Connor’s driver. Connor’s translator. And Connor’s deputy. Three dead bodies from Connor’s entourage. But the authorities never found Connor. They searched a two-mile radius and turned up nothing. They did discover, however, a fourth spray of blood similar to the other three and one of the ribbons Connor kept pinned to his flak jacket.
Five months after Piotr learned the circumstances of Connor’s death, Beth called back.
“I’m going to Chechnya,” she said. “I’m bringing back Connor’s body.”
Piotr tried to sway her. What they did to Connor, he said, they would not hesitate to do to her as well. Surely she had heard about the state of emergency declared by the Chechen president himself. But she was as stubborn as her husband. Their marriage must have been like two mules endlessly butting heads.
“Do you know where his body is?” he asked.
Rana must have heard him, because she came into the living room with Mikhail, then still a newborn. He lowered his voice.
“No, but I’ll find him.”
“Do you know where to start?”
“He spent a lot of time in Grozny. I’ll begin there.”
“Beth, please.”
“I don’t have his body. There’s nothing! You don’t know what it’s like, having nothing.” The words chafed her throat. “You don’t know.”
But she was wrong. He did know. And Rana too must have known, because she came close, close enough for him to smell the powder on Mikhail’s head. She said nothing, but hovered there, like a reminder, a memory.
“I know he’s dead, Piotr. I know that. But I want to bring his body home. He deserves that much. I need your help. Maybe you can get in touch with your contacts in Chechnya. I know you and Connor worked on it before you left.”
They had. But that also meant that Piotr’s name was on the same lists that Connor’s had been on. In the year after Connor’s death, international groups pulled out of Chechnya, targeted the same way Connor had been. Indiscriminately. Ruthlessly. Russian atrocities, Chechen atrocities — there was no difference now that they all went unseen.
“Too much has changed,” Piotr said. “Those contacts will be no good.”
“I’ve got to start somewhere.” He recognized the tremor in her voice. He’d heard it from women who had not drunk water in four days. Here was Beth’s heart, before him, on the phone. “Come with me,” she said. “Please. I can’t do this alone.”
In all the time he’d known her, Beth had been Connor’s shadow, her personality subsumed by his. Even now, she labored to be the dutiful wife, and he understood the necessity of her journey: she, most of all, needed to bury him. He imagined her in the remains of Minutka Square, looking at street names and transliterating the Cyrillic into something recognizable. He imagined her crouching low in the backseat of a beat-up Lada Niva as it approached the border. He imagined her, a woman traveling alone, reaching out to complete strangers, Connor’s ring on a gold chain around her neck, and her long, thin fingers beseeching, Can you lend a hand, please? But all it would take was for her to say “Grozny” instead of “Djohar” to the wrong person, and she’d be shot on the spot.
And then she unleashed her secret weapon:
“Connor would have done the same for you.”
It was true: Connor would have. But here was the other truth: if he had stayed with Connor, Beth could not have asked for his help, because he would be dead. What were his obligations now? What did the living owe the dead?
Beth’s breaths were the long gasps of a woman calming herself. Rana put her hand on his forearm, a light touch. He held the phone to his ear and leaned over to kiss Mikhail, who smelled of talc and laundry detergent, who seemed as small and fragile as a pressed flower.
“Beth,” he said, “I have a family.”
“And you think Connor doesn’t?” she replied. “He still does, with or without you.”
By the time Piotr arrives back in Bhuj, dusk creeps into the edges of the sky. Arni’s dried blood flakes off Piotr’s shirt. The driver tries to keep the steering wheel steady. He almost doesn’t slow at the checkpoint, and a soldier raises his rifle, but Piotr sticks his arm out the window to wave, and the soldier lowers it.
Piotr points the driver toward the medical compound, and as he helps Arni step down from the cab, an Indian nurse rushes over. “Priority patient!” she calls out, and masked Indians swarm the truck, this time, surgical masks instead of bandannas. Arni will make his statement, and Piotr will file a report. Afterward, he can request new copies of the maps and informatics, and he can recalculate the answers to tomorrow’s miseries.
But first, rest.
The medical and the aid compounds are only a few streets apart, but the distance seems immense. He weaves through makeshift camps. Religious groups, extended families, clumps of strangers huddling around communal fires. One man tries to stoke a fire with the wood of a broken table. He lights thin strips of newspaper from the near past. Movie stars. Political commentary. If only it could catch fire. The government had promised the restoration of electrical power a day after the earthquake, but it’s now been four, and the darkness seems as omnipresent as before.
When he reaches his tent, Babu Roshan stands. “Very good to see you again,” he says.
“I’m very tired,” says Piotr.
“Certainly, certainly.” He pretends as if no time has passed. “I will only take a moment.”
“Please—”
“I was wondering if—”
“I don’t feel like speaking—”
“I understand your fatigue—”
“No,” says Piotr. “You do not.”
“If you’ve been able to secure some housing—”
It should be funnier than it is. They should be laughing, together, at the situation.
“No,” Piotr says, “we were not able to secure housing.”
Babu Roshan frowns. “Nothing? I find that hard to believe.”
“That is the situation.”
“My friend,” Babu Roshan says, “I thought that we had an understanding.” He hangs upon the last word as if it were a threat.
“Understanding? No, understand this. There is nothing for you. You must live with what you have.”
“This is unacceptable.” Babu Roshan paces like an animal in a small cage. He must not be accustomed to being refused.
“I’m afraid this is how it is,” Piotr says, and Babu Roshan leaves, scowling.
Finally.
Piotr reaches for his Walkman. He places it on his chest, a familiar weight, like a pacemaker. He retrieves the cassette, which rattles noisily. There’s a large crack in the face of the plastic. Three spokes of the left reel are missing, but the tape itself seems to be intact. Cosmetic damage.
Piotr lies down and closes his eyes. He sees sunlight on the machete blade. Shattered bridges. Dust plumes. His earpieces muffle the world but can’t shut it out completely. Trucks come and go. Voices pass by. He wipes the corners of his eyes where moisture has accumulated. He presses “Play,” and the Walkman whirs and whirs and whirs, but no music comes out.
This encounter with looters is not Piotr’s first, but it is the first with an injury. When he sees Lorraine, she holds his chin, examining his face as if memorizing his features before their inevitable disfigurement. She searches for something, an indication of some sort, a message. Exactly what, he cannot tell.
“How much did we lose?” she asks.
The actual answer: probably less than what it cost to fly the team to India. But Piotr knows she’s asking to see how rattled he is, to see if he still has his wits about him.
“I’m fine,” he insists.
“I want to believe you,” she says. “But there’s no way that something like what happened doesn’t affect you.”