Dark at the Crossing

by Elliot Ackerman

Although Latia appeared amused, Haris noticed her eyes. They wouldn’t look at Amir. Her stare was fixed right in front of her on the table. She concentrated on a small porcelain pitcher next to Amir’s coffee. It was filled with perfectly white cream.

“What about home?” “This is home,” answered Jim. He took the bottle from Haris and drank. They had emptied nearly a quarter of it. “By making your home here,” said Haris, “you’ve destroyed mine.”

Jim drank again. “Or maybe we’re now from the same home.”

“If they removed every Syrian who’d committed a crime, the hospital basement would be empty!” A few tables down, a pair of nurses stared at Daphne. She spoke more softly. “Three years of this has turned honest people into criminals. He is probably, like you, a good man.”

“I never said I wouldn’t help.” Haris smiled at Daphne. She returned a sharp look, which cooled his enthusiasm. “But I won’t help under the assumption that you’re a good man punishing a bad one,” she added. “I’m exhausted by those ideas. He took something from you. You’re going to take it back, nothing more. Agreed?”

“Educated, idealistic men began our revolution, but every time I looked into this boy soldier’s face and he spoke his clipped Arabic, with his cigarette yellowing his teeth, I knew the uneducated would have the final say in my country’s future.”

It occurred to Haris that martyrdom was an American conception. When taken in the pure Arabic, shaheed meant something different. The translation wasn’t “he who sacrifices himself,” although that was often part of it. The literal meaning was “he who bears witness.”