Elliot Ackerman - Dark at the Crossing

“I traveled here to help your country, and you robbed me,” said Haris. His breath came heavier now. Anger welled up from his stomach, driving him toward tears. It wasn’t his passport or money which had tapped this reservoir of emotion but the fact that he’d been duped. From his bed, Saied fixed the black narrows of his eyes on Haris. Pity filled their gaze, a type familiar to Haris. Jim had looked at him the same way after the raid at Kareem Tamad’s house: play by the rules of the game you’re in, the eyes seemed to mock.

“Where’s your partner, Athid?” asked Haris. He slumped onto the stool next to Saied’s bed. Resting his face in his hands, he thought of all that had been taken from him — both here and in other places before.

“Why? Do you still wish to cross the border?” asked Saied.

Haris wearily glanced up. “Yes.”

Saied turned his head toward the window above him.

“Would you mind letting some more light in?”

Haris propped the stool against the wall and, standing on it, pulled back the shutter. He climbed down and sat again by the bed.

“If you wish to cross safely, it costs quite a bit of money,” explained Saied.

“You took all my money.”

“Yes, but you’ll need some, a few thousand dollars at least.”

Daphne interrupted: “He can get the money.”

Saied shifted his gaze to her. Considering Daphne — her fine features, brown-blond hair with sunglasses balanced on top, the stylish blue trench coat — he raised an eyebrow.

“Suppose he can,” said Saied, “why should I help?”

Before Haris could answer, Daphne did: “Did you notice the steel door at the far end of this corridor? Likely not. There’s a level below this one. That’s the morgue. In this hospital it’s used not only for the dead but also for the dying. I’ve worked here for nearly a year, and someone sick as you, well, a few words from me and I think you’d find yourself down there.”

Saied uncurled a wry, incredulous grin.

Daphne opened the door and reached outside to where his chart hung from the wall. She planted herself next to Saied’s bed, just far enough away so he couldn’t reach her. Then, with the mechanical pencil that hung from a string at its top, she began tampering with the information on his chart.

“What are you doing?” Saied asked.

Daphne continued to shuffle through the forms, erasing bits of data, furiously entering other bits. She pressed hard as she wrote, breaking the tip of the pencil several times. Whatever doubt Saied showed in Daphne’s abilities seemed cause enough for her anger.

She held the modified form up to Saied’s face. “What can you understand on this?” she asked. “Maybe your birthday, that’s about it. The rest is in Turkish. When your doctor comes, how will you tell him you’re receiving the wrong treatment? How will you even know? It will just be a matter of time before your condition worsens. They’ll wheel you through the steel door, then down the ramp and into the morgue, to die alone. And do you think you’ll be the first person left to die in a dark, closed place?”

She threw his chart across the room. It skidded along the floor. Haris and Saied both watched Daphne with uncertain eyes. Without another word, she pivoted on her heels and headed outside.

“Wait,” Saied called after her.

Daphne stopped, her hand on the doorknob. She glanced over her shoulder. Saied didn’t speak to her, though. He reached for his cellphone. From it, he slowly read something to Haris: “All our pain is in the time we wait. We’re like your friend Jim. If he’d died quickly, his end would not be so difficult to remember. I’ve seen many who’ve died quickly. They feel nothing, knowing nothing of their end. Time is what allows pain. Time is the greatest enemy.”

Perched on the stool, Haris clutched its side, his knuckles turning white.

“What does that mean?” asked Daphne from across the room.

“Saladin1984?” whispered Haris.

Saied nodded.

“You’re him.”

He nodded again.

“He’s who?” asked Daphne.

Before she could be answered, Haris sprung from the stool. His panicked gaze volleyed once toward Daphne by the door, then back to Saied in his bed. He lunged down, grasping one of Saied’s tennis shoes from the floor. He held it by the heel, high above his head, and smacked its sole across Saied’s cheek. He brought the shoe up again and again, striking Saied with all the futility of an ax chopping a stump. Saied held his palms over his face, protecting himself. Aside from this, he did nothing. He didn’t cry out. He didn’t ask Haris to stop. He took his pummeling. Then, between strikes, Haris considered Saied’s hands — the index fingers, their missing tips.

He stopped.

Panting, Haris collapsed back onto the stool, dropping the tennis shoe to the floor. Daphne stayed by the door. “Saladin1984 was my fixer in the Free Army,” Haris told her. “Saied is Saladin. He was supposed to take me across the border, to fight. But this whole thing has been a scam.”

Haris’s hateful stare rested on Saied, pleading for him to explain away what he’d done.

Slowly, Saied brought his palms from his face. His eyes found the stubby, puckered ends of his fingers just as Haris’s had. “What could I do?” he said. “You see my hands. Athid did this to me. The Daesh control everything now.”

“Athid is with the Daesh?” asked Haris.

Saied nodded.

“And you helped him?”

“How could I not!” Saied answered.

“You lied to me.”

“They were only lies at the end,” said Saied. “I was with the Free Army. I managed a refrigeration warehouse for them in Azaz, but I handled other logistics — recruitment, weapons, ammunition. This is why you and I met. When the Daesh took over the warehouse, they killed everyone. I was only spared because the refrigerators took some skill to maintain. I was a grocer before the war.”

“You never even fought?” asked Haris.

“I was married. My wife lived with me in the warehouse, though she hated it.”

“And Athid?”

“She hated Athid, too.”

“No, how did you meet Athid?”

“He lived in the warehouse with his fighters until the regime bombed it. That’s when I was injured.” Saied glanced at his stomach.

“How do I know you’re not lying to me again?”

Saied pointed to his Nokia on the floor. Haris handed it to him. He brought up a photo of his wife. “Do you see her with me now? Living in that warehouse, every day seemed worse than the last, so every night she and I would mourn the day that had just passed. She died in the same bombing. Were it all a lie—” Color rushed into Saied’s cheeks, and Haris saw the truth of that. “Athid rescued me from the rubble and brought me to a field hospital. He kept me alive only so he might punish me. Since I had been with the Free Army, he believed I’d betrayed him, giving away his position in the warehouse to the regime. That’s when he took the knife to my fingers. He did this instead of killing me because I had something to offer him.”

Saied paused, resting his stare on Haris.

“You offered him me.”

Saied nodded. “The field hospital was filthy, in shambles with few doctors. I would’ve died there. At first, after I lost my wife, that’s what I wanted, to leave this world and find peace with God. But after this”—again he held up his fingers—“I felt my spirit to be dead. No part of me remained for the next life, so I decided to survive in this one, striking a deal with Athid. I knew you’d arrive soon, and I told him if he brought me to the border, we could pay off the gendarmes, get them to help us, and then I’d deliver you and the rest of your money.”