Gerald could feel them staring at him, and at his non-existent legs. He turned on his side, wishing that they would leave him alone but they were everywhere in the room. He could smell them coming out of every corner. Even so, their presence was far more tolerable than the one who called himself Sameer. It was Sameer now who leaned close to his face and said, “Don’t you want to look at our faces? Don’t you want to feel the pain and suffering we have felt since you have brought us here?”
Gerald squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to see, and he covered his mouth and nose with a pillow, not wanting to smell. He hated the hospice with its closed doors and windows. He wished he could be outside, in the cold fresh air.
A knock fell on his opened bedroom door. “Hello, Gerald,” Dr Goodwin’s voice said, “Don’t you want to come out and meet everyone?”
“Everyone is here. Could you ask them to leave, please? I want to be alone for a while.”
She stepped into the already crowded room. “There is no one here, Gerald. Why don’t you come outside?”
Gerald turned to face her, and after staring at her face for a moment more, he decided that there was no point being where he was. The room reeked of mildew, sand and the rot of unwashed bodies anyway. He sat up, attached his prosthetic legs and shuffled out of the room.
There were more Iraqis out in the corridor. Gerald looked down, pretending to concentrate on walking with his new legs. By the time he reached the hall at the end, he was drenched in sweat. He took a seat in the closest unoccupied sofa.
“See,” Sameer said, “This is where you will die.” He paused then added bitterly, “It is far better than dying like a dog in the streets is it not?”
Gerald lifted his face and looked about him. He recognized two other soldiers from his company. The third, Thomas, had left the hospice two weeks ago but he still saw him once a week when he dropped by to follow-up on his therapy.
“He will be dead soon,” Sameer said as though reading his mind.
“How?”
“He killed a boy. You don’t kill children and still stay human.”
“It was an accident. He didn’t know the house was occupied. He was chasing an insurgent who ran into the shell-shocked house. He didn’t know there was a civilian hiding behind the door.”
“He was a child.”
“He would have grown up to be an insurgent too,” Gerald said vehemently.
Sameer brought his reeking face down to Gerald’s level and said, “Only God knows how a man will be. Not even your mother knew that you would grow up to be a killer on the day you were born.”
Gerald jumped up from his seat with a yell but fell face down on the floor when he lost his balance. He began to kick and shout and punched the air with his fists. Two orderlies pinned him down and Dr Goodwin hurried to him and injected a needle into his arm. She hushed him and wiped his sweat drenched brow, calming him. As he began to drift off, he saw Sameer smiling down at him.
#
It was dark when he woke up but he knew that they were all in his room staring down at him because he could smell the spices and sand of Iraq on their rotting bodies.
“Leave me alone,” Gerald said.
Sameer leaned over him. “We can’t. You are still alive. As long as you are, we will continue to live in your memories.
Gerald sobbed. “I was a soldier. I was only following orders.”
“I was born in Al Basrah. I lived there with my wife and three children. Was I in your way? Whose battle did you fight?”
“You were all being oppressed. You do not have the same rights as we do here.”
“Don’t you understand? It is because we are different. We live different, we eat different, we dress different. If we needed liberation, we are more than capable of fighting our own battles. We are not children who needed rescuing. We are men, and we can fight our own battles, raise our own children.”
“But your women and children are oppressed.”
Sameer chortled. “And you say that all the men in your country treat their women and children any better? You mean you do not have men who treat their wives with contempt and take their daughters like wives. You mean to say that none of the men in your country sell their children like cattle? And are you telling me that you do not have men in your country who profit from the slavery of other men?” He paused as though to catch his breath. Then with a hiss he said, “You have them too. They are the ones you should have pointed your guns at. Now my family is without me to guard and protect them from men like that. You have done a worst thing to them than I could ever do in a thousand lifetimes.”
Gerald lay on his back and stared up to the dark ceiling. He was still in that position the following morning when the nurse came in with his medication. He would not move, he would not speak and even when his C.O. came to pin a military cross on his shirt, he would not turn to acknowledge his presence. All he did was stare up to the ceiling, unblinking.
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