We found
her in her orchard, there amongst the trees. Her face reflected every song we
ever sang for the loves we longed for at home. She is the reason we go to war. Every
inch of her body spoke of love and warmth and home and hearth. Even as we cut
her down and removed the rope from around her neck, we know we were looking
into the face of everything we left behind.
The trees
had been plicked free of any fruit, except for her. There were no chickens or
eggs to be found in the cages.
Cows and
horses had been slaughtered and what meat wasn’t carried away was left to rot
in the fields.
We had
hoped to find sme fresh food, perhaps a jug of milk or a round of cheese, or
even an errant bottle of wine that had rolled under a bed, but the house had
been stripped bare. The charred bed and smoke damaged walls gave evidence of an
attempt to burn away crimes committed on this tiny farms.
She had
been kept for days, if we understood the comparison of the state of decay of
the animals in the field to the state of her body. I tried to look past the
bruising and blood to find the beauty beneath.
I saw my
wife reflecting back when I studied her face. The color of her eyes and tone of
her skin lacked my wife’s fair coloring, but she was a woman. A mother. A wife.
A child. And she had fought. Her hands were broken and bloody, showing where
she had scratched at her aggressors. Her arms and legs were covered with
bruises and the blood of the violence done upon her.
Her children
were hidden in the barn, buried beneath a pile of hay. We don’t know how long
they wre there. I placed the infant in her mother’s arms before we buried them.
The boy is too young to be conscripted into the army. And even if we tried to
make a solider of him there is an emptiness in his eyes.
He is too
young to remember the trauma here. Or, perhaps he’s not. Perhaps he will remember
the death of those who were central to hi youth.
He sits
now on top of the crates carrying our supplies eating an apple. His jaw barely
moves up and down as he chews. There is no color in his hollow cheeks, even
though we have given him enough food to fill his hollow belly many times over.
There is
much debate in the ranks about what to do about the child. Even before we left
the farm there were arguments. Many wanted to leave him behind After all,
despite his youth, he was still a child of the enemy. A child has no sense of
danger. Someone would have to stay beside him if we found ourselves in battle. Who
would be willing to stay and protect a child of the enemy while his brother’s
in arm was being strafed by enemy fire?
Perhaps,
when we finished our march and set up our encampment we can turn him over to
the women who inevitably fall in behind the lines. Their cold arms and silent
hearts echo the pains of this war. Some carry disease and we know others are
there to try to pry secrets from the lips of men who surrender to their inadequate
seductions.
The women
are a hollow echo of the life we left behind. They give warmth and hope and the
possibility of finding just a moment of forgetfulness. Maybe one of them would
be willing to take this child to replace the one they lost to famine, or
disease, or cross-fire. Or maybe they will take this child and hewill suffer
the same fate as the missing children of the city.
I look
into the dark eyes of this child and I imagine the light colored eyes of my young
one, still safe at home. Safe until the war comes to my shore.
I must
fight this war to save all the children on all the shores.
It is my
duty as a father, as a son, as a follower of all that is holy.
And I am
left to wonder if it was soldiers on our side or the other who destroyed the
women.
