Chapter 7

Those eyes.

How could they do that, just change all of creation in a single instant? They removed everything else from reference and became the know all, be all, end all of existence. Those eyes. Nothing else would be the same…ever. Those eyes portrayed a love never before encountered. And then, so suddenly that he gasped, they were gone.

He knew she had left, as the noise interrupting them rang of a major crisis of importance. She had thrown the blanket over him, and although not cold, it did provide some comfort as he lay naked and alone in the semidarkness. She had not been too hasty, and left him some water and the now familiar ladle. He spilled most of it on himself on the first try, and getting a refill of water from the bucket next to him was torture, but the second attempt he was more successful.

She had held up five fingers and pointed at the ladle, tipping it to her face, and then held up five fingers again. He understood. No more than one ladle of water every five minutes. He counted five minutes, to three hundred slowly, and finished off a third ladle full, with no spills this time. Any more water and soon he would have to pee, which didn’t look like something he wanted to attempt laying on the storage room floor.

Then he noticed the bowl. It was on his other side, empty, and he would have missed it had it not reflected some light on the wall he faced. She had left him a bowl, obviously, for the same purpose over which he had worried. He felt grateful. She was more than those eyes, and fiery hair, but thoughtful in ways no one had considered in his recent memory.

The solution triggered his need, and he pulled himself up enough to accomplish what was required, almost passing out from the pain. As he felt relieved, the other necessities of life started their notifications. His feet and hand would not function and sent sharp needles of pain when he tried to move them, his kidney clamored for him to roll over, his head throbbed, and even his teeth ached. At least he still had teeth, a miracle since he had not brushed them with anything except his fingernails for almost two years.

He studied his clothing, left in a pile beyond the bucket. His shirt was ruined, the act of removing it caused irreparable damage. His pants had brown streaks on the seat, reminding him he had not seen toilet paper very often and of the revolution his insides had been going through recently. His boots reflected the miles he had trudged, sometimes tied behind a vehicle or animal. Always tied, always walking. Always tired. Always a captive.

Being free of bonds reminded him that his wrists also ached, and were still raw from the last binding, now sitting on the other side of the clothes pile. He wondered if ever a day would come again when nothing hurt.

He could see better now, and studied the shelves about six feet away. The first word he caught was C O F F E E. Coffee. The Arabic letters were strange, as the coffee word was written in some kind of script. Coffee. When was the last time he had a cup, with cream and two sugars? When was the last time he had anything other than water? He could no longer remember the instances. Time and torture had blocked life before the event. He tried to remember.

He had been a dentist in the Romanian army, a conscript for two years, and settled nicely at the military complex in Constanţa, his hometown. He had a full life of satisfying work, a favorite spot at the Cazino, and a favorite card dealer, showing the proper cleavage when she reached for his wages, a view of the sea from his mother’s guest room, and a steady stream of friends and girls and fun.

Suddenly, news came from Bucuresti, where his father had moved after the divorce. His father had done something, or said something, or thought something, and now was in prison. And he was suddenly decommissioned, given boots and a rifle, and shipped off to the Congo as a UN peacekeeper.

He had not wanted to go drinking that night, and none of them had seen the mob of angry black men forming outside as they flirted with some local girls in a bar. He hadn’t flirted, but no matter.

When the shooting started and two black men were down, he, unarmed, was overwhelmed, and carried off to a corner, while his armed “friends” were beaten to death in front of him. After that, it was a nightmare of travel, beatings, and a single conversation, the only Romanian he had heard in two years.

“Your country thinks you deserted. See? You are worthless.” A letter of condemnation was thrust into his face, the response to a ransom note. He still had it in the front pocket of the now defunct trousers. The only reminder of his life before had turned out to be a rejection from the country he loved, his homeland, with a death notice as the farewell speech.

They had never even tried to find him. The sins of the father…he closed his eyes and wept, alone and naked on a pallet in the darkness, somewhere in Africa.