Farishta Read online

  Two medics pulled Fuzzy’s limp body from the Beast. One of the doctors drove Jenkins to the Jordanian Field Hospital just down the runway. Rahim and I were taken to the mess tent and offered cups of tea before we sat down with three security officers to tell them everything we could remember about the ambush. I was surprised at how calm I had been during the attack—how calm I still was.

  Before coming to Afghanistan, I had worried for months that this tour of duty might send me over the edge of the emotional precipice I’d been teetering on since losing Tom. But since the possibility of being kicked out of the Foreign Service had ultimately trumped my fear of suffering a complete mental meltdown, I had come. It now appeared that the events of this year had made me stronger—at least when I was faced with a crisis. Dealing with the reality of Fuzzy’s death would be another matter entirely.

  The morning after the attack, I was awakened from a deep sleep by an early call from a very excited Marty. “Ange, congratulations, I got you the London assignment, and you’re not going to believe this next bit. PRTs are suddenly the flavor of the month! The secretary of state came back from her one-day visit to Kabul last week and said we need to have PRTs in Iraq! ”

  “Thanks for the news about the job in London, Marty,” I replied after a long pause. “I actually thought you might be calling because of the ambush,” I added, feeling no joy at learning about my dream assignment.

  “What ambush? There were no attacks on the secretary, were there?” He sounded concerned.

  “Marty, I’m talking about an attack here in Mazār. My vehicle was ambushed near the Blue Mosque yesterday. The guy who has been guarding me for the past ten months was killed, and my driver was wounded. I wasn’t hit. I’m okay, just a little shook up.”

  “Jeez, Ange, I’m so sorry, but I’m glad you’re all right. I hadn’t heard anything about that. I’ll have to check CNN.”

  “It won’t be on CNN, Marty. No Americans were killed, and this is Afghanistan, not Iraq, remember? ” My long-suppressed tears began to flow.

  “Let me know if I can do anything, Ange,” said Marty before hanging up. I buried my face in my pillow and wept long and hard for Fuzzy. Several hours later, I forced myself to get up and take an ice-cold ship shower.

  Colonel Jameson and his officers had been preoccupied since the previous afternoon with implementing increased security measures and investigating the attack. After returning to the PRT from the Forward Support Base, I had stayed up until midnight filing reports to the embassy.

  No one noticed in the morning that I was slowly sinking into a black hole—no one that is except Mark, who’d barely spoken to me since our argument about Rahim and Nilofar. I had been sitting alone for an hour at a table in the soldiers’ dining room where Fuzzy, Jenkins, and I used to talk and joke at breakfast. My tea had grown cold. I was stirring it absently with a finger when Mark appeared in front of me.

  “Have you eaten anything since yesterday afternoon, Angela?”

  I shook my head silently.

  He turned away abruptly, and I resumed stirring my cold tea.

  Three minutes later, he set a tray in front of me. “Buttered toast, scrambled eggs, a bowl of fruit, and a hot cup of tea with milk and sugar—just the way you like it.

  “Now eat!” he commanded. “I’m not leaving until you do.”

  “I’m not hungry,” I replied in a barely audible voice.

  “Angela, have you ever heard of PTSD? ”

  I nodded without speaking.

  “Perhaps you should speak with someone . . .”

  I looked into his glorious blue eyes and gave up trying to hold back the tears. “I’ve been dealing with PTSD since the year my husband was killed,” I said, covering my face with my hands. “I have it under control now. I’m just really sad today, Mark.”

  He handed me a napkin to wipe my tears.

  “It’s perfectly normal to feel this way when you lose a good friend,” I added, trying not to sound as miserable as I felt. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be fine,” I said with little conviction. “I’m going back to my office in a few minutes, but I do appreciate your concern.”

  “I’d really like to see you eat something, Angela.”

  I bit into the toast and scalded my lips on the tea.

  “That’s better,” he said smiling. “Angela, I . . .”

  A young corporal from ops rushed into the dining hall, interrupting whatever Mark had been about to say. “Major Davies, you have a call from NATO headquarters in Kabul. It’s about the ambush. Sorry for interrupting, Angela,” he added, his eyes avoiding mine.

  Mark stood up immediately. “I’m on my way, Corporal. Angela, if you need anything, please let me know.”

  “Thanks, Mark,” I murmured as he left the dining hall. I ate everything on the plate and went back for another cup of tea.

  Jenkins had been flown to the military hospital in Kabul that morning. Since he was so close to the end of his enlistment and so devastated by his mate’s death, he took the option to escort Fuzzy’s body home and take an early discharge. When he called me from Kabul to say good-bye, we could barely speak through our tears.

  The next few days were a blur of meetings as we tried to analyze what had occurred and more importantly—why. The assailant, who had been trained in Pakistan, was a young man from the Pashtun village Mark and I had visited in the summer. He had been chased down and turned over to the British soldiers by shopkeepers who had witnessed the ambush.

  Colonel Jameson and Colonel Tremain strongly disagreed about the handling of the assailant after he had been captured. I was working at my desk in the bullpen when Tremain stormed through and into Colonel Jameson’s office two days after the attack.

  “Are you bullshittin’, me, man?” he said to Jameson in an agitated voice. “You turned that son of a bitch who killed one of your own men over to the Afghans? ” I remained at my desk, but I could see Tremain through the open door. He was trembling with rage.

  “I did,” Colonel Jameson replied calmly. “British armed forces are in this province to build public support for a functioning Afghan police force. It is our duty to respect the laws of this country, Hugo. We had no authority to detain the man.”

  “Goddammit, Jameson, we would have thrown his sorry ass on a C-130 and shipped him off to Bagram for questioning. When and only when our boys got every bit of information they could squeeze out of the bastard, would we hand him over to the Afghan police at Pul-i-Charkhi.”

  It was painful to listen to the argument of these two men, both of whom I respected so much. They were fine officers, operating in a country and in a war with very few clear rules. They cared deeply for their men and their mission, but their approaches to this tangled web we had woven for ourselves in Afghanistan were dramatically different. My sympathies remained with Colonel Jameson. I was convinced that the less aggressive British approach would be more successful in the long run, but it was not my decision.

  “Are you at least going to let your men and Angela start wearing body armor?” asked Tremain. He had lowered his voice.

  “Of course I am, Hugo,” Jameson replied, his voice still steady. “You know how much I value your opinions, but your army and my army approach things differently.”

  “I’ll say we do,” snorted Tremain.

  “Angela, would you come in and close the door after you,” called Colonel Jameson.

  I stood and glanced back at my NATO colleagues. Their ears must have been burning, but their eyes remained focused on their computer screens. I went into the colonel’s office, closed the door behind me, and spent the next hour with the two men as they discussed how they would cooperate more closely in the future.

  Letters and calls of sympathy poured into the PRT from provincial governors and local officials, including the old mullah across the street. Even General Kabir sent his condolences. The only thing he and Governor Daoud still agreed on was their shared hatred of the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

&nbs
p; The evening after the ambush, the colonel summoned everyone in camp who was not on duty for a memorial service in the pub.

  “We pray for the family of Lance Corporal Fotheringham, a valued friend and a fine soldier,” he said to the assembled troops. “We also pray for the swift recovery of Lance Corporal Jenkins.” The officers and men bowed their heads. I had pressed myself into a corner and was staring at the dark stain on the wall where my giant, gentle, wonderful Fuzzy had hurled his beer that night.

  “Today is a time to reflect on the tasks we must still accomplish in order to prevent further suffering in Afghanistan,” said Jameson to the silent crowd of soldiers. “The people of this region have welcomed us during the two years of our presence in Mazār-i-Sharīf. We cannot let the actions of a single person affect our attitude toward or our respect for the Afghan people.”

  There was some muffled shuffling and grumbling at this comment until another officer began to read from the Field Service Book. I was sobbing. The officers and soldiers around me pretended not to notice.

  When the men were dismissed, business as usual quickly resumed inside the camp. Not quite ready to go back to the bullpen and carry on as though nothing had happened, I went out to my rose garden, where a few hardy blooms were still showing off their colors.

  “Doing all right, are you?” Mark came up behind me and rested his hand lightly on my shoulder.

  “It was so fast. He was so young, Mark. There was nothing I could do.”

  “It’s true that you could do nothing for Corporal Fotheringham, Angela, but there was something you could do for Jenkins, and you did it. You got him to the medics as quickly as possible,” Mark said, “and probably saved his arm.”

  “Such a waste, losing Fuzzy like that.”

  “Yes,” Mark agreed, “a terrible waste.”

  He kept his hand on my shoulder and stayed with me until my tears had dried.

  FIFTY-FOUR

  October 17, 2005

  “Ange, it’s Bill.”

  I leaned back in my desk chair, pressed the cell phone hard against my ear, and squeezed my eyes shut. It was so good to hear my brother’s voice. I was still numb after the ambush and Fuzzy’s death but I was handling it better than I had expected. After Mark’s force-feeding at breakfast, my appetite had returned and the tears had stopped.

  “Bill, thanks so much for calling. How did you hear about the attack? I didn’t want to tell you and upset Dad, but I really appreciate the call. I’m fine, but my bodyguard was killed and our driver was injured.”

  There was a long silence on the other end of the line. For a moment, I thought the phone had gone dead.

  “Ange, what attack are you talking about?”

  “I thought that’s why you called me,” I replied, feeling confused.

  “Ange, Dad passed away last night,” he said, his voice choking. “It was a massive stroke. Happened right after he went to sleep. He just never woke up.”

  There was a time when this much bad news would have sent me to bed for days, sufficiently sedated to shut out the rest of the world. Not anymore.

  “We scheduled his funeral for next Thursday. Think you can make it? ” asked Bill. “His wife has already packed her things. She’s leaving for her parents’ place in Phoenix this evening. She said to contact her lawyer when the will is read.”

  “Of course, I’ll come home,” I assured him. “I may have trouble getting out of here with all this security, but I’ll do my best.”

  “Okay, sis. Hurry home. I’m glad you’re okay.”

  That night, Mark and I had dinner for the first time in weeks. When the pub opened at eight, he purchased two cans of cider for me, two cans of beer for him, and invited me to join him upstairs on the balcony. For the next three hours, we sat outside bundled in heavy jackets, baring our souls to each other under a bright October moon. The few officers who came up to smoke that evening retired to the far end of the balcony and tried to give us as much privacy as possible.

  It had been a bittersweet but revelatory conversation. Mark started by offering his condolences for my father, although I made it quite clear that Dad’s death had not been unexpected and that I was suffering far more from losing Fuzzy.

  He apologized profusely for berating me the day he had discovered Rahim and Nilofar together in the shipping container. He confessed that he had been in agony during the two weeks when we’d barely spoken, but said his pride had kept him from approaching me.

  “It wasn’t so much your involvement with Rahim and Nilofar that upset me, Angela, although that was part of it,” he said as we sat on the balcony in plastic chairs with our fingers laced tightly together. “It was your own impulsive risk-taking that was driving me mad. I was certain you would eventually get yourself into a situation you couldn’t get out of, and I would lose you.”

  He squeezed my hand and brought it to his lips.

  “I worried so much every time you went out on patrol it was impossible to concentrate on my work.” He stared out at the dark peaks of the Hindu Kush and continued. “I was so angry the night I found Nilofar and Rahim that when I saw you in the pub, all my frustrations came pouring out—but not in the way I had intended.”

  In the end, we agreed that two emotionally battered grown-ups, thrown together in a war zone, with significant differences in age and temperament, could actually fall in love—and it might even last. I told him about my onward assignment to London, and suggested we get together there when he came back from Iraq in the spring. He was thrilled at the news and wanted me to meet his parents and sisters.

  “Mark, you know that I’ll be flying out in the morning to attend my father’s funeral,” I said, overwhelmed by this unrelenting sequence of bad news. “By the time I return, you’ll be packing for Iraq.”

  “Please don’t remind me,” he said, his voice choking. “We’ve had so little time together here and now with my stupid refusal to speak to you these past few weeks, I’ve denied us even that.”

  “Let’s focus on the future, Mark.”

  As we gathered up our cans to leave the balcony, he took me gently into his arms and kissed me on the lips for the first time. Even such an innocent gesture felt awkward in this fishbowl military environment, but the other officers had left the balcony before us, and I did not resist.

  “Promise me you’ll come back from New Mexico before I leave,” insisted Mark on our way downstairs. “The Romanian MOT will be flying out with us, and they’ll be throwing one of their parties the night before we depart. I hope you’ll be there.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it, Mark.”

  I don’t remember much about the flights or the funeral. I was tired and completely detached from the scene in New Mexico. I had exhausted all my reserves of grief on Fuzzy, whose death had rocked me far more than the passing of my own father. I deplaned at the airport in Albuquerque with a crowd of young GIs returning from duty in Iraq. They were a silent and unsmiling bunch, and looked as exhausted and drained as I felt.

  Ten days later, four Gurkha soldiers were waiting for me at the Mazār Airfield with two PRT vehicles. Unlike the silent, deserted place where Fuzzy and Jenkins had greeted me in January, our little airport was now jammed with cargo planes and trucks.

  The Germans were unloading equipment for the construction of their new regional military facility just south of the airport. An enormous unmarked Russian Anotov was discharging cargo into several large vehicles parked at the eastern end of the runway. The C-130 I’d come in on had been packed with newly arrived American, Swedish, and German soldiers. A long line of Humvees, Land Cruisers, Range Rovers, and Jeeps drove right up to our plane to pick up their passengers.

  “Welcome back, Angela,” said Krishna, my Nepalese Gurkha vehicle commander, with solemn formality. While our driver tossed my bag into the back of the Land Cruiser, Krishna held out my twenty-five-pound Kevlar vest, so I could slip my arms in. The two helmeted Gurkhas in the follow car, alert and scanning the perimeter of the airfield, nodd
ed at me through the windshield of their idling vehicle. No one was smiling.

  The casual air and floppy hats of the British soldiers were no more. Only two months ago, Fuzzy and Jenkins had greeted me with hugs on an empty runway and we’d stopped in town to feast on kabobs, flat bread, and sweet Mazār melons. I had felt then like I was coming home. It did not seem that way now. I no longer knew where home was.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss,” Krishna said with downcast eyes as he allowed the weight of the vest to settle on my shoulders. Pulling the Velcro straps tight across my chest, I hoisted myself awkwardly into the backseat of the vehicle.

  “Thank you, Krishna.” I was ashamed to admit even to myself that I missed Fuzzy more than I missed my own father. The mental picture I had of Dad expiring peacefully at home, his TV droning in the background, attended by his private nurses, contrasted starkly with my last images of the young freckled Fuzzy, laughing at Rahim’s stories, then grabbing his rifle with split-second reflexes to defend the rest of us against our attacker.

  “We dropped Rahim at the university on the way to the airport,” Krishna announced as we turned onto the main road. “He said he had to get a book from the library. I hope you won’t mind if we stop to pick him up on the way back to the PRT.”

  “Of course, I don’t mind.” It would be so good to see Rahim again, although I knew exactly what was meant by that “book.”

  We drove into town with the windows rolled up and the heater blasting. By late October, the afternoon air was chilly despite the cloudless blue sky. Rahim was waving enthusiastically as we pulled up to the main gate of Balkh University. He did not have a book in his hand and, of course, he had no body armor.

  “Farishta-jan,” he shouted as he bounded into the vehicle. “Welcome back! It is good to see you. I hope you and your family are not too sad, and I hope that the funeral for your father was well attended.”

  I thought of Bill and me sitting with Dad’s five doddering neighbors in the wooden pews of our local church, listening politely as Father Perez droned his way through the requiem mass. “Yes,” I said, “it was very well attended. Thanks, Rahim.”