Page 144 of What Blooms in Barren Lands

“Can we have an interview for our readers?”

“With me? What on earth about?”

Isabella Moreno and her companion, who introduced himself modestly as Arnar, ‘just the photographer’, waited for me at the kitchen table as I cleaned myself up. When I entered, they were examining the markings on the doorframe.

“Einar Andersen grew up here, did he not?”

“Yes,” I responded tersely, seating myself at the table without offering them anything to drink. “Well, do you have any questions for me or not?”

As if on cue, they both plopped down across from me. Isabella pulled a notepad and a pen from her black handbag.

“Yes.” Isabella cleared her throat before looking at me with her amber eyes. “I suppose you have heard of the recent fall of the Corsican government?”

“I have,” I replied reluctantly, wishing suddenly that I had a beverage to occupy my empty hands with.

“And so you’ll know that one of the chief reasons for it was their crimes against humanity during the Carmine Plague? Or should I say their sanctioning of crimes against humanity that you and your husband carried out?”

“I wouldn’t call it that,” I said as off-handedly as I could, getting up. “Would you like some coffee?”

“Please.” They both nodded before Isabella continued, “You’re right, of course. Some are instead calling it an act of genocide when you kill infected en masse and without the direct need of self-defence. And terrorism, some of it.”

My hands shook as I scooped the ground coffee out of its jar and prepared the moka pot. I willed my heart to beat slower, my breath to stay steady.

“Oh please,” I attempted to scoff.

“Weaponising the CanLys virus and using it to intentionally and wilfully infect other human beings is considered an act of terrorism in almost all countries worldwide these days,” Isabella pointed out sweetly. “And you did exactly that, didn’t you? To eradicate another, hostile settlement of survivors?”

As the dark, scalding liquid bubbled in the moka pot, my searing anger rose inside me.

“It wasn’t an act of terrorism then,” I said sharply. “Corsica was a lawless territory when I first arrived there, as its prior government had fallen during the Outbreak. And then, later, when the so-called new government was formed, they had no laws regarding the infected until about five years after my departure. I never broke any laws, and neither did my husband.”

I placed the coffee cups in front of them with a faint clatter of the saucers. Grabbing my own, I sat back down.

“Yes, yes ... we all know the reasons why the European Tribunal said they could not prosecute you, Einar, or other individuals like you ...”

“How could they possibly? European governments bombed their own largest cities shortly after the Outbreak, killing millions! I can assure you my kill count wasn’t nearly as high.”

“You’re wrong. It has been proven that no European government ever sanctioned any of the bombings. These were acts of rogue individuals within the government, acting on their own accord and without any form of official approval.”

“Of course.” I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

Isabella Moreno fixed me with a glare, and I resisted the urge to squirm or worry the frayed fabric of my sleeves.

“It is true that it has been ruled you did nothing illegal. But legal doesn’t necessarily make it right, wouldn’t you agree?”

I took a scalding sip of my coffee, intentionally letting the liquid burn the back of my throat before swallowing it. Then I leaned across the table, my face inching closer to my interrogator’s.

“What are you, twenty-three, twenty-five?”

“Twenty-two.”

“You are a child,” I told her plainly, with just enough scorn and spite in my voice to be unsettling without sounding unhinged. “During the worst of the pandemic, you weren’t even ten years old. And you lived here, in the country that had it much easier than the rest of the world.” I straightened back up. “Andyouhave the gall to come here and lecturemeon what it was like back then?! Solidarity with the infected was a luxury we did not have, hard as it is for you to understand now.”

She shifted slightly in her seat but managed to maintain her impassive, smug smirk. I almost admired her.

“Do you have no regrets then?”

I laughed, hysteria creeping into my voice despite my best efforts.