Surviving Anna (Ch. 19)
Anna and Charlie are alarmed to discover they haven't outrun their enemies, and they may not be the only ones in danger...
Narration by Hilarey Johnson
Recap: When, halfway to their destination, Charlie explains that Anna is a “person of interest” in an assault of her best friend, Anna pleads with him to take her home. He convinces her that if they go back to Boise, no one will let her near Cass, and she might be arrested. Anna is devastated. She feels as if all she has left is the story of Tri and his son and the refugee crisis. Charlie and Anna continue their journey. The night they arrive, their dinner conversation becomes intimate…as does Charlie’s kiss, before he says goodnight.
As they say, the historical narrative is written by the victor. Every story has a contrasting perspective, and how we remember an experience relates to where we stand when the smoke clears. Labeling heroes and villains often depends on one’s perspective. Remembered conversations are spun, actions taken out of context, events reframed. One thing journalists learn very quickly is this: Most people we think of in villainous terms are the heroes of the stories they tell themselves.
From The Refugee Crisis and The Law of Unintended Consequences, by Charlie Moore, with Anna Barlowe
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Anna throws her bag across her shoulders, grasps the handle on her door and moves into the corridor with determined steps. She stops to steel herself, reliving the memory of Charlie’s words in this very spot the night before. And the press of his warm lips on hers… That memory makes her breath catch.
During a long, restless night, she’s thought through every possible scenario in her head, preemptively prepared responses to every potential thing he might say or do this morning.
Trudging down the narrow hallway, she imagines a woman’s last steps before an execution…
Which is ridiculous!
Snap out of it, Anna, and grow up. It was just a kiss. But it wasn’t just a kiss. Not for Charlie, and not for her either, if she’s honest.
Honest is the last thing she plans to be with Charlie. Honesty would mean she’d like to take back everything she said last night—about him not being right for her, about a different kind of woman than herself, one who could give him a family.
Yet another part of her still believes it was the right thing to say, the right course to stay. She straightens her spine and tells herself to be strong. What is important right now is this story and finding Tri’s son.
She’s on edge to meet this contact Charlie’s made, this nun, and interview her. The possibility of finding the one child they’re looking for, among all the lost and missing children in East Asia, seems less and less like a shot in the dark, and more like something she and Charlie might be able to pull off, together.
Approaching the stairs to the lobby, the importance of what they’re trying to do and the potential impact of such a story on so many lives hits her with its full force and complexity. In the face of this story’s magnitude, she tells herself that her and Charlie’s relationship is insignificant. She thinks of all the stupid romance movies where the couple stops to kiss and profess their love as bullets fly around them and the world hangs in the balance…and how she always throws up her hands and yells, Not now!
But when she descends the last few steps from the floor above and the lobby comes into view, their eyes meet, and Anna knows every response she’s so carefully crafted will fail her. Though she smiles, her mind struggles to remember all the reasonable words she’d planned to say. Like her vanishing willpower the night before, it’s as if she’s grasping at smoke.
Charlie doesn’t smile, but his eyes do. He appears completely relaxed. At most, he has a let’s get this show on the road air about him. “You ready?”
Had she dreamt that kiss? Impossible, because she’d barely slept.
“Uhhh,” she stutters. “Ready…for what?”
“The flight to Bhadripoor.”
“Oh. Uh. Y-yeah, I think so.”
“Great.” He throws his pack over his shoulder and heads for the door. “Let’s do this.”
She trails him, wondering if she had fallen asleep after all, and she’s still dreaming.
The flight to the city of Bhadripoor on the hilariously-named “Yeti Airlines,” begins uneventfully. To Anna’s relief, they have no trouble at the airport. Charlie remains all business, and she’s determined to focus on the story. I guess we’re just going to ignore last night. Fine with me. Two can play that game, and I’m a champion at this one.
After take-off, he pulls a map from his bag and leans in close to be heard over the hum of the engine. She can feel his breath on her cheek but ignores the way it makes her skin prickle. He points out where they will land, and the route they’ll take to the refugee camp near a village called Thana. The map is familiar to Anna. She’d spent most of her sleepless hours on in-depth research of the refugee camps, the Shabdkosha people, their culture and traditions.
As the plane descends into Bhadripoor, she asks about the contact he made with the Catholic nun, Sister Celia, who’s been teaching English in the camps for a decade. “She said the resettlement program was supposed to end two years ago,” Charlie responds. “It’s been extended to be sure everyone who qualifies for resettlement has the chance for a new life—”
Anna gasps when the plane bumps and rattles over more than average turbulence on descent, and they both grab their armrests.
Willing her heart to calm, she determines to focus on what they’ll find when they land, rather than obsess over whether or not they’ll survive the touch-down. “From what I read last night—” Anna’s nearly yelling to be heard over the roar of the small plane’s engine. “Most of those left in the camps refuse to leave. They still have hope they’ll be able to go back to their family homes in Sutyan. But there’s no realistic possibility of that outcome. Sutyanese people have been given those lands, and their families have lived there for a couple of generations, at least. The people in the camps have no home to go back to.”
Anna pauses, swallows over the lump in her throat. She doesn’t say, I can relate, but feels as if Charlie knows what she’s thinking.
He gives her a sympathetic nod, but his response is drowned out by the pilot’s voice crackling from the cockpit. The man is clearly visible from where she sits. The pilot looks and speaks Pashgharese. Perhaps due to the number of Western tourists on the flight, he’s also giving directions in English…with a Texan accent. Anna smiles. Must be where he went to flight school.
“Folks, we have some good tailwinds behind us,” the pilot says, “which you can thank for the quick flight. But the runway coming up is short, in the best of circumstances. Would y’all please move to the back of the plane, and buckle up.”
It isn’t a request.
Anna’s eyes widen. “Is he using us as ballast to stop the plane in time?”
Charlie shrugs, and they join the queue of passengers shuffling to the rear seats.
Her hands have begun to shake so hard, she has trouble buckling her seatbelt.
Charlie sounds completely serious when he says, “Need some help?”
But as her seatbelt clicks into place, she returns the laughter in his eyes with just a touch of smug. “I’ve got it.”
“Don’t worry.” He settles in. “We’ll be fine.”
“Not your first time?”
He waves a dismissive hand and yells something over the screech of tires on asphalt. All Anna catches are the words, probably survive, which isn’t exactly reassuring.
