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Authors: Elliot Ackerman

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BOOK: Green on Blue
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The last house we visited was on the village’s edge, among the border’s first low hills. It didn’t have a chimney and the outer wall was made of concrete, not of mud, and a satellite dish extended from its roof. Mortaza banged on its red steel gate with the heel of his boot. There was an expectant clunk and the gate slid open. A man with smooth olive skin greeted us. This was Atal, an important spingari I’d come to know well. His dress was neat and his body perfumed so heavily that his scent caused in me a spinning moment of drunkenness. He extended his hand as though we should kiss it.

Salaam, may I help you? he asked.

His turban was bright orange and his shalwar kameez an emerald green, matching his eyes, which were flecked in many places. Beneath his two-fist beard hung a tear-shaped opal on a chain of braided silver. The kind of necklace a woman would wear. Around his neck the feminine trace suggested a cunning and manly ferocity.

Salaam, I said. We are here with—

Atal interrupted: Ah, well, I’ve forgotten my hospitality. Please come in, you must be hungry, join me.

He shook our hands as we entered. His touch left my palm oiled and smooth. We crossed the outer wall and walked toward the main house. Parked in the courtyard was the same-model Toyota HiLux the Americans supplied to us. But unlike ours, which were painted gray to match the mountain rock, his bore a civilian paint scheme, white with a pronounced silver lightning bolt down its side. A generator hummed in the compound’s far corner. From it, insulated wires ran in a tangle to the main house. In the living room a heater blew, and carpets covered tiled floors while plush sofas lined the walls. In the corner an enormous Hitachi television leaned against the ground. I could hear low
murmurs of Urdu as programs from Pakistan flashed across its plasma screen.

Please, sit, sit, said Atal.

I unlaced my muddy boots so I wouldn’t dirty his carpet. He gave me an appreciative nod, but Mortaza shot me a hard glance. I tied them back on. Soldiers don’t lounge around in their stocking feet. We sat across from Atal, and he stretched himself elegantly along one of the sofas. Between thumb and forefinger, he spun the opal that hung around his neck and pushed his chest up, leaning toward the back of the house.

Fareeda! he shouted. Bring breakfast, child. We have guests.

A clanging and shuffling came from the kitchen in back. Atal lazily rolled his head toward us. His expression was so relaxed it offered more warmth than had he smiled. I apologize, he said. My niece would’ve already prepared something had I known of your visit, but I am very pleased to have guests. You have come here with Sabir, no? I trust he is well. Please offer him my warmest regards.

Mortaza nodded. He sat on the sofa’s edge and leaned forward, tensely, his elbows perched against his knees. Commander Sabir is holding a shura in the bazaar, he said. The head of every household is asked to attend.

Ah, yes, please send him my apologies, but I have other business today.

Mortaza leaned further over his elbows, repeating himself: Commander Sabir requests the head of every household.

A young woman, still girl enough to go without a burka at home among strangers, emerged from the kitchen. She struggled to carry a heavy silver tray crowded with glasses of milk tea and honey cakes. She hoisted it high above her head, using only her left arm. She set the first glass in front of Atal, who kissed his teeth at her and waved the back
of his hand so that we, his guests, would be served first. She nodded and looked at Atal kindly. Her hijab sat loosely over her head, she’d yet to wrap it properly, and her smooth black hair spilled from its edges like a sheet of oil. Her eyes held many colors, never catching light the same way twice. Flecks of emerald and black, and a deep uncut red turned orbits in her stare. I could tell you that the mixing of all this color resulted in brown, and it did, but in her eyes brown was no more a single color than in two palms filled with rare stones. She kneeled down and one by one set out glass mugs filled with milk tea, a shade of earth like clay. She placed small round honey cakes on little plates. Her movements were quick and all made with her left hand. Over her shoulder she wore a bright blue shawl and beneath it her right arm hung limply by her side. She picked up the tray and tucked it under her left arm. As she did, I saw the right hand. It was grotesque, the thumb and index finger engorged as though they were about to burst, the fingernails yellow and brittle. A scrawl of blue veins ran up the hand’s back like a sick tree’s roots running out from the earth. The sweet scent of her hung around us, and despite her deformity she was lovely. Her beauty rested in the savage contradictions of her body.

Thank you, Fareeda, said Atal. He grabbed her good hand and kissed it.

I will be in the back if you need me, Uncle.

As she spoke, her smile rested on him. Then she turned toward us. Atal sat up on the couch and leaned over his tea. He grasped a honey cake and locked our eyes in his. He would not allow us to steal anything of her with our glances. She left the room.

We ate and drank silently. Then Mortaza spoke again: Commander Sabir must see all the spingaris. You may need to postpone your business.

Sabir may choose to have business with me, said Atal, but I can choose to have none with him.

We have driven two days and endured much to be here, said Mortaza.

Then I am sorry Sabir drove you for two days to be here, but still I have no business with him.

Our journey means nothing to you?

I interrupted Mortaza: It is enough.

Atal glanced toward me. Then he held Mortaza firmly in his stare. I know why Sabir is here, he said. He knows my position on the matter he’ll address at the shura. Send him my regards. I imagine it won’t be long before I see him.

Mortaza looked away and relented with a nod.

Atal smiled and continued: Now as I said, I have business to attend to and must ask you both to leave. But please, before you go, finish your breakfast.

He stood, bowed lightly, and stepped from the room.

Mortaza and I took a few last bites of food. When we walked into the courtyard, Atal’s HiLux was gone. From the back of the house, I saw little clouds of smoke rising. Gazing at them, I asked: What do you think that is?

No trouble of ours, replied Mortaza.

Hold on, I said.

Come, the shura will begin soon!

Go ahead, I called back. I’ll be behind you.

He left and I went after the smoke. First I looked to the generator, but it hummed without interruption. Then I saw Fareeda. She lay on a reed mat outside the back door and her head rested on a pair of felt pillows. She rolled on her side, toward a lamp, and dipped the bowl of a pipe into its open flame. As she exhaled she looked at me and her face blurred in a cloud of smoke.

Keana, she said, inviting me to stay. Her head bobbed as I sat next to her. Her arm was laid out on the mat. As she inhaled more smoke,
she massaged her knotted flesh. Her strong fingers pressed, the knuckles whitening. Her eyes shut. Mine froze on her. Excitement moved through me. I thought of my mother’s cigarettes hidden in the cradle, how I’d felt watching her take them in the night. Fareeda opened her eyes and saw me looking at the arm. She did not move to conceal it.

The pipe is for my pain, she said.

How often must you smoke?

When I have my medicine, very little.

Do you have it now?

No, she said, but my uncle will soon have more for me.

He is your only family?

I have no family, she said. He is my guardian and, before he was killed, a friend to my father. In that way he is my uncle.

She looked away from me and began to work a black ball of the opium between her fingers. She stuck the tar on a needle and dried it over the lamp. It sizzled very softly. She scraped it off the needle and into her pipe, which rested by her pillows. She pulled her sleeve all the way up to the shoulder and I could see the skin on her body. She shut her eyes and worked her fingers deep into the tissue that bulged like some deformed fruit.

Everyone is very afraid of you, she said.

Her eyes shut. Her head nodded.

Why would you be afraid of me? I asked.

She formed her words slowly: It is they who are afraid, not me.

Her eyes opened. She leaned her pipe back into the flame. The smoke came out of her lungs thick and sweet. I could taste it.

Why aren’t you afraid of me? I asked.

She looked at her arm and spoke: I feel only the pain of this.

It has always been this way with you?

She didn’t answer my question, but turned the pipe back to the flame
and breathed, the tar in it sizzling. Exhaling, she spoke, her words shaping the smoke: Not always. They say there was a time when my flesh didn’t struggle against itself. They say the right medicine could cure me. But I have little memory of anything else. To me, it has always been so and I think this will always be the way of it.

Her stare settled on mine and its reds, emeralds, and blacks froze, hanging with the stillness of constellations. She shut her eyes and rolled from her side to her back. Her body lay there, breathing shallowly. There was a low scraping sound as she began to grind her teeth and her arm rested on the mat in a patch of sun. My eyes took everything they wanted of her and I knew I could’ve taken more. Her indifference invited me to, but I also wanted to lift her up, to bring her with me to our clinic, to Orgun, to the hospital with my brother. I wanted to save her and I wanted to savage her, and in that moment I felt I loved her. So I left her on the pillows and when she woke up, I would be gone.


The mountains were set against a morning sky that had almost achieved its full blue. I wove through several mud-walled alleys and arrived at the bazaar where I joined Mortaza. He searched a line of spingaris who waited to enter the shura circle. Commander Sabir, Issaq, and Yar mixed among them. An old man whose face seemed no longer of flesh but of something like earth and stone had cornered Yar. He wagged a twig of a finger at his nose. This was Haji Jan, the oldest of the spingaris. He had the greatest influence on how the shura decided and he spat his words at Yar: You bring fighting and Gazan brings fighting. How are you different? We must show you
hospitality, but what type of a meelma injures his host?

Yar put his hand gently on Haji Jan’s frail back. He shepherded him
toward the others. Come baba, sit, he said. Let us discuss this in the proper way, in the shura.

I am not your old fool of a baba, answered Haji Jan. I’ve seen more of man’s deceit than you, young one. But still, he hobbled toward the circle of spingaris and stiffly lowered himself down, taking his place in the dirt.

Yar raised his one good hand and waved Mortaza and me over. We stepped in front of him. Did you tell everyone? he asked.

Yes, said Mortaza, all will come except for the one man, Atal. He says he has important business elsewhere and that Commander Sabir knows his position.

Issaq approached us and interrupted with a snort: That is what he said?

Mortaza and I nodded.

Important business! Issaq laughed. With us gone, his business is surely back at our firebase selling the secrets of his village to the Americans. Issaq then walked to the center of the shura and whispered Atal’s message to Commander Sabir, who shook his head and spat between his two bottom teeth into the dirt.

In the shura, Commander Sabir stood, unarmed and vulnerable, wearing just his sweat-stained uniform. With great formality, he walked the circle and kissed each spingari
on the cheek. His embrace was warm, but like a gas flame lacked fullness. He stood in front of the group with his arms open, palms turned to the sky and began: Bizmullah ir Rahman ir Rahim, in the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. I am humbled that the leaders of Gomal have come together.

He placed his right hand over his heart and gently bowed.

Today you embrace me as a friend, he said, but I see some who’ve forgotten our friendship. Scowling at the spingaris
,
he added:
Some who’ve allowed Gazan’s men to launch attacks from this village. What I
ask of you is melmastia, the hospitality shown to a friend. Permit us to build an outpost among the mountains that look down on Gomal.

Commander Sabir pointed to the east, toward the border. In the distance a bald gathering of boulders came from between the thick-trunked pines. It commanded the ground over which it stood. He said: We will crown that hilltop with a barricade and guns to fight off Gazan’s attacks. Our outpost will once again make you rulers of this village.

The spingaris tugged at their beards and silently absorbed the accusations and the proposal. Finally, a large man heaved himself from the ground. His beard was thick and graying, but not yet fully white. He spoke: I am Mumtaz, I have seen much suffering in these wars. Ask anyone of Mumtaz’s suffering and they will tell you.

Then you know the importance of protection, said Commander Sabir.

Mumtaz shook his head: You say you wish to build this outpost to protect us, but Gazan only attacks this village when you are here. You bring the war with you, and if you build an outpost it will never leave.

Now Haji Jan slowly stood as if he were growing from the earth. He addressed the shura and his voice was thick as ash. Mumtaz speaks the truth, he said, slapping the back of one hand into the palm of another as he made his point. Sabir, you say this outpost would make us rulers of our village, but you’re ruled by the American who pays you. To accept your help means we’d be ruled in that way too.

Commander Sabir’s face turned cold. I am ruled by no one, he said.

There have not been attacks here. Why should there be an outpost? asked Haji Jan.

The shura hummed with approval and nods.

Gazan’s thugs have been here. They’ve launched attacks in the north from here. Commander Sabir was nearly shouting: To do nothing is to support them!

They have been here just as you have, interrupted Mumtaz. We bear you no ill will nor do we bear Gazan ill will.

Then you admit it! said Commander Sabir, pointing his finger at Mumtaz. This village has protected him.

BOOK: Green on Blue
6.98Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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