American War(48)

Sometimes he gave her what he called lyrics—a script of sorts, relating to something they’d discussed that day. Then she’d go home and read it over, until she learned her part of the conversation. And the next time he returned to the camp, they’d talk through it, as naturally as though they’d had the same conversation a thousand times.

What is the first anesthetic?

Wealth.

And if I take your wealth?

Necessities.

And if I demolish your home, burn your fields?

Acknowledgment.

And if I make it taboo to sympathize with your plight?

Family.

And if I kill your family?

God.

And God…

…Hasn’t said a word in two thousand years.

Good girl.



Sometimes the meaning of the lyrics escaped her. But she committed them to memory anyway. She was certain one day they would suddenly reveal their meaning; one day there might come reason to sing, and sing she would.



SARAT STOOD by the side of the administrative building, waiting for Gaines to arrive.

He was the only man she had ever known who could enter and leave Patience whenever he pleased. No refugee was ever afforded such privilege, and even the camp’s administrators and guards were forced to sign in and out every time they ventured into the Red. But Gaines floated past the gates at any hour of the day or night, carefree and without hassle, as though the gates marked not some severe wartime perimeter but the entrance to his own summer home.

Once she had been passing near Patience’s front gate when Gaines arrived. She watched the young soldiers at the gate smile and shake his hand, inquiring about his health and the health of his family. He in turn asked them about their families, about their wives and parents and children, and whether they were comfortable in their apartments in Atlanta. Then the soldiers, in a sheepish way, made it clear that times were hard for them and their families, that the Free Southern State was late again in paying their wages, but that, anyway, what was the use in complaining?

She watched as Gaines discreetly passed each of the soldiers a small envelope. The soldiers, even as they protested that they couldn’t possibly accept such kindness, quickly snapped the envelopes from his hand. In that moment Sarat saw the only sincere expressions of gratitude she had ever witnessed on the soldiers’ faces. Watching the interaction, she needed no one to explain to her that, between the flag sewn on their uniforms and the money in Gaines’s envelopes, there was no question where the young soldiers’ loyalty lay. It seemed perfectly reasonable then that Gaines should come and go through Patience whenever he pleased.

A little after eleven o’clock, she saw him walking up the path from the southern gate. Every time they met he had come alone but on this night he was joined by another man, a man she had never seen before.

“Sarat, I want to introduce you to a close friend of mine,” said Gaines. “I’ve known him for a long time, since we were both not much older than you are now.”

The man standing next to Gaines extended his hand. Sarat shook it. He appeared about the same age as Gaines, but his skin, the same caramel shade as Sarat’s father’s, was smooth and almost entirely free of wrinkles.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sarat,” the man said. “Albert has told me a lot of very nice things about you. My name is Joe.”

There was an exotic quality to his accent, the phonemes leaden, birthed a little lower down in the throat. She recognized quickly that he was a foreigner.

Gaines led Sarat and Joe into the administrative building and down the stairs to his office. Like Gaines, Joe appeared out of place in his neatly tailored suit and green silk tie. And like Gaines he seemed to take pleasure in the rigidity of his posture, his shoulders level and proud, his spine a ruler.

Inside, Sarat and Joe sat at the table while Gaines made coffee. He turned on the stereo and played the old classical song he liked, the one he called the song of the weary pilgrim. For Sarat he slathered honey on warm toast. She felt self-conscious in front of her unfamiliar companion, and ate slower than usual. But he simply smiled and observed her as though he’d known her since birth.

“Albert tells me you are originally from Louisiana,” Joe said. “Is that correct?”

“Yeah,” Sarat said, “that’s right.”

“It’s a very beautiful part of the world. I went there, some years ago. Very proud people there, very proud.”

“And how about you?” Sarat said. “Where you from?”

Joe seemed taken aback by the question, but quickly he regained his calm demeanor. He smiled at Gaines, then he pointed at one of the maps on the wall. “I am from the Bouazizi Empire. Do you know very much about the Bouazizi Empire?”

Sarat shook her head. “Just what Albert said, that it used to be a bunch of different countries and now it’s one.”

“That’s correct,” said Joe. “It used to be that all those different countries were ruled by kings and generals who treated a few people very well and a lot of people very badly. So we had a revolution, and finally we forced out the kings and forced out the generals and formed a republic, a democracy.”

Even more so than Gaines, Joe projected an air of serenity when he spoke. He was bald but for silver wings above the ears, clean-shaved but for a thick mustache that perfectly described his upper lip. Sarat tried to pinpoint what it was about him that imbued him with such calmness and finally she decided it must be because he was a visitor, an interloper, removed from the immediate consequences of the war raging all around him.