The Killing Sea (11 page)

The two men
walked Ruslan over to the single tree, its shadow growing long across a dead rice field. A crow had settled on its branches, the bird black as a devil from hell. Ruslan's heart banged away, but whatever happened, he wasn't going to go with the rebels. He had to find his father.

“Clever, that little slip you gave us, falling into the river like that,” the rebel leader with the white eye said. The other man stood respectfully to the side. “But I knew you could swim. Your father was always so proud of you. Told us how you were like a fish, playing in the sea.”

Ruslan gaped at him.

“I'm Bachtiar. Your mother's half brother.
Your uncle.” His good eye held Ruslan's gaze, as though waiting for Ruslan's reaction.

Ruslan couldn't speak. This man was his
uncle
? Things seemed to be getting very complicated very quickly here. He finally spluttered the only thing that came to mind. “How come you didn't tell me before?”

“I would have, if you hadn't been so hasty in leaving us. I would have also told you that your father never made it past Calang. The military intelligence intercepted him and took him in for questioning.”

That drove all other thoughts from Ruslan's mind. “Do you know what happened to him?”

The man—his uncle—shook his head. “The interrogation unit worked out of a building by the officers' mess. Gone. Nobody would have made it out of those cells.”

Ruslan bit the inside of his cheek, hard. “My father would have.”

His uncle's good eye softened. “Let me tell you something. Your mother wasn't killed in a cross fire. She died as a fighter, a rifle in her hands. She was a proud Acehnese warrior, fighting for a free Aceh. After her death your father took you away from Ie Mameh, refusing to let you grow up in the cause. We respected that. But now he is dead. Killed by the military just as surely as if they'd shot him.”

The silence that followed was broken by the loud flapping of the crow's wings. The bird soared on the golden air, gliding down to the second open grave pit. The operator had shut down the excavator for the day. He bent over a plastic bucket, rinsing his face.

Ruslan's uncle put a hand on his shoulder. “We're your family now, Ruslan. Come with us. Not as rebel, but as family.” His uncle kissed Ruslan on both cheeks in a formal hug. His skin was rough, his breath smelled of tobacco, but his touch was gentle.

Ruslan was in a daze. This man was his uncle. And hadn't his mother come to him today, to comfort him? It was as though somebody had knocked down a high wall within him, allowing him to see a grand vista of green land and gentle water that he had never known was there.

The crow flapped down into the grave pit. The excavator man saw and shouted, waving his hands. The bird flew out with lazy beats of its wings.

“I have to find my father,” Ruslan said. “I have to know.”

His uncle's smile reached even to his dead white eye. “As a good son must. When you are ready to find me, go to that small hill where you stayed the other night. Some of my men will be there.”

The guard yelled at Ruslan, “Hey, sun's setting. We have to get back to camp.”

“God go with you,” Ruslan's uncle said. He and the other man walked away.

In the bouncing truck the guard sat beside Ruslan and shared a single cigarette with the excavator operator. He offered the cigarette to Ruslan, who declined. “Who were those guys?” the guard asked.

“Family,” Ruslan said.

“Good to know you have some left.”

Ruslan parked the truck in the cleared parking lot at the foot of the command hill. The truck driver was there, slouched on the seat of one of the few motor scooters the soldiers were using. He rubbed the back of his head, glaring at Ruslan, but said nothing, knowing that Ruslan could accuse him of corpse robbing.

As the other men wearily made their way up the hill, Ruslan trotted into the ruins of the town. All the living were already gathering on the camp's hill for sunset prayers and for their rations. The only inhabitants in this neighborhood were ghosts stirring on the dusk breeze, and it seemed to Ruslan he could almost hear their bewildered and agonized whispers. He quickly found the drawing pad and box of crayons that he had placed on top of the
overturned car. There was no black crayon in the box, so he chose the dark blue. Turning to the first blank page, which was water-stained but still clean enough, he rapidly began to sketch a face. A gust of wind ruffled the corner of the page, and over his shoulder, the whispering grew louder.
No, no, draw me, draw my face, let them know it's me, give me back my name.

With a shiver Ruslan slapped shut the drawing pad and hurried to the hill, where a man sang the call to prayer, his bare voice thin and reedy, yet rich with life.

When the prayers
were finished, Aisyah grabbed Sarah's hand and tugged her to the rations line. More rice gruel, served into coconut shells out of a big blackened pot. Sarah had no appetite, so she offered hers to the girl. The girl accepted with a grave nod of her head, and Sarah watched her daintily slurp the gruel, taking her time, unlike most of the others, who gulped theirs.

Moonlight had replaced twilight when Sarah finally headed back to the clinic. Several campfires also added a flickering glow to her uneven path. A shower of sparks rose from one of them. She glanced up. Somebody had added a chunk of wood. The figure turned, and she recognized Ruslan's
slender frame and his slightly hunched shoulders.

A starburst of happiness filled her heart. “Ruslan!” she called out and ran up to him.

“Hello, Sarah,” he said. An anxiety was in his voice that hadn't been there before. A heavy anxiety.

Her happiness faded a little. “What's wrong?”

“My father,” he said. “He didn't make it to the village. He was stopped here and…and…” His voice caught. He cleared it with a cough. “He was caught in the tsunami.”

“Oh.” That was all she could say? Look at those eyes of his, how much he was hurting. She gestured at the people in the camp. “They all survived. Your dad did too. You must believe he did.”

“Yes,” Ruslan said. “Never give up hope.” He had a sketch pad in his hand, and he squatted to draw something by the light of the fire.

Sarah sat beside him. The starburst of happiness was gone. Her own anxiety came bubbling up. “I'm really worried about Peter. There isn't any medicine here. Aisyah gave him some of that
jamu
stuff but he really needs proper treatment and medicine.”

The way that girl had stopped her fight to breathe. Just like that. Gone.

The rat was back in her stomach, gnawing with vicious bites.

“Maybe there's medicine in Meulaboh,” Ruslan
said. “The hospital there was high. The flood didn't reach it.”

Sarah's brain grew lighter, lifted off her spine. “Ruslan! How come you didn't tell me before?”

“I didn't know you wanted to know.” He wasn't paying full attention to her, concentrating on his drawing, the face of a man.

“God, Ruslan, if you'd told me about the hospital in Meulaboh, I would have gone there and not here.”

“You kept talking about the doctor in Calang. What do I know about this doctor? I thought you knew.”

Meulaboh. Now she had to get to Meulaboh. She was gathering her courage to ask for Ruslan's help, when something about the picture he was drawing caught her attention. She'd seen this man before, with his broad forehead and lopsided chin and slightly crooked teeth that Ruslan displayed in a kind smile. When Ruslan drew in the pupils, the drawing came alive. The man smiled at Sarah, as though ready to say hello.

“I know him,” she said.

“Good. I'm going to show this to people, maybe they've seen him.”

“Where have I seen him? It's right there, but I can't remember.”

“You can't remember?” Ruslan said. “He worked on your boat engine.” And then, with a touch of exasperation, “My father.”

“That's not where I remember him from…. Wait, wait, I know. I saw him when I was in that little sailboat. He was on one of those children's water park boats, you know, with a rear paddle wheel.”

Ruslan looked at her as though she were crazy. “On a paddleboat? I don't think so.”

“He was riding it to Meulaboh, pedaling hard.” The implication finally registered. “This was
after
the tsunami. God, Ruslan, he's
alive
.”

Ruslan absorbed that with a blank face. What surfaced, though, wasn't elation but suspicion. He had Sarah repeat everything in greater detail, listening skeptically, and as she did so, her conviction grew stronger. “It's him, Ruslan, it's him. He was going to Meulaboh to look for
you
.”

Ruslan took a deep ragged breath, his skepticism flattened into a stunned look. “I think I saw him too. I was walking on the beach. A Mickey Mouse boat.”

“Yes, yes! A Mickey Mouse boat, and he was holding a pole, like in Venice. Mickey Mouse, I mean.”

“And he was going to Meulaboh,” Ruslan said.

“Both of them were going to Meulaboh,” Sarah said.

With tears filling his eyes, Ruslan threw up his hands and exclaimed joyfully in his language. Then he grabbed her hand and pulled her in for a fervent kiss on both cheeks. His lips were soft and warm. For a fleeting second Sarah imagined them on her own. Then, as they awkwardly straightened, their lips did brush together in an accidental touch.

Ruslan jerked back. Even in this flickering light, she could see a dusky color rising up his slender neck. Could he see the same on hers?

“We must go to Meulaboh,” Ruslan said. “We must go tonight.”

“How?”

“I have family. We will ask them for help.”

A soldier jogged up the hill and spoke to Ruslan. Sarah caught the word “commandant.”

Ruslan put an arm around Sarah and drew her close to whisper in her ear. “The parking lot at the bottom of the hill. The big truck. Meet me there when the moon is in the middle of the sky. If I am not there when the moon is half down again, you must walk to that hill where we were before. One of my family will be there. He will take you to Meulaboh.”

The soldier barked, prodding Ruslan to his feet with his rifle barrel.

“Remember,” Ruslan said over his shoulder to her.

Sarah hurried to the clinic tent. A kerosene lantern had been hung from one of the aluminum ceiling struts. Its yellow flame cast a dim glow. The nurse had transferred Peter to the dead girl's cot. Sarah forced herself to relax. Didn't mean anything. The cot wasn't cursed. At least Peter was sleeping. Sweat beaded his neck, dripped down his chest, marking trails in the dried paste. His forehead felt cooler to her touch, but his breathing seemed just as labored.

A new nurse who looked as tired as the old one made rounds with the aspirin pills. Sarah couldn't bring herself to wake Peter to take his half. She went outside and used the latrines, which were planks over holes in the ground, a square of plastic sheeting providing privacy. The stench was thick enough to float her off the ground.

By a tree a short distance away, three soldiers in their underwear took a bucket bath from a well.

“Miss, you want bath?” one called out to her as she exited.

God, did she ever, but not with all those guys watching.

The soldier who'd spoken came over with a sarong. “You take bath, no problem,” he said. “No problem.” He had a kind smile. But it was the little boy in his eyes, the fear and the loneliness, that
made Sarah return the smile and take the sarong. He gave her a sliver of soap and shooed away the other guys. Tucking the sarong around her shoulders, using that garment for her modesty, she bucketed water over herself. Salty as the other well where she'd had a rinse, but just as clean. As she bathed, she stomped on her dirty bikini bottom and her shorts and T-shirt. The soap left a wonderful fragrance on her skin. It felt almost sacrilegious to put her wet and still dirty clothes back on. She returned the wet sarong to the soldier and thanked him.

“No problem,” he said again.

In the tent, she lay down by Peter's cot. She didn't want to sleep. Had to watch the moon. Middle of the sky, Ruslan had said. But sleep overtook her anyway. She woke in a panic, certain she'd overslept. But the moonlight on the tent's thin fabric was still low. Peter stirred and muttered in his dreams. Of what? Their mother, dancing?

She dozed and woke several times. Finally it was time. She shook Peter awake. “Peter, you have to go to the bathroom.”

“Huh?”

“Come, I'll take you to the bathroom.”

He was too disoriented to protest. She held his head, leading him out of the tent. The guard sleeping at the front desk groggily lifted his head from
his cradling arms. “Bathroom,” Sarah whispered to him. He put his head down again.

Outside the tent, Sarah picked Peter up and carried him with his arms slung around her neck. His ragged breaths were hot on her chin. She carried him along the darkest shadows of the hill's sparse tree line. In the moonlight the ruins of the town below her looked like chewed bones.

In the green command tent a bright light shone behind the canvas. Voices murmured. One rose in anger. A thud. Mocking laughter.

She hurried on. No one was about. The parking lot where the big truck stood had once been a school yard. Remnants of the playground's painted white lines were still visible. She scurried down a path bulldozed through the school's rubble to the parking lot, nearly tripping once on loose brick.

“Ruslan!” she whispered. “Ruslan!”

No reply. In the distance came the sound of waves surging on an unseen beach. Once that had been a soothing sound, but for a second her skin prickled, and she wanted to dash back up the hill.

She put Peter down in the deepest shadows, between the truck's rear wheels and a motor scooter. He came awake. “What are we doing?”

“Having more fun,” she said.

“Are they looking for Dad yet?”

“He's looking for us.” Sarah was certain of it. Her father was the sort of man who'd dig barehanded through a granite mountain to find his kids.

“Good. Where's Surf Cat?”

God. Where was that cat? “Chasing owls.”

Peter smiled and closed his eyes with another bout of coughing.

No Ruslan. What had happened to him? Was he okay?

In the distance to the north, she thought she could make out the small hill against the silhouette of the bigger foothills. She tried not to worry about Ruslan. More worry wouldn't help. She stared up at the clear sky and made up her own silly constellations.

Then she slept for a while.

When the moon was halfway to the western horizon, she gathered Peter up in her arms and started walking down the cleared road toward the distant hill.