What Changes Everything (17 page)

       There was no graying in the sky, no comfort in the sense that dawn was nearly there or even that daylight had ever existed. She‟d looked at her cellphone a few minutes ago so she knew it was about 4:40 a.m., which might be a detail to remember later for the police.

       And then she took in more of the man himself. Maybe his late 20s, early 30s, thin, fit, wearing a backpack. Jeans with a rip in the thigh, the material held together with two large safety pins. Clean-shaven, mussed hair, and hands looked stained by something. But he was clear-eyed. That was key. Because of that, she didn‟t run. She did back up.

"I only wondered," he said after a moment. "Because it‟s mine."

       "Y
ours?" Clarissa had
n‟t intended to speak, but the absurdity of him claiming a painting sprayed on a cement wall forced her words.

       The man laughed. "I mean I did it. See?"

       Embarrassed that she hadn‟t understood at first, Clarissa looked where he pointed his flashlight, the edge of the woman‟s skirt. She saw four letters: IMOP.

       "Yeah," he said, as though she‟d asked a question. "That‟s how I sign them."

       "That‟s your name?" she asked, doubt threaded in her words.

       "No. My tag."

       "I-mop," she said it aloud, thinking it sounded like a cleaning product. "What does it mean?"

       He shrugged. "Just my tag."

       She pointed to the letters Afgh. "And what does that mean?"

       "Afghanistan," he said.

       Even though that had been her first thought, she was shocked to have it confirmed, and in such a matter-of-fact way. And then she wondered: was he telling the truth? People lied more in the dark, as though the shadows gave them permission.

       "Why does it say Afghanistan?" she asked.

       He paused, taking in her face. "Just does."

       "I…I have a connection to the country, and so I wondered…"

       "Yeah?" he said, his eyes still wary. "It‟s a fucked up place."

       A block away, a car alarm sounded. She started, the way she did in the morning when her alarm clock went off. Only then did she realize this might be about when she would be waking

up, in her regular, former life. Only then did she begin to feel tired.

"I‟m Clarissa," she said.

"Danil," he answered after a moment.

"You live around here?"

"Around." He took a step away from her, preparing to go.

       "My husband." She spoke quickly. "He works with refugees. He was kidnapped. In Afghanistan, a few days ago. He‟s being held there now. We aren‟t supposed to talk about it, so my friends don‟t even know. But that‟s why I—why I was asking. I just wondered..."

       She felt him examining her again, maybe wondering whether s
he co
uld be believed. "That‟s rough," he said after a minute. He looked off into a dark horizon, and then back at her. "My brother was in Afghanistan," he said. "First Battalion, 32 Infantry, 10 Mountain Division."

       She stared at him, willing him to go on. "He‟s back home now?" she asked after a moment.

       He shook his head. "Didn‟t make it."

       "Oh." She released a breath of air. "I‟m sorry."

       "Yeah." He gestured with his head to the painting on the wall. "This is for him. Or, I guess it‟s for me, but because of him."

       Unlike the face of the woman he‟d painted, his was open. Clarissa hesitated, then spoke without censoring herself. "You know, my stepdaughter keeps making me food—way too much of it. I live a few blocks away. You want something to eat? An early breakfast? You‟d be doing me a favor if…"

       He held up one hand, shaking his head, but she kept talking.

       "I mean it‟s not exactly breakfast food," she said. "But then, it‟s not quite breakfast time when you‟ve been up all night. And she‟s a professional chef so I know it‟s good and… and it‟s kind of driving me crazy. I can‟t throw it out, but I absolutely can‟t eat it all."

       Still slightly shaking his head, he stared at her, then rubbed the back of his neck. It was an old man‟s gesture; it surprised her. What was she doing inviting him to her home? What was she thinking, who had she become?

       "I‟m sorry, that sounded weird," she said. "It
is
weird. It‟s a weird time for me. Never mind."

       "Sure," he said.

       "What?"

       He gave an odd half-smile. "Why not? I haven‟t had anything since a pizza slice for yesterday‟s lunch, and the paint fumes left me hungry."

       Now that he‟d said yes, she suddenly felt awkward. "So, well, okay…"

       "Are y
ou hun
gry?" he asked.

       She paused. "Yes, actually. I am."

       "So let‟s go have the un-breakfast," he said, as if it had been his proposal all along. "Let‟s go eat your worry food."

       "You mean comfort food?"

       "The food nice people make to try to take away your fears. Only that never happens if you eat it alone."

       She smiled. "Right. So okay, then. Follow me." And despite the hours she‟d spent awake, she felt a rush of energy that surprised her, and a flash of optimism—brief but welcome—that she hadn‟t felt since the day Todd was taken.

"So how‟s Jimmy?"

       In the computer room in the guesthouse, Mandy started. She‟d hung up on Skype with her son five minutes earlier and hadn‟t moved since then, thinking over the conversation—or mostly, the silences, the words unspoken.

       "Is it just me," she asked, "or are you exceptionally talented in sneaking up on someone?"

       Hammon laughed and handed her a glass. "It‟s part of the job description, isn‟t it? Here‟s some fresh lemonade. Rumi made it. It‟s delicious." He sat down on a worn couch.

       "Thanks," she said. "And thanks for not telling Jimmy about the kidnapping."

       Hammon shrugged. "It‟s what we do."

       "I get that. And so does he, of course, which is why he has the sense there‟s something I‟m not telling him." She laughed. "I always had that sense too, when he was here."

       "And he probably worries even more than you did, since he‟s seen how it can go down here," Hammon said.

       Mandy sipped the lemonade. She‟d been thinking a lot about Jimmy. He was always at the edges of her mind at home, too, but it felt different here. She had time, she had distance, and she was often alone. In that space, she‟d made a disturbing discovery.

       She was an emergency room nurse, and besides that a mother, and nurturing should come naturally where Jimmy was involved, but the emotion she‟d been fighting and barely burying had been anger, pure and strong. In fact, she‟d been repressing anger toward Jimmy for months now—for getting hurt in the war, but not exactly that. More precisely, for not getting better, for not finding a way to make things work again so that they could go on—maybe not like before, exactly, but go on. He was the one who‟d lost his legs, the left below the knee and the right at the thigh. And still she was fuming: that he‟d made the choice to go to war; that he‟d gotten badly hurt, and now the rest of everything that followed would be changed. Nothing would ever feel to her wholly safe again. She could never return to the softness of that time when Jimmy had been a baby in her arms and her life had felt full of possibilities. Or even to the promise of the time before the war, when she‟d imagined him a father playing football with his kids on the lawn while she and a daughter-in-law she loved put the finishing touches on a big dinner. She was mad, too, that all around her, the message she heard was that she should just feel grateful that Jimmy was alive.

       And so even as she‟d been taking care of him—feeding him, helping him bathe, giving him pep talks, meeting with his doctors—surely, on some level, he‟d felt the underlying foundation of her suffocated fury. He‟d probably recognized it before she did. Worse, it had to contribute to his own anger and bitterness.

       So now, on top of newly recognized anger, she felt deeply ashamed.

       "It
is g
ood lemonade," Mandy said, breaking the silence that Hammon was so good at keeping.

        "That Rumi, he‟s something," Hammon said. "How‟s the work been going?" he asked after a moment.

       Mandy nodded. "Good. Fine." Then she shrugged. "Actually, I don‟t know. They‟re happy to have the supplies I bring, and they listen in a friendly way while I explain ways to improve patient care. But I don‟t have the sense that they‟ll follow through at all. I leave illustrated instructions, and I think they throw the sheets away the minute I‟m out the door."

       Hammon laughed. "Well, there‟s probably some of that, but you may be having a bigger impact than you realize."

       "I‟m not sure. Yesterday at the center for addicts, the director pulled me aside and told me not to be so public with the fact that I‟m American."

       Hammon‟s face grew more serious. "What was her tone?"

       "I don‟t know. One of her assistants translated."

       "What did you say?"

       "I asked why. The assistant didn‟t even repeat that question to the director. She told me the director‟s husband was visiting family up north when he and his fatherin-law were killed during an American night raid. Collateral damage, she called it. Her English was good enough for that phrase."

       Hammon sighed.

       "I told the director I was sorry, and I hugged her. She hugged me back and the assistant hugged me too, but then she repeated again—don‟t tell anyone I‟m American. Better to say I‟m German."

       Hammon‟s face softened into a smile. "German, huh? So what are you going to do?"

       "Sauerkraut. That‟s the single word I can say in German. I‟m only going to get caught lying, if I try that."

       He nodded. "It would be better just to go unnoticed. On the streets, keep your head down and don‟t talk. You should be fine inside the hospitals, but for the refugee camps, a couple of my guys are going with you."

       Mandy took a sip of the lemonade. "I have to tell you," she said, "even with the director‟s warning, I really don‟t feel in danger."

       "No one ever does. It‟s Kabul, not the front line: that‟s what everyone thinks when they first get here. After a while, they realize the front line is fluid. It‟s everywhere."

       "How long have you been in this work, Hammon?"

       "Long time," he said.

       "Being vague about your personal details again?"

       He smiled. "A professional habit, I guess. You get used to revealing nothing." He rolled his shoulders. "Truth is, I was a big disappointment to my mom."

       "You? How so?"

       "She wanted me to be a chess player."

       "W
hat?" Mandy s
miled.

       "I was really good at chess, back in school. She couldn‟t understand when I began

working out, and then joined the army and then Green Berets. And now, of course, this."

       "Well, from chess player to this: that‟s a journey."

       "I don‟t know. I often think I play a form of chess as part of my job, actually." Hammon rubbed his stubble-covered chin. "Still, my mom was disappointed. It wasn‟t how she‟d imagined the future."

       Mandy studied Hammon‟s face. When he spoke, it was with purpose. "Did she get over it?" she asked after a moment.

       Hammon rose to his feet. "She did. But not without effort. She said it required that she

take all her clothes to the charity shop."

"What do you mean?"

       Hammon laughed at Mandy‟s puzzled face. "She had this saying. When she had to rethink things, she called it taking everything to the charity shop. So that she had a clean closet and could be ready for new outfits, symbolically speaking." He paused. "You see?"

       Mandy leaned back in her chair. "Yes," she said. "I think I do."

       Hammon gave her a short wave. "See you at dinner." And then he backed out as silently as he‟d entered, leaving Mandy to her thoughts.

       Danil followed the woman Clarissa into her home. She didn‟t pause to unlock her door; she‟d clearly left it unbolted when she‟d gone out in the dark. He found that he liked this act of trust, even if it was actually inattention or eccentricity. Most people protected what didn‟t need protecting, he‟d come to believe, and were too casual with what was important. He‟d been that way too once.

       She led him into the kitchen. "Sit down," she said, and he did, stretching his legs out beneath the table; he was accustomed to making himself at home in unfamiliar places. He thought of it as one of his gifts: this ability to fit in, to one degree or another.

       "What can I get you? We have lots of pasta salad, and there is a chicken casserole, and something with broccoli and cauliflower, and fresh bread."

       "Any of it sounds good," he said, taking in the kitchen, which was large—as big as the combined space of his own kitchen, living room and dining room. It was neater, too, and the honey-colored wood made it feel warm.

       "How about a little of everything?" she said as she reached into the pantry and pulled out a plate. She went to the refrigerator and began removing containers. The fridge was full; he could see she hadn‟t been kidding about that.

       "So," Clarissa said as she put a plate in front of him with chicken and a serving of pasta,

basil and zucchini. "How long have you been doing street art?"

"About four years," he said.

       She ground some coffee beans and spooned them into a filter. "Are a lot of them about Afghanistan?"

       "In one way or another, yeah. I only started—I started after." He paused. "Pasta salad is great. Your daughter‟s a good cook."