The Borders in Our Veins

(11 years ago) 1

When he left the pain of it stretched out over every edge of the city, like a great grey cloak. Tucked in behind the tallest buildings on the horizon I couldn't see the other side of. I sat over the roof and tucked my knees into my chest. That last day, he'd already felt an ocean apart from me. Beside me but 6 feet inward, almost unreachable. Trying to reach a hand through to pull him out of himself only sunk him back further. Truth is, I'd been alone far longer than a week. I'd been alone ever since he started using Your People My People. I clench my teeth. Bury my head against my knees and press my eyes shut so tightly I see little blots of colour.

"It freezes and thaws here," he'd said. "You know that. It's frozen for thirty years and now it's thawing."

I shook my head. "But it has nothing to do with us."

Only a small, faraway lift of his left lip. A secret smile, one I wasn't a part of anymore. "You couldn't understand, Si."

There is so much I wanted to say. But your family's been here as long as mine has. As long as the history books go back. We share blood, maybe even a last name, if you peel the books far back enough.

I didn't understand how we'd grown our whole lives like two branches coming up from the same tree. Same street. Same school. Same language. Same ash-blonde hair. Same way of walking down the green market and daring each other to try every flavour sprawled out on the stands. Fresh cheeses and dried figs and brandy. Same tongue that tastes the same things. Same history books - although I knew he'd been reading different ones in private. Learning more about all we're not meant to know. When you put two babies in the same bubble from the start and watch them grow apart, watch them diverge, then you know the scars the blood holds. Scars deeper than memory, stretching back before our own lives. We have wars in our veins.

"I wish we'd never met while the war was frozen, then," I tightened my jaw and my lips. Tongue felt stiff. "Because you'll hate me someday and I won't bear it."

He didn't say anything. Didn't confirm or deny it. Only his face hardened into that of a sculpture's. Into that of a military statue like the ones gilded in their medals around the park. I could see the uniform on him already, a phantom vision. My heart pinged to know - in somewhere as intuitive as the sun rising - that he'd fight for his people, whether they asked him to or not. He always made comments about defending his land like his father had, always looked up to him. It had been an unspoken undercurrent; a topic not terribly pressing or interesting until it was here and as big as a wedge.

As big as the border people were sorting themselves out on each side of now, by fear or by force. Bracing. They'd spent decades blurring it, scattering dots of their religions all through the surrounding cities like the line didn't exist. Fear, the great broom, now swept the dots back where they belonged.

And today, what felt like months since the last time Ahmed had looked at me like the mirror side of himself, like the other end of his own palm, months since a dark distancing veil of centuries was drawn between our eyes, I still couldn't see the fuss - still couldn't see the warning winds of war. The new shopping centre over the bridge could have been cut out of an American town. The people around me were not the grief-stricken faces of sepia photographs, they were real and bright-hued and just like me. With the same clothes I wore, and the same penchant for sweets at all the bakeries, and the same ease and time that comes with enjoying them. The same worries about exams and other regular things teenagers are meant to worried about. War was an ugly thing, a foreign and old thing.

From the roof, I can see the pigeons gathering around the street benches, and couples leaning on each other across the cobblestone, and live accordions from the restaurants floating down the market square and wrapping across the pedestrians stopping at cafes and brandy bars. From the roof, I lean back and open my eyes to a blue sky, and see no - can not imagine ever seeing - planes or drones flying overhead.

So why did he leave? Why wasn't this city big enough for us?