The Mere Tide P32

An interview with the law-1Y-Dachni takes her leave-Divested

Ten minutes later the police arrived. A pair of officers who knocked on the glass of the door with their billyclubs and pointed at Dachni and beckoned her out. She exchanged glances with the recruits and then she parted of them.

Outside on the sidewalk one of the officers pointed at the head. Where did you get that head?

Dachni held up the head. Desert.

Did you shoot that man?

Aye. He were probbed hunnerd yards off an hit em with a heart shop. He harlied time to see nor shit.

Didnt you tell Sergeant Lowe that he tried to rob you?

Aye.

How could he do it from a hundred yards off?

Dachni’s face made a worried twitch. She set the head on the sidewalk. Well. Wasnt maybe that far off. He were close enough. He had a knife an it aint as ifn ye has no tentions is good runnin.

He was running at you.

Caint rob a folk runnin away. Look it were jess ta make it sound somethin better for em thass all. Know aint big. An aint smart. An aint pretty. So theres ye knows…hasta be somethin ta trade.

Wheres the body?

Desert. She waved her arm vaguely to the east. Its reckon somethin days away.

The officer looked at his partner.

I dont want to, said the partner. Im not going to.

Alright miss why dont you come with us.

Caint go with ye cause needs is list.

You cant enlist.

Who the fuck says you?

What?

Fuck you.

Listen youre too young to enlist in the army.

Thass esent your say.

It is my say.

He reached for the child and the child ran back. She threw open the recruitment center door and ran through the lobby to the hall and down it. The sergeant’s voice was coming through a door and she threw that door open.

The sergeant rose from behind her desk, the recruit chaired before it turned.

What the hell is going on?

Is to list!

The officers barged through the doorway and dodged back from the thrown chair. It dented the drywall. The sergeant grabbed Dachni by the shoulder and pulled her back. The officers kicked the chair from out the doorway and entered.

Whats going on?

Im taking her to the precinct.

Is she under arrest?

No shes an orphan.

Dachni stomped her foot. Not true. Not matter is gonna list.

The sergeant came from around the desk and righted the chair. I can take this from here, she said.

The officers glanced at another. We cant have that running around alone. Criminal or not its a health hazard. I mean look at it. Tell me that isnt what comes before cholera.

Ill sort this out.

She looked at Dachni. Wait out in the lobby until I call you.

But needs to list.

The sergeant turned to the recruit she was interviewing. Wait outside for a moment. Then to the officers. Both of you out.

The officers, the recruit, left. The sergeant shut the door and relieved Dachni of the nagant and leaned it against a bookcase and gestured for her to sit. Dachni sat on the floor.

In a chair.

She got up and sat in the chair. The armrests came almost to her shoulders and not least because her deepened hunch. The sergeant resumed her own seat and put her elbows on the desk and clasped her hands levered them down.

You cant enlist in the army.

Dachni nearly leapt from her chair but the sergeant continued.

Im going to be frank with you. The army is a formal organization with standards that you flatly dont meet. Youre too young, too short, you dont meet the weight requirements. Speech impediments are disqualifying, illiteracy is disqualifying, and while Im not a psychologist I think Im looking at a walking pathology.

Dachni looked at her boots. Is seventeen.

Whatever. Rules are in place for a reason.

Thass it? Thass all. Not even a why?

I told you whys. Ill can them again. Too small, too light, too dumb, too psychotic, too inarticulate.

Dachni was wringing her hands over another. Desent hafta be mean of it.

You wanted the answer.

Well now what?

Dont ask me Im not a social worker.

Dachni was tearing up. She wiped her nose. Hows…hows get citizenned?

I dont know apply for it.

How?

Im not a track record. Figure it out yourself. You might already be American. Where are you from?

Urals.

Do you have a passport?

Dachni retrieved her passport and put it on the table.

The sergeant needent examine it. Youre Russian, she said.

Nooo. Thass fake. Look inside.

It looks real to me. And if its fake why do you have it? Why give it to me?

Dachni didnt say.

The sergeant stuck two fingers through the pages and spread it on the table. It looks good to me. So. Time to go.

Wait.

No waiting. I have others to process.

Well what to do?

I dont know. Go back over the border. Join the MSV. Theyll take anybody.

Dachni almost said something but then she turned and walked out. Shuffling downcast past the sympathy of recruits. The officers waiting outside with her horse took her to the precinct. A small building with white walls. They sat her on a bench by the cells.

Wanna go.

Where would you go?

Whys it your business?

Youre a minor.

Whats minor? Ub minor.

A child. We cant just let you go.

But they didnt watch her either. At their lunch break she left out and mounted her horse. She was next at a diner and in that diner she stared blankly at an omelet she had needed help to order. It vented its steam over the long sable spill of night. The waitress bused the tables. She was staring at the cold fold of eggs and then she was staring at the plastic veneer of the table. The lights shut off. Someone said something to her and she got out of her booth and went out.

Searching for her map at the edge of town she remembered suddenly that she had given it away. She tried placing herself in the world but all she managed was to know she was lost. She shut her eyes. She was going to cry and she didnt want to. Her eyelids grew inflamed. A car had sawed into the street. Its headlights slicing away the muted pigments of night. It drove past and at the intersection its stoplights flared like the eyes of the demonic that slurred away as the car turned onto the main street. She took out the passport and felt the paged face with her fingers as though she would read it as read the blind but this face too was in no language she knew and she let it fall from her fingers and rode on.