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of the War. We've been cold, sick, wet, dirty; we've gone without sleep. All
of it."
"I hear that northeastern Canada didn't get hit much. Fella I met had come
down from there, missed the Commies all the way. New York City he heard was
all gone, but up in northeastern Canada it was still like before. Ain't
nothin' there the Communists would want, I guess too cold. But a man could
have a good life up there, with the right woman, with kids like them."
Sarah looked down at him and wished he weren't sitting so close to her feet.
"How far is the island?"
"You still on the compass heading I worked out?"
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"Uh-huh."
"Maybe twenty minutes or so. Just keep them runnin' lights out so the patrol
boats don't spot us. I figure we could take this boat and make it pretty far
up into Canada leave all this behind us."
"What about the Resistance, the men in prison you told me about?" Sarah said
softly.
"I don't know.., don't guess I'll help them any by gettin' myself killed. I
did my share. Sounds like you've done your share too since the War began."
"My husband is out there somewhere, looking for us."
"You don't know that. He might be dead. If he is alive, might figure you and
the kids were dead maybe took up with another woman."
"Maybe," Sarah answered. "Maybe all of that. But if he's alive, he's looking
for me. And the only thing that's kept me going is telling myself he's alive."
"What if I tell you he's dead probably; or what if I tell you he's so busy
stayin' alive himself that he can't look for you? What if "
"What if the War had never happened?" She looked back across the bow,
searching the shadowy, moonlit horizon for some sign of the offshore island.
"How come he was away from you when it happened? None of my business, I know
that. But how come?"
"We " she began. "We'd been separated. Nothing formal. Just couldn't get
along the last few years. He came back, just before the War. We made up,
decided to try again. It was my fault, really. He wanted to cancel the job he
had in Canada and stay home. I told him I needed the time to get my head
clear, to think, so we could start again. The night the War happened he should
have been on his way back."
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"Driving?"
"No, by air."
"Ain't nothin' left of Atlanta, Sarah, if he landed there. I heard lots of
commercial airliners crashed when they ran out of fuel with nowhere to land,
or just got blown out of the sky when they flew too close to a missile or an
air burst. He's dead got to be."
"You don't know my husband," she told Kleinschmidt. "He isn't like anybody
you ever met."
"He's some kind of super guy or somethin'?"
"In a way, I guess he is. You can see it in Michael. I wouldn't have expected
a boy three times Michael's age to do what he's done. It's not normal."
"What do you mean?" Kleinschmidt asked.
A cloud passed in front of the moon. She could no longer see Kleinschmidt's
young, tired face when she looked down by her feet where he sat, propped
against the bulkhead. "John Rourke is he's always been so much larger than
life. He's almost perfect, really. He seems to know everything, to be able to
do anything, to solve any problem. He isn't like you," she told Kleinschmidt.
Then, under her breath, so no one but herself would hear, she added, "Or me."
Chapter 29
Rubenstein moved from tent to tent, after having thrown up once he'd gotten
outside the first tent, more careful to avoid silhouetting himself against the
light. He talked to an older man who'd been awake, swatting flies away from a
festering wound on his left leg. The lights were kept on in the tents to make
certain no one stood up during the night and to make visual inspection of the
tents easier when the guards looked in. There were no sanitary facilities, no
facilities for child care, and some of the guards, the old man had confessed,
enjoyed beating people. Some of the other guards had seemed like decent men,
the old man had told him, but they did nothing when the other guards began
their beatings.
The old man had never heard of retired Air Force Colonel David Rubenstein or
his wife.
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Paul stopped now outside a tent, the fifth so far. Shaking his head, he
forced his way inside, keeping low to avoid profiling himself in the yellow
light. The stench in this tent was either not so bad, or he had become
accustomed to it he wasn't sure which. There were more children here, faces
drawn, eyes sunken, bellies swollen. The old man Rubenstein hadn't asked his
name and the man hadn't volunteered it had said most of the older people gave
the bulk of their food to the children and the recent mothers; and the food
allotment for each adult per day was a cup of cereal, as much bad water as you
wanted to drink, and twice a week fish or meat. The cereal had weevils in it,
the fish and meat usually smelled rancid. A lot of the people around the camp
had dysentery, the old man had said.
Rubenstein passed through the tent, looking for his parents, looking for a
familiar face, not sure if he'd recognize any of his parents' friends. There
was a woman at the far end of the tent, holding a child in her arms, the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]