Jane Higgins - The Bridge

‘Which side do you think I’m on?’

‘Ours, of course.’

‘ Ours meaning you and me, or you and ISIS?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It’s supposed to mean maybe those aren’t the same thing.’

‘Now you’re scaring me. Don’t you want an end to all this? The uprising quashed, no more bombings, safety for our families? Peace! Don’t you want peace?’

‘Sure, I do. What about the Breken?’

‘Disarmed, and back over the river.’

‘With the gates locked? And no access to medicine or decent food?’

She frowned. ‘They’ll be better off than they are now. They’re starving, aren’t they? They can go back to the way things were if they agree to demilitarization. That’s fair, isn’t it?’

‘Is it? I don’t know. You’ll have to ask them.’

‘Well, I can tell you now, it’s the best offer they’ll get.’

‘Then I think they’ll keep fighting.’

‘You say that like you think it’s okay.’

‘No, it’s not okay. But what you’re offering isn’t peace.’

‘Listen to yourself!’

‘Do you know who I met this morning?’ I told her about Suzannah.

She sat and listened and said at last, ‘So she wants to be noble. So what? What about Sol? What about Lou and Bella? Shouldn’t they be avenged? I would avenge Sol. Show me a hostile, any hostile, and I’ll avenge Sol.’ When I said nothing, she said, ‘Aren’t you even angry about him?’

‘Jesus, Dash.’

‘I’m sorry, but we have to send them a message. They can’t just gun us down and get away with it. We have to respond!’

‘Sure, you have to respond. But do you have to respond in kind? And anyway, who’s they ? What if – think about this – what if it was a Remnant gunman that shot Sol? What if he shot Sol, and got shot himself before he could shoot Fyffe. There were two shots. What if there are people over there worth negotiating with? People who aren’t Remnant?’

‘You talk like those are distinctions worth making.’ She grasped her crutches and stood up.

‘I think they are,’ I said.

‘They’re hostiles, Nik. That’s what they are.’

‘It’s not all they are. I found my father over there.’

She stopped and looked hard at me. ‘What?’

‘Over the river. I found my father. I’m Breken, Dash.’

She missed a beat, but recovered fast. ‘You can’t be. You’re one of us – you’ve always been one of us.’

I nodded. ‘That too. Go figure.’

‘This is crazy. Your father’s dead.’

‘He’s not dead. He’s a Breken strategist. They took me to meet him.’

‘You didn’t believe them, though, did you?’

‘Yes. I did.’

‘Did you believe everything they told you over there?’

‘They had nothing to gain by lying to me.’

‘Of course they did. You’re a brilliant mathematician. Anyone would fight to have your brain working for them. Think about it. If your father was alive and Breken, he would never have let you grow up in a city school. He’d have tried to get to you, wouldn’t he? To get you out. It doesn’t make sense. They lied to you. It’s what they do.’

‘You don’t know what they’re like.’

‘Yes, I do. And I know what you’re like, and this is not you. Go to the Marsh. Let them help you.’ The door buzzed and she looked relieved. ‘Oh, yes. You have a visitor.’

She nodded at the eye.

Fyffe. I scrambled up. ‘Hey.’ I gave her a hug. ‘How are you?’

‘All right. I’m sorry about last night in the chapel. The parents. Are you okay?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Course I am.’

‘He’s not,’ said Dash. ‘We’re taking him to the Marsh to recuperate.’

‘Oh, no!’ said Fyffe.

‘He needs help,’ said Dash. ‘He thinks he’s found his father. Over the river. Do you know anything about that?’

Fyffe shook her head, and looked at me anxiously.

‘No,’ said Dash. ‘I didn’t think so.’

‘Your father?’ said Fyffe to me. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I couldn’t tell you,’ I said. ‘He’s wanted by ISIS and he’s been in hiding. But now it doesn’t matter. They’ve got me talking in my sleep and I’ve told them all about him.’

‘Oh, Nik. That’s what all that business with your name was about?’

‘You don’t believe him,’ said Dash.

‘Why not?’ said Fyffe.

‘You people! What did they do to you over there?’

Fyffe turned back to me. ‘What will you do?’

‘You mean if I ever get out of the Marsh?’

‘Don’t be like that,’ said Dash. ‘We just want you back to your old self. We need you. We need that brain of yours. When you’re recovered they’ll take you on here, they told me.’

‘And you believed them?’ I said.

‘Of course.’

‘Do you believe everything they tell you here?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean? Don’t let’s fight.’

The door buzzed and swished open to Jono. He smirked in my direction. ‘I just heard. The Marsh. That’ll straighten you out. What is this? A school reunion?’ He turned to Dash. ‘It’s nearly 1800. We’ll be late.’

‘Late for what?’ I asked.

‘Prayer ‘n’ swear, of course. You’re not invited.’ He held out a hand towards Fyffe. ‘Fy?’

But she sat down on the bed and folded her hands in her lap. ‘I’ll stay with Nik.’

‘Let’s move, then,’ said Dash. ‘We’re late and I’m slow.’

Jono gave me one last filthy look as he punched the button that closed the door.

I sat on the floor by the bed. ‘Thanks. You could’ve gone. I don’t need looking after.’

‘I know,’ said Fyffe. ‘But I can pray any time.’

‘Can you? Will that help?’

She gave me half a smile. ‘It’ll help me.’

‘Didn’t help Sol.’ Tears snuck up on me again. I stuck the heels of my hands in my eyes and breathed deep. ‘Sorry,’ I said.

Fyffe sat down beside me and put her head on my shoulder. ‘Don’t be. He’s worth crying for. I think I’m all cried out for now. Do you think it was Remnant?’

‘It must have been. They wanted the other hostage dead. They want the war to escalate.’

We sat there for maybe an hour, talking about Sol and Lou – who they’d been, who they might have been, how we could remember them.

At last I said, ‘People are coming for me soon. Are you going home tonight?’

‘Yes. My poor parents. I have to help them get through this. I wish we could take you with us. They blame you. It’s stupid. You tried so hard to bring him back, and he wasn’t even your brother.’

I hated the thought of her going home to that big silent house with only her grief-stricken parents for company. And Jono arriving for weekends thinking she was still his meek little girlfriend, not knowing what she’d done, who she’d been, in Southside.

She looked up at the eye. ‘Does it listen as well as look?’

‘Yeah.’

She was silent for while, then she said, ‘Everything’s different now.’

‘Everything is.’

‘It was only three weeks and it felt like a year. I’m afraid for you. Going to the Marsh.’

‘I don’t exactly envy you.’

‘I won’t stay home forever. I want to come back to the city. I want to save a life, two lives, for Lou and Sol.’

With the eye staring at us, I didn’t ask what she meant. But knowing Fy, she meant something brave and heartfelt and, now and then, madly reckless.

Dash came back and said it was time to go: a car was waiting to take me to the Marsh.

Fyffe and I stood up and Fyffe said, ‘I might not see you for a while.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Dash. ‘He won’t be long in the Marsh.’