Use of Weapons

'This one?' she said brightly, touching one side of his head.

'Bullet.'

'In a big battle?'

'Well, sort of. In a car, to be precise. A woman.'

'Oh no!' she clapped a hand to her mouth, mimicking horror.

'It was very embarrassing.'

'Well, we won't go into that one… what about this?'

'Laser… very strong light,' he explained, when she looked puzzled. 'Much longer ago.'

'This one?'

'Ahm… combination of things; insects, in the end.'

' Insects?' She quivered.

(And he was back there; in the drowned volcano. A long time ago, now, but still there, still within him… and still safer to think about than that crater over his heart, where another, even more ancient memory dwelt. He remembered the caldera, and saw again the pool of stagnant water, the stone at its centre and the surrounding walls of the poisoned lake. He felt once more the long slow scrape his body had made, and the intimacy of insects… But that remorseless concentricity didn't matter any more; here was here and now was now.)

'You don't want to know,' he grinned.

'I think I'll take your word for that,' she agreed, nodding slowly, the long black hair swinging heavily. 'I know; I'll kiss them all better.'

'Could be a long job,' he told her as she swivelled and moved to his feet.

'You in a hurry?' she asked him, kissing a toe.

'Not at all,' he smiled, lying back. 'Take all the time you want. Take forever.'

He felt her move, and looked down. Her knuckles rubbed her eyes, her hair spilled, she patted her nose and cheeks and smiled at him. He looked at her smile. He had seen a few smiles he might have killed for, but never one he'd have died for. What else could he do but smile back?

'Why do you always wake before me?'

'I don't know,' he sighed. So did the house, as the breeze moved its equivocal walls. 'I like watching you sleep.'

'Why?' She rolled and lay on her back, turning her head to him, the hair rolling bounteously to him. He laid his head on that dark fragrant field, remembering the smell of her shoulder, stupidly wondering if she smelt different awake than asleep.

He nuzzled her shoulder and she laughed a little, shrugging that shoulder and pressing her head against his. He kissed her neck and answered before he forgot the question completely

'When you're awake you move, and I miss things.'

'What things?' He felt her kissing his head.

'Everything you do. When you're asleep you hardly move, and I can take it all in. There's enough time.'

'Strange.' Her voice was slow.

'You smell the same awake as you do asleep, did you know that?' He propped up his head and looked into her face, grinning.

'You…' she started, then looked down. Her smile looked very sad when she looked back up. 'I love hearing that sort of nonsense,' she said.

He heard the unsaid part. 'You mean; you love hearing that sort of nonsense now, but won't at some indeterminate point in the future.' (He hated the awful triteness of it, but she had her own scars.)

'I suppose,' she said, holding one of his hands.

'You think too much about the future.'

'Maybe we cancel out each other's obsessions, then.'

He laughed. 'I suppose I walked into that one.'

She touched his face, studied his eyes. 'I really shouldn't fall in love with you, Zakalwe.'

'Why not?'

'Lots of reasons. All the past and all the future; because you are who you are, and I am who I am. Just everything.'

'Details,' he said, waving one hand.

She laughed, shaking her head and burying it in her own hair. She surfaced and gazed up at him.

'I just worry it won't last.'

'Nothing lasts, remember?'

'I remember,' she nodded slowly.

'You think this won't last?'

'Right now… it feels… I don't know. But if we ever want to hurt each other…'

'Then let's not do that,' he said.

She lowered her eyelids, bent her head to him, and he put out his hand and cradled her head.

'Maybe it is that simple,' she said. 'Perhaps I like to dwell on what might happen so as never to be surprised.' She brought her face up to his. 'Does that worry you?' she said, her head shaking, an expression very like pain around here eyes.

'What?' He leant forward to kiss her, smiling, but she moved her head to indicate she did not want to, and he drew back while she said:

'That I… can't believe enough not have doubts.'

'No. I don't worry about that.' He did kiss her.

'Strange that taste-buds have no taste,' she murmured into his neck. They laughed together.

Sometimes, at night, lying there in the dark when she was asleep or silent, he thought he saw the real ghost of Cheradenine Zakalwe come walking through the curtain walls, dark and hard and holding some huge deadly gun, loaded and set; the figure would look at him, and the air around him seemed to drip with… worse than hate; derision. At such moments, he was conscious of himself lying there with her, lying as love-struck and besotted as any youth, lying there wrapping his arms around a beautiful girl, talented and young, for whom there was nothing he wouldn't do, and he knew perfectly and completely that to what he had been — to what he had become or always was — that sort of unequivocal, selfless, retreating devotion was an act of shame, something that had to be wiped out. And the real Zakalwe would raise his gun, look him in the eye through the sights and fire, calmly and unhesitatingly.

But then he would laugh and turn to her, kiss her or be kissed, and there was no threat and no danger under this sun or any other that could take him from her then.

'Don't forget we've got to go up to that krih today. This morning, in fact.'

'Oh yes,' he said. He rolled onto his back, she sat up and stretched her arms out, yawning, forcing her eyes wide and glaring up at the fabric roof. Her eyes relaxed, her mouth closed, she looked at him, rested her elbow on the head of the bed, and combed his hair with her fingers. 'It probably isn't stuck though.'

'Mmm, maybe not,' he agreed.

'It might not be there when we look today.'

'Indeed.'

'If it is still there we'll go up, though.'

He nodded, reached up, took her hand, clasped.

She smiled, quickly kissed him and then sprang out of the bed and walked to the far level. She opened the waving translucent drapes and unslung a pair of field glasses from a hook on a frame-pole. He lay and watched her as she brought the glasses to her eyes, surveyed the hillside above.

'Still there,' she said. Her voice was far away. He closed his eyes.

'We'll go up today. Maybe in the afternoon.'

'We should.' Far away.

'All right.'

Probably the stupid animal hadn't got stuck at all; more than likely it had dozed off into an absent-minded hibernation. They did that, so he heard; they just stopped eating and looked ahead and stared with their big dumb eyes at something, and closed them sleepily and went into a coma, purely by accident. The first rain, or a bird landing on it would probably wake it. Perhaps it was stuck though; the krih had thick coats and they got entangled