Robert McGill - Once We Had a Country

“You were a fine husband,” says Gordon. “You loved your wife, didn’t you?”

Yia Pao nods. “But when I returned from Vientiane to marry her, I had been to school, I had lived in the city. I thought myself better than her or my parents. I laughed at things she said. Then a bomb struck the village and took her.”

“Yia Pao—” Gordon begins, but he isn’t listening. Moisture beads and falls from the tip of his nose.

“Gordon, it was the work of your God. He was teaching me a lesson.”

Gordon is about to say something but only purses his lips.

“I didn’t learn the lesson right away,” says Yia Pao, “so the next bomb took my parents too. God is a stubborn teacher.” He lifts his head and stares at the white scar on Gordon’s neck. “Is it really from a war?”

Gordon flinches and averts his gaze, staring into the pool of water at his feet. A moment later he reaches up to put his hand on a thick black root protruding from the earth just above his head. With the toe of his boot, he begins to kick into the wall of the pit. Once he has created a secure foothold, he hoists himself and starts to kick another. Yia Pao watches him rise. The only sounds are Gordon’s grunts as he labours toward the top, struggling to keep hold of the slick walls, and a rain of muddy earth falling into the water at Yia Pao’s feet. At last Gordon reaches the edge of the pit and lifts himself from view.

Yia Pao rocks the baby and stays silent. After a time, a shadow passes over his face. Then a length of nylon rope tumbles into the pit with a towel tied at the end to form a sling.

“I don’t see them anywhere,” says Gordon from above. “But they left the fire going. We have to hurry. Send Xang first, and then I’ll pull you up.”

The afternoon sun lords over the farm. A pair of jackrabbits grazing on the front lawn dart across the grass as Maggie returns from her walk. She has gone all the way to Virgil and tramped every street in the village without really taking in anything. She told Fletcher she would be an hour; it’s been over two, but she doesn’t care. She needed the time alone.

From the wrecking yard comes the rumble of heavy machinery and the screech of rent metal. Ahead of her, near the porch, Lambchop and Karl sit in a red Alfa-Romeo convertible looking impatient. As she approaches them, Fletcher steps out onto the porch with a pair of suitcases in his hands.

“Where were you?” he calls out. “You missed lunch.”

“I told you, a walk,” she replies, still focused on the suitcases. “What’s going on?”

“Karl and Lambchop are heading out.”

“Those suitcases are yours, aren’t they?”

Suddenly his attention is caught by a line of crows on a telephone wire near the road.

“I’ll come back soon,” he tells her. He says it like an apology.

Maggie stops in place. In her peripheral vision, she apprehends Lambchop and Karl easing out of the car, then disappearing around the corner of the house. Fletcher descends the porch stairs and walks over to her before setting down the cases.

“You were going to leave without telling me?” she says.

“No, of course not—”

“What were you going to do? Phone from Niagara Falls? From Boston?”

Fletcher refuses to look her way. “I want you to come with me. You could go back to school, start teaching again—”

She kicks at the ground and feels pain shoot through her toe. “Fletcher, you can’t do this. You can’t try running off and then ask me to join you.”

“I need some time to think. Don’t you see? Everybody else can stay, and—”

“Have you already checked with your father? Does everyone else know too?” None of what’s happening seems real. “I don’t understand what I’ve done for you to treat me like this.”

Fletcher stands blinking with his face toward the sun. “It’s not you. It’s that film! The whole place is poisoned now. I can’t stay, really I can’t.” He takes off his glasses to scrub at a lens with the corner of his shirt. Then he notices Karl and Lambchop hovering at the side of the house and waves them toward the convertible.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her. “I’ll be back, I promise.” When he moves to hold her, she shrugs him off, so he picks up the suitcases again and starts for the car.

“Wait!” she says. “Why do you have to leave right now? This isn’t the way to say goodbye!”

“Karl and Lambchop need to be back in Boston tonight. Please, Maggie—”

“Then drive yourself tomorrow in the camper. Don’t go now.” Karl and Lambchop are already in the car again, watching her. “You know,” she says to Fletcher, “I’m three weeks late.”

It takes him a few seconds to comprehend what she means. Behind him, Karl lays on the horn, and Fletcher yells at him to knock it off.

“It’s probably just stress,” he tells her. “You shouldn’t worry—”

Maggie kicks the ground again. “You’re heartless, you really are.”

“Christ, how can I be heartless when I’m asking you to come with me? Please let me go. Don’t you see? If you care about me at all …” His voice falls apart, and he bows his head.

Maggie gazes across the lawn, wanting to tell him everything at once, all she has kept from him lately to make his life easier: Wale meeting her father; Gran’s phone call; Dimitri and the girl.

“All right,” she says. “If you have to go, go.”

He’s slow raising his eyes. “Really?” Some barrier in him gives way. Dropping the suitcases, he moves to hold her. “I’m so sorry, I really am, but—”

It’s the last word that makes her break free and rush toward the porch. Even when he calls to her, she keeps on going. Inside the door, she stops and hears Lambchop say, “You told her you’re coming back, right? Why’s she acting like such a baby?” With that, she runs for the stairs.

Sitting on their bed, she wraps her arms around herself, while from the drive come the sounds of the convertible being loaded. At one point Karl laughs. On an impulse, she leaps up and opens a drawer in the dresser. It’s empty. So is another, and another. She turns and notices an envelope lying on the windowsill. Before she can go to examine it, the car’s engine starts and there’s the crunch of tires on gravel. A line of reflected sunlight travels like an arrow across the bedroom wall. The noise slowly fades and vanishes.

“You okay?” asks Brid the next morning when Maggie enters the kitchen.

She nods, trying not to pay attention to the nausea that woke her, and pours herself coffee while Brid sits at the table brushing Pauline’s hair. A minute later, Maggie’s stomach leaps. She covers her mouth and flees the room.

It’s half an hour before she makes her way into the orchard. Long-fallen cherries lie squashed and puckered underfoot, crawled upon by yellow jackets. The brush piles wait for her at the ends of the lanes. Reaching the first one, she bends low to light a match. The flames spread quickly, and soon the air is plumed with smoke. She moves along a beaten-down path in the grass until her matches are exhausted and half a dozen piles are aflame.

From the barracks comes George Ray, running and shouting like a madman. “What are you doing? The whole orchard could go up.”

“It was on a list of jobs that Fletcher left,” she replies.

He shakes his head vehemently. “Too early. Everything’s tinder.” Even as he says it, sparks begin to meander into the trees. From one of the piles there’s a rifle shot of exploding bark. Above the crackle she hears the chorus of geese calling to each other, a phalanx of dark dots moving south.

George Ray enlists her help in dragging a hose across the orchard, then begins to spray down the piles. She stands watching him, fearful and curious. When the water meets the flames, there’s a hiss like static through giant speakers.