And what did it say about me, that I followed him not because I wasn’t aware of what he did, but despite it? Because of it?
37
TO IGNITE AN INFERNO
Iwould forever remember that day in nothing but confused blurs and scattered snippets of memories like peaks reaching out of a blanket of clouds.
I recall waking up abruptly at the crack of dawn, fumbling furiously with the silk sheets to flee from hordes of menace that newly flooded the familiar hospital corridors of my nightmares.
Upon exiting the bedroom, so as not to disturb Einar’s sleep with my own restlessness, I was alerted to the onset of my menses by a cramp in my lower belly and by the unsavoury sensation of having my crotch and thighs lathered in warm jelly. Having dealt with that particular inconvenience in the bathroom, I then sank onto the sofa, and I contemplated grimly the bar with its beckoning assortment of bottles, all promising temporary oblivion. Twelve months had passed since the evening at Castel when Einar and I agreed not to prevent my pregnancy anymore. Twelve cycles of tentative hope and disappointment, no less crushing for how very anticipated it had been. My throat burned with unshed tears as I wondered whether Einar would realise that a whole year had gone by and how right I had been when I had said that nothing would happen. I wondered whether I was alone in my sorrow orwhether he would feel a similar breed of devastation despite his plentiful assurances to the contrary. Both possibilities seemed equally likely, and I knew not which one I preferred.
The next pinnacle of a memory, rising above the fog of terror-fuelled oblivion, was the breakfast. A silent, sombre affair during which Einar seemed to be the only person with any appetite. He polished off two helpings of eggs, courtesy of Helga’s colourful brood of hens, and drank three cups of coffee, chatting all the while with Russ and Jean-Luc. Not that I was fooled for a minute by his facade of sangfroid. But if he could be everybody’s beacon of unbridled confidence, then I would be his. And I did as he did, and I ate as if the food didn’t stick dryly to my constricted throat, and I drank as though my guts didn’t churn, and I talked to Madeleine and Julia as if I had no care in the world.
“It’s time,” Einar stood up and announced as the clatter of cutlery died down, and I knew I was the only person in the room aware of any trepidation on his part. “This will be our finest hour! Remember your training, focus on nothing but my voice, follow your orders, and it will be not a close victory, but an assured one!”
Younger members of our community, such as Cyril and Mickey, whooped and nodded enthusiastically.
Squaring his shoulders to the roaring applause that ensued, Einar declared, “We meet by the wall in half an hour.”
Not that any of us had a functioning time-measuring device. Strictly speaking, our half an hour was not exactly thirty minutes but rather however long everyone estimated it to be. In this particular case, it seemed to dash by in an uproar of activity, with people rushing to and fro alongside the length of the citadel’s curtain wall, bringing crates of Molotov cocktails and ammunition. The wall’s wide ledge, smoothened out by time and by the elements, had been adorned by blossoming greenery before. But we had discarded the ornate, bushy flowers to makespace for archers’ and shooters’ posts, and so now it stood bare like a bone, basking in the strong early autumn sun.
Shivering despite the day’s warmth, I busied myself by checking for the last time the condition of each archer’s bow.
Rather like remembering a dream, I recall Einar shaking Joshua’s hand, patting him on the shoulder. Joshua’s high forehead glistened with sweat underneath the unruly coils and curls of his cinnamon afro. He walked out of the Genoa Gate, a smaller side entrance close to the centre of the walled peninsula. It was the only remaining way in or out of the citadel, since we had fortified the front gates by quite literally building sloppy, makeshift brick walls in front of them. At the small car park by the side door, the one which we could never allow the furies to reach, Josh got into his dark purple Peugeot Beetle and drove away.
“Right,” Einar’s voice boomed, silencing all others. “We have about an hour till he’s back with the swarm. It’s not too early to start getting into positions, everyone.”
An hour flew by in a heartbeat. Archers, shooters, and explosives-throwers spread out along the front wall and along the northern edge wall overlooking the marina and Joshua’s car park. I myself stood at the very edge between the front and the side wall, my main purpose being to prevent cannibals from reaching the Genoa Gate, our only true weak spot. Amit stood next to me, whispering a du’a under his breath, the first Molotov cocktail ready to throw in his right hand, the lighter in his left. Russ was next to him with a rifle in his hands, stepping from foot to foot furiously as if tap-dancing. He smiled at me nervously as our eyes met. Dave was further yet to Russell’s right, the bow still resting over his shoulder, and he made a face at me as I looked in his direction. I laughed shakily.
“Hi, Renny,” Monika greeted me from the platform below, squinting her eyes against the sun.
The bright light made the freckles in her face stand out, and she looked very young, younger than I had seen her look over the past year.
“Hi, Mon,” I responded. “Is Helga watching Ella?”
“Yes, she is. How you feel? You ready?”
“Y-yes. You know. As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Vell don’t vorry.” She patted my calf from below. “I make sure you have arrows. Always I bring them.”
“Thanks, Mon.”
Monika was a member of the highest-counting crew whose sole task that day was to ensure that those of us fighting would never run low on ammunition, arrows, or explosives, bringing them up to us from the lower wall platforms.
The sun burned in our eyes relentlessly from the east, and there was barely any wind. The sea waves crashed gently around the citadel’s nest of cliffs, and the air was still and stifling.
We heard them before we saw them. A faint echo of a car’s motor and an ensemble of otherworldly growls and ear-piercing, mindless screams. A chorus of feet shuffling en masse, soles pounding against the ground, their rhythm seeping seamlessly into our hearts, upsetting the tempo of their beats. It was the most terror-inciting war cry there could ever be, since our opponents were wholly immune to the fear they themselves incited.
The so far nervous but jovial atmosphere disappeared with the speed of a mousetrap clamping down on its prey. Heads were turned, eyes bulging, my peers gawking at each other with alarm. Most hearing for the first time the tremendous echo of a horde, counting thousands. Appreciating for the first time its vastness. Its inherent unstoppability.
“Steady now, steady,” Einar’s voice boomed as he marched behind our lines along the length of the wall.
I glanced behind to look at him. Wide planes of shoulder blades protruded sharply beneath the fabric of his tee and the grenades fastened to his belt gleamed darkly in the sunlight.
“Stay in position! Focus on nothing but my voice.”
Like a scurrying beetle, the Peugeot emerged from behind a bend and drove through the small town, disappearing from our view as its driver navigated the narrow alleys of the small, sunlit town. And then a darkness spread through the winding streets like gangrene eating through healthy tissue.
