American War(83)

It was a simple compound, made up of three squat buildings huddled under a highway overpass. The buildings bore no signage, and at the steps of each sat a few men and boys in plastic chairs, rifles by their sides.

Two of these men ushered Sarat and Attic to the second floor of the middle building. There they sat in a large room that resembled a living area. They waited for half an hour before Bragg Sr. arrived. He was wheeled in by his son and joined by three assistants. Even as Atlanta sweltered, the old man wore a buttoned shirt and a sweater vest, and yet didn’t break a sweat, as though his pores had hardened and dried with time.

His son wheeled him close to Attic and Sarat, and then took a seat in a corner of the room.

Bragg Sr. waved his hand in Attic’s direction, and quickly the boy stood up and left. Then he looked Sarat over from head to toe, a vague, strained look on his face, as though he were reading a book written in a language other than his own.

Finally, he turned to his son. “You’re right,” he said. “Maybe she isn’t really.” His son said nothing.

He turned back to his guest. “So you’re the girl who caused all that mess,” he said. “What’s your name again?”

“Sarat Chestnut.”

“Sarat Chestnut,” Bragg Sr. repeated. “You from the Montgomery Chestnuts? Good people, those. Had a boy named Paul, fought and died in Beaumont early on in the war.”

“No,” said Sarat.

“Her people are from Louisiana,” said Bragg Jr., “down by the Mississippi Sea near Old Orleans.”

“Christ Almighty, she ain’t even from the Red!” said the old man. “The child of swamp people, out on the front firing a gun. Is that what we’ve come to?”

He inched closer to Sarat. “You know, when Albert first told me about you, I thought he was playing games. That’s what he’s always been like, trying to rile everyone up with new things, recruiting more girls than boys. Every few weeks, another pet project.”

Sarat winced. She had always known there were others; every time news came of some homicide bomber sneaking into the Blue country and turning one of their city squares to rubble, she always wondered if it wasn’t Gaines who’d eased the farmer’s suit onto the martyr’s frame. But in another compartment of her mind she secretly harbored the notion that perhaps she was the only one—that, having found her, he had no reason to recruit anyone else to the cause. She knew it wasn’t true—of course it wasn’t true—but that was no hindrance to believing it.

“Ah, but still, I got a soft spot for that Gaines,” the elder Bragg continued. “He’s worked hard for the cause. Used to fight for the Northerners once, back when that Bouazizi was just a bunch of tribes tearing each other apart. But that was before all this, and I don’t hold it against him…”

Sarat felt Bragg’s ashtray breath on her face. It amazed her, the length at which old men could talk. She wondered if it wasn’t the sound of his own voice, rather than the words themselves, that pleased him. He had small dull eyes and the only time they lit up was when he was speaking.

Suddenly he stopped. He turned to one of his assistants. “Get us some water, Noah,” he said. “And get the boys to move the fans in from the office. It’s hotter than hell in here.”

The assistant left the room and soon a couple of young men entered with electric fans in hand. They set them up on opposite ends of the room, such that their crosswinds met where Sarat and the old man sat.

“And where’s that sister of yours, anyway?” asked Bragg Sr. “I told them I wanted to see both of you.”

“She’s not a part of this,” said Sarat.

“Darling, we’re all a part of this.”

The assistant returned with two glasses on a tray. The old man drank as though it were his first time seeing water.

“It’s that goddamn Gaines,” he said, wiping his mouth. “He does this to all his little kids, makes them think it’s all about them—that the whole damn war turns on how they feel, what they lost, how they’re hurting. But it doesn’t. There’s a whole great world out there, little girl…”

“Don’t call me little girl,” said Sarat.

“A whole great world, more than can fit in the eye of your Templestowe.”

He smiled when Sarat’s brows furrowed at the mention of her rifle’s name. “That’s right, we know secrets here too. But we’re your friends, and a lot of them out there ain’t.”

He pointed toward a half-open window, through which a sliver of downtown Atlanta sizzled in the heat and grime. “Just down the street, there’s FSS men who’d hand you over to the Blues tomorrow if they thought it’d buy them a little more favor with Columbus, or give them better odds of pushing forward that white flag they call a peace plan. There’s cowards, there’s rats, and now you’re food for all of them.”

“And you gonna save me, is that right?” Sarat said. “You and those little boys of yours? That kid Attic who got took by some of his own? The other one, couldn’t even get his farmer’s suit to blow before the Blues killed him? Look at this place—you’re living in a goddamn cave under the highway, talking talk while those FSS cowards sell out the whole of the Red. Hell, you should be asking me for help, not the other way round.”