Green on Blue (7 page)

He left the driver standing next to Issaq and their mud-soaked truck. Before either could climb in, a three-seated military van we called an asses-three—only later did I learn it was called this because its Red Army designation had been AS-3—arrived from the back of the convoy. It was the ambulance, its red sickle moon scrawled into the rear double doors with a paint pen. A round and sleepy-eyed medic climbed from out the back. He pushed gauze into the driver’s face.

How did you break your nose? he asked.

The driver said nothing.

–

Deeper and deeper we crawled into the ravine, but we couldn’t measure our progress. Each turn revealed yet another. We hid ourselves in the mountains’ folds so not even it knew we were there. We didn’t see the sun except for the midday hour when it made its slow leap across the sliver of sky that parted the ravine’s two walls. The day eased into a damp afternoon shade and out of the ground rose a cold and a darkness that stuck.

We drove until our convoy stopped without warning. The engines that had rumbled so long I barely heard them died. A silence, which seemed louder, replaced their noise. Yar stepped out of the cab. Resting his hands against his hips, he leaned back and groaned. Aziz, he said, give Mortaza your machine gun. He’ll take the first shift. Come in. Warm up.

Mortaza climbed out of the cab and put on every piece of clothing he owned. He stood below me, his arms outstretched. I passed him the heavy-barreled gun and he cradled it like too much firewood. Before he could say anything, I jumped into the cab of our HiLux. I shut the door and leaned against it. I pulled up the hood of my waterproof jacket and tugged the drawstring tight, covering my face. Exhaustion shot up my legs and into my back.

I fell asleep.

It was the type of sleep that came and went like a thunderclap. Late in the night, when Mortaza opened the door of the cab, my body jerked awake. I nearly fell into the dirt. My turn on security. I stiffly unfolded my legs into the biting air. Moon shade fell in patches across the pine-covered mountains. Mortaza wedged himself into my warm seat and slammed the door behind him. He’d left the machine gun in the dirt. I yoked its awkward metal edges across my shoulders and climbed to my post on the high ground. I grabbed onto branches and trunks to pull myself up the steep incline. The cold sap under the tree bark stuck to my hands, smelling sweet. In the ravine below, the moon glimmered off the many windshields of the convoy, its light strung like pearls. I continued through the high forest, to the bald summit above still covered in snow. Here, I could see the dark silhouette of the Comanche’s sentry one ridgeline over. He leaned against a pine and stamped his feet to keep warm. The wind howled over the rough-cut peaks. My post had no trees to block it. I huddled against a knee-high rock wall Mortaza had built. I searched to the south, toward Gomal, for any danger. I saw only the unending summits and ravines that spread in all directions, threatening to swallow us. Against the wall I sat, freezing and alone.

My senses dulled. Time passed. How much I couldn’t say. Then a rock slipped below me, and several after it. I scrambled to the crest of the ridge, looking down, to where Yar struggled on all fours to find his
footing. He called up to me: Good, you are awake and alert. His words fell against the unyielding wind. He climbed the last few steps to join me. He winced at the cold. We built the rock wall a little wider so he could fit behind it. We sat next to each other, and having a warm shoulder against mine was a great improvement. I hoped Yar would stay for a while.

These mountains are tough driving, I said.

Very tough, he answered. He tucked his chin into his jacket. His graying curls fell from under his wool cap, blown back by the wind.

Do you think we’ll arrive in Gomal tomorrow? I asked.

Of course, he muttered into his collar.

What if tomorrow’s driving is worse than today’s?

Yar lifted his head from his jacket: We’ll make it.

How can you be sure?

Yar looked as though I’d asked how he could be certain that the unseen wind whipping across the ridge was real. He gazed south to the carpet of mountains we’d cross tomorrow. I trust Commander Sabir, he said as if in a prayer. He will get us there. Then he pushed himself from the wall and held my eyes with his. He added: This will be my fourth fighting season with him. I know him. It is because I know him that I trust him. I trust him with my life. Yar settled next to the wall again. He leaned heavily against it. His thick arms warmly pushed against mine. He asked: What do you know?

I said nothing.

Commander Sabir’s brother used to lead the Special Lashkar. Did you know this? he asked, wanting an answer.

No, I didn’t.

Yes, many years ago, he said. Only the old hands like me remember. Commander Sabir’s brother was Jazeem, but the Americans called him James. They gave him the money to start the Special Lashkar.

I smiled, thinking of an Afghan commander named James.

Is there something about my friend that amuses you? he asked.

The grin swept from my face.

This one was a fearsome fighter, said Yar. Perhaps too much so. He was killed in an ambush not far from here.

What happened? I asked, my voice solemn.

At that time, he said, the militants fought under the Haqqani banner, led by a man named Hafez, a ruthless spizoe, son of a bitch. In Pirkowti, a half day south of Gomal, the spingaris refused to support Hafez and his fighters with food, water, and shelter. Hafez took his men into the mountains around the village. From there they fired mortar barrage after mortar barrage among the homes. This leveled Pirkowti and killed many. The cowards refused to stop unless the spingaris took a vote in the shura to give them the shelter they wanted. The spingaris understood nang. They wouldn’t hand over their homes to this dog so they asked Commander James for help. Commander James also understood nang and we went to Pirkowti’s defense. But it was a ploy. Along the north road Hafez laid an ambush. First there was a mine. The front truck flipped over and trapped two soldiers inside while it burned. Hafez’s fighters pinned us down, firing from the high ridgelines with rifles and RPGs. Commander James would not leave his two soldiers in the road to die and he would not ask others to do what he would not do himself. He ran into Hafez’s guns to save them.

Yar shook his head and tucked his chin back into his jacket. His next words came as a mumble: He never made it to the truck.

And the two soldiers? I asked.

He looked at me. His words were clear: We watched them burn.

I leaned my chest into my knees. The wind kept coming.

Commander James’s family was left very poor, he said. Soon Commander Sabir joined us as a regular soldier to support them. For a time,
Issaq, Batoor, and even some of the team leaders led the Special Lashkar. There was great uncertainty in our ranks and much infighting. No one was an adequate replacement. But Commander Sabir began to prove himself. Many said he possessed the same ferocity as his brother. He was promoted to team leader under Batoor, but just as the fighting season was ending, he disappeared for a month. Some said he’d lost his nerve and deserted. They said, perhaps there is less of Commander James in him than we thought. But one morning at the end of that month, he arrived at the firebase’s front gate. I saw him as he returned. The guards didn’t recognize him, for his face was unrecognizable. The wound on his lip was still fresh. It wasn’t the torn lip alone that made him look different. His eyes seemed darker. Not as if their color had changed, but as if they’d looked at some black and faraway thing, absorbing it. Soon the news spread among every soldier that Commander Sabir had taken his badal. He’d tracked down Hafez and killed him in the mountains. How, I still don’t know, but after that he commanded.

The wind stopped. The sky was quiet. We sat on a ridgeline that ran to the south, to where Commander James had died with his nang and to the unknown place where Commander Sabir had killed Hafez.

Yar stood. With his good hand, he brushed the dirt from the seat of his pants. He looked at our convoy that sat cold and sleeping below. He breathed deeply and said: We’ll reach our destination tomorrow.

–

Gomal sat naked and ugly in the dust. The moon was up. It was late on the second night and we’d arrived on schedule. Our column rushed forward and split in half. The Comanches surrounded the hilltops. The rest of us accelerated sharp and straight into the village. We sifted through its dusty streets and a maze of compounds rose around us, filling the narrow valley. The high mud walls of the houses, each its own
fortress, trapped us, threatening violence from their unseen courtyards. We parked in a square bazaar lined with shuttered storefronts and bare stalls. Our squad’s two HiLuxes flanked Commander Sabir’s, which idled in the bazaar’s center.

From the driver’s seat Yar stepped out, rifle in hand. I’m going to see about the plan, he said. Wait here. And he walked toward the other trucks. I stood, stretching my back and legs. Around us, the villagers shuffled behind compound walls. Dogs howled from the roofs of the mud houses. Woodsmoke streamed dark and green through my night-vision goggles, rising lazily in the sky as one by one breakfast fires, theirs and ours, were lit.

Tawas and Mortaza left the cab and gathered around the hood of our HiLux. Aziz, what’s the matter? asked Mortaza. You look cold.

Bacha bazi
,
I cursed.

He laughed and said: You know, the heater inside was so strong during the drive I thought of taking your place, just to cool off.

I spat at Mortaza’s feet. Again he laughed.

Tawas asked if I wanted some milk tea. Crouching by our HiLux’s front tire, he raised a small blue flame from our propane stove. He smacked bubblegum as he brewed the leaves in a pot. I leaned over my machine gun, staring down at him.

Where did you get that? I asked, pointing to his mouth.

He smiled back at me. His lips and teeth were blue, as if he’d sipped from an inkwell. Naseeb sold me two large boxes’ worth, he answered. Steam rose from the pot’s spout. Tawas poured me a cup of the milk tea. He brought it and a stick of his gum to the HiLux’s bed, where I stood behind the machine gun. He and I chewed our gum, drank from our mugs, and looked out to the dark compound walls.

He spoke softly: Gomal reminds me of the village where Qiam and I lived as boys.

My mind wandered back to Sperkai and that morning years ago, when I’d last seen my mother and father. I thought of Ali, how he’d held me up in the tree when I’d tried to climb down. I looked to the ridgelines that surrounded us. Surely someone was up there, hiding and watching. Perhaps it was Gazan and his fighters, or perhaps some frightened boys wondering what we’d do to their homes.

This seems a tough place to live, I said to Tawas.

He folded his arms and hung them over the side of the bed. These people have nothing, he said. They are ignorant even of their suffering. This is the worst poverty.

Mortaza leaned against the hood of the HiLux, also sipping his milk tea. Down a dark street, a pair of ragged boys, one a little older than the other, watched him. He watched them too. They crept closer, begging for food, cupping air from their empty hands to their mouths. Mortaza flung the tea from his mug at them. They ran around the mud wall of the nearest house, peeking back at Mortaza while he refilled his mug. Tawas called out after the boys, holding up two sticks of his gum. The boys stuck their heads around the wall. Slowly they crept closer. Tawas held up a third stick, tossed the foil wrapper into the dirt, and chewed it. The two boys, understanding what was being offered, ran up to Tawas and snatched the gum from his hand. They scrambled back toward the mud wall. After only a few steps the littlest boy turned around. He ran back and scooped up the piece of foil Tawas had thrown into the dirt.

Mortaza snorted at Tawas: Why should you feel pity for them?

Because they are like me, he said.

They are not like you. You’ve done something to lift yourself up. These people do nothing.

Who are you to make that judgment? asked Tawas.

Judgment? This is no judgment. Open your eyes. Their indifference
stares back at you. It is in their mud houses, overfilled sewers, and dirt-faced children who are stupid and unknowing.

It is only right to help them escape that, I said.

Yes, help them, he replied, but not with charity. Those boys will spend this whole day watching you, hoping for another stick of gum, instead of working for the meal that could fill their stomachs.

You didn’t come from a village like this, said Tawas. That’s why you say such things.

I have known death and loss just as you, Mortaza said. I have suffered. Those boys need an example of strength. The promise of charity has paralyzed them. Our charity, the Americans’ charity—I pray God delivers them from charity.

Mortaza threw the rest of his milk tea into the dirt. He walked around the front of our HiLux and sat alone in the driver’s seat. Soon morning light brushed the ridges. At the peaks the rock yielded its shadow to color, but in the heights the sky remained black and for a time the stars could be seen along with the first of the sun. The three of us watched the sky, but also the rooftops as the dark silhouettes of the villagers gathered to look down on us.

Yar returned with fresh orders. Mortaza, Aziz, he said, come, there’s work to do. We assembled around him, and he told us: You two wake the spingaris
,
elders, of each house. Let them know that in an hour they are to be in the bazaar for the shura.

I jumped down from the bed and grabbed my rifle. Mortaza fastened the chin strap on his helmet. Tawas interrupted our departure. This is not how a meelma
,
a guest, behaves, he told Yar.

This is how a soldier behaves, Yar answered back. He turned to Mortaza and me. Go! he snapped.

Not wishing to wake anyone, we first went to the homes where smoke already curled up from the chimneys. Still, a scowl met us at
every door. Assent to our request was given with a grunt or a nod. Soon every chimney billowed smoke and all of Gomal was awake.