There Won't Be War

Voices. In French. Already on the lower staircase.

They fired a couple of bursts through the door.

She waited for me, and led the way up to the third floor. I moved as quietly as I could. The woman had been gasping occasionally, peering at her burned flesh, holding up her arms and rotating them against the air, as though she derived a cooling effect from the motion. She paused in the darkness at the top of the staircase, pushed through a wooden door, and strode into a dusty corridor lined with storerooms. She looked up, murmured something. But I caught a sense of satisfaction. Then, to me: “Skylight.”

I could see it, dark, stained, rusted, padlocked. Out of reach. “Nice move,” I said.

There was confusion below. They didn’t know where we were. But that condition wouldn’t last long. Worse: I didn’t feel good. I was sweating heavily, and the stairs felt slippery. The night felt slippery.

Something creaked, broke, and I was looking out at a rooftop.

She was silhouetted momentarily against the smoking sky.

“Hurry,” she said. Her voice sounded far away.

The stars grew dim.

She reached down, took my hand.

It was the last thing I felt as darkness closed in.

When I came out of it, she was standing with her back to me, gazing over the city. The building shook under the whine and whomp of incoming mortars and distant artillery. Automatic fire clattered in the streets, and screams spilled into the night. Long plumes of smoke drifted across the face of the moon. “It never ends,” she said.

I wondered how she’d known I was awake. “Yeah,” I said. “It never does.”

She turned. Her features were composed, calm, masked. Her eyelids were half-closed, her lips parted revealing sharp white teeth. Most of the soot was gone. “You have no idea, Anderson.”

That was the second time she’d used my name. “Who are you?” I asked. “Do I know you?”

“No,” she said.

I was propped against a chimney, and my shoulder ached. I moved cautiously, but something spasmed and I gasped. She was gazing toward the horizon, and gave no sign she’d heard. Lights were moving high in the sky. Helicopters. “Are you from Quangngai?” I asked.

Her eyes clouded. And she smiled. But it was a smile composed of shadow and empty spaces. “I’m from Aus-terlitz,” she said. “And Cannae. And Lepanto and Gettysburg.” The voice was controlled. Resigned. Weary.

“I don’t think I understand.” I was chilled.

“No.” She was watching something in the street. “You don’t.”

There was a doorway in the center of the roof. Heavy. Ribbed with iron bands. The door was closed, braced by a timber. “Is that the way we came?”

“No,” she said.

“Where are they?”

“Everywhere on the lower floors. And in the street. They were trying to ambush some of your friends.” Again that stab of pain in her eyes. “They had some success.”

“Sons of bitches.”

I could hear footsteps on the stairs. The door was rusted, bent, splintered. But it looked solid. The Cong were laughing, sliding their bolts forward.

The knob rattled.

“Have no fear,” said the woman. “You’re safe with me.” Another chill.

I heard them retreating. Then the door blew out, and flame belched from the stairway. Six men stepped onto the roof.

She watched them without emotion. They leveled rifles at us. “I’m sorry,” I said to her. “They may let you go.”

She came silently from the roof’s edge, and stood by my side.

They watched in angry silence. An officer came out behind them. He was bullwhip lean, efficient, alert. His movements were crisply economical. “ID,” he said to me.

Without hesitation, I pulled it out of my wallet and handed it over. He glanced at it, and lost interest. Only a corporal. His gaze traveled to the woman. He slid his pistol out of its holster and used it to signal her to get away from me.

She didn’t move.

The weapon was a Czech automatic of the kind commonly carried by NVA officers. He caressed his jaw with the barrel, and brought the gun up until I was looking into the front sights.

Then she stepped directly in front of me.

I couldn’t see his face. He spoke to her in French. The tone was hard and cold. Annoyed. He would not warn her again.

A sudden hot wind blew across the rooftop.

The officer shrugged. His finger tightened on the trigger.

But something in her face caught his eyes. He stared at her. She stood quietly. Sweat stood out on his brow. I started to move, to get out from behind her, but she reached back and seized my shoulder, held me still.

A pulse appeared in his throat. His soldiers seemed frozen, staring into her face as their captain did. Then one broke free, the youngest of the group. He shook himself, as though awakening suddenly in an unfamiliar place. His eyes glittered with hard cold fear. But he advanced nonetheless, forcing himself forward, and stood with his captain.

The others, perhaps released by his movement, began to back away. Weapons sagged.

The officer’s breath was coming in short hard gasps.

He struggled with his gun, trying (I thought) to pull the trigger. But it was no longer aimed at me.