43 #2
Progress is slow and painstaking. The sun ascends in the sky; the heat seems to be coming at them from all directions, even
radiating from the ground beneath their feet. Marjan hears a child crying and turns to look at Hawa, afraid she’s been hurt.
But it’s not Hawa crying; it’s someone else’s daughter. Hawa’s cheeks are hot and pink thanks to the mighty summer sun.
When you get close, take out your sign but make sure you’re close enough that someone can see it.
Marjan scans the crowd. There are two other FTPs here to try their luck today, but they are in different locations, too far
apart to see one another, but they’re hoping to converge at Abbey Gate. Three signs will be easier to see than one. Marjan
is looking for Soraya, expects to hear her friend call her name or grab her by the elbow. Even in a mass of people this dense,
she is confident they will find each other. That’s the type of connection they have had since they first met.
“Stay close to me,” Marjan tells Hawa. “Don’t let go, no matter what.”
Hawa squeezes tighter. Marjan feels it in her heart more than her hand.
They are near a hotel, just outside the airport’s perimeter.
A black office chair on wheels sits on top of a shipping container.
One Talib sits in the chair, surveying the masses.
Two others, dressed in uniforms of olive camouflage, stand beside him, foot soldiers.
One wears a camouflage cap, the other a fuchsia bandana.
Their weapons hang at their sides. People sit by the shipping container, trying to catch a sliver of shade.
They are mindful of the Taliban patrolling the area, quickly learning how to coexist with them.
Marjan keeps her head low, her movements subtle. She records in her mind where the Taliban soldiers are standing. She and
Hawa climb over a barrier. The airport wall is within view, on the other side of a canal of murky water. The moat of sewage
is hardly a deterrent. It is full of people standing knee-deep in foul-smelling waste. Crumpled plastic bottles, scraps of
fabric, and plastic bags float along the surface; some trash is caught in the loops of wire inside the canal.
On the other side of the sewage is a wall guarded by American marines. They are indistinguishable from one another in their
khaki uniforms, heavy helmets, loaded vests, and dark sunglasses. They scan the crowd, trying to discern the signal from the
noise, to find the person waving the right documents in a desperate mass but there are so many papers waving in the sun, a
sea of white flags.
Marjan decides she wants to be closer before taking out her paper.
The woman beside her slides to the ground.
“Make room, make room! She’s fainted!” someone shouts. A child wails.
The smell is overwhelming. Sweat, fear, waste. Some have been here for two days.
They look for openings in the crowd. They are petite and can fit through small spaces. There are men here alone or with friends.
There are families with four or five children in tow, babies and toddlers in the arms of their parents. This is no place for
the elderly. Marjan hears the gray-haired man beside her tell his son that he will not go any further.
“Not at my age,” he says. His son pleads with him, even while his father kisses the top of his head and then does the same with each of his grandchildren. “God be with all of you.”
It is a long walk to the road, but people step aside for the man, whose departure brings them one person closer to the gate.
Marjan checks her phone.
They’ll be looking for your signs. Wave it and try to get their attention.
Marjan wipes the sweat from her forehead. She warns her body that fainting is not an option. She sets her duffel on the ground
between her feet and extracts the folded sign from her handbag. With a pen she borrowed from Kobra, she wrote the name of
a fallen marine, bleeding the pen dry to make the letters as thick and visible as possible.
Chesty Puller.
What does it mean? Marjan had asked the American women in their chat group.
He was a soldier. The marines will know his name was all the explanation she received. She guessed he must have been a good soldier. She did not know he was a legend among
marines, a highly decorated veteran who had demonstrated exceptional leadership in World War II and Korea.
She holds the paper up by two corners, trying to position it so it will be visible to the soldiers on the wall, concertina
wire to their backs. Just beyond them is the airfield, and every once in a while, they plucked a document from the crowd,
examined it, and either turned the person away or helped get them over the wall.
“Hello! Please! Look here!” Marjan calls out. She shouts out the name written on her paper, hoping that will catch their ear,
but it does not.
Another hour goes by. More people fall limp. The crowds side-step their bodies as their families try to revive them with small
sips of water, but there is not enough to go around. Marjan makes Hawa drink from her bag, keeping her bottles out of view.
Under these circumstances, there is little room for charity.
“Hawa, we are going to have to cross this water to get closer,” Marjan tells her daughter, even as she questions this decision.
Hawa nods. She either lacks the energy to protest or understands that their only option is to walk through human waste.
They climb over a barrier. Marjan lowers herself in first, stepping with one foot and then the other.
She hoists her duffel bag over her shoulder, tries to keep it from dipping into the water.
Then she reaches for Hawa with both arms to help her come down into the canal.
It is hard to breathe. The sewage comes up to Marjan’s knees and even higher on Hawa, who is covering her mouth and nose with
the flap of her headscarf.
“Please!” Marjan shouts, trying to catch the attention of the marines above her from the canal. They are mere meters from
the soldiers, as close as she can get. She tries to shout the name from the sign. “Chess . . . Chess . . .”
She falters. The heat is getting to her, and she has to look at the sign to make sure she’s getting the name right. Her phone
buzzes, and she pulls it out to read the update.
Ladies, might be wise to clear out of the area and wait for another day, one of the CSTs advises. State Department just issued another alert. Looks serious.
Marjan groans. Getting into the canal was not easy. Getting out will be even harder, especially with half their bodies soiled
by waste. She looks left and right, wonders if she would be able to detect someone suspicious under these circumstances. Everyone
around her looks too busy trying to get over the next wall to be thinking about setting off a bomb. She decides they will
linger a little longer.