The task of transporting Irma Kout to the Angeleno camp was assigned to a captain of the house guard. This man, who was particularly keen on his precise view of personal dignity, delegated the unheroic chore to a lesser officer. In turn, this officer was perfectly aware that the job he had been given was distasteful to the supervisor who had handed it to him, and so, out of pride, he too passed on the job of escorting the ambassador and the traitor’s daughter to the enemy encampment. Unfortunately, the man to whom he passed the assignment (who also, for reasons of his own, delegated it down one more level), was a brave but unsavory soldier. He handed Irma over to a couple of his drinking cronies, two militiamen with good war records and criminal civilian backgrounds.
This particular tunnel, a meandering burrow through the wasteland of mangled civilization, led to the doorstep of the ALA camp. When the buildings of downtown San Francisco crashed down upon the shaking earth, all the junk of the consumer society commingled with the cement, steel, and glass to create a new amalgam, the stuff of a garbage-heap world. The jagged walls were embedded with cars, plastic debris, and kids’ toys. A half-century of torches had blackened the tunnel’s ceiling.
Rollins took the lead. He walked briskly and kept about fifty feet in front of the rest of the small group. His face was grimly determined; he walked ever faster, stretching his lead. Irma, Isoka, and two militiamen followed far behind. Irma noticed that since she had left her compound, her bodyguard had grown increasingly distant and sullen. She had been so filled with the joys she shared with Todd, then with the miseries in which she now found herself, that she had paid scant attention to her companion of so many lonely weeks. With a pang, she suspected that her quick leap into Todd’s bed had disgusted her friend. With this humiliating revelation, her heart sank further into darkness.
Irma and Isoka were trailed the by two torch-toting militiamen. The scrawny flunkies whispered to each other. Their narrow-eyed gaze was locked on Irma. At this moment, neither tribal law nor mankind’s rules of civility protected the outcast, the traitor’s brat. Her people, resolutely deaf to her pleas, had made her a daughter of the no-man’s-land. The appetites of her downtrodden escorts raged unopposed by the slightest social constraint, and the Shambles protected no one.
"That is one round ass!" a militiaman said. His cold intent cut into Irma’s ears and heart.
She looked back nervously. Isoka, too, looked back at the slight jailers; he read their filthy thoughts, and smirked. Even though they were armed and he was not, he did not regard them as formidable. He took the girl’s elbow, smiled warmly into her frightened eyes, and led her forward. At first, she started at his touch; but Isoka silently conveyed that he meant no harm and that he might be needed if things took a dangerous turn.. That was her conclusion as well, and she was willing to stay close to him. She looked back at the militiamen, saw their hunger. She knew as well as if they had confessed it, that lust and hatred mixed wickedly in their souls and poisoned their bodies, which wanted satisfaction from her body. Irma looked at Isoka, and he tried to reassure her with a small smile.
Irma could not stop herself from looking back at the leering goats, who guzzled wine as they walked, building their confidence as their anticipated moment of pleasure approached. She saw Rollins moving further and further ahead, and Irma momentarily thought he was purposely abandoning her. Her breathing quickened. Isoka kept a firm grip on her upper arm and now pulled her. She brushed her hair back and said, “Will you help me?”
“I promised your safety. Remember?”
The guards began to sing. “A mother was washing ’er baby one day, was the youngest of ten, in a delicate way . . . ”
Irma needed to talk to keep from shrieking. "I've heard of you.”
"Pardon me?"
“People say that you always keep your word.”
Isoka shrugged. “I hope when this miserable war is over, they will still speak of me that way.”
She looked back at the militiamen. They quaffed their wine and swung their delicate weapons haphazardly. Isoka walked quickly, and she was sure that was best. With short breath, she tried to pursue the side conversation. “You are a very powerful man. If you know this war is miserable and tawdry, why don’t you stop it?”
Isoka looked back. He tried to make eye contact with the militiamen, but because they were armed and he was not, they had no fear of him, and they ignored his grim visage, fixing their eyes and thoughts on the woman. Isoka, talking to soothe the girl, said, "I couldn’t do that even if I wanted. It’s too late now. It must be settled. Your people don’t want peace either."
"Not while you keep killing us." She had quickly acclimated to his pace and walked smoothly at his side.
"There aren’t any choices for any of us," he lamented. "War only comes when you have no more choices. We need water, we believe there is enough to go around, and your people don't believe that because of their insatiable hatred for Los Angeles.”
"Nonsense.”
“That is how I see it.”
“You describe your position as one of necessity and our side as one of perversity.”
He gave her accusation a moment's thought, and then said, somewhat lamely, “That’s how we speak in war.”
She continued nervously, “We've said it’s finished, but you keep attacking.”
"Everyone wants peace. That is why I am pleased with this exchange. It is the first agreement of any kind between us. Diplomacy has begun.”
Irma believed him, but then caught herself. She remembered that making people believe him was his profession. “You have great influence over your city, and you could bring a lot of weight to the argument for an armistice. If you had the courage of your convictions--"
He raised a finger and said with a little smile, "My conviction is that we aren't safe from your grudge. To me, the enmity you bear us-- I couldn't feel that--"
Irma softly snorted, then yanked herself away from him. "You don't believe that."
"I do."
"You don't. I can see that you don't."
"Oh, you can read my face? Very talented. You people--"
"You people!" she screamed. "Look how you dehumanize us!"
"To call you 'people' doesn't dehumanize. You call us Yahoos."
"Do you really think that we’re so common and simple, that the goal of our lives is to spite you?"
Isoka tired of the talk; it was not wise to be drawn too close to a beautiful pawn. "I submit to your temper. I do not want to argue. It seems--" He never finished his thought. A thin, hairy arm grasped his neck and quickly crushed the wind out of him. From behind, a militiaman grabbed Irma's blouse. Isoka waved his hand, motioning to her. He shook off the weaker man’s headlock and grabbed Irma, trying to pull her away. But no sooner had he shaken himself free of the small man’s grip than he found a gun pushed into his nose. The diplomat smiled sheepishly and raised his hands, signaling to his antagonists that he was no threat. Grinning, the molesters accepted this, for they had not anticipated much resistance from an unarmed ambassador. Irma swung her fist, but they ducked and laughed. They pushed her each-to-each.
"Seems she’s getting off easy," the shortest guard snarled.
Keeping his gun trained on Isoka, his cohort examined Irma's buttocks appreciatively. He slid his hand between her legs, pushing his finger into her. She jumped with a start and hit her head on the tunnel wall. Despite the pain, she did not cry out.
"That’s the way of things. She’s gotten away with a lot in her life. Those big tits make your life easy, baby?" He put his gun to her neck, then kneaded her left breast. She made no sound but raised her face to the ceiling, closed her eyes, and gritted her teeth.
"Bet that feels good,” said the short man. He grabbed Irma's breasts with both hands, squeezed and twisted them. She cried out in pain. The second guard pointed his gun at Isoka, who shrugged with a smile. The diplomat’s intimation of neutrality confirmed for the guard what he had suspected all along: There was an intentional perk to this assignment. Irma had been handed over to them as a covert reward for their many merits. She was to be their plaything until they handed her over to the Yahoos. The smaller guard stuffed his torch into the wall. With his gun still trained on the ambassador, he moved toward Irma, who now stood about three feet away from her attacker, her arms folded tightly across her chest and her shoulder turned. Her blue eyes grew wild. The molesters interpreted as fear the pretty girl’s unfocused gaze. This further attracted and pleased them.
"Keep your hands off me!"
Irma lunged with her right fist; her body was squarely behind the punch, adding surprising strength. She caught the short would-be rapist's chin. He fell back against the wall, stunned and disoriented. Isoka grabbed the other man’s gun and arm. The diplomat swung the man in a circle, slamming his face into the wall.
Seated on the ground, shaking his head to recover from the blow, the first guard now had a pistol pointed at Irma, and Isoka dropped his hands. During a silence, the guard studied Isoka. The ambassador was larger, quicker, and more athletic than anyone he had ever dreamed of fighting. The thwarted rapist sat on the floor and rubbed his jaw; he kicked his toe at the body of his fallen comrade. That one rolled over and groaned, bleeding profusely from his head, nose, and mouth.
Irma looked down the tunnel. She had expected Rollins. Surely he had heard her scream as well as the commotion. He must have ignored her. Yet another of the slender threads of her security was gone. She did not see that, two hundred feet ahead, Rollins had looked back over his shoulder toward her cries and closed his eyes tightly. She did not see the shamed agony on his hard face.
Isoka pulled Irma to his side. The two guards remained on the floor, guns shakily trained on Irma and Isoka. Isoka grinned menacingly at the two gun wielders. "I'm going to let this pass so that the Wentworths won’t find out their orders were disobeyed--"
"You dumb shit," the short man shouted, "I could kill you and then fuck her up the ass!"
"I’ll get at least one of you before I go down. You don't doubt that, do you?"
"You got no gun."
“That’s a fact,” Isoka agreed.
The two militiamen pushed themselves to their feet.
"Get moving," one said.
They started walking. Now the militiamen kept well behind their prisoners and never again took their guns off of Irma and Isoka. They did not laugh or sing. They did not speak of what had just happened, for they were embarrassed by their failure, as someday they would be ashamed of their intent.
Irma said, "They are still going to rape me."
"I won’t let them."
“If not here, then in your camp. If not them, others.”
“That will not happen. Don’t be afraid."
"I’m not,” she replied. After a moment she added, “I just need to be prepared."
Isoka was touched by her courage. To find this virtue—his favorite next to loyalty—in a person so beautiful and vulnerable aroused his heart. The diplomat observed the tenderness well up within and redoubled his resolve to treat her honorably, to see her safely to her father and ensure she was well protected while in camp. During the next few moments of silence, Isoka mused that Irma Kout would most likely end up in Los Angeles, and he saw that this prospect excited him. He knew, at that moment, that he would woo her; he would do so only at the right time, when matters of the heart were again proper to consider, and on proper, civilian ground.
He said, “If they make another attack, you go for the little one; I’ll take the other and then be on your man in a second.”
"I can handle the little shit," she hissed.
"Then there’s no problem. . . . In camp, I’ll assign a detachment of bodyguards to you. Men I trust. Men you can trust."
Irma cocked her head thoughtfully. Isoka put his arm around her shoulder; she jumped. He smiled sardonically. "Let them know we’re friends. It’ll drive ’em nuts."
"While you cop a feel?" she said coolly.
"You don’t really think that, do you?” he asked.
"Shut up, you two," the short guard shouted.
Irma whirled around, stopping the guards dead in their tracks. "Blow it out your ass!"
She turned back and began walking faster; she took hold of Isoka’s hand.
#
Rollins, grim and weary, emerged from the rubble. After him came Irma and Isoka, arm-in-arm, blindfolded and chatty. They made a game of their blindness, stretching their arms out before them. Bringing up the rear, the gun-toting militiamen walked long-faced onto the mudflat.
"This is far enough," shouted a militiaman. Roughly, he tore off the blindfolds.
Isoka and Irma recoiled from the sun. "Thanks for nothing," Isoka said, shaking his head. The meanness of his escorts disgusted the diplomat. He turned to Irma and asked, "Are you all right?"
She glared with detestation at the militiamen. "I’ll be better when I’m away from these bottom-feeders."
Isoka, too, examined the failed rapists. He turned, took Irma's hand and said, softly but audibly, "I’d like to see you while you’re here."
She sneered at the militiamen, then curtsied to the ambassador. "Then do. I’d like that."
"Turncoat whore!" shouted the short man.
"Just like her father!" spat his comrade.
Something occurred to Irma. Her eyes narrowed and she waved a long elegant finger at her antagonists. "Now don’t spread stories about me when you go back. You people forced me to come here."
The militiamen grunted in abhorrence. One said, "You make sleazy friends easily."
Irma responded to the taunt by grabbing Isoka with both arms and kissing him on the cheek. The ambassador grinned and spread his hands, as if to say, what can I do? When they had walked into the tunnel, he was a demon captor; when they walked out, the attempted rape had transformed him into a proven protector. As a co-conspirator in tormenting the two guards, he had become the beautiful woman’s friend.
The militiamen nodded to Rollins. He barely acknowledged them. Now they were further insulted by what they took to be the bodyguard’s intentional slight. They turned and went into the Shambles, eager to go back into their tunnel and towards their city.
Isoka looked around. He smiled in recognition of the spot. He saw in the distance the grove of cottonwood and scrub oak that lay at the foot of Benharash's compound and the long, meandering dirt road that led into the heart of the bivouac. Amazed at the haphazardness of his army’s boundary defense, he said to Irma, "And we don’t even have a guard here. They can come and go as they please."
Irma looked around and understood what he was saying. It pleased her to think, This is Todd’s tunnel! He must have men in their camp every night!
Rollins understood the expression on Isoka's face. He said in a noncommittal baritone, "Your perimeter is porous."
Irma continued to study the diplomat’s face and found it inscrutable. Isoka took her lightly by the arm, and, together with the stoned-faced Rollins, they made their way over the last few small boulders toward the grove and road.
The morning mist was burning off and Irma felt better than she had since her banishment was announced. She no longer held the diplomat's muscular arm, but she walked beside him. Neither spoke. There could not be a more pleasant road than the eucalyptus-lined, peaceful lane that meandered between the general’s compound and the Angeleno camp. It was as if there was no war, other than the occasional muffled explosion coming from further north in the Shambles. Rollins kept well behind them. The tunnel was San Francisco turf; here the Angelenos held the ground and streets, and the protocol-minded Rollins led or followed accordingly.
During this silent walk, Irma, still fresh from imprisonment, looked at every tree, every stray dog and feral cat, every hovel and even the rocks. Novel sights, no matter how mundane, exalt the soul of a sensory-deprived person. For Irma, the muddy road, with its dusty trees, its vermin and its wreckage, was as beautiful as her uncle's cactus garden, and both surpassed the luxury that had surrounded her before her father’s crime. Irma responded with passion and awe to any view other than the fog-shrouded and wind-beaten dirt flats atop the Richmond Cliffs.
The unarmed Isoka had beat off her attackers, while the powerful Todd Wentworth had been impotent to save her from his family and friends; the contrast could not be erased from Irma's thoughts. Circumstance, she told herself, merely circumstances. Todd had more numerous opponents. If it had just been two guards, particularly those dopes, Todd would have kept me. She reasoned with herself until she came to the terms she wanted regarding the quality of effort each man had made. Yet the image of Isoka's power and calm kept flashing before her mind's eye. It was a degrading admiration, and she pushed it aside as the devil’s trick. “Circumstances,” she repeated, almost aloud.
They walked past guard units, ALA regulars in mud- and blood-splattered blue-and-gray uniforms. Irma was surprised by the soldiers’ great size and their numb expressions. As these guards carefully eyed the newcomers, they did not, as she had feared with certainty, strip and probe Irma with their brutish eyes; the relief made her almost dizzy. The officers in particular were more interested in the man wearing the San Francisco Militia uniform who was walking slightly behind Ambassador Isoka. Rollins ignored their hard stares and kept his eyes straight ahead.
The rumor of a beautiful patrician prisoner had filled the camp. Great crowds of festive Angeleno soldiers gathered around the foot of the HQ hill, eating, drinking, and laughing. The vice mayor, Aslanian, and Wellman stood among a crescent of guards, behaving, convincingly, as though this spectacle had been their generous work. At the side of the hill leading up to HQ, Benharash and Elise sat in great chairs (selected by Puglese because they looked like thrones); a squadron of marines kept the greater crowd from pressing on the general. He was there, at Puglese’s advice, to give credence to the gossip that the affair was his doing, a reminder to the soldiery that the sidelined general still had the power to change things when it pleased him. In short, the two opposing power centers of the ALA made their presence felt with haughty pomp, and they each, in their own way, played the crowd while studiously avoiding the other pretender.
As this horde came into view, Irma gasped and froze in her tracks. Thousands of men, all foreign killers, stretched before her. The stench of the camp, the blaze of the sun, and the ugly roar of her nation’s arch-foes enveloped the young woman like a dark cloud. Isoka raised his hand and the multitude cheered. “Brace yourself,” he said. “I’ll get you out of here as quickly as I can.”
“Oh, God! Please, please.”
“Irma, you must help me pull this off. Do not show fear.” He offered his arm and she draped her hand lightly across his bare forearm. As they moved toward the center of the crowd, Isoka waved his hand at the immense congregation of revelers. "And here they are: the dogs of hell. Your enemies."
"They don’t look so dangerous right now."
"Obviously we aren’t--Frisco still stands."
Irma took in the scene for a moment, than looked back at the diplomat. Their eyes locked and the soldier-diplomat’s steely confidence passed into her heart. Suddenly, she was no longer afraid. Irma smiled and thrust out her fine chin . "It’s no brains against no balls . . . and don’t say ‘Frisco’ to me."
As they made their way up the small hill toward the broadly-smiling vice mayor, Isoka whispered, "We’ll get you to your father’s quickly."
"No hurry. . . .Where are your manners? Introduce me."
The vice mayor, his full chest of metals glittering in the sun, bowed theatrically to Irma. At his side, Aslanian and Wellman clicked their heels and gave her a partial bow. The vice mayor took in her beauty, which she offered him with an arch smile. His face wrinkled in puzzlement. In an aside to Wellman, he said, "I expected tears and hatred." Then, with a flourish of his arm, he said so all could hear, "Welcome, Ms. Kout." And the crowd roared. His lieutenants puffed up their chests.
Irma nodded graciously to the headman of her enemies. Then she turned and addressed the crowd. "I feel welcome." And again, they cheered.
The vice mayor's eyes lit up: Few city women had entered his grounds during the past two years. He was a man who valued refined company, and he had had none, save Isoka, since the long siege began. "Please enjoy the security of our camp."
Soldiers laughed. Irma bowed and let them feast on her with their eyes.
Suddenly, Colonel Aslanian thrust himself in front of her. Irma's hand flew to her mouth and she gave a slight cry of surprise. Aslanian’s eyes were the size of saucers and his face so pink that the scars snaking across it looked like white rivers on red Mars. "Howdy!" he blurted, off-pitch with nervousness.
The chief’s awkwardness and the continued good humor of the throng instantly changed Irma's cry of surprise into yet another cry, this one of mirth. Making a face like a cartoon soldier, she bellowed, "Howdy!" Then she ran her hand down his arm, and with her eyes she sought forgiveness for making a joke at his expense. Then yet another loud, authoritative greeting diverted her attention.
"Welcome," said Benharash, who sat about fifty feet away. He held up a chalice, nodded seriously, but said no more. As Isoka whispered into her ear who he was and how he protected her father, Irma acknowledge his cordial greeting with a smile and a nod. Then she turned round once, hands akimbo, squinting into the sun, and shouted to the crowd, "Hello, boys." The return cheers were deafening.
Isoka pulled at the sleeve of the besmitten Aslanian. He pointed his comrade's attention to Rollins, who hulked to the side. The one-armed bodyguard was surrounded by legions of his army’s enemies. They were celebrating the release of their own prisoners, which he had been prepared for and approved of, based on soldierly conduct and the universal sympathy for released POWs. But Rollins now, for the first time, understood that Irma was a trophy for the Army of Los Angeles. He suspected, correctly, that this morale-boosting consequence was not by design but rather from timing. If he and Irma had arrived in the morning instead of the afternoon, and the POWs came later, their arrival would have been a matter of indifference; these soldiers’ minds would have been on their fellows in enemy hands. Instead, Irma had shown up after three hours of celebrations and with the good cheer at its height. (Rollins had no doubt there would be drunkenness, fighting, and mayhem as the night wore on.) Everything made him uneasy: his own isolation, the joy of his enemies, but most particularly, Irma’s poise. Then he heard Isoka's voice. Rollins looked up to see the diplomat and Aslanian looking intently at him and at his black uniform. "This is Major Rollins. He is with Ms. Kout for a few days."
Aslanian rubbed his chin and took note of Rollins’ empty left sleeve. "Welcome, Major. We’ll keep an eye on you."
Rollins knew to whom he was speaking. He clicked his heels and said, "Naturally."
The vice mayor pressed aside Aslanian and Isoka, then stood between the two. Looking downhill at Rollins, he said in a warm, social tone, "You are safe with us, sir."
Again, Rollins clicked his heels, and this time, he bowed formally. The vice mayor eyed him for a moment. How strange. By his looks, he is a real soldier, not a citizen grunt. To lose an arm, then be reduced to guarding a woman . . . I bet he thinks of suicide. “You will be safe here,” he repeated. He then turned to Irma, and his face softened. "You’re not lamenting this change of address?"
"Colonel Isoka tells me I’m free here."
"You are!" exclaimed the vice mayor with so much body language expressing his commitment to her personal sovereignty that he spilled a great of wine deal from his pewter chalice.
Irma held up her hands and shrugged. "Then that makes you my liberators."
Aslanian pushed himself forward, past the vice mayor. He stumbled slightly and as he righted himself, eyes wide with admiration, desire, and fear, he said, "Oh, what a wonderful way to deal with this! Your courage, madam!" Then, to the horror of everyone, old Colonel Aslanian moved as though to embrace Irma.
He was within inches of touching her when she raised her finger and stopped him in his tracks. "Liberators don’t touch."
Everyone laughed; the soldiers, who hated the merciless chief of police, guffawed with stinging malice. Aslanian held up his hands and turned in a circle, protesting, unheard, the innocence of his thought.
While the malign laughter thundered, Isoka came to Irma's ear and said, "But I’ve already violated that rule. To be fair, I won’t touch you again."
Irma cupped her hands to the diplomat's ear and shouted, "Different rules for you. You saved me!"
Finally, the vice mayor waved for the laughter to stop. Aslanian had already disappeared, no worse for wear but not at all willing to play the clown. Rollins stepped forward and said to the vice mayor, "Please, take us to Mr. Kout."
The vice mayor, his admiring eyes still fastened on Irma, slowly signaled for an officer, who had, throughout all that had gone on, remained stern and attentive, his eyes constantly scanning the crowd for assassins.
The vice mayor said, "This men will take you to your father." He thought he saw Irma’s face drop, but her smile returned, and he felt radiant in its presence.
Benharash and Elise watched this all from the sidelines. The general was enjoying himself. The good feelings that exploded when the ALA prisoners had been delivered just before daybreak was a clear signal to the leadership that it was time to go home, that the purpose and will for war had ended. He enjoyed equally the gracious salutation from the vice mayor and the petulant snubs of Aslanian and Wellman. Benharash, sitting erect in his thronelike chair, looked around like a great warrior giraffe. He saw the men beam as they met his eye. He was enough of a politician to feel the mood of the crowd. Beneath the surface, the impact of his idea, known to all by gossip spreaders under Puglese's wing, that had given the army hope that his influence , would again hold sway above the pale planning of the vice mayor's General Staff. The leader who’s direction had served them so well from the Tehachapis to the Delta would, perhaps, again take the helm. Sweat ran over the deep, fleshy furrows of his brown-and-red forehead. His great thick lips were wide apart as he tried to breathe through his mouth so as not to make his wretched nostril sing. Although no light shone through his dull skin, for his whole body was a great mass of scars and callus, his happiness was clear to all.
Yet, in the warmth of his triumph, Benharash looked down below his shoulder at the heavy yellow hair of his mistress's head, and he saw a frowning face. Feeling his gaze, Elise turned her mildly unfriendly eyes up to him.
"What’s wrong?" asked the general. He forgot the crowd and his triumph and looked helplessly at his unhappy mate.
Elise wrinkled her nose, tossed her hair, and nodded in the direction of Irma Kout. "She’s a slut."
For a moment, the great man hung his head, trying to think of how to respond. Then he said gently, "Don’t say that!"
Elise rolled her eyes. She was clearly indifferent to her lover's views on this. It was not worth talking about it with him. Later, she would talk with her cleaning lady about the Kout woman’s behavior. They could put their heads together over this.
"Why do you care?" asked Benharash.
"Concubines look down on tramps," she said, now with a gleam in her eye meant only for him. It just killed her the way he responded to her every expression. And true to form, her flash of mischief brought a broad smile to his meaty face. He hugged her shoulder. She smiled in spite of herself.
When they looked back to the place where the General Staff was standing, they saw Irma head off, six soldiers marching beside her. Benharash noticed Rollins linger a minute. For some reason, the vice mayor chose that moment to look toward his wayward general. He followed Benharash's attention and also saw the one-armed soldier lurking, darkly watching what went on as Irma left. The vice mayor snapped his fingers at a nearby soldier, who alertly caught his eye and understood the instruction. The soldier moved purposefully toward Rollins. Rollins turned and sauntered off to catch up with his party.