Love your Enemies: Chapter 3

He is looking at me, but not like any elf has ever looked at me before. He's not looking at me like I'm a piece of dirt or a disease or a slimy slug.

Except for the Raiders, I have never seen an elf this close before. What hits me first is the blinding reflection of the morning light in the gold buttons on his sky-blue uniform; then I notice the fresh smell surrounding him, not unlike that soap the Rebel girl gave me yesterday. He seems so out of place in the middle of this filth and stink, with his graceful Elven features, those beautiful green eyes and long, golden hair…

Why, then, is he here? My heart is beating like crazy and the only thing I can think of is that I must have done something wrong without noticing, and he's come to arrest and punish me. But why is he not doing anything? Why is he not saying anything? What should I do? Running is not an option. Screaming is no use. Grovel in the dirt? Maybe…

He sits down on one of the cleaner rocks and looks around. What’s going on? He doesn’t even take a handkerchief to cover his over-sensitive elf nose like I’ve seen so many others do when they pass our mud path with their carriages. What’s going on? Why is he here? Why is he looking at me again? He must think I’m really ugly. I must smell really bad. Why did I not repair the patches on my dress last week when Mama told me to?

“What is your name?”

I start so violently that one of my water buckets falls over and rolls into the stream. I scramble to retrieve it. Three impossible things have just happened. An elf has spoken to me. He spoke to me kindly, without a trace of hate and disgust in his voice. And he did not use Elvish, but the language that used to be spoken here and that officially we aren’t allowed to use. How come he knows it? Maybe it’s a trap; it must be a trap…

But what can I do? Pretend I don’t understand the illegal language every elf knows we still use at home, and appear insolent, or reply and get arrested for using it? Looks like I’m going to be arrested either way.

“I’m Katarina,” I say – though it comes out more as a squeak.

The elf nods and smiles. “I am Cirion,” he says. “Cirion Edalzar.”

This conversation is not real. It can’t be. We can’t be talking to each other this way. This is how a human would speak to a human, or an elf to an elf. But not how elves speak to humans. I want to go home. Grandmama will bite my head off if I’m back too late. Why is he here? Does he know how uncomfortable he’s making me feel? Is he doing this on purpose just to torture me? Or does he want to lull me into lowering my guard for whatever happens next? An icy shudder runs down my back as I remember some of the horror stories I’ve heard in the village.

“Is this where you collect water?” he asks.

There it is. Now he’s starting to make fun of me. Somehow it makes me feel more at ease. Ridicule I can deal with – I’m used to such treatment. It’s kindness that freaks me out.

“Yes,” I say, and in a flight of stupidity add, “thanks to you.” I realise straight away that I should have held my tongue. They punish insolence hard.

But he doesn’t react at all like I expect him to. He just gives me a slightly perplexed look and says, “Do you not know about the cleaner river up ahead?”

“You don’t know?” I blurt. Oh man, he’ll have hundreds of reasons to arrest me by the end of this. “There’s a fence. We’re to keep out.”

He looks honestly confused now. “I was told your people refused any of our help and insisted on living the dirty ways they did before we came to civilise the world.”

“Civilise?” God, what am I doing? I should just shut up. Isn’t it obvious he’s just trying to provoke me? I clamp my hand over my mouth and mumble “Sorry”, though it’s not likely to change anything about the fact that I’m not addressing him with respect as I should, and that will give him perfect excuse to hurt me.

“No, speak,” he says. “I have never heard the human perspective before.”

All the alarm bells in my head are yelling, ‘TRAP! TRAP!’ I don’t know what to say, what to think, what to feel. I don’t know whether to be curious or nervous or afraid. Could it be not all the elves know what’s being done to us and why? Could it be this one really is different? ‘TRAP! TRAP!’

“I’m not the best person to ask about human perspective,” I say evasively. “I wasn’t really around when the old city was standing. All I have is hearsay.”

“Oh? How old are you?”

“Seventeen,” I say, scratching at a flea bite.

“So you were born during the invasion,” he says.

“Just after.” How come I know better than he does? The elves at least have reason to celebrate it; we only want to forget. Suddenly I am bursting with curiosity. I don’t really know anything about the elves. How long has he been on Earth? Why did he come here? Is his family here too? How old is he? Is it even polite to ask an elf that? I decide to give up on my weak attempts at acting respectful and ask the most burning question: “Why are you talking to me?”

“Would you prefer me to go?” he says.

‘Yes,’ I think. “No,” I say. “It’s just… elves don’t really talk to us, normally.”

“Well, there is nothing forbidding me speaking to you,” he says.

“I’m sure there’s something forbidding me,” I say, then quickly clap my hand over my mouth again.

“If there is,” he says, “you can blame me. I started it.” He laughs and suddenly he’s crouching right before me, prising my hands away from my face and saying, “You need not worry.”

This is too much. An elf has touched me. Not like the Raiders who dragged me by the hair, hit me, shoved me, kicked me… no. Nothing like that. “I’m sorry,” I stammer, hardly aware of what I’m saying, “my hands are so dirty…”

I’m so confused I don’t really know what I’m doing. I reach for the water buckets and shakily get to my feet. “You shouldn’t be here,” I say. “You shouldn’t come so close to me. I might give you fleas. Or lice. Or a disease. Haven’t they told you that?”

“Maybe I do not care,” he says, and smiles.

“Why?” He’s standing so close it hurts my neck to look up at him.

“We elves know so little about you humans. I wanted to get to know one of you, to find out more about how you live.”

“Well, you’ve seen it,” I say. “Dirty and uncivilised, just like they’ve always told you.”

“And suspicious,” he adds.

“You’d be too.” If only my hands were free, I’d smack them right over my stupid big mouth again. “I need to go.” Before my tongue brings me into any more danger.

“Wait.” His fingers brush mine as he pulls the water buckets right out of my hands and tips their contents onto the muddy, rubbish-strewn ground. “Let me give you clean water,” he says.

I stand rooted to the spot, struck dumb, and watch him walk away with our two precious buckets. Grandmama will kill me and hang my corpse out the window if I come home without them. But what can I do, wrestle them back from him?

Cirion stops and turns around. “Come, Katarina,” he calls, and smiles.

This must be a trap. But what can I do? At the moment, the prospect of Grandmama’s wrath seems more threatening than following this elf. Though I’m sure to regret this later… I hurry to catch up with him.

“Isn’t this the wrong way?” I ask. The clean river is a short way further up the other bank of our dirty one; this is the path back to the village – and the elf city. Probably he didn’t want to get his sensitive elf feet wet, or dirty those lovely shoes… I’ve never had shoes…

“Not quite,” he says, passing me back one of the buckets, which is strange, because now I could, in theory, run off with it and spoil whatever sinister plan he’s been brooding. Unless there is no sinister plan…

He leads me abruptly off the mud path as soon as we’re in sight of the city walls, though if anyone had been watching, they’d have seen us long ago. “Won’t you get in trouble for being with me?” I ask.

“No need to be concerned for me,” he says.

“We’re used to that water, you know,” I say.

“Then view this as a treat.”

The way is rocky and blocked by boulders. Probably a deterrent to keep the Rebels from getting into the city. I wonder: how do they get in? I’m having such a hard time climbing these things, I wonder why anyone, no matter how frustrated and angry, would want to do it freely.

Suddenly, Cirion does what I would never have expected an elf to do: he reaches out his hand. “Come,” he says, “let me help you.”

I look at his hand, so clean and smooth, then at my own, rough, callused and dirty, full of the scars of being human. This moment feels like forever. He waits, looking at me calmly with those deep green eyes, and I see no disgust or revulsion in them. I quickly wipe my hand on my dress, as hard as I can, before taking his. He doesn’t even flinch at my touch, but helps me to the top of the boulder and then over to the next.

Am I still breathing? It feels like my insides have just turned over. I am made up of heartbeats and soon I will catch fire and explode. Soon I will wake up and Grandmama will send me to fetch water and everything will be as it always has been, because this cannot be real.

We have reached the base of the city wall. It towers high above us, its graffiti-covered stone cold to my touch. This particular stretch of wall is decorated with an especially graphic piece of Rebel artwork depicting the Emperor of Elves being decapitated in a pool of blood. Cirion ignores it and draws a huge bunch of keys from his pocket. I realise with panic what he’s planning to do, and lose the very last vestiges of polite and respectful behaviour. “Are you crazy?” I exclaim. “You can’t take me in there! They’ll kill me as soon as they clap eyes on me!”

He turns a key in a lock I didn’t see before and pushes open a door I’d never have guessed was there. “Trust me,” he says. “No harm will befall you while you are with me.”

I’m not so sure about this. He didn’t even know we’re not allowed to take water from the other river. But I can’t very well just stand here. I take a deep breath and follow him in.

The doorway leads onto a narrow flight of steps, their corners intricately carved though hardly anybody must come this way. Cirion leads me up to a bright, quiet street lined with trees and tall walls topped with painful-looking spikes that are shaped like pointy leaves or birds with their beaks turned upwards. The smell of flowers is in the air. I am on forbidden ground.

“Come.” Cirion takes my hand again and leads me round corners and down streets so quickly I can hardly take in all the new impressions: the tall, ornate gates to gardens that stretch out into the distance, statues or fountains in the middle of a silent square, trees carrying some kind of fruit I don’t recognise. I keep expecting us to run into someone and get caught, but there’s no one around. I start wondering whether this place is inhabited at all, but Cirion keeps glancing back over his shoulder and stopping to listen, and once he pulls me behind a tree just in time before a horse-drawn carriage jingles past. I think I’ve never done anything this reckless and crazy in my life – but it’s too late now for regrets.

We turn another corner and suddenly are facing the largest expanse of green I have ever seen. “This is the park,” Cirion explains. I have never seen such lush, healthy grass before. A long row of trees stretches out along the wide, cobbled street we have just entered. I smell it before I see it, glittering and winking at me between tree-trunks and branches: the river! I can hardly contain myself; if it were not for Cirion’s firm hold on my hand, I’d bound off immediately and jump right into it.

“There is normally no one here at this time of day,” Cirion says, warily checking the road before leading me across under the shade of the trees, “but it is wiser to be safe.” Okay; that means no running.

The trees are planted in neat, orderly rows, with statues standing between them. Some of the statues have food or flowers lying at their feet, so easy to take… I see now why Josie would risk coming into the city. But this is just too simple, too perfect. “Doesn’t anyone ever make sure no one steals this stuff?” I ask.

“The sacrifices? No one would take those,” Cirion says. He clearly has no idea about us humans. “There are occasional patrols,” he adds, at which I immediately whip around with the feeling of being followed, my heartbeat quickening.

He presses my hand and laughs. “Have no fear; I know the times of guard duty and this is not one of them.” I think now I’m almost starting to believe what he says.

Then suddenly there it is: the river, calm and silvery, right before me. Cirion lets me go but I no longer feel like running. I can only stand rooted to the spot, breathe deep the fresh smell of pure water and wet soil, and marvel at this river I can see the bottom of. I don’t know why, but I notice I’m crying. Is it because this is too beautiful to be true, like I’ve died and gone to heaven? Is it because this isn’t ours, but just another thing the elves have stolen from us? Is it because I’ll have to go back soon and go on living with muddy water that still tastes bad even after it’s been boiled and filtered? I kneel down by the riverside, scoop up some water and hesitate before drinking, as if it’s something holy. Holy water – for me. Thank you, God. But this is a privilege we all should have. God made water for us all, didn’t he? Not just for them.

“Here, Katarina.” Cirion puts down the two buckets, newly filled with pure, clear water, beside me. Why is he doing this for me?

“Thank you,” I say.

“It is nothing,” he replies.

“Not for us,” I say. And it hurts. I wish we could take clean water for granted like they do.

“Shall I take you back?”

‘No,’ I think. “All right,” I say. He takes one bucket, I the other. I have never before been so careful not to spill anything. I’m almost more worried about losing some of my precious load than about being discovered.

Finally, we reach a familiar sight, though I’ve never seen it from this side: the city gates, about five times as tall as a normal person, looking out onto a fine broad road lined with tall trees that can’t quite hide the desolate ruins of the Great Rubbish Dump on either side. Cirion comes all the way to the place where the mud track passes under the clean Elven road. I jump down, avoiding the spikes on the side of the bridge that are meant to keep us from climbing up, and he passes me the two buckets of water. “Don’t spill it!” I keep exclaiming, reminding myself very much of Grandmama.

It doesn’t seem right to just turn and leave. “Thank you,” I say again. I’m almost giddy with wonder at the fact that all the while, he never was planning anything sinister. I’m sure I’m breaking some rule or other, but after all that’s happened this morning, I guess it no longer makes a difference: “Will I see you again?” I ask.

“Maybe,” Cirion says.

“Then… till next time.” I turn and head home without looking back. But I can still feel his eyes upon me, and in my mind I see again his smile.