Ministers of Fire. Mark Harril Saunders

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      From an open window of the Residence came the sound of a television, the volume unnaturally loud. An American newsman was talking about hostages. “What are you smoking in that thing?” Burling asked.

      “Thai stick. Grass soaked in opium. Very mellow, but I wouldn’t recommend it if you want to make love to your wife.”

      Burling tried to hide his astonishment, but the effort made him seem prim. Lindstrom’s vaguely Asiatic eyes held two counterimages of the match, like tiny blazing question marks, as he lit the pipe again.

      “We’ve been married for twenty years,” Burling told him. For some reason, the contemplative menace in Lindstrom’s face made Burling want to reach out to him. Or maybe, he thought, it’s because we have April in common. “There’s just not the urgency now.”

      “Between the two of you, no.”

      “What’s happening tomorrow, Jack? I really want to hear.”

      “Half of the staff won’t show up,” Lindstrom told him, squinting as he waved the smoke away with his hand. “The masons you ordered from north of the city won’t come to fix the wall.”

      “Your players told you this?”

      “A month ago or more.”

      “And you neglected to pass it on.”

      “You didn’t want to hear it. You were so sure you had this thing nailed.”

      A sound of boots on gravel startled them, and a flashlight raked the wall behind the trees: the duty marine checking the perimeter at the beginning of his watch. Above the wall the sky was a dirty yellow from the streetlights that hadn’t been shot out. “So you wouldn’t let April ride in the car with us that day. You made her come to the gym with you and said it was because she was going to show your players her jump shot.”

      “I wasn’t joking,” Lindstrom said, but Burling thought he sounded evasive, in the way of a petty informer. “They didn’t think a woman could do it. I said, how do you think she got a scholarship to Georgetown?”

      Jack’s pride in his wife was affecting, but it made Burling wonder what still existed between them. “What would make you think they’d understand a thing like that,” he asked, envy stirring, “when you see the women here?”

      “You don’t give them any credit, Lucius, that’s your problem. All they wanted was to get their people back, the ones Taraki was torturing.”

      “Why won’t the masons come tomorrow, Jack?”

      “Because they’ve gone off to fight, man, just like they have since the British—shit, since Genghis Khan was here. If they don’t show up tomorrow, that’ll be our signal to get the hell out.”

      the morning after, jack proved to be right. the masons didn’t come, and by afternoon the rats had chewed a tunnel through the wall from the open sewer running outside. Burling and two marines tried to patch it with a rotting bag of mortar they found in a shed, but the rats seemed to like it—for the salt—and made the hole larger than before. Like the siege of Krishnapur, no one in the embassy cared anymore—except Burling.

      In the three days it took to get dependents out, he worked with a calm insistence, as if he’d been waiting for this all his life. He felt vaguely guilty at how much he relished it, and how much the work left room for nothing else.

      Late on Friday afternoon he left Godwin’s office, which he had taken over, to bring his wife the news. He had kept his own family here while others got out because that only seemed right; now it was their turn. The gift of what Amelia wanted, to leave him, he bore sadly through the Residence gate. The sun was sharp from the west, and marines had taken up positions around the ornamental garden where he had kissed April, then learned that her husband had been perfectly willing to let him be kidnapped or killed. Crossing that threshold, breaking into their lives, had set something real and true in motion inside him. He had begun to believe that he was meant to understand things, about women, about the whirl of borders where he had been sent in his country’s service. He saw more clearly the factions involved in Godwin’s murder, the role of the northern tribes, even the future as it involved the United States, its enemies and allies, perhaps a Third Force, and how these things fit together in the puzzle of nations. Kissing April had even allowed him to set aside his anger at his wife, given him the distance he needed to treat Amelia with compassion, as he should. But even as he thought fondly of pleasing her, longing, hard as a stone, rose up in his throat. It’s all turned around, he thought. I actually want her to go.

      Burling found his wife and son on the path near where Lindstrom had predicted the future. Jack had the information, all right, because that was his role, but Burling was meant to parse it, to understand. Godwin’s death, his plan to work with the mujahedin, seemed ordained.

      “Mom killed it,” Luke said. They were huddling above a lank brown body, its coarse hair matted with blood. The boy was twelve, and his round eyes and freckled face couldn’t decide whether to be impressed or horrified. He hadn’t known his mother, a savior of birds, would beat a rat to death with a shovel.

      “I am finished,” she said.

      Her voice seemed unstable, and Burling wondered if she’d been drinking. He could smell something strong but not quite sweet in the air, pungent and headier than alcohol. Then it came to him: the smell of Godwin’s car.

      “I know,” he said to his wife. He felt mourning coming on, prematurely: the strength it took to hold up against it steadied him. Being a man entailed equal measures of risk and resignation. He touched her on the shoulder. “It’s all pretty horrible, but you’ll be out of here tomorrow.”

      “You’re not coming with us,” she said.

      “I can’t, Amie.”

      “You don’t want to.”

      “We’re going home?” Luke asked, disappointed.

      “I am done,” Amelia said.

      later that night he was back in the embassy, arranging the journey up north. Sleeves rolled up past his elbows, blue pencil touching the map. Godwin’s office smelled of rugs, books, and furniture polish. The pool of light from the desk lamp ringed a pleasurable solitude. Amelia had changed, or misrepresented herself, while he had simply stayed the same. What had been an adventure when they married, what had drawn her to him, she despised in him now. His sense of purpose was a burden. That was why he’d turned to April. It was not what he had wanted, but he would have to take it on.

      “Burling.”

      It was as if he had fallen into the map: he wasn’t sure how much time had passed. April, dressed in a white djellabah, was leaning inside the door.

      “I’m sorry, but I just can’t call you Lucius,” she said, seeing the look on his face. To his surprise, her presence was unwelcome. “It doesn’t fit you somehow.”

      “It was my father’s name,” said Burling.

      “Where I’m from they’d call you Junior. Something else if you were black.”

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