Refuge (16 page)

He’s only doing this in a desperate attempt to impress me.

Kamila tugs on his arm, and Charlie leans down to listen to her. Moments later the girls take off in every direction, their blue headscarves flying behind them. Charlie counts to ten and tears after them. He tags one after another until only Kamila is left. They face each other at opposite ends of the yard.

“You can’t catch me,” Kamila shouts.

Charlie creeps towards her. When he’s halfway down the yard he takes off in a sprint. Kamila feints left before running to her right. Charlie changes direction and reaches out a hand. Kamila arches her back and his fingertips clutch at thin air. His right foot slips from under him, and he finds himself face down in the dirt. The girls howl with laughter.

A janitor rings the bell for the final class of the day, and the girls run inside. Kamila stands over Charlie like a victorious matador. She offers him her hand and pulls him to his feet, before rushing after her friends.

“I pity the man who ends up marrying that one,” Miss Suha says.

Noor says nothing. She’s waiting for Charlie to look up at the window to confirm her suspicion.

Come on.

Charlie ambles across the courtyard.

Do it.

He continues out the front gate. Noor can’t help but feel a little disappointed.

PART II

evolve

SEVENTEEN

CHARLIE AND WALI
roar into the UNMAPA compound to find three Land Cruisers and a pick-up waiting for them. Six policemen, each cradling an ancient Lee Enfield rifle, sit in the back of the pick-up. A bearded man wearing a worn camo jacket gets out of the lead Land Cruiser. A black patch covers his right eye giving him the look of a modern day pirate.

“You in that one,” he says to Wali indicating the Land Cruiser behind them.

Wali scurries off without a word. Charlie’s never seen Wali so intimidated.

“You with me.”

Charlie sticks out his hand.

“Guessing you’re Shamsurahman. I’m Charlie.”

Shamsurahman crushes Charlie’s hand. Charlie does his best not to wince. Charlie throws his backpack in the trunk and climbs in. A man in a blue blazer and sits up front. He looks like he’s off to a cocktail party.

“Ah, the stragglers,” the man says in a posh British accent.

Shamsurahman beeps his horn, and the pick-up drives off. Shamsurahman hugs its bumper.

“Colonel Jack Litchfield,” the Brit says.

“Charlie Matthews. You in the British Army?”

“Was. Now with an outfit called The Angel Foundation.”

“You run their operation out here?”

“Good heavens no, too much of an old fogey for that. Out here on a little fact-finding jaunt.”

“When I hear the word jaunt I think Miami not Peshawar.”

“Trust me, once you’ve been married to the same woman for thirty years, you’ll think of this as a jaunt too.”

Charlie laughs and looks out the window. By now they’re past the refugee camps and are bearing down on a spot-lit archway that looks like it’s been transplanted from Disneyland. A large sign at the side of the road proclaims ‘No Foreigners Beyond This Point’. They blow past it. On either side of the road storekeepers are opening up their shuttered stores. The stores sell everything from cigarette cartons to televisions, suitcases to washing machines, mattresses to computers.

“Doesn’t seem that tribal,” Charlie says.

“Smugglers’ bazaar,” Shamsurahman says.

Ah, so this is where you went, Wali.

Charlie guesses the alcohol isn’t on such prominent display.

“So you were in the military as well I gather,” the Colonel says.

“First Infantry Division,” Charlie says.

“Officer?”

“Just an old fashioned private.”

“Army not for you?”

“Can’t say it was.”

“The two chaps who run our operation were in the Paras. Mike saw action in the Falkland Islands; story goes that his platoon was pinned down by a machine gun placement so he just up and ran at it; killed four Argies in the process.”

Charlie knows Mike’s type well; curiously none of them tended to be his friends in the army.

The bazaar comes to an end, and they begin racing across a barren plain towards a looming mountain range lit golden by the rising sun. Mud-walled compounds with turrets on every corner dot the landscape. It’s as if they’ve entered some mystical land. The Colonel rubs his hands together.

“Now this is a treat,” he says. “I’m told there’s nothing quite like your first time up the Khyber Pass.”

Charlie rests his head against the window and his eyes droop. It isn’t long before he’s fast asleep.

He wakes to find the Colonel prodding his arm. The Land Cruiser has come to a halt. He looks out the window to see a swarm of grubby Pakistani kids staring back.

“Where are we?” he says.

“Torkham,” the Colonel says. “Shamsurahman’s getting our passports stamped.”

One of the kids holds up a Coke bottle. Right now there’s nothing Charlie wants more. Charlie gets out, and the kids shove their wares in his face. Charlie buys a Coke and wanders over to the SUV behind theirs. The Colonel is standing there with two muscled men in polo shirts. Charlie recognizes them as the Brits from the American Club.

Fuck.

“Charlie, I’d like to introduce you to Derek Simons and Mike Henderson, our chaps out here.”

“Good to see you guys again,” Charlie says.

“Alright,” Derek says.

Mike, the Manchester United supporter, barely nods.

“Can you believe this one slept all the way up the Khyber Pass?” the Colonel says.

Mike and Dave look like they’re not surprised.

“We were thinking of doing a quick recce,” Mike says to the Colonel. “Care to join?”

“Why not? You alright Charlie?”

Charlie holds up his Coke bottle.

“Got all I need.”

They head off down a main drag of decrepit, low strung buildings, and the kids give chase. Charlie catches the eye of a six-year-old boy dragging a bunch of soccer balls in a net.

“Please, sir,” the boy says.

“How much?”

The boy flashes his right hand two times. Charlie hands him a twenty rupee bill. The boy grins and tosses Charlie a soccer ball. Charlie sees Wali regaling some Afghan staff members and heads towards him. Wali excuses himself.

“What a marvelous trip that was,” Wali says. “The mighty Khyber Pass.”

“That the border?” Charlie says, nodding towards an open metal gate.

“You are most correct.”

“Well, shit, let’s go take a look.”

They walk up. A couple of nearby Pakistani soldiers glance at them. Charlie bounces the ball over to a cheap plastic billboard. ‘Welcome To The Islamic Republic Of Afghanistan’ it proclaims. Charlie turns back. Wali is staring at the far off mountains with tears in his eyes.

“Good to be back?” Charlie says.

“More than you can believe. It’s my first time in six years.”

They hear Shamsurahman shouting out to them and they trudge back to their vehicles. The expedition carries on without its police escort, and not far beyond the border they turn off the main highway and head down an earthen track. Charlie stares out the window at some abandoned concrete huts in the distance; beside them is a firing range nestled into a barren hillside and an obstacle course with climbing walls and monkey bars. He shivers. It has an eerie feel to it. He assumes it used to be a Soviet base.

An hour later they come upon their first village, a collection of mud homes perched on the side of a wide muddy river. Charlie gets out. The place reminds him of those towns in Westerns from which the inhabitants have all fled. Doors creak back-and-forth, weeds grow against the sides of buildings, and farm equipment lies scattered, broken and rusting. The foreigners gather around Shamsurahman as the Afghan staff set up lunch.

“Soviets attack village six years back. The Nangarhar Province major mujahideen stronghold and they suspect village people of aiding mujahideen. Two platoons Spetsnaz land and round up mans over age of twelve. They take them to the river and gun down. Womans and childrens flee to Pakistan.”

Shamsurahman takes them into a grain mill. Its stone grinder lies shattered in pieces.

“Before leave they blow up irrigation systems and plant mines in village and fields so no one think of return.”

They go out the other side and gather beside the riverbank. Beyond the river is a jigsaw of overgrown, squiggly shaped fields.

“We clear village already,” Shamsurahman says, “but no peoples return until fields cleared also.”

Shamsurahman turns to a squirrel-faced man with a salt-and-pepper beard.

“Kenneth, you think your mans do this?”

Kenneth winces.

“Don’t know. Fact the fields are waterlogged makes it tricky.”

Shamsurahman turns Mike and Derek.

“And you?”

“No problem,” Mike says. “Our lads train in this type of environment all the time.”

Mike looks over at Charlie.

“Unless you’d like to take it, mate.”

Derek and a few others in the group laugh. Charlie feels his face redden.

“No, all yours,” he says.

“Thought you might say that,” Mike says.

“Marvelous, well that’s settled,” the Colonel says. “Now what do you all say to a spot of lunch?”

The group heads back. Wali and Charlie bring up the rear.

“I learnt a most interesting word of slang some months back,” Wali says.

“What’s that?” Charlie says.

“Douchebag.”

Charlie laughs.

“I would assume I would be correct in using it in reference to that man.”

“He’s the definition.”

After lunch they drive on until they come to another village. It’s almost a carbon copy of the previous one. By now the sun’s beginning to set below the mountains in the west. The Afghan staff put up the group’s tents and Charlie pitches in to help. Over to one side, he sees Mike and Derek have somehow got their hands on his soccer ball and are passing it back and forth. He thinks about asking for it back but let’s it go. He finishes putting up his tent and drags his backpack inside. When he clambers back out he sees Mike and Derek setting up next door.

Great, they’re going to cut my throat in the middle of the night.

Derek sees him.

“Were we using your ball, mate?” he says.

“Totally cool,” Charlie says.

“Here you go.”

Derek grabs the ball and throws it wide of him.

“Oh shit, sorry about that.”

Charlie chases after the ball and grabs it just before it enters a field on the village’s perimeter. He looks out over the tall grass and wonders how many mines lie there in wait. He turns to see Mike pantomiming him being blown up. Charlie heads over to a blazing pile of firewood and sits down next to Kenneth. Nearby Shamsurahman is leading the Afghans in prayer. Wali looks over and winks at Charlie. Charlie winks back.

“I don’t know if you’re aware of this but I’m in the army myself,” Kenneth says.

“The Scottish army?”

“God’s.”

In the flickering orange light Charlie tries to discern whether Kenneth’s screwing with him.

“Didn’t know God had an army,” Charlie says.

“Oh, it spans the globe, made up of billions of Christian souls. Blood and fire, that’s our motto, our mission to advance the Christian religion and relieve poverty.”

“How’s the first one going?”

“Won’t lie, ain’t easy out here. Got to admire these Afghans, hold fast to their religion they do, tend to get a wee bit tetchy if you push Jesus on them.”

Charlie watches the embers drift up into a night sky infested with stars.

“You mind if I ask you a personal question, Charlie?” Kenneth says. “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior?”

Charlie looks at Kenneth. Kenneth’s gaze is unwavering.

“Jesus came into my heart at a young age, Kenneth, and hasn’t left since.”

“So you believe everything written in the Old and New Testaments?”

“Absolutely. Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, the guy in the whale, all of it.”

On the other side of the fire, Derek and Mike sit down next to the Colonel.

“But you know who’s definitely not Christian,” Charlie whispers.

“Who?” Kenneth says, his eyes darting about.

“Derek and Mike. Back in Peshawar they live a totally debauched life. Told me their goal was to have sex with a different aid worker every week they’re here.”

“That’s scandalous.”

“I tried to talk to them, but you saw what happened earlier. I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’m American, but they’re really hostile towards me. I can’t get through to them.”

Kenneth pats Charlie on the back.

“Don’t you worry, I’ve got this one covered.”

Kenneth prowls over to them and launches into his pitch. Derek tries to get away, but Kenneth puts his hand on Derek’s shoulder and pushes him back down. The Colonel excuses himself and comes over.

“Good heavens,” the Colonel says, “those boys are in for it.”

The Afghans finish up their prayers. Shamsurahman sits across from them. He stares into the distance, his face serene.

“Shamsurahman’s not much one for chit chat, is he?” Charlie says.

“I suspect once you’ve been through what he has, life takes on a whole new light,” the Colonel says.

“What do you mean?”

“Was quite the war hero a few year back, his face on posters all over town‌—‌right up there with Hekmatyar and Massoud’s. Had this blinding reputation; they say the moment a Soviet outpost heard he was in the vicinity they’d flee. Soviets created a special forces unit dedicated to killing him.”

“Guess they failed there.”

“Oh, it was worse than that. He tricked them into thinking he was hiding out in this village. Over a hundred Spetsnaz poured in and when it was all over only one came out and only because Shamsurahman allowed him to.”

“So what happened?”

“Some time later the man he was walking beside stepped on a mine. From all accounts it took him almost a year to walk again and when he reemerged he’d laid down his weapons and dedicated his life to ridding Afghanistan of mines.”