Authors: Ruth Francisco
I memorized his body with my hands, taking him in, storing up images so I could remember him later, his beautiful torso, his abdomen, defined and hard, his shoulders and arms, leaner but more developed, his ropy back, his thighs, the feminine silkiness of his skin, his scars, all new, his long curly eyelashes and his smell, which were the same.
For a time, we felt safe.
Together in our heat, our bodies pressed together, feeling each other’s lungs expand and contract.
Safe.
Nothing could come between us.
There were so many more questions I wanted to ask—about
Marjon
and Nicholas, about Leo
Klausner
the art dealer, about his plans for the future—but I didn’t want to violate our silence.
Our silence was rich and thick and timeless.
It was what we had instead of time.
We clung to each other until our muscles ached.
It couldn’t make up for lost time.
It couldn’t make our time together any longer.
We clung together until we hurt.
We clung together until our time was up.
#
“Whatever happens, darling,” my mother said, “the city is going to need people who know how to organize and help other people.”
I couldn’t believe it.
My parents were refusing to leave.
“We’re talking about a nuclear bomb, Mom!
At least leave for a week or two,
then
come back if you want to help.
You won’t be any help if you’re blown to pieces.”
“They aren’t going to bomb Santa Monica.
And if the attacks are going to be as extensive as you say, no place will be safe.”
“Why are you being so stubborn?”
“We aren’t, honey.
We have gallons and gallons of water, and food.
We have the whole community organized.
Your father is second in command for our area’s emergency respond team.
Somebody has to man the emergency dispatch center at the YMCA.
We can feed the whole neighborhood for at least a week.
We don’t want to go someplace to hide.
Our place is to stay here and help.”
No amount of pleading on my part would make them change their minds.
I looked around my bedroom, oddly enervated, wondering what to pack.
What do you take with you when you might never come back?
I didn’t want reminders of my past.
It would be hard enough without that.
As I threw a few pair of jeans and T-shirts in a bag, my mother walked in and handed me twelve gold coins, one ounce each.
They had dirt on them.
“You need to keep these for yourselves,” I protested.
“To help people.”
“The person I want to help most is you.
Besides, I have more buried in the garden,” she said.
“I’ve been quite the little squirrel.”
I decided to leave the next morning.
I needed to tell the hospital I was leaving, buy a few things, then go to the bank and take out the few thousand I had in savings—my college fund I would never use.
I left the house on foot.
My bank was close to the Santa Monica Library and the mosque.
I heard drums when I got to Wilshire Boulevard, their warlike thumping echoing eerily through the canyon of high-rises.
As I drew nearer, I saw demonstrators in the street, a thousand at least, women in
hajab
, men with placards saying things like
Stop the European Genocide,
and
Fascist Jews Must Die.
Squad cars lined the streets, putting up barricades to thwart the crowds gathering on the other side of the street.
I ducked into my bank.
I felt like a criminal closing my account—as if I were stealing.
I fully expected to get questioned.
But no one did.
As I stuffed the cash in my pockets, I heard gunfire outside.
When I left the bank, I saw a fight breaking out across a barricade.
A few screams.
Then more gun shots.
The police moved in with riot gear, and people started panicking, charging down the street.
I ran across the street to avoid the stampede, wondering how to get around the mob to get to the hospital.
Someone grabbed my elbow.
“This way.
I’ve got the car on Arizona.”
Peter grabbed and tugged me hard.
Running fast I stumbled and lurched.
“Come on!” he yelled angrily, shouting over the commotion.
Sirens, orders shouted through bullhorns, screams.
I smelled fire and gas and dust and burning tar.
Peter shoved me into the passenger seat, then jumped in and started the motor.
“You’ve got to get out now, Ann.
New York Police found a truck bomb in a filling station outside of Newark.
It was supposed to be detonated in the Lincoln tunnel.
The FBI has already arrested a dozen suspects.
Word is out to start now.
Every terrorist cell in the country is going to launch an attack as soon as they can.
You have to leave.
We’ll swing by your house.
We’ll pick up your bag.
Are you packed?”
“Yes.
What about you?”
“The FBI wants me back in Virginia.
Planes will probably be grounded for at least a few days, so I’m driving.
You told your parents?”
“Yes.
They won’t leave.”
A car bomb exploded in front of the Post Office, glass shattering everywhere.
The demonstration became a riot.
The phalanx of frightened marchers charged down Sixth Street, people screaming and running in every direction.
Police set up road blocks at Wilshire and Santa Monica.
LAPD cars screeched in to assist Santa Monica police, swat teams lined up shoulder to shoulder with their plastic shields.
Windows were smashed, cars turned over.
More gunfire.
The frantic terrified mob pushed them aside, racing down the street.
Peter zigzagged through parking lots and alleys to get back to my house.
I dashed inside.
I called for my mother and father.
No one answered.
I grabbed my bag, shoved in toiletries from the bathroom, and ran out.
As we pulled out of the driveway, I felt no sadness leaving the home I grew up in.
It suddenly seemed two dimensional, a picture in a real estate advertisement.
How quickly, I thought, the mind prepares for war.
There was a bus station in Santa Monica, but there was no way to get to it.
People were running down the middle of the streets for blocks around.
Peter turned down the California Incline to Pacific Coast Highway, then south to Route 10.
We took the freeway downtown.
It appeared the only people who took the Greyhound Bus were Mexicans.
The station was packed.
There was a bus leaving for Mexico in twelve minutes.
Peter stood by me while I bought my ticket.
He had his eyes on the television which was talking about the aborted bombing of the Lincoln tunnel.
Santa Monica hadn’t made the news yet.
I didn’t know how to say goodbye.
I wanted to go with him.
I didn’t care if I got killed.
It looked like that was pretty much guaranteed anyhow.
But he wouldn’t have me.
It was all so rushed—that final embrace.
No sentimental words or lingering looks.
Blurred and abrupt, the image faded as quickly as the memory of a fast food lunch.
I would make up different versions later, parting tears, declarations of love, kisses that wracked my body and soul, but that’s not how it happened.
Not really.
I got on the bus, and waved at his back as he disappeared into the station.
I would be in Tijuana in five hours.
Epilogue
June 24, 2015- Mexico
As I drink my thick black coffee and look across the violet pleats of the
Divisidero
, the sunrise splashing ribbons of pink against the limestone cliffs, it is easy to forget there is a war out there.
Church bells ring, goats bleat as they are herded to market, donkeys clomp up the narrow streets dragging carts with wooden wheels.
This is Mexico as it has been for five hundred years.
I hear my
compadres
stir in their sleep and remember why I am here.
I turn from the terrace where I greet the sun and see a half dozen men and women kicking in sleeping bags on the floor of my bedroom.
They are my closest personnel, each an expert in his field.
Once they were chefs or software engineers or lighting designers or reporters.
Now they are specialists in military strategies, munitions, recruiting, communications, and security.
How easily we have adapted to our new careers.
They call me Captain
Aulis
.
By now, you probably have guessed Ann
Aulis
is not my real name.
I took it from one of the pseudonyms Anne Frank considered using for her diary.
I am famous, and if I gave you my true name, you would know it.
A false name will not protect me, I know, but it may protect those I love.
If I were caught in the United States, I would be stoned to death, quartered, and dragged through the streets on ropes.
They would make an example of me.
Who would have ever guessed I had the makings of someone who could train and organize troops, who could send people off to die?
But then none of us ever thought we would be involved in a war, or we would be fighting for our homes, to retake our country.
Some instinct, some gene that lay dormant in my DNA, called to serve, flows through my blood.
The horrible crushing fury I never understood in myself has disappeared, and an authority in my heart commands in full voice.
As if I
were
born for this.
#
It happened as Peter said it would.
After suitcase bombs exploded in San Francisco and Las Vegas, ballistic missiles, launched from Venezuela, hit Washington, D.C. and Miami.
The bomb meant for New York City landed in the Appalachian Mountains.
The Capitol, the Pentagon, the FBI building, and the White House were all gone.
For the first few weeks, a provisional government of state governors and military elite tried to hold things together, deploying the National Guard all across the country.
Soon after political leadership reverted to the states.
A second wave of assaults, using snipers and shoulder-fired missiles, blew up military bases, airports, and naval sites.
Ten cities were hit: New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Miami.
Hundreds of urban terrorists attacked local governments and national television stations, provoking mass hysteria.
Then a cyber attack completely crippled the nation’s internet and communications systems.
In Los Angeles, after the truck bomb carrying a nuclear devise exploded in front of
Grauman’s
theater, the terror continued: anthrax dispersed from balloons at Disneyland, a shoulder-fired missile into the Hollywood Bowl, containers containing liquid petroleum gas exploding at the San Pedro Shipping docks, a suicide bomber at Union Station, and a plane shot down at LA airport from a shoulder-fired missile as it took off over Playa del
Rey
.