Read Online The Girl in Green by Derek B. Miller - Free Book Online Page A

proxy, Tigger calmly explained to Herb that all this was the fault of the Americans.
    â€˜Oh, really?’
    â€˜Ah, yes. All your compatriots think they are in the Dutch countryside in World War II. They are giving out Hershey bars again. Patting the children on the heads.’
    â€˜So we’re being friendly to the locals — what of it?’
    â€˜They aren’t Dutch. They’re Kurdish,’ explained Tigger. ‘They’ve been taught not to receive a gift without giving one back. So, having nothing, they are scouring the countryside for objects to give back to your soldiers — hand grenades, cluster munitions, anything of equal value to a Hershey bar. Your people have no idea where they are, what they’re doing, or what the consequences of their actions might be. None. And now this kid is out there, and I have no idea what we’re going to do. I suspect he will die and we will have to watch. As we always watch. Helpless, from the sidelines.’
    â€˜I’ll get him,’ said Arwood, who had been listening to their conversation.
    â€˜Don’t be ridiculous,’ Tigger said.
    â€˜No, really. I’ll do it,’ he said, and without further ado he slipped from the ridge and walked casually past Märta and her penny-loafer-wearing translator, directly into the minefield.
    â€˜Wait!’ Märta said after a pause that lasted too long.
    Arwood walked into the contaminated area, his footsteps clear and sharp in the dirt.
    Benton silently approached Märta, who was still on the ridge. To Märta, Benton seemed more concerned than surprised. Whatever was happening here was the product of something else. Benton and Arwood had come from the south, near Samawah, where the fighting was hot. Something had set Arwood off on this trajectory that she didn’t understand, but perhaps — from the expression on his face — Benton did.
    Arwood walked casually toward the child. His smile was as tender and wholesome as a Tennessee sunrise. When he reached the little boy, Arwood dropped to one knee as though he were taking orders or issuing a small prayer, though both were the furthest from the truth. He looked into the blue eyes of the little boy and said, ‘Arwood.’ He patted himself on the chest. ‘Arwood,’ he said again.
    A piece of shrapnel from the explosion that had killed the other child had lacerated the boy’s soft face with a laser-straight cut from his chin up past his left eye. It was deep and bleeding, and would obviously scar, but his eye was unharmed and the blood loss was modest.
    The boy was in shock.
    Benton watched from the top of the ridge where, by then, a hundred people had gathered. Herb and Tigger had stopped arguing, and Märta and her translator had stopped talking. The spectacle of Arwood Hobbes crouching in the minefield with the boy had united the refugees and the international staff in a common moment that everyone could understand and no one could explain.
    â€˜Arwood,’ said Arwood, patting himself gently on the chest again.
    The boy stared at Arwood. He was traumatised. There was no predicting how he would react. He could just as easily have sprinted off across the minefield. But he didn’t. Without a sound, as though released from a cage, the child leap into Arwood’s arms and held him as though Arwood were the winged Buraq who would fly them both away on a night journey to a fabled place where they could find whatever had been lost.
    When the boy was firmly engulfed in Arwood’s arms, the ubiquitous silence broke. To Benton, it was as though all the languages of the coalition were being spoken at once, pulling the moment apart by trying to fix it. The hundred people on that ridge had swelled and swelled again. To a million refugees. To all twelve thousand American forces from all four branches. To two thousand French, one thousand Italians, one thousand Dutch, one thousand Turks, four thousand