Farishta Page 31

“I’m fine,” I muttered as I stared at the carnage in front of us.

  “Get in the backseat and stay down,” he shouted as he and the other soldiers grabbed their weapons and a first-aid kit and rushed toward the Swedish vehicles.

  One soldier radioed the PRT for help while others formed a defensive perimeter around the blast site and the wounded men.

  I obeyed the order to stay put until I remembered that Rahim was in one of those vehicles. My heart sank. I couldn’t bear to lose my friend. Not when everything had been so bright for him.

  When I raised my head, I could see Rahim lying in a pool of mud on the side of the road. He had been thrown clear of the second vehicle when it rolled over. The one medic in our group was busy stabilizing the most seriously injured Swedes. I jumped out, ran to Rahim, and was overjoyed when I saw him push himself into a sitting position. He was dazed and unhurt, but lying near him was another badly injured Swede who had also been thrown from the vehicle.

  “Angela, get back in the vehicle now!” ordered the Royal Marine, who was the most senior officer present.

  “This man’s hurt. I’m staying with him until someone can help,” I shouted back as I knelt next to the soldier and began to tick through my first-aid checklist. He was still breathing but unconscious and in shock.

  His face had been lacerated by broken glass, and a thin shard of metal protruded from his stomach. He had not been wearing body armor and was rapidly losing blood. I wrapped my head scarf around the metal to stabilize it and gently pressed the ends of the scarf into the gash to staunch the blood.

  When he awoke and began to moan, I took out the morphine pen I had carried with me for the past eleven months and pressed it hard against his leg. The spring-loaded needle penetrated his skin and the morphine quickly took effect. He closed his eyes and began to breathe softly.

  Despite the cold rain, a crowd of Afghan men began to gather in the street. The British soldiers, running now on pure adrenaline, pointed their weapons at the men and ordered them to move back. Rahim stayed with them to translate.

  Within forty-five minutes, British and American soldiers had widened the security perimeter around the blast site. Medics from the Forward Support Base took over the care of the wounded, loading them into their vehicles and heading for the airport.

  In the pouring rain under a darkening sky, the Estonian EODs gathered up the remains of the bomb for analysis. Other soldiers started questioning the neighbors about what they had seen before the explosion. I was unhurt and wanted to do something to help. Since Rahim and I were the only Dari speakers present, I offered to stay and assist with interpreting. There was not an Afghan policeman in sight.

  We learned nothing that evening. Every man, woman, and child we interviewed claimed to have seen no unusual activities before the event.

  The PRT was in a state of controlled chaos when we returned after dark. We were once again in lockdown except for those still out investigating the attack. I called the embassy to report the details we had gathered and let them know I was unharmed. The Swedish major and I scheduled a meeting with Governor Daoud early the following morning to request his support for the investigation since the Afghan police were refusing to cooperate.

  The new American contract police trainers who had arrived in Mazār a few weeks before the attack were now in lockdown inside their well-fortified compound south of town.

  “We’re going to need their help investigating this, Angela,” insisted the Swedish major. “The Afghan police are doing nothing.”

  “I called the Americans last night and asked them to join us at today’s meeting with the governor,” I replied. “They have orders from their headquarters in Kabul to stay inside their compound. I’m afraid we’re on our own, Major.”

  “Damn it!” he muttered, slamming his fist against the wall. “All right, let’s go. Governor Daoud, whom I’ve not even met, is expecting us in twenty minutes. You’re going to have to do the talking. I hope you’re all right with that.”

  “Let’s do it,” I said as we strapped on our vests and climbed into the PRT’s only fully armored vehicle.

  “Farishta, please tell the major we are truly sorry about the attack on your soldiers,” said the governor, his face as impassive as granite and his voice as smooth as silk. “Two attacks in two months. This is extremely troubling.”

  He slipped his amber prayer beads slowly through his fingers, making a soft clicking sound as he spoke. I didn’t know if Daoud had actually ordered the attack, but I suspected he knew exactly who had planted that IED.

  “My chief of police is doing everything necessary to find the perpetrators.”

  “Sir, with all due respect, your chief of police is doing nothing,” I replied, doing my best to keep my voice flat and calm. I translated our conversation for the Swede, who sat ramrod straight in his chair watching my tense exchange with the governor.

  “As I told your colonel recently, Farishta, just as our president cannot control everything that happens in this country, I cannot control everything that happens in my province.” Daoud’s dark eyes narrowed.

  “Governor, the PRT has been a peaceful presence in this province for three years. We lost one man last month and sent another one home injured. Yesterday we lost three more.”

  The wafer-thin veneer of civilization beneath which the real Afghanistan simmered had cracked open again and three young Swedes had tumbled through. Daoud knew where the fault lines were. We foreigners did not and never would.

  “You must help us,” I pleaded, knowing my words would have no effect.

  “We will do what we can,” he said, rising from his chair to indicate that the meeting was over.

  Fully armored vehicles with electronic countermeasures were now required for all trips out of camp. My brand-new Land Cruiser was relegated to the back parking lot, where it sat unused next to the rusting skeleton of the Beast.

  Jeef stopped by the PRT a week after the attack and invited me to join him for a trip to Balkh to inspect his winterized dig. He was traveling in a battered green Honda van that would attract no attention. I couldn’t resist his invitation and slipped out of camp without telling anyone. I was breaking the promise I’d made to Mark, but I knew this would probably be my last chance to see the towering walls that surrounded that ancient city.

  “I’m sorry you won’t be around to see what we turn up here, Angela,” Jeef said, looking sadder than I’d ever seen him.

  “I must confess I have very mixed feelings about leaving,” I admitted.

  “I’m certain you must. There’s something about this place that doesn’t let you go.”

  When I told Jeef about my London assignment and my plans to see Mark when I got there, he didn’t seem at all surprised.

  “Angela, my dear,” he said, taking my hands into his, “I always suspected there was a special attraction between you and the major. I know that your first love was tragically cut short in Beirut long ago, and I wish you both all the happiness you deserve.”

  SIXTY-ONE

  December 10, 2005

  On Saturday morning, an e-mail from Marty arrived with the disappointing news that I had not been promoted and would be forced to retire in one more year. His message did contain a cheery postscript:

  Because of your service in Afghanistan, personnel has authorized you to take an abbreviated one-year tour of duty in London if you so desire.

  After replying to Marty that I would take the year in London, I sent an e-mail to tell Mark about my new situation. And then I began to worry. I would be out of a job in a year. What would I do then? What if things didn’t work out between us in the real world? What if our relationship turned out to have been only a wartime fling that would evaporate under the pressures of normal life?

  Mark’s answer, which flashed on my screen within minutes of my message, erased any doubts I may have had about my decision.

  A week later, a request arrived from the embassy that would further complicate my life. The U.S. Ar
my command in Kabul had heard about my work with solar ovens and was inviting me to stay in Afghanistan for another year to start solar oven projects at several of their PRTs in the south.

  I decided to hold off sending a response to that request until after Christmas, and didn’t mention the proposal to Mark, whose letters were growing longer and more passionate each week. I was intrigued by the idea of working with our military to spread this technology into southern Afghanistan. If Mark and London had not been in my immediate future, I would have jumped at the offer without hesitation. This new dilemma caused me several sleepless nights as I wrestled with the fact that I would be unemployed in London a year from now while so many people here desperately needed this technology. I would try to find someone in the expat community in Kabul to take on the project.

  SIXTY-TWO

  January 1, 2006

  For the past several days, I had watched from my bedroom window as workmen disassembled the small mud-walled mosque across the street brick by brick. The old mullah had proudly announced his plans for the construction of a new mosque the day he came to the PRT for breakfast. He had continued to pray five times a day under his pistachio tree throughout the demolition. Early on New Year’s Day, I was awakened by the sound of chopping from the now bare plot of land where the mosque had stood.

  Three burly men with axes were cutting down the pistachio tree. Two other men stood guard at either end of the road. I watched in horror as the gnarled old tree fell to the ground with a loud crash.

  As the men began sawing the trunk into logs, swarms of neighborhood children appeared and began crawling through the top of the tree that now lay in the dirt. Like vultures on carrion, they snapped off branches and stripped the tree bare. There was enough wood to provide each of their mothers with cooking fuel for several days.

  This magnificent tree, which had taken decades to grow to its impressive size and which had nourished the mullah and his visitors with its sweet nuts season after season, would by the end of the month be reduced to bags of charcoal and windblown ashes in the cooking fires of Mazār-i-Sharīf.

  I was transfixed by the destruction below my window, and overcome with sadness knowing there was nothing I could do to stop it. In less than an hour, the men had loaded their rough cuts of lumber onto a truck and driven away. More children came running to the site to fight among themselves for the remaining twigs.

  At eight A.M. after the last child had left the scene, a bright winter sun lit the bare patch of earth where the pistachio tree had stood. I could see the old mullah walking down the main road toward the site of his new mosque with a round of fresh baked naan tucked under his arm. He was coming to sing the second call to prayer. When he turned the corner and saw the raw stump of his beloved tree, he sank to his knees and began to weep.

  SIXTY-THREE

  January 14, 2006

  A week after his uncle the doctor arrived at the PRT in early January to take up his position as head interpreter, Rahim left for Kabul to prepare for his departure to France.

  Nilofar would travel with him, as would Professor Fazli, who wanted to be sure they were both settled with their respective sponsors in Paris. I hopped a Saturday morning military flight out of Mazār and met them at the airport in Kabul that afternoon.

  “I will miss you,” said Rahim, hugging me with such force I could barely breathe. “Thank you for being my friend, Farishta-jan. Nilofar and I will look for a reunion with you and the major next summer.”

  “We will definitely make plans to see you both, Rahim,” I promised.

  Nilofar had dissolved in tears and was unable to speak. The swelling on her face had gone down, but purple bruises were still visible around her lips and eyes where the men had beaten her. She wrapped her arms around me and held on until Rahim and Fazli pulled her gently away and led her out of the terminal and up the steps of the plane.

  Nilofar turned to wave just before entering the cabin. “Khuda-hafiz, Farishta-jan! Tashakur,” she shouted over the roar of the jets on the runway. Jeef and I waited until their plane was in the air. Before we parted, we promised to see each other in February when I left Kabul for London.

  Following a day of meetings at the embassy with U.S. military officials to discuss the solar oven project and suggest some local expats who might be able to help, I was back at my hooch, packing for an early morning flight to Mazār, when there was a knock at my door.

  Deputy Chief of Mission Paul Plawner and my dear friend Jeef stood side by side in the slanting afternoon light. They both looked unspeakably sad. I froze, unable to breathe, until one of them spoke.

  “Angela, we’ve just received word from the PRT,” said Plawner, swallowing hard and pausing to take a deep breath. “A British Army helicopter leaving Basra for Baghdad was shot down this morning. All personnel on board were lost. The PRT commander wanted us to inform you that Major Davies was on that flight. I am so very sorry, Angela.”

  I don’t remember much about what happened next or how long I stood mute in the doorway, shaking my head in disbelief with tears running down my cheeks. At some point, Jeef put his arm around my shoulder, led me back into my hooch, and let me cry until there was nothing left inside.

  I would receive no formal notification of Mark’s death. I was not next of kin, and we had no attachment other than our love for each other. Plawner asked the embassy doctor to provide me with a sedative, which I accepted gratefully. Jeef stayed with me until I fell asleep and returned the following day to take me to lunch.

  Early the next morning, stretched out on my cot and staring at the molded white ceiling of my hooch, I began to tick off the emotional milestones of the past year: my anxiety about coming to Afghanistan, my initial anger at Mark’s arrogance, my affection for Rahim, my awe of Nilofar and her incredible courage, my betrayal by Stefan, Fuzzy’s death, my profound love for Mark and his for me, and now this.

  When I lost Tom, I’d been an expectant mother married to the first man I’d ever loved. My inability to deal with that loss had put my life on hold for far too long.

  Losing Mark so suddenly had punched a painful new hole in my heart, but I could not afford to wallow in self-pity for another two decades. I no longer had the luxury of time that I’d had when I was twenty-seven.

  “I’m going back to Mazār tomorrow,” I told Jeef as I picked at my lunch in the embassy cafeteria.

  “Perhaps, my dear, you should stay in Kabul for a few days so the doctor can look in on you.” He patted the back of my hand with his gnarled fingers.

  “Thanks, Jeef, but I have to finish my work in Mazār before I start here in Kabul.”

  He looked up in surprise at my statement. “Kabul? What do you mean?”

  “This morning, I accepted an offer I received last month from the U.S. Army to initiate several solar oven projects in southern Afghanistan. No point in going to London now.”

  “No,” he said with downcast eyes, “I suppose there’s not.”

  Jeef watched in silence as I fingered the tiny Ai Khanoum medallion he had given me. It hung from my neck on the filigreed chain Mark had sent me for Christmas.

  “Jeef, you can’t know how much I appreciate your friendship and your support,” I said.

  “You will always have it, Angela,” he replied with a sad smile.

  Everyone at the PRT had heard about the helicopter crash in Basra and the loss of British soldiers. It was a major story on BBC for several days, but there was nothing on CNN. The British officers and soldiers all mourned the deaths of their comrades, but only our new commanding officer, who had known Mark when they were posted together in Northern Ireland, was aware of the tremendous loss I had suffered.

  The others, even those officers who had seen us dancing that night in the atrium, had no idea of the enormity of my grief. As soon as I returned to Mazār, the colonel invited me into his office.

  “Angela, if there is anything I can do, you will, of course, let me know,” he said. “Mark was a fine officer and a good ma
n. Would you like me to say something to the men?”

  “Thank you, Colonel, but I’d prefer to keep this to myself,” I replied with my head up and my eyes dry.

  “As you wish,” he said, rising and walking me to the door.

  A week after my return to Mazār, a rosy-cheeked corporal stopped me in the hall outside the mailroom. He was a newcomer to the PRT.

  “Nice stack of blueys in the box for you, today, Angela,” he said, smiling brightly and placing the packet of letters into my outstretched hand. “I see you have a friend in Basra. Looks like you’ll be needing a few hours to read all of these, eh?”

  “Yes, Corporal, I probably will,” I replied, squeezing the fragile blue onionskins between my fingers.

  I went to my room, flipped through the stack, and found Mark’s last letter.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  January 21, 2006

  “Hi, Marty. It’s Angela Morgan.”

  “Hi, Ange. Isn’t it the middle of the night in Afghanistan? ”

  “It’s three A.M. but I wanted to catch you in your office so we could have this conversation in person.”

  “How are you doing? I’m so sorry about the whole promotion thing. Really a shame.”

  “Thanks, Marty. I’m going to make this quick because I’m almost out of minutes. I don’t want the London job.”

  There was silence at the other end of the line and I thought I’d lost the connection.

  “Marty?”

  “I’m here, Angela. So you want to spend your last year in D.C. instead of London? Makes a lot of sense. Much easier to job search from here.”

  “Marty, I don’t want to transfer back to Washington. I’m going to stay in Afghanistan.”

  There was more silence but this time I waited patiently for Marty to recover and reply.