In My Father's Country (42 page)

He stared hard at my ice cream cone. “You do know there’s lard in that, don’t you?”

“You mean …”

“Pig fat. I was surprised too, but I came across it in my research about the blood. There’s lard in jelly beans also.”

I had no respectable choice but to drop my cone into the trash bin. I had to laugh at how karma got me by making me give up one of my favorite things to eat because I had made Todd feel bad. I sincerely thanked him for his concern for my faith and that of the ANA soldiers. The kindness of Americans could be so touching because it was offered so casually, like it’s second nature. Of course, I was not so naïve to think that all Americans possessed this quality.

AROUND THAT TIME
I developed chronic migraines. When I opened my eyes in the morning it was the worst—the knife in the eyes, the whirl of nausea. A cup of strong instant coffee allowed me to pull on my clothes and make it to the office. Perhaps it’s no surprise that most of my arguments with Michael took place before lunch. By the end of the day the headache would be all but gone, only to reappear in its searing glory the next morning.

The medics at the clinic were mystified. Was it some residual aftereffect of my vaccinations? An allergic reaction? A pinched nerve? I took Advil and did physical therapy. Nothing helped, except the occasional
shot of morphine. The relief would be instant, but it was no solution. Plus I worried that I might come out alive from the war but with a drug addiction, a fate of many unlucky soldiers returning from deployments.

Despite its high altitude and relative lack of water, Khost had a lot of mosquitoes, and malaria was a real concern. The soldiers were ordered to take antimalaria pills—to refuse would mean being court-martialed if you wound up contracting the disease—but most civilians were not required to take them (although some did as a matter of course). Because HTS personnel were considered Mission Essential personnel by the army (which basically meant that if one of us got sick, it might endanger the mission), we were also required to take the pills. There were two types available: the daily and the weekly. Both had side effects: The daily gave you diarrhea and headaches; the weekly gave you nightmares.

I was already suffering from nightmares that often jolted me awake, sweating and crying out—particularly a recurring one that featured Taliban invaders sneaking inside the wire. In the nightmare they found my B-hut without problem. They crept into my room while I slept, unlocked the storage locker where I kept my M-4, and then killed me with my own weapon. Not a surprising dream, considering that such a scenario played in my waking mind all day long.

I wasn’t keen on the idea of chronic diarrhea, but I was eating so little anyway that I thought it would be the lesser evil. I opted for the daily. I took them in the morning with my vitamins, washing them down with a cup of coffee.

Around the same time that a soldier suggested the daily pill might be the problem, Evan took me aside and said that if my headaches were as bad as they were I should think about returning to the States. In my mind, going back was not an option, not yet. So, without telling anyone, I stopped taking the pills. The headaches disappeared. My usual nightmares roamed my sleeping mind uninterrupted.

THE CHOW HALL
had long tables with chairs on either side, like in a high school cafeteria. Most days Audrey and I ate together, sometimes
in the company of soldiers. Rarely, we would be there at the same time as Jason and Tim, the command sergeant major (CSM), who would sit with us or invite us to sit with them. I was happy that they felt comfortable enough to do this but also noticed that once they sat down, no soldiers would join us.

With us, Jason and the CSM were able to discuss issues that they couldn’t discuss with their subordinates. I wasn’t military, and I wasn’t in their chain of command. Jason could float ideas, wonder about outcomes, ask hypothetical questions, and afford to look (if even for a moment) like he wasn’t sure about something. In a word, he could relax. Not that we could ever have mistaken this for a social lunch; the mission was always a priority and the never-changing topic of discussion.

One day after lunch I wandered back to the office. The day was warm and the air smelled of orange blossoms. Gray clouds piled high in the sky above the brown mountains. The door to the HTT was open, and Evan, Tom, and Michael were sitting around the big table talking. I strolled in, but once they saw me they stopped talking. Their gazes shifted around the room as if they were a trio of strangers waiting at a bus stop. I knew they’d been talking about me.

“Hey,” I said. I went to the coffeemaker and started making a new pot.

“When did you talk to Colonel McAffee?” asked Evan. Since the day we’d introduced ourselves to Jason, and I had refused to be his translator, my relationship with Evan had deteriorated. He had a temper. So did I, of course, so it made things that much more difficult.

“I just had lunch with him,” I replied. “Why are you asking?”

“Why did you have lunch with him?” Michael asked.

“Because it was lunchtime,” I said. “Are there rules against having lunch with the brigade commander?” I turned back to the coffeemaker. I’d brought Peet’s coffee all the way from Portland, and we were on our last bag. I ground the beans, keeping us from talking for a bit.

“Were you the one who suggested the mission to Matun?”

There seemed to be a lot of importance attached to my answer.

“Yes,” I replied. “Jason thought it would be a good idea, too. It would
only be a couple of hours. There’s limited space, so if you guys want to go, please go. I didn’t suggest it because I wanted to go; I just think that someone from our team should be involved.”

“Because he gave me the order to do a mission to Matun, and given the fact that he hasn’t been here very long, I wondered how he came up with the idea himself,” said Evan. He was bald, and his entire head was turning red.

“Yes, I might have suggested that as a good place to start to get to know his AO.”

Evan stood up, then closed and collected a few folders on the table. “If I were you, Saima, I’d be careful. Especially about visiting Colonel McAffee in his office.”

“You mean the one with the door wide open in the middle of the TOC?”

“Rumors spread quickly on an army installation.” Yet one more thing that Afghanistan and the U.S. Army cultures have in common, I thought.

I looked at Michael, who grimaced a little and shrugged.

I poured myself a cup of coffee, put on my headphones, and went to work. I tried not to fume. It seemed like I was always losing my temper. The sky had been cloudy all day, but suddenly it darkened, much like my mood. The light coming through the door was not enough to read by anymore. Even though it wasn’t yet 4:00
P.M
. I turned on my desk lamp. The rain came down in sheets, as it tended to do in Afghanistan. Even the weather here was extremist, I thought, wishing I could tell this joke to Michael sitting across from me, but I didn’t feel like talking to him yet. Thunder shook the building.

There was a bright flash and a loud crack. I had three computers on my desk. One of them emitted a white flash, and then they all went dark.

“Whoa!” Michael shouted, leaping to his feet. Then Audrey stumbled in, soaking wet from the rain. The hood of her green windbreaker was up.

“We were struck by lightning!” she cried. “It hit one of our antennas, up on the roof!”

Everyone was talking, waiting for the next crash. I started to tremble.
I knew what I looked like, pale and fearful. I folded my hands to stop their trembling.

“I think God must really be upset with you this time.” Michael had no idea he had voiced my inner terror by trying to make light of the situation.

“He is,” I replied. “He’s furious that I’m sitting here with you infidels.”

He grinned, and so did I. Humor. That is how you deal with fear and danger in a combat zone.

T
HIRTY

I
n early 2008 Khost was still considered a green province. For the most part the villagers got along with the people at Camp Salerno and with one another. The exception was the Sabari district, twenty-five minutes from the base by Humvee. From the highest point of the FOB you could see a mountain, behind which huddled the Zambar, a subtribe of the Sabari, who were furious at the world.

This was the site of one of the longest-lasting land disputes between the two subtribes of the region. Their feud had gone on for many generations, and the situation had gotten so bad that in 2005 the United Nations had been called in to mediate.

The U.N. sent a delegation from Kabul, headed by an Afghan, to try to patch things up. At the suggestion of perhaps a misguided cultural advisor, or maybe a CAT I local interpreter with a bias, the Khost PRT had also become involved in this effort to bring an end to the feud. Using
shura
, the preferred local means of dispute resolution, the U.N. delegation drew up a written agreement, which they claimed was accepted by both subtribes—so a celebration was ordered by the governor of Khost. An immediate cease-fire was announced by the governor on provincial TV, which the U.N. read as problem solved. In reality, this just offered each side a formal reprieve, so they could both regroup, waiting for the foreigners to leave.

The U.N. drew up the terms of the cease-fire, which included one tribe paying off the other for the rights to the trees in dispute. A meeting of the elders from both tribes was called to celebrate. Peace in the Sabari district! It was televised. There was dancing and roasting of lambs. The elders arrived in their snowy turbans and, since they were unable to write their names, pressed their inked thumbs on the dotted line. The U.N. returned to Kabul, feeling satisfied.

Then it was back to the Sabari against the rest of the world. Within days the fighting resumed, as if nothing had happened.

The U.N. was perplexed. What had gone wrong? Allegations flew. One of the negotiators had been bribed by the subtribe that had received the more favorable terms. The other tribe refused to accept them. The first subtribe, which had been accused of bribing the U.N. delegation, went to the governor, asking him to enforce the terms of the treaty. The governor then appealed to the PRT for help. The PRT refused; this was local business and Americans could not look like they were taking sides. This was the correct decision, but it came a little too late, in my opinion, for as soon as we were seen in the
shura
, we became a part of it, and the simple fact of our presence was proof enough that the United States did take sides. As Aziz said of the dispute, “This is life in the heart of Pashtunistan. No one can enforce anything there, not even in a time of peace, much less
now
.”

We at the HTT were fascinated by this dispute. Before we designed the mission to Sabari, we knew none of the history. All we knew was that the district was close to where we lived and worked and there was always trouble brewing. We couldn’t figure out why the Sabari were so unhappy and why the two subtribes were constantly at odds.

The cause of the tribal dispute had nothing to do with the insurgency, but the instability and the power vacuum it created was certainly being used by the insurgents to make the insecurity worse. Whenever the government in Kabul failed the people, the insurgency moved in and said, “Karzai’s government is a puppet of the foreigners. They’re not interested in helping you, but we are. We are fighting to get this country back to you people, if you help us.”

The research design of the Sabari mission was simple: We would do an initial mission into the district, just to chat, to see if anyone would tell us anything, and then we would bring the data back and analyze it to come up with an informed overview of the situation. Then we could go back and dig a little deeper. In the process, we’d convey to the tribes of the region our genuine interest and let them know that we would return to build on the relationship.

Of course the army preferred missions that had a clear objective. Although this mission was not that, Jason still liked it, and he ordered the mission.

Not everyone on the team could go. Between the soldiers who had been tasked with patrolling the area and the soldiers pulling security, there wasn’t much room for civilians. Tom and Michael were near the end of their contracts, and even though Audrey and I desperately wanted to be included, at the end it wasn’t up to me. I made myself feel better by saying that there would be plenty of good missions in the future.

On the morning Michael and Tom left for Sabari, Audrey and I walked them to their Humvee. It would become part of our team tradition. It was early, but you could tell the day was going to be roasting. Tom and Michael were dressed like the rest of the company, in desert fatigues, IBA vests, heavy boots, and helmets. Audrey gave them each a hug. I didn’t hug either of them—it’s not something the Pashtun in me would allow me to do out in the open where the local Pashtun laborers seemed to be watching my every move.

Besides those laborers, I’d made it a personal rule not to hug soldiers or even touch them, except for the occasional handshake. I didn’t think I could lecture them about the rigid brand of respect they were required to show Afghan women and then hug them. It was confusing enough for me to juggle the two different cultures that made me whole; I didn’t want to send mixed messages to the soldiers as well. Audrey, who had the softest heart of anyone I knew, gave her hugs warmly and easily, in the American way. I was envious of how free she was to express her emotions. I simply couldn’t.

“Did you call your mom?” I asked Michael, in lieu of a hug.

“Ah, no. I didn’t want to worry her.”

“I think she’s probably already worried.”

Michael and I had talked before about our mothers, how despite the fact that one was a white American from Southern California and the other a Pashtun from a village in Afghanistan, their worries were identical. All mothers are the same, we agreed.

“How about, I don’t want to worry her even more than I already have. She doesn’t need to know I’m going on this mission. I’ll be back in a week and will call her then.”