The promised land
Greta struggles to keep pace with Hans. His footprints in the sand are large and widely spaced. Hers are a smudgy, uneven line. She used to be able to walk easily at his side on lean, tightly muscled legs. But now she is heavily pregnant and uncomfortably swollen with new life. Her legs and feet are soft, weighted balloons.
As she trudges up yet another hill, the sun is her enemy. It fills her vision with empty sparkles and scalds her throat. The child in her belly flops like a fish beginning to boil. She gasps, and Hans increases his lead. Ten feet, twenty feet, then thirty feet. He watches from the top of the dune as she thrashes, falls, and thrashes again.
When she reaches this latest bone-dry summit, Hans presses a warm flask into her hand. His face is tanned and stoic, the face of a survivor. Greta knows her face is red and blotched and moist, the face of a casualty.
She takes a measured sip, then spits sand from her mouth. And despair. “Hans, I don’t think I can make it. I want to go back. Have the baby at home.”
Hans frowns. The corners of his lips pucker into crescents. His jaw grows firmer, squarer. “No, my son will not be born in this hungry country. He will not be food for war. We will keep going.”
Greta cranes her head and looks back to where they came from. A hot, stinging wind has whisked away her footprints.
They make camp on a high peak. As the sun sets, the temperature plummets from unbearably hot to unspeakably cold. Greta shivers. Hans wraps her in a stiff, smelly sheepskin coat. She is grateful.
“Look out there,” says Hans, pointing into the distance.
Greta squints. She sees an endless sprinkling of stars, as if some goddess spilled her sugar bowl. Where the sky meets the earth, other, bigger lights glow. They are the first evidence she’s seen of the promised land.
“It’s beautiful,” she murmurs.
Hans squeezes her with approval. “Can you see the statue? The goddess of welcome?”
“No,” says Greta, who is nearsighted. “Tell me about her.”
Hans’ voice is filled with smiles. “She is tall and majestic with golden skin. Her eight breasts are large enough to suckle a million children. Her eyes glow with a peaceful love for humankind. Her face is graced by a wide, ivory smile. Oh, and she’s blowing you a kiss.”
Greta giggles for the first time in days. “Do you really see all that?”
Hans chuckles softly. “No, but I can see her outline. Her light is warmer and bigger than the others. The promised land is a good, welcoming place. Never doubt we are doing the right thing.”
The desert has faded into golden plains. Greta is exhausted and puffy. Each step sends a biting ache through her thighs. But her child is healthy and kicking, and she is starting to believe in the promised land.
To distract herself from the effort of moving through knee-high grass, she imagines the bright future her son — or daughter — might have in a land of peace and plenty. A land where boys with milk teeth still in their mouths are not taken by bandits. A land where the grievously sick are not exposed to the elements. A land where poverty is a temporary condition, not a crime.
As the sun follows its parabolic trajectory, Hans and Greta near the end of their journey. The air smells like wood smoke and roasted hope. They are too elated to sleep. They decide to walk all night, giddy like children allowed to play after bedtime.
When they arrive at the border, the lights are so bright they pierce Greta’s pale eyes, sending sparks of agony into her brain. But she forces herself to look at her new home, and the statue of the goddess who will welcome her.
“Husband! She is so beautiful. Her lips are so red, and her teeth are so white!”
Full of joy, she takes a step forward towards a shining new future for her quickening child. Before she can take another, something grabs her arm. It’s Hans. It must be Hans. And yet his grip, which holds her in place, is hard and cruel like cold iron.
“What, husband?” she yelps.
His voice is cracked with unshed tears. “Wife, I’m sorry. You do not truly see. Her lips are stained with blood. Her teeth are ivory fangs. This land isn’t promised, it’s cursed.”
