion to
do so as well.

He approached her and helped on her feet. She
got up, tucked the Beretta in one of her pockets and walked to a
water basin on a wall recess near the church. Ethan followed close
behind her. He noticed she had a slightly limp gait; she was hurt.
He asked her:

“Bullet grazed your leg?”

She shook her head and said without
turning:

“No, sprained ankle probably.”

“Where did you learn to shoot like that?”

She shrugged and cupped her hands full of
water from the basin. She washed her mouth and spat in the dirt
before she replied:

“Algiers.”

“You mean, the Battle of Algiers?” Ethan said
as if finding it difficult to grasp.

She nodded slowly, leaned her back on the
wall and untied her hair. The grit and sweat had turned them into a
mess. She looked at him with a weary smile and replied:

“That’s where I lost my faith, Ethan.”

He looked at her with puzzlement and asked
her:

“I mean, how?”

“It so happened the aid station I was
volunteering got in the way. For two nights, we had to fight for
our lives. Every able bodied man and woman,” she said, folding her
hands together.

Ethan shook his head and bit his lip. He took
a look around him and then gazed at the church as if it were miles
away. He said to Nicole then, his voice carrying a thoughtful
tone:

“So you’ve got your own share, then.”

“My share of what, Ethan? My share of blood
and guts?” she retorted with a flush of anger.

He looked at her through a flutter of his
eyes and said with a shallow, gritty voice:

“Your share of guilt.”

Her face softened and the edges of her lips
fell flat. She stood away from the wall for a moment and then
started walking past Ethan towards the infirmary. He watched her as
she put a hand in her eye, wiping away a tear. He then looked at
the church and the bell tower before closing his eyes and letting
the warm sun touch his face, inch by inch.

* * *

James was overlooking a large map of the area
west of the Niger, stretched out against a wall of his shadowy
office. Small pins marked places of interest, unit positions and
enemy contacts. His hand traced a road to the east and then he
placed another, different sort of marker pin there before smiling
thinly to himself. He paced around the office with hands behind his
back and stopped for a while to take a look outside; he opened the
window blinds and gleaming white sunlight filled the room.

There was nothing unusual about the small
garden plaza: officers were milling about, doing mostly nothing of
real value, making up plans that rarely went ahead or were executed
the way they had been conceived. James turned and looked at the
ceiling fan; it was going at full speed, casting shadows that
seemed to playfully dance around the room, but it did little to
make the heat more bearable.

James heard a knock on the door. He loudly
but curtly said “Enter!”

The door opened and a young white man bearing
the insignia of a Captain was holding a couple of manila folders in
one hand. He saluted briskly with the other and said in an almost
casual way, “Major, sir. I have your daily briefing.”

James simply nodded and motioned the captain
to sit down, which he promptly did. James was having ice cold tea,
a small though invaluable luxury; a large glass jug filled with tea
was sitting on a corner of his desk. Slices of lemons and ice cubes
were floating inside. James asked the Captain:

“Tea, Captain?”

“No, thank you very much sir,” replied the
Captain smiling politely.

“This heat, it’s a real scorcher isn’t it?”
asked James casually. The captain nodded his affirmation.

“It’s supposed to be the rainy season too,”
he replied and shrugged slightly.

“But like the English say, when it rains, it
pours. Doesn’t it?” asked James, looking at the Captain in a
strange, penetrating way. The Captain seemed to ignore the look and
presented the folders to James. They were clear and unmarked,
except for a red rubber-stamped `Confidential’ across the
front.

James took the proffered folders and tossed
them on his desk. He sat down as well, the Captain fidgeting on the
chair, trying to feel the waft of the ceiling fan; the intolerable
heat had sweat piling up on his brow. James put on a pair of
glasses and opened the first folder. He started browsing it,
sipping on some ice cold tea along the way. In a couple of minutes,
he’d skimmed through most of the folder and he had picked up the
second one.

The Captain realised that and was awaken from
his heat-induced stupor to ask;

“Excuse me, Major sir, but you’ve finished
already?”

“I have. Is there a problem?”

“No sir, it’s just that I’m required to
ensure that the intelligence briefing is read and then returned. No
copies can be made.”

“I’ve done this before, Captain. Now if you
will, can I finish the second one? This will only take a couple of
minutes,” said James, smiled thinly and went back to reading the
folder.

Heed no prayer

Ludwig was sweating profoundly, slowly
packing small boxes of essential medicine onto one of the Rovers.
The sun had begun its descent beyond the surrounding hills, but the
heat and moisture was intolerably unabated. Ethan was helping
Nicole load the wounded Red Cross people into two of the
Rovers.

The patients from the infirmary would ride in
the open-top Rovers the bandits had left behind. Two of them needed
a stretcher; bad cases of malaria. The rest were mostly kids, left
to fend on their own.

Though bullet-ridden and shoddy-looking the
Rovers worked fine; they would have to do. Ethan needed to keep
just one of the Red Cross Rovers. Ludwig had indulged him without
pausing to think about it; for all it mattered, he had saved their
lives.

The sisters, fourteen souls left in all,
would ride along with the caravan carrying their meager belongings.
They were leaving little of real value behind them. As they climbed
inside the back of the Rovers, Ethan took a moment to watch them
intently. Nicole had just stopped for a smoke. He turned and told
her then with a flat, calculating expression:

“Look at them. Three of them dead. Vacant
stares, hollow gazes. Still, they keep their rosaries in hand,
muttering prayers. Will that make them feel better about it?”

She let a small cloud of smoke hazily drift
away from her as she sat with her back against the Rover’s door,
legs crossed at her ankles, one hand in her apron’s pocket. She
smiled thinly before she replied:

“Maybe they’re thankful for being alive.
Maybe they’re mourning. Leave the poor women be. Does everything
have to make sense to you?”

He crossed his arms in front of his chest and
cast a thoughtful gaze towards the small graveyard where only a
couple of hours ago they had buried the three sisters, alongside
the bandits. The surviving nuns had insisted on it. He shook his
head absentmindedly then and said:

“It never really does. I’m only saying, how
can they go on after what’s happened?”

She laughed with a bitter crease around her
lips and replied:

“It’s people just like them that do go on.
Faith, remember? I’ve talked to their new superior. She’s decided
to dissolve the order. I’m not sure she can really do that on her
own, but she seemed quite resolved. Each will have to go her own
way. She probably thinks it’ll help them heal over time.”

Ethan was looking at the nuns’ faces; they
were too pale for the likes of the Nigerian sun anyway, he thought
to himself.

“Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. But just
going on pretending they’re stronger than they really are…”

He let his voice trail off, shaking his head
in disbelief. Nicole was about to say something when they both saw
Ludwig approaching them, wiping his forehead and arms from the
sweat in vain; in a minute he’d be sweating once more. He nodded to
Nicole and smiled, but turned to talk to Ethan, slightly out of
breath:

“We’re ready. We should be at Lagos by
morning. Once we do get back on the tarmac, we’ll notify the Lagos
office about what happened, head straight for the hospital.”

“How’s everyone?”

“The wounded are stable. Everyone’s shaken,
closed to themselves mostly. Some are still scared. Even needed
sedation,” said the doctor and shrugged somehow apologetically.
Ethan simply nodded. The doctor continued:

“I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve
done really. We could actually hear the gunfight, but we kept
running, just like you said. The sisters said you had some
help.”

He looked at Nicole sideways then but he was
smiling gently, his eyes gleaming softly. Nicole shuffled as if
feeling uncomfortable and said to the doctor without looking
back:

“Not that much there, really.”

Ethan placed a kind hand on the doctor’s
shoulder but before he could speak, Ludwig let out a snort of a
laugh and said:

“I get it Ethan. When we get back, I’ll need
to file a report; an inquiry will ensue. Perhaps I’ll be charged.
Then I expect there’ll be some uproar from the embassies, the
press. People will hear about this, certainly.”

Ethan’s gaze for a moment turned sour while
Nicole shot a worried glance at Ludwig but he went on, this time
with a somber look on his face:

“I know what you’re thinking. The minefield,
the bandits. The sisters getting killed. People’s memories do
become jarred from experiences like these. Frankly, some genuinely
don’t recall if there even was a journalist along. And the sisters,
well… Poor souls have a lot on their minds now. Not to mention
there’s a war going on.”

Ethan nodded, grinning shamelessly. Though
the cloak and dagger routine had largely lost its meaning now that
the caravan was turning back, the doctor had turned out to be a
welcome though strange and unlikely ally. He extended a hand, which
the doctor promptly gripped. Ethan then said:

“I take it you’ll cover for me,” he said and
turning to look at Nicole he added: “For us, anyway. Thanks,
Ludwig.”

Nicole nodded halfheartedly, while the doctor
replied:

“The way things turned out I should be
thanking you, Ethan. I’m convinced that without you, we’d be dead
or maybe worse.”

The doctor shook Ethan’s hand and looked him
in the eye with a sobering, stone-hard gaze. The lifeless mangled
bodies of the three dead nuns came unbidden to his mind then and he
was unable to meet Ludwig’s stare. He nodded limply and the doctor
caught him by the arm, telling him reassuringly:

“Look, you saved lives. That’s what matters
in my line of business. Save as many as you can.”