The Guard by Peter Terrin Page A

to sea. He says he could fall asleep just like that. If he closed his eyes for three seconds he’d be gone. I remind him that by rights I get to sleep first. He sniggers and agrees and says that, given that it’s now early in the morning, I have the right to go to sleep first in approximately sixteen hours; we’d do better to come up with something else. He’s in a playful mood and suggests that whoever makes it to the bunks first gets to sleep first. His words curl around between us before stopping and hanging motionless in the air over the cardboard box. Then, as if our fragile bodies have already made a full recovery from days and days of starvation, we scramble up and run to the door of the bunkroom, clawing at each other’s arms and screaming with laughter.
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    An hour later, I’m baking bread. Harry is snoring as if he’s faking it, his eyes resting deep in their dark sockets. Bread will alleviate our most pressing needs, delivering the desired volume to our stomachs. It would be better if we didn’t open anymore tins in the coming twenty-four hours. We have to battle the temptation with fire and sword. And after that, we need to reinstate our former iron discipline and keep ourselves going on a minimum of fuel. Afterthe tyranny of blind hunger, I consider myself capable of living off the smell of baking bread alone.
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    I think of Claudia.
    She’s dozens of meters above our heads in the Olano family kitchen, which is equipped with everything a chef desires and where this bread maker, before the arrival of a newer model, once stood. Every lunch Claudia is the center of a circle of braising, steaming and simmering, sautéing, hissing and spattering. The smells she brings to life cling to her, hanging onto her skirts like children, refusing to let go. After lunch the cheerful crew descend to our basement. A cloud that completely engulfs us, veiling the sharp-edged world.
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    We are sitting in our vests on either side of the door, which is ajar. The armholes hang loose under our arms. No matter how much liquid soap I use, the cotton stays gray without hot water. I’ve polished our shoes. The new shine keeps catching my eye. Our blue shirts are hanging upside-down to dry on the side of Harry’s bed.
    “Do you know what your brothers are guarding?”
    “Apparently Jimmy’s elite. An embassy. I heard something about it just before I got stationed here.”
    He slides his cap back to scratch his head as if he’s about to launch into a complicated story, but doesn’t elaborate. He usesboth hands to put his cap back at the prescribed angle. His broad forearms are deathly pale with the occasional long curling hair here and there, ginger like his beard.
    “And Bob?”
    Harry shrugs. “Bob’s Bob. He’ll have blown away a few bad guys by now. It wouldn’t surprise me.”
    I don’t know why I brought up his brothers. Maybe because he told me about Bob and Jimmy himself when I started as a guard, about their special bond. And because that made their being posted to three different districts so peculiar. Were we subject to a special policy designed to protect families from multiple losses from a single incident? Or was it their own free choice? Thinking back on Harry’s stories now, I realize that they were all set in their childhood, on the farm; I can’t remember any others. Three young men in a hole up north. One beautiful, fickle girl would have been enough.
    “No embassies for me,” Harry says. “We’re going to a villa. A white villa surrounded by gardens. You and me, Michel.”
    It’s detectable, albeit with difficulty, the slight hesitation in his voice. The euphoria after the absence of the guard and the arrival of food seems to have ebbed a little. We are both being drawn back to the driver’s last words, spoken as if he was exhaling them while moving toward his seat. As if, rather than being formulated, they were being forced up out of his chest by his rising diaphragm. They have put down