What Changes Everything Part 1

What Changes Everything.

by Masha Hamilton.

Part One.

You don"t need a war.

You don"t need to go anywhere.

It"s a myth: if you hurl.

Yourself at chaos.

Chaos will catch you.

-Eliza Griswold.

Beirut. Baghdad. Sarajevo. Bethlehem. Kabul. Not of course here.

-Adrienne Rich.

Najibullah: Letter to My Daughters I.

September 3rd, 1996.

Destiny is a saddled a.s.s, my daughters; he goes where you lead him. But you must know the rules to discern the path. First, give full trust to no one. The smiling horseman with whom you bow for dawn prayers may seek to kill you by nightfall. Work in cooperation, of course- what dust would rise from one rider alone? But do not let your lashes slip lazily to your cheeks while the sun remains in the sky. Whatever Allah wills shall be. Nevertheless, tie your steed"s knees tight before sleeping.

It is dawn just after prayers; Kabul"s golden light creeps in through my window, a timid but relentless thief here to steal the night, and I am imagining you three with me instead of in Delhi, us all cross-legged on toshaks, looking directly into each other"s faces. My mind has become so practiced in seeing you where you are not, in fact, that I can almost hear you teasing me now-Hors.e.m.e.n? Steeds? You would tell me, if you could, that these are male metaphors, and male concerns.

But you"ve been raised liberated girls; your dealings will be with both genders. Besides, though perhaps it is less likely, a woman too may pat your back with a blade in her palm.

I have barely slept the night thinking of you girls and your mother. As reports reach me of the fundamentalists clawing daily closer to Kabul, the courage that buffered me as Afghanistan"s president bolsters me still. I believe these extremists, being fellow Pashtuns, will at last send me into exile, which means I will rejoin my family.

Nevertheless, as it is hard to predict where a worn fighter"s bullet will land, there is urgency to my task. For over four years and four months, I have been unable to share a meal with you, hear in person of your plans or tell of mine. We have not played a single game of pingpong nor watched a movie together. When I think of it, as is often, my eyes feel rubbed with salt, my throat thickened with mud, my chest pummeled by an angry fist. I put these lessons in writing to be sure you will have them in case you need them before we are reunited.

So then, the rules. When you must trust someone, rely on a stranger more easily than a friend; yes, because a friend knows your soft spots. But remember family is the marrow of your bones. Who is here with me still? My two UN "guards," and a young Pashtun, Amin, who waits on me. But my daily companion, the one with whom I share my deepest thoughts, is my brother Shahpur, your kaakaa jan. Together we follow politics and watch television and talk of you. Shahpur celebrated-but that"s not the right word without you-he marked my 49th birthday last month, a hard day to be apart from my beloved wife and girls. He holds me upright in your absence. You sisters, too, will lift each other when the need appears.

Take care of your mother-flower until I return to you. I became her tutor all those years ago driven by the hope that she would fall in love with me over formulas and test questions. They can arrest or exile me-I will always be a lucky man because of her. She gave me you three, and a home of laughter even in dark times, and the strong foundation that has allowed me to do my work.

And this rule: love your country. Victim of many men"s fury, corrupted by fanatics who believe our landlocked status means we sit in the cup of their hands, it still remains proud. "I come to you and my heart finds rest," Ahmed Shah Baba wrote of our motherland. "Away from you, grief clings to my heart like a snake." I know your memories of Afghanistan will be tinged by our separation and my detention. But put that aside, learn our history, and return one day to make your own impact.

Remember that Afghanistan must be one united nation, all ethnic divisions discarded. Remember the couplet of the great Pashtun poet and warrior Khushal Khan Khattak: "Sail through vast oceans as long as you can, oh whale, for in small brooks I can predict your decay!"

Remember, also, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. He too endured house arrest. He too knew it possible to be a devout Muslim and still support a progressive society. His goal, to unite all, was n.o.ble. Together one day, we"ll visit his resting place in Jalalabad.

Be brave. Be proud.

Fear and shame are father and son, and you should feel neither. You will need courage to meet detractors-the strong or outspoken always have those who would malign them. Still, we Afghans are raised on bravery with our morning chai; I remind you that it runs easily through our blood.

Be punctual. Work hard. Memorize the Quran. Don"t forget your Dari. Never boast: it is the small mouth that speaks big words.

Do not believe the stories you hear about me, my daughters. At least, not wholly. You are still so young-Muski only eight years old-but I know grim murmurs make their way to your ears already; your mother tells me. If I was a puppet, how did I manage to hold on to power for three years after the Soviets scuttled away? If I drew blood, it was only in self-defense or for Afghanistan. If it was me who was the roadblock to peace, then why has our city been defaced by warfare in the months and years since I left office? Do you remember Kharabat Street, its musicians flinging open their doors to compete for the chance of performing at the palace, their heartthumping music expanding and floating into the mountains? Ma.s.soud"s singlenote rockets left the Street of the Musicians in rubble. Districts where you three and your mother used to walk are now impa.s.sible, proof enough that I preserved peace, not obstructed it.

And now your uncle is at my door. I will write you again soon-not a diary, since when the days are filled with events that might make an interesting diary there is not a spare moment to record them, and those are not my circ.u.mstances now. Instead, my enemies have given me the gift of time. As a satellite phone is available too infrequently for my wishes, I will make for you a written record of the state of your father"s mind during this fifth year living as "Honored Guest," while our fractious country and its devious leaders struggle forward without my firm hand. I will ask the boy Amin to send these off discreetly, since I want no UN censor marring my pages.

Soon, inshallah, I will rejoin you. Until then, with love for you, and a country of kisses for your mother, my dearest Fati, Najib.

Amin, Sept. 3rd.

Amin spread his rug on the ground behind the office and then parted his lips to inhale fully. A crippled sparrow stood in stingy bush-shade and watched. Smoke and exhaust threaded through Kabul"s air, and the city"s tensions pressed against the compound walls; nevertheless, nothing matched performing salat under an open sky, even if sometimes the closeness to Allah made him feel that much more ashamed. He raised his hands next to his ears, crossed his arms, paused and then bent at the waist; he straightened, he bowed, he lowered his forehead to the earth in a dance of sacred ritual by now burrowed deep in muscle memory. He had first prayed as a child aside his father, mimicking the traditional movements in time to words of supplication. These days his own son often stood next to him, and so at its best, prayer connected him not only to his G.o.d, but to his past, his future, his people.

At its best. When he wasn"t preoccupied, that is. September was his month of regret, the month when his mind willfully wandered.

As the sparrow hopped closer, he took measure of his regret; he found it hadn"t shrunk over the last year, even though he"d been a good man, or tried. Goodness wasn"t simply a matter of intention; life conspired to sidetrack the well-meaning, and somehow doing right by those you loved most always proved far more complicated than being kind to strangers-as if the two, love and complications, had to be ingested in equal measure. He had long ago realized that the unintended sins of the virtuous caused the worst damage: sins committed when one should have known better, or tried harder, or spoken up or stayed silent.

"They will never know how fiercely I wish I could stand before them-before you-and ask forgiveness." Amin could have said those words, though they belonged to Najib. Even in the middle of it, Amin had known it as an exceptional moment in his life. What he couldn"t see then was what it would cost him. He"d been so young. He"d do it differently now, of course. Another chance was not to be had.

Nor another chance at this day"s noon prayers. Najib, he could consider later. Lowering his forehead again to the prayer rug, he wordlessly asked Allah"s forgiveness for his break in attention, cleared his mind and offered praise for the Master of the Judgment Day, the Powerful One of ninety-nine names.

Clarissa, September 3rd.

Clarissa pressed the "end" b.u.t.ton on the phone"s receiver. Its quiet click made her think of everyday conclusions: a door closing, a bridge rising, the halting of a heart. She saw out the window that night had choked off the Brooklyn sky while she"d been talking to her husband half a world away. Her new husband, as she still thought of him-though they"d been married almost three years, husband was not a word that fell easily from her lips.

She didn"t want to feel irritated with him. She dropped her tensed shoulders and shook her hands as if to release the memory of long miles, missed connections, censored language. She never liked to argue long-distance-not with a friend, not with her brother, certainly not with this man she'd married. Robbed of touch or expression, words became easily knotted.

Besides, life should not be disrupted so near to sleep. Leave it for another day. She was 42; she knew how to compartmentalize by this time, didn"t she?

Urban gray lay beyond the window, with shadows and sirens and complicated nighttime intentions. She turned back toward the humdrum solidity of the lit kitchen: a table messy with notes for her study on the urban history of Detroit, yogurt, cranberry juice and spinach in the fridge, a bottle of calcium pills on the counter next to a scrawled note from her step-daughter to her husband, weeks old now. A coffee machine still partly filled with day-old brew, a radio quietly broadcasting unalarming news. She welcomed these particulars that were the bones of her current life, but she did not pause to treasure them. There it is, then, the human tragedy: failure to celebrate the plain pillow that catches one"s head each night.

Mandy, September 4th.

Kabul from above was a panoramic movie-sensual sand rivers, thirsty cracks diving into the earth, a disembodied pilot"s voice reciting Allahu Akbar three times on final approach, a prayer that the stewardess failed to translate into English. But once grounded and entering the airport"s squat and tawdry buildings, the city suddenly seemed less romantic, emitting the scent of the dangerously foreign: dark and masculine musky. Mandy fought off a knife-like wave of fear. What was she? A middle-aged woman with a pale face and secret hopes, unnaturally adjusting her headscarf: she didn"t belong. She had a sudden vision of high school dances-those petri dishes of adolescent insecurities, still mildly painful three decades past. Even though she"d been considered "popular," she"d known that to be a disguise which couldn"t provide permanent coverup, a mask in constant danger of slipping. Each time she"d entered that dolledup lunchroom with its streamers and strobe lights and a band playing piercingly in a corner, she"d imagined everyone would finally notice the "Outsider" tattooed on her forehead.

Here, however, no one seemed to pay attention to her at all. On the airplane, men had watched her through slitted eyes at once deferential and bold, and other women had smiled shyly. Now everyone was far too involved in the business of pus.h.i.+ng their way into the terminal or fighting their way to the exit. The lights appeared to have burned out, or maybe the electricity had shut off: the terminal was in shadows and Mandy saw, as they inched forward, that the baggage carousel stood silent and still. A half-dozen men hustled in, pulling luggage on flat carts, shouting out unknown words and gesturing for everyone to clear a path, clear a path, and then dumping bags onto the stranded carousel as if they expected it to involuntarily leap to life. Pa.s.sengers of both genders pushed their way toward the heap, the women gaining momentum whenever a man leapt back to avoid physical contact.

In this adamant rush of activity, Mandy hesitated. What to do now? She imagined she looked like some stunned whale washed onto an unknown sh.o.r.e. On the flight over, she"d asked for the window seat. She"d let the ticket agent imagine it was so she could see Kabul on approach. The real reason was less logical. Sitting by the window gave her the false sense that she could escape if needed, if this whole venture turned out to be as ridiculous as Jimmy had warned. Now it became suddenly clear: there was no escaping. There never had been, not since Jimmy came home. She"d flown to Kabul in some unacknowledged attempt to bargain with G.o.d, or maybe fate, since her sense of G.o.d had become murky: In return for her work here, please, Whoever, give her son his legs back, so he could lift her up and twirl her around again, or take a hike or press pedal to the metal in his truck. Or if that was too much for a simple, sinful woman to ask, at least please give Jimmy back his spirit.

It was all unrealistic and ill-conceived; she recognized that. Never had she been more out of place in her life. But before she could fall into a raging panic in full view of dark-eyed turbaned men and silent women suffocated in cloth, an officer in an American military uniform strode directly toward her.

"Mrs. Wilkens?"

Thank G.o.d for her boy; he"d arranged this, even from bed, even though he disapproved. Mandy felt her eyes well up. Once she"d been the last to cry; often now she was the first.

Silently, sternly, she warned her tears to stay put.

"Yes sir," she said. "That"s me."

The officer introduced himself as Corporal Holder. "Welcome," he said. "How much luggage do you have?" She identified one piece after another after another-more, with the medical supplies, than Corporal Holder might have expected, but he showed no surprise as, with fluid movements, he loaded the suitcases and boxes onto a cart. "This way, ma"am" he said, soothingly direct and familiar.

Outside the terminal, Mandy felt dust settle on her skin almost immediately. Holder led the way past a paved expanse to a graveled lot, chatting as they walked. "We"re parked all the way over here-sorry. They don"t allow you to get too close. How was your flight? You must be tired. I"ve brought some waters in case you"re thirsty. They"re in the vehicle. Here we are. And this is PFC Mendez."

s.h.i.+fting her purse to one side, Mandy managed a handshake with the private. With Holder in the front pa.s.senger seat, Mendez at the wheel, and Mandy in the back, they pulled away from the airport.

Afghanistan felt immediately more chaotic than it had in the terminal, which moments earlier Mandy would have said was impossible. Cars hurtled toward one another on what could only loosely be called opposite sides of the road. Horns honked uselessly. Mendez swerved right and then left, careening past trucks, bicycles, men pulling large wooden carts, women in burqas like imploring blue ghosts at the roadside and finally, a legless beggar planted in the middle of the road, empty hands extended before him, undaunted as cars shot by close enough for him to lick if he tried. As they pa.s.sed him, Mandy sucked in her breath.

Holder turned to look at her, and seemed to read her thoughts, even those she couldn"t form into words. "Jimmy showed me a couple photos once," he offered. "You look exactly like your pictures, Mrs. Wilkens."

Mandy managed a silent if vacant smile into the rearview mirror. She planned to ask Holder what Jimmy had been like here, and how he"d spent his time when they weren"t fighting. But she wanted a more private moment for that conversation.

"So you"re from Houston, then?" Mendez spoke over his shoulder.

"Right," Mandy said. "How about you?"

"St. Louis," said Holder.

"New Mexico," answered Mendez. "A little town south of Santa Fe. Watch out, dumba.s.s," he said, addressing a pa.s.sing vehicle, and then, over his shoulder again, added, "excuse me, ma"am. They drive crazy here."

"I can see that."

"If you don"t mind me asking, ma"am," Mendez said, "but what are you...well, what are you doing in Kabul? I mean, Holder here tried to explain but..."

"I"m a nurse preceptor back home," Mandy said.

"Pre-what?"

"I work side by side with nurses that I train in the emergency ward. And we get our share of emergencies, especially on Friday..." Mandy trailed off, knowing that an emergency in Houston was nothing like one here. "On Friday and Sat.u.r.day nights," she finished lamely. "Anyway, I"m here to visit some hospitals, maybe a refugee camp or two. I"ve brought supplies to hand out-antibiotics, sterile bandages, sutures, that kind of thing. I"ll observe. Maybe I can offer some best-practice suggestions on evaluation or triage."

"Pretty brave of you to come here," Mendez said. "And to come alone."

"Brave." It hadn"t been the word Jimmy had used. Mandy touched the edge of her headscarf as if it were her hair. "I worked for the Peace Corps way back when. I figured if I could do two years then, I could manage a couple weeks now."

"But you"re on your own this time."

She shook her head. "I"m working through an NGO that deals with refugees. The incountry director used to be married to a friend of mine. He"s connecting me to the people and places."

"And where were you based, back in the Peace Corps?"

"Ecuador. I worked in a clinic in there."

Mendez drove in silence for a moment. "Forgive me, ma"am," he said, "but I don"t imagine Ecuador is much like Afghanistan. Here, we"re all just scooping teacups out of the t.i.tanic. I"m probably not supposed to say that kind of s.h.i.+t, you know, morale and all..." Mendez twisted the steering wheel to the left, and Mandy lurched into the turn. "Let"s just say I wouldn"t want my mom here."

"Sorry about my buddy here," Holder said as he socked Mendez"s right arm. "He"s got too many questions and too many opinions."

"It"s all right." Mandy had heard a version of this, only with greater heat, from Jimmy. She"d hoped not to respond to questions like these. She"d hoped to talk only about her desire to help heal others injured by a war that had cost her son his legs. But this Mendez, he could be Jimmy. He even sounded a little like Jimmy used to sound. For reasons she couldn"t precisely name, she wanted to give him a fuller picture. "You"re right," she said, "I"m not Doctors Without Borders. But I sent a son here to fight," she went on. "It"s the hardest thing I"ve ever done-you know from your own families. While Jimmy was here, I was living back there, but living differently. I lived with an everyday fear. He returned, thankfully. But he"s-you know, he"s..." She thought about saying changed, but she was trying to get at the root of what she felt now, and part of that involved veering away from euphuisms. "He"s a double amputee." She paused, finding herself surprised again at the ugliness of this phrase. "So it"s also personal. I decided to try...maybe, to understand things better in the end. There have to be Afghan mothers here who feel like I do. I"d like to meet them."

A car honked its horn as it pa.s.sed them and Mendez cursed under his breath. "Yeah, well good luck with your work," he said. "h.e.l.l, it"s as likely to win hearts and minds as much as anything else we do out here."

"Jimmy was a good soldier," Holder said after a moment. He turned to Mandy. "So how is he, really?"

This was too complex a question to answer in this hurtling car, in front of strangers. What could she say? That loud noises frighten him and he seems to have forgotten how to laugh? That he says Afghanistan left him forever half a man, and that some nights he grows so dark it scares her, and then he drinks himself into oblivion? That sometimes she feels like she"s just waiting for the day he"ll give up altogether and become a delayed, unacknowledged fatality of this war, possibly taking her down with him?

She looked out the window, aware of the awkward fall of silence. "He"s alive," she said. "In the end, I guess we"re lucky."

"d.a.m.n straight," Mendez said. Then, mercifully, he turned on the radio and Arabicsounding music flooded the car, making Mandy think of young women dancing in gauze dresses. She gazed out the window, remembering when she herself had been a young woman with clingy dresses and shapely legs and an easy stride, a woman who"d not yet cleaned blood off a wound or leaned over a terminal patient or had a baby ripen in her belly.

She rested a hand on her chest, feeling the air move inside her. Something was badly broken in there, she knew. But maybe-and this was the secret hope she"d carried with her from Texas to Dubai and over the yawning stretch of Afghanistan-maybe she"d heal herself in their hospitals, by a taste of the country that had chewed up her son and then spit him back. Maybe, if G.o.d existed, if he were truly great, they"d all be healed.

Todd, September 4th.

The argument had tumbled forward for almost 20 minutes now and had already begun circling back; Todd was ready for ice cream. To a casual observer, the debate might seem onesided; after all, Amin did all the talking. But Todd had a knack for disagreeing without speaking. His was the art of those too cautious or too isolated to engage in frank exchanges. He"d refined it over years of working far from home, challenging himself to seek persuasion through patience and through words used like pinches of pepper in a delicate dish.

"This isn"t our work," Amin said, "I don"t trust Zarlasht; her aim is to manipulate," and then, with greater heat, "it"s dangerous to involve yourself in a dispute of this sort, Mr. Todd-I feel a responsibility to make sure you understand this," and finally, "it"s outside our sphere of responsibility anyway. We must concentrate on working for refugees."

Todd smiled or grimaced now and then, nodded in a way that indicated nothing more than thoughtfulness, and occasionally glanced out the window. Though his vision was curtailed by the ten-foot-high, whitewashed security wall that encased the compound, he knew that just beyond it lay the chaotic life of Kabul streets, where women in burqas clutched kohl-eyed babies and begged at stoplights, and men pus.h.i.+ng wheelbarrows loaded with bruised fruit swayed between cars with audacity, where underfed children scattered and regrouped to sell pieces of rusted metal intended for purposes Todd could never discern, where traffic lights and lane markings were thought to be for sissies and safe travel was achieved only through great boldness and luck. He longed for it. He longed especially now, stuck in a room of intellectual-and ultimately, he feared, irresolvable-discord.

Finally, blessedly, Amin paused for breath.

"Shall I get us some sheer yakh?" Todd asked.

"Why not simply have told her to return on Thursday, instead of Wednesday?" Amin said, using what surely had to be the last of his arguing energy. "Then I could have said you were called out of town on an emergency. That might have discouraged her-or at least would have given me time to look into her claims, her family." Todd"s travel plans were always secret; Amin, his closest Kabul colleague-no, friend-was the only person here who knew that early Thursday, just before fajr prayers, Todd would depart for Islamabad. By Thursday evening, he would be waist-deep in issues involving refugees in Pakistan, and Zarlasht would have been turned away at the gate. After four weeks in Pakistan, Todd would return for one more month in Kabul, his last. Then back to New York, and to Clarissa, for good, though Amin hadn"t yet been told that, and of course that involved challenges of its own. Challenges not to be considered now; Todd always said his doctors insisted that, for his continued good health, he ignore all problems outside his current time zone.

"Because, Amin, we cannot simply dismiss this as beyond our mandate." Todd kept his voice neutral in contrast to Amin"s heat. "You tell me the villagers are turning to the Taliban for justice. Well, Zarlasht is turning to us. If we do nothing, we are by default supporting the Taliban."

"How many years do I know you now, Mr. Todd? Long enough for me to say that you are still too trusting, and my words are not a-how do you say?-a compliment. You-"

But Todd held up his hand, cutting Amin off. "Wait, my friend. First..." He reached to a tray on a table in the corner, lifted aloft two small gla.s.s bowls, and raised his eyebrows in a question.

Amin let out an exasperated breath of air. "Too late for ice cream," he said.

"Oh Amin, we haven"t reached the end of the world yet. And even then-"

"Your cook told me to strictly forbid you from eating ice cream after 3 p.m. because otherwise, you won't eat her dinners."

"Yes," Todd agreed. "Shogofa will not be happy with me. But there's nothing for it; sheer yakh it must be. It will clear our brains. Remember, we have the late meeting with the American nurse, Mandy Wilkens."

"I didn"t forget," Amin said. "But, Mr. Todd. Do you really want ice cream, or just to escape my reasonable words?"

"The ice cream. Okay, mostly the ice cream." Todd, mock-somber, put his hand to his chest. "I swear."

Amin shook his head in resignation. "One scoop," he said. "Only one."