Khyber Run Read online

  I studied his turban as he spoke, but the folds and turns of cloth weren't the way I'd been taught to build a lungee. His accent didn't match mine either. Not the soft southern Pashto, but the in-between sound of the far north. He wasn't my kin. He was my people, though, and so were his sons. I couldn't save every kid in this land, but if Oscar got back quickly enough I could buy an extra year for two of them.

  Bismillah, that grace period might bring their family back from the brink of the cliff they so obviously faced.

  The boys stirred uneasily, and the crowd reassembled with studied nonchalance just inside eavesdropping distance. I'd been silent too long, and they were staring at me.

  I moved closer to their father, but not close enough to challenge him. Personal space was different here; men can get closer than can Americans, but only when the niceties are observed. After my disastrous visit before, I didn't trust my command of the niceties.

  I murmured quietly, in English, that I was shopping for a partridge in a pear tree and hoped he could help me.

  He shrugged elaborately and begged my forgiveness for his ignorance.

  A boy in bright pink plastic shoes shuffled toward me and offered, in Bronx-accented English, to take me on a tour of the bazaar.

  I shook my head and smiled at him. The crowd drew closer behind him.

  But here came Oscar. Peculiarly enough, he knew better than to lead the donkey. He walked beside it instead, giving it a quick jab in the kidney when it lagged.

  He handed me the donkey's halter strap, and I passed it to the thin man, dropping my voice to an intimate level. “Call your son Ismail, for he has been sacrificed and yet returned to you, fi Sabillallah."

  For a moment he didn't understand. Then he did, and his joy tore at me. He shrieked blessings on me, on my fathers and sons for a hundred generations.

  My face burned. I turned away.

  Echo blocked my path. “What was that about, Zu? You can't feed all the beggars, you know. There's always more."

  He wasn't begging. I felt a tiny tug at my belt and grabbed a little boy's hand before he'd fully unsheathed my choora. I straightened my arm over my head, dangling him for anyone to see.

  He was maybe five, too young to be out alone, and had horrible scabbing on his face. Leishmaniasis. From sand flies, accidentally imported in the last few years from Iraq.

  The little thief should have fought and screamed, but he just hung there by one arm, his eyes closed, waiting in misery. Which meant he'd already gone through more horror than I could stand to visit upon him.

  I set him down. “That's one family less."

  Echo wanted to find a true Kashmir ring scarf for his girlfriend. Mike said this was the bazaar for it. I took the sudden notion that if I did find my family, I didn't want to come to them empty-handed. I needed to bring something, and by now it needed to be extremely cheap and extremely portable. “Mike, I want to buy garden seeds."

  He turned his covered face toward me and nodded. “They don't take up a lot of room. Have at it. Keep close watch on his ass, Oscar."

  "Roger that,” Oscar promised.

  My grandmother had grown flowers and herbs in glazed pots all around the house. She'd particularly loved blue flowers. Echoes of heaven, she called them. Even if she'd died in my absence, some of the aunts and cousins would appreciate a present of flower seed. Maybe some herbs and vegetables, too.

  I scanned up and down the block, looking for stalls without the overflow of cheap electronics.

  About a block ahead, a little girl in brightly embroidered skirts and orange plastic shoes played furtively in one doorway. She hid her toy in her vest when men passed the doorway, but glancing back, I caught a glimpse of a straw doll and solemn, frightened eyes. She ducked inside.

  I'd heard of hard-nosed students beating little girls for playing with dolls. How could a man do that?

  To save her soul, maybe. When a people feels itself sliding into death and hell, it will reach for the strongest available lifeline. Around here, the mullahs and their students had been the only lifeline for a while. They were still the only ones who seemed untainted by foreign condescension, foreign maneuvering, foreign values.

  I'd seen American kids her age on TV, their faces glowing with fervor a talib would aspire to, in the God-hates-you demonstrations at military burials. They claimed a moral purity that would be very at home here. Was it worse to beat a child's back or to twist her soul?

  I finally did find a shopboy who called out to us in good English and rattled off a list of exotic spices we must surely wish to buy.

  The shopkeeper, haggard and with the collapsed mouth of the nearly toothless, might have been forty or seventy. He came out into the late-winter sunlight and waved his arms—the stumps of his arms—so that his sleeves flapped like flags.

  I dropped my shades and pushed aside my shemagh to bare my face as a show of respect. Looking straight at him, I wished him a good afternoon and declared my hope his family would prosper in the coming spring, trusting the boy to translate. He did, with remarkable accuracy.

  The man's grin exhibited six teeth so widely spaced and dark I couldn't see why he kept them. He bowed deeply, wishing me blessings and my sons enlightenment—the polite greeting for an unbeliever.

  I remembered to wait for translation before I touched my heart and thanked him. I expressed my desire that fortune and wisdom fill his house, and could he please advise me as to where to purchase garden seeds, flowers and vegetables alike, such as my grandmother might plant.

  The boy translated perfectly. I cocked an ear at him but kept my eyes on the shopkeeper; from what I'd heard on NPR, looking away from the man I was supposedly speaking to would be rude.

  Oscar remained silent behind me. Big surprise.

  The boy translated suspiciously well.

  Maybe not suspiciously well. He probably had learned his first English the way I'd learned my first Russian, but while my father had taken us out of Kabul quickly enough I forgot my Russian vocabulary, this boy was still surrounded by people who wanted to speak English.

  So it wasn't necessarily suspicious. Then again, I'd always been told a healthy dose of suspicion is the best way for a Pakhtun to stay healthy.

  The shopkeeper bowed from the neck again and again. “You speak to me like a man, and so I tell you as a man, do not go to Fat Ali, for he will sell a feranghi only that which is old or broken. Short Mohammed has a stall in a place very safe for feranghi to go, but has few seeds. Stuttering Mohammed has many, many seeds—fat and fresh and ready to burst forth with life as God wills, but his prices are very dear. Also, I am devastated to say it, but his shop is in a zone forbidden to the unbelievers."

  And here I had to pretend to be an unbeliever. I flicked a glare at Oscar, but he looked back impassively.

  I bowed to the shopkeeper. “Please understand, I would risk stoning to bring my grandmother that which she might otherwise never see. However, would it be possible to send a messenger to Stuttering Mohammed, whether with euros, dollars, or rupees, to see what might be so obtained? The messenger's efforts of course deserve compensation.” Ah, no—the kid's translation stumbled on the flowery language. “I mean that the messenger's work of course deserves payment."

  The wind picked up suddenly, gusting, and he paused to study the sky. Then he bowed, “The boy would be delighted to do this very small thing for you. Please allow him the exercise in manners, for the day has been long, and I fear his attention wanders."

  I handed the boy six euros and a ten-dollar bill. “Your generosity reflects well on your ancestors, sir. Please ask the boy to go there and select many kinds of flowers and such vegetables and herbs as might please an old woman. No poppies. We would have trouble should our...uh...elders find us with poppy seeds."

  Regardless, my grandmother jealously guarded the purity of her personal strain of poppies, which had blue petals and a generous yield of seeds.

  The boy's eyes glittered, his pupils dilating, and the man snarled
at him to guard his face. The kid flushed and bowed with his hand over his heart, dutifully translating what I'd said. Then he stood respectfully while the man repeated my instructions back to him, along with admonitions to go directly to his uncle and bring back enough that no shame would fall on the roof.

  As the boy pelted off, the proprietor invited us inside for tea. I started to accept, but in midbow Oscar bumped my elbow. “What did he say?"

  Without the boy, we had no translator. I bowed again to hide my face and told the man in English that I wished I knew what he was saying.

  He bowed to me and motioned us inside, flapping those empty sleeves.

  I threw a look at Oscar, to see if that was good enough for him. He didn't look thrilled, but he didn't stop me from going in.

  The room was dim, lit by a break in the roof and the cold bluish light spilling in from the doorway. It looked like the beam from a cheap fluorescent tube, only stronger. To the right, a large brass dish had been set to catch the light and reflect it over the wares in brass dishes on a shelf to the left.

  The proprietor raised his voice and told someone to put the tea on for visitors and not to piss in it this time.

  I turned to study his wares in case my understanding showed in my face. All he had out in his brass dishes were meager piles of pistachios, peppercorns, cloves, something that looked like mustard seed, dried za'atar, and some other herbal stuff. No wonder he couldn't afford false teeth.

  I followed the shopkeeper through the rear door to the room he probably lived in, and remembered to clear the doorway while my eyes adjusted. I couldn't make anything out, except blocky shapes against the closer wall, and the ghostly paleness of the proprietor's clothing.

  I had no idea where Oscar stood. I suspected I was no more visible, though—being Oscar—he probably could find me by scent or instinct. Echolocation, for all I knew.

  A match scratched against the wall at belt height. At the other end of the room, a little girl, no more than seven or eight, lit a lamp. She hurried to light a second on the wall to my right, but the match burned down to her fingers before it caught. She bit her lip and shook her hand, but made no sound.

  The proprietor snapped at her to bring a twist of paper to light this lamp from the other.

  I blinked at his harsh tone and looked away. Oscar emerged from the gloom, all copper and black and narrow, glittering eyes. I imagined Cochise coming out of the night, blade clenched between his teeth, and blinked. No blade.

  The shopkeeper leaned toward him. “You are Tajik?"

  Ah, so he actually could be mistaken for a Tajik. So then what was I picturing, if not a Tajik face?

  Oscar shook his head. “Na.” Then he surprised me by adding more, in rough Pashtun. “I am from the Desert People, Tohono O'odham."

  The shopkeeper nodded thoughtfully. “I have not heard of such people, but surely they are great warriors."

  Oscar's teeth flashed. "Ze na poegam.” I don't understand.

  I wasn't sure whether to believe him.

  The little girl lit the second lamp as instructed, then brought a bright cloth to spread over the worn-out rug. We men arranged ourselves on it, Oscar choosing a spot where his back almost touched a wall and he could see the door.

  She brought a tray of tea fixings, then set a blue-glazed ceramic bowl between my knees, and last brought a pitcher of water. She stood in front of me, expectantly. I put a hand out, wondering if she would hand me the pitcher. She toed the bowl squarely under my hand and carefully poured a thin stream of water over my fingers and palm.

  I quickly brought the other hand into play, scrubbing my hands against each other in the thin stream of water. I'm not stupid—just not used to this. Since I supposedly couldn't converse without a translator, I took my time with the washing. I wasn't sure how long it would take for the tea water to come up to temperature, but the time had to be taken up some way.

  Oscar followed my cue.

  The girl took away the basin, then came back for the pitcher. After another moment she reappeared in the inner doorway, stepping carefully, her wide dark gaze fixed on the teapot she held in mittened hands. She crouched and set it down in the center of the tray.

  "How graceful, Noori,” the proprietor murmured. “You haven't spilled a single drop. Your grandmother will be pleased to hear of this."

  She glowed. Curling like a kitten under his arm-stump, she leaned against him and stared curiously at us.

  No wife, however young or doted upon, would stare so openly at unrelated males. She had to be his daughter or niece then, or his grandchild. I liked him better.

  Whatever the conventional rules for serving tea might be, the primary rule of a guest in any culture is to adapt to the situation and don't embarrass the host. So I took up the pitcher and poured a good taste into each of the three cups Noori had brought.

  "Coalition troops inside the shop! Exit and identify yourselves!"

  The little girl cringed at the bellow.

  Oscar touched his heart to the shopkeeper and murmured a pardon-me equivalent in Dari, correcting himself by adding the Pashtun Abhaka.

  The shopkeeper bowed back, then he and I bowed to one another.

  By now a large MP filled the doorway of the shop. “Show yourselves!"

  Oscar and I rose, hands out. He tossed his ID at the MP's feet. I tossed my wallet with the substitute ID card face up and tried to look harmless.

  The MP dropped his sunglasses to hang about his neck and picked up our ID and at the same time thumbed a phone-sized device just forward of his pistol holster. A woman's voice with the soft slur of the south came from the device. “Please excuse me for intruding in your home. Alas, it is my duty. Please put your hands where they can be seen."

  The shopkeeper blinked and grinned, then quickly hid the grin. He rose gracefully and shouldered aside a curtain.

  Oscar shoved me half across the front room, toward the door. I couldn't comprehend his rudeness and managed one look back over his shoulder. The shopkeeper was folding back down to his timeless squat on the floor, a small chest held between his arm-stumps. He toed the latch.

  Oscar tackled me, knocking me through the street door. I landed on the MP.

  "What the fuck, Oscar!"

  He didn't answer, but after a second he relaxed over me and untangled his legs from mine.

  The MP rolled from under me and up to his feet in a single motion. “I guess that wasn't a bomb, or it'd have gone off by now."

  A bomb. Yes, that chest could have been one. If it was, and Oscar hadn't thrown me out, I'd have been strawberry jam by now. My ears burned.

  The shopkeeper cackled. “Come in, come in! You must have some tea!"

  I stood and brushed myself off. “Since it wasn't a bomb, we need to go back in and be real friendly, to make up for our behavior."

  The MP mumbled something under his breath. It sounded suspiciously like Play nice. His sunglasses were dusty and lopsided.

  He'd probably landed on them. Or maybe I had when I'd landed on him. Hopefully, they weren't expensive.

  He led the way back in, but immediately blocked the door by backing right out, slowly, his hand on the butt of his pistol.

  I stood aside and let him by. The whites of his eyes showed all around.

  "Now what?” I couldn't see around him, and Oscar blocked me when I tried to move around him.

  "Now what?” The MP's voice rose an octave or more. “Now? I will never understand these rag-heads! I try to be respectful. I try to be friendly. I am respectful. I am friendly! And they throw this creepy shit at me! Where did that come from, huh? Where?"

  Where did what come from?

  I squinted to hurry my adjustment to the dimness and the shadows inside the chest. My first thought was gloves. Then I saw hands, a pair of mummified hands.

  I met the proprietor's crinkled, sparkling eyes and worked to keep my face deadpan. “Is it possible, Sergeant, that your recording said anything like, ‘Show me your hands'?"

&n
bsp; He swore, then checked a readout. In a calmer tone, he said, “It isn't supposed to. It's supposed to be just ‘please excuse us for barging in here.’”

  Oscar squatted comfortably beside the proprietor, closed the chest, and lifted it back to its nook. Dust swirled in the lamplight. “You asked to see his hands. We learned that line first week in-country."

  "No shit."

  "No shit,” I agreed, letting my disgust show. “Now you have to bow to the ‘rag-head’ and sit down for a cup of his tea—if he invites you again."

  "But Doc, he keeps dead pieces of his body in a box in his house!"

  "But Sergeant, you wear dead pieces of a cow on your feet. He prolly just wants to be sure all his parts are buried in the same grave. You know, so he can be whole on Resurrection Day."

  He frowned. “Islam has Resurrection Day?"

  Of course: Qimaya. But I wasn't supposed to know too much, was I? I shrugged. “Come in and play nice."

  He stiffened his back, bowed in the doorway, and asked in polite Dari if he could come in.

  Where did all these people get off thinking Dari was the language this far north and east? Or had they all been trained down south?

  The shopkeeper welcomed him effusively, of course, and us even more so, and called for the little girl to come back and pour the tea.

  I eyed the MP. His body armor smelled dank and undersanitized. If he were a sailor, I'd outrank him. We were a long way from any ocean here, but it wouldn't hurt to take some control of the situation. “What's the problem as you see it, Sergeant?"

  "Someone saw you two come in and suggested I bust up your drug deal."

  "I don't smoke,” I said loftily. “It's against my religion."

  "You, Gunny?"

  Oscar shook his head.

  I blinked. Oscar was a gunnery sergeant? He did outrank me, then. He'd made the leap to chief that I hadn't managed.

  Terrific. Absofuckinglutely terrific.

  "So what you two doing in here? No show, no food, no booze, no smoke. The only girls in this block are jailbait."

  Oscar looked over the rim of his teacup. “We don't do kids."