Chapter 3

The sky was getting cloudy and soon it started to rain. Seloren retreated under the small roof of the gate booth, leaning the gun against the wall and holding the uniform around her, to keep warm. I remained there in the rain, water dripping down my steel helmet. I liked the sound of the raindrops against the metal: the clinking sound was cozy and soothing.

“Ky, do you want to get a cold?”, I heard her ask me a bit upset from the booth.

“Yes”, I replied and I smiled, closing my eyes and letting the rain fall on my face.

“Get some shelter over here. I feel a chill only by seeing you standing in the rain like that.”

“Don't you like the rain?”

“No.”

She looked around to the silent forest with the pines fluttering their needles and the fir trees whispering mysteriously. The rain made the forest seem more peaceful. Mist was floating above the trees, coming down from the mountain tops. It also brought a humid chilling air.

“I think you haven't had enough freezing last night”, she said a bit ironically.

I smiled at her.

“No, I hadn't.”

“That means I struggled in vain to bring you the blanket, right?”

Her smile intensified.

“Well, it wasn't entirely in vain.”

“Can you explain to me the use of it?”

“You only had the illusion of doing a good deed for a helpless soldier. As for me, I benefited in a different way: look how you're keeping me company as a result. I would have been bored otherwise, guarding the gate by myself. Instead, now we can talk.”

And I grinned. She stared at me for a while, then she looked away. I didn't know whether she was glad or not to have me there. I waited to see if she chose silence or conversation with me.

In the yard, the commander was shouting again, his voice getting distant behind the barracks.

Then Seloren looked in my direction, asking casually:

“So, what would you like to talk about?”

I was thrilled she decided in favor of conversation. I thought about it for a second.

“Tell me about yourself.”

“What would you like to know?”

“What's a girl like you doing in the army?”

“What do you mean, a girl like me? Like how?”

“You seem fragile.”

“I'm not that fragile.”

“You seem scared.”

“I'm not that scared. However, coming here wasn't my choice. I was recruited for my medical training. I was in med school when the war started.”

She stared at me through the rain drops, her eyes a bit shady.

“What about you? What are you doing in the army?”

“My specialty is gun powder, bombs, mines, artillery... stuff like that. I'm usually the one who cuts the wire before everything blows up.”

She smiled amused.

“Did you ever cut the wrong wire?”

“Would I be here if I did?”

She laughed.

“It wouldn't surprise me, the way you're going about things. So what else do you want to discuss?” she inquired.

I glanced at her slim figure trembling in the humid chilling air.

“Have you ever been in love?”

She shrugged. The question didn't startle or upset her.

“Yes, for a day. I danced with him at a party, but I didn't see him the same way after that. It didn't last.”

I wondered why she had liked that boy - and if it could have been me instead, would it have lasted longer?

I didn't say anything though.

“What about you?” she asked me directly.

“What?”

“Have you ever been in love?”

“No”, I said but it wasn't true.

However, I didn't want to tell her about the girls that I had taken an interest in before her. It didn't matter anyway. The war had robbed us of the perspective of dating or having fun. It was a luxury we no longer afforded. We had to stay alive: that was the main priority.

“What do you think about this war?” I asked her after a while.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, do you think it has a purpose?”

And I stared into the distance, at the mountain tops, as if to get a better perspective from the view. The mountains made me philosophical, as if something metaphysical was in the distance. She seemed to think about it, pondering on the answer.

“It might not have a precise purpose, but it's probably necessary to get over it.”

“How is it necessary if it doesn't have a purpose?”

She smiled.

“Like all things without a purpose, it's necessary to end. Maybe the fight in itself is necessary. We must defend something.”

“What would you have done if we had met as enemies in the battle?” I suddenly asked her.

She replied calmly, with the same undisturbed smile:

“I would have shot you.”

I didn't know if she meant it as a joke or as the truth. But I didn't care. I put the gun down and I started jumping around in the rain, throwing my hands up in the air:

“Come on! Shoot me now!”

She shook her head amused, staring at me with her intense eyes shining brighter.

“You're totally nuts! “

It started to get cold, but I felt like playing. The moment had heated my mood. I stepped up to her with my fists closed.

“Guess which one has a hidden treasure.”

She played along. I knew she didn't have anything better to do anyway, but there was an attitude of complicity that I could already see about her. She was actually captured by my game.

“This one.”

“Here, you won!”

And I opened the fist, showing her a piece of grass.

She just smiled, not getting the point of it, but it didn't matter very much.

“And do you know what I've got in the other fist?” I continued.

“No. What?”

“It's the purpose of war. The meaning of it. Look!”

And I opened the fist willingly. The palm of my hand was empty. She looked at me as if to say again “you're nuts”, but she just laughed.

And then she said:

“I've got a riddle for you too. If you guess right, I'll tell you where you can find a book of poems. Now it's your turn.”

She extended her fists. I chose one of them. When she opened it, I found a small pebble.

I was thrilled.

“Yay, I win! OK, so tell me. Where is the book?”

She looked at me pretending to be sorry for me, as if a difficult task was ahead and I wasn't aware of it. She showed me the group of trees down the path, below the gate.

“The fifth tree has a book of poems buried at its roots. Go and bring it to me, please.”

I was happy to run down the path. I counted the trees: one, two, three, four, five. Then I took out my army knife and I kneeled on the ground, where I started digging. Even if I knew it was just a game, I really believed at that moment that I would find a miraculous book hidden there. Suddenly, I heard a voice shouting at me from the gate:

“Hey soldier! What are you doing?”

I looked over my shoulder and saw the commander who had come to the gate and was staring at me, next to Seloren who was smiling subtly in complicity, signaling me discreetly to come back. I stood up and returned to the post. The magic was gone. The commander glared at me.

“Why did you leave your post, soldier? What were you doing there?”

“I buried a dead rat”, I said instantly, without thinking too much and Seloren looked at me with that admiring light again in her eyes, that I liked most.

The commander frowned.

“A dead rat?”

“Yes sir, it was here and it smelled badly. I had to bury it. I couldn't leave it around any minute longer.”

“Very well, but don't leave your post again for anything! No matter what, do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

I grabbed my gun from the ground and stood firm by the gate.

The commander left.

We started to laugh.

“Was it you who called him?” I asked her.

“No way! He startled me too. I didn't have time to warn you. I guess he was checking on us, to see what we're up to. He said you're weird.”

“Really?”

“Yes. That's what he said.”

“And you? What do you think?”

She smiled.

“I think you're out of your mind.”

The way she said it sounded like a compliment. I took it as a good thing: it was better to be out of my mind instead of boring.