Refuge (17 page)

An Afghan staff member comes over and places a plate of skewered chicken and rice in front of them. Charlie and the Colonel concentrate on their food. Across the way, Kenneth continues his bombardment of Derek and Mike, and at the first opportunity the two of them flee to their tent. Everyone else retires soon after.

“By the way,” Charlie says to Wali in the darkness of their tent, “How’s your mom? That medicine helping?”

“It was a most wonderful relief to her, I can’t thank you enough.”

“Need any more?”

“That is most generous but it won’t be necessary.”

“Why? What’s the rub?”

“The rub?”

“The issue?”

Wali fumbles for his flashlight and proceeds to write the expression down. He turns the flashlight back off.

“Wali?”

“The rub, Mr. Matthews, is she died last week.”

“Shit, I’m sorry. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“There’s no need to burden you with such things, and besides now she’s with God.”

The two of them lie there in silence. Charlie thinks of his own mother. Of that Saturday morning he’d gone to see her to find her dressed, sitting by the window in her hospital room. For a moment he’d thought she’d been discharged, that somehow she’d beaten her cancer, but instead she’d suggested they go for a walk. There sitting on a bench in Central Park next to the Alice In Wonderland statue, she’d told him that she had a month to live at best, and as she spoke about how her spirit would be in the sun on his face, the sound of birds in the sky, and the wind at his back, he’d crawled up next to her and hugged her, hoping that by doing so he could stop her from ever leaving him. Within a week she was dead.

“How are you doing?” Charlie says. “I mean you must miss her.”

“I most assuredly do, she was a fine and good woman.”

“And your brothers and sisters.”

“I have no more, I’m afraid.”

“So you’re all alone?”

“Not entirely. I still have you, Mr. Matthews, isn’t that correct?”

“Yes, you do.”

Charlie senses Wali is smiling.

“Good night, Mr. Matthews.”

“Good night, Wali.”

EIGHTEEN

NOOR STRUGGLES DOWN
the alley, a bucket of water in her hand. An orchestra of muezzins accompanies her, each calling out the azaan in a different style and pitch. Some are hurried as if the imams need to get their prayers over with while others are more measured, even mournful, the imams stretching out the words like opera singers. Noor thinks about Charlie’s offer.

Would it be so wrong to take him up on it? After all he won’t be there, and Baba would adore it.

However she knows she can’t. If she does, she’ll always be in Charlie’s debt, and that’s something she can never allow.

She comes out of the alley, and walks along the side of the graveyard. An SUV and a collection of pick-up trucks are parked out front of their hut. She catches her foot, and the bucket goes tumbling. By the time she sets it straight, only a couple of inches of water lie in its bottom.

What is it with him?
Why can’t he stay out of our lives?

Noor strides towards the hut determined to put an end to any relationship her family might have with Charlie Matthews. She shoves the door open to find Tariq pacing back and forth. Her father and Bushra sit huddled on the floor.

“So you’re not at the market after all,” Tariq says.

Noor looks at her father. She’s never seen him so disappointed to see her.

“I had to get some water first,” she says.

“Well, inshallah, this will be the last time you’ll ever do such a task.”

“Unless this is a fairytale I highly doubt it.”

“It just might be. Now come outside a moment.”

“I didn’t know you’d softened your views on the burqa.”

Tariq lifts up their gas lamp and studies her face. He licks his thumb and wipes away some dirt from her cheek.

“This is a special case,” he says.

Tariq holds the door open, and Noor follows.

“Noor,” Aamir Khan says.

Her father has risen to his feet.

“It’s okay, Baba, I’ll be right back.”

She and Tariq go outside. In the backs of the pick-ups are a mixture of battle-hardened Arabs and Afghans. It’s the first time she can remember not being leered at by a group of men. It unsettles her.

What does he want to show me this time
?

Ever since Tariq joined the mujahideen he’d only ever visited them to show off.

You’ve been nothing but bravado from the earliest age.
Yet you never got as high as me on the apricot tree, and neither of us will ever forget it.

He leads her to a gleaming white Range Rover. Tariq touches her arm, and they stand there waiting. The tinted window edges down, and expensive perfume wafts out.

Could this be that prestigious bride of his, the one we’ve never met
?

The window opens fully, and Noor comes face to face with a pudgy man with a trim beard. His bright white thobe and checkered headdress mark him out as an Arab and a rich one at that. The man scrutinizes her like a butcher might a heifer at market, his fleshy eyes traveling up and down the length of her body.

“You weren’t lying,” the man says in Arabic. “With a little make-up she’ll be stunning.”

Noor feels her throat tighten. The man runs his thumb along the length of his lower lip.

“I like her,” the man says.

The electric window slides back up, and the Range Rover drives off followed by three of the pick-ups. Noor glances at her brother. His face is so flushed he looks sexually aroused.

“Go and say goodbye to Baba,” he says.

“Why?”

“You’re going to be his Royal Highness’s next wife.”

Noor looks around for an escape route. Across the graveyard would be pointless. She knows she’s fast, certainly faster than her brother, but not fast enough to outrun the ten remaining men. The only other option is to lose them in the camp but that requires getting past the two pick-ups and to the alley.

Buy time,
a voice inside says.

She starts towards the hut.

“This is an amazing honor,” Tariq says. “Do you know how unprecedented this is? The luxury you will be living in; the clothes, the jewelry, the servants at your beck and call, especially when we get to Riyadh.”

They enter the hut. Aamir Khan is kneeling on a rug praying. The longer they wait, the more agitated Tariq becomes. He pulls out a set of prayer beads and plays with them in an attempt to control himself. Aamir Khan stands.

“The Prince wants to marry your daughter,” Tariq says.

Aamir Khan’s gaze shifts to Noor.

“And did you accept?” Aamir Khan says.

“The only permission we need is yours,” Tariq says.

“I would still like her answer.”

If you refuse, Tariq will have his men drag you away.

“I accept,” Noor says.

Aamir Khan looks stunned. Tariq smiles.

“I will arrange for the Prince to pay you a dowry of two thousand dollars,” Tariq says to his father. “I think that would be most generous.”

“I have but one condition,” Noor says.

Her father and her brother look her way.

“You don’t make conditions when marrying a Prince,” Tariq says.

“I want to spend one more night with Baba and Bushra.”

“Fine. You can all share a room in the compound.”

“No, here.”

Tariq looks around; at the earthen floor, the blackened pots, the battered suitcases stacked in the corner

“You may despise our dwelling,” she says, “but for us this has been our home for eight years.”

Tariq stares at Noor trying to divine her intentions.

“I also want the dowry increased to ten thousand dollars,” she says, “the Prince can more than afford it.”

Tariq pulls on his beard.

“He won’t accept such a figure.”

“Then five thousand, it’s only fair. Baba and Bushra will no longer have my teaching income to rely on.”

Noor watches Tariq as he weighs the pros and cons. She knows his greed. She prays that it will blind him.

“I’ll return at dawn,” he says.

Tariq pushes the door open, and soon after they hear the vehicles drive away. Noor looks at her father. He is trembling.

“Why are you doing this?” he says.

“I’m not.”

A glint returns to her father’s eyes.

“We need to get out of here immediately,” he says.

“But where will we go?” Bushra says.

“I have an idea,” Noor says.

***

TARIQ WALKS DOWN
the long line of vehicles. Yousef hobbles beside him.

“I don’t care which one,” Tariq says, “I’m only going to be gone an hour.”

“Oh no, that wouldn’t be right,” Yousef says.

Yousef stops in front of a gleaming, black Land Cruiser.

“Was delivered only a couple of days back, you’ll be the first to drive it.”

Yousef flashes him a smile.

“And may I be the first to offer you my congratulations.”

So it’s out
.

Tariq wonders how. His pulse quickens.

The Prince must have told somebody.

“Who knew when you first came to work for me that you’d end up being the Prince’s brother-in-law.”

“You were always good to me, Yousef. I won’t forget.”

Yousef hands him the keys. Tariq climbs in and breathes in the scent of fresh leather. He casts his eyes over the controls and the polished wood trim.

This is how a man should live
.

He drives past the rear of the main building. Mujahideen are everywhere, laying out supplies and equipment for their next expedition into Afghanistan. One of them walks in front of his path. Tariq brakes and lays on the horn. The man doesn’t move. Tariq gets out and strides up to him. The man turns. It’s Salim Afridi.

“I see you’re already pretending to be a Prince,” his father-in-law says.

“I took what Yousef offered me.”

“That’s what it means to be a Prince, you get to choose from the best.”

Salim Afridi scoops out a wad of chewing tobacco and places it underneath his lower lip.

“This will be good for our family,” Tariq says.

Salim Afridi snorts.

“As far as I’m concerned you’re no longer part of our family.”

“I’ve done nothing but serve you faithfully.”

“You might as well have snuck into my bedroom and slit my throat.”

“I pleaded Badia’s case, praised her virtues—”

“Yet somehow it’s your sister the Prince wants to marry. Curious, huh?”

“He wouldn’t take my word. Noor was our best hope of salvaging anything.”

Tariq notices that a number of mujahideen have stopped working and are watching them. Salim Afridi lets a huge of glob of brown saliva drip from his mouth. It hangs there a moment before pulling loose and splattering on the ground. He opens his arms.

“Come here,” Salim Afridi says.

Tariq steps into his father-in-law’s embrace.

Thank God, he bought it.

Salim Afridi puts his wet lips up against Tariq’s right ear.

“If there is one thing you can be sure of in this life, Tariq Khan, it’s that I’m going to kill you. When, where, how, that will be of my choosing, but it will happen, and when it does, don’t fear, I’ll be sure to make it as agonizing as possible.”

Salim Afridi slaps Tariq on the back and walks over to a couple of mujahideen. They huddle in conversation. Tariq shivers.

Could they already be planning my murder?

Tariq forces himself back into the Land Cruiser and drives away, his hands shaking so badly he finds it almost impossible to grip the wheel.

It’s an empty threat. No one would dare kill the Prince’s brother-in-law, not even Salim Afridi.

And then he remembers the legend of how Salim Afridi had killed his uncle.

It had been at the wedding of his uncle’s favorite daughter; the same uncle who had shot Salim Afridi’s father ten years earlier. By tradition every man had had to leave their weapons outside, so Salim Afridi, who was Tariq’s age, had pilfered the sharpest knife he could find in the kitchen and waited for his uncle to head to the bathroom. Supposedly Salim Afridi had stuck the knife in his uncle’s belly as he was halfway through taking a shit. By the time he was finished, his uncle’s balls were in the toilet bowl, and the floor was awash with blood. Salim Afridi had walked calmly out the front gate and fled to the tribal areas for Panjshir. Five years later he joined the insurrection against the Afghan government, and six years after that the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. By the time Salim Afridi arrived in Peshawar he was a venerated guerilla warrior.

Tariq’s left leg begins to shake, and he has to grasp it with his hand to bring it under control.

You’re going to have to kill him before he kills you
.

The question’s how?

He comes on Kacha Gari refugee camp and turns down its main drag. In the early dawn, his high beams catch those refugees lucky enough to be heading to work. With their shawls wrapped tight around them they look like phantom spirits fleeing before the sun rises. He beeps his horn and the refugees part. Before long he’s outside his family’s hut.

He pulls out five thousand dollars from his inside pocket. The previous night he’d told the Prince’s accountant that his father had asked for fifteen, and without blinking the accountant had handed him three neat stacks of one hundred dollar bills.

I’m an idiot, I should have asked for fifty.

He stares at the money. There are plenty of people who’d kill his father-in-law for ten thousand dollars.

Perhaps Yousef would do it.

He wonders why no one’s come out yet. He gets out and bangs on the corrugated door.

“Baba, Noor, time to go.”

He yanks the door open and steps inside. No one’s there.

A cold sweat forms on his brow. He scans the room. The pots are still there as are the lamp, the table and the mattresses. He looks in the corner. Something is missing.

The suitcases.

He throws his hand against the wall to steady himself. It’s as if the fetid air inside the hut is poisonous. He stumbles outside and sinks to his knees. He gasps in a lungful of air.