by Steven Gould
I started to get in on the right-hand side of the truck and froze in the doorway when I realized it was right-hand drive. I knew there was something odd about the traffic I’d been watching. I got into the seat and slid under the wheel to the passenger side, banging my knee on the stick shift.
Mom followed me in, started it up, and pulled out into the wrong-side-of-the-road traffic like she drove here every day. She took a piece of paper out of her shirt pocket and handed it to me.
“You’re the navigator.”
We left the town of Merredin, Western Australia, on 94, the Great Eastern Highway, but only as far as the first exit. Mom drove south a mile, and turned off onto a weed-filled dirt road lined with high brush on both sides. It curved away from the paved road and Mom pulled off as soon as it was out of sight of the highway.
“Watch out for snakes,” she said.
“Great,” I said. “Visit exotic Australia. Get bitten by an exotic snake. Die exotically.”
Mom jumped away, vanishing like a lightbulb turning off.
I climbed out the window and up onto the roof of the cab. After what she’d said about snakes, I wasn’t going anywhere near the bushes.
Mom was in the back of the truck, intermittently. That is, she was picking up burlap sacks one at a time and disappearing, reappearing, grabbing another sack and repeating.
They were stenciled CBHG Yellow Lentils fifteen kilos. I did the math while I watched Mom empty the truck. Nine tons of lentils, presuming she meant English tons, would be about 545 bags. Mom was doing one every five seconds, though she took an occasional break. Straight through, it would have taken about forty-five minutes, but she slowed down near the end. The truck was empty in an hour and ten minutes.
She was sweaty and dusty, too.
“Back to the warehouse?” I said.
She shook her head, vanished, and reappeared, a bottle of cold water in each hand. She handed me one and guzzled the other, sprinkling some of it over her hair.
Before driving back into Merredin, she drove a half hour further out of town and the half hour back. “Mileage,” explained Mom. “Don’t want them to think I’m too local if we buy more.”
We listened to a call-in show on the radio, entertained by the accents. “Why do they pitch their sentences up at the end, like every line is a question?” I asked.
Mom shook her head. “Don’t know. I’ve heard the same thing in parts of the UK. It’s just a variant. I’m sure we sound odd to them, too.”
We gave the truck back to the man at the co-op and he returned a fat envelope. “Darn. Halfway hoping I’d get to keep your deposit.”
Mom smiled and thanked him, and said, “I may need another nine tons next month. Will they still be in season?”
“You like your lentils, I guess. There’ll be some in our warehouse for at least a month after the last harvest, too.”
We went to the Chinese restaurant then, but I was yawning like a fiend by the time we’d eaten. It was early afternoon here, but well after midnight at home. After Mom paid, we went to the restroom and she jumped us home from there.
* * *
I barely remember falling into bed. I don’t remember taking off my shoes, but they were in the closet when I woke up which means, of course, that Mom pulled them off. I would’ve kicked them into the corner.
It was gray outside. The sun was up as high as it was going to get and it still hadn’t cleared the far ridge. The sky was clear, though, and you could see the whole valley, trimmed with evergreens and draped with heavy white snow, except where our local elk herd had used their hooves to cut through to the grass on the flat.
It wouldn’t be long before the elk moved down the mountain to the river valley for the winter.
This time of year the light never wakes me. Instead it was a grinding noise, like a snowmobile or an off-road motorbike, that brought me out of sleep, and I realized Dad must’ve made good on his promise to bring in a backup generator. As I moved downstairs the sound got louder, but it was still a background noise, not overwhelming.
Dad had spread newspaper on the dining room table and was fiddling with some mechanical parts. He smiled at me. “Sleep okay? You guys were back late.”
I made my noncommittal noise: half grunt, half hum. “Where’s Mom?”
He looked around, then said, “Oh, that’s right. She’s organizing the warehouse.”
The warehouse was on the outskirts of a small town in Michigan, a steel building thrown up by one of GM’s vendors right before the local plant was shut down. Dad bought it cheap, and never used.
I gestured at the parts. “Too noisy downstairs?”
He shook his head. “It’s not the noise in the basement. It’s the noise outside, where the exhaust pipe pokes though the wall. Need to get a longer pipe. Run it above the roof, perhaps.”
“Wouldn’t that just make it louder up by our bedrooms?” Dad got that look in his eye, and I said quickly, “Just yes or no. I don’t want another physics lecture!”
Dad grinned. “Okay. No. It wouldn’t make it louder, not if the mounting brackets were dampened.”
“Fine.”
I made it all the way through cooking pancakes, buttering them, and pouring the syrup before I asked, “Okay. Why would an exhaust pipe sticking up above the roof be quieter?”
Dad grinned. “Up there the noise doesn’t have anything to reflect off of. The sound waves exit the pipe in a hemispheric pattern mostly up. Down where it’s coming out now, it echoes off the ground and the snow and the trees and even the springhouse. So we’re hearing it pretty loud.”
“Buzz was never that loud,” I said.
Dad pointed at the pipe before him. “And as soon as I get this piece welded we can get back to Buzz. Well, welded and reinstalled, and the Freon charged back into the system.”
“And you’ll get rid of the noisy generator?”
“Oh no. We’ll keep it for backup. Hopefully we won’t have to run it much.”
Mom showed up shortly after that. She was wearing shorts, a tank top, boots, and work gloves, and she was sweaty.
Dad brushed the damp bangs back from her forehead. “You done already? I said I’d help.”
Mom kissed him. “You load sixteen tons, whaddya get?” She flexed a bicep. “It’s better than a gym, any day.”
I said, “I thought it was nine tons?”
“Cultural reference,” Mom said. “Mid-twentieth century. Tennessee Ernie Ford.” I must’ve looked even more puzzled because she clarified. “He was a singer. ‘Sixteen Tons’ was a song.”
“Oh,” I said. “Old stuff. Like Green Day?”
Dad choked.
“Or Beethoven?”
Mom said, “Somewhere in between. When you’ve eaten, we need to distribute some lentils.”
“What climate?”
“Pakistan. The mountains. Pretty cold. Also,” she gestured toward her head.
I grimaced. “Hijab.”
She nodded and looked at Dad. “I’ll want your help transporting, okay?”
“Where are you working?”
“The IRC refugee camp on the border, west of Peshawar.”
“The one Patel works at?” Dad said.
Mom nodded. “The UN supplies have not been getting through. In the south, the Pashtun militias are diverting them for profit, and on the Afghan side, it’s a tossup between the Taliban and the poppy growers.”
“Pretty dangerous area.” Dad’s voice was mild, but he was frowning.
“We’re distributing from the women’s clinic compound. No men allowed. The main problems are outside camp, as usual. Safe enough inside.”
“Okay. While you change, I’ll get this to the welder. Be back in a bit.”
I dressed warmly—long underwear, my snowboarding pants, a fleece pullover. Over these I put on the traditional pants, tight at the ankle, baggy at the hips, and the knee length tunic, then the headscarf. I’d gone with Mom several times into areas where women wore the full burka, v
eil and all, but I wouldn’t have to today.
Mom jumped me to the interior of a canvas tent, a large ten-by-ten structure over a dirt and gravel floor. It was cold, and the only light was a Coleman lantern Mom brought with her. My ears popped, but not as badly as they had in Australia, which meant the altitude was more like the mountains, where our house was. There were plastic drums and collapsed cardboard boxes stacked across the back, but the tent was mostly empty.
Mom pointed at a tied-shut door flap. “It won’t be dawn for another two hours. We’ll be distributing through that door.”
Dad showed up after that, with a folding screen, six feet high, eight feet long. He set it up close to the door so they could jump discretely from behind it, if necessary, after the distribution started.
Working together, they took a half hour to bring all the lentils from the warehouse. Dad was bringing two bags at a time and he jumped much faster than Mom, flicking in and out without pausing. Of course, he’s been doing it far longer. I dragged the sacks within reach of the door and began stacking them. Our breath was still steaming but I wasn’t cold anymore.
Dad left after all the lentils had been brought in and stacked. Mom jumped out and came back with cartons of plastic bags and big measuring scoops. “Two liters each, right?”
We’d filled about fifty of the transparent bags, ready to hand out, when there was a scratching at the flap.
Mom tensed and then said, “As-salaam alaikum.”
The voice on the other side was a woman’s. “Bonjour, c’est moi, Magrit.”
Mom relaxed and untied the tent flaps. The sun was hitting the surrounding peaks and the air that flowed through the door was markedly colder, not warmed by all our activity. Magrit was a tall woman wearing khakis and a white medical clinician’s coat buttoned all the way up to the neck. She had a wool scarf wrapped up over her chin and ears, and her arms were crossed, her hands tucked up into her armpits. A stethoscope stuck out of one pocket.
“Good morning, Doctor,” Mom said.
Magrit took a step back. She wasn’t looking at us, but at the stacks of burlap bags visible past the screen. “Sacredieu! They told me, but … I saw this place last night, late, before I came to bed—empty! How?”
Mom did that thing she does, that therapist thing. She nodded her head and said, “That must be very disturbing.”
“How did you get this into the camp? Les soldats are checking all vehicles.”
Mom said, “I would think that whoever moved it here would want to keep their methods a secret, so les soldats could not stop the food.”
Magrit opened and shut her mouth a few moments, then exhaled heavily. “There are women waiting for clinic hours. I will send them over, yes?”
“Yes,” Mom said. “Merci beaucoup.”
* * *
The women spoke Pashto and mostly it was “ma-nana” which I figured out pretty quick means, “Thanks.” Some of them asked “Ta la cherta rahg-ley?” Mom answered, “Ze la Canada.”
Mostly, though, I tied a loose knot in the tops of the bags and passed them over, smiled, and bobbed my head. The word spread and by midmorning the line snaked around the compound formed by the clinic’s tents, and out into to the camp proper.
I wasn’t the only one handing out the lentils. Five other women, recruited by Magrit, were filling bags and handing them out. The line was moving at a slow walk, but there was no end in sight.
After a consultation with Magrit, a covey of young girls my age began carrying plastic bags outside the clinic to where a line started for men—orphaned boys, bachelors, or widowers—who couldn’t come into the compound. This line was small, though, because the camp was largely filled with women whose men had died in the fighting, or who had fled from their own husbands and fathers and the Taliban’s strict application of religious rule. “And also,” Magrit said, “they’re men. Some of them would rather be hungry than collect the food. Women’s work.”
At one point Mom disappeared behind the screen and came back with a mug of hot tea, heavily sugared. She took over my job while I drank it behind the screen, grateful for the hot drink, and at the same time, ashamed. The women helping us wore extra clothes, shawls, men’s shirts, but they were still woefully underdressed for the temperature.
“Let me bring some hot tea to them,” I said, pointing at our helpers.
Mom reached out and tugged my chador forward, over my bangs. “Okay. There are Styrofoam cups over the sink. Oh, and while you’re there? Use the bathroom. I just saw the latrine and you don’t want to go anywhere near it.”
Mom jumped me home from behind the screen. I put the large kettle on and, while it heated, used the bathroom and washed my hands multiple times. Mom got me inoculated for everything but as she’d pointed out, I’d brushed hands with hundreds of people just this morning.
I brewed the tea in a plastic pitcher and sweetened it almost syrup thick. When I came out from behind the screen and began handing out cups, I think they thought I was bringing water, but when I tipped the pitcher steam rose in the air. They cradled the cups and breathed in the steam and smell. When one of them tasted it her cry of surprise started the others sipping.
The line ran out before we ran out of lentils and Mom sighed in relief. She did a quick inventory and told Dr. Magrit, “Almost five hundred kilos left. For the next emergency.”
Dr. Magrit nodded. “There is always another. But the army says they’re coming to deal with this latest problem with the militias. The UN has a large convoy waiting for their escort.”
We tidied the tent, stacking the bags neatly, and when Magrit went to do rounds, Mom jumped us away.
* * *
Dad came into the kitchen swearing. “The weld is still leaking. I have to get the part machined from scratch.”
Mom and I were in our bathrobes. We’d used the hot tub on the upper deck to cook the chill from our bones. There’s something decadent about sitting in 110-degree water while fluffy, fat snowflakes are falling all around you. But this time it hadn’t been as good because of the noise and smell of the generator exhaust, which was way worse than the slight smell of sulfur that comes from the hot spring.
When I thought about the girls and women in the refugee camp I felt really petty complaining, but I still said, “Can’t we go stay someplace else while that thing is running? It’s smelly and loud.”
Dad and Mom looked at each other, then back at me. Mom looked sad and Dad looked grim. I knew his answer before he spoke.
“No. We can turn off the generator at night, though. The fridge will be okay for seven hours.”
Right. As if I cared about the refrigerator.
We never slept anyplace else. We’d go places but we’d always come back quickly. I was trying to remember if there was ever a time that I’d spent the night away from home, even when Dad taught me survival camping. Sure we gathered and cooked our own food, but how real is it if you get tucked into your own bed every night?
The next morning Dad went off to get his part made and Mom said, “Your room … clean it.”
“Mom!”
“It looks like a laundry and a library exploded. You have shelves, use them. Put up your clean laundry and start washing the dirty stuff, if you can tell which is which. They’re all jumbled together.”
I opened my mouth to protest but she raised her hand. “Seriously. Do it. I’ve got some meetings so I won’t be back until this afternoon, but you should be done by then.”
“I need more shelves.”
“You need to cull your collection. If you’re not going to read it again, put it in a box. We’ll donate it to a reading program.”
“Dad said I could have another shelf.” Dad has books all over the house. You don’t see him culling his collection.
Mom sighed. “One more shelf isn’t going to do it. Okay—one more shelf unit, but you’ll have to move your boy-toy posters.”
“No!”
“It’s the only wall space left.”
“We could put the shelf in front of one of the windows.”
“Absolutely not!”
“I don’t see why—”
Mom jumped away.
It’s not fair.
Oh, yeah, I can see that we really shouldn’t put bookshelves in front of the windows. There’s a great view down the valley, and in the summer I would want it open. But jumping away in the middle of an argument really isn’t fair.
Dad does it, too.
If I could jump, it might be different. I’d fantasized about disappearing in the middle of one of their lectures often enough.
When I was a little girl, maybe four years old, I would stand in front of my mother and say, “Mommy, I’m going to jump!”
Mom would cover her eyes with both hands and I would quietly walk to another part of the room or into another room entirely and say, “Boom! I jumped!” And she would drop her hands, gasp in amazement, and say, “Wow, you jumped!” If I was in the room with her still, she would say. “There you are!” And if I’d left the room, she’d say, “Where did she go?”
I wasn’t going anywhere. At this rate I would never go anywhere.
I stomped up the stairs to my room. I was still in my pajamas: sweatpants and a T-shirt. I tried to slam the door but it caught on a pile of clothes, books, and DVD cases. I groaned. Bad enough that she left in the middle of the argument, but the fact that she was right about the room only made it worse.
I kicked at the pile, trying to shove it aside, and jammed my toe on a book wedged up against the shelf by the door.
“Shit!” I yelled, hopping around on the other foot. I didn’t care that I wasn’t supposed to say that. At that moment I wouldn’t have cared if Mom and Dad were standing there listening. It would be hard for them to bug out in the middle of that one emphatic word.
The posters were old, dating back to when my idea of what a girl’s room should look like was based on girls’ rooms in movies and television shows. I don’t think I’d ever been inside an actual girl’s room. Mom’s mother lives in an apartment in one of those retirement communities now and though Mom once showed me the house she grew up in, we never saw inside. Even if we had, the room she’d had as a girl would’ve been different.
