What Changes Everything

by Masha Hamilton

  He was not yet finished. One more plastic piece taped on the wall. One more can of paint, a pale yellow. On the black of the dress, he painted the flag"s stars, meant for irony. And beneath the stencil of the coffin, four capital letters, about five inches tall, the sole bit of obvious, if destructible, ownership he allowed himself. IMOP. His tag.

  He stepped back to examine the piece again and felt his shoulders drop slightly in relaxation. It was as he"d hoped; it was good. For tonight, there would be no nightmares to jar him awake, no shout climbing from his throat. For tonight, sleep would be restorative enough, fueled by this moment, his toe-dip into a well of fulfillment, an emotion surely as transient as street art itself, yet nonetheless valuable. Here lay the lesson for him, he thought, in both what had happened to his brother and the work he left on the street. In everything, temporary is inevitable; the wise accept it as enough.

  Clarissa, September 4th

  In the narrow strand of space between the first piece of information and all the rest, thoughts rushed through Clarissa that could not be said aloud, not then, probably not ever. They came like the violent Nor"easters she"d known as a child in Maine, appearing without warning as she"d disconnected the phone for the third time in quick succession.

  How could he have let this happen?

  The initial call came from a reporter, and Clarissa hung up mid-sentence, telling herself there"d been a mistake.

  He"d tricked her, Todd had. Tricked her into trusting him, even though she knew life was delicate beyond belief, and humans were flimsy, including those who seemed invincible.

  The second call came from Bill Snyder, who opened by barely speaking at all, as if to prolong her last moments of unknowing, and then began carefully, each word padded by pauses, each phrase couched in ambiguity. She hung up on him also, but with less confidence.

  Everything one counted on could vanish in a second; she"d understood that since

  childhood. A new narration wiping out personal history without a whisper of remorse. That"s why, at base, she"d never married before. Been too smart for marriage.

  The final call came from a baldly definitive FBI agent, speaking in a clipped but almost tender tone as she thought in stunned amazement, "The FBI, how odd is this?" She had no memory of hanging up on him, only of noticing at one point that she no longer pressed the receiver to her ear.

  Why had she let herself willfully block out this transiency, fall in love, remake the boundaries of her life, and then redefine what it meant to trust the world? Because even as she"d worried aloud, she"d secretly relied on the conviction that he would stay safe. He"d had a plan and she"d become a late believer in the power of planning. She"d trusted their future as much as the fact that ice was cold and fires were hot and letters arranged on a page would remain readable.

  And she"d known better. That much trust was too much.

  The mind is a labyrinth capable of holding at once the ocean, the sky and everything in between, of carrying on four simultaneous conversations, most of them internal, of dismissing one memory even as it accesses another in detail and creates a third.

  Didn"t people in situations like this say, "at least he was doing what he loved"? Wasn"t that a ridiculous thing to say?

  These thoughts pushed their way up from the floor of her mind, edging aside other, more critical judgments and understandings and misunderstandings.

  humans are delicate so keep it safe humans are impermanent so take the risks humans are transient so soak in the details humans are temporary so think big humans are breakable so be diligent humans are ephemeral so be carefree humans are fragile so

  Thoughts came that she would register unconsciously and quickly forget, but would recall—some of them, at least—much later, in her revised world, as pieces of her future settled into new patterns of fleetingness.

  What do we do now? What do I do now?

  Mandy, September 4th

  Mandy understood immediately how secure this guesthouse was. Even though she was a harmless-looking middle-aged woman who arrived with two uniformed American soldiers, the guard would not let her in until he"d summoned Hammon and gotten his okay.

  Hammon was 6 foot 3 with short hair, black leather boots, an easy walk and biceps three times the size of hers. He pushed back his sunglasses so she could see his eyes and, though she"d never met him before, greeted her warmly. "Mrs. Wilkens, come in," he said, waving an offhanded goodbye to the soldiers as he revealed a strong British accent. "Let me show you to your room. Rumi—he"s our cook—should have dinner ready soon. Rumi"s a pro; you can safely eat even salad inside this compound. He grows his own lettuce right here and washes it with our water."

  Jimmy had met Hammon during some kind of a special military training that he"d never fully explained. He did say Hammon took a liking to him, and would turn up from time to time on Jimmy"s base. Hammon was a former SAS soldier who now worked as a private security guard in Afghanistan—a top one, Jimmy had said, the kind who destroys and replaces his cellphone every week, and knows the underground entrances to government offices, and takes on assignments too top secret to ever be mentioned. Jimmy had said hotels for internationals had become crime magnets, and staying at Hammon"s guest house was the safest thing Mandy could

  do, if she insisted on going to Kabul.

  Hammon led her to the second floor of what seemed to be the main building. "Here you are," he said, pushing open the door to a small corner room. "Not gorgeous, but it"s clean." The room held a built-in closet, a desk, and a bed next to the window. The paint on the walls was gently peeling, the ceiling stained. Mandy tugged open the heavy curtains and glanced out. The high security walls, topped with barbed wire, enclosed a courtyard dotted with rose plants struggling unsuccessfully to achieve a jaunty air. At least the dust combined with the day"s light gave everything a burnt orange wash, which Mandy found mildly comforting.

  Hannon stepped to the desk and used his foot to tap a bottom board. It hinged open to reveal two hidden drawers. "This is a good place to leave your passport—just carry a photocopy. You can also stash any extra cash, jewelry, whatever," he said. "And over here—" He went to a landscape painting on the wall and pulled the frame away from the wall to reveal a small crawlspace, "this is where you hide if you ever need to. It closes from inside. It"s dark but there"s enough air for eight hours."

  Mandy smiled. "I"ve entered another world," she said. "We don"t have anything like this back home."

  Hammon smiled. "I doubt you"ll need it. But it would be foolhardy not to show you." Then he turned suddenly serious. "You"re pretty safe within these walls, but we"re right in the center of things, and even just outside our gate—let alone in a hospital or refugee camp—you can become a target of opportunity. People here are poor. They spot a foreigner, make a phone call, and get a payoff. That"s all it takes. So don"t forget it." He paused. "Sorry. Don"t mean to lecture."

  "It"s okay. I"ve already heard it all from Jimmy."

  Hammon shook his head. "Tough break, Jimmy. He"s that unusual combination of a real gentleman with a strong street-sense, at least for Afghanistan. He"s among the best I"ve ever seen."

  Others, Mandy thought, saw things in Jimmy that she never had.

  "You know I"ve offered him a job when he gets back on his feet," Hammon continued.

  No, Mandy hadn"t known, and the phrase "back on his feet" made her cringe. But she nodded vaguely. "In Afghanistan?" she said.

  "I don"t know if he"ll want to come back, but he"d be good at it. How"s he doing?"

  Why did she always stumble over this question? Because she felt she was supposed to say fine, and there was progress, and all that. She was supposed to be grateful her son had made it home, and forget how. "You know how it is," Mandy said. "He"s okay."

  Hammon nodded, hesitated, and Mandy had the sense he was about to tell her something, maybe something important. But then the guard appeared, spoke to Hammon in Pashto, and handed over a note. Hammon held it out to her.

  "A driver j
ust stopped by and left this for you," he said.

  It was a single page, folded three times. She opened it carefully.

  "Dear Mrs. Wilkens. I am very sorry that it is my duty to inform you Mr. Todd Barbery has been taken from the street by gunmen. I will do everything I can to act on Mr. Todd"s behalf in his absence, which I trust will not be long. I cannot meet you today, but tomorrow, please call me at this phone number. 700 201136. Very Best, Amin."

  Mandy stared at the words, trying to absorb them. Todd, kidnapped? It had been more than a decade since she"d seen him, but they"d been friends of sorts in their youth. Todd had married one of Mandy"s closest friends, Mariana, who"d died young. Todd, kidnapped? He had long experience in this part of the world, Mandy knew. If he didn"t know his way around the dangers here, no outsider did.

  "What is it?" Hammon asked.

  She handed him back the note and sank down on the edge of the bed.

  Hammon read it in one glance, and refolded it carefully. "You know, you can turn around right now. If your contact is unavailable, one of the next flights out is an option."

  Mandy hesitated only a single beat before shaking her head. "No. No it"s not." She took a deep breath. "I came all this way. I"m not leaving at the first sign of trouble. Jimmy didn"t. You don"t."

  "Jimmy said you were pretty determined."

  "I bet determined isn"t the word he used."

  Hammon grinned. "Can I keep this note for a little bit? Before you go anywhere, I want to check out this Amin person."

  "Of course."

  "Take some rest, Mrs. Wilkens. Rumi should have dinner soon. It"s downstairs. He rings a bell, and we all throng in." Hammon left, closing the door behind him.

  Mandy lay back on the bed, dropping her head against a pillow that felt as if it were filled with rice. She closed her eyes. She wouldn"t tell Jimmy about the kidnapping, she decided. And at dinner, she"d ask Hammon to keep quiet about it as well if he should talk to her son. In the distance, she heard the start of the hypnotic call to prayer. She realized that the jetlag, the travel, and the news about Todd had left her feeling deeply tired and yet too buzzed awake to nap. She would unpack her clothes in the quiet before dinner. It would be a symbolic commitment to her decision to stay, no matter what. So she rose, tugged open a zipper on her suitcase and began settling into the thick-walled room in the heart of a dusty, foreign city.

  Clarissa, September 4th

  Clarissa pushed her way outside to stand on the front stoop; her apartment felt confining. She couldn"t bear to be waiting from in there for whatever would happen next out here. Her cheeks were slapped by a brilliant, raw morning, too bright and too cold for September, a morning already being spliced into haiku-like moments that would never, no matter how she tried, coalesce into a whole.

  The air had an odd consistency, like Jell-O, and for several minutes she felt as though she had to concentrate on eating the sky in large, unappetizing gulps in order to stay alive. In front of a house half a block away, a narrow stretch of a man stood sweeping the sidewalk with a stitch straw broom, making a scratching sound against the pavement as he gathered leaves into a pile. It was a hopeful act, wasn"t it? A belief in the future, in the order of things. She wanted to catch his eyes, maybe to smile or wave, but the bill of a blue cap hid his face and he didn"t look up.

  Then someone called her name, as a question. "Clarissa?" And there was Bill Snyder, hugging her, his cheek pressing hers for too long, as if it were a sponge absorbing moisture, his fleshy, presumptuous hands swallowing hers, pulling her back inside, and though she tried to resist, to explain that she didn"t want to be indoors, he spoke over her: what they knew, what they didn"t know, how concerned-hopeful-involved-sorry he was.

  And then, a blurring, so that events did not stand out as separate. Ruby was suddenly there, less stiff than usual, more vulnerable, the situation bringing into sharp relief that they were family now, something the two of them had both silently conspired to ignore. Ruby was with her partner Angie, and they were quickly followed by Clarissa"s brother Mikey—painful to see his face so blanched, like a visual of her own shock, but thank God for his presence. How did they all find out? Maybe Clarissa had called them? She had no memory of this. Maybe it had been the FBI?

  Mikey was speaking, but the words were impossible to discern. Once pronounced, they seemed to dissipate like the exotic, brief scent of Casablanca lilies, the flowers she and Todd had chosen for their wedding in Montauk. Her wedding day. She hurried away from that memory, calling to it over her shoulder not now, not now, distracting herself by watching the movement of Mikey"s lips: tiny, discordant waves that rose and fell cautiously as if he didn"t want to open his mouth too wide. Which tight, tense words were managing to escape, Clarissa wondered. Which full ones were being trapped within? Fabulous, perhaps, or mandatory? Words that might apply to Todd, if only they could slip past constricted lips.

  Todd. Let them talk around her; Clarissa would concentrate on Todd. Maybe he would just run away from his captors. Maybe he would call and say "I"m free. Coming home." Maybe even this morning. But from where, from whom would he escape? Was he bound? Was he blindfolded? In a tiny room, the trunk of a car, behind some rocks on a mountainside? As if it might help her find answers, Clarissa checked on her iPhone for the weather in Kabul. Sixty-nine degrees and sunny, with an expected high of 84. So at least he wasn"t cold. If he was still in Kabul, that is. And that led to other questions, but it was hard to focus on them in the midst of the voices talking around her, to her, over her, a cocoon of voices.

  The phone rang, jarring, and Clarissa grabbed the receiver in order to silence it, wishing she could silence everyone around her so easily and claim for herself a moment to think. "Ms. Montague," said a man"s voice. "Hi. My name is…" A journalist, she knew immediately. It was as if they had a special accent. Wordlessly, she passed the phone to Mikey. He spoke loudly, waving one arm for emphasis. Again, his words didn"t stick with her. And then he hung up.

  And now Ruby was next to Clarissa, rubbing her eyes and wiping her nose with a knotted fist, suddenly a bereft child instead of the tough 28-year-old Clarissa had gotten to know. Ironically, she identified with this side of Ruby more closely. She put an arm around the younger woman, who seemed to be trying to contain herself, and failing. She was rocking in a way Clarissa understood she couldn"t control. Clarissa embraced her more tightly, but it was like trying to hold back a breaking wave. Angie, looking miserable, rose to get Ruby a glass of water.

  "Those bastards," Ruby said in a voice raw as a skinned knee, a voice that seemed to carry its own echo.

  "Let"s stay optimistic," Bill Snyder said. "Let"s hear what the FBI has to say when they get here."

  So Bill was still here, Clarissa thought.

  "That"s right. Let"s wait," Angie said as the doorbell rang over her voice. "Want me to get it?"

  Clarissa shook her head. "I"ll get it." But she waited, arm still around Todd"s daughter, until she felt Ruby gather herself. Then she rose and opened the door to a couple at her threshold. They didn"t look like FBI agents. The woman wore dress pants and a suit jacket and carried a large leather purse, but the man was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. They looked about 30, only a couple of years older than Ruby. Weren"t FBI agents supposed to be large and pale and middle-aged? Wasn"t it a job requisite?

  "Clarissa Montague?" the man asked.

  "Yes."

  "I"m Jack. This is Sandy."

  And now the informality of first names. Something else she didn"t expect from the FBI, not that she"d ever had any expectations about FBI agents in her home. "Okay," she said, but her legs responded silently: not okay. They were rooted in place. The presence of these two at her doorstep made everything too real.

  Jack extracted his ID from his back pocket. "You were expecting us, yes?"

  No, I wasn"t expecting you. Not you, nor any of this.

  She nodded and turned. They followed her into her kitchen.

  "This is my brother, Mik
ey," she said. "And my stepdaughter Ruby and her partner, Angie. And my husband"s colleague Bill." She paused. "And these are the agents. Jack and Sandy." The barest and most incomplete of introductions had already worn her out. "Do you want something?" she asked. "A cup of tea or…"

  "No, we"re good," Jack said.

  Good? They each took a chair. Fortunately, the kitchen table was large enough to seat eight, Clarissa thought. Todd had considered it overkill, but Clarissa loved a big kitchen table as much as she loved the city, though they seemed like opposing impulses. The city was layer after endless layer of life, an impossible promise of infinity, while the kitchen table was more personal, inclusive and nurturing.

  This was supposed to be the nurturing stage of her life.

  A thick silence waiting to be born into something darker swallowed the room. At last, Jack spoke. "I"m sorry about the circumstances that bring us here."