Green on Blue (18 page)

What a mess we have. What a mess.

I couldn’t have known, I answered. No one was supposed to come out the back door.

Just as I finished, Commander Sabir sprang from the bed and raised himself up, his chest and fist lifting in the air. Before I could cover my head, he pummeled me across its side. I collapsed to the floor. My left ear rang. I took a breath, but it came as a gasp. A spike of pain ran up the base of my skull. I opened my eyes. The toes of Commander Sabir’s boots were at my face. Around them, flickering, I saw spots, white pinholes, my mind out of focus. He grasped under my armpits and gently lifted me up.

Careful, Aziz, careful, he said as if he’d had no part in knocking me down.

I’m sorry, Commander, I muttered.

He helped me onto the side of the bed. We sat next to each other. My head throbbed. I remembered the soldier who’d gotten Issaq’s HiLux stuck in the ravine many weeks before. Commander Sabir had struck him in much the same way, breaking his nose. What I feared in Commander Sabir wasn’t his capacity for cruelty but his capacity for kindness, or what seemed like kindness. The true violence in him was the way he moved between the two, caring for my brother’s needs while pummeling me. To be his friend was as dangerous as to be his enemy.

He patted my leg, shaking his head. I know you’re sorry, he said. But
you have made a mess. I’ve already sent a convoy north with Qiam and the body. You must leave before he returns. I can’t say if he’ll swear badal
against you, but if he does, it can’t be taken on my firebase.

A warm anxiety poured from my stomach into my limbs. It was like my livelihood bleeding from me. How would I care for my brother in Orgun if I left the Special Lashkar? And if I went to Orgun, Qiam could easily find me there. I needed to leave, but how and to where? I imagined myself again wandering through some brown guttered alley, eking out a living but without my brother. My situation silently slid toward destitution and Commander Sabir sat on my bed and watched, tapping his ring against the bed frame, faster and faster.

You’ve always been a good soldier, he said.

I have.

Yes, and it shouldn’t end this way for you.

It shouldn’t.

I have a proposal so it won’t. Would you like to hear it? He smiled at me as though I’d already accepted, which perhaps I had. He explained: There is something more troubling than what happened with Tawas. At the madrassa you saw, just as I did, Atal’s truck parked alongside Gazan’s and you saw, just as I did, our supplies sitting inside. I’ve often wondered how Gazan’s men stole these things. Naseeb is an incompetent, but this never fully explained it. Tonight it became clear. Atal has deceived us. He steals our supplies when he meets the American here. He claims to oppose our outpost because he wants Gomal kept from the fighting, but his true motive is to support Gazan.

So what would you have me do? I asked.

Commander Sabir nodded with respect.

Atal has a certain fondness toward you, he said. I’ve seen it. After we speak, you will be discharged from the Special Lashkar. This will be expected. You must then leave here and find Atal. He won’t turn his
back to you. See what you can learn about his activities. In exchange for this information, I will ensure that your brother remains cared for at the hospital.

I let the proposal sink in for a moment. Commander Sabir knew I had no other choice, I had to support Ali, but he added a final point: This is an opportunity for us both. Depending on the nature of Atal’s deceit, this situation might allow you to find Gazan and take your badal.

A jolt of excitement charged up my spine. I leveled my eyes on Commander Sabir’s. To be an informant was shameful, thieving others’ secrets, but the opportunity to strike at Gazan had nang. Slowly I nodded.

With all respect, I said, how will I know my brother is cared for once I’ve gone to Gomal?

Commander Sabir’s top lip unrolled into a self-satisfied grin.

First get rid of the uniform, he replied. I’ll get you some regular clothes. Also, you’ll be given this month’s pay and next’s. That should be enough to figure a way down to the village. When you get there, buy a new phone and I’ll give you a number where you can reach me. Memorize it. Don’t write it down or save it. As for Ali’s care, well, you must trust me in that.

If I want to quit? I asked.

That won’t be done. Ours is a partnership.

His smile was broad and appealing.

Yes, a partnership, I replied, and we shook.

Naseeb will drop off some clothes and escort you to the gate, he said. Recite this number from memory when you depart.

He held out a slip of paper. I took it. As I did, he patted me on the leg and left, locking the door behind him. I sat on the edge of the bed. It was still dark outside. My head ached from where Commander Sabir had struck me. I was tempted to turn out the light, to go back to sleep, and to forget, forget everything. I couldn’t get dressed, I didn’t yet have
the clothes I’d change into. And I couldn’t sleep, not with this challenge laid before me. I sat under the lights, reciting the number
09973285676
,
waiting.

Sometime later—a few minutes, hours?—the lock turned again and Naseeb’s silhouette appeared in the door. He still wore only his shower shoes and underwear. He also carried a brown shalwar kameez in unopened plastic packaging. I imagined stacks of fresh clothing in his supply locker, folded and ready for these occasions. It occurred to me that I wasn’t the only informant. I’d begun a new game, one played with another set of rules.

Do you need anything else? Naseeb asked, and there was pain in his voice.

No, I said, changing my clothes. Just take me to the front gate.

Outside the moon was still up, its silver light running deep blue among the rocks and the rooftops. My aching head eased. As we approached the gate, Naseeb hung back, darkly, as though he were my executioner. I turned over my shoulder and he gave me a strained grin. We had been friends, after all, in that way you only realize once the friendship is over. And to him this entire event, the details of which he didn’t understand, added another link to the chain of violent disappointments that were his life in Shkin. Just before we reached the gate, he touched the back of my arm and spoke: Good luck, Aziz. I hope where you go, you go well.

I nodded, not certain if the luck he wished was for my protection or for the success of a mission he didn’t understand but sensed. I walked closer to the gate. Its distant image came into focus in the moonlight. Only one person stood at it and the sentry towers were empty. Before I could see him, I heard Commander Sabir’s ring tapping against the steel gate arm. He heaved it up and pressed his face close to mine, searching for a final assurance that my mind was clear.

09973285676,
I said.

He smiled back and closed the gate.

–

The firebase sat atop a hill that was pale in the near-dawn. I slowly walked to its base and stood on the flat north road. Its hard-packed gravel felt stable beneath my feet. It had been built with a logic and ran as a single ribbon of such toward Gomal.

I knew I’d never finish the journey on foot, but still I walked, putting distance between the firebase and myself, enough distance that I might imagine how to approach Atal when I arrived. Soon dawn broke and a steady stream of cars and motorcycles came down the road. I waved to each as it passed, but I was still too close to our firebase and none would stop. I walked half the day before a vehicle pulled over, and then my challenge became one of negotiation.

Can you give me a ride? I’d say. Depends, how much do you have? they’d ask. Enough, I’d tell them. To where, they’d want to know. Then I’d say: I’m going to Gomal. This I cannot do, they’d answer. Or they’d reply: You will need to pay me more than that!

It grew late. I now walked along one of the many thin footpaths that spread across the mountains as veins do from a distant heart. Behind me there was a faint motor, and with it, a tall dust wisp that traveled at angles through the ridges. As the wisp cornered the bend nearest me, I saw it was from a motorbike. The driver bounced heavily along the uneven path. The steel of his shock springs slapped against each other at the coils. I waved broadly above my head, flagging him down. He pulled up next to me and a cloud of white dust kicked up around us. We stood in this moment of fog until an unhurried breeze carried it off.

The driver was fat, but not in a deliberate way. Beneath his fat was a muscled strength. It suggested an old power he seldom used. His eyes
were gray and glimmered loose as water on a steel plate. His turban’s running end was pulled across his face to keep the dust from his mouth. He untucked it and I recognized him. It was the spingari Mumtaz, whom I’d seen in the shura.

What type of a fool walks in these mountains this close to night? he asked, seeming not to remember me.

I need help getting to Gomal, I said. I’m looking for work there.

What work is there in a village that is being strangled? he answered.

I tensed, realizing the improbability of my story. Concern must have been written across my face because Mumtaz tilted his motorbike straight, ready to continue on his way.

I can pay you! I pleaded.

He eased his weight back. The points of his gray moustache looked like the points of two tears and he pulled at their drips, speaking: Am I to understand that you are a man with money who looks for work in a village where there is no work? Where will you stay when you arrive?

I hadn’t thought of that, I said.

This is some journey you’re on! answered Mumtaz. He leaned back in his seat, laughing with a fullness that caused the front tire of his motorbike to ease from the ground. Come, he said, settling back down. I own a small inn. It’s more of an extra room really, but business has been bad. If you have money, I’ll earn it. If you stay with me while you find work, I’ll help you on your journey. But don’t say you were not warned. Finding work will take very long.

My name is Aziz, I said, and offered my hand.

Mumtaz, he answered, and wrapped his palm around mine. The nubs of his fingers were a gristle of fat and muscle, and he hoisted me onto his motorbike. We continued heavily down the trail, rushing ahead of the night.

For the entirety of our trip, I clenched the sides of the backseat. I
strained over Mumtaz’s wide shoulders to see what lay ahead. Each time I did this, the motorbike lost its balance and tilted dangerously to one side or the other. Night came quickly, but Mumtaz refused to let the darkness slow him. On our route we passed a few dim cooking fires that flickered against mud-brick walls. Eventually few became many and we arrived.

Mumtaz stopped and turned off the ignition. The streets were empty at this late hour and the clean silence of the mountains rang in my ears. We both stretched our backs toward the sky, very black and pricked by the light of many stars. I helped Mumtaz push the motorbike through a gate in the heavy mud wall that surrounded his inn. We leaned the motorbike against a stick-and-wire coop. As we did, an animal thrashed inside, startling me.

That’s Iskander, laughed Mumtaz. He feels at home with the chickens.

A white-and-brown dog with clipped ears poked out his neck, canted his head, and, making little of me, returned to the coop. Mumtaz stopped outside the main house, turned at a sickly generator’s hand crank, and stepped inside. A low mechanic hum brought the night air alive and put me at ease.

In the house, Mumtaz flipped on a switch that hung from an exposed wire. It connected to a single lightbulb that dangled from a nail, rusted and bent. It had been hammered into a petrified beam of pine that was set into the ancient roof of thatch and mud. Mumtaz’s thick hands pulled from a pile of dry branches neatly stacked in the corner. He fed them into a tin stove that sat in the center of the house’s single room. Its chimney was made of hollowed cooking-oil cans that led through a hole in the roof just next to the beam. The fire creaked and smoke leaked from the stove’s mouth. Mumtaz slammed the door shut and the room warmed. The two of us sat next to the stove, quiet and weary from travel. I didn’t want to ask if I would stay in this room or in the coop with Iskander. In his own time Mumtaz would tell me.

He crawled stiffly along the floor, leaving his legs crossed. He dragged over a shopping bag full of pistachios crusted in salt. He placed the bag between us and ate them from his fists, cracking the shells between the knuckles of one hand. Still we didn’t speak, and as the pile of shells grew to a mound, I realized this was dinner. At one point Mumtaz chuckled to himself, as I noticed he was fond to do. He mumbled: You were going to walk down here for work, wonderful! Then he stood, swept the mound of shells into his palms, and threw them into the fire. He unfolded a foam mattress with a red-and-blue Persian print. He lay on it and pulled a fleece blanket over his head. I gazed at this blanketed heap and he seemed lessened. The home was not an inn, and there was no extra room, except for this room shared by the two of us, but there was company. Mumtaz wanted some and for that I was grateful. I stood, turned off the light, and slept on the floor with nothing.

–

The night was cold, and all through it, I got up, stepped lightly over Mumtaz, and fed dried branches into the mouth of the stove. Once the last scrap burned out in the fire, a chill set into my legs and woke me. I walked into the compound’s dirt courtyard to wait for the dawn. As the early light came, I saw how poor Mumtaz was. His home was nothing more than the small coop, the mud room we slept in, and the four walls of the courtyard. A ditch ran beneath one of the walls and out the back. Dishes were stacked alongside it. This was the kitchen. Past Mumtaz’s compound were the mountains. Though it seemed these never ended, they were not enough to protect the village from the war, but they were enough to preserve it—it and its traditions. And, even as isolated as the village was, sprouts of progress had arrived: motorbikes, cell phones, and a few homemade satellite dishes that perched from rooftops, all standing as messengers from other, more modern,
worlds. But it was a false progress. It measured not movement forward, but the distance we would soon travel backward when the war destroyed everything.