The Walking Dead

'Every man has a breakpoint, eventually reaches the end of tolerance. Reckon we're near to it. What we have is good, but can get better. Hadn't thought he'd be so stubborn. He's stubborn, obstinate — but so am I. For me, it's all down to that moment of darkness. I'm in the mess hall, surrounded by good men. I'm queueing for food. I see this man — young, Arab, in big, bulky army fatigues, and he's a hand in a pouch pocket — standing by a table not twenty paces from me. I see him smile. I know then that he belongs to the Twentyman, have that sense of it. The shout's in my throat, and then the light's in my eyes. So bright, so vivid. I see men falling. I close my eyes — like closing them will protect them. And the blast of the scorched air knocks me down. I lie there, and there's men on top of me. I have pain so I know I'm alive and there's men shouting. I open my eyes. First, I think I can't see because of the men on me, but I push them off. My eyes are wide. That's the moment I realize why there's darkness. I blink, rub, scratch my damn face, where my eyes are, and there is only darkness. The Twentyman did it to me. I made the promise then, in that darkness and with other men's blood on me, the wetness of their guts, hearing them scream and moan, that I would get him or regard my life as a failure. What you've done, guys, is put me close to him and for that I am sincerely thankful. Do it again, up the juice.'

'Don't think there's any point, Mr Hegner.'

'There's not a pulse, Mr Hegner, no trace.'

'Do you know, Mr Hegner, it's the first time Xavier and I have ever lost a prisoner?'

'You're right there, Donald. He's gone, Mr Hegner.'

Behind him, deep in the darkness, feet on cracked glass. He heard the wheeze, air expelled between tight-set teeth, then, 'God, that is a bloody disaster.'

Hegner swung round sharply. 'Wrong, Dickie, wrong…We have a ticket, to and from and at what time. That is no disaster.'

The hoarse voice was raised to a shout. 'My remit — if you've damn well forgotten it, which I have not is a bomb, a street, casualties spread across pavements. Where are we?'

'Go with the flow, Dickie, and they'll love you.' Joe Hegner laughed. 'All your people, who think you're yesterday's man, they'll be tossing garlands at you. Dickie, enjoy the ride. You're stressing on one bomb but I'm going to show you the big picture.'

* * *

She stood behind him. At her feet was the bucket, shiny and galvanized. In the bucket was the water she had taken from the rain butt, clouded with dirt. She used the soap to clean his body.

Faria believed that, without her, he could not have washed himself — could not even have undressed. He stood naked and trembled. She had not before seen the bare skin of a man's buttocks and the flatness of a man's belly. A lone candle lit them. She had started at the nape of his neck, from there to the bristle of his beard on his cheeks and jaw, and then her hands had gone down, slipping and sliding across his shoulders, and into his armpits, and on towards the small of his back and the shallow width of his hips. She washed him in the cavity of his buttocks, and she stretched her arms round to reach his groin…then down his legs. The shivers convulsing the body were not from the cold. She felt the hairs on his legs, finer and softer than those at the base of his stomach. He did not wriggle to be clear of her hands. She knew all of his body, had washed its secret places and had sensed the beat of his heart.

As the candle flickered, she left the bubbles on his skin, and bent down to pick up the cheap plastic razor. She lifted his right arm and ran the blade across the hair, then his left arm. She rinsed the razor in the bucket, and used her fingers to feel growth on his face, and he allowed it. Faria scraped the hair from his chest. She must have made a nick as blood stained her nails. But she dabbed the minute wound with water, from the bucket and staunched it. She thought of the blood that would pour from him when the waistcoat tore him apart. By touch, she shaved away the matted hair low on his stomach, and held him so that she would not again cut him. Felt him stiffen, held him with gentleness, and made the skin smooth. She knelt and ran the razor's blade down his legs, on his thighs and shins.

It was how it had to be done…how it was done in Palestine, and in Chechnya, and in Iraq. A man, or a woman, going to Paradise must be cleaned — purified, if he or she were to sit at God's table.

She did not speak. What she had to say would keep till the morning, would be said when they walked.

Faria could not ask it. As the video had been, were the washing and shaving a further reinforcing of the pinions on him? Was he tied to death?

She dried him with an old T-shirt, wiped away the last of the soap and water, and her hands covered the softness of his skin. She squirted perfume over him, a popular brand that was advertised on television for girls to use.