She Came in White
The golden lashes, heavy with drowsiness and blinking slow, came to a stop. The black pupils cinched tight, as if they might become a vanishing point, and the breath leaking between his lips trembled, precarious.
Mother.
Elliot stared at the woman standing before him in utter ruin. Disheveled golden hair, blue eyes brimming with tears, a mouth forced around a gag. She wore the white dress he had last seen fifteen years ago, and her face, as always, was sad.
Elliot.
A voice he missed so dearly it seemed it might reach him at any moment. But he knew every note of it circling his ear was a hallucination. Gagged, his mother could make no sound at all. Her chapped lips only parted and closed, endlessly, without a word.
Poor Mother. What brings you here today?
“—Elliot.”
All at once a voice sharp as a blade in the early dawn cut through. Elliot only blinked, dazed. From behind his mother’s back, Anna walked slowly forward.
Across the table she offered nothing but a long, steady look. Those vivid blue eyes were cold as a lake in winter. He felt himself waking by degrees. The tick of the clock’s hands caught at his ear, and only then did he begin to feel the hot coffee seeping into the soles of his shoes.
“……Just a moment. The washroom.”
He moved without knowing how he moved. Beneath the foot he set down blindly, the shattered cup crumbled again, and the sole, stained black with coffee, left a clear footprint behind him. Memory seemed cut out of him moment by moment. Blank and lost, he only came back to himself when cold water struck his fingertips.
Water rushed from the faucet. Elliot watched it a while, then slowly cupped it in both hands and dashed it over his face. He let out a long sigh, rubbed at his cheeks, and braced both hands on the sink before lifting his head. The man in the mirror was pale as if he had seen a ghost.
A ghost. It wasn’t wrong. He often saw the dead.
It had begun with a corpse dragged from an enemy plane he himself had shot down. The foe who had burned to death inside the flaming fighter was charred past recognition. Grimacing at the stench of powder that stabbed his nose, he had seen that burned corpse again that night in the officers’ quarters. The nameless enemy had been the first proof of murder he ever faced.
The hallucinations that started then did not stop. Sometimes they were the enemy. Sometimes they were allies he had failed to protect. When he saw the pilot of a friendly craft that had gone down, guilt kept him from sleep, and when he saw the apparition of Major Keaton, the man he had followed like a father, he wept aloud for a long time. And when at last he came face to face with his mother, he wanted only to die.
Knock, knock.
A knock sounded from beyond the door.
“……I’m fine.”
Forcing his throat clear, he let out a long breath and soothed himself. It was ordinary. He had only been a little startled, not having seen her in so long. Once he calmed down, it would be nothing.
Knock, knock.
The knocking, briefly stilled, began again—regular, as if it would not stop until he came out of the washroom.
Elliot bit his lip hard. His skull rang. The quiet knock swelled until it burst at his ear like gunfire. Enemy aircraft! An enemy’s on our tail! Someone’s howl riding the shots, the smell of powder brushing the tip of his nose.
“—I said I’m fine!”
At the thunder of his shout the knocking stopped dead. The silence that arrived without warning pricked his skin, sharp. He bent his back with effort, breath coming short, and his curling fingertips scraped the smooth basin with a squeak.
Was he going mad like this? When some sanity still remained, he had thought that too.
But from some moment on, he had let even that worry go. A battlefield was a place where living was harder than dying. Where death was a matter of course, madmen were bound to be plentiful, and where madmen were plentiful, madness was bound to run. Madness was contagious. Perhaps he had stained someone else with his own.
Elliot swept his wet hand back through his hair. Straightening, he looked into the mirror. His color was still poor. But it would be all right soon. This was hardly the first time—not this hallucination, nor these voices.
In any case, it was nothing special.
“Hey! Over here!”
The moment he stepped into the restaurant, Luke’s voice came from a corner table. Elliot gave a faint smile at the sight of him waving gladly.
“You been well?”
“Oh, sure. Of course I have.”
Scratching the back of his head, a little shy, Luke jumped up at once and showed them to their seats.
“Sit here. I ordered ahead, so the food’ll be out soon.”
Once he had let Anna in first and taken his own seat, curious eyes gathered from every side. Elliot glanced lightly over the children around Luke’s age and opened his mouth easily.
“Hello.”
“Whoa. He looks exactly like the picture in the paper!”
“Hey, come on!”
Startled by his friend suddenly yelling, Luke jabbed the boy’s side with his elbow again and again. Then, watching Elliot—who was only smiling quietly—he spoke with care.
“Um, the one sitting next to Anna is Cassie. She lives next door to me.”
“Hello.”
The red-haired girl attached herself warmly.
“The one across from her is Susan. Second daughter of Mrs. Deborah, who runs the flower shop.”
The brown-haired girl, prim in her looks, greeted them with her eyes and said nothing. Last, Luke slung an arm over the shoulder of the boy beside him.
“And this loudmouth is—”
“Hello! I’m Gale!”
Gale shot to his feet, grinning open and easy, and held out his hand. Elliot took it willingly.
“Good to meet you, Gale.”
“Man. You have no idea how much this Luke bragged about you. My ears grew calluses, I swear. If he was going to brag that much, he could’ve introduced us sooner……. So this is the pretty young lady who came down from the capital?”
The hand that had been shaking Elliot’s slid sideways and touched the brim of Anna’s hat. Anna, quietly drawing her mask down, flinched and clutched the brim in a hurry.
“Uh……. I just wanted to see her face a little…….”
Flustered, Gale snatched his hand back on reflex. In the suddenly awkward air, Luke tilted his head quietly toward Elliot.
“Hey. Did something happen to Anna? She doesn’t look well at all.”
Pretending to drink his water, Elliot glanced down at her beside him. She was still gripping the hat with both hands, head bowed low. His eyes, trying to see the face hidden under the brim, caught instead on fingertips gone white.
“Your order’s here.”
Just then a waiter came and set the plates down one by one. In the clutter of the moment, Elliot quietly took Anna’s hand and drew it down. Inside his, her small hand trembled in a fine spasm.
When Grandfather’s drunk, he hits me.
Bastard. He bit his lip where no one could see, and as if to soothe the frightened girl, laced his fingers tight with hers.
With the arrival of the food, chatter began to flow over the table again. Elliot picked up his fork, letting Luke’s jokes wash past. Anna, who had been still as if asleep, moved her hand at last, slowly.
“……so then my grandfather goes—”
“Hey, Luke. Quit the boring stories. You’re putting him to sleep.”
“Just listen a little more. It’s actually funny.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s hilarious. Right?”
Elliot answered the warm, beaming approach with nothing but a smile. Emboldened, Gale pushed Luke’s grumbling face aside with his palm and asked in a voice thick with excitement.
“So, hey. There’s one thing I’ve been wondering.”
“You—what weird thing are you about to say now!”
“You be quiet! I’m not asking you, I’m asking him.”
“It’s fine. What’s got you so curious?”
Elliot flicked a look at the fidgeting Luke, as if to reassure him. In the gap while Luke subsided a little, Gale’s eyes sparkled and he leaned in.
“Did you really shoot an enemy who was bailing out of his fighter? I read in the paper that you got disciplined for it—”
“You idiot! I told you not to ask that!”
“Why! I’m asking because I can’t believe it! It’s not like he killed some decent person. Getting disciplined for killing a Köbel bastard—does that even make sense? Huh?”
“Shut your mouth, you lunatic!”
Aghast, Luke clamped Gale’s mouth shut with all his strength. That mouth was always the problem. The girls, who had been watching blankly, piled on with Luke and scolded him too.
Elliot, who had been watching the whole thing with plain amusement, suddenly let his gaze slant down. A modest heap of green peas sat on one side of the plate. Come to think of it, the parachute of the Köbel soldier bailing out had been that color. He lifted his fork and crushed a pea without interest.
Now Luke’s jokes were flowing over the table again. Gale, properly told off, kept his mouth shut and stole glances at Elliot. Elliot pretended not to notice and added his laughter to the jokes. Thomas had been right. Luke was a considerate boy.
Then a shout sharp as a shard of broken bottle struck his ear.
“—Anyway, the prime minister, that son of a bitch, is the problem!”
The noisy room fell quiet all at once. Unaware that every eye in the restaurant had turned his way, the man who had claimed the center table, face flushed crimson with drink, poured out his fervor.
“Peace talks, my ass! This is exactly when we ought to gather our momentum and march, yeah? We shouldn’t have a damn thing to do with those Köbel bastards! Negotiate today and they’ll invade tomorrow!”
“Come on. Even so, it’s Rohn that gets trampled, not Fala.”
“That’s exactly the problem—that naive way of thinking!”
The man clutched both temples as if his head ached and knocked his forehead against the table. Elliot, who had been watching the violent manner in silence, asked Luke quietly.
“Someone from the village?”
“Ah, yes. Mr. Samson. Lives down near the docks. I heard he was discharged not long ago.”
Resting his chin lightly, Elliot turned a glance toward the man. Fine wrinkles at the eyes, hair going gray—somewhere around middle age, he supposed. Though he was throwing his temper around without the sense his years ought to have bought him.
“Everybody’s gone soft in the head. Even now, over in Rohn, those Köbel bastards are running wild with their eyes wide open. If it weren’t for people like me, the lot of you would’ve been dead a long time ago! You hear?”