Aurora - Blood Moon Tribute Pt. 03

Sonya turned the volume up until she was almost shouting, snapping and snarling spittle-laced sibilants.

An all or nothing sort of a girl, Ally snickered. "I swear to god, I kicked you so fuckin' hard I could almost feel your back teeth. I bet your ears are still ringing."

"WE FIGHT!" Sonya roared and silence descended over the cell.

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The persistence of memory.

Years before on a layover, Ally found herself in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi. Out for a walk early one morning, in thick, clinging fog, she sat down on a bench beside Ho Tay lake. She'd come to the spot to see the Tran Quoc pagoda, an ancient masterpiece, Hanoi's oldest, a tiered, tapered stupa, 11 storeys high, red brick and glazed tiles, each hexagonal level harbouring 6 Buddha statues in arched alcoves. A testament to fifteen hundred years of continuous devotion, it was presently hidden in the mist, the statuary no doubt meditating, taking a breather before the daily onslaught of tourists.

Sobered and troubled in equal measure, after visiting a war museum the previous day, Ally sat wondering at the incongruity of it all. That a place of such soul-penetrating serenity should have known so much violence over the years. Over the centuries. She thought achingly about all those lives sacrificed in the 10 thousand-day war, beginning in the 1940s, finally ending in the 70s. Vietnamese had died in their millions- rice farmers and school teachers, train drivers and accountants, doctors, nurses, the young and the old, and soldiers, in their hundreds and thousands. Just like ants, trampled under the feet of brawling titans.

And the foreigners, boys drafted in faraway lands, packed off to a strange country to kill people they didn't know, who had never done them harm- the flower of a generation, sacrificed in their thousands in the name of squalid politics. Who found themselves in an incomprehensible world with an unintelligible language, fighting a determined and highly motivated enemy, with a 2 thousand-year martial heritage and home field advantage, who wanted nothing more than independence for their nation. And who were fully prepared to struggle- to the last man, the last woman, to the last round of ammunition and the last drop of blood.

As she sat pondering this monstrous tragedy, a young girl emerged out of the fog, arm-in-arm with a frail old woman. The girl was dressed for school in a light blue Ao Dai, the national dress, one of the most elegant and sensual garments ever conceived, and a conical straw non la on her head. Ally shuffled aside to make room and they sat, discreetly at a distance from the lone western woman, conversing quietly in their sing-song tongue. A hand touched her arm.

The girl, just a teen, as small and delicate as a porcelain doll, bowed her head in greeting. "Sorry to bother you," she said in excellent English, "my Grandma wants to know. Are you are American?"

"Me?" Ally replied, taken aback. No surprises if the old lady still held a grudge. "No. Australian."

"Australian?" There was another quiet round of lilting conversation. "My Grandma says we fought Australia in the American War. They were very good soldiers."

"Yeah, well," Ally replied, a little shame-faced, "don't blame me. Most Australians were against the war. A bunch of lying politicians dragged us into it."

The girl translated Ally's disclaimer, then listened to her Grandma, nodding. "She says no need to apologise. Australians are nice people. Always friendly."

"Until they turn up in their gunships." Ally muttered.

The girl and her Grandma discussed the point, then the girl announced, "Grandma says... soldiers don't make wars, they just fight and die in them." There was another prolonged exchange between the 2, the girl and her granny. Eventually the girl said, "My Grandma was a soldier too. They gave her a medal. For killing Americans."

Ally fought the urge to cut and run. No good could come of such a conversation. But the pair was so polite, and the little girl so sweet, she felt herself trapped. "No kidding?" Ally said, "That sounds very... umm..."

The girl touched Ally's arm, smiling. "Is just history, Grandma says. A long time ago."

"I know..." Ally said, looking around, searching the mist for guidance. "But I mean, that sort of experience. How did it affect her?"

The girl sat nodding while her Grandma answered the question.

"Grandma says... The first time... she came face-to-face with the enemy out in the forest. He was all on his own, lost maybe, maybe abandoned. And so was she. She was cut off from her unit and making..." the girl snapped her fingers, "how to say 'a run away'?"

"Retreat?"

The girl snapped her fingers again. "Chinh xac, a retreat! They met on a path going opposite direction. She was running south, he was creeping north. They both raise their gun. Grandma managed to fire hers first and that was that."

The old woman continued, face impassive, her rheumy old eyes inscrutable.

"She said. The soldier was about the same age as she. A fine boy, a strong boy, tall and handsome. With a big, broad back made to carry a pack."

"How old was she?" Ally cut in.

The answer came back. "Fifteen."

Grandma was talking again, and her granddaughter commenced translating on the fly. "We, the Vietnamese, had been raised up to hate the Americans. To despise them. But... when she looked at that handsome young man, far from home, taking his last breath, she cried. She just couldn't help it. She says, she had seen the fear in his eyes, and he had seen the fear in hers, and so, for a moment, they were one. Now here he was... lost from his family, lying dead in the forest... A young man, sent by old men, who would never let their own children go to war. His last few seconds were lived in so much fear. And what of his mother and father, his sisters and brothers? How they must have grieved, how they must have gone to their rest still mourning. Grandmother says, they told her, after the first one, killing would be easy. But that was a lie."

They sat in silence for a while, Ally sniffling and snuffling and wiping her eyes. The girl touched her arm again, gentle as a falling leaf. "Grandma says she didn't mean to upset you."

"That's okay," Ally said, raising a hand, then honking into a tissue, "we helped kick the shit out of the place. It's the least I can do to listen."

The girl smiled at Ally and her eyes bunched up into little half-moons. "My name is Suong." she said. "I'm on my way to school. Grandma always walks me as far as the lake."

"Alana." Ally replied, offering her hand, feeling lumbering and oafish in her presence.

"How do you think of my English? It's my favourite subject."

"Really?" Ally replied, "your teacher should be proud. You speak it better than I do. With a lot less swearing."

The girl laughed, patting Ally's hand. "And Grandma wants to know what you think of Vietnam?"

"Vietnam?" Ally echoed, "I think it's beautiful. And I am so amazed, after everything the west did. The Vietnamese are all so friendly, so polite."

The old lady's wrinkled face lit up with a gap-toothed smile.

"We won, Grandma said, we got what we wanted. So why hold on to the hate?" The girl listened, nodding, while Grandma spoke to Ally. "She says... holding onto hate, is like holding a hot coal you wish to throw at someone. You are the only one who suffers."

A transiting break in the ground-cloud revealed the Tran Quoc pagoda, the red brick stupa almost iridescent in the early morning sunshine, rising emphatically out of the greenery into the smoggy blue sky. Ally smeared her eyes, laughing. "Not just a warrior but a philosopher. Would she mind if I asked her something? About the war?"

After a brief exchange the girl came back to her. "She says, she is always happy to talk about the great struggle. For soon, everyone will forget the sacrifice."

"Well can she tell me?" Ally said, looking past the girl at the old woman. "How a tiny little country, full of rice farmers and cyclo-drivers, which made its living on the back of the water buffalo... How on Earth did it manage to defeat a superpower?"

The message went downrange and the old woman laughed an asthmatic laugh. Almost a cackle, with a slight razor's edge. "She says," Suong announced, "we didn't defeat a superpower."

Ally shook her head in mild confusion. "You didn't?"

"No," Suong said with a beaming smile, "Grandma says we beat four." She commenced counting off on her tiny, slender fingers. "China. Then Japan. Then the French. Then America with all of its allies. Then China again, for the fourth or fifth time."

Ally slumped back, looking winded. "Well bugger me... she's right. But how?"

Granny, no longer smiling, looked Ally in the eye. As she spoke her granddaughter translated. "She says." the girl said softly, "Remember this. The only way to fight a giant is by holding onto its belt."

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"Fight?" Ally scoffed. "Been there, done that. And I won, remember?"

Sonya reached behind her back and Ally's heart sank. From her flunkies' darting glances, there were no prizes for guessing the Russian was packing a little surprise. Sonya snorted in derision then gave her reply. "She said," the English-speaker announced, "this time you fight with fair. No tricky. Honest fight. If you know how."

"What's she got behind her back?" Ally demanded, craning her neck. "Go on. Tell her to turn around!"

Sonya heard-out the demand, then scoured her throat and spat on the floor.

"Now you fight!" the interpreter said.

"And if I don't want to?"

"No choice. Automatic."

"Owt-o-metik huh?" Ally mocked, heart pounding. "Well can I at least have my shirt back?" Another layer of defence, however flimsy, when the blade came calling.

Sonya grinned a salacious grin and shook her head at the request.

"Well how about shaking hands? Can we at least do that?"

Sonya frowned at the translation and looked at her minions. This whole display was as much for their benefit, to shore up her bruised authority. Now, if she were to demand honour, she'd also have to show it.

"Come on," Ally chivvied, anxious to get the dirty work done, "she said she wants a fair fight? Where I come from, we have to shake hands. Before AND after."

Put on the spot, Sonya shrugged, then tensed as Ally moved.

"Nervous bitch, isn't she?" Ally smirked, half naked, exposed, still wet from the shower. Sweeping her fringe aside, she set off towards her big, confident opponent, as the image of a raven-haired, 15-year-old girl leapt to mind. Black pyjamas, AK-47, in a fight to death in the forest. How to fight a giant? Sonya didn't have a belt, but she sure as shit had a waistband.

Sonya extended an arm, waiting. With 2 paces to go, she snatched her hand away and felt behind her back for the improvised shiv. Before she could reach it, Ally leapt with a blood curdling shriek and their bodies collided.

Caught by surprise, Sonya staggered backwards a step or two, stunned by the sheer brute strength of the much smaller woman, impressed and dismayed in equal measure. Ally's fingers curled into her windpipe, knee striking blows at her solar plexus, as Sonya struggled in vain the dislodge the human limpet. None of this was going to plan. Sonya was a stabber. She needed space to find her weapon and bring it to bear, to find the target and take a good swing. She tried for the shiv again and Ally went for her eyes, teeth bared, snarling like an animal. Desperate for backup, Sonya looked around for her flunkies, to find them staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the battle.

A sudden commotion outside announced the cavalry had just arrived, Ally's cellmates storming down from the exercise yard. Still fighting to free one hand long enough make contact with the homemade pig sticker, Sonya watched in dismay as her own backup fled, leaving her in the ablution block with Ally, all on her own. Finally out of ideas, she gave up on her weapon and wrapped her arms round Ally instead, intending to bulldoze her across bathroom, then break her back over the stainless-steel trough.

Ally pulled her feet up, dragging Sonya down. Sonya chuckled. Nice try, but she'd thrown heavier bags of cement around back in the day. When she heaved upwards, like a mother lifting her child, Ally sprang, leaping vertically up off the ground, the top of her head impacting Sonya under the chin. Cranial dome verses fragile mandible, a soft, fleshy tongue caught between teeth

Sonya went down, stunned semi-conscious by the blow. She took Ally with her, crumbling rather than falling, collapsing on top of her much smaller opponent. Kicking and struggling, Ally wriggled from under her body, searching for the exit, mortally afraid, on the brink of making a run for it.

Quickly coming-to, as the shockwaves of the blow reverberated away,

Sonya reared up, quickly coming-to, and stiff-armed herself off the floor before Ally could flee. With no other option, Ally climbed onto her back, the handle of the shiv digging into her belly. The cell was in an uproar just outside, if she could just hold on for a few more minutes, surely someone would come to her aid.

Mouth bubbling blood from a lacerated tongue, Sonya got to her knees, still oblivious to who or what had just hit her. Ally looked up as one of Sonya's flunkies fought her way in, only to be dragged kicking and screaming back into the massed cat-fight outside. They were all on their own again, in a fight, if not to the death, then at least to crippling injury.

Through brute strength and sheer will Sonya got to her feet, gulping down mouthfuls of blood, still trying to dislodge the mass on her back. Legs around Sonya's waist, arms around her neck, Ally clamped one hand over Sonya's bleeding mouth, then pinched her nostrils closed between fingers and thumb.

After a lifetime of taking the action for granted, Sonya found herself suddenly, starkly, terrifyingly unable to breathe. She grappled with Ally's hands in a panic, with no idea of what they might be. Now gripped with the primal horror of total asphyxiation, Ally and the fight were completely forgotten. Sonya's defence grew more and more feeble, her blood-slippery hands unable to gain purchase. On her feet, staggering, she suddenly voided her bowels, as the bathroom disappeared down a long, grey tunnel.

And still Ally held on, teeth clenched, muscles straining, trembling on the brink of failure, her own breath coming in short, sharp gasps. This was a fight to the finish and Ally counted down, vividly imagining Sonya's brain cells, in their millions and billions screaming for oxygen. Sonya convulsed, and her arms fell slack by her sides. Already unconscious, she slowly and inexorably she began to fall.

Ally let go at the very last instant, fending off, leaving Sonya to face-plant squarely on a raised porcelain footprint, on one side of the green-tiled shit hole. Ally came upright on Sonya's back, as if riding her, fists bunched, face scarlet with rage. "AND IF YOU EVER..." she screeched, punctuating each phrase with a punch, "LOOK SIDEWAYS... AT ME... AGAIN...YOU FUCKING... BITCH... I WILL... FUCKING-WELL... KILL... YOU!"

There was a flicker of movement in Ally's periphery. As she looked up, her universe exploded from a blow to the side of the head, that knocked her senseless and sent her sprawling. Bare-breasted, covered in filth, lying on the squalid floor, she struggled to rise, hand over the cut, pouring blood from the temple. The stars cleared. Focussing, Ally found herself face-to-face with a gigantic black cockroach, standing over her, hefting a baton, huge, black compound eyes staring into her.

"DID YOU JUST FUCKIN' HIT ME?" Ally screamed, as a second guard in riot gear- helmet, gas mask, utility vest- waded into the melee. Ally struggled to her feet and the screw raised his arm, hitting her square in the face with a blast of capsicum spray. Ally dropped to a squat, face in her hands. "FUCKHEAD!" she screamed, "HOW ABOUT SOME FRIES WITH THAT?"

Seizing Sonya's arm, a screw dragged her over onto her back. Front teeth missing, nose smeared sideways over her face, she was breathing in short, wet gasps, struggling to keep her airway open. Stowing their batons, two prison guards dragged the Russian out by the feet and before Ally knew it, she'd been picked up under the arms and was being hauled out after her.

Hauled unceremoniously out of the cell into the walkway, Sonya was tossed like dirty laundry onto a stretcher for the trip to the hospital. As they neared the cell door, Ally and her escort found themselves surrounded by prisoners, some crying, some pleading, others prostrating themselves at the riot squad's feet. "Sir!" one cried, "She did nothing! She was attacked, we all saw it. We beg you, Sir, spare her. She was only defending herself."

The guards in their heavy riot gear had already worked up a sweat. In the midst of the press of prisoners, they were now faced with the choice of either beating their way out, or just leaving the bloodied, half-dressed, half-stunned, half-blind prisoner to her own devices.

Ally hit the floor with a grunt, unaware she'd just been spared a correctional flogging, followed by a few weeks' bread and water in a cage outside. She pushed upright, one eye barely open, and called after their backs. "Is that all you got, you pussies?" she taunted, patting her bare sternum, "Don't mess with me. I'm a fucking rock star!"

Her cellmates swarmed around, shutting her down, lifting her up and carrying her to the corner Ally called home. A couple sped off to fetch some water, while several others stripped her bare. Her head was bleeding from the massive blow to her temple. Washing her down, they bound her wound with strips of rag then bundled her into clean dry clothes.

It was all coming back- the ambush in the shower, the fight with Sonya. Ally lay on her side with her knees drawn up, shaking. Squatting around her, half a dozen prisoners were patting and stroking her, like a run-over dog dying by the side of the road. A tall, slim Chinese hooker lifted Ally's head gently into her lap. Stroking her hair, she sat rocking her to-and-fro while Ally lay crying. Through some unbidden twist of temporal perversion, she found herself back in her bedroom- a 13 year-old girl, listening to her father sobbing outside. The day her mother died, the worst pain she'd ever known. The agony remained undiminished by time or distance. "I want my Mum." she keened, on a mat, on the floor, in a cell, in a prison, in a desert in a country half a lifetime away.

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Beck studied herself in the full-length mirror. In her high-cut running shorts and tight blue running bra, sweat band, pink ankle socks and brand-new Brooks Adrenalines, she was a veritable ad for fitness apparel. Not without difficulty. Just getting hold of the wardrobe had been an epic of De Millian proportions, as relays of maids rushed box after box of brand-new running shoes into her room, while the doctor knelt at her feet, fitting her out like some new-age Cinderella. Then the shorts, a dozen to choose from, and running tops. Then the gym itself, created to Beck's specifications- treadmill, stationary bike, ballet barre and rowing machine, each linked to high def TV displays for that virtual exercise experience. And floor to ceiling mirrors along one wall, the final touch, opposite the floor to ceiling windows facing the sea.

Convinced they were fattening her up, Beck spent much of each morning trying to slim back down. Right now, it seemed, she was managing to hold her own, through push ups, sit ups, squats and chins, and daily five-k run at a five-minute pace. Twisting at the hip, she studied her ass, smoothing the fabric over her butt. Not bad, she had to admit, though all runners knew, conditioning acquired over months of gruelling effort could be lost in a matter of weeks.