Rakkisa’s lips curl into a fragile smile and she nods with the lightest movement. Her glare turns into a serene look and she relaxes all her muscles. “I love you,” she whispers and then sighs deeply. After her last breath leaves her lungs and passes her lips, Rakkisa’s entire body remains still.
“No… no, no, NOO!!! A crying Matthias covers Rakkisa’s face with kisses and he rests his nose on the dead woman’s forehead.
“Don’t leave us, Rakkisa… We can’t be without you. We love you so much. We need you!!”
The woman’s eyes are open, but they no longer register any signals of this world. She has passed.
Matthias cries uncontrollably and he lifts Rakkisa into a sitting position. He cradles her body, caresses her hair, kisses her face, and murmurs her name incessantly. Her body is heavy and her arms, the very same arms that used to embrace him, now dangle lifelessly next to her body. While holding Rakkisa, Matthias has no perception of time. Seconds, minutes, or hours pass. He’s numb and everything around him is a colorless blur. It feels like someone pulled his heart out of his chest. A gaping hole that will never be able to be filled, remains.
All night long, Rakkisa has been vomiting blood and it’s a wonder she’s made it until the morning. Once the Red-Cough, as they started to call it, is caught, one dies within five to six hours. Yesterday at sundown, Rakkisa started coughing, and now, nine hours later, she’s still holding on to the thin lines of her life. Her love for Gailin keeps her fighting.
Amongst the sadness and confusion, Matthias feels fury. He curses this horrible disease that has already killed millions of Didelians in only a matter of weeks. Matthias suspects it was created in a European or American laboratory. He deeply despises every Westerner he knows, including himself.
The reality feels horribly unfair to Matthias since there’s absolutely nothing he can do. He wants to go with her. He wants to die today and enter the afterlife together. Whatever it will look like, it will be better than the hell he’s going through now. But Matthias knows that even if he wanted to die from the Red Cough, he probably can’t. Only the Didelians die. He was injected with the vaccine for tuberculosis, and he suspects that this makes him immune to the disease.
Deep inside, Matthias knows his death wish is selfish. He is Gailin’s only hope. She is still in good health, and he has to get her out of the camp as fast as he can. Little Gailin… so helpless, so precious. He can’t give up, for her sake.
Never did Matthias think he could love as intensely as he learned to over the past three years. Rakkisa. Their child Gailin. He would do anything for them. Now Rakkisa is being taken away. And why? Because of the selfishness and ignorance of his people! Matthias lifts his head and screams in helpless agony.
“Aaahhh!!!”
Through his tears, he sees how Rakkisa turns her head and looks at him. Her bloodshot eyes are surprisingly clear, calm, and loving. He knows she doesn’t fear death. None of the Didelians do. Matthias does. And most of all… he fears life without Rakkisa.
Rakkisa struggles to keep her breath going. It is heartbreaking to witness. She postpones the moment of death while knowing the end is inevitable. She fights with time over love. And now the frequency of Rakkisa’s respiration noticeably decreases. Instantly, the agony Matthias has felt transforms into panic.
“Don’t leave me, my dearest!!”
But Rakkisa’s breath slows down even more. She opens her mouth and tries to speak but her words are nothing more than a whisper. Matthias lowers his head toward her face and his tears mingle with the perspiration on her forehead.“Please Matthias… protect Gailin,” Rakkisa whispers. Her voice is so thin that it might be easily mistaken for the rustling of the wind through the trees.
“Make sure… Ugh… nothing happens to her or you… Ugh…” The coughing makes Rakkisa pause, and she presses a tissue, stained with blood, against her lips.“You… can ensure Gailin a good life. Take her with you to your land. Do not show her to… anybody while you travel. Please Matthias, protect her…” A tear rolls from the corner of Rakkisa’s eye.Matthias nods, though he’s not sure how he will fulfill this promise. But he doesn’t show his hesitation to the dying mother. He will find a way.“I promise...” he whispers.
Chapter 1
Didelis
December 4th 1948
Matthias Brolin
Outside, he strips off his clothes and takes a cold shower next to the house. With a big stiff bristle brush and disinfecting plant oil, he scrubs his skin, from head to toes, until it almost bleeds. The pain from the scrubbing distracts him from feeling his heart. Then he drips a few drops of the oil under his tongue. His army uniform lies folded next to the shower. He hasn’t worn it since the day he met Rakkisa. Putting on this uniform makes him feel nauseous. The uniform means bloodshed and pain. Thanks to the military he has lost Rakkisa and all the others. But he has no choice now. He needs to return to where he came from. There is no future on the island anymore. They made sure of it. They won.
Matthias would rather go north with Deeri and the others, but Deeri has denied him his desire to leave with them. Matthias doesn’t stand a chance in the North Pole. They will not warm the air in the Didelian boats out of fear of thermal detectors. He doesn’t have the gifts of the Didelians. And Gailin is still much too young to tap into her gift of regulating her body temperature. Thus, Deeri gave him different instructions: “Move Gailin as far away from here as you can. Get her on a military boat. Go home, and never speak of her real heritage.”
Matthias looks at Rakkisa and hardly recognizes her. Her only recently curly and shiny red hair now hangs in lifeless strings around her ashen face. Her half-closed eyes are surrounded by dark circles and the blue of her irises has transformed into a flat grey. The vibrant woman he knows as Rakkisa has disappeared entirely, and Matthias knows it won’t be much longer before her chest stops moving. While he holds her hands, he lowers his face toward her body. Warm tears roll down his cheeks and land on Rakkisa’s silk dress. He squeezes her hands and begs her to stay. He can’t imagine their young baby Gailin without her mother. Gailin hasn’t even had the chance to see how incredible her mother is. The three years Rakkisa and Matthias spent together are so minute compared to the lifetime he will have to live without his divine love.
The sound of a gong ringing in the distance releases Matthias from his trance of sorrow. When he returns to his senses, he feels dried tears on his face that pull on the skin. The lack of light through the windows tells him it’s late in the evening. Outside he hears movement and realizes he needs to get Gailin immediately. She is with the uninfected on the other side of the village. The people who remain healthy will depart soon.
With his body and soul in pain, Matthias closes Rakkisa’s eyes. His suffering intensifies when he realizes that the house they inhabited for the last six months, will be her eternal tomb.
When Matthias arrives at the dwellings where the healthy people hide, he enters a small living structure. A few women are preparing the departure and he sees Gailin sleeping in the arms of Rakkisa’s sister. When she notices him coming, she passes his daughter into his arms. While he takes his little girl, he nods to her in silence, and the woman’s eyes fill with tears. Her sister has passed. The baby awakens and whimpers. She feels she has just lost her mother.
Rakkisa’s sister wraps a clean silk shawl around Matthias and tightens the baby to his chest. Then she folds herself around the father and child and they sway back and forth until they are ready to let go.
The teared-up woman packs a few nut milk bottles in a backpack and adds some valuable stones that will help Matthias buy his way back. She hands the bag over and they say goodbye without words. With a stabbing pain in his heart, Matthias walks out of the house and into the forest.
He does not look back.