Morgan Nyberg - Since Tomorrow

The woman was quiet. Frost and Grace watched her in the dimness and said nothing. After a few minutes the woman’s face grew soft. She unclenched her fists. She closed her eyes and breathed with a slow easy rhythm. But soon she opened her eyes again. There was no more life in them now than there had been. She looked at Grace and said something, a syllable, too low for Grace or Frost to hear. Grace bent closer, and the woman said it again, clearly.

“More.”

Grace stood there stooped, looking down at the woman, and seemed paralyzed. Then she started to tremble. She put a hand over her mouth.

Frost took the bottle from her. Grace stepped away and stood looking out through the door, weeping quietly.

Frost bent down and raised the woman’s head and did as Grace had done, trickling the liquid between the woman’s lips. He waited for her to swallow and then to open her lips again. In a few minutes the bottle was empty. He eased her head down and stroked her forehead until she stopped breathing.

He stood and with a choked curse flung the empty bottle away. But then he found it again and took the lid from Grace and screwed it on. They went out.

Frost tried not to trample the garden, but there was not much room to get the wagon turned around. He left two deep tracks in the soft soil. The man and his daughters were down the road a few hundred yards. When he came up beside them Frost said quietly “I’ll… I’ll send someone to….” Then he drove on.

Noor said “You’re tired. Let me deliver the spuds.”

“No. I want to see his farm. Maybe I can get some pods.”

“He won’t let you have any pods.”

“I wasn’t planning to ask him. Let me read.”

Frost was reclining in a twine hammock that was hung on a framework in front of the fireplace. His knees were raised, and he had several feather pillows behind his back. He held his book at an angle so as to use the light of the fire to read. The peat burned reluctantly, and a contrary wind blew smoke back down the pieced-together and battered stovepipe. Frost’s folded glasses were hooked into the neck of his shirt. He resumed reading, saying “This is a great thing, Noor.”

“The lens or the book?” she asked.

“The lens. I’m not sure about von Clausewitz yet. War. Do I want to read about the principles of war?”

“I’m happy to see you usin’ it.”

“What — war?”

“No, the lens.”

When she did not laugh Frost lowered the book and looked at her. She sat at the foot of the hammock, on a mat of rabbit skins, sharpening a sword with a triangular file. She rested the tip of the sword on the floor near the fireplace and ran the file along its edge with long slow strokes.

Frost said “There any teeth left on that file?”

Noor lifted the blade and sighted along its edge toward the fire, lowered it and addressed her efforts to a particular two inches. “No, it’s pretty well had it. But it’s all we’ve got.”

“That sound could get on a person’s nerves.”

“You ought to sharpen yours once in a while. Then I wouldn’t have to do it for you.” A second sword lay beside her.

“I don’t need a weapon. The dogs look after me.”

Noor shook her head, then turned to him.

He said “You’re the one that looks tired.”

She said “I want to see you wearin’ this in the mornin’.”

Frost watched the peat flicker and glow. The fireplace was glassed in but there were cracks, and the top corner of one of the panes was smashed. There were vents at the side that admitted heated air into the room. The book had half a front cover. Soldiers with tall fur hats and long rifles with bayonets were fighting for possession of a bridge.

“A dog can’t defend against a crossbow” said Noor.

“Neither can a sword. But yes, yes, I’ll wear it. God, you can be a nag sometimes.”

Will sat at a table a few feet away, at the darker end of the room. He said “When do I get a sword?”

Frost watched for a minute as Will looped and twisted lengths of wire. He said “How can you see to do that?”

“I can see. It’s only snares” answered he boy.

“Doesn’t it hurt your fingers? Why don’t you ask Daniel Charlie if he’s got some pliers in the workshop?”

The Christmas bauble sat on the table near the half dozen completed snares. Its colour was muted in the dimness, but occasionally it sparked with reflections from the fireplace. The boy said “What if the skaggers came after me and I didn’t have a sword?”

“God almighty.”

Noor turned away from the fire to look at her brother. She said “Are you afraid?”

Frost said “The skaggers aren’t going to come after you. No one’s coming after you.”

Noor said “How do you know that?”

Frost closed the book and reached down and set it on the floor and said “Thank you, Noor. We all feel safer now.” He fell back against the pillow and stared up at the ceiling and waited. Noor picked up the other sword and felt its edge and sighted down its length. She set the tip on the floor and pushed the file firmly along the edge. Finally she said “No one is safe. Let’s not pretend.”

Will left his snares and crawled under the hammock and took the book and sat at the other side of the fireplace from Noor. “Principles of War” he read aloud.

“Try this” said Frost and held out the lens.

Will took it and held it close to the page and gave a little laugh.

After a while, when Frost spoke again his voice was soft and sleepy. “Noor, I’m happy you brought the baby. She’ll have a good chance with us. Grace says she’s improving already. When she’s better, when she’s a little bigger, she can stay with us. I’ve been thinking — but I wanted to ask you first since you brought her — I would like to give her an Arabic name. Like yours. Like your mother’s. I was thinking of Aisha.”

The hypnotic rasping of the file stopped.

Will read “ We can triumph over such obstacles only with very great exertion, and to accomplish this the leader must show a severity bordering on cruelty.”

Noor said “Go to bed, Will.”

“What’s severity?”

“Now.”

“But it’s still early.”

She dropped the file and grabbed his arm and gave him a shake. “I said go to bed.”

Will’s face contorted. He stood and placed the book and the lens on his grandfather’s stomach. He walked around the hammock and left the room through a door at the dark end. Before he could close the door there was the sound of a single sob.

Frost stared at the back of Noor’s head. “What the hell was that?” he said.

Noor laid the sword beside the other one and wrapped her arms around her knees and began to rock slowly from side to side.

Frost lay back again, waiting. His breathing became tight and shallow.

Noor said “You didn’t see Grace this afternoon?”

“No” said Frost in a hurt whisper. It was not a reply to her question. “No, no no…”

“The baby died.”

Frost made a small sound, a whimper. He struggled to leave the hammock. He stepped across the small room like a man made of lead, letting the slope of the floor carry him. A sudden flare of the fire shot Noor’s shadow and his against the walls. Frost bent and opened a cupboard door and slid out a green plastic bottle and slowly twisted the lid off and took three swallows.

He stood there holding the bottle of potato hooch and said “No one’s buried her?”

“No.”

“I’ll do it.”

“I know.”

“That’s the last one” said Tyrell.

Frost did not respond.

“Grouse Mountain” said Tyrell. He turned his head in a slow arc from northwest to northeast. “Hollyburn, Grouse, Seymour.”