Private Scandals

both.
    He watched Scuds fly and Patriots intercept them. He slept in snatches and lived with the possibility of a chemical assault.
    When the ground war began, he was ready, eager, to follow it into Kuwait City.
    It would be called the Mother of Battles, the hundred hours of fierce fighting to liberate Kuwait. While allied troops took up positions along the Euphrates River, along the highways linking Kuwait to other cities, Iraqis fled. Hustling, as one trooper told Finn, “to get out of Dodge.”
    There were massive traffic jams, trapped tanks, abandoned possessions. From a dusty truck heading toward the city, Finn observed the wreckage. Mile after mile of shattered vehicles lined the road. Cars, stripped for parts, tilted on crates. Personal possessions littered the roadway, mattresses, blankets, frying pans and ammo clips. Incredibly, a chandelier, its crystals gleaming in the sun, lay on the sand like scattered jewels. And worse, much worse, was the occasional corpse.
    “Let’s get some tape of this.” Finn stepped out of the truck, his boots crunching down on one of the cassette tapes that were blowing across the highway.
    “Looks like the garage sale from hell,” Curt commented. “Crazy bastards must have been looting on their way out.”
    “It always comes down to getting your own, doesn’t it?” Finn pointed toward a swatch of hot pink flapping from beneath an overturned truck. The evening gown shimmered with sequins. “Where the hell did she expect to wear that?”
    Finn prepared for a stand-up as Curt set up his equipment. He hadn’t thought anything else could surprise him. Not after seeing the pathetically gaunt Iraqi soldiers wearily surrendering to allied troops. Seeing the fear and fatigue, and the relief, on their faces as they emerged from their foxholes in the desert. He hadn’t thought anything else about war could affect him, not the torn bodies, the atrocities of scavengers or the stink of death cooking under the merciless sun.
    But that flap of pink silk, rustling seductively in the desert wind, turned his stomach.
    It was worse inside the city. The raw nerves, the anger, the devastation, all coated in a layer of oily soot from the fires that depleted Kuwait’s lifeblood of oil.
    When the wind blew toward the city, the sky would darken with smoke. Midday would become midnight. The seasidewas dotted with mines, and explosions rocked the city several times a day. Gunfire continued, not only in celebratory bursts, but in savage drive-by attacks on Kuwaiti soldiers. Survivors searched the cemetery for the remains of loved ones, many of whom had suffered torture and worse.
    Through all he observed, through all he reported, Finn continued to think of a sequined evening gown billowing out of the sand.
     
    Like the rest of the world, Deanna watched the end of the war on television. She listened to the reports on the liberation of Kuwait, the official cease-fire, the statistics of victory. It became a habit to drop into the newsroom before she left the CBC Building, hoping for a few scraps of information that hadn’t yet been aired.
    But the reality of day-to-day responsibilities kept her grounded. Whenever she had a free night, she watched the late news, then slipped in a tape of that morning’s show. In the privacy of her apartment, she could watch herself critically, searching for ways to improve her on-air skills or to tighten the overall format.
    She sat cross-legged on the floor, comfortable in sweatshirt and jeans, a notepad open across her knees. The earrings were wrong, she noted. Every time she moved her head they swung—a distraction for the viewer, she thought, and wrote: No more dangling earrings.
    And the hand gestures were too broad. If she didn’t watch it, she’d end up being parodied on Saturday Night Live. She should be so lucky, she thought with a grin, and scribbled on her pad.
    Did she touch people too much? Nibbling her lips, Deanna watched. She always seemed to be laying a hand on a guest’s arm or circling an audience member’s shoulder. Maybe she should—
    The knock on the door had her swearing. Her schedule didn’t allow for unexpected visitors after ten. Grudgingly, she switched off the VCR. She glimpsed through the peephole. Then she was tugging at locks, dragging at the chain.
    “Finn! I didn’t know you were back!”
    She didn’t know who moved first. In a heartbeat, they were wrapped together, his mouth hard on hers, her hands fisted in his hair.