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  Mark and I watched helplessly while people swarmed around the pole. The old woman extended her trembling fingers, rested them for an instant on the janda, raised both hands in victory, then collapsed into Rahim’s arms.

  “Good God, how will he get them out of there? ” cried Mark.

  Nilofar stumbled, and Rahim, who was already carrying the old lady in one arm, reached out to wrap his other arm around Nilofar’s waist to keep her from being trampled.

  As I watched Rahim battling to protect the two women, I felt ashamed that one of us had not offered to go with him. There was nothing I could do now. Policemen were shoving us and the rest of the VIPs through a narrow enclosure that had been held open for the governor and his entourage.

  Once the governor’s black Mercedes sped away, the police melted into the crowd and hundreds more chanting worshipers surrounded us in their desperate quest to get close to the janda.

  Mark’s hand grabbed for mine, but I was already being sucked into the swirling mass of pilgrims. Our fingers laced together briefly before the crowd closed in and forced us apart. I was starting to panic as men, who had suddenly noticed the presence of an uncovered woman in their midst, began to press their bodies against mine. Slapping them away and shouting at them in Dari to back off, I forced my way into the midst of a group of women.

  Enraged but also frightened by the anonymous men who had violated me with their groping hands, I remained hidden inside the sea of blue burkas, trying to regain my composure. Thirty minutes later when the crowd had thinned and I found my way back to the PRT vehicle, Mark and Rahim were waiting with Jenkins.

  “Thank God you’re safe, Angela,” cried Jenkins.

  It was impossible to read the look on Mark’s face as he walked up and took my hand in his.

  “I didn’t mean to abandon you in that crowd, Angela. There was nothing I could do.”

  “It’s all right, Mark. I’m fine,” I said, pulling my hand out of his and hoping that neither he, Jenkins, nor Rahim could tell how terrified I’d been just a few minutes before. “How’s Nilofar? ”

  My young Tajik interpreter could barely suppress his elation after the daring rescue, which had put him in direct and forbidden contact with Nilofar.

  “Angela-jan, her brothers spotted us right after Nilofar’s grandmother touched the janda,” he said breathlessly. “Both her brothers thanked me for protecting the women since they had become separated from them in the crowd, just like you and the major.”

  He was beaming and wanted to recount every detail of his adventure.

  “Nilofar’s grandmother is fine and she is so happy. She had to touch the janda to cure her arthritis. She has invited the three of us to come to dinner. You, too, Major Davies,” said Rahim, making no effort to conceal his delight at the prospect of another evening at Nilofar’s home, even if it meant only speaking with her father and brothers.

  Still out of breath with excitement, he turned to Mark and added, “Thank you, Major Davies, for allowing me to go and help them.”

  “Of course, Rahim, you did the right thing,” replied Mark with a mixture of disapproval and relief. He glanced at his watch and turned to Jenkins. “Right, Corporal, let’s see how quickly you can get us back to the PRT without flattening any camels. They’ll be serving lunch for another forty minutes, and I for one have had enough excitement today. Any objections if we skip the afternoon’s festivities? I really don’t think the governor will notice our absence. Angela, I’d hate to deprive you of another buzkashi game, but . . .”

  “No problem here, Mark,” I said as we climbed into our vehicle.

  An hour later, I was sitting in the officers’ mess with a plate of spaghetti balanced on my knees, regaling three young officers with tales of our morning’s adventure at the Blue Mosque. I looked up and smiled at Mark as he appeared in the doorway holding his lunch tray. He hesitated for a moment, turned away, and walked alone into the soldiers’ dining hall.

  TWENTY-SIX

  April 3, 2005

  By early April, the PRT had been without its senior interpreter for more than four months. The ailing professor was still staying with relatives in Kabul and recuperating from a series of surgeries. None of the interpreters knew exactly what was wrong with him or when he was coming back, but they didn’t seem to miss him and seldom commented on his absence. Rahim, the most proficient English speaker after the professor, was called on with increasing frequency to accompany Colonel Jameson to his meetings with the Afghans.

  Richard had been more absent than present lately due to the British Embassy’s constant requests that he come to Kabul to fill in for officers on R&R. He was also traveling on a regular basis to the American PRT in Helmand Province, where preparations were under way for a handover to the British Army in early 2006.

  When Richard was not available, Colonel Jameson expected me to join him at all meetings outside the PRT. This meant that Rahim and I were spending even more time together.

  I was growing increasingly fond of this passionate, intelligent young man who brimmed with ideas for his country’s future.

  Since meeting Jeef, Rahim had developed an intense interest in archaeology. On our lengthy day trips to meet with officials in the neighboring provinces, he often carried along stacks of books about his new favorite subject. When I asked him about the piles of reading material on the backseat of the Beast, all stamped with the faded crest of Balkh University, he replied with a satisfied smile, “I am learning about the ancient and amazing history of my country, Angela-jan.”

  “Where are you getting these books? ”

  “I have a friend at the university who is checking them out of the library for me,” he replied, pressing his lips together to avoid providing additional details about his “friend.”

  “Do I know this ‘friend’? ” I asked.

  “You do, Angela-jan, but I can’t discuss that with you right now,” he said as his face reddened. He lowered his dark lashes to hide the excitement his eyes.

  “Be careful, Rahim,” I warned, “both of you.”

  The following afternoon, Rahim arrived breathless and grinning at the door of the bullpen. “Angela-jan, Nilofar is outside waiting to see you. She says her grandmother has finally invited us for dinner to thank me for rescuing them at Nauroz. They want the major to come as well. Do you think he will?”

  “You’ll have to ask him yourself, Rahim.”

  Nilofar had been stopping by the PRT on a fairly regular basis. She normally had a women’s rights issue to discuss with me, but her arrivals and departures seemed always timed to coincide with Rahim’s duty schedule.

  Our little walled compound was the only place in all of Mazār-i-Sharīf where the two of them could safely steal a few minutes alone in the shaded archway that led to the outer gate.

  Rahim had pleaded and Mark had reluctantly agreed to accompany us to Nilofar’s home for dinner despite his disapproval of the little white lie about Rahim being my distant cousin.

  This minor ruse bothered me far less than the much greater deception I was involved in—the embassy’s continued insistence that I conceal my Dari language ability. Over the past three months, I had attended meetings with and monitored every one of the interpreters at the PRT. I found their translations accurate even when we were asking warlords and known corrupt officials about opium poppy production. The ailing professor, whom I had yet to meet, was the only one I had not monitored.

  I was growing weary of this subterfuge. And because I was worried that when the truth came out it would damage my relationship with Rahim, I could never completely relax in his presence. My requests to the embassy continued to fall on deaf ears.

  The only useful side-chatter I was picking up from the Dari-speaking men seated near me at meetings were grumblings of resentment about the continued presence of foreign troops in the northern provinces. Mark, who had been asked by the colonel to join him at meetings attended by Balkh’s Pashto-speaking chief of police, was reporting similar commen
ts.

  “Angela, may I have a word with you?” Mark had followed me into the hall after a long staff meeting.

  “Sure, Mark, what’s up?” I attempted as always to lighten the tone of our conversations. His was so annoyingly formal for a person I had seen almost every day for more than three months.

  “It’s about your observation today that we are ignoring rural Afghan females at our peril.”

  “Go on,” I replied, placing my hands on my hips and bracing for another argument.

  “How can our patrols interact with females when the MOTs are all composed of men from infantry companies? And what could a woman possibly tell us that would be useful in any event? ”

  “Perhaps the British Army should try recruiting a few female soldiers from other regiments to join the patrols. You’re missing out on a lot of information when you ignore half the population, Mark.”

  He stared at me in silence as I walked away, satisfied that I had made my point.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  April 8, 2005 ✦ THE VILLAGE OF MARMOL

  After testing my homemade solar ovens on the balcony of the atrium, I was ready for a demonstration. I had been invited by the Romanian MOT to join them on a day trip to Marmol, a small village in the foothills of the Hindu Kush. It was only thirty miles from Mazār-i-Sharīf, but a bone-crunching three-hour drive up a winding, rocky, dry riverbed.

  This was my second day-trip to Marmol with the Romanians. In late March, their young captain, his interpreter, and I had sipped tea for two hours and listened patiently in a chilly room while the Marmol district chief explained his village’s need for a new road, shortwave radios, and motorcycles for his policemen. When our meeting ended, the bearded and bespectacled young chief took us on a walking tour of his village. It was still dusted with snow and as silent as only a place free of machinery can be.

  Each footstep, each scrape of boot on rock, even the soft rustling of our host’s woolen robes was magnified as we climbed toward the upper village. He led us along a steep trail and around melting clumps of snow to a cliff overlooking a tiny stand of cedar trees in a narrow canyon above the village.

  “Here is our forest,” he announced proudly. “It used to fill the entire canyon, but this is all that remains.” It was less than an acre.

  “The Russians destroyed part of it with their bombs, but wood thieves have tried to take the rest. Two men must stand guard here every night. If someone cuts down the remaining trees, our village will be washed away in the next big storm.

  “Marmol has been here for more than two hundred years. I will not allow it to be destroyed,” he said defiantly. At this altitude, we could see for miles in every direction. There was not another tree in sight.

  The Romanians and I followed the chief back down the trail until he stopped before a rough wooden door surrounded by high earthen walls. He turned to our interpreter. “Ask the woman if she would like to visit one of our families.”

  I waited patiently for his translation, and quickly nodded my agreement. The chief rapped hard on the door. An elderly man with a gray beard cracked it open and peered out. As soon as he saw the chief, he swung the door wide and bowed his head. A rough mud partition directly behind him shielded the rest of his family from prying eyes. The chief motioned for me to enter and the man stood aside.

  “Only the woman and I may go in,” the chief said to the soldiers when they tried to follow us.

  Inside the compound, two women squatted in the dirt before a smoking pile of twigs, fanning it rapidly as they cooked a pot of rice. Their children, who had just returned from a foraging trip, were stacking a large pile of reeds and bushes against the far wall. The chief said nothing, but his message was clear. His village was running out of fuel.

  When we arrived in Marmol on our return trip, the district chief greeted us like old friends. Just before we went in for our meeting, I poured a liter of water into a black pot and put it inside my homemade solar oven. Placing it on a patch of dirt in front of the chief’s compound, I rotated the oven to face the sun and left it to heat the water. The chief and a few men loitering nearby watched me with great interest, but did not ask for an explanation. They all stayed far away from the strange device.

  When the Romanians and I stepped outside with the chief an hour later, the pot was boiling and the crowd of men had grown to more than forty. They had formed a circle around the box and were craning their necks to locate the hidden fire they believed was making the water boil.

  I stood next to the chief and with the help of the Romanian’s interpreter explained to the incredulous men how this box was able to trap the heat of the sun. “It is not magic,” I assured them.

  “Sahib, can this box make water hot enough for tea?” asked a heavyset man tugging on his thick black beard. “There is no fire.” The water was steaming, but he and the others still couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

  The chief nodded. “Yes, and your women could cook food with this box,” he added, motioning for the man to approach.

  I lifted the glass lid and invited the man to touch the steaming pot. When it burned his fingers, he shook them dramatically in the air and laughed in surprise.

  After the chief had taken his turn touching the pot, the rest of the men stepped forward one by one to scald their fingers and prove to themselves that neither their eyes nor I were deceiving them.

  “We have cardboard,” said a young man, “but where do we get that shiny paper? ”

  “Madam Angela,” said the Romanian’s terp, who was also astounded to see water boiling inside a piece of cardboard, “these people do not have aluminum foil. What can they use to make such an oven?” He was right about the foil. In my excitement, I hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  I was searching for a reply, when the chief reached into the pocket of his shalwar kameez and extracted a pack of cigarettes. He tore off a strip of the thin foil wrapper and waved it aloft like an offering to the gods.

  “We can use this for our shiny paper,” he announced triumphantly as other men removed their own cigarette packs and flashed slivers of sunlight at each other with the small foil squares.

  When we left the village that afternoon, I gave the box to the district chief and promised to send him rolls of foil so the men in his village wouldn’t have to smoke themselves to death to build their own solar ovens.

  My report to the embassy on my solar cooking demonstration received no response, but I was hooked.

  A few weeks later, I wrote up a proposal for a U.S.-funded solar oven project in a displaced persons camp a few miles from Mazār. I handed a copy directly to the ambassador when he came up for a two-hour meeting with Governor Daoud. The only reply I received from the embassy that time was a reprimand for jumping the chain of command by giving my proposal to the ambassador. If I did anything more with these solar ovens, it would have to be on my own.

  The morning after my triumphant demo in Marmol, I was making a cup of tea in the soldiers’ dining hall when Mark appeared behind me to draw his own hot water from the urn.

  “I hear the locals thought you were a sorceress yesterday when they saw you boiling water with a piece of cardboard.”

  “They did have a little trouble believing what they were seeing,” I said, laughing, “but after they’d all burned their fingers on the pot they got it.”

  “So will they be setting up a solar oven factory in Marmol any time soon? ”

  “Not likely, Mark, but I would love to get out and show these to some women’s groups.”

  “I doubt that will be possible,” he replied. “Other than weddings, I don’t believe there are any occasions when grown women are allowed to gather in public.”

  “There must be someplace I can demonstrate them,” I argued.

  “Even if there were, Angela, you aren’t at liberty to go off organizing ladies’ groups without a military escort,” he said with a shrug as he headed back to the ops room with his tea.

  “Thanks for your support,”
I muttered as he left the room.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  April 16, 2005

  It had seemed like a joke when I first read Plawner’s message. Citing my knowledge of Russian and my driving skills, he wanted to know if I was willing to make a six-hundred-mile round-trip by road with a U.S. cotton expert to a meeting in Tashkent, Uzbekistan—in the Beast, with no military escort. Just the two of us! I had accepted immediately, of course, but now, strapped into the cavernous, vibrating hold of a C-130 military flight on my way to meet the cotton expert in Kabul, my old insecurities came creeping back.

  The United States and the UK were desperate to find replacement crops for the burgeoning fields of opium poppies that were spreading across the country like an out-of-control virus. Several senior Uzbek cotton experts, who had worked with Afghan farmers during the Soviet era, were apparently anxious to return to Afghanistan and share their knowledge. The U.S. agricultural expert who wanted to meet with them in their capital city of Tashkent had to be back in the States in less than three weeks. According to Plawner, the fastest way to get him to and from Uzbekistan was by road.

  By late afternoon, I was settled into my temporary hooch on the embassy compound in Kabul. I confirmed my meetings with the ag official and called Jeef at the museum to arrange for the tour of the Bactrian gold collection he and Fazli had promised me. As soon as I hung up, my phone rang again.

  “Angela, I found you at last,” said a familiar voice.

  “Hello, Stefan. I didn’t know you were looking for me.”

  “I heard you were flying down for meetings at the Ministry of Agriculture and thought we could get together for drinks tomorrow evening. I have an appointment with an old Bulgarian friend of mine at NATO headquarters at five. I could join you in the bar around six. What do you say? ”