What Changes Everything (21 page)

       "And also…"

       "Commercial, is what you‟re going to say," Marco interrupted. "Look, I know, my friend, I get it. This is a private commemoration of your brother. A war hero; I heard about him. Silver Medal. Goddamn, I‟m sorry. But look at it this way. This will just broaden the respect he‟s given."

       "I don‟t want my…I don‟t want him part of it."

       A slight expression of annoyance swept across Marco‟s face, but only for a second. "I understand. But I mean, people are going to ask you about your connection to the work and all, and your brother, well, it‟s a natural… it might creep into the publicity material even if we try to keep it out. But, Danil, this is an amazing thing to fall in your lap. I know you‟ve got your questions but—forgive me for being frank here—I did expect some more enthusiasm."

       Danil stepped out of the office and over to one of the brick walls. He ran his hand along it, feeling the texture, the mortar between the bricks, glad for something solid. He could picture a piece on the space. But what about the promise he‟d made his mother to keep the real story to himself? Didn‟t she have claim to Piotr‟s memory too? "I need a couple days," he said to Marco, who‟d followed him.

       "I know there‟s no money up front—" Marco began.

       "It‟s not that."

       Marco looked at him directly for the first time, as if sizing him up. "Okay. But do get back to me by Thursday afternoon, no later. If I don‟t hear from you, I‟m going to figure this is a no. I mean, one of our benefactors specifically chose your work, Danil. But we do face some time constraints here, so if I have to find someone else…"

       "Yeah, thanks. I just have to think it through a little more. I appreciate your understanding."

       On the way to the subway, he texted Joni. "Met the gallery owner. He‟s got big plans."

       Before he went underground, he got her reply. "Don‟t turn your back on this, Danil. This could be your break. You hear me?"

       His break. Sure, but. Though he hadn‟t been able to tell Joni everything, he‟d mentioned unidentified, pressing family issues. She‟d been clear on her viewpoint. "Do what you have to do for the future of the work, and your future," she‟d said. "Don‟t ignore an opportunity. Take no prisoners."

       It wasn‟t so simple.

       What if his "break" collided with his commitments? This work was supposed to be his private, principled response to an immoral situation. How could he justify letting it end up breaking a heart already shattered once before?

       First she had to sidestep through a slender entrance to Maiwand Hospital, past an armed guard and beneath a large sign of a gun with a red line through it indicating she was not to be carrying weapons. As if someone doubted her word on that, a woman right inside the entrance patted her down. Then she stood to one side of the courtyard watching others negotiate their way into the hospital until another woman arrived, introduced herself as Zarlasht and said she would accompany Mandy on her tour. She was not warm and did not seem thrilled to have Mandy visiting or to even understand why she was there. Her English, however, was clearly excellent.

       Mandy handed over a large box of supplies, which Zarlasht gave to a young man dressed in white, an orderly. "Thank you. It will be distributed," she said.

       "I‟m a nurse and nurse trainer," Mandy said. "Specifically emergency room—I don‟t know if they told you. Maybe I could meet…"

       But Zarlasht was already walking ahead. "We‟ll stop there first," she said over her shoulder.

       The long, narrow emergency hall, to the left of the entrance, was teeming with people, so choked that Mandy saw they couldn‟t enter without pushing others aside. It was dark, and dense with the scent of blood. Mandy looked at Zarlasht, whose face gave nothing away, and then she plunged forward. This was why she was here, wasn‟t it?

       Managing to steer through the clogged entryway, she reached a hallway that opened up slightly into a wider room, still overcrowded. Some people supported wounded patients, others slumped on the floor or leaned limp against a wall. A few lay on stretchers. Mandy wondered what had happened; some had visible signs of trauma like bleeding from a limb, but most did not. One hospital employee seemed to be taking down information from those in a line. At first she didn‟t see any medical personnel; then she picked out two doctors and one nurse. They were clearly overwhelmed by whatever disaster had occurred; they didn‟t even notice her. She wanted to spend time here but understood that right now her presence would simply add to the chaos.

       She pushed her way back out to where Zarlasht waited. "What happened?" Mandy asked.

       "What do you mean?‟

       "An attack? An accident?"

       Zarlasht looked at her with a combination of doubt and derision. "This is always how it is."

       Mandy tried to recover quickly. "Maybe we could set up a time for me to meet with the nurses, talk about how they work?" Mandy suggested.

       "Maybe," Zarlasht said in a way that seemed to Mandy to mean no. "For now, I suggest the children‟s wing."

        "Sure," Mandy agreed. She had to be flexible, and try to learn something if she couldn‟t teach something. Zarlasht led her through a large garden. Perhaps a dozen families had set up impromptu "camps" with food supplies, blankets, and an occasional suitcase. "These are visitors?" Mandy asked.

       "If they live far away and don‟t have family in Kabul, they stay the nights here," Zarlasht said. "We don‟t have accommodations for them anywhere else."

       Mandy had the sense that every question she asked seemed stupid. She vowed to be silent

for a while.

       The building that housed the pediatrics ward had surely never been attractive. Now it stood in decay, crumbling in places, and worse, with no sense that anything had been sterilized or even fully cleaned. Still, it felt spacious and calm in comparison to the emergency room.

       On the ground floor, they went from room to room visiting children lying on beds, covered with blankets made of gauze-like material, most with a family member or two at their side. Many children appeared to sleep, though a couple of boys sat up when they entered, and one toddler, a girl wearing blue pants, no shirt, and a colorful necklace, smiled slightly at them. The relatives—usually mothers or grandmothers, Mandy guessed—sat quietly on the edges of beds, often appearing exhausted, disinterested. She saw no IVs or monitoring equipment.

       They took the stairs to the second floor, which felt more crowded, and again they went from room to room. Again Mandy saw virtually no equipment; the wing felt more like it belonged to a drab and under-furnished college dormitory than to a hospital.

       "You can see, of course, that we need more nurses," Zarlasht said, her tone proprietary, as if offering Mandy a job. "The ones we have don‟t last. The job is stressful, the pay is low, and with large parts of the country in disarray, many have troubles at home."

       "And besides staffing? What do you need most in terms of supplies?"

       "The list is long. We need a new emergency room and more up-to-date monitoring equipment. We need a modern operating room. We need even basics. Paper gowns would be an amazing concept." Zarlasht shook her head. "We‟re a teaching hospital. I sometimes wonder what lessons the young doctors learn here."

       Mandy felt a rush of shame. What could she do here? How could she have done such little preparation to assess needs? "My antibiotics and sterile bandages don‟t do much," she said

apologetically.

"We‟re happy to have them."

       "I can reach out to my own hospital when I‟m home," Mandy said. "Try to get more to send you."

       Zarlasht nodded. "I will make sure you know how to reach me."

       Now, in each room, Mandy sought to linger longer. She wished she‟d thought to bring something to each child. "Can you buy balloons in Kabul?" she asked Zarlasht as they moved up to the third floor. Zarlasht repeated the word with a puzzled look.

       The top floor was crowded. Its rooms held children who had lost limbs. There were no elevators, so patients had to be wheeled up ramps, and Mandy wondered—but did not ask— about the decision to house them on the top floor. In one corner, an open closet revealed several pairs of small crutches. Zarlasht, seeing this, raised her voice, speaking sternly to a nurse who responded by reaching into a front pocket of her dress, pulling out a key and hurrying to close and lock the closet. "An Italian charity sends us the crutches," Zarlasht explained. "But if the closet is left unlocked, the visitors steal them to give to others. Then we don‟t have enough for our own patients."

       Mandy hesitated outside the door of a room. "What about physical therapy?"

       "We don‟t have that here. A center in Kabul is very active in this field, but it treats only men."

       They entered the room together. A girl, about thirteen, sat up in her bed. She‟d lost both legs directly above the knees; this was clear by the way the sheet lay. She was alone, with a calm but half-dazed look on her face. Mandy suddenly felt frozen by a sense of futility. She was physically unable to enter the room. Before, she‟d always believed her work as a nurse contributed to the world, at least enough. If she‟d considered it, she would have said grownups were too busy being productive to focus on elusive concepts that might have consumed them in adolescence, like life‟s meaning. Since Jimmy, though, she‟d been fighting against a feeling of hopelessness nipping at the edges of her being. She‟d found herself thinking that any single human act is ultimately useless; then she would argue with herself about this, though never decisively. Now, looking at the girl, an unlikely mirror of her own son, she felt she‟d irretrievably lost the argument. And she felt angry with herself. Being well-intentioned wasn‟t enough.

       Tears pressed against the back of her eyes. She pulled a water bottle out of her bag and took a sip. Zarlasht, she saw, was speaking to the nurse she‟d earlier scolded. Mandy slipped out into the hallway, needing a few moments of relative aloneness. But the hallway offered no benches or even folding chairs, so she sat on the steps. Something sticky had spilled on one of them, she saw, and dust clung to the corners. She hadn‟t expected to feel overwhelmed like this; this was not the time for self-pity or esoteric internal arguments. She needed to gather herself, and she would try to do it quickly.

       She was alone for only a moment, though, before she felt someone beside her. Zarlasht.

       "For a nurse, you are—what is the word? Not so able to look at medical things," Zarlasht said. Though Mandy knew she probably deserved derision, Zarlasht‟s voice not unkind.

       She gave an apologetic half-laugh. "Squeamish."

       "Squeamish," Zarlasht repeated.

       "Not normally. Today…" Mandy trailed off.

       "The steps are not so good for sitting," Zarlasht said. "Come with me."

       Mandy really wanted a few minutes alone, but privacy no longer seemed an option. She

followed Zarlasht down the hall and into a small room with a desk and three chairs. A moment later, the same nurse Zarlasht had earlier scolded arrived with two cups of hot c
hai an
d a plate of a half dozen candies wrapped in colorful foil.

       "Thank you," Mandy said, "that‟s so kind. I‟m sorry. I‟m all right. It‟s only that…"

       "Drink c
hai first." Zarlasht sai
d. "Then we can talk."

       Gratefully, Mandy sipped the c
hai. Zarlasht seeme
d comfortable with the silence, which Mandy appreciated. "My son," she began after a few minutes, "came to Afghanistan as a soldier several years ago. He lost both his legs here. Roadside bomb."

       Zarlasht nodded. "I‟m sorry for you and your son," she said, her voice kind but matteroffact. "This girl? The one you just saw? We will be able to get her prosthetics,
inshallah. If the ai
d does not dry up. But she will never marry. She will not go to school. Her family will feel shamed by her. She will not have ongoing medical care." She shook her head. "Real recovery for her is not possible."

       Mandy nodded. "In that context, my son was lucky."

       Zarlasht studied Mandy for a moment, then shook her head. "It is poor luck on all sides."

       "Do you have children, Zarlasht?"

       "A daughter. Two sons."

       "Then you know what it is…"

       "To see one of them hurt? Yes I know." She hesitated, then added: "Compassion is a luxury here. We don‟t have extra to spare."

       Mandy suddenly felt the settling in of a deep-seated weariness. "Thank you for sharing the girl‟s story," she said.

"I think it is enough for this time," Zarlasht said, touching above her heart with her right

hand.

       Mandy did not protest. She was glad that she‟d have the rest of the afternoon to herself. Her visit to the refugee camp was not until tomorrow.

       "If you still want, I will try to set up a session with some of the nurses."

       "That would be wonderful," Mandy said.

       Zarlasht leaned forward. "It is hard," she said softly, "to be a woman in this country."

       "I‟m learning that."

       "And when you are a strong woman, men don‟t like it."

       "Maybe it will change, in time." Mandy knew this was not a meaningful response, but the conversation was taking a turn she didn‟t quite understand. She felt something else was expected of her, but she didn‟t know what.

       "You have connection with Amin, yes?" Zarlasht asked.

       "We met with him at the beginning, after Todd, Mr. Barbery—" Mandy hesitated, as though it was somehow impolite to mention the kidnapping.