“We have time.”
“Once he’s elected, President Usenov will have significant representational responsibilities. These would be so much easier with a First Lady, don’t you think?”
Kate downshifted into a sharp turn, forcing Murzaev to grab the dashboard to keep from being thrown against the door.
“He’s asked me,” Kate admitted. “But it’s a huge change. I’d have to leave my job, for one thing. The junior officer in the political section probably shouldn’t simultaneously be married to the president of the country to which she is accredited. Too many conflicts of interest.”
“So take leave. You can always go back.”
“Maybe,” Kate said, but she was still dubious. She loved Ruslan and she knew that he loved her. But was that enough? Would their passion cool in the absence of danger? Could Kate abandon her American-ness and embrace her Kyrgyz identity wholeheartedly as the wife of the president? Could she accept a role presiding over tea with the wives of visiting dignitaries? Ruslan would never ask this of her, but Kate knew it would be her responsibility. How would she feel? She pushed it all aside. There would be time to wrestle with those questions later.
“Turn here,” Murzaev said, pointing to a dirt track just barely wide enough for the Touareg.
Kate drove carefully down the rutted road. A flat tire out here would be a major inconvenience. A broken axle would be a disaster. After two kilometers, Murzaev told her to stop.
—
They were in a djailoo, a high mountain pasture, and flowers bloomed in the high grass of the meadow. A small stream cut across the field and ran through a culvert under the road before flowing down the mountain in a series of cascades.
Kate and Murzaev got out of the car and walked over to the edge of the field. The sky was blue with a few cotton-ball clouds. A hawk circled overhead. A goshawk, Kate wanted to believe, although the bird was flying too high to say for certain. A small red deer that had been nibbling on the grass raised its head to look at Kate, locking eyes with her for a brief moment before bounding up the hill and out of sight.
“Where is it?” Kate asked.
“This is it,” Murzaev answered.
“The whole thing?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Eighty-seven.”
“And you know who they all are?”
“Most of them. The government kept remarkably detailed records of its atrocities. A holdover from the Soviet days. This is it, Kate. This is where your aunt is buried.”
It was a beautiful place and it was hard to believe that it was a cover pulled over so much ugliness. The last resting place of almost ninety of the innumerable victims of Eraliev’s reign of terror.
“When did she die?” Kate asked.
“Three days after they arrested her. There was a secret trial and the verdict was carried out immediately. This is where they brought the bodies. Almost everyone here was part of the Azattyk movement.”
“And the intel reports that my uncle told me about? The ones that indicated she was alive?”
“Your CIA doesn’t share its reporting with me,” Murzaev said with a small chuckle. “But I’d hazard to guess that it was a crossed wire. Reading too much into ambiguous information. It happens all the time.”
Kate stepped off the road and onto the field, moving slowly, conscious that she was walking on hallowed ground. Murzaev walked alongside her.
“So what do we do now?” Kate asked.
“Whatever you say. You give the word and I will get a team up here to exhume the bodies. We will do our best to identify individual remains using DNA testing and dental records. Then we relocate them to the central cemetery. If that’s what you want.”
Kate looked around at the stunning natural beauty. The Ala-Too mountains loomed above them as though keeping watch on the fallen.
“I think Zamira would be happier here among her comrades,” she said.
Murzaev nodded.
“I think they all would want that,” he agreed.
“Maybe we could set up a stone of some sort. A monument to Azattyk.”
“That would be nice.”
Kate looked up at the sky, hoping for another glimpse of the hawk, but it was gone.
“Can I have a minute?”
“Of course.” Murzaev touched her arm affectionately and walked back to the car.
She knelt and put her right hand on the ground, feeling the rich, moist earth under her palm.
“We did it, Zamira,” she whispered. “You would have been proud. Mom would have been proud.”
Kate walked back to the car.
“Are you ready?” Murzaev asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Let’s go home.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photograph of the author © Kathryn Banas
Matthew Palmer is a twenty-five-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service currently serving as the director for South Central Europe in the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. A life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Palmer has worked as a diplomat all around the world.
facebook.com/MatthewPalmerAuthor
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