The Soldier’s Prayer

Mohit Prasad

He opened the big doors at the entranceway to the great hall and sat on one of the palm wood furniture that dotted the green and red carpet. The high ceilings and beveled beams of the great hall were adorned with flags and wooden shields. In one corner was an armory of old guns and weapons. The thick glass cabinet was a gift from one of their army training schools overseas. He was one of the first graduates from the bright pink and brown buildings that stood in dots of ice candy on the outskirts of that cold, planned city. A gilt edged frame of his graduation photo took pride of place ahead of the later graduates on the wooden frame of the cabinet. Duntroon class of 1970. Squaring his shoulders he took another long look at the clean-cut features of a younger self in the matt printed black and white photograph.

That was a long time ago. He had moved on to research and development in the institute by 1980. In 1986 he was the head of strategic planning and internal control logistics. A quiet position that he held until 2001. Two years shy of his retirement age. The papers in the ten black and red manila folders were tied with color-coded ribbons. He slipped the knot and spread the papers on the clear glass top of the low desk in front of the armchair. The decision was already made and his concurrence was expected. Only his long absence in search of his long lost love had created doubt between the other two assessors. They were good men and he had nurtured them in the field. The long empty corridor to the kitchen and bar echoed with the footsteps of the batman clad in white. A tray of fruit cut into triangles and a long tall ice filled glass of orange juice was balanced casually on his forearm.

“Your order, sir.” He nodded casually at the tall soldier who placed the tray on the corner of the desk with the papers on it. “Will that be all, sir”? “Thank you. That will be all soldier.” “Permission to stand at ease sir” “At ease soldier”

He was annoyed with the request and briskly brushed his forefinger across his nose.

A minute of uneasy silence ensued as he considered the request. The tall soldier maintained his erect poise. His face not giving away any of his unease as his request was pondered over.

“Nothing is off the record for a soldier. If you have anything to say it will be part of the records. Nothing can be said that is off the record in this room. I will not allow it. You, like the others, had a chance to out across your views during the mandatory submission period. There were no restrictions on information. I do not have time for afterthoughts to be put off the record as you say.”

The soldier stiffened and he looked away in a grimace. His beautiful bow shaped lips knitted in a painful grimace that would have been of concern if his senior officer had looked up. Instead he was dismissed with a casual wave and a stiffly held up forefinger waving further silence. Boots were brought together in one neat movement as he slipped back to attention. The tall basketball player profile hung for a fleeting moment over the bent form of the head of strategy and logistics before slowly moving away with scraping strides.

Triangles of the neatly cut papaws, pineapples and watermelon liberally sprayed with limejuice were pushed into thin bamboo skewers. The fruit and juice soon disappeared. He dabbed a small triangle of a paper napkin around his mouth as he opened the little cream files that were in a separate pile. They held affidavits by those charged. He flicked through them the crisp pages sucking in air and shutting down on each other. The case and charge sheets file was thoroughly looked at during the early part of the morning.

The tall soldier slammed back the heavy aluminum sheeted doors of the kitchen and threw his cap angrily across the tightly packed room. It sailed past the hanging crockery and landed straight into the hot cast iron boiler. He cursed and sailed across the room in three strides and snatched his cap out of the boiling water. The bridge and epaulets on the crown were already damp. He cursed thickly and placed the cap in a thick towel and squeezed hard on the side. Tears welled in his eyes and his wide shoulders heaved as he opened a fridge and poured himself a cold glass of water.  Wiping his eyes with shaking hands he pulled out a leather apron and began sharpening a set of butcher knives on a set of well-oiled emery blocks. Fine shards of metal from the knives stuck like stubble to the wooden boxes in which the emery blocks were placed. He bent down low and tested the razor sharp edges of the knives with his forefinger and thumb. Two rows of beef sides hanging in the walk-in meat larder at the side of the kitchen stiffened and swayed in the thin mist coming off their chilled carcasses. He set his eyes close together and concentrated on the task at hand. Lips moving in a silent prayer as he fought back tears and soldiered on.

“I was born to follow, mother. Forgive me, but I tried, things are not the way they used to be. Listening is now longer available on request. I tried and failed mother.” He rasped in time with the blade running down the block. He pictured his mother sitting in her wheelchair and peering down at him through her thick bifocals. Her steel grey hair stiff and hard as her eyes as she muttered disdain at everything he had done. She had never forgiven him for his marriage. He had not only shown disrespect but disregarded all her efforts in making traditional arrangements she had with an intended that would have guaranteed a socially mobile future for her son. Instead he opted to marry a commoner policewoman he shared a beat and a bed with.  Mother had not spoken to him for the three years they were married. He was snubbed even when he had achieved national recognition for his sporting prowess and had been feted by the rich and powerful. A newspaper journalist who had tried to interview her had been stopped at the gates of the family home overlooking the large river delta.

And when the marriage broke up due to his increasing fame and the number of women who opened more than their arms for him, she had visited him the next Sunday. Armed with a lengthy sermon she had raised her son from his hangover and brought him back under God. His mother took a bit longer to take him back under her wings.  He was forgiven for all further trespasses as he finally made a career change and joined the army. The end of sporting prowess and accompanying fame saw a return to alcohol and the need to extend his notches on women. Some he bought, others came on the fag end of fame, still others were pinned down under his huge frame and conquered. Stints in Lebanon saw a dabbling in the burgeoning black-market trade in cigarettes, drugs and alcohol. Women and money were the great rewards. A few broken necks of pimps and prostitutes in alleyways in the towns dotting Lebanon were lost amid the rockets and explosions that were commonplace in the eighties. Habits were quickly formed and rumors about his modus operandi saw a quick sleight of hand and his transfer to the elite group of men and women who attended hand and foot to the top brass. He had remained there since.

In the great hall symbols in the form of flags, mounted plaques, great swathes of ribbons and photographs lined the recessed beams around the ceiling. The pile of papers on the left side of his knee was reduced to two black files embossed in silver numbers. They were coded files and known to only the three assessors. It was almost three hours to the minute that he had walked into the great hall. He felt a slight discomfort from the gas in the fruits and belched lightly into tightly curled fingers. The slight aroma of roasting beef from the kitchen must have triggered it off. The smell of the meat cooking brought back memories of the 1989 officers ball at the resort midway on the south coast of the island. He felt the shape of the woman he had slept with that night as he ran his fingers lightly over the curved sides of the armchair. She had been waiting in bed when he had walked away from the ball at two in the morning. The businessman who was in the hotel by coincidence had expressed surprise at seeing him there and pulled him aside and asked him to save some energy for the last dance.

“It will be horizontal, sir and I know how you enjoy that after all this is over.” The glistening dome and nose of the businessman shone in the strobe lights of the bar as he sniggered over his own joke. The lights failed to pick up the fine plastic surgery done on his cleft palate in Switzerland. Turning with a jerk he made a beeline for the door. The smell of liquor and drunks disgusted him. Another long shower under the hot water and some CK and he might even be ready for the exhausted little girl in his bed.

The woman was small but sumptuous and her hips and thighs under the thin sheet profiled the softness of her being. Long, dark hair was carefully placed over a shoulder. He had very pleasantly turned down her offer to undress him. Instead he stripped off with military precision and was in her before her hands had reached out to the plastic sheath of scented condoms on the bedside table.  She was gone in the morning.

The rolled brisket of beef simmered in the steam of its juices as it slow cooked in the old cast iron roasting oven. It was for a private order for that afternoon. The Great Hall and kitchen usually closed on a Sunday. Only the batman had come in for work to provide service to his command. He was slicing sides of beef and keeping an eye on the roasting beef as part of his assigned duties to fill in the long hours in-between calls for his service. The Great Hall cook left detailed computer-generated notes from the New Zealand Livestock Producers website on the cooking of the beef and slicing of the meat. A separate order for lunch and afternoon tea for the head of logistics and strategy was pinned to the bright white notice board. A large aluminum pot of sliced and chopped beef ribs stood to one side of the tall soldier. He picked up the voices in the air-con duct soon after serving lunch. In the middle of another prayer the tall soldier stopped, took the knives out of the soapy water, wiped them and began to sharpen the full set for a second time.

In the great hall the flags waved in time with the turning of large steel bladed wall fans. The smell of food had vanished from the steel and leather of the room. The command smoothed out sheaves of paper and filed them into the red and black folders. Deft twists turned the color-coded strips of satin into a tight binder for the folders. He moved the pile of ten folders onto a drinks trolley. The soldier moved towards the trolley of folders and wheeled it into the lift and pressed a button. The command slipped his thin square framed glasses into a leather case and placed it carefully into the black attaché case.

He leaned back in the armchair and stretched the back and shoulders that had stiffened from the long session with the folders. The singe of the knife as it cut skin and the upper portion of his Adams apple caused him no pain. Air rushed in as the sharp thin fillet knife sliced deep into his neck and came to a rest at the base of his scalp on the back of the head. The spray of pinkish red blood turned into a deeper shade as it fell on the white cloth on the side table. The killing was quick, quiet and efficient. The head lolled about and was held in place by skin and rapidly congealing blood. The tall soldier headed out of the kitchen into the loading docks to the rear of the great hall. He changed into a UNIFIL uniform tilted the blue beret and slowly drove away in a army land-cruiser. In his kit on the back seat were his papers for another stint in Lebanon and a stiff 400-gram pack of US$100 notes. Adjusting his sunglasses he paused at the main gate and slid a file to the bleary-eyed Captain who had emerged from behind the empty sentry gate. The evening Qantas flight was to Brisbane with connections through Singapore to Beirut International. In the Holiday Inn over coffee and eggs he picked out the small news item in the Brisbane Herald on a high ranking army officer found with his throat slit in a hotel room in Suva. A prostitute her face smashed in was found jammed in the toilet bowl. People were being questioned on the incident.

Mohit Prasad is a poet and writes the occasional short story. He has recently published his third collection of poems, Kissing Rain.