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  What Changes Everything

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  a l s o b y

  M a s h a H a m i l t o n

  31 Hours

  The Camel Bookmobile

  The Distance Between Us

  Staircase of a Thousand Steps

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  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are either the>product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Unbridled Books

  Copyright © 2013 by Masha Hamilton

  All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced

  in any form without permission.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data [TK]

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Book Design by SH • CV

  First Printing

  Part One

  You don"t need a war.

  You don"t need to go anywhere.

  It"s a myth: if you hurl

  Yourself at chaos

  Chaos will catch you.

  —Eliza Griswold

  Beirut. Baghdad. Sarajevo. Bethlehem. Kabul. Not of course here.

  —Adrienne Rich

  Najibullah: Letter to My Daughters I

  September 3rd, 1996

  Destiny is a saddled ass, my daughters; he goes where you lead him. But you must know the rules to discern the path. First, give full trust to no one. The smiling horseman with whom you bow for dawn prayers may seek to kill you by nightfall. Work in cooperation, of course— what dust would rise from one rider alone? But do not let your lashes slip lazily to your cheeks while the sun remains in the sky. Whatever Allah wills shall be. Nevertheless, tie your steed"s knees tight before sleeping.

  It is dawn just after prayers; Kabul"s golden light creeps in through my window, a timid but relentless thief here to steal the night, and I am imagining you three with me instead of in Delhi, us all cross-legged on toshaks, looking directly into each other"s faces. My mind has become so practiced in seeing you where you are not, in fact, that I can almost hear you teasing me now—Horsemen? Steeds? You would tell me, if you could, that these are male metaphors, and male concerns.

  But you"ve been raised liberated girls; your dealings will be with both genders. Besides, though perhaps it is less likely, a woman too may pat your back with a blade in her palm.

  I have barely slept the night thinking of you girls and your mother. As reports reach me of the fundamentalists clawing daily closer to Kabul, the courage that buffered me as Afghanistan"s president bolsters me still. I believe these extremists, being fellow Pashtuns, will at

  last send me into exile, which means I will rejoin my family.

  Nevertheless, as it is hard to predict where a worn fighter"s bullet will land, there is urgency to my task. For over four years and four months, I have been unable to share a meal with you, hear in person of your plans or tell of mine. We have not played a single game of pingpong nor watched a movie together. When I think of it, as is often, my eyes feel rubbed with salt, my throat thickened with mud, my chest pummeled by an angry fist. I put these lessons in writing to be sure you will have them in case you need them before we are reunited.

  So then, the rules. When you must trust someone, rely on a stranger more easily than a friend; yes, because a friend knows your soft spots. But remember family is the marrow of your bones. Who is here with me still? My two UN "guards," and a young Pashtun, Amin, who waits on me. But my daily companion, the one with whom I share my deepest thoughts, is my brother Shahpur, your kaakaa jan. Together we follow politics and watch television and talk of you. Shahpur celebrated—but that"s not the right word without you—he marked my 49th birthday last month, a hard day to be apart from my beloved wife and girls. He holds me upright in your absence. You sisters, too, will lift each other when the need appears.

  Take care of your mother-flower until I return to you. I became her tutor all those years ago driven by the hope that she would fall in love with me over formulas and test questions. They can arrest or exile me—I will always be a lucky man because of her. She gave me you three, and a home of laughter even in dark times, and the strong foundation that has allowed me to do my work.

  And this rule: love your country. Victim of many men"s fury, corrupted by fanatics who believe our landlocked status means we sit in the cup of their hands, it still remains proud. "I come to you and my heart finds rest," Ahmed Shah Baba wrote of our motherland. "Away from you, grief clings to my heart like a snake." I know your memories of Afghanistan will be tinged by our separation and my detention. But put that aside, learn our history, and return one day to make your own impact.

  Remember that Afghanistan must be one united nation, all ethnic divisions discarded. Remember the couplet of the great Pashtun poet and warrior Khushal Khan Khattak: "Sail through vast oceans as long as you can, oh whale, for in small brooks I can predict your decay!"

  Remember, also, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. He too endured house arrest. He too knew it possible to be a devout Muslim and still support a progressive society. His goal, to unite all, was noble. Together one day, we"ll visit his resting place in Jalalabad.

  Be brave. Be proud.

  Fear and shame are father and son, and you should feel neither. You will need courage to meet detractors—the strong or outspoken always have those who would malign them. Still, we Afghans are raised on bravery with our morning chai; I remind you that it runs easily through our blood.

  Be punctual. Work hard. Memorize the Quran. Don"t forget your Dari. Never boast: it is the small mouth that speaks big words.

  Do not believe the stories you hear about me, my daughters. At least, not wholly. You are still so young—Muski only eight years old—but I know grim murmurs make their way to your ears already; your mother tells me. If I was a puppet, how did I manage to hold on to power for three years after the Soviets scuttled away? If I drew blood, it was only in self-defense or for Afghanistan. If it was me who was the roadblock to peace, then why has our city been defaced by warfare in the months and years since I left office? Do you remember Kharabat Street, its musicians flinging open their doors to compete for the chance of performing at the palace, their heartthumping music expanding and floating into the mountains? Massoud"s singlenote rockets left the Street of the Musicians in rubble. Districts where you three and your mother used to walk are now impassible, proof enough that I preserved peace, not obstructed it.

  And now your uncle is at my door. I will write you again soon—not a diary, since when the days are filled with events that might make an interesting diary there is not a spare moment to record them, and those are not my circumstances now. Instead, my enemies have given me the gift of time. As a satellite phone is available too infrequently for my wishes, I will make for you a written record of the state of your father"s mind during this fifth year living as "Honored Guest," while our fractious country and its devious leaders struggle forward without my firm hand. I will ask the boy Amin to send these off discreetly, since I want no UN censor marring my pages.

  Soon, inshallah, I will rejoin you. Until then, with love for you, and a country of kisses for your mother, my dearest Fati,

  Najib

  Amin, Sept. 3rd

  Amin spread his rug on the ground behind the office and then parted his lips to inhale fully. A crippled sparrow stood in stingy bush-shade and watched. Smoke and exhaust threaded through Kabul"s air, and the city"s tensions pressed against the compound walls; nevertheless, nothing matched performing salat under an open sky, even if sometimes the closeness to Allah made him feel that much
more ashamed. He raised his hands next to his ears, crossed his arms, paused and then bent at the waist; he straightened, he bowed, he lowered his forehead to the earth in a dance of sacred ritual by now burrowed deep in muscle memory. He had first prayed as a child aside his father, mimicking the traditional movements in time to words of supplication. These days his own son often stood next to him, and so at its best, prayer connected him not only to his God, but to his past, his future, his people.

  At its best. When he wasn"t preoccupied, that is. September was his month of regret, the month when his mind willfully wandered.

  As the sparrow hopped closer, he took measure of his regret; he found it hadn"t shrunk over the last year, even though he"d been a good man, or tried. Goodness wasn"t simply a matter of intention; life conspired to sidetrack the well-meaning, and somehow doing right by those you loved most always proved far more complicated than being kind to strangers—as if the two, love and complications, had to be ingested in equal measure. He had long ago realized that the unintended sins of the virtuous caused the worst damage: sins committed when one should have known better, or tried harder, or spoken up or stayed silent.

  "They will never know how fiercely I wish I could stand before them—before you—and ask forgiveness." Amin could have said those words, though they belonged to Najib. Even in the middle of it, Amin had known it as an exceptional moment in his life. What he couldn"t see then was what it would cost him. He"d been so young. He"d do it differently now, of course. Another chance was not to be had.

  Nor another chance at this day"s noon prayers. Najib, he could consider later. Lowering his forehead again to the prayer rug, he wordlessly asked Allah"s forgiveness for his break in attention, cleared his mind and offered praise for the Master of the Judgment Day, the Powerful One of ninety-nine names.

  Clarissa, September 3rd

  Clarissa pressed the "end" button on the phone"s receiver. Its quiet click made her think of everyday conclusions: a door closing, a bridge rising, the halting of a heart. She saw out the window that night had choked off the Brooklyn sky while she"d been talking to her husband half a world away. Her new husband, as she still thought of him—though they"d been married almost three years, husband was not a word that fell easily from her lips.

  She didn"t want to feel irritated with him. She dropped her tensed shoulders and shook her hands as if to release the memory of long miles, missed connections, censored language. She never liked to argue long-distance—not with a friend, not with her brother, certainly not with this man she'd married. Robbed of touch or expression, words became easily knotted.

  Besides, life should not be disrupted so near to sleep. Leave it for another day. She was 42; she knew how to compartmentalize by this time, didn"t she?

  Urban gray lay beyond the window, with shadows and sirens and complicated nighttime intentions. She turned back toward the humdrum solidity of the lit kitchen: a table messy with notes for her study on the urban history of Detroit, yogurt, cranberry juice and spinach in the fridge, a bottle of calcium pills on the counter next to a scrawled note from her step-daughter to her husband, weeks old now. A coffee machine still partly filled with day-old brew, a radio quietly broadcasting unalarming news. She welcomed these particulars that were the bones of her current life, but she did not pause to treasure them. There it is, then, the human tragedy: failure to celebrate the plain pillow that catches one"s head each night.

  Mandy, September 4th

  Kabul from above was a panoramic movie—sensual sand rivers, thirsty cracks diving into the earth, a disembodied pilot"s voice reciting Allahu Akbar three times on final approach, a prayer that the stewardess failed to translate into English. But once grounded and entering the airport"s squat and tawdry buildings, the city suddenly seemed less romantic, emitting the scent of the dangerously foreign: dark and masculine musky. Mandy fought off a knife-like wave of fear. What was she? A middle-aged woman with a pale face and secret hopes, unnaturally adjusting her headscarf: she didn"t belong. She had a sudden vision of high school dances—those petri dishes of adolescent insecurities, still mildly painful three decades past. Even though she"d been considered "popular," she"d known that to be a disguise which couldn"t provide permanent coverup, a mask in constant danger of slipping. Each time she"d entered that dolledup lunchroom with its streamers and strobe lights and a band playing piercingly in a corner, she"d imagined everyone would finally notice the "Outsider" tattooed on her forehead.

  Here, however, no one seemed to pay attention to her at all. On the airplane, men had watched her through slitted eyes at once deferential and bold, and other women had smiled shyly. Now everyone was far too involved in the business of pushing their way into the terminal or fighting their way to the exit. The lights appeared to have burned out, or maybe the electricity had shut off: the terminal was in shadows and Mandy saw, as they inched forward, that the baggage carousel stood silent and still. A half-dozen men hustled in, pulling luggage on flat carts, shouting out unknown words and gesturing for everyone to clear a path, clear a path, and then dumping bags onto the stranded carousel as if they expected it to involuntarily leap to life. Passengers of both genders pushed their way toward the heap, the women gaining momentum whenever a man leapt back to avoid physical contact.

  In this adamant rush of activity, Mandy hesitated. What to do now? She imagined she looked like some stunned whale washed onto an unknown shore. On the flight over, she"d asked for the window seat. She"d let the ticket agent imagine it was so she could see Kabul on approach. The real reason was less logical. Sitting by the window gave her the false sense that she could escape if needed, if this whole venture turned out to be as ridiculous as Jimmy had warned. Now it became suddenly clear: there was no escaping. There never had been, not since Jimmy came home. She"d flown to Kabul in some unacknowledged attempt to bargain with God, or maybe fate, since her sense of God had become murky: In return for her work here, please, Whoever, give her son his legs back, so he could lift her up and twirl her around again, or take a hike or press pedal to the metal in his truck. Or if that was too much for a simple, sinful woman to ask, at least please give Jimmy back his spirit.

  It was all unrealistic and ill-conceived; she recognized that. Never had she been more out of place in her life. But before she could fall into a raging panic in full view of dark-eyed turbaned men and silent women suffocated in cloth, an officer in an American military uniform strode directly toward her.

  "Mrs. Wilkens?"

  Thank God for her boy; he"d arranged this, even from bed, even though he disapproved. Mandy felt her eyes well up. Once she"d been the last to cry; often now she was the first.

  Silently, sternly, she warned her tears to stay put.

  "Yes sir," she said. "That"s me."

  The officer introduced himself as Corporal Holder. "Welcome," he said. "How much luggage do you have?" She identified one piece after another after another—more, with the medical supplies, than Corporal Holder might have expected, but he showed no surprise as, with fluid movements, he loaded the suitcases and boxes onto a cart. "This way, ma"am" he said, soothingly direct and familiar.

  Outside the terminal, Mandy felt dust settle on her skin almost immediately. Holder led the way past a paved expanse to a graveled lot, chatting as they walked. "We"re parked all the way over here—sorry. They don"t allow you to get too close. How was your flight? You must be tired. I"ve brought some waters in case you"re thirsty. They"re in the vehicle. Here we are. And this is PFC Mendez."

  Shifting her purse to one side, Mandy managed a handshake with the private. With Holder in the front passenger seat, Mendez at the wheel, and Mandy in the back, they pulled away from the airport.

  Afghanistan felt immediately more chaotic than it had in the terminal, which moments earlier Mandy would have said was impossible. Cars hurtled toward one another on what could only loosely be called opposite sides of the road. Horns honked uselessly. Mendez swerved right and then left, careening past trucks, bicycles, men pulling
large wooden carts, women in burqas like imploring blue ghosts at the roadside and finally, a legless beggar planted in the middle of the road, empty hands extended before him, undaunted as cars shot by close enough for him to lick if he tried. As they passed him, Mandy sucked in her breath.

  Holder turned to look at her, and seemed to read her thoughts, even those she couldn"t form into words. "Jimmy showed me a couple photos once," he offered. "You look exactly like your pictures, Mrs. Wilkens."

  Mandy managed a silent if vacant smile into the rearview mirror. She planned to ask Holder what Jimmy had been like here, and how he"d spent his time when they weren"t fighting. But she wanted a more private moment for that conversation.

  "So you"re from Houston, then?" Mendez spoke over his shoulder.

  "Right," Mandy said. "How about you?"

  "St. Louis," said Holder.

  "New Mexico," answered Mendez. "A little town south of Santa Fe. Watch out,