This Is How I'd Love You by Hazel Woods Page B

cheeks.
    “A year without cigarettes or booze?”
    “We might be headed toward both if you don’t quit smoking mine, too.”
    Rogerson inhales deeply and then passes the cigarette to Charles. “Sorry, Reid. I guess that’s my answer, then.”
    Charles takes a long drag, so that only the butt is left. He tosses it out the window. “I’d give up both if we were driving along a little country road without any bloody bandages or drip bags. If we could have a decent bath and a clean set of sheets without lice mating inside the pillow. If we could walk beside her as she points out vegetation and wildlife on the way to the creek.”
    “We?” Rogerson says, incredulous. “Bullshit. It’s you or me, Reid. Not both.”
    “I was being charitable, Rogerson. Obviously it’s me.”
    “Unless you don’t make it,” Rogerson says, lighting another cigarette.
    Charles throws a hard punch into his shoulder. “Bastard.”
    Rogerson laughs. “There are silver linings, eh?”
    “She wouldn’t have you. She’s refined. Discriminating.”
    “But if you’re gone, and I’m the closest thing to her dear Mr. Reid. You see? I’m part of your history. I’ve got the broad shoulders girls love to cry upon.”
    Charles puts his foot on the brake. He turns to face Rogerson. “That’s not funny. Not at all. In fact, I think I may be sick to my stomach.” He makes a production of gagging with Rogerson’s lap his target. Rogerson squirms slightly, entirely unsure of the veracity of his nausea.
    Finally, Charles swallows mightily and puts the King George back into gear. “I think I could defy all metaphysical limitations and haunt you so fiercely you’d beg her to leave you.”
    Rogerson puts his hand to his helmet and salutes. “Aye, aye, sir.”
    When they arrive at the train station, it is bustling with activity. In addition to the other ambulances unloading wounded from other clearing stations onto the train, there are large groups of refugees. There is an old woman with her goat tethered to her wrist, a pile of books in her arms, and a cloth bundle tied to her back. Her hair is short and thinning with barely any color, making her look like a freshly hatched fowl. She leads the crowd, mostly very young and very old, babies riding donkeys, and old men carrying chickens.
    Charles and Rogerson get to work, unloading stretchers and carefully transferring the boys to the Red Cross train. Some of their bandages have soaked through with blood, but they don’t risk changing them here for fear of a hemorrhage. The entire train is saturated with the salty, clotted, metallic smell of blood.
    Standing back out in the sunshine, Charles takes a deep breath.
    “Your face,” an old man waiting with the refugees says to Charles, using an arm to gesture, “is covered in blood.” His French accent is heavy and for a moment, as Charles closes up the back of the King George, he doesn’t understand him.
    Charles touches his cheek. “Oh, it’s just mud,” he says to the old man, smiling. “From the road.”
    The white chicken trembling under the old man’s arm squawks. “Ah, mud. Looks like blood. Everything looks like blood now.”
    Charles nods. “Where are you headed?”
    He shrugs. “Wherever the train takes us.”
    “Good luck to you,” Charles says, offering the man a cigarette from the pack in his pocket.
    The old woman just in front of this man observes his offer and she immediately leaves her place in line and stands beside Charles, her hand on his arm. She speaks no English, but her meaning is perfectly clear. Within seconds, nearly half the crowd of refugees has followed her lead, reaching for Charles, pulling at his jacket, begging for a drink, a smoke, a ride. Charles hands out the rest of his half dozen cigarettes, but that only seems to enrage them as they argue over the distribution.
    One little girl no more than five has wrapped her arms around his leg, burying her face in his pants. Another old man is trying to