Apprehensions and Other Delusions (21 page)

“I do not want your help,” the Rat said again a little later. He was distracted and remote. When he moved his good arm it was in an aimless, swimming gesture.

Sister Maggie improvised a stethoscope made of a small metal cone from a spent shell casing. She did what she could to determine how ill the boy was, and was left with only a few incomplete impressions that were more distressing than helpful. She rocked back on her heels and crossed herself, starting to pray for the Rat, and herself. For the time being it was the most she could do. He needed to have his fever reduced, she was certain of that, but there was no ice in the village, no aspirin, no cold cellar or underground bunker where she could tend him. There was no place to bathe him, for the water here was rationed and guarded; none of it would be wasted on a boy filled with infection.

Gunfire rattled in the street below, and occasionally a heavier report thudded on the air. Once there was a display of tracer bullets and the distant pounding of an antiaircraft gun poking holes in the dark. Sometime after the middle of the night a mine went off, and an instant later the vehicle that triggered it exploded in a gasoline inferno. Random shots from sniper rifles cracked in irregular observance of the passing hours.

By morning the Rat’s arm was hard, more than twice its normal girth, the lacerated flesh mounding out of the wound, bright with red starburst patterns around it, radiating toward his shoulder. The smell of infection was stronger and his mouth was dry, lips chapped and bleeding. Now he could not move his damaged hand at all.

Knowing it was a useless gesture, Sister Maggie began to cut up her last set of sheets; she had salvaged them along with two crates of bedding from the bombed-out clinic. Now all that was left was this one pair of sheets and three pillowcases. She began to roll pressure bandages, and methodically tied them in place above the ominous red streaks. If she could do nothing else, she might be able to hold the infection at bay for a little while. “I should have done this last night,” she muttered as she bound the bandage in place with long strips of sheeting. “I ought to have done this when I first saw him, I should have insisted.” She whispered a prayer for mercy as she knotted the strips on the boy’s chest, taking care to be certain that the bandage would stay in place no matter how much the Rat tossed and strained.

At midday the desultory firing stopped and the streets grew still in the oppressive heat. There was no place on the roof where Sister Maggie could find shelter.

The Rat had begun to howl softly every time he breathed, plucking at the single blanket with the fingers of his good hand. There was no strength left in him.

Desperately, Sister Maggie took the second blanket she had wrapped around the Rat during the night and now spread it over the shattered frame of the dovecote. The tent that resulted was clumsy and inadequate, but it kept the sun off the child, and for that Sister Maggie thanked God in the prayers she offered for the boy, the village, herself.

By sundown there were three bullet holes in the blanket.

A sullen-faced young woman, no more than sixteen but with her face already marked by harsh lines, climbed onto the roof in the dusk, approaching Sister Maggie with an assault rifle in her hands. She had given up the traditional women’s dress of the region for a soldier’s fatigues; her manner was deliberately unfeminine. “You have to take that blanket down,” she said without any greeting. “They’re going to use it for a target. They know someone’s up here. You can see that for yourself.” She used the barrel of the rifle to point to the dry undergrowth at the end of the bomb-pocked road. “They’re coming.”

“Which group is it this time?” asked Sister Maggie, distressed that she should feel such animosity to the young woman for speaking to her. “Or do you know?”

“We think it’s DRUY,” she answered with a gesture of disgust. “We want no part of them. They’re turds. But they’re after us. They’re coming here to find us. They’d been through the hills around here for the last six days, looking for us.”

“DRUY,” repeated Sister Maggie. “Whose side are they on?” She wanted to show the young woman she was interested, though she was unable to keep the various factions straight in her mind.

“Their own,” said the young woman. “They’re led by one of the generals, who was chucked out of the army, five years back. He thought they owed him something for all he was doing, so he took his best troops with him when he left, to get even. Supplies for them, too. They’re better fighters than most of the others. They have better equipment, too.” She patted her assault rifle. “We’ve been told they’re getting money and supplies from outside.”

“Who?” asked Sister Maggie, dreading the answer.

“Who knows?” The young woman shrugged. “The U.S. China. France. Tripoli. Venezuela. India. The Crimea. Ireland. Zambia. Who can tell? Saudi Arabia. Argentina. Korea. Brazil. What difference does it make? Their weapons are German and Japanese, but that means nothing. Who paid for them and brought them here? No one knows.” She walked to the edge of the roof. “There are only three other safe buildings left in the village. Just three; that’s all. If this battle lasts much longer, there won’t be any.”

Sister Maggie was busy holding the Rat down while he thrashed in pain and delirium. It was a demanding task, for in these outbursts the weak child had the strength of a large grown man and fought without quarter. There was a bruise on the side of her face to attest to his demented fury. She hardly noticed when the young woman came over to look at the boy.

“He’s dying,” the young woman announced impersonally. “You might as well let him go. You can’t save him. Don’t make it any harder on him than it is.”

“I have to try,” said Sister Maggie.

“Why?” The young woman looked at the Rat with flat, pitiless eyes. “It only means that he suffers longer. Leave him at the other end of town.”

“No!” Sister Maggie declared. “I will not leave a human being—let alone a child—on a refuse heap. Not this boy, not anyone. I told him I would do everything I can to save him.” She put her hand to the Rat’s forehead, knowing his temperature was much too high.

“You can’t expect anyone to bury him, not with the DRUY coming. It wouldn’t be safe. Anyone who can get out will be gone before midnight.” She hunkered down beside Sister Maggie. “I’ll help you get him off the roof. I’ll try to get a place you can take him, somewhere you won’t get shot, somewhere the pigs won’t eat him. But don’t try to hang on to him. He’s lost already. All he has left is pain.” She pulled out a brown cigarette and lit it with a wooden match. “Come on. Let’s get to it.”

“I can’t abandon him to death,” Sister Maggie persisted, reaching for new rolls of torn sheet in order to change his bandages. “I must do what I can to help him, as long as there is life in his body. And mine.”

The young woman chuckled once, a sound like a pistol shot. “There isn’t life in him anymore. There’s infection, that’s all.” She stared at the Rat’s sunken features. “He’s gone, you foolish cunt. He’s just breathing meat.”

It was all Sister Maggie could do to keep from screaming. “He is not dead. Until he is dead, he is in my hands and I have an obligation to do everything I can to keep him alive. I took an oath, one that most of you prevent me from keeping. I promised to heal the sick, for the honor of Christ. It is my sworn duty as a nurse.” She hated the way she sounded, more pompous than devoted, but it was all she could do to keep her rage under control.

“Well, if you have to torture him—” The young woman shook her head once and stood up. “I’ll help you get him off the roof. He won’t broil down in the hotel.”

This time the offer felt more like a threat, and after a brief hesitation Sister Maggie rocked back on her heels. “All right, but I need a protected place. I don’t want you—any of you—near him.”

“If we get to fighting at close range, you’ll have more to take care of than the Rat. It won’t matter where you’re hiding then. They want the village, the group out there, DRUY. We don’t know why. This place isn’t important now that the clinic’s gone.” With that she ambled a short distance away, showing her indifference to danger. She took up a guard stance on the corner of the roof. She finished her cigarette while Sister Maggie pulled down the tented blanket and rolled it so that it could be turned into a sling-stretcher for the Rat.

When Sister Maggie had shifted the moaning boy onto the blanket, she signaled to the young woman. “He’s ready. We can carry him down now.”

“Fine,” said the young woman. She took one last look around the roof, then came back to where Sister Maggie waited for her help. “You’re a fool,” she told Sister Maggie dispassionately as she knelt down to pick up one side of the blanket,

The shot tore through her shoulder and neck, spraying blood and tissue in sudden eruption. The young woman lurched, her arms suddenly swinging spasmodically. She half-staggered a few steps, then collapsed, twitching, blood surging out of her destruction. Her assault rifle, flung away at the bullet’s impact, clattered down the side of the hotel to the street below.

Sister Maggie made herself go to the young woman’s side, though she knew there was no help left to her, not in the world. She knelt beside her, trying to block out the continuing violent trembles and shudders of the young woman’s body while she made the sign of the cross on her broken forehead, uttering the prayers of redemption and salvation; there was nothing else to do.

She knew the Rat was dead, but would not permit herself to admit it, not until she had reached safety for him, where he could lie in peace. The body in the improvised sling tied around her shoulders and across her chest was limp, flopping against her back as she made her way through the street in the first light of day. He would not be flexible much longer; he would become as rigid as carved wood. His shattered arm was bloated with the infection that had killed him; the stench of decay riddled his flesh.

A blackened bus lay twisted on its side, and Sister Maggie decided to avoid it—the wreckage had been there long enough to provide cover for one side or the other. It would give them no protection.

A helicopter fluttered overhead, searchlight probing the long shadows as it hovered near the tallest rooftops in the village. From time to time its machinegun beat out a tattoo in counterpoint to the chatter of its blades. The morning light struck its side with glare; there were no identifying marks painted on it, no way to know whose it was or what it presaged. Once someone hidden in the old tannery took a shot at the helicopter, but the bullet missed and fire from the helicopter blasted the south face off the old building, setting the rest in flame.

As she walked Sister Maggie made herself pray, reciting the rosary although she had not held one in her hands for more than three years; people here regarded rosaries as bad magic, the tools of witchcraft rather than religion, and so she had not been surprised when hers—gift from her grandmother—disappeared. She was on her ninth
Hail, Mary
when she heard the sounds of voices up ahead. As quickly as she could with her burden, Sister Maggie found a doorway and stumbled through it, seeking the dark corners where she could wait until the voices were gone. As she drew away from the light her lips continued to move in prayer, but now she made no sound at all.

More voices came, men’s voices, and the sound of marching feet. This was more than a few resistance fighters returning from raids. Sister Maggie wished now that she had given more attention to the young woman who had been killed the evening before, to what she said about the DRUY, if that was who these men actually were. She felt the stiffening weight of the Rat’s corpse drag at her shoulders, but she would not put him down, not here.

After an hour or so there was a flurry of gunfire from inside one of the buildings—the hotel? the school?—and some sort of heavy vehicle—more than Jeeps and less than tanks—roared and lumbered down the streets, lurching through the blasted pavement to whoops of approval. There was one large explosion, and the impact of one of the vehicles hurtling into the side of the building where Sister Maggie hid, followed by several minutes of intense firing that left her with ringing ears. And then the remaining troop carriers were bouncing down the street again, and the men in them laughed and shouted their victory. Two of the officers posted men at the door to the old hotel, where the injured lay in the lobby, joking about the makeshift first aid station and the suffering children.

Sister Maggie shut out the coarse yells and bursts of laughter. She was fiercely thirsty, and she could feel the relentless heat growing as the sun climbed higher in the sky. The body she carried made breathing nearly unbearable, but she realized it provided her a curious protection, for the stench might keep the invaders away from this building.

“Later,” Sister Maggie whispered, a promise to the Rat. “Later we’ll make sure you have a proper grave, and a cross with your name on it. It’ll take a while. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She knew no name but the Rat, and she hoped he would understand when she wrote it. Perhaps, she thought, during the afternoon while everyone else was napping, then she might be able to sneak out of the village and find a place where the Rat could be laid to rest. She tried to think of an apology to offer the boy, to make amends for what he had endured. “It has to be done, for the sake of your soul, and mine. God is merciful, Rat. He understands,” she said in an undertone. “God will welcome you, for your courage and your youth.”

A ragged cheer rose up outside; she flinched at the sound. She inched closer to the door, crouching down as far as the body on her back would allow. The posture was uncomfortable and precarious, for if the corpse shifted Sister Maggie would be pulled off her feet. But it was most important to know what was going on. It was too risky to peek around the door, so she contented herself with listening. Soon she wished she had plugged her ears.

“What about this place?” one soldier called to another. “Worth holding?”

“No,” the other answered from further away. “We’ll mine it later. Don’t leave anything for the terrorists to use. They’ve probably been given refuge here, anyway. Villages like this one—what can you expect?”