Words in the Dust

by Trent Reedy

  “Bale, Baba,” said Najib.

  With a sigh, I rolled rice into a little ball in my fingers. I was about to lean my head back to eat, but my father was watching me with a frown. He seemed to miss Zeynab too, at least a little bit. Maybe he’d take me to see her.

  I took a deep breath. “Baba-jan, do you think —”

  “You know,” Baba said. “Hajji Abdullah hasn’t had a moment’s peace since the wedding.” He rubbed his knuckles against his chin. “It seems that his first wife always pesters him and asks if it is still possible to get you to the Americans in Kandahar for your surgery.” He grinned. “He talked to that woman soldier in Farah. She says they’re expecting a flight tomorrow. I figure Najibullah can take you there. We can spare him for three or four days. Maybe we’ll get you all fixed up after all.”

  I dropped the rice I’d been holding and stared at my father, wide-eyed. Then I looked at Najib, who seemed as surprised as I was. Baba-jan sounded like a cannon when he burst into laughter. “What? Not even a ‘tashakor’?”

  “Really, Baba-jan?” I asked. “Tomorrow?”

  Baba laughed until his face was red. I scrambled to my feet, sidestepping a clapping Khalid to run to my father’s outstretched arms. Baba squeezed me close. “That’s my good, sweet girl, Zulaikha. Everything will be perfect very soon.”

  I buried my face in my father’s chest, almost afraid that if I let him go, the chance for the surgery and a normal mouth would be snatched away again.

  Later that night, after the dishes and the evening prayer were done, I tried to sleep on my toshak up on the roof. Reaching out to the empty space next to me, I wished I could hold Zeynab’s hand. My chest ached with the need to share this wonderful news with her.

  A spark of light, a shooting star, fell across the starscape, a bright trail burning behind it. Had Zeynab seen it too? I had been praying for her happiness in her marriage. Maybe she had prayed for my surgery. How else could this miracle be explained?

  But I worried, because I had thought all of these happy thoughts before and then my hopes were wasted on a helicopter that never came. I prayed and prayed that this time would be different. I didn’t know how I could deal with the disappointment again if it wasn’t.

  I must have slept, because Najib shook me awake and said simply, “Zulaikha.” It was still very dark. I looked to the mountains in the east and could not see even the faintest hint of dawn. We were awake impossibly early, well before the call of the muezzin. I snapped to action, jumping up off my toshak and hurrying after my brother down the steps into our house. I expected all to be dark. Instead, everyone was gathered in the center room, which was brightened by our kerosene lamp. In my sleepiness and hurry, I hadn’t even noticed that Khalid and Habib weren’t up on the roof.

  “Good luck, Zulaikha,” Khalid said.

  Habib said nothing, but kept his small stubby arms wrapped tightly around my legs until Khalid pulled him away. My smallest brother wiped his sleepy eyes and then waved at me.

  “Be good for the Americans, Zulaikha. Make sure you thank them. Do what they say,” said Malehkah. When our eyes met, my father’s wife only nodded deeply before we both looked away.

  Last of all, Baba-jan picked me up in a tremendous, warm hug. He lifted me off the floor and held me as he hadn’t held me in years. He kissed my cheek and then set me down.

  “Don’t you worry, Zulaikha. Najibullah will make sure you are safe on your journey. Then when your mouth is all better and you come back to us, I promise you we will all celebrate! Didn’t I say before that these are good times?” Baba-jan rubbed my back and then tossed his keys to Najib. My brother nodded to me and we went outside, and then we were finally in the car and on our way.

  After we passed through An Daral, Najib gripped the steering wheel tightly. “I’m trying to remember the way to Farah. It all looks different in the dark.” He didn’t say anything else the entire trip. Eventually, we did reach the city, where we drove through the dark, empty, early morning streets and out to the American base. When our headlights struck the wire, the whole base looked even more frightening and unwelcoming than it did the first time I was there.

  When we parked by the checkpoint, Najib’s hands shook as he fingered his prayer beads, sliding each bead one at a time along the loop of string. An Afghan guard approached our car, took one look at me, and announced us over his radio. Then he asked us to shut off our car and wait. Finally, I could see the headlights of a vehicle approaching. A little pickup stopped next to our car, and Captain Mindy and Shiaraqa stepped out.

  “Salaam, Zulaikha,” said Captain. Najib looked at me. I shrugged and we stepped out of our car. “Salaaaaaaam!” she repeated and reached out to my brother. Najib hesitated for a moment and then finally shook the woman’s hand. “What name?” Captain Mindy was still trying to speak in her crazy-sounding Dari. Najib looked at me again.

  “This is Captain Mindy,” I said quietly. “I think she wants to know your name.”

  My brother looked at the ground when he spoke. “Najibullah.”

  Captain smiled. “Najibullah?” Then she said something in English.

  Shiaraqa spoke. “She says she is happy you understood her when she asked for your name.” Najibullah shrugged. Shiaraqa translated again. “She welcomes you to Farah Base.”

  Captain smiled, crouched in front of me, and then reached to shake my hand. I did as she expected. At least she’d paid attention to my brother first. Maybe she was learning. “Tashakor!” She sounded like she was talking to a baby.

  Shiaraqa translated for Captain. “She says all the soldiers here on the base have been looking forward to this day.” He smiled, but looked like he was having trouble keeping up with everything the excited American was saying. He turned to my brother. “Your car will be safe here at the outer checkpoint. We’ll ride in our truck. You two can sit in back. The Captain and I will ride up front.”

  “Bale” was all Najib said. He sounded like I usually did after Malehkah shouted at me.

  We rode right up through the gate. This time there were no soldiers to search us the way they’d searched Baba-jan on our first visit. Shiaraqa explained that it was too early in the morning for soldiers to be on gate duty. He added that Captain Mindy was supposed to search us, but she trusted us and hated searching anyway. We stopped only so that Shiaraqa could get out and bolt the gate shut behind us.

  Inside the base, we were led into a tan, one-story building. Captain spoke. “She says this is the nicest building on base,” Shiaraqa translated.

  It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the bright light, but I was surprised to find myself in a space far different than the small medical room I’d seen before. This place looked much more Afghan, with pretty rugs on the floors and a red, green, and black Afghan flag on the wall, next to a framed photograph of President Hamid Karzai.

  Captain Mindy motioned for us to have a seat on one of several padded wooden couches that surrounded a low wooden table. She pointed to a tray of different types of nuts, looking sad as she said something. I held my chador tight to my mouth, hoping she didn’t have bad news. Shiaraqa explained. “She asks Najibullah to please enjoy some nuts, but she says that Zulaikha must not eat before the surgery. It is what the doctor commands.”

  I put my hands over my stomach, feeling it rumble. How long would it be until the surgery? I sat down close to my brother, keeping my chador across my face. Captain leaned toward me and spoke in a high-pitched voice with a smile that wrinkled her freckled nose. Shiaraqa looked at her once before speaking. “She asks if you are excited.”

  I shifted in my seat. I said softly, “Bale.”

  Captain Mindy smiled again and told us through Shiaraqa that the weather was good and so far the flight was still coming. Apparently, nobody at Farah knew when the helicopter was supposed to arrive. Sometimes they were early. Sometimes they were late. She only hoped the flight wouldn’t be canceled.

  As soon as Shiaraqa translated the words, my nerves mixed
with my hunger and I worried I would be sick. This was the second time Baba and Hajji Abdullah had been troubled with my surgery. If the flight were canceled now, there would be no other chances. I prayed over and over, the same prayer.

  Great Allah, the most merciful, please let the helicopter come. Please let the helicopter come.

  We waited. They brought a hot meal for my brother, who only ate some of the potatoes. I stared at the food. I was grateful for my chador when my mouth watered.

  We waited. More and more soldiers came and went, all of them very happy, many of them bringing me toys and candy of all kinds. More small metal cars. Some fuzzy animal toys. A plastic doll with blonde hair and very long legs. I didn’t know how to react. I’d never been given so many presents in my life, so I simply thanked them as Captain Mindy put their gifts into a plastic bag for me. All the while, Najib said nothing, but kept looking down. He spoke only when he was asked a direct question. Sitting so close to him, I could feel his legs shaking. Our past had made us both very nervous about people with guns.

  As sunlight began to shine in through the windows from outside, I realized that I’d missed the morning prayer. I hadn’t even heard the muezzin. The Americans really were infidels if they couldn’t even hear the call to prayer from their base. I went back to my silent prayers, rocking just a little as I asked Allah for His forgiveness and His help.

  Finally, after Captain Mindy had repeatedly sent soldiers to check to see if the flight would still happen, her radio squawked with someone speaking in English. Shiaraqa suddenly stood up and stretched. Captain smiled. I did not need to wait for Shiaraqa’s translation. The helicopter was coming.

  Once again we rode in a truck across the base, but this time we were taken to a different metal gate on the opposite side of the compound. When we got out of the truck, I couldn’t see the helicopter yet, but I could hear it in the distance, perhaps on the other side of the closest mountain. It was a faint but growing whoo, whoo, whoo sound. Six or seven American soldiers were gathered near us with their guns and some big green bags.

  Then at last we could see the helicopter, the size of a large truck, with two whirling blades, one on each end. As it approached, the roar from its spinning rotors grew. It hovered a moment, then lowered itself down onto a cement platform well outside the compound gate. A great wave of dust blew toward us. Everyone closed their eyes, bent their heads, and did their best to shield themselves from the flying grit.

  Almost as soon as the helicopter landed, Captain Mindy grabbed my arm and pulled me forward while Shiaraqa led my brother. If I had lost my nerve and changed my mind about taking a ride in this big machine, it wouldn’t have mattered. I was pulled quickly through the chaos under the spinning blades and then lifted up a big step onto a ramp that led through the back hatch to the floor of the aircraft. Soldiers ran in and out, loading and unloading bags and boxes.

  On the outside, the helicopter was graceful and futuristic. Inside, there were exposed cables and metal tubes. I didn’t have long to look around, though. Everyone sat down on cloth seats with their backs against the wall, four to each side. Captain reached over and clicked a strap into place over my lap.

  Then I felt like I was being pushed down into my seat as the aircraft rose. It was like nothing I’d ever known before. I had to lean forward to see around Najib, who himself leaned forward to see around the Americans. Out the back hatch, the view of the ground transformed. The four white walls that formed the gigantic square of the American compound shrank until the big trucks inside it looked even smaller than my brothers’ toy metal cars. The aircraft tilted, and I felt like I was swinging on a rope.

  The highest I’d ever been before was atop the walls at the Citadel, and then I was, for the most part, solidly connected to the earth. Now I was soaring far above the ground in this enormous machine. How did anyone make something so large and heavy fly through the sky? Below, tiny farms and villages were islands in a sea of fields and dust, until gradually there were no more fields. There was only dust, and then the red-brown crags of mountains.

  Shiaraqa shouted something to Captain Mindy over the engine noise. When she nodded, he got up out of his seat and moved about the aircraft. Najib watched him eagerly until Shiaraqa came and unbuckled my brother’s seat strap. Then both of them walked around, cautiously in the beginning, and then more relaxed, delightedly pointing out interesting sights through the open back hatch. I was scared for them at first. The soldier sitting on the deck behind the machine gun, with his legs dangling out the hatch, was tethered in with a long strap. Nothing was holding Shiaraqa and Najib. But Shiaraqa took picture after picture with a small camera in his hand, so it must have been safe enough.

  Captain Mindy laughed at their excitement. She and I exchanged a look, and then we both laughed at the two dewana Afghan men.

  After that, Captain Mindy laid her head back and rode peacefully with her eyes closed. Most of the soldiers slept, but Najib and I stayed awake the entire time, watching our country from the sky all the way. The deep, dark reds of the high rocky mountaintops and the lighter browns of the valleys and dry plains looked like Allah’s beautiful painting from up here. It was Afghanistan, my home.

  When we had flown for a long time, we could see roads and buildings again, and I could feel the helicopter begin to descend. My stomach felt tight and there was a light burning in my throat. My brother nodded his head toward the view out the hatch and I knew — I knew we were approaching Kandahar. We were close to the time for my surgery.

  After our helicopter landed, Najib and I followed Captain Mindy and Shiaraqa out of the machine. I put my hand up to shield my eyes from the glare of the sun. In front of us, waves of heat rose off an enormous paved road as wide as two or three rows of compounds and at least twice as long as An Daral’s bazaar road. Half a kilometer away sat a row of helicopters just like the one we had flown in on. I counted at least ten. In a row behind those were different helicopters, smaller ones with only one big propeller on top. But on the bottoms of these were big guns and tube things that might have been bombs.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and spun around. Najib tilted his head toward Captain and Shiaraqa, who waited a few paces away. Stupid! Shiaraqa had told us to follow him, and here I was counting helicopters. It was just that yesterday I’d never even seen a helicopter, except for once or twice on a television in the bazaar. Today I had ridden on one and seen dozens more. I pulled my chador over my face.

  Najib took my hand and we followed Captain Mindy and Shiaraqa down a different, much narrower paved street. Only cars, trucks, and American gun trucks drove on this road. Wooden buildings, tents, and parked vehicles lined either side of the street.

  As we walked, I was confused to see soldier after soldier snapping their right hand up to the edge of their hats with their palms down. As they did this they would say something in English, and then Captain Mindy would make the same gesture. Finally, after more than thirty soldiers had done this, Captain Mindy began the exchange with an older-looking man she was about to pass.

  Shiaraqa dropped back from Captain’s side and quietly explained to my brother. “They do this thing with their hand to show respect to whoever has more rank, to whoever is more important. They say good afternoon, or good evening, or whatever time of day it is when they salute in this way.”

  Najib’s voice was hardly above a whisper. “Should we do this too?”

  Shiaraqa laughed. “No. It is just something the Americans do. Captain Edmanton says most soldiers don’t even like to do it.” He shrugged. “But that is the rule for the base.”

  We rounded a corner, crossed the street, and passed the end of a row of dusty tents, and that is when I saw it. “Najib,” I whispered, and tugged at my brother’s sleeve. But of course he saw it too. It was too large to miss. And too beautiful.

  A mosque. But not just any mosque. It was easily twice as large as the mud-brick mosque back in An Daral. Red, blue, green, and black tiles shone on the tall columns in fro
nt. The windows had glass and were framed in pretty blue. The towering minaret had little blue-trimmed window holes with a blue dome on top, and I could see huge speakers inside. Nobody could fail to hear the call to prayer from this mosque.

  It gleamed in the sun as an omen from Allah. The day I had prayed for my whole life was here. Inshallah, all would be well.

  Finally, we reached a large two-story cement building. Bumps rose on my skin and a shiver crawled up my back into my neck the moment I stepped inside and out of the bright sun. We’d been led into a room with a smooth cement floor, white walls, and long tubes of electric lights suspended from the high ceiling. I pulled my chador tighter around me and looked at Najib. He folded his arms around himself and shrugged. Captain Mindy motioned for us to stay where we were while she went down the hall.

  “They have air-conditioning.” Shiaraqa took off his black sunglasses. “The Americans don’t like it so hot. And they have to keep their computers cool.” He shook the dust from his thick black hair, wiping his hands on his jeans afterward.

  Soon Captain returned and led us around a corner to where soldiers were busy working at their desks. “In here,” Shiaraqa said. We entered a small room with white walls and a big desk covered in papers. A soldier was at the desk, pressing buttons on what must have been his computer. I sat down next to Najib in one of the two plastic chairs. Captain and Shiaraqa sat next to the other wall. The man looked up from his work.

  Shiaraqa translated for Captain Mindy. “Zulaikha, Najibullah, this is Dr. Akamura. He will be the one conducting your surgery.”

  “Salaam,” said the doctor. He was a compact Chinese man, dressed in a tan uniform just like the rest of the soldiers, but he was older than most Americans I had seen. His close-cropped black hair was flecked with gray, especially at the sides of his head. When he smiled he almost closed his eyes.