Elliot Ackerman - Dark at the Crossing

“I came to fight for your cause,” said Haris. “You betrayed me. You betrayed it.”

“I did no such thing!” Saied jerked onto his elbows, trying to sit and square up with Haris. He then winced against the pain in his stomach and collapsed onto his back, speaking in a rasp: “Who are you? You come here for reasons you don’t even understand. In Aleppo, Damascus, Azaz, the Daesh hold back the regime. Athid commands nearly one hundred men. If the money I took from you helps those men, then I’ve helped the cause.” Saied then spoke over Haris’s shoulder, to Daphne, who had stood this whole time listening by the door. “And you, let these doctors kill me if you want!”

Haris rose from the stool, ready to leave the room.

Before he could go, Daphne spoke: “Live only for yourself, fine. We’ll help you if you help us across the border. You’ll be paid and have money to start over.”

“Five thousand dollars,” he said.

“If that’s your price,” answered Daphne.

“You are going with him?” asked Saied.

“Yes.”

Haris flashed his eyes at Daphne, not understanding the extent of her plans. She crossed the room, picking up Saied’s chart from the floor, fixing the alterations she had made. Haris felt control once again slip from him. But he also felt grateful for Daphne. He had never believed for certain that he possessed the courage to cross the border, to sacrifice himself for his cause. Daphne seemed to have that courage.

Saied too gazed at Daphne. “You are Syrian?”

She nodded.

“Not Muslim?”

“My mother was Christian, my father Muslim,” she explained. “It didn’t used to matter.”

“Much of what mattered before now doesn’t, and much of what didn’t matter before now does,” said Saied. “If you were purely Muslim, it’d be better.” He rested his hands on his exposed stomach. He drummed his clipped fingers on the skirt of unbroken skin surrounding his scars. He looked into his mangled flesh as if consulting an oracle. “All right,” said Saied. “Come back in two days. I’ll make the arrangements, you bring the money.”

As a reflex Haris nearly said thank you, but he stopped himself. He followed Daphne to the door. Before stepping into the corridor, he paused, turning again toward Saied. “When you wrote me as Saladin, did you mean what you said?”

Laid out on his back, Saied raised his head. “About what?” he asked.

“About time, and pain.”

Saied tucked his chin to his chest, considering his body. He exhaled a single, heavy breath, like a man sighing out his life. “What do you think?”

Haris shut the door behind him.

They stoodin the corridor.

“You are coming?” asked Haris.

Daphne nodded and then looked off toward the elevator bank. Haris could see her calculating what he knew about Kifa and how he knew it. “We’ll go see Marty,” she said. “We can get the money from him.”

Haris pressed the button. He watched the numbers counting down from the hospital’s upper floors. Daphne turned toward him. “Why are you here?” The elevator’s hollow chime interrupted her. Its doors opened and they stepped inside. As the doors collapsed shut she asked: “And who’s Jim?”

Amir had left the BBC going. The unfolded sofa bed filled the cramped living room. It was evening. Daphne shut off the television and switched on the lights. She took off her heels, and Haris stood by the door while she ducked into her bedroom. She came back out wearing a thick pair of wool hiking socks. The apartment was cold. She turned the knob on the coiled steel heater by the window. It creaked, expanding with warmth.

Daphne sat, legs tucked under her, on the edge of the sofa bed. Haris held a plastic bag with their dinner, two kebabs and two Cokes they’d picked up on the way back from the hospital. After taking his boots off, Haris sat across from Daphne. He ripped open the plastic bag, spreading it like a tablecloth between them. Silently, in their stocking feet, they ate.

Haris wondered how long she had waited for a chance to cross the border. The recklessness of her choice frightened him. He didn’t want a travel companion with such a capacity for impulse. But if she had been looking for an opportunity to cross these many months, and if he was that opportunity, it hinted at her grief. He doubted his capacity to manage anyone’s grief but his own. The more he thought about it, Haris wasn’t sure he wanted to understand why Daphne had decided to come with him.

She lit a cigarette and offered one to Haris, who refused. “So who was Jim?” she asked, picking köfte from the kebab with her manicured fingers while she smoked.

Haris’s mouth was full. He chewed slowly, formulating a response. “A friend of mine.”

“A friend?”

“From the war,” he added.

“And he’s the reason you’re here?”

Haris fell silent.

Daphne set her kebab on the plastic bag, resting her eyes on him. “I deserve more of an answer than that.”

“You do?”

“I’m going to help you, you’re going to help me. We should know each other’s reasons.”

Haris said nothing.

Daphne stubbed out her cigarette and brought her feet to the floor. Planting her hands on her knees, she leaned forward on the sofa bed, toward Haris. He dropped his stare into his food, intent on finishing his dinner. She then stood and disappeared into the bedroom.

Before Haris could swallow his next bite, Daphne barged back through the door. Under both her arms, she held spiral binders, composition notebooks, Moleskine pads. She dumped them on the sofa bed in a worthless heap. Some of the journals leafed open. Scrawled across their pages in blue ink, her handwriting was pressed hard into each one.

Daphne bent over and tidied up the mess, as if realizing she’d been careless with something of great value. Placing the journals in two neat stacks between her and Haris, she again sat with her legs tucked under her on the sofa bed. Then, more carefully, she folded back the journals’ spines one by one, handing the open pages to Haris.

“They’re lesson plans,” she said, as Haris looked over the indecipherable French.

“From your kindergarten?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “They’re from after.”

“After?”

“When the revolution began I was studying for my degree, but I wasn’t really interested in my subject. I’d just invested so much time at the university — exams, papers, research. My life had a momentum to it, one I didn’t care for. Then, as the war destroyed everything, we all learned to rebuild amid the destruction. The first thing I built was the kindergarten — for my daughter, Kifa. I didn’t draw up any lesson plans then. I just began to teach with a few other mothers. To my surprise, I found more satisfaction in this modest pursuit than any other I’d taken on. War can be a blessing in this way. If you’re trapped, its destruction can free you. It freed me to become my daughter’s teacher.”

“Then what are these lesson plans for?” asked Haris.

Daphne flipped through the notebooks, tracing her fingers over the pages as if they were covered in braille. “They are for Kifa,” she said, as if it was obvious. “Every day I keep track of the school she’s missed and what I’ll need to teach her.”

“I saw the photo of her grave,” Haris blurted.

Daphne’s eyes wandered back toward him.

“I came across it when I was changing my clothes in your room,” he said. “I’m sorry.” As he apologized, he wasn’t certain if he meant he was sorry for snooping through her things, or for her loss. He allowed her to take his apology for either of its meanings, or for the two combined.