Blood Lily Company - Afghanistan - Year 2

XII

Curly decided that we would leave early the next morning, when his patrol would have had only one night to rest. It's quite contrary to what we usually do, but he explained to Lin that he had left something cooking in the Pashtun's territory and that he wanted to return there quickly. If my memory serves me right, Lin had asked him to keep pissing off Durrani, and I wondered what he had done.

He dropped us off at the small cave with its spring next to it, where we had already stopped. We saved a good day's walk, it was pretty cool. We all shared lunch together and I took Kris aside. I motioned for him to mute his headset and led him a little aside.

- OK, Kris, can you explain that story of a kick for Erk? And the hair? In the middle of debrief, you talk about Erk's hair and when Lin makes a remark, you... That doesn't look like you, Kris! And I know you love your brother, but that's doesn't make any sense. Especially since he took no risks, did nothing stupid.

And here is our lieutenant, all sheepish, staring at his feet.

- Why wait so long for your question, Archer?

- Excuse you? What the hell is this question? You really have your head upside down, fuck! Don't move.

I came back to the others, I told Erk that Kris and I had to talk aside, he told me to be careful. I went back to Kris.

- Come over there, you, I said, grabbing Kris' sleeve and pulling him behind me.

I wasn't upset. Just a little worried. The brothers' relationship of dependence was a real ouroboros, this mythical snake that bites its own tail, each of the brothers depending on the strength of the other to be strong in turn. Erk looked like he was back on his feet, but I was worried about Kris' non sequitur.

Once out of sight of the rest of the patrol, not far away, just behind a large rock, I let go of his sleeve, put my hands on his shoulders and gently shook him.

- Something tells me that the latest events have shaken you up, just like your brother. And something also tells me that Chechnya deeply marked you, as well.

He turned his head to look away, but saw nothing, his eyes ten thousand miles away. But I felt him press against my hands, so I squeezed them lightly.

- If you had seen him, Archer... I can't tell you everything, because it's too horrible. But... You know what happened to him. I was in the front row, having to watch him being assaulted, groped... seeing him blush for pissing himself because the ketamine they injected him with had made him lose control of his muscles... seeing him accept with gratitude the water that was handed to him... Not being able to speak to him because they had blocked his ears...

He had turned to me as he spoke. He took a deep breath.

- In Matteo's villa, I was desperate to find him again one day. He was... vacant-eyed, unresponsive at first... And then we got here, he threw himself into danger, the leader of the SRH kidnapped him... and... and he thought about it all again. Plus his outburst about his mother...

- Precisely, Kris, what about his parents?

- His mother was a very beautiful woman, a little fragile, both physically and mentally. When Harald Thorvaldson, Erik's father, wooed her, she blossomed and...stabilized. At his death, everyone thought that she could not project herself into a life without him, who was her base, her roots. That she couldn't imagine raising a child on her own. What Papa, who is a nurse, told me, was that she was in fragile health anyway and that the delivery had exhausted her.

He rubbed his face with one hand, his eyes closed.

- As far as I'm concerned, it's for the best, because I've shared his life from the beginning. Lately... since Chechnya, actually, he's been going through a lot and it's not necessarily military. And as for me, it destroys me to see him suffer like that. Even when it's normal, "war-induced", like after the farm. Or that bullet in the ass at Durrani's.