Take What You Can Carry by Gian Sardar (superbooks4u .TXT) 📕

them, that this house is one of many, many stops. And though she knows she shouldn’t look up, she does, to one of the soldiers, who has sunken eyes and a thick mustache. There is a twitch in his face as he takes her in, as if his muscles cannot contain his thoughts. Beside him, a soldier who appears to be no more than fifteen watches the ground, his face marked with acne. When at last he looks up at her, he smiles quickly and sadly, as if knowing how the night will go and offering her this one fast apology that he hopes no one else will see.

Words are barked from the soldiers, and Hewar, the head of the household, answers. Brave, firm. But Olivia sees the back of his head as he speaks, his thinning hair, and then the tremble in his arm before he presses his thumb to his pants leg, steadying himself. His shoulders rise with a breath. When she looks back, she sees that all the soldiers are now watching her. There is an energy in the room, as if it’s been tilted, as if with one slight adjustment, all of them would be on top of her, her in that white nightgown she loved just minutes ago, the one that upon returning to Los Angeles will be stuffed in the kitchen trash. Rebecca will dump coffee grounds on top of it before noticing but will know to not say a word.

Hewar and Gaziza both shift to block Olivia, and Delan goes to her and puts his arm around her. And in this, she feels the future and sees the unfolding, and now, when she has none of the anger or blame she might have later, she wishes to stop time and tell Delan that it’s not his fault. That she is here only because she wanted to be, and it was her choice, and no matter what she says or does or what he might see, she does not blame him.

But of course there is no time for this, no world in which this can happen. The edges of her body burn under the soldiers’ eyes, and she sees that one of them, the one who’s clearly in charge, cannot look away from her. And just as quickly, she understands that she will be given to him first, and realizing that it will happen whether she goes easy or not spurs her to look up, to stare at him, defiant and angry. When she does, she sees that he is actually now looking at Delan—and Delan will not back down. Everything balances on edge, this one moment from which there can be only a fall.

Then the man closest to Hewar grabs Hewar’s arms as the others move into the room, but that man who is in charge, the man who was staring at Olivia and now Delan, raises his hand. His right hand. A hand that is missing fingers past the knuckles, most of the digits nubbed halfway. Olivia sees this and then his face and only now places him, this man with his wounds and sorrow over his son who’d been killed that first day they got here, the man they’d found on the sidewalk in dangerous despair. His eyes go from Delan to her, and with that hand raised, the others have stopped, and there is silence. And he says something. One sentence that makes the man who’s been watching her with that twitching face clamp his mouth shut so tightly, the knots of his jaw bulge.

And then, just like that, they are gone. And the door closes.

No one speaks. There is silence from within the house but not the neighborhood. Screams. Shots. They open the cabinet door to let Lailan out and then turn off the lights as they go to the back of the house to sit on the kitchen floor, huddled. Lailan crawls into Soran’s lap, her arms around his neck, and stares at nothing. Olivia tucks herself against Delan and watches the knobs of the stove, bright with the outside light, as Hewar lights a brass oil lamp. Shadows move on faces.

In the corner of the room is her camera, in its bag on the floor. She moves to get it, and Delan looks at her sharply—but he needn’t warn her. The thought of going anywhere past this room terrifies her, even the thought of her footsteps on the stairs. It seems there are a million ways she could draw the attention of a different set of soldiers. So instead she sits back with the camera in her lap and listens to the terror just past their walls. And then, after a moment, when everyone is lost in the sounds, she leans over to shoot slightly upward, resting her elbows on the floor, and snaps a photo: Lailan in Soran’s lap and Hewar and Gaziza beside them, holding hands. All four are on the floor and looking up, toward the window, their eyes lit with fear.

Then a car door slams, and there is barking. A scream and a shot and an aching silence. She puts away her camera, her heart beating now not just from fear but from having captured this moment. If she dies tonight, if she’s gone with the next raid, she hopes someone will find this film. That someone will see they had each other.

And then she remembers the soldier and his words that made everyone clear out. She looks up at Delan and asks him what was said.

The tips of his eyelashes are dotted with light, and for a moment, he doesn’t answer, just watches the window. Finally he turns toward her. “He said, There are no Kurds here.”

“He saved us.”

Delan nods. “He did. And then he went to the next house. And the next. And they, unfortunately, were not saved.”

CHAPTER 11

During that tug-of-war between sleep and wakefulness, between the depths of her mind and the shallows