Emily's Strange Life Chapter 10

“Through here,” says Father Flaherty, unnecessarily, since I'm following his lead and can hardly miss him, even in this dimly lit corridor of an abandoned building on the trading estate outside town. Abandoned by everyone except Father Flaherty and the Sisters of the Blessed Order of St Maximillian Kolbe that is. I'm feeling nervous. Ever since Sister Immaculata dropped by earlier to say there was someone it was very important that I meet I've been not far short of a state of suppressed terror. What with one thing and another I think I've really, really had enough surprises.

“Father, what is this about?”

“There's someone we think it's very important for you to meet. It isn't safe for them to stay long but you have until morning, when we need to spirit them away again.”

As I follow Father Flaherty through a metal door I blink at the sudden brightness. Everywhere else in the building that I've seen is lost in shadowed dimness. This windowless room is dank, with bare dirty concrete walls and the only furniture is a camp bed, obviously temporary, but by comparison it is ablaze with light.

“Captain Naso? Sir?” The voice is odd, harsh and dulcet tones at the same time, like a soft voiced soprano attempting a drill sergeant's bark

The figure in front of me drops his salute and comes to rigid attention

“Ma'am! Beg pardon ma'am. Was expecting my former commanding officer Captain Naso ma'am! Sergeant Hathersage ma'am. Pleased to meet you.”

“Sergeant? I am, I was Captain Naso. No, please don't salute.”

The soldier's jaw drops. So does mine. The figure in front of me is dressed in a worn Army uniform, threadbare, thin and faded but kept meticulously clean and pressed. It might as well be in rags because it hangs from - his – from her, I realise - slender figure, like a sack from a pole. The sleeves and trousers have had to be rolled up so as not to hang a foot or so past the end of the girl's stick thin limbs. A tight belt cinched around the waist just manages to hold the combat trousers up. In contrast to the uniform the face is streaked with dirt, as if this Sergeant Hathersage has tried to coarsen the skin with grit or muddy it to hide its fresh bloom. If so she, or he, or, oh, I don't know what the correct term is in these circumstances, has clearly failed. So they've tried scarring. The face before me has been clawed, torn at, with fingernails by the look of it. The sergeant has literally been trying to tear her own, female, face off.

Sergeant Hathersage's expression is disturbing too. Every few seconds a sort of twitch runs through the whole face and the mouth twists. It takes me a few seconds to realise that what I'm seeing is an iron will fighting an almost irresistible urge to break out screaming and crying, a war that strives to tear the person in front of me apart, constantly, a fresh tremor breaking out every few seconds.

The head is shaven, in a way that would look brutal on a man, but on this person only serves to emphasise the diminutive size and delicate bone structure. Even under the looseness of the grotesquely oversized uniform I can see the swell of child bearing hips. Something tells me I've just met one of the dozen or so fellow victims of Operation Disney Princess who went over the wire and were never caught.

“Sergeant...Hathersage?” a quick nod “Sergeant I'm very sorry to say I don't remember you. Do I take it I should?”

“Are you really Captain Naso?”

“I'm an amnesiac so I honestly can't say of my own knowledge but everything seems to point to that conclusion. Did we serve together?”

“Sir, yes Sir. I was sergeant in A company Sir, for a year before, before we were captured Sir.”

“Then I'm glad to see you alive and healthy Sergeant Hathersage,” but the words ring false in my own ears. Physically there may be nothing wrong – no injuries or sickness at any rate, but there is nothing healthy in this agonised, twitching tormented person standing before me.

“How did you escape?” I ask

“They underestimated me Sir. After – after they'd done what they did they stopped watching me so carefully. I managed to kill a guard, take his weapon and escape. Killed two others on the way out Sir. Managed to get to a Catholic church and begged for sanctuary. Didn't think it'd work in this day and age, but I couldn't get any further on my own. It did. “”

I shudder. I may have been a soldier once but the thought of killing is something I find repugnant. I absolutely don't blame Sergeant Hathersage, but I want no part of it any more. Maybe my expression gives it away because Sergeant Hathersage's face twists again and he changes the subject.

“Permission to ask a question Sir?”

“Of course you can. We aren't on parade and I'm not your superior officer any more – if I ever was.”

“Begging your pardon Sir but yes you are. No one gave us our discharge. We're still soldiers Sir. Which makes you still a Captain Sir”

I hesitate. I don't see things that way. On the other hand duty is clearly the only thing that is keeping Sergeant Hathersage within shouting range of sanity.In the end all I say is“Ask your question.”

“How, “ for the first time the clipped, military tones falter “How did you do it Sir? How did you survive? I – I think I'm going mad. I can't look at myself. I can't touch myself. You've obviously managed to blend in brilliantly pretending to be a woman Sir, please don't misunderstand, you were always fantastically good at stealth work, but I – I don't know how Sir. I mean, I escaped, but I can't blend in ”

Now I understand why Father Flaherty brought me here. Sergeant Hathersage desperately needs help. I don't think I can provide it, but at the very least I can explain why. Father Flaherty himself is nowhere to be seen. I suspect I've seen the last of him tonight; after all I know the way back and he has nuns to confess and an underground railroad to run.

“Sergeant – what's your first name, I can't just keep calling you by a rank?

“Ashley”

“Ashley, I'll tell you as much as I can, but like I said before, you need to remember some of this is stuff I've only been told. I don't remember it myself.

“The first thing, the very first thing I remember, is the pain of a badly blistered foot. I was on a road, a tarmaced road and my shoes were literally falling apart, so with every step I was cutting or bruising myself. I was hungry, desperately hungry, the sort where it's gone beyond just hunger and you're feeling sick, shaky, on the verge of keeling over. and the only reason you don't is because there's no food in this place and if you fall over you won't be able to get up and more even than rest or warmth or oblivion you want food.

The cold was biting through me. I was wearing a long black dress, but it was worn to such a state it was barely decent. By the looks of things I'd been scrambling through rough country, brambles, thorn bushes, Heaven only knows what. I don't suppose it was any colder than spring in Minnesota always is but I was so thin, so thin. I diidn't look like I do now, more like a camp survivor. I felt like I was going to die and I would have done it gladly if only I could get something to eat first..

And then, then thank God a car came along and the family in it bundled me into the backseat and took me to a hospital. The people at the hospital fed me and looked after me, and found me a home and I loved them for it. And then three years later I found out it was all a lie. So you see, I didn't have anything to adapt to because I couldn't remember being anyone else. That's part of how I did it. The other part, and again, I only know what a proven liar told me here so it might not be true, is that I was transgender before the war. So if that's true I was where you are now, in a body of a sex I didn't believe I belonged to.”

“So how did you cope with that Sir? How do I cope with it?!” The tone is pleading now, on the verge of tears. “The church people Sir, they saved me from capture but they can't save me! How do I turn back???!”

The beautiful delicate face staring at me is twisted in entreaty, with the need not to be beautiful, not to be delicate, above all not to be female. I want, more than anything at this minute to turn Ashley Hathersage back into the man she was and there is literally nothing I can do.

Well, one thing, and I don't know if it will make matters better or worse, but it's all I can do so I do it. I reach out and embrace Ashley Hathersage, pouring whatever comfort into that human touch that I can, and the face twists again and I feel the storm of tears break on my shoulder soaking into the cloth of my dress with huge, heaving sobs. A few minutes later Ashley sniffs and pulls away.

”I don't know, “ I answer “I don't know how to turn you back. But I know it can be done. This war will end, one way or another, but the capacity to do what was done to us, that isn't going to go away. People will develop it, improve it, learn everything about it. Michael told me the scientists who created this process think it could even lead to immortality. At the very least there is no need for anyone to be sick ever again. This could be the biggest advance in human capabilities since we discovered fire. In five years, or ten or twenty this is going to be available to the general public, one way or another. You need to live through those years, so you'll be here when that chance arrives. I know what you're thinking about doing Ashley Hathersage, it's written all over your face. Don't do it. It's not even a permanent solution to a temporary problem they way they say. It's a permanent way of making sure you never can solve any problems again. “

“You really think we – we could be men again?”

“You can, I'm quite sure of it.”

“But, Captain Naso...”

“I definitely can't. I'm not a man. Unless I've been well and truly led up the garden path I doubt if I ever was, not really. I don't ever want to be Captain Naso again. I'm Emily. Or Aoife. Take your choice.”

“I – I don't disbelieve you, it's just hard to believe, I mean you were such an amazing soldier. And you were a chick inside all along?”

“Hey! Chicks would make great soldiers if they had the upper body strength. You don't have to be macho. “

“I once saw you kill a man by tearing his carotid artery open with your teeth. That's pretty macho Sir”

“Eueww! God I'm glad that's all behind me now.”

“You really, really do look female Sir. Emily. “

“Yes,” I say dryly “I can see you've noticed.” If anything was needed to convince me that Sergeant Hathersage was mentally and had been physically male it was the way s/he (God this is confusing) was checking me out. Ashley coloured a little

“I,m sorry. It's been a very long time and,” that dreadful rictus made a return “It's likely to be the rest of my life. I can't have a woman any more, not with what they did to me.”

“Why can't you?”

“I'm a freak of nature. Look at me. How could any woman ever let me touch her again?”

Now I know what I can do, the one gift I can give the poor tormented war victim in front of me

“Give me your hand.”

Ashley didn't move for a moment, then reached out tentatively. I took his hand between my own and placed it gently on my left breast.

“Do I feel like a woman to you Sergeant?”

“Yes,” the answer came, hoarse and rough.

“Do I look repulsed?”

“No,”

“If you could do anything you wanted to me, what would you do?”

“Everything. Oh God!” His hand clenches unconciously, bruising me a little, but I won't turn back now

“Then do it. You want a woman? I'm all yours.”

As I'm borne down onto the bed I have time to be surprised and a little frightened by just how much strength is in that frail body before I'm given an array of other things to think about.

Making my way back through the morning sunshine a few hours later, tired and a little sore (Why do men always want to spank me? Am I giving off some sort of vibe?) I really feel like I've done a little good in the world. Sergeant Hathersage will hang on now, in hope of a cure, and has discovered that life can go on even in the weirdest of circumstances. I feel good – until I realise that I've been out all night on a dirty stop out. How am I ever going to look Mrs Pilsudski in the eye? She thinks I'm such a nice girl!