What Changes Everything (20 page)

       
"But Doctor President, I am not speaking of official avenues; they have proven useless. I
am speaking of accessing a side door, and going directly to the airport."

       
"Escape. That‟s what you imagine?"

       
He startled, surprised by my laughter, then nodded.

       
I thought of dismissing him, turning my back, eating alone. But I knew his heart was
good, though he had much to learn.

       
"Let‟s consider it together," I said. "First, in practical terms. If I
managed to get past
the guards and slip out a side door, I would quickly be spotted on the street."

       
"We will have a disguise."

       
"That will hide my physique?"

       
"We will put you immediately in a car. It will be night."

       
"Ah. And rush me to the airport. And the
n what? A UN plane is out of the question; they

       
"This has been handled, Doctor President," the boy said. "We have those who support
you with full hearts. Some always have; others have reconsidered their alliances. They include
among them pilots, willing to lie about the cargo they carry."

       
"You‟ve thought it out then, boy, have you?" I was impressed by young Amin, and
hesitated a moment, sorry to have to disappoint him. "But we must look at it from all angles. Is it
not enough that my country has abandoned me? It‟s your plan that I will lower my head and
dash from my home sheepishly, like a criminal or a defeated dog? This is the way you think I
should secure my distance from the darkness?"

       
"Doctor President." He hesitated, then straightened his shoulders and went on boldly.
"What are you worth to your country from here?"

       
"Amin. Do you remember last year when the UN‟s special envoy to Afghanistan
suggested I use my kidney stones to get me out of the country? His thought was that I would
claim to be more ill than I was. He imagined I would agree to be transported to the airport on a
stretcher via ambulance in order to gain my freedom. I refused to take part in this ruse and leave
in this manner. Even were I dying, I would not retreat like this, as if I had done something
wrong."

       
"Doctor President, that was a ye
ar ago. Perhaps—forgive me, but perhaps then there
was still time for such pride. I walk the streets that are forbidden to you. I hear the talk. The
situation has worsened."

       
"Of course it has. The world will not find rest simply by saying the word peace. I
t needs

"And so?"

       
"I will never agree to discard my own dignity," I said. "A man is as vast as he acts,
Amin. You are smart. You have developed a scheme for my departure and you have thought to
approach me on a night when I am weak, missing my family. The only matter you failed to
foresee is that it is exactly for my family that I will not agree to leave like this. I will not pass on
to my daughters the legacy of a coward."

       
He looked so sad, so defeated. He is a young man, and he thought he had a strategy for
saving the great Najib. Who knows to how many he had spoken? What promises, however half
hearted, he worked to extract?

       
"My son," I said, "Why should we rush to buy 25 uncaught sparrows when all we really
need is one in our hands? I will be out of here soon without these elaborate machinations made
of air. I‟m Muslim, and I am Pashtun. The fundamentalists are also Muslims and Pashtuns. They
will not hurt me; they will banish me. I will be with my family soon enough. And together we will
wait to return, because water will flow through this parched riverbed again."

       
And so, my daughters, through relaying this conversation with Amin, I say the same to
you. Your father will not come home cowed. But he will come home. We will be together soon.
And until then, you and your mother are with me in every dream I have.

       
I pass this sealed letter on to Amin to mail, its envelope filled with my love,

Dear General McChrystal,

       This is another letter from Stela Sidorova. I am writing once again because I would still like to go over, in more detail, the criteria for awarding medals to fallen soldiers. My youngest son, Piotr, with surprising reddish hair, wanted to be a botanist—not unexpected given his lifelong refusal to kill the spiders we found in our house (he would capture them in a jar, keep them as pets a day or two, and then dump them outside). Anyway, I‟m sure you can‟t remember the names of all the mothers who must correspond with you, nor of everyone who was awarded a Silver Medal, but my Piotr was one of those, and you can probably look him up somewhere, no?

       Piotr Sidorov.

       However, there have been questions about the circumstances of his death. I don‟t want to believe any army under your charge, as Piotr and his fellow soldiers were at that time, would ever be anything but honest with me. But I am wondering if you could reply and specify for me quite simply the circumstances of the award he was given posthumously. (Such a horrible word, isn‟t it? I imagine you dislike it as much as I do.) This would do much to set a mother‟s heart….

Dear Steve Coll,

Congratulations on your Pulitzer Prize. I am sorry to say I do not have your book in my

shop, Bulgakov‟s Bookshelf. I would like to say it is because no one who ever buys that book wants to later sell it to a used bookstore. And I‟m sure that is true, by the way. But I must be honest. In my case, the people who frequent my shop have very little interest in reading about Afghanistan. They live in a dream world, most of them, cut off from the pressing matters of our day.

       I, however, checked your book out of the library and read it with great interest. I am writing to see if it is possible that, in your research, you came upon information about the Pech Valley and specific activities there. I am wondering if there are army records that give more details about fatalities than are given to family members of fallen soldiers. I have already written four polite letters to Gen. McChrystal and so far received no reply. Should you have any details on this, I‟d be so grateful if …

Dear Mr. Bob Dylan,

       I believe you are the Pushkin of America. He was also very young when he began to be recognized, and he was a radical spokesman. A woman, of course, was his downfall, and you have managed to avoid that so far; I congratulate you. I read an old Playboy interview with you once—I don‟t subscribe, of course, but I received old issues from an estate sale for my bookstore, Bulgakov‟s Bookshelf—and in it, you were so sarcastic that I almost stopped reading, but I kept on and I‟m glad I did because you said something I still remember: "Art, if there is such a thing, is in the bathrooms; everybody knows that." Even if you meant that to also be sarcastic, I think my son Danil would agree.

       I guess I‟m late in telling you my name is Stela Sidorova and I started reading about you because you were one of my other son Piotr‟s favorite musicians. Which always struck me as funny, because he was not of your generation. And also because he ended up enlisting to fight, and you were against war. So how much to heart could he have taken your lyrics? Forgive me for asking.

       But now I wonder if maybe Piotr liked you because you wouldn‟t let people call you a prophet. It‟s an important question for me because they are calling my son a hero, and I wonder if maybe he wouldn‟t want that either. Do you believe labels are used deliberately to give life to lies? But how did your mother feel about the names they called you, good and bad? And I must ask you as a true skeptic: don‟t we have to trust in something, at least a few of the big things, in order to…

Dear Danil, my beloved son,

       You always protected him and you are protecting him still, first from the bullies and now from the myth-makers and deceivers. I see that, and I know he would want it. But try to imagine what it is to be a mother. It‟s not an easy matter to accept losing a baby to a mistake. Mistake becomes a swearword, one that I could begin to pronounce only after I read the generals were withdrawing our troops from that place. The place Piotr died. Leaving? Did it mean we‟d won on that sour, unwelcome patch of ground? No, they said, it meant in fact that we couldn‟t win there, but they went on to say that was fine, because we didn‟t need to win there. We didn‟t need to hold that territory. I wanted to scream: why, then, was Piotr ever sent there?

       And if that was a mistake, what else? Now I say it, though it breaks my heart: I fear what you told me may be true.

       It‟s not that I doubted you, Danil. I know that‟s what you thought. It‟s that I couldn‟t face something that big and ugly lingering over the loss of Piotr. And yes, I didn‟t want you to sweep

our dirt outside our house. I see now it wasn‟t
our dirt.

       I give you my blessings to speak your own honesty; you no longer have to keep your views secret in the world, if you wish. But please, Danil, rejoin me. Even if you are still angry, a bad peace is better than a good quarrel. I have sent you many letters; I‟ve begun and thrown away even more. Please, please let me know you have received this, and that you are willing…

       "I‟m so glad you sent me the photos, Danil," said Marco, the gallery owner. "Your work is strong. It fits thematically with what we‟re after. So here‟s what‟s happening. Some patrons with fat wallets and media connections want to bring attention to the war."

       "Why?" Danil asked. "It‟s hardly a good-news story at this point. It seems to me most people are busy looking away."

       Marco shrugged. He had the darkest eyes Danil had ever seen and an intimate way of speaking that made it seem like he was sharing a secret. "Political reasons, personal reasons, moral reasons, who knows?" he said. "All I can tell you for sure is there‟s a strong commitment. They want this show ready in time for the anniversary of the invasion, for PR reasons, so they‟re pulling it together fast. Here‟s the vision."

       Marco took Danil‟s arm and walked him away from the entrance, into a second room with two brick walls and two white ones. "They‟ll put up large photos of your street pieces over here," he said, "so they‟ll be seen in the context of their locations. They have some other artists lined up too. Plus work by some of the photojournalists who‟ve been covering this. The pieces will sell; you‟ll get your cut. But here‟s the kicker, what makes this visionary, what will attract the media attention. On opening night, all these folks will come, wine, hors d‟oeuvre, the usual. And they‟ll watch you." He gestured to one of the brick walls. "Right in front of them, you‟ll put a stenciled piece directly on the gallery wall. You‟ll have to show us what you‟re going to do in advance, of course, but the only thing we ask it that it be a new piece, and about war, like your others. Bring your spray cans, whatever you need. We‟ll put up a little caution-tape barricade, but people will be able to get close. We‟ll lower the lights a bit." He squeezed Danil‟s shoulder. "It‟ll be great. It‟s visual art, a political statement on several levels, but also performance art, and that makes exciting. Of course the piece will have to be removed later, maybe in three weeks, to make way for the next show. But street art is transient anyway, right? And by then, it—and you, at work—will have already been photographed, videoed, interviewed."

       "Videoed?" Danil wondered if that was even a word.

       "So it‟ll give a bit of permanence to it, don‟t you think? And then, you‟re launched."

       "My identity will be known?"

       "If this is an issue, let‟s talk about it." Marco motioned Danil toward his office in a corner of the gallery behind a glass wall. "We don‟t want you to get stuck doing community service," he laughed, "and a mask might be interesting. But if you let them see your face, it fits with what this is all about. We want to call the show Transparent War."

       "Transparent?"

       "As in laid bare, through your work, and the others." Marco sat down at his desk. "Truth, they say, is the first casualty, right? The backers of this show want to get at that." He tapped a thermos in his office. "Coffee?" Danil nodded and Marco poured him a cup. "Black okay? Anyway, it‟s going to be a good show, on several levels. Plus I believe you‟ll end up making some real money in time. People will hire you to put up stencils in various locations. You‟ll do some speaking, if you want. Maybe the college circuit for a year. Professors will know that you‟ll connect with their students."

       Marco struck Danil as passionate but only half-way genuine, a salesman first of all. And he himself was being handled like a potential big buyer. "Sounds a bit unlikely to me," he said.

       "That‟s what we want. We don‟t want to do the usual."