Farishta Page 18

  It was wonderful to hear his voice, but tiny alarm bells started to ring in my head. Why was Stefan tracking my movements so closely? Should I be flattered or concerned? I decided to be a bit of both.

  “I’d say that’s the best invitation I’ve had in months, Stefan. I’d love to join you, but my schedule the next few days is pretty packed. Who told you I was coming to Kabul? ”

  “My dear, we are all working together to help the Afghans,” said Stefan, gently reproaching me. “You must remember that those Uzbek cotton experts you are going to meet in Tashkent were trained in Moscow and sent to Afghanistan thirty years ago by my former government, the late great Soviet Union. Your embassy’s agricultural representative and ours have been discussing the need to coordinate with the Uzbeks for the past several weeks.”

  So far, his story seemed completely plausible.

  “When I learned from one of your colleagues that you spoke fluent Russian—naughty girl for keeping that little detail from me,” he chided, “I suggested that you and your USDA man drive up to Tashkent for the meetings. Your British military escort will have to abandon you at the border, but you’ll be quite safe driving on your own in Uzbekistan.”

  Although he seemed to be making light of the fact I had not told him about my fluency in Russian, I cringed when Stefan mentioned it, and said nothing while he continued with his story.

  “We passed the idea to your embassy and apparently they liked it. I also thought you would appreciate the opportunity to see how we have restored the great Timurid monuments of Samarkand, which is on your route to Tashkent.”

  This made sense and seemed completely aboveboard. In my relief, I sighed a bit too heavily into the phone.

  “Angela?”

  “Yes, Stefan, I’m fine, and I suppose I do owe you a big thank-you. I’ve always wanted to see Samarkand. Why don’t we meet for drinks the next time I’m in Kabul. I’ll give you a call when I get back.”

  “Why do I have to wait that long? You can at least have one drink with me while you’re in town. No? ”

  After another pause, I replied, “Da . . . sure, I’d love to join you.”

  Stefan switched immediately to Russian, “My dearest little Angela, it will be a delight to see you.”

  “You, too, Stefan.”

  “Don’t hang up yet. I’m not finished,” he said suddenly. “When will you be taking your R and R? I’ll be coming up to the consulate in Mazār a few times this summer, and I don’t want to miss seeing you.”

  I hadn’t thought about taking any time off. I was busy and starting to enjoy myself. “I don’t really know, Stefan. It depends on my father’s health, but you’ll be the first to know when I decide.”

  “Excellent. Until tomorrow evening, then.”

  I reluctantly admitted to myself that I was anxious to see Stefan, perhaps too anxious. His sharp intelligence and sardonic wit made him fun to be around, and I couldn’t deny that I found him attractive. I stretched out on the bed in my hooch and reviewed the details of that one delightful evening we’d spent together in Dubai. Too bad I couldn’t wear my little black dress to the NATO bar tomorrow night. It would have to be my usual trousers, tunic, and long-sleeved shirt.

  TWENTY-NINE

  April 17, 2005 ✦ KABUL

  Wednesday afternoon, an armored embassy vehicle dropped me at the heavily guarded Kabul Museum compound where the Bactrian gold and other treasures from Afghanistan’s distant past were being cleaned, restored, and catalogued for eventual display. Jeef bounded down the steps and wrapped his weathered fingers around mine.

  “Angela, what a delight to see you. I’m so sorry Rahim couldn’t join us. How is my star pupil doing? ”

  “He’s reading everything he can get his hands on about the ancient history of Afghanistan,” I said, smiling at the sight of this energetic Frenchman. “I fear you may yet convince him to run off and join your dig.”

  Jeef led me through the dim, musty corridors of the museum and into a brightly lit but windowless room filled with Afghans and foreigners in white lab coats working quietly over trays of gold ornaments.

  Fazli waved us over to his table. Speaking in French, he began to explain the history of the delicate silver-and-gilt ceremonial plate he was cleaning. It would be so much easier to converse with him in Dari, but I waited patiently while Jeef translated his French into English.

  Fazli placed the fragile, two-thousand-year-old plate into my outstretched hands. It was less than ten inches in diameter. Carved in bas-relief were two women wearing flowing gowns and riding a gilt chariot pulled by a matched pair of black lions with thick golden manes. A robed guard held a feather canopy to shelter the women from the glare of the sun god, who stared down from his perch in the sky.

  “Who do these figures represent?” I asked.

  Fazli nodded at Jeef, who proceeded to respond to my question.

  “Cybele, the Greek goddess of nature, is the main figure in this plate. She greatly resembles the goddess Artemis on your pin,” he said, glancing at the tiny Scythian princess on Tom’s brooch, which I wore almost every day.

  “Some used to believe that Cybele and Artemis were one and the same,” he added.

  “Where was it found?” I asked.

  “It’s from Ai Khanoum, a city built by Alexander the Great near Kunduz,” said Jeef, tracing the delicate folds of the princess’s gown with a small brush, “but we’ve found similar artifacts at Tillya Tepe very close to Andkhoy. I understand you and Rahim were almost killed there.”

  He drew in a deep breath and for an instant rested the tips of his fingers on my wrist. “You must be careful, Angela,” he said, avoiding my eyes, as I returned the plate to Fazli.

  An hour later, an embassy driver let me off in front of the heavily fortified NATO headquarters, on the same street and less than three blocks from the entrance to the American Embassy. The streets of Kabul were so dangerous for American diplomats that we were not permitted to walk on public sidewalks even for this short distance.

  The cozy officers’ bar with its dark wood paneling, overstuffed chairs, and crackling fire had the sweet tobacco-scented atmosphere of a gentleman’s club, which it essentially was. There were very few women.

  Stefan had reserved a table for us. He waved when he saw me enter the room, and my heart jumped when I saw him. I liked feeling this way about a man again. After months in Mazār, I had almost forgotten that being feminine could actually be an asset and not a liability. I should have known then how dangerous such feelings could become if they caused me to drop my guard.

  “Your hair is getting a bit shaggy, my dear. I’ll have to get you the name of a good hairdresser in town from one of our secretaries,” he said, rising from his chair as I approached. “So good to see you, my dear.”

  “It’s wonderful to see you, too, Stefan,” I replied as my pulse quickened and my throat went suddenly dry.

  “I ordered you one of those Bombay gin and tonics with a twist of lime you said you like.” His cell phone rang and he looked down at the display. “You’ll have to excuse me briefly.”

  Although I was feeling like a nervous adolescent on her first date, I had carefully covered my bases before having drinks this evening with Stefan. I had mentioned my two prior encounters with him to our economic counselor during yesterday’s meeting about my trip to Uzbekistan. I also told the security office we were getting together for drinks tonight. So far no one seemed bothered by my friendship with Stefan, so neither, I decided, would I.

  The bartender was playing one of Tom’s favorite Sinatra albums. I sank back into the soft leather chair to enjoy a few quiet moments listening to Ol’ Blue Eyes and was about to take a long sip from my first iced gin and tonic in months, when I saw Mark walk into the bar with two other British officers. What was he doing here?

  I had last seen him in Mazār, three days before, poring over the intelligence briefs that covered his cluttered desk in the int cell. Several of his men had been teasing me about my
upcoming drive to Tashkent with the cotton expert, and Mark had joined in. He had said nothing about traveling to Kabul.

  Mark was in a tense discussion with the officers when he spotted me across the room and stopped speaking just long enough to irritate one of his companions. Their voices were raised. I could hear enough to know they were discussing Helmand Province, where the British Army was headed in early 2006.

  Mark left his companions and walked quickly to my table. “Hello, Angela. What a surprise to see you here ! ” Since I considered him no more than a friend and colleague, it bothered me how much I didn’t want him to know I was here with Stefan.

  “I’m more surprised than you, Mark,” I stammered. “As you know, I’m in town to meet my cotton expert. What are you doing here? ”

  “Last-minute intel brief for some visiting senior staff. I flew down today.” He glanced at the single tumbler of gin and tonic on my table.

  “You should know that I plan to bring up your point about the consequences of cooking fuel shortages in the rural areas when I brief them tomorrow. With your permission, I’d also like to mention your experiments with the solar ovens,” he added, taking a step closer to my chair.

  “Mark, we need you over here,” called one of the officers.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” he said as a slow grin spread across his face. “I’ll be back shortly.” He turned and walked toward the other officers before I could reply.

  Their discussion was growing quite heated as Stefan reentered the bar looking pleased with himself. He squeezed around the three officers who were partially blocking the doorway, returned to our table, and kissed me lightly on the cheek at the very instant Mark broke away from the group and turned again in my direction.

  “So sorry, dear girl, I didn’t greet you properly when you arrived,” Stefan said, sitting down across from me. “Let me order myself a vodka so we can catch up on our various adventures.”

  Mark watched in silence a few paces behind Stefan, who remained oblivious to his presence. My eyes and Mark’s met briefly but with such intensity that even Stefan noticed. He turned around to see whom I was looking at, but Mark had already left the room.

  At that moment, all I wanted to do was run out the door and find Mark, although I had no idea what I’d say if I actually caught up with him. I worried that seeing me here drinking with a stranger would give him the wrong impression, that he would again think I was being irresponsible. Since under the circumstances, chasing after him would have been not only undiplomatic and impolite but difficult to explain to all concerned, I sipped my gin and tonic in silence.

  Stefan began to regale me with the story of his fresh victory—which he had resolved with that final phone call—over a fellow diplomat who had tried to beat him out of an assignment to a senior foreign ministry position in Moscow. “Just because I’m retiring in a few more years doesn’t mean I can be stepped on,” he huffed.

  After a few minutes, Stefan had me laughing again with tales of his bureaucratic triumphs. I tried hard not to think any more about Mark.

  THIRTY

  May 2, 2005

  My six-hundred-mile round-trip to Uzbekistan’s capital city was a fiasco from start to finish, although I did get a kick out of driving the Beast without a military escort for a few days. The Uzbek agronomists were unable to obtain permission from their government to travel to Afghanistan, and the whole project was cancelled on our last day in Tashkent. Our planned one-day visit to Samarkand was cut short after my ag expert got food poisoning, and when I headed south for the Afghan border with my ailing passenger, the Beast had three flat tires, delaying our scheduled arrival at the border by eight hours.

  I’d been unable to reach the British soldiers waiting for us on the Afghan side of the Amu Darya River to notify them about our late arrival, and they were about to leave when I finally rumbled across the dark and empty Friendship Bridge at seven P.M., honking my horn and flashing my headlights. After transferring my very ill traveling companion into one of their vehicles where a medic could look after him, I followed them back to Mazār in a two-hour, rain-soaked convoy.

  I was never so happy to see a building as I was the PRT that night, glowing brightly in all its Fawlty Towers splendor on our unlit and muddy road. Lights blazed from the atrium on the top floor, which thundered with music and conversation. The six-man Romanian MOT had invited me to this party weeks ago, but by late that afternoon, I’d given up hope I would make it back to the PRT in time. They were going home after completing their six-month tour of duty in Mazār and tonight they were throwing a farewell bash for themselves and welcoming their replacements, who had just arrived from Bucharest. I parked the Beast in the back lot of the PRT, thanked my military escorts profusely, and dashed upstairs.

  “It won’t be a war in Helmand,” said Sergeant Major, leaning against a doorjamb and waving his beer at an attentive young lieutenant as I passed them on my way to the shower room with a towel and a bar of soap. “It’s going to be a bloody swamp that will suck our boys in and piss them out in jagged little pieces. Oh, sorry, Angela,” he said, jumping out of the way.

  “What happened to you?” asked the lieutenant, staring at my filthy clothes and hair.

  “It’s a long story. Right now I need a hot shower, a meal, several glasses of wine, and I’ll be fine,” I replied.

  When I entered the atrium thirty minutes later, clean body, clean clothes, wet hair pulled back, the highly charged atmosphere of the all-male party had electrified the room. This normally empty space was vibrating with the energy of forty drinking, laughing men who greeted me with the familiarity of an old friend. Mark stood as I passed and nodded politely.

  He and I had not spoken since that evening in Kabul when Stefan had unknowingly kept him from joining me for a drink. My feelings at this moment were, to say the least, confused. Although I owed Mark no explanation about my relationship with Stefan, I still felt the need to assure him that the Russian diplomat and I were just good friends.

  The Romanians were dancing in a tight circle, their arms locked around one another’s shoulders. Every light in the atrium had been switched on, and the doors at either end of the room propped open to keep fresh air circulating. I poured myself a glass of red wine, filled a bowl with lamb curry and rice, and found a chair. Before long, I was surrounded by three sweating, laughing Romanians.

  “Angela, we have been waiting for you. You must come and dance with us.”

  They led me to the center of the room and pulled me into their pulsing circle. I’d forgotten how much I loved dancing. Like horseback riding, it was something I had given up after I lost Tom.

  The Romanian captain plucked me from the circle, grabbed my waist, and spun me around the room in a vigorous polka. He passed me to his first sergeant, who pulled me back into the raucous swirl of dancing men.

  As the entire Romanian military team linked arms with some of the less inhibited Brits who had joined them, they began to stamp and shout in time to the quickening tempo of their traditional sarba.

  I was the only woman present, and yet I felt completely safe as I was passed from soldier to soldier for a twirl around the room and pulled repeatedly back into the expanding circle of dancers. The atrium vibrated with the clapping of callused hands and the thunder of military boots hitting the cold cement floor.

  “Good God, man,” said one of the British officers standing next to Mark as I flew past them in the arms of the Romanian sniper, who had extracted me from the circle for another polka, “someone should rescue the poor girl before the Romanians accidentally fling her off the balcony.”

  “I’m not tempted,” sniffed Mark. “She seems quite capable of taking care of herself.”

  When I approached Mark and his companions again, this time in the arms of the Romanian medic, one of the Brits called out to me, “Angela, you’re actually enjoying this? ”

  “You have no idea how much! ” I shouted as another hand snaked around my waist. “By the way, don’t an
yone dare rescue me,” I added, looking directly at Mark.

  The Romanians dragged me back into their pulsing circle and one by one jumped alone into the center, fingers snapping over their heads, boots pounding a staccato beat.

  Someone tossed a long red scarf to the dancer in the middle and turned the music even louder. He whistled in short bursts as he swung the scarf over his head in widening circles. Without warning, he flipped the scarf over my head and pulled me into the middle of the circle. Knotting the scarf around my hips, he left me alone surrounded by the laughing, stamping soldiers. They began to clap in unison urging me to dance.

  This normally silent, cold, and empty room had completely seduced me with its wine, its heat, the music, and now the men circling me and begging me to dance for them. It was hard to believe that only five hours ago, I’d been standing in a freezing rain arguing with Uzbek customs officials about the stamps in the passport of the very sick man lying in the backseat of the Beast. I raised my arms over my head, bringing my hands together in time with the music, and began to move my hips in a slow circle.

  Through the spinning ring of soldiers, I could see Mark watching me. Feeling exhilarated, possessed, and momentarily without inhibition—I allowed my movements to become slower and more seductive and the men louder and more insistent until at last I pulled the scarf from my hips and tossed it around the neck of another Romanian soldier. I dragged him into the center of the circle before I escaped and collapsed, perspiring, into a chair.

  Mark took three steps in my direction, set his wineglass on a table, then turned abruptly and walked out the door. As he left the room, he brushed by Rahim, who had just entered.

  The interpreters were generally not invited to these parties because alcohol was served. Rahim had a large manila envelope in his hand. He was staring at me with a look of shock and puzzlement that had frozen his innocent young face into a mask of disbelief. He handed the envelope to the colonel. Although he saw me wave at him, he turned without responding and followed the major down the stairs.