He had never had any trouble getting it up for Emily. With this woman it was different; he tried hard, but it was no good.
As Johnny Kenow — an unexpected gift from Memory! — used to say, “Can’t salute if ya ain’t got no pole to hang yer flag on!”
Later, as they huddled together in the cab for warmth, he awoke to the distant racket of machinegun fire. Riva was up instantly. Their personnel carrier contained a variety of weapons, and she pushed an automatic rifle into his hands. She seemed pleased when Memory showed him how to use it. Then they slipped out to watch side by side in the underbrush next to their vehicle.
Footsteps brought him back from a timeless, dreamless doze. Black figures were trotting along the road toward them from the direction of the town. Riva’s gun made a soft, snicking sound as she cocked it. He laid a hand on her arm.
A man in Israeli military fatigues staggered past them, his features contorted by exhaustion and terror. Then came two more, a woman and a girl, shapeless beneath dark shawls. A short, heavy-set, jowly man brought up the rear. He was panting and visibly near collapse. What was frightening these people?
Spotlight beams picked their way up the road toward them like diamond-brilliant, long-legged insects, and he caught the deep-throated rumble of an engine. Headlights blazed out suddenly amidst the ruddy light of the oil-tank fires. A voice, amplified to unintelligibility by a bullhorn, yammered something. The fat man stopped, his mouth twisted into an oval of despair. The woman faltered, turned, and went back to him. The child would have joined her, but she pushed the girl roughly toward the dark bushes off to the side of the road.
The vehicle came bounding up over a rise, and he saw that it was an open, jeep-style scout car. It held six Klansmen: men in white hoods and robes, just like Nate Reese’s movie, “One Angry Afternoon.” Beverly Rowntree had hated that one: too violent, she said, and she had never gone in for Black heroes. He told her to shut up so he could concentrate.
The Klansman beside the driver stood up and hollered something over his bullhorn. The fat man knelt in the middle of the road, as if he were praying, and the woman stood squarely behind him. Good scene! Great lighting!
One ghostly figure stayed in the vehicle to man the mounted machinegun, while the rest got down. They wore identical, complete-coverage, white suits that included gloves, boots, and bulky back-tanks, and their faces were concealed by silvery, mirror-bright masks.
What kind of Klan costumes were these? He didn’t like it when the movies screwed around with authenticity! Their car, too, had graffiti spray-painted on it: a big, wavering, white “UN” over an oblong flag-decal that consisted of a red background and a white crescent.
“Turks,” Riva whispered. “Sanitation team.”
One of the Klansmen sported different insignia: a blue flag with a yellow cross on his helmet. He appeared to be arguing with his comrades, but they ignored him.
The one in the lead went right up to the kneeling man and the woman, raised the stitch-gun he was carrying, and spat out a burst at point-blank range. The explosive needles went bangedy-bang like a string of firecrackers, and both targets jittered and danced and erupted in a shower of blood. Then they fell down. In the ringing silence that followed they heard the child keening wordlessly somewhere in the rocks off to the side of the road. There was no sign of the first man, the one in fatigues.
Two of the Klansmen stooped to inspect their work. Three advanced to peer into the darkness after the child. One pointed at Riva’s APC, half-concealed in the undergrowth beside the road. The machine-gunner swivelled his weapon to cover, but when the APC proved to be empty he went back to contemplating the highway to the south, away from the town.
It took him a second to realize that Riva had opened fire; then his gun joined in, seemingly of its own accord. The Klansmen in the road yelped, staggered, and collapsed. The machine-gunner never had a chance to turn around: he threw up his arms and plunged prettily off onto the stony roadbed. Nice shot! Give that stunt man a bonus!
The Klansmen all lay still. That was how Nate Reese had done it! Shoot the White bastards! That was the message of a lot of his movies.
Riva called something in Hebrew, then in English, then, haltingly, in Arabic. A whimper answered her from the darkness.
Eventually the girl emerged. It was hard to say whether she was an Arab, a Jew, or what. She looked about twelve years old, thin, dark-faced, with lanky, stringy hair. Grime concealed the color of her baggy pants and long-sleeved, tunic-like blouse, and her shawl was little more than a black rag. She did not speak but continued to cry, soundlessly and with no tears. Riva made a face but held her and patted her awkwardly until the worst spasms were finished.
The movie was over. Beverly had to be home by midnight, otherwise her old man would have a shit-fit. He helped the woman collect the weapons, drag the Klansmen into the undergrowth — they sure were good actors!— and run their vehicle off the road. The child climbed into their APC without protest, and he managed a couple of hours of precious sleep. By dawn they were on their way again.
Jerusalem and Damascus are not far apart, as measured in kilometers instead of cultures and history. He recalled another occasion when he had driven this road. There had been men with him then: grim, tough soldiers in Israeli-issue helmets and uniforms. He didn’t want to think about it and was grateful when the waterfall came back to drown everything out.
They camped that night under a moon as big and ornately scrolled as one of those silver trays the Arab artisans peddled to the tourists. Riva refused to enter the city for fear both of contagion and also of whom or what else might be wandering there. He lay with her on a looted mattress in the sand next to their vehicle and listened to the child whimper. The little girl still had not spoken. Memory handed him the name “Liese,” but he had no idea who that was.
Memory crawled up to report, very quietly so as not to wake the woman.
“God damn it,” he growled. “Don’t do that!”
“Sorry, sir,” Memory replied. “Thought you’d like to know, sir.”
“I don’t remember any Liese. Who is she?”
“Never mind.” Memory was contrite. “Go to sleep, sir.”
“How can I? The kid’s whining keeps me awake.”
A new voice broke in, a woman, a stranger speaking funny, stilted English. “What are you mumbling? Dink you, you piece of dead meat!”
He opened an eye to see an angular shadow against the moonlit armored flank of their personnel carrier: a kid pimping for his sister — or offering himself for a little quick rental.
He made a shooing gesture. Words still baffled him, but a good, deep, vicious growl ought to get the message across.
“What?” the person asked in startled tones. “What… what ‘s the matter?”
He pointed and pantomimed “no teats”: boys were not his style. He rolled over to go back to sleep.
A fist smacked him at the nape of the neck. He twisted around and fended off flailing arms tipped with cat-claws, jerked up a leg to protect his groin, and dodged snapping, white teeth.
His attacker was a woman, not his type but passable if one ignored the lack of breastworks. He snorted in chagrin, but she took it as a laugh and joined in. Next they were tugging at each other’s clothes; then they were intertwined, as tight as two snakes in a drainpipe, as his father used to say.
It still wasn’t any good: he couldn’t finish it.
“Pog you, corpse!” she panted. “Gel me off! Get me off!”
Memory was astutely absent. She pulled his fingers down between her legs, then savagely pushed his head in that direction as well. Emily Pietrick used to like that, he recalled. He nuzzled the soft, fragrant flesh of her abdomen, then moved lower.