The Sigh, The Heart 

uck Sergeant Lionel Bronstein was stationed somewhere between the Tigris and the Euphrates, I am not at liberty to tell you precisely where.  Late on a Friday afternoon, the Humvee M1114 armoured vehicle for which he was responsible pulled to a halt outside a dwelling on the outskirts of a recalcitrant city. 

Private Rivera was driving.  Both marines were aware that the vehicle offered little protection from a mine blast below, so they selected the location with care before disembarking.  Sergeant Bronstein gave thought also to his vulnerable comrade crewing the machine gun on top of the vehicle - vulnerable despite the newly-fitted 45.72 centimetre-high steel plates with bullet-proof windows. 

Before the sound of the engine had died away, Bronstein slid from his seat to take a stance between building and truck.  He did not close the door fully – Humvee doors had a reputation for getting stuck, locking a soldier out, or in.  Immediately, he was scanning the scene, chewing his gum slowly, rhythmically, his M16 rifle held firmly in both hands. 

Lucky followed.  He leapt from the vehicle, alert, M4 carbine at the ready.  As he surveyed the area for snipers, he brushed the dust from his uniform, four stokes at a time, counting to himself, his lips hardly moving, "One, two, three, four."  He took four steps.  Sergeant Bronstein had warned him that the ritual could prove a risky distraction, but after each warning, Lucky had silently insisted that it helped him concentrate and brought him luck.  Had it not kept him alive so far, providing certainty in an uncertain world?  He tapped his M4 four times, counting, watching, surviving.  

Behind the wheel, Rivera eyed the road keenly.  He placed his left hand on his M16 and, in one deft move with his right, he pulled the warm key from the ignition, kissed it then dropped it into his jacket pocket and patted the velcro flap.  He transferred the weapon to his right hand and slipped out of the Humvee.  

The gunner above him remained seated half in, half out of the Humvee.  Rivera joined Lucky and Bronstein circling the vehicle, each watchful.  The cooling engine ticked and the radiator fan whirred.  They were oblivious to the steady, dull murmur of city life behind them.   

Nothing moved.

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hey tried to ignore the distant adhan of the muezzin, the call to prayer.  For the fourth time that day, the familiar sustained monotone began its drone and then the lone male voice soared above it, at first open-throated, then quavering, nasal.  

"Allāhu Akbar," it began.  The phrase was repeated three times. 

The soldiers were listening for movement.  The sole shadow to catch Sergeant Bronstein's anxious eye was that of a scurrying scorpion.

They waited.

"Hayya ‘ala-s-Salah, hayya ‘ala-s-Salah."  "Hasten to the Prayer, hasten to the Prayer." 

Bronstein heard Rivera spit into the dust.

Stillness. 

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he air pressing against Bronstein's face was hot and dry.  He could feel his T-shirt sticking, wet to his back.  As Lucky edged around the truck towards him, eyes and M4 trained on the empty road, Bronstein could see the dark 'v' shape that permeated Lucky's jacket from his shoulders to the base of his spine.  The Sergeant was monitoring Lucky's increasing nervousness.  He could smell Lucky's distinctive musty body odour as the young man drew near.

From the city's minaret, they heard the call, "Hayya ‘ala-l-falah, hayya ‘ala-l-falah."  "Hasten to real success, hasten to real success."

Bronstein was conscious of his stomach.  He put it down to being uneasy between the suburbs and the open scrub.  Beyond the isolated building before them, beneath a merciless sky, the open road extended into an anonymous, hostile landscape.  There were no natural features against which Bronstein could gauge the terrain.  To his small-town, greensward, picket-fence eye, the land was alien and barren, the many shadows and subtle shades of brown and grey meaningless.  The road markings imposed by the military, the white lines lining the dark camber-less road and the imported white shingle that boarded it, were the only perceptible indication of the landscape's rise and fall, scale and variation.

At his back lay the smell of burning rubber and the eyesore of city sprawl: angular grey-brown blocks uniform in construction, irregular in breadth and height, some unfinished, all with horizontal and vertical rows of rectangular windows, a pattern occasionally relieved by arched gaps of shadow.  A few buildings were misshapen into chunks of rubble.  The sawn-off skyline was broken by the turquoise dome of the mosque and the white cylindrical tower of its minaret, the detail of its golden fluted dome lost in the dark of gunmetal cloud slowly billowing, rising from the urban horizon to the clear cobalt heavens.   

Bronstein was making a mental report on the immediate man-made location.  Here, on the furthermost southern edge of the city, at the roadside, the south-facing single storey dwelling was in mottled hues of grey and pink.  The facade was topped by a stone screen, which could, despite the two openings, each with four balustrades, conceal more than one sniper - as might the off-centre brick block on the roof, ostensibly housing a cistern.  

"Assume nothing.  Trust no-one," he had told his team.  "Expect anything and everything." 

On the roof, a satellite dish faced the sky.  To the east of the house, was a waist-high wall that would provide good cover.  Behind that, two palms rose, the outer one leaning at a precarious angle.  The wood-panelled door was shut.  Beside it, to the west, blocking a narrow opening, was an ornamental, turquoise, head-high, metal gate.  Door and gate were flanked by barred windows, also painted turquoise.  Bronstein believed the colour to be the same as that of the mosque dome at his back.  There was one window on the eastern side of the house, in shadow between a bricked-up doorway and a sturdy table bearing a slatted rectangular box, possibly an air-conditioning unit.  Beneath the western window, stood an upright rusting man-sized barrel and, lying on its side, an abandoned refrigerator deprived of its door.  Bronstein noticed that the two pans by the barrel were shining new.  The Frigidaire could hide a hostile child. 

Among the rubble between the soldiers and the house that confronted them lay a solidified bag of cement, a car tyre and two empty blue plastic bags.  There was no movement.    

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ergeant Bronstein stopped chewing and swallowed his gum.  He caught the eye of the gunner covering their backs and then nodded the order to the others.  Lucky kicked the door in.  It splintered and flew open.

Bronstein burst in first, shouting, flanked by Rivera and Lucky, each grasping his weapon, ready for action. 

“Nobody move!  Security forces!  Stay - where - you - are!” 

Bronstein could hear the cry from outside, "La ilaha illa-llah."  "There is no lord except God."  Then there was silence: silence and stillness. 

When Bronstein was training, the first time he engaged in a mock forced entry, he glanced at the right doorframe, heeding the impulse to touch the mezuzah he would have found at home.  The sergeant had mocked him.  He interpreted the foul language as, 'He who hesitates is lost.'  Since then, Bronstein had experience under his belt and stripes on his arm.  He pointed at the floor between his feet.  Rivera and Lucky knew the routine: this was to be the point at which they would rendezvous.  He gestured towards the stairs at ten o’clock.  Lucky bounded up them, two at a time, counting in fours.  That was where the women would be. 

The sergeant nodded towards the rear entrance at twelve o’clock.  Rivera spat on the floor, crossed himself and ran straight ahead, as at bayonet practice, crying in full voice.  “Aeiii!”  Fear instilling fear. 

Bronstein waited and listened. 

There was no sound from upstairs: this time, no female voices in protest and no Lucky yelling, panic evident in the high pitch of his voice. 

Bronstein heard no sound from the rear of the building where Rivera had charged. 

He waited.

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e stepped to one side of the rug before him.  He had learned that beneath its deliberate imperfection may be hidden a perfectly effective detonator.  He saw his big dusty boots on the tiled floor.  The light from the splintered doorway caught Rivera's spittle.  There was a stain on the fronds of the rug.  A corner curled a little towards him. 

Young Lionel Bronstein could not quite identify the resinous aroma in the place.  If he dared to close his eyes a moment, the scent would be redolent of much, for the elusive near-sweet culinary fragrance made a house a home.  He felt a shift in his bowels and the voice from his guts grumbled in a questioning tone.  He heard himself. 

He saw a glow emanating from beneath the closed door beside him.  Beyond it, a voice heaved a sigh.  He heard a creaking.  There followed a sound of something bursting, a splat, resistance giving way, release: yes, something is being released. 

Had his military training kicked in, he would have squared up to the door, taken a deep breath, held his rifle across his chest, gauged the height of the latch, shouted, "Ya!" and thrown his weight behind his right boot, exploiting the element of surprise; he found himself reaching for the door knob, quietly turning it and solemnly opening the door.

He was looking into a sunlit room.  He saw, at its centre, a tree.  It was an olive. 

A child’s cry caused him to look down.  A young girl lay on her back.  She was naked, her head uncovered.  The olive tree had burst through the girl’s breast, from where her heart must be.  

The trunk was growing rapidly, thickening and twisting.  As he watched, each coiling movement of the trunk extended to become a branch.  From every branch, there sprouted grey stems and from every stem, silver green leaves unfurled.  Moment by moment now, fruits issued in clusters, dozens at a time, each olive dangling, drawn by the Earth's gravitational pull.      

Plop!  He heard an olive fall to the floor.  Then another.  A few more.  As the tree bushed and the shifting branches pressed against the walls and ceiling, more olives dropped, surrounding the girl with the green fruit.  Silvery green leaves and twigs were scattered among the harvest.  Soon, more of the fruit were a rich purple.  Ah!  Now he knew the source of the aroma in this house, in this child's home.  He recalled his mother's mysterious conjouring of a family meal from the melée of her kitchen and the succession of smells that wafted from her labours there.  

This child turned her head towards him, frowning.  She was speaking to him, but the creaking of the fast-growing tree and the noise of olives bouncing on the floor smothered her voice.  She was beckoning. 

The young man moved towards the child.  She beckoned again.  He knelt beside her and leaned in close to her cheek, the better to hear what she was mouthing against the noise.  He could smell apples on her young breath. 

She breathed the sigh of a troubled child.  She gestured towards her heart from which grew the olive branches, the heart of a heartless world. 

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t was approaching dusk by the time Rivera and Lucky looked through the open doorway into the room.  They had returned to the point of liaison by the smashed door, empty handed, unaccompanied and deflated.  

I would like to tell you that they found the room magically deserted; however, I have to tell you what was the case.  Rivera and Lucky saw their sergeant kneeling and a hand moving.  Lucky opened fire with his M4.  A second later, Rivera, taking aim at the moving hand, fired his M16, and caught the child's chest.  His left elbow nudged Lucky's right arm.  Lucky was firing his fourth round, which smashed into the back of Bronstein's head. 

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