We were nearing the second half of the Praxis, but at that time, I couldn't care less about it. January passed me by so quickly that I could no longer keep track of time. All I knew was that I'd go to work five days in a row, stay home for the next two, and then head back to work after. My Sundays were starting to look a lot different as well. Before, it was enlightening conversations with Father Gregory. After, it was pints of pistachio ice cream while watching a TV mass in the living room.
Even the masses were interrupted. Every day at seven-thirty, twelve, and then ten in the evening, the French Pravda would be broadcasted. Back then, it would only broadcast at seven in the morning and then at twelve noon—never at night. The French Pravda often reported about the Barren Buffer Zone, and how the French on the East Coast reached a "stalemate" with the Fort Lee regiment. According to French sources, after the Tin Can Talk, no firefight was met. General Vergs and General Bernard "established" the DMZ, ranging from Fort Lee down to Hoboken.
That was a lie. The Barren Buffer Zone was established after the Fort Lee regiment reclaimed Edgewater from the Hexagon, causing the French to withdraw its forces down to Hoboken. I believe that was when General Bernard appealed to General Vergs in regard to the oral contract. The Minister of Defense was a snake, and he deployed his men once again to seize Edgewater after the DMZ—from Edgewater down to Hoboken—was established. It was a dirty mind game to catch the Fort Lee regiment off-guard. That was how we lost it in the first place—not just because Pope's guards had "brains the size of ant bums".
Another important thing to note was that, since the French Pravda didn't broadcast in the United States, the Hexagon's expeditionary forces on the East Coast knew nothing about the fabricated reports regarding the Barren Buffer Zone. When I remember the first time Captain Finer and I interrogated St. Vier, she told us that the DMZ "doesn't exist" and that we were just "too pussy-footed to traverse it".
There was a possibility that she, just like her former comrades, didn't know anything about the Tin Can Talk. It could've just been a spur-of-the-moment thing for General Bernard so that he could gain the upperhand, in which he did.
One day, I received a letter in the mail from Joseph. It always made me ease up whenever he'd write to me. I didn't feel so lonely. I wish I could've done the same, though he understood why I couldn't write to him as frequently as he did to me. For him, reaching out was like tossing a message in a bottle in the sea, hoping that his letter would be read. He didn't know if I was still alive or not.
Dear Elisabeth,
I hope this letter finds you well. It's been a while since we last spoke, and I've been thinking about our lunch talks at La Mountarville. I've never missed them so much. When this is all over, I truly hope we can schedule lunches like that again. Maybe this time with Elise. She's eager to meet you.
I wish there were a kinder way to share this news. O‑Peck's former secretary, Ms. Matsumoto Yuki, had sadly passed away. I can only imagine the sorrow this brings you. Please know how deeply sorry I am for your loss. If you ever need someone to talk to, I'm here for you.
If you're still there, please stay alive. Stay alive and keep living.
With deepest sympathy,
Joseph Falter
Ms. Matsumoto actually died before Joseph and I rode into Montreal. Her death was in the papers. The headline said: "Woman Plummets to Her Death". The French Pravda reported that Ms. Matsumoto jumped from her room on the thirty-seventh floor of the Château Champlain in Montreal on the 20th of October. Joseph found it in the papers when he was going through a collection of French Pravda bulletins he had in the office. That was when he wrote to me.
The report stated that the arched window in her bedroom had been shattered using an icepick and a mallet. Neighbors in the building even reported loud bangs that day which went on from morning to noon. Passersby below reported bits of glass raining down, followed by Ms. Matsumoto's body which hit the pavement so hard that onlookers saw her bounce a few good feet up in the air before plopping once more.
Apart from the shattered window, everything else in her bedroom and living room appeared to be in order. However, in the bathroom, she had a third-of-a-bottle of liquor on the counter, accompanied by her engagement ring and Lieutenant Miller's compass.
I didn't know any of those details during that time, though my heart was just as shattered as that arched window. What hurt most was that I grieved and grieved and grieved so much for so long that I could no longer grieve the way I should have when it came to the lieutenant's wife. I just sat there, not knowing what to do.
Her death was also covered solely by the French Pravda just like everything else in Montreal, so no one in the Fort Lee regiment could've possibly known about her death. She was buried in Mount Royal Cemetery—Joseph and I scheduled a visit.
Mount Royal Cemetery, February 6th, 1993.
February was the harshest month of winter. The air was so cold that it'd stab you in the face if you weren't breathing a certain way. You had to breathe through your mouth. If you did it through your nose, you'd get a nosebleed from the dry cold. I flagged down a taxi at seven in the morning, hoping to get there at around seven-fifteen, though the protests on the streets made the whole ride thirty-minutes longer than it should've been.
People started going after the French Pravda. They had an office in the area that locals were bombarding with acid and molotov cocktails. These protests were led by American refugees who rode in via OECs. The same thing was happening in Ottawa, Ontario, but for different reasons. If Montreal had the French Pravda to worry about, Ottawa had the Hexagon strongholds which were formed when the French crossed the Canadian border—the ones that "ran with the crowd" as "volunteers" when the Fort Lee regiment retreated from Edgewater.
Ms. Matsumoto's grave was under a beautiful red maple tree, unmoved by the harsh winter breeze. The other graves were decorated with flowers, candles, family pictures, and personal belongings—hers had nothing. I don't think anyone in the Montreal area other than Joseph and I knew the former O-Peck secretary, and that saddened me.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the lipstick that the lieutenant had given me when he told me to "live a little". I carefully placed it on top of her gravestone then stroked the etchings on it.
Ms. Matsumoto and Lieutenant Miller were good people—good, loving people. They had what Tommy and I never had, which was the gall to speak what was on our minds. As gruesome as their deaths were, and God, I wish I could erase them from my memory, things weren't left unsaid between them. They didn't come to learn that slow-killing pain of mysteries and what-could-of-beens. Their storm ended. But, dear God, why them?
Not so long ago, I wondered if Hexagon soldiers understood the concepts of peace and humanity. At the creek, I hesitated to shoot that guard—the first life I ever took. I pleaded with the couple at the university hospital not to shoot, and they still jumped the gun. I gave these people all the chances I had to give when they gave Tommy, Dr. Harriet, Lieutenant Miller, and inadvertently, Ms. Matsumoto none at all. Who was I to give those chances in the first place?
They were a beautiful couple, and even if it meant recalling the thunder beneath both their feet, I remembered them fondly.
Matsumoto, Yuki
In the garden of memory, you bloom forever.
1954 - 1992
Joseph arrived there at around eight-thirty. In one hand, he clutched his briefcase. In the other—a bouquet. He placed the bouquet at the base of her gravestone, performing the sign of the cross then bowing his head. After ending his prayer, he looked at me, smiled, and said "good morning, Elisabeth."
"Good morning, Joseph," I replied as I went in for an embrace.
You could tell how sorry he was in the way he wrapped his arms around me. He was afraid I'd break like glass.
"I'm sorry… I'm sorry for your loss."
I said to him, "We both lost a friend."
"I'm glad you're okay. I mean, it's really good to see you. These protests… God, people are gonna start disappearing because of this."
"I know," I fretted. "What is this world coming to, Joseph?"
"I'm not sure." He pulled away from my embrace and opened his briefcase. "But I think there's something you should know."
"What is it?"
Joseph fumbled with the latches of his briefcase. His hands wouldn't stay still—whether from the cold or from whatever it was he was about to show me. I couldn't tell.
"This was why the protests started," he said as he handed me a bulletin which wasn't from the French Pravda. "They're happening all over Montreal. Some groups are even at the border, urging OECs to fetch as many people as they can north and west of Fort Lee."
"Fort Lee?" I asked as I unraveled the paper.
"Yes."
Soviet ICBMC Deployed In New York!
The World's First ICBMC The "SSAS-G" Invades The Hudson River
Joseph told me that he wasn't the only stringer for the Montreal Gazette. The news outlet had sourced writers and columnists from the Times and the Washington Post who traveled up to Montreal via OECs. That was when the Montreal Gazette formed the "Verity Collective". It was a truth department made up of staff writers and refugee stringers to counter Hexagon falsehoods and shed light on what was really happening in the American Praxis. That bulletin he handed to me was published by the Collective, the names under the column being "Elise Cohen" and "Joseph Falter".
He said to me, "Two days ago, stringers from the Collective—new ones that came into Montreal just this week—came rushing into the office, warning us about an 'impending doom'."
"An impending doom?"
"Yeah." Joseph took the bulletin from my hand and kept it in his briefcase, still fidgeting the way he did when he pulled it out. "They reported that the Hexagon deployed a large-scale gunship in the Hudson. They said it was just as wide as the river itself and that it halted right before the Washington Bridge."
"Dear God," I fretted.
"You know, it was mentioned in the Genesis Speech. The Minister of Defense stated that an intercontinental ballistic missile carrier was under development and was capable of launching Cold War-era nuclear warheads."
I gasped. "The Songbird…"
"The what-now?"
If they were to bring old warheads out of retirement, the T-3 Songbird was going to serve as the perfect pick-me-up for them.
I clutched my chest as hard as I did back at Pope's office, but instead of falling down onto a TV stand, I fell flat on my behind in the cold, foot-high snow. My breaths were short and sporadic, and my legs locked out similar to when I had shrapnel jammed into them. Lastly, a black vignette filled the corners of my eyes.
I was having a panic attack.
"Elisabeth," Joseph shouted as he dropped his briefcase to assist me. "Elisabeth, are you alright?"
Everything around me felt uncanny, and every snap of a twig or crushing of snow made me think that someone was creeping up on the two of us… or maybe even finding a vantage point. My body refused to move—I was frozen just like I was on Riverside Dr. I cried in the snow, digging deep down, finding the strength to shout, but I was silenced by my own breath. The sensation felt similar to sleep paralysis—I could see and hear everything around me, but I just couldn't move.
Joseph had to help me up and walk me over to a bench while he kicked along his briefcase. When he sat me down, he offered me his handkerchief to wipe my face.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have brought it up—there's a time and a place."
"No, it's not your fault," I told him as I patted away my tears. "For things like this, best tell me whenever you can."
He propped his briefcase up against the bench and sat beside me, looking over at Ms. Matsumoto's grave as he told me, "The Montreal Gazette issued me a press credential. They're giving me clearance to enter New Jersey since Rockland County's emergency administrator established Nyack as a press zone."
"A press zone?"
"Yeah. And since Rockland county is not formally occupied by the Praxis, press access is out of France's jurisdiction. Journalists are going to be flushing in from everywhere, and sooner or later, the French Pravda is going to collapse."
A gear started grinded in my head. Who was I to sit and stay in Montreal, knowing that my work was being used by the Hexagon to instill fear on the East Coast? They hurt so many people trying to find those patents. I imagined they'd do more than just brandish a nuclear warhead—I imagined they'd actually drop the bomb unprovoked.
Joseph didn't know anything about the T-3 Songbird nor my involvement with the ICBMC's development, but if my name on the corkboard truly had a string of yarn pinned to it, it'd be the straightest line you'd see. I doubted that there was anything I could've done to prevent the Hexagon from dropping the bomb, but I knew that if I stayed there in Montreal a second longer, and everyone in the Fort Lee regiment fell victim to this, the guilt would've killed me anyway.
I asked him, "Is there a way I could tag along?"
"You?" Joseph sounded confused, in disbelief that I was willing to walk back into the fire. "Well, if you were still part of the regiment, you'd have an authorization letter from the general. Since you're not anymore affiliated with the regiment, you'd probably need a civilian movement permit, but right now, they're denying all forms of entry into the U.S. other than for press."
Riding into Montreal, we had to have our ELLPs (Evacuee Labor and Lodging Permit) processed at the border. If you were Canadian-born or had Canadian citizenship, you wouldn't need an ELLP, but since I was evacuating under "Tessa Browning Lambert", a garment worker from Montgomery, I had to have one processed. I told Joseph that I renounced my Canadian citizenship when Tommy and I migrated to the States, when in reality, I was in the U.S. under a work permit.
But once you got your ELLP, you were declaring that you no longer had business in the United States, meaning that you wouldn't need to be going back for any particular reason.
"Though, we could sponsor you," he suggested.
"Sponsor? How does that work?"
"Well, since I have clearance, I can vouch for you to be part of the job as my researcher, then the Gazette could sponsor you for a temporary press access permit. I mean, you're not necessarily a journalist, but I can sign off on you."
"That sounds good."
Anxiously, Joseph wiped his brow and said, "I'm sorry. Can I ask you why you want to go back? I'd understand wanting to get a good story out of this or maybe even returning to the regiment, but as high as the influx is of refugees safely coming into Canada, not everyone gets in. Others fought tooth and nail to get here. You and I—we waltzed in."
I didn't know what to tell him. There was only so much I could say. To top it off, he didn't know that my ELLP was registered under "Tessa Browning Lambert", and if I were to get a sponsor from the Montreal Gazette, I'd have to be vouched for under "Elisabeth Baby-Peletier". My chances at getting a temporary press access permit were much higher if Joseph vouched for who he was meaning to vouch for in the first place—me, Fort Lee's former military aide—and not some garment worker from Montgomery who managed to land a content publishing job at Concordia University. He thought I applied for the position as an alumnus.
"Is it that bad?" I humorously asked him.
Joseph answered, "Well, I'd like to think you're a good friend of mine. I wouldn't want to have something happen to you."
"Don't worry. I'll be fine."
"But why do you want to go back?"
My resentment toward the regiment paled in comparison to the atrocities that the French had committed against the entire East Coast. The T-3 Songbird patents—my entire life's work—was another one of those chances I had given to the Hexagon, but at that point, I didn't think I could sit and let it happen any longer. I was no patriot, but dying for that country seemed like the right thing to do. One could say that I single-handedly gave the French Soviet Republic all the leverage they needed. In one way or another, I had to, as General Vergs would say, "pledge my allegiance".
That was one of the reasons I felt the need to return.
The other was that that love and longing never really went away for good. I tried to push it away as much as I could, but when you let people close, they just stick. Perhaps I was too forgiving, but it didn't quite matter to me anymore what they did and what they kept from me. For me, that was more of a reason to return.
I thought about General Vergs and Dr. Agatha's charming struggle of figuring things out amidst the rigid economy of the Praxis—in that regard, they were young at heart. I thought about Anais and how a young girl like her were to navigate such a broken world. I thought about the people of Mercado Lane and how they had to migrate north, displaced yet again due to French advances. Lastly, I thought about Noby, worried that things would truly be left unsaid between us. I rode into Montreal with that notion in my head and it absolutely scared me.
Joseph leaned on the edge of the bench, anticipating my response. He didn't want me to go—he really feared I'd break like glass—but I knew he'd respect my decision whatever it may have been. He was civil like that.
I told him how I truly felt. "I always end up feeling like a caged animal in places like this. Back then, I felt suffocated. Sooner or later, this place will suffocate me, too. The truth is, I can't stay away. When you let people close, you just want to… stay close. I believe I've been away long enough to realize that."
Joseph held me on the shoulder as if I wasn't thinking straight. "It's safe here, Elisabeth."
"I don't think I need it anymore."
Tommy and I didn't get to share a final moment together. I never got to tell him how much I missed him and how much he meant to me. I really wish I called. I really wish I wrote to him, and I fully take the blame for keeping that rift so wide apart. I had to accept right then and there that there was nothing I could've done to bring him back. But he loved me until the end… and I never stopped loving him.
"Tommy," I called to him under my breath, "it's alright. I'll be okay."
Visiting Ms. Matsumoto's grave gave me the opportunity to bury the hatchet with all my conflicts. It gave me the time to properly mourn not just for the lieutenant and the secretary but also for my husband. It gave me the time to realize that, since I found what I was looking for, it was time to let go. The situation was far bigger than Tommy and I. Far bigger than the lieutenant and the secretary.
And the hardest truth was that this was solely my world—the secrets, the mystery, the what-could-of-beens. I could've spent the rest of my days trying to piece my world together, but no amount of fixing could've undone the damage left by the Hexagon—that was real. And if I had given into that—that senseless fixation—it would've amounted to nothing more than another one of those chances I kept giving away.
I was done with that, and finally, my past was done with me.
* * *
Before packing my belongings and hitting the road, I had to let Joseph know about the alias I used to enter Montreal. I told him all about why I was in hiding, and that meant disclosing the Riverside incident—reliving it—in excruciating detail. The journalist was shaken when I told him about Lieutenant Miller's tragic death. Usually, Joseph would have the nib of his pen pressed up against anything he could write on, itching to get something good out of our talks. But at that moment, he just couldn't seem to write anything down. The facts were too disturbing—my attention to detail was a bit much.
He then realized why my face was the way it was and why I walked the way I did. The man didn't pity me, but there was that silent look of "I am so sorry for you" in his eyes. It was the same kind of look I got from the faculty at Concordia University and the same look I got from Father Gregory when he saw me for the first time.
I was able to have him vouch for me under the name "Tessa Browning Lambert", and I was issued my temporary press access permit by the Montreal Gazette (because of my research and comms experience at the university, I got a pass). Joseph, now knowing a fraction of what I knew, asked me a second time why I wanted to go back. He knew we were heading down to Nyack for different reasons.
Simply, I told him, "I belong."
We hit the road on the 10th of February. I remember how gray it all was because of the cold winter. Once we rode out of Montreal, we were on the long stretch of A-15, and that was where I got to see how desolate it was outside the city. That long barrenness stretched all the way down to Champlain where the OECs were stationed.
Joseph was only permitted to drive until we reached the border. From there, an OEC truck was going to take us down to Nyack and drop us off at the postal office. We hadn't been in the U.S. for a few months at that point, so we had to be ready for anything, even at the border.
On-route to Mercado Lane, February 10th, 1993.
Since we were heading back down, and virtually no one else did, Joseph and I were the only passengers on the truck. There was a large gap between us. He sat on the one end of the truck bed close to the driver while I sat at the opening, letting the cold wind graze the scars on my face. I sat and waited as if the sortie was nothing but a mid-day bus ride. Joseph didn't handle it so well—he looked afraid. I scooted my way over to him and sat by his side, holding his hand and telling him "everything is going to be okay".
"Thank you," he said in return. "So, who'd you let close?"
His question caught me off-guard. "I'm sorry?"
"You said you couldn't stay away. Who'd you let close down there?"
I looked out at the snowy fields as I told him, "All of them."
Joseph let out a chuckle as he replied, "Sounds like they left quite an impression on you. Decent people, I reckon."
"Decent people."
Apart from wanting to bridge the gap between me and Noby, I wanted to be there if something were to happen to Dr. Agatha. I couldn't even imagine the pain she must've been going through with her illness, and I couldn't say for certain that General Vergs was taking good care of her, not that he was disregarding her in any way, but they put their walls up, too.
Of course, months had gone by and some things had probably changed, but you wouldn't know if for better or for worse. You had to assume it was for worse. That way, you have that leg space to adjust instead of coming in prepared a certain way, and then the next thing, you're stuttering and scrambling about. You weren't pessimistic—you were cautious.
Joseph and I huddled together as the snow began forcing its way into the truck bed.
He said to me with a shivering voice, "You're brave, Elisabeth. Not a lot of people'd want to come back to a place like this."
"I want to be there so bad… but I'm not brave, Joseph."
"But you belong." His words reassured me.
"I do. I belong."
I ditched the shawl along the way.