American War(49)

“So what you doing all the way out here,” she asked, “if you’re from over there?”

Joe nodded. “That’s a very good question. I am here because my country supports those who fight for freedom, wherever they are in the world. And that’s what your people are doing, isn’t it, Sarat, fighting for freedom?”

“Yes sir.”

Gaines rose from the table and walked to the bookshelves. He retrieved a book, one volume in a hardbound, green-covered collection. The writing on the spine and the cover was intricate and indecipherable to Sarat, the letters all conjoined, their peaks and loops like the road map of a hallucinated city. But Joe seemed to recognize the book.

“My God!” Joe said. “You kept them, all these years?”

“Of course,” Gaines replied. “It’s one hell of a gift.” He turned to Sarat. “When we were young men, Joe gave me a present, a collection of old Arabic poetry called the Book of Songs. It’s a very old, very rare gift, probably the only one of its kind in the Red or the Blue.”

He opened the book on the table and flipped through it until he came to a photograph slipped between the pages. He handed it first to Joe, who whistled in disbelief at the sight of it. Then he showed it to Sarat.

“Be kind,” he said, “and tell us you still see some resemblance.”

Sarat looked at the old photograph. It was of two lanky young men, one shirtless, the other wearing a uniform of brown camouflage, standing in a desert encampment. A little nameplate was stitched to the uniform’s shirt; it read: Joe. The two men looked to be in their late teens, about the same age as Sarat’s brother. They were smiling and had their arms around each other’s shoulders. The shirtless one was leaning on the butt of his rifle, the other one carried no weapon.

“How long ago was this?” she asked.

“Must have been ’21 or ’22,” said Gaines. “Around the time they sent us over there for the third time, right before the Fifth Spring.”

Joe leaned close to Sarat; he looked at the photograph again. “That’s right,” he said. “I remember, I remember when it was still your guns and our blood.”

For a moment Sarat thought she saw Gaines wince. He took the photograph from her and placed it back between the pages of his book and put the book back on the shelf. Then he sat beside Sarat.

“A few weeks ago we spoke about what you think you might want to do one day, when you’re older, when you leave this place,” he said. “Remember?”

“Sure,” Sarat replied.

“Well, that’s why I wanted to introduce you to my friend Joe. Because when you settle on what you want to do for yourself, what you want to do for your people, Joe might be able to help you. I know you said you might want to go to Atlanta one day and work for the Free Southern State, but you might change your mind. And then you might find that you need things, things that are hard to obtain, things even I can’t procure for you. But Joe might be able to help you. So I want you and him to be friends, and I want you to keep your friendship a secret, because there are lots of people who would want to hurt him if they found out he was helping Southerners. Do you understand?”

“All right,” Sarat said, even as she wondered what kind of help Joe might provide. “I won’t tell.”

“I’m happy to have met you, Sarat,” said Joe. “I hope we’ll be able to assist each other one day.”

She stayed with the two men until it was almost dawn, listening to them reminisce about the old war during which they first met. Much of the world they talked about was long gone, the old dynamics of power now inverted, but she enjoyed listening to it.

They talked about the years they spent in the part of the Bouazizi Empire once called the Arabian Peninsula, a place whose desert heart, once home to glittering oil-funded kingdoms, was now too hot for human habitation. Sarat knew from her geography and politics textbooks that these parched sandscapes were now lined with wave after wave of solar panels—blinding amber nets that caught the energy needed to feed and finance the empire. But the old men swore there had been cities—entire countries even—in these places. Millions once lived here, they said, before the temperature soared and the oil ran out.

In the early morning Joe said goodbye and left the camp. Gaines and Sarat were alone together in the office.

“There’s nothing quite as tedious as old farts droning on about the days of their youth, is there?” said Gaines. “You were generous to indulge us.”

“That’s all right,” said Sarat. “Every grown-up in this place talks all day about what it was like when they were young. At least your stories happened someplace far away.”

Gaines chuckled. “Well I guess that’s some relief.” He stood and lifted the blinds and opened the window to let a little air into the room. It was still dark outside.

“I’m glad I was able to introduce you to Joe,” he said. “I owe that man so much.”

“He save your life or something?” Sarat asked. “Back when you were soldiers?”

“No,” said Gaines. “I mean yes, I’m sure he must have, many times over. But that’s not all.”

He sat beside her at the table. From his wallet he produced a small wrinkled photograph, a high-schooler’s graduation portrait. The girl in the picture had Gaines’s smile, his deep-set eyes.