The Roswell Swatch

by Scott Powers

  “Eli’s comin’,”he sang, not mimicking Cory Wells from Three Dog Night, but his own drier, heavy metal style and his own dance moves.

  “Eli’s comin’. Well, you better hide your heart, your loving heart.

  “Eli’s comin’, and the cards say a broken heart!”

  CHAPTER 3

  AMERICAN WOMAN

  Eve’s mom, Meg, grew up having to care for her father more than he did for her. She had left home—him—the first chance she got, and never really got the hang of living for herself. Two short marriages and several other disastrous relationships had left her with two now-grown kids still somehow living at home, two nursing-assistant jobs, and a permanent burden of debt that had locked her into a life devoid of adventure.

  Meg had only one thing going for her. She had raised Eve and Alan with the one thing she didn't have: a family-first value. That was probably why they kept coming home to live again, damn it. The truth was, though, Meg needed them around. Meg was a dreamer who had abandoned her own dreams, or blown them a long time ago. It helped little that neither Eve nor Alan seemed capable yet of launching their own lives. But things could be worse than having them here.

  So as Eve told her mother about the trip to Seadrift, Meg sprawled like a teenager on her rattan couch, and Eve leaned forward in a matching chair with her arms dropped between her knees.

  Meg felt guilt for not going herself and fought against that by trying not to care. She took a few minutes before she started paying attention. As Eve spoke, Meg looked up occasionally but seemed more interested in the sofa. She didn’t know Ziv or Nan. She expressed varied reactions to what they had told Eve: some curiosity, but mostly doubt, annoyance, and anger. Just what Eve had felt.

  Eve felt a little ashamed for believing the story even if just enough to pass it along to her mother. If she rejected it completely, Eve imagined it would end there.

  Meg knew her father had been in the Air Force and her mom had died in Dayton, Ohio. She knew he drank because of his experience, at least at first. Eventually, he drank because he drank. The rest of the old couple’s story, no, she knew nothing.

  Yet Meg had always felt a spiritual link to the mother she’d never known. As it was for Eve, there was just enough spark of interest there not to drop it. She never knew much about her mother. Her father had never answered her questions, or talked about her at all, except to say things like,“Your mother was an angel,”or“Your mother was the most beautiful woman on Earth.”What that did, besides increase Meg’s hatred of her father, was lead her to believe her mother really was an angel, really was the most beautiful woman on Earth. No one had ever said otherwise.

  Meg finally looked her daughter full in the face.

  “I wish we knew,”she told Eve.

  Eve knew what that meant. Her mother was actually tellingher,“I wish you’d find out.”

  That’s how Meg always communicated. Not with a direct request, let alone a command, but with a wistful longing, part passive-aggressive and part surrender, begging mercy.

  That night Eve turned to researching clues to Grandpa Joe’s story on the Internet. She found nothing on Joe’s Air Force unit, or its mission. But when she baited a hook with Joe’s swatch and dropped it into some UFO Internet sites, she got a quick bite. Somebody wanted to see it. The time and place were set. Eve wasn’t sure she’d walk away with answers, but she had nothing better to do.

  Despite Eve’s record of failures, there once had been a time when she was full of hope and expectation. That enthusiasm had been killed in about half a minute. The fateful thirty seconds had taken place outside the home of an Afghan woman named Ranra Ali, when Eve was in the Army, thinking she was critical to the most important part of the war in Afghanistan, the war to win over the hearts and minds of Afghan people. She had felt so close to fulfilling her role in a mission she valued, and then it all just died.

  It had begun with a pre-arranged meeting in the urban region of Marja in south Afghanistan, shortly after Eve had arrived in the country. The meeting took place in the large, tan, brick home of an Afghan merchant. He, of course, would not be there.

  Six months earlier, the area had blazed with one of the fiercest battles of the war, as a NATO assault drove out the Taliban with waves of drones, assault helicopters, and more than 15,000 troops. Days of active fighting gave way to several months of hot guerrilla warfare with snipers, bombings, firefights, and pockets of insurgents until the NATO and Afghan forces finally declared Marja liberated and installed the new government they had brought with them.

  But, as with all things Afghan, meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Much of the new governing structure plugged in where the old one left off. The opium farming and production continued uninterrupted. The opium money continued to drive everything. The local strongmen switched sides, and many of their death squads looked for new orders from new bosses on new targets.

  Army Specialist Eve Mirada and her U.S. Female Engagement Team partners, Air Force Lieutenant Alice Hunt of Atlanta, Georgia, and Marine Lance Corporal Janae Oliver of Jackson, Mississippi, were fully aware their acceptance there was tenuous, contingent on the whim of anyone with authority.

  This explanation was as good as any for their attire on this 106-degree day: full body armor, full desert-khaki uniforms, knee and elbow pads, thick socks, combat boots, helmets, and various packs that turned their trim, honed, female forms into something akin to turtles.

  The FET teams were there to spread goodwill, to put pretty faces on the American presence, and to build the figurative bridges between the fears, needs, and concerns of the residents and the first people who could actually do much to help: the American military.

  Officially, women did not engage in combat. But Eve, Alice, and Janae had seen some. Firefights and sniper rounds could appear around any corner like stray dogs. So they were prepared.

  Inside this merchant’s home, their M16s leaned against the front room's stucco wall. Eve, Alice, and Janae sat in the corner on the floor, legs crossed in front of them, trying hard to be just a few neighbor women dropping by for a visit.

  To Eve's left was their interpreter, Bibi, a clearly attractive and educated Afghan woman in her early thirties who had accompanied the 1st Battalion's Bravo Company into Marja because the job paid far better than anything in Kabul. She was dressed in a way that said pure class: an ankle-length cobalt silk dress adorned with beads and topped with a crimson shawl. She hid her hair in a hijab, but she was nonetheless dressed to impress.

  All but one of the twenty or so other women in the room, local wives and a few young maidens, were dressed far more modestly. A small minority wore full burqas, and the others wore varying combinations of long white or grey skirts, full-cover blouses, jackets, and head coverings, though some of the jackets and head coverings blazed with the brilliant silk colors Afghan women love—crimson, canary, peach, and aqua. Necklaces and bracelets of silver, gold, or stone adorned some. They sat along the edge of a fine, twenty-foot-square, ornately patterned black and red rug, chatting and quietly laughing with one another while they waited for one or two more invitees to arrive.

  Several had brought their children, but most of the kids were sent off to play in the hostess's ample back courtyard. Six or seven young children and babies remained, mostly huddled to their mothers.

  The hostess, Ranra Ali, was in full fashion competition with Bibi and winning, and clearly proud of it. About the same age, but nowhere nearly as trim as Bibi, Ranra wore a full outfit of silk, silver, emeralds, and rubies, and when she walked, she flowed like a bright, lemon chiffon, swift-moving wave of fabrics and jingling chains.

  This was the team’s first big opportunity. Just yesterday, Alice finally had arranged this meeting through Ranra. Until now, their team had spent nearly a month in Marjamaking little more than street contacts. The community, not quite a city, was a sprawling collection of hamlets, villages, and retail areas of houses, small farms, markets and shops, mud-brick buildings, and occ
asional beautiful gated homes. Eve and her team did all they could to show the softer, supportive side of the U.S. military, but their encounters were almost entirely short and forgettable. This was the first opportunity they’d had for quality time with the women they were supposed to be reaching.

  This was the critical next step—the essence of their mission.

  Female servants met each woman with the gentle, exacting hospitality of a five-star restaurant. The visitors were given cups of tea and bowls of berries, pistachios, and naan.

  The three American soldiers waited in near silence and stillness, saying little except greetings they had practiced in the Pashto language. Eve had learned to speak and understand about as well as people who take crash courses in a language before a two-week vacation. Lieutenant Hunt was pretty good at Pashto but used it only for polite chit-chat, unless Bibi wasn't around. As far as Eve could tell, Janae sucked at it, but she almost never attempted to speak.

  Ranra sat beside the lieutenant and they spoke of children, with both women expressing compliments for the other. Alice had an officer's self-assurance, which made her comfortable engaging with a local female aristocrat.

  Once the final woman arrived, turned her children over to a servant, and found her place along the rug's fringe, Ranra addressed the American women soldiers in the best English she could manage. She looked proud and pleased to be able to speak it.

  "It is very honor and pleasure to have you visit," Ranra said.

  "It is our honor and pleasure to be here. Thank you," Alice replied in Pashto.

  Bibi quickly interpreted in perfect upper crust British English.

  "We come hoping to make friends of all of you," Alice added.

  Several women responded as one, and Bibi followed a half-beat later in English. "We as well." Bibi ignored the follow-up, "Allah be praised."

  Through Bibi, they introduced themselves. Alice explained that she had a husband, also in the Air Force and stationed in Florida, and two children. She produced pictures that went around the room with ahs and ohs. Janae and Eve were both single though Janae had a boyfriend back home. She produced a picture of a bespectacled black man with no hair and a wide, spreading nose that also drew ahs and ohs, along with some chatter that made Janae feel a bit uncomfortable.

  Several of the women were widows and others had not seen their husbands in a while. Four others had husbands at home. Three or four woman might still have been teenagers. One woman passed, saying nothing.

  Ranra acted as if, as hostess, everyone should already know her. She revealed nothing of herself.

  "The thing I want most in life is for my son and daughter to grow up healthy and happy and to do whatever it is they want to do for their lives, their families, and their communities," Alice said. "What about you?"

  The women looked at each other. There were some whispers. A woman whose red hair spilled from under her black scarf, no doubt revealing a family tree that reached, through the British occupation, to Scotland, spoke with a voice that sounded defiantly hopeful. Her name was Faheema al-Jabaar. She was one of the widows.

  "That is what I want for my daughters. I want them to go to school and become educated as I did, and live full, happy lives," Bibi interpreted.

  Faheema's eyes glistened with big dreams.

  Eve looked around the room. Some women were looking away, but most were looking at Faheema with adoration. Another woman spoke.

  "I was able to go to school when I was young," Bibi translated. "And so did my mother. It was the greatest gift."

  "We will build new schools," Alice said. "They will be staffed and free and secure and open to all. Your daughters will be welcome. With God willing, all of your children, including your daughters, will have that gift."

  "Praise be to Allah," Bibi translated the responses.

  "I read Mark Twain," Faheema said. "I loved Huckleberry Finn."

  "I loved Romeo and Juliet," said another, through Bibi.

  Someone else spoke and giggles circulated the room. Bibi said nothing.

  "What?" Eve asked.

  Bibi shook her head with a smirk.

  "She read Danielle Steel and loved it," Alice translated.

  "Danielle Steel," said another, pronouncing the name clearly.

  Alice went on to explain that NATO and Afghan Army troops were sweeping the farm fields, roads, and open lots, clearing land mines. The engineers were improving the public wells to provide more and cleaner water. The cell towers they installed for the NATO forces would be available for all. The electric power grid would be improved and expanded. Afghan troops and officials were rebuilding streets, shops, and markets that had been turned to rubble during the battle, and before that from mines the Taliban had planted. A park would be opened for children. Police and courts were being trained to serve and protect, not to harass and enforce someone's will. Soon, mail service initiated by the British but long-since abandoned would be resumed. Alice had a long list of perks the operation was bringing to Marja. She worked her charm as a professional public relations specialist, her major back at the University of Georgia.

  Some of her announcements brought ahs and ohs and occasional responses from the women, but they hadn't had a spontaneous discussion since Faheema declared her dream for her daughters. Still, Eve could see the light and life glowing from many of the women, particularly from Faheema, who became animated in her un-translated sidebar discussions with the women sitting next to her.

  Eve and Janae said little. Janae had her contribution, however, after one of the toddlers, a girl of about three, came over to touch her dark cheek, the color of raw umber, and then her braided hair hanging just under her helmet. Janae took to the girl instantly, removed her helmet, and had her playing with the braids to the delight of the girl's mother.

  Moments later, with careful movements and a nod from the girl's mother, Janae began braiding the girl's long, black hair. Two other little girls came over and stood in line. She had opened her own braidery. Eve imagined that within weeks, braided hair might be all the rage among the little girls of Marja.

  Eve, on the other hand, felt useless sitting alongside Alice, who talked as if she owned the place, and Janae, who was making young friends. But Eve felt so proud to be a part of what was going on because she felt they were really reaching many of these women. They will go home, where they have some influence and bring messages of hope and dreams for their children, and Americans will gain new importance to their lives. And if all that Alice promised came true, or even some of it, their lives truly would be better. Eve and her FET mates would be seen as benefactors who had made that possible. They came as liberators. Liberators of what? Of these women’s hopes and dreams. Eve loved the dynamic forming through Alice's skilled public relations presentation. She’d never felt so proud.

  And then came the knock at the front door. It was a hard, hostile pounding.

  All looked up. Alice, Eve, and Janae stood, as Ranra’s maid went to answer the door.

  For months afterward, in meetings with officers and hearings with judge advocate generals, and to herself, Eve would recount what happened next, each time trying to make sense of it. It made sense to her. Perfect sense. She never for a moment felt regret for her own actions. But her superiors saw differently.

  It became the abomination that destroyed all Eve and her teammates were trying to achieve, and it destroyed Eve’s Army career.

  Eventually, through natural repression, Eve ended her story there in her memory, with the knock at the door.

  She forced herself to stop dwelling on what happened after the door opened.

  She didn't need that shit anymore.

  Now that moment was gone, as was her Army enlistment, ended by agreement among all that she needed to be discharged and forgotten with nothing official to acknowledge what had happened when that door was opened.

  It was all gone, except in Eve's horrible nightmares, recurring dreams that always seemed to come along only whenever she started feeling good a
bout herself again. There were nights she sensed the nightmare was waiting, so Eve would fight sleep, until sleep itself became the monster she so needed to avoid.

  CHAPTER 4

  WE GOTTA GET OUT OF THIS PLACE

  On Saturday, Eve headed for downtown San Antonio as arranged.

  She arrived early, parked in a garage on the River Walk, and went downstairs to kill time. She found a table at Casa Rio with a long view of the River Walk, slid her oversize bag between her feet, and ordered a Margarita. She pegged at least two guys along the crowded river paths as pickpockets, but saw no one in a yellow shirt.

  As the time drew near, she drew a yellow scarf from her bag, tied it on, and took the stone stairs back up to the street level. She strode the sidewalk to stand beneath the hotel awning, took a deep breath, and then set herself to wait for someone with a yellow shirt and a nod.

  A black BMW with dark windows pulled into the far lane of the empty valet drive. Was the driver waving her over? Even with the car’s tinted windows, she was certain his shirt was dark, not yellow, but she responded anyway. When she stepped beside the car, the passenger window slid down. A priest, with long, dark hair, sat behind the wheel, leaning toward the open window.

  “Are you Eve Strong?”he shouted.

  She looked around. No yellow shirt anywhere. This made no sense. Her warning alarms went off. She didn’t respond.

  “You’re in danger. Please, get in!”

  She turned away and quick-paced down the lane back toward the sidewalk just past the valet area. The BMW rolled forward to catch up.

  “Please, for your own safety, get in,”he yelled.“Eve, you don’t know what you’re about to do.”

  “Get lost, Padre,”she replied.

  The car was stopped so she walked in front to cross the street and get away. The priest jammed the BMW in park, jumped out, and caught her by the left arm.