A sudden eruption of noise down the hall startled him. An American voice cursed harshly, and a sharp woman's voice stabbed back in a foreign language. Gently, Ryder smoothed his hand away from the woman's breast and laid it over her ear.
She was a hard, bad lover. And, sobered, he sensed that she wanted things from him that had nothing to do with his individuality. But it did not matter. In this wilderness of sheets, he was her protector. Charged to shield her from all pain.
The cursing faded off down the hall, and Ryder pitied those who had to fight in such a way. He felt peaceful, and even the bizarre scenes from the computer interrogation center had softened. He did not think of the war. The war would return soon enough. For these few hours, he simply wanted to hold this stranger and let these scraps of companionship cover him.
The woman rustled against him, realigning her bottom. His body responded and he trailed his hand down over her hair to the hard collarbones, pausing briefly at the humble softness of her breasts, then crossing the prairie of her stomach until his fingers caught at damp tangles. He slid a finger into the wetness left over from their earlier lovemaking, and the woman began to turn toward him, locking his hand in place with the swell of her thighs. In the pale darkness, he could see that her eyes were wide open. She reached her mouth up for a kiss, stale from cigarettes and sleep. She laughed slightly, and he did not know why. Then she reached for him as she freed his captive hand.
Valya had long lain awake, pretending to be asleep, trying to take the measure of this latest man to whom she had given herself. She was anxious for him to make love to her again, not at all for the act itself, but for the reassurance that she really did attract him, that there was, after all, a chance that she might have her way.
She was certain that he did not understand her. He seemed so sure of himself, taking everything for granted. He smiled too much, and everything about him seemed too young, despite their like ages. Making love, he began with a gentleness she found disconcerting. She had come to expect far brusquer treatment from her lovers. Trying to move him, she soon got lost in the act itself, and let him follow as he chose. But she worried when she could not make him finish. He seemed to want to linger over the act, making it last as long as possible, instead of simply letting go. It was a very different business, and she was not certain she would be able to get used to it. There seemed to be so little real feeling, so little passion or abandon to the American.
The worst part, however, was not his physical indifference to her efforts. Far more annoying was the sense that she had not reached him on a personal level. She scolded herself bitterly: What can you expect when you jump into bed with a foreigner like some tramp? She felt her anger growing against this man who seemed so annoyingly content to hold her in his arms. She doubted that he had ever felt any kind of physical deprivation. And whom was she trying to fool? American women were all whores, and he could have any he wanted. In fine clothes. Rich women. Perhaps, she thought savagely, she should count herself lucky that he had deigned to take her into his bed. She doubted that he had ever known real loneliness, the kind that was bigger than any single cause that could be put into words, the kind that made you into such a fool. The Americans were spoiled and insensitive, she decided. Every last one of them.
Suddenly, a vicious-sounding man's voice began to shout in another room. Or perhaps it was in the hallway, she could not tell for certain. But the sound frightened her. Then a woman's voice replied in Russian. Demanding money. Dollars. The unmistakable evidence of the company into which she had fallen chilled Valya.
Inexplicably, the American laid his hand over her ear. Why wouldn't he want her to hear what was going on? Perhaps, she thought, because the bastard didn't want her to demand money from him.
She wanted to curl up like a child. Alone. She did not know whether she was truly ashamed or merely disappointed by the situation in which she found herself. But she knew she was unhappy.
She nudged herself at the American, impatient for him either to make love to her or to go to sleep. If he went to sleep, she could eat the cookies he had left in an opened pack on the night table. If nothing else, she told herself, she should at least have a belly full of cookies for her night's work.
The American began to graze his hand down over the front of her body. He moved so that she could feel exactly what he wanted. Then she felt him working a finger inside of her.
All right then, she thought.
She turned to face the American, to open herself to him. She touched him, feeling the leftover slickness. At least he found her desirable. Worth a second time. She had been afraid that he thought she was too thin, that he had already lost interest in her.
Perhaps there was hope. Perhaps something good would finally happen. Perhaps…
Unprovoked, she suddenly thought of Yuri. Her husband. And she laughed at her utter inability to ever really enjoy anything without spoiling it for herself. The American pushed a second finger into her, and she canted a leg to accept him. She groaned, keying up to him now.
Well, she hoped Yuri was all right, anyway. With his beloved soldiers. They could keep him. She did not want to see him hurt. She simply did not want to see him at all.
She tasted the American, feeling the roughness of his beard stubble, letting her body react on its own. But she could not get her husband out of her mind. She began to grow angry, furious, flailing her hips against the American. Why did it all have to be such a mess?
You don't understand, she cried out in her native language, unsure now whether she was addressing the husband who had deserted her or this stranger who was taking her body away. You don't understand, you just don't understand….
PART III
The Trial
14
Down the hill from the suburban home where George Taylor passed his childhood lay an orchard. Lost between some dead farmer's dreams and a developer's vision, the untended trees had gone wild. When you walked down from the careful plots of television-neighborhood houses, through the no-man's-land of cleared fields yet unbuilt, the paved road turned to gravel, then to red dirt. The last sewerage connection guarded the edge of civilization like an undersized cement and steel pillbox. Birds rose at your footsteps, and, in the summer, dull snakes sunned themselves in the dust. The tangled orchard encompassed a ravine that was perfect for rock fights (no rocks above a certain generally acknowledged size, and no aiming above the waist).
This little wilderness was unkempt, as are the very young and the very old. The trees were very old, and the denimed warriors who ran howling between them were very young. George Taylor was the youngest of the tribe, and one of the wildest, driven by his fear that his fears might be discovered by his older companions. Looking back with the genius of an adult, he could only shake his head at the terrified recklessness he had tried to pass off as a bravery he had never, ever felt.
When George Taylor was very young, the oldest member of the band with whom he explored the world was a strong, loud boy named Charlie Winters. One of Taylor's first clear memories was of being together with other males drafted by Charlie for a special expedition down to the orchard. Armed with sticks, the file of boys passed out of the brightness of the morning into the golden-green twilight of the grove. Charlie went first, searching through the brambles and tramped paths for the way he had gone the afternoon before. Amid the gnarled branches with their spotted, unworthy fruit, Charlie had discovered a perfect apple. But there were problems: the treasure dangled from a forbiddingly high branch and, still worse, no climber could retrieve it, since it grew very close to the gray pulp of a wasps' nest.