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She is dead.
I made her immortal.
Her face hanging above mine, the thin smile playing on her lips as her eyes close for good. An angel. That's what I thought as I held up the lens under her blank gaze. An angel who flew through the bullets and the screams. Her body collapsed on top of mine just after catching that last glimmer inside her.
Then nothing. Silence, nothingness.
Me, alive. She, dead.
Maybe because I made the wrong choice at the wrong time.
I don't think about it, I don't think about it anymore. At least, I try. The world looks at me as the one who symbolized in a single photo the horror of war. Others - most - believe that I took death as an opportunity to rise above the world.
But they don't know anything. They will never know.
-So, are you the photographer?
I raise my head towards my colleague. Inside a military truck that agreed to take us with them, there is a mortuary silence, almost as cold as the environment in which we have been operating for weeks. I guess from his accent that he is not American and that he crossed the Atlantic to follow the last decisive round of the conflict. As we all.
-You and I are the same.
-I can't believe you're here, next to me.
- I'm James Ford, The Telegraph. Your photo has gone around the world, my dear. Are you here to repeat your success?
He offers me a hand that I don't want to take, out of politeness I return his greeting before avoiding his gaze. Around us, the soldiers give us glances, sometimes bad, sometimes intrigued, often revolted.
There is nothing worse for them than hearing us talk about our business. Because that's the real problem.
War is our livelihood.
Each of us feeds off their misfortunes and perhaps most of them despise us for that very reason.
-It seems that things are completely in shambles on this part of the front, that your country is on the verge of losing the war, do you know more? I shake my head.
Of course I know more than I want to tell him. But our job is not to pass information on to a rival. It's about doing something with what you have, producing a report that holds up without needing anyone's help.
He thinks he is going to the decisive stage of the conflict, but I know that I am going to the place of our perdition.
The Bible was wrong. Hell is not just made of flames and demons. It is sometimes wet, windy and freezing. Full of humans ready to kill each other for a cause whose source they have forgotten.
-We stop here, terminus.
The marines barely glance at us when we get out of the truck, entering the polar atmosphere of the camp for good. It only takes a few seconds for a discerning eye to understand that nothing is at stake here, except the little pride these soldiers have left. Wrapped up in my anorak emblazoned with the word press, I take the risk of taking off my gloves to capture a few photos of these men consumed by despair.
Then I saw him.
He was getting out of a truck coming from the combat zones, carrying at point blank range one of his comrades who was visibly in poor condition. The desolation with which he tried to keep him alive gripped me to the core of my being, because that is exactly what I felt that day.
So, after taking a few steps, without greeting my colleague who was already moving away to the other side of the camp, I caught my reflex.
And I took a photo of him. Several times.
First I took an overview. Him and his makeshift companion, on the ground. Him, his hand outstretched towards a group of soldiers running with a stretcher. Him again, a zoom on his features carved in rock, his helmet held firmly on his head by a strap which dug into his skin. Him. His eyes of a color that the zoom could not define perfectly. A strange mixture of caramel and hazelnut. A warmth emanating from his gaze contrasting violently with the ambient cold.
Jostled by a soldier, I interrupt my session considering the chaos reigning around me. My journalistic gear immunizes me against the violence and animosity of the fighters; better still, they must guarantee my safety while some dream of killing me. It is therefore like a ghost that I advance towards the tent into which the soldiers have entered, haunting a place where everyone is unaware of my presence.
-I'm sorry, there was nothing we could do.
The soldier's shoulders slump when a doctor walks towards him, not even bothering to take off his gloves to give him a futile hug. Everyone here knows that one gesture won't replace any deaths, but they're trying hard to keep things warm.
One more photo.
That's what I'm for. Not just to show the horror, but to make people feel all the emotions that result from it. The sadness freezes on the memory card forever while the event floats away in a flood of torment that only peace can dry up.
It was at this precise moment that he became aware of my presence.
He gave me that look in the face like a slap.
A look that had, for a brief moment, bypassed all the barriers I had erected around me to feel nothing other than indifference. I was screwed, but I didn't know it yet.
-Are you okay, did ya get your pic?
Much more fascinating with your mouth closed.
- Would you have started again if that wasn't the case?
I realize I'm going too far. Sometimes I forget that my defenses are not those of others and that it still happens here that someone has feelings.
-Sorry, I shouldn't have. I am…
-No need to make introductions. I know exactly who you are.
Amazing. He knows who I am AND he hates me.
-Nice to meet you, Captain Howard. You and your obvious sympathy.
He didn't want to argue, that was understandable, but something pushed me to follow him when he turned his back on me to go to another compartment of the tent. He knew my name and hadn't even introduced himself, reason enough to convince me that I had scented the right target.
Like a snake, I had slipped into a corner of the room, ignoring the looks that instinctively turned towards me before returning to their main point of interest: a large makeshift table where a map of the region was placed. I have no military training, but what I saw there was not a shadow of a doubt.
We were going to lose.
It was there, between the pawns strictly aligned to the north of our position. The reds were going to get us and it was only a matter of time. It was for this reason that I was here, to see my country fall to its knees in front of it stronger than it for the first time in its history.
-We have to hold on until the new armor prototypes arrive. said a visibly exhausted general. So they have to be there within a week, maximum.
Howard remained profoundly silent, his gaze fixed on the table. Strange attitude for someone I thought was rather angry and nervous. He clung to this map as if persisting would allow him to detect the flaw, where no hope remains.
-I suggest we try for a breakthrough here. Continued a visibly confident captain.
This suggestion drew immediate ire from the main protagonist of my report.
-A breakthrough ? he replied, acidly.
-If we manage to progress this far, it will take us little time to act after delivery of the prototypes. We will take the reds by surprise and turn the tide.
-We still need to have the necessary soldiers for this. I lost half of my men in the last attempt.
The observation plunged the room into silence. It was just a polite way of telling him that a man here was just gunpowder. He understood it perfectly because I saw his eyes clouded with bitterness. His helmet removed, I discovered a man of war-worn beauty.
-We can provide you with men, Howard. Captain Brendol puts forward an idea that should not be overlooked.
It had darkened, again, I could see the depth of his distress from where I stood and it was sucking me in, literally.
-Cooper. I can hear that the situation is confusing you, but you're going to have to go back.
-So are we there? Bet on a hypothetical prototype whose real delivery date is unknown ?
-It's an order, Captain Howard. Gather what's left of your corp and we'll provide you with what you're missing. You leave tomorrow.
The discussion was over. The general packs up his things and Captain Brendol gives Howard a triumphant smile. He's the kind of man who likes to show off by proposing suicidal ideas, but not courageous enough to carry them through to the end. There was now only me left in the room.
And him, too, him and his hazel eyes that pinned me to the wall.
-You want to come with us, right? He had swept everything away. His resentment, his fears too, all of that had waltzed away the very moment the order was pronounced. Yet he didn't follow the others, content to stand there and consider me a negligible garbage.
-That's the idea, indeed.
-And it's bad. I'm not going to explain to you wha' you might see there, your mouth will water.
-Too late for that. You already make me dream.
His hand lands on the table next to us and his eyes focus on me like two knives trying to tear me apart. I jumped in spite of myself at the violence of his gesture and his intact will despite the fatigue that stretched his features. He still believes in it, I thought, and if I wasn't so captivated by his will, I would have taken a photo of him
-I think there are things the world shouldn't see.
-And I think just the opposite. I don't think they'll miss a thing.
I stayed there, clinging to my reflex with the firm intention of not giving up any piece of land to this man. It made me wonder which of us was more accustomed to war and who was going to win the one we had just declared. I probably exaggerated my initial intention a little to provoke him a bit more, which was not the idea of the century when you had to find a place among soldiers at the end of their nerves.
But I feared nothing: he could not forbid me from following them. And he knew that just as much as I did.
-Do what you want. But I don't babysit. Me and my men will have other fish to fry to save your skin. But scavengers like you, people who take photos of those who die to win trophies, know that, don't they?
It was in this way, by literally sticking a knife in my heart, that he permanently sealed our lives. Because I will never forget Cooper Howard again, and not just for the meanness he showed towards me from the moment he laid eyes on me.