Elliot Ackerman - Dark at the Crossing

“No one has any other valuables?” asked the soldier with the red beret.

The little girl didn’t move.

Haris glanced toward Jamil, who stood with his head hanging to the ground, lost in some thought. He hadn’t emptied his pockets. He hadn’t moved. The soldier with the red beret butted him in the kidney with the stock of his rifle. Jamil stooped, his leg crooking at the knee. Then he straightened and dropped some pocket change and a comb into the dirt.

The soldier with the red beret paced behind them. “You are all loyal supporters of the regime, yes?”

Haris felt his heart accelerate in his chest. He glanced to the side, trying to observe the soldier, but instead he caught a glimpse of Jamil, who now gazed across the road and into an otherworldly distance, perhaps the place they were all headed.

While the soldier with the black beret sorted through everyone’s possessions, the one with the red beret ambled in front of Haris, examining his beard, which wasn’t quite long enough for an Islamist but wasn’t nearly a clean shave. “If anyone is against the regime, this is the time to step forward.”

A broken sort of hate spread through Haris. He had come all this way to do what seemed a simple thing — to fight for a cause he believed in. Now, before he’d even had a chance to fight, he would stand motionless, claiming to support the regime, renouncing the rebels to save his own life. He remembered how he’d betrayed Jim for what he thought was a greater good and, forced to commit another betrayal so he might live, Haris didn’t want to live anymore. I’d rather they kill me, he thought.

He shifted on his feet to step forward.

Before he could, Jamil did.

“You’re against the regime?” asked the soldier with the red beret.

Jamil said nothing, no grand denunciation, he just stood there shaking, as if he’d stepped naked from a cold bath and waited for someone to hand him a towel.

The man with the wrinkled black beret took Jamil by the arm. He looked at the other soldier and nodded, as if Jamil’s obvious fear were proof enough of his conviction against the regime. “Come with me,” he said, leading Jamil toward the Toyota.

Haris shifted on his feet again, as if he might step forward.

But Daphne pinned him next to her. She wouldn’t let him move. Her hand clamped his elbow so tight he could feel his pulse. Her weight pressed against him. To join Jamil, to let himself die, was also to betray her.

“The choice you make is your own,” said the soldier with the red beret.

Daphne held Haris even tighter.

Haris watched as the soldier with the black beret sat Jamil down on the Toyota’s far side, by its front tire. Haris stared toward the road, where he imagined he might never return. He anticipated a shot, Jamil’s execution at the hands of these regime thugs. Watching Jamil so intently, Haris didn’t notice when the soldier with the red beret took a few steps back. Haris also didn’t notice when he leveled his rifle on their group.

Haris heard the first shot as he watched Jamil.

What he heard didn’t correspond with what he saw.

Where was the execution? Why was Jamil still sitting upright?

Only when Daphne’s grip moved from Haris’s arm to his hand, and when she squeezed it once, hard, did Haris look away from Jamil. Right then, Haris smelled the cordite. Now he saw the shots coming down the row toward him, and the soldier with the red beret firing. The bullets seemed to explode out of each person’s body. One by one they fell to the earth, stacking in neat piles around him. Haris didn’t sprint away. Instead, he chose to take a last snapshot of his senses. I am holding Daphne’s hand, he thought. Jamil is running for me across the fields. The men in the Toyota aren’t regime soldiers. They must be Daesh. This must be a test to separate those who doubt from the true believers. But it’s also just another con, a highway shakedown, the way the Islamists finance their war. Jamil understands, but it’s too late. He’ll live. He may yet fight alongside the rebels. But it’s too late.

Then Haris’s legs were taken out from under him. Lying flat on his back, he lost sight of the blue horizon. Haris faced what was left of the night directly overhead. He breathed once and felt his ribs cracking against each other. Look how cold the light of the stars is, he thought, and his breaths came like air blown into a torn plastic bag. My lungs, was his next thought. He patted his hand against the dirt, which was wet and newly warm, turning to mud around him. Then he found what he’d briefly lost, Daphne’s hand. He squeezed it again, but his strength wasn’t what it had been a moment before.

And her strength was gone.

He turned on his shoulder, gazing across the fields to where the soldier in the black beret had caught Jamil from behind, holding him beneath the ribs. Jamil bicycle-kicked, trying to free himself before the soldier flung him into the dirt. Haris hoped Jamil didn’t protest too much. Nothing could be undone. The boy should take his place within the war, not waste himself on Haris’s behalf. What a fool I’ve been, he thought. I’ve died for nothing, a misunderstanding. I came to fight against the regime, even if that meant fighting alongside the Daesh. If I’d believed enough to die for that cause, as Jamil believed, I’d be alive. But as this idea formed in his clouded mind, he turned and felt Daphne’s broken shoulders next to his. They were pinned back, even in death. He remembered how she used to walk through Antep City Park, her confident stride, and the one night in her bed, running his fingers over her scars.

With him, she’d managed to sleep in the darkness.

The two soldiers took off their berets, using them like sacks to collect everyone’s valuables from the now soaked earth. Haris could hear the cracked, fading breaths of others mixing with his own. One by one the soldiers kicked each of the bodies on the soles of their feet, looking for a reflex. Here and there, Haris heard extra, finishing shots. A dim presence crept at the side of his vision. He saw the soldiers continue, body to body, until they came to the little girl, who had fallen beside her father and mother. Bashar licked her face, cleaning it. None of the three moved when the soldiers kicked the soles of their feet. This is a good thing, thought Haris. He remembered what Saied had told him: Time is what allows pain. Time is the greatest enemy. This family had never been apart. They’d avoided the pain known by Daphne and Amir. Even in death, the war had been gentle with them.

Keep watching, thought Haris as the soldier patted down the girl’s dress. Then, as he moved past her, a great satisfaction coursed through Haris. They hadn’t found her envelope of seeds. Though he could still feel his broken ribs grinding against each other, the pain in his chest eased.

They’d all be buried together, and Haris imagined the seeds in the girl’s pocket growing shoots that would swaddle them beneath the earth, the barley sprouting upward, an unexpected crop reaching toward the sun.

Haris stared at the horizon. Any second, day would break. Any second, the soldiers would kick the soles of his desert-suede combat boots. His shallow breaths came quicker and quicker. He wasn’t sure if he’d flinch when they kicked him. He knew he didn’t have much time, but still, he swore to himself that he’d hold on just a bit more. He wanted to see the sun.

They kept sprinting toward him across the ice. With less than a minute left in the last period, the championship came down to Amir’s ability to tend goal. The Bruins, a team sponsored by Levant Research Associates, were down 0–1 against the Minutemen, Marty’s team from the Syria Analysis Group. The Bruins had pulled their goalie. They now had more players on the ice. All through the winter, Marty had drilled the Minutemen for this eventuality, but now, as the forwards descended on Amir, there was little he could do. The championship cup, a silver Anatolian goblet of enormous size, yet to be engraved with the name of the first season’s victor, sat on a bench at rink-side. Marty had bought the cup. He’d organized the league. And he’d be goddamned if the Bruins would take it from him. But it all came down to Amir.