Blood Lily Company - Afghanistan, year 1

XXV

The next day, when I woke up, I was alone in her bed but the sheet was still warm. I buried my nose in it. She smells so nice. I love her mix of sand, powder – I mean cordite, gunpowder – and flower.

I was supposed to rest, but I was too curious as to why the R&R were coming back. So I got up, dragged myself to the showers, dressed in the NCOs room, where my very neatly-made, undisturbed bed, taunted me. Shit! Lin's bed...

I quickly went back there to make her bed, took the opportunity to change the sheets. I wasn't going to act like a boor, right. I took my clothes from the day before, tidied up the room, made all traces of my passage disappear. Not for secrecy, since apparently the whole Company knew about it. Out of courtesy.

I was quite embarrassed, since in theory I was supposed to rest. Which meant no painting either. It sorta pissed me off, because painting was a way of keeping busy. It was relaxing, in my mind, to hide the black and apple green with fifty shades of ocher. I tried to make Doc recant, but macache, nothing I could do about it. Apparently, painting in the sun is bad for me. It's probably true, I ain't no doctor.

So I went to the mess hall, hoping I could hide in a corner and listen in the discussion. I was partially successful since Erk, on welcome duty, found me and asked me to put on my uniform.

Here, it means that on the ocher fatigues, we were going to wear, in addition to the sweater – cos, since I came back from my trip to boxers' paradise, we got even closer to winter – the crested jacket, the beret and keffiyeh, both dried-blood colored.

And there we were, pretty as two pictures, cooling our heels where the first R&R copters had landed. This time it was broad daylight, the weather was fine, the sky was the color of the Viking's eyes and there was no wind.

Like the last time, it was an E-assault that landed. And like last time, after the turbine stopped, it was a woman who was first out. She was taller than Miss Heavy Helmet and not in battle dress. She had on grey fatigues, a blue beret and a gun at her belt. A bit like us, except we carry our weapons on our thigh.

Behind her, however, the two guys who came out of the bird were walking armories. The first, in his early thirties, which made him just a little younger that I am, blond, squat, a small nose splint and two beautiful shiners. He looked a little taller than Igor but barely less wide. His eyes, slightly slit, made me think he was a Pole, or at least a Slav. And with his shiners, he looked like a corn-fed raccoon.

The other one... Funny, he reminded of Tito. He was also thin, slightly taller – because Tito is really small, right? – but he freaked me out as much as a rattlesnake would. Tito is closer to the black mamba. But this guy gave off the same vibes.

I didn't have much time to dwell on the two dudes, because Erk walked over to the R&R with his arms wide open and his happy smile on his face. He waited until they were no longer under the blades, and good thing he did, because he grabbed the woman by the waist and lifted her up to kiss her. I saw him aim for the pretty mouth, wondered what kind of fuck-up he was going to pull and then, at the last moment, the both of them turned their heads and Erk kissed the officer's cheek.
- Katja! My beautiful Katja! Have you finally decided to marry me, then? he asked, putting her down.
- Absolutely, Erk, I've come to ask Lin for your hand.
- There's no need, here it is. And I'm old enough, now, to give it all on my own.
- Ah, you've finally stopped growing? About time, if you ask me!
- Yeah, Lin said no more soup for me, he replied with a faux pout of sadness.
- Poor lil' tadpole! You do look malnourished, all skinny...

I realized, looking at him in front of us, putting his arm around the shoulders of the young woman who didn't do anything against it, that it was a game. I had believed it at one point. Well, almost. Well, yes, I did.