Farishta Read online

  “You’re kidding, right?” he said, laughing. “You’ve been lobbying for that London job for more than two years. What happened? ”

  “It’s a long story, Marty. I’ve been given the opportunity to manage a project in this country that I think might actually help some people. This is where I belong right now.”

  “Suit yourself, Ange. I’m sure personnel will be delighted to give you an extra year in hell if you really want it.”

  “Thanks for your support, Marty.”

  The phone beeped twice and the line went dead. Marty would have to handle the rest from his end.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  March 30, 2006

  I remained at the PRT until early spring when the last British troops headed south to Helmand and the arriving Swedes abandoned our ramshackle compound and moved into their heavily fortified facility in the open desert east of Mazār.

  My replacement arrived the same week the British Army handed over command of the PRT to their Swedish counterparts. He was a young diplomat, with the great advantage of having served a three-year tour of duty in Stockholm early in his career. His Swedish would come in very handy with the new guys in charge.

  After spending three days introducing my colleague to my most important contacts, I decided to make a final solo call on Governor Daoud. Despite his early insults and as much as I disliked and mistrusted the man, I knew that he and General Kabir were the only real power brokers in the north. Under the watchful eyes of NATO troops, these two aging warlords would be keeping the lid on the kettle up here for the next few years.

  In the provinces they controlled, they had as much of a political balancing act to manage as did the Afghan president in the rest of the country. With the exception of the two attacks on our soldiers and the rocketing of the police-training center, there had been relative peace in the five northern provinces for the past year and a half. Much of that was due to the uneasy truce and iron-fisted rule of these two men.

  “God be with you, Farishta-jan,” said the governor, hobbling slowly and supported by a wooden cane as he walked me to the door of his office, where we had met alone for almost an hour.

  “You must bring us some solar food driers the next time you come to Balkh. Our farmers will be growing fruits and vegetables from now on since you won’t allow them to grow poppies,” he added with a crooked grin. “They will need a way to preserve their produce unless the Americans will be giving them refrigerators and diesel fuel along with seeds and fertilizer.”

  As I exited his office and climbed into a waiting PRT vehicle, he called out to me, “Farishta-jan, your Dari has improved amazingly in a very short time. Congratulations.”

  On my final morning at the PRT, I covered my hair with a scarf and walked out the front gate unescorted, with no body armor and no burka. I wanted to say good-bye to the old mullah across the street and congratulate him on his new mosque. I didn’t know if he would remember me from our breakfast, or even if my very presence would offend him.

  “Of course, I know who you are, honum,” he said, greeting me on the pitted dirt road in front of his compound.

  “You have been showing the poorest people in this neighborhood how to cook with your sun boxes. Everyone knows what you have done.”

  He looked up at the razor-wire-covered walls of the soon to be abandoned British PRT and smiled to himself. “Honum, I also know it was you who asked the colonel to invite me to breakfast inside your fortress, and I thank you for that.”

  I acknowledged his gratitude with a nod, but was distracted by the ragged stump of the pistachio tree that jutted from a muddy patch near the edge of the construction site.

  “Imam, I was so sad to see your beautiful tree cut down in January.”

  His face darkened momentarily and then brightened into a wrinkled smile. “Come, honum,” he said leading me into his small courtyard and behind a half-built wall.

  “I received these yesterday from a friend in Samangan.” He pointed at three large clay pots, each of which held a healthy, young, four-foot pistachio tree. “Every tragedy must have its new beginning,” he said, touching the branches of one of the saplings.

  “Khuda-hafiz, honum,” he called as I walked back to the PRT. “God be with you, lady.”

  My last official acts at the PRT were to give my roses a final pruning and say a quiet farewell to the rusting, bullet-scarred carcass of the Beast, which had carried Rahim, Fuzzy, Jenkins, and me all over northern Afghanistan. I sat alone for a few minutes in the torn and duct-taped driver’s seat of this inanimate and heavily cannibalized hunk of machinery that was about to be hauled away and cut up for scrap. “Thanks, Beast,” I murmured, patting the filthy dashboard. “It was quite a year.”

  My trip back to the United States for consultations involved multiple transfers and several cancellations due to bad weather. I ended up being booked through Frankfurt and was put on a commercial flight home with some Army personnel who had been treated at U.S. medical facilities in Germany for minor wounds they’d received in Iraq. The more seriously injured troops were being flown out in military hospital planes.

  I sat next to a tall, freckle-faced U.S. Army Ranger, who reminded me of Fuzzy. His arm had been broken when his vehicle struck an IED near Baghdad. His cast was off and he assured me he was fine. He was going home for R&R in Ohio before returning to duty. He didn’t ask where I had come from and we didn’t speak for the rest of the flight since he had put his headphones on to watch movies as soon as we took off.

  When we landed in New York and I opened the overhead compartment, he noticed the “Enduring Freedom” patch sewn to my backpack.

  “Have you been in Afghanistan, ma’am ? ” he asked as we made our way down the narrow aisle.

  “Yes, I’ve been up north for the past year. I’m going back next month for another year.”

  “You a contractor? ”

  “No, Foreign Service Officer—Department of State.”

  “What’s that thing under your arm, ma’am?” he asked, staring at the folded square of foil-covered cardboard that I’d stuffed in the overhead with my backpack.

  “It’s my weapon of choice,” I said, “a solar oven.”

  “What’s that for, ma’am?”

  “It cooks food and boils water with sunshine. There’s a lot of sun but not much wood in Afghanistan.”

  “Same deal in Iraq, ma’am. They could use a few thousand of those things over there.”

  “I’m working on it, Corporal,” I said with a smile.

  “Hooah,” he replied as we parted and headed for our connecting flights.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My daughters, Jennifer and Sabrina, encouraged me to take the assignment in Afghanistan, which provided the inspiration for this novel. Thanks, girls. You know I wouldn’t have gone without your permission. Thanks to my good friends Kitty and Owen Morse, who urged me to write about my experiences when I came home, and to the friends and family members who were my faithful readers: Penny Hill, Martina Nicholson, Pat Currid and Jeane Stetson (who also provided ideas for the map), Mildred Neely, Rita Sudman, Judy Maben, and my daughter Jennifer. Two thumbs up for my remarkable editor at Riverhead Books, Sarah Stein, whose firm hand made Farishta so much better. My sincere gratitude goes out to the officers and soldiers who were my friends and protectors during the year I spent in Mazār-i-Sharīf, with a special thanks to the three British Army colonels who commanded the PRT while I was there, and the five officers who patiently responded to my questions during the writing of Farishta: Tom Barker, Daniel Bould, Ross Carter, Harry Porteous, and Hugo Stanford-Tuck. Since Farishta is a novel and not a documentary, I do hope you fellows will forgive the artistic license I took with your detailed guidance on all things military. Thanks to poet and scholar Coleman Barks for introducing me to the magic of Rumi’s poetry during his visit to Mazār-i-Sharīf in 2005. My highest praise is reserved for our brave young Afghan interpreters, especially one who will remain unnamed—but you know who you are. Tasha
kur.

  My passion for solar cooking began during the year I spent in Afghanistan, where I saw children everywhere hauling piles of brush home for their mothers’ cooking fires. With the exception of the time I spent writing Farishta, I have dedicated the last four years of my life to promoting awareness of this remarkable technology. I plan to continue.