43 #3
Another hour passes and then her phone alerts again. The Germans have had a bus full of people stuck at a checkpoint for the
past two hours. At least she and Hawa made it through that obstacle. One of the FTPs responds with a picture of herself, signaling
victory with two fingers.
We are inside!
Marjan’s eyes well with tears. Her fellow soldiers are on the airfield, on the right side of this concrete wall. She is so
happy for them, she could burst. She’s also buoyed by their success.
“Look!” She shows Hawa the picture. “My friends did it. It’s possible to get through. We just have to get their attention.”
Hawa nods, hopeful despite the conditions.
Marjan swipes her sleeve across her daughter’s forehead to dry her sweat.
She shouts louder; the man beside her looks over with annoyance.
He has a toddler hoisted on his shoulders.
With one hand, he waves a document sheathed in plastic at the marines, while the other hand holds the leg of his toddler.
He is about six inches taller than Marjan, which makes a world of difference as they compete for the eyes and ears of the marines.
Can they even hear anything above the drone of voices?
Marjan’s phone battery is draining quickly. She’s checking it often, looking for instructions and providing updates. The dark
screen seems to draw the sun’s heat and the device feels like a hot coal in her palm. She looks at Hawa and knows the day
is having the same effect on her daughter. She opens her bag to offer her a piece of bread. Hawa turns her head away in refusal.
The stench has killed her appetite.
More time goes by. Marjan sets her sunglasses on her head and holds her paper as high as her arms will reach. The sun threatens
to blind her. Soraya should be here. She keeps looking over her shoulder, expecting her friend to appear. Soraya, with her
striking looks, her commanding presence, she would have caught someone’s attention.
“Please! Look here!” she cries. “I am FTP! We work with American CST!”
A man beside her looks at her with tepid curiosity. Another reminder comes in for everyone to be careful. High alert. Of course it’s a high-alert situation. All the players are here—the American military, the last remaining Afghan special
forces soldiers, and the Taliban.
Marjan does a practiced, quick scan and notes that the man wears only a thin tunic, too thin to conceal bundled explosives
of ammonium nitrate. She thinks of the mission, one of their most treacherous, on which they found a stash of what looked
like rice sacks. They were bags of fertilizer marked with a cheery logo from a plant based in Pakistan—a blue triangle with
two green leaves.
Fertilizer. The irony rattled Marjan. What was meant to enrich the earth, to grow life, was instead being turned into explosives to kill unsuspecting civilians, target Afghan and American soldiers, and massacre minorities where they worshipped or where their daughters went to school.
She feels the tightness in her chest again. She checks her surroundings for suspicious individuals, anyone with an unusually
intense expression, lumpy clothing, a heavy belt. It’s nearly impossible to see through the dam of people.
Marjan, what are you wearing? The guy I know is going to be covering the gate near you.
Marjan takes a picture of herself and Hawa. She tries to send it, but the app is slow to upload and transmit the image.
“Madar? How can we make him see us?”
Marjan tries to think strategically. She relays that she’s wearing a black scarf and a green shirt, a swap with one of the
women on the hill. Her fingers are trembling. She cannot see the face of the marine. Her neck aches from looking up.
“I’m trying. I’m trying and our friends are trying too,” Marjan says, even as she wonders if she should decide now when to
call it quits. Will it be easier to get through the gate after nightfall? Families have been renting mattresses from shop
owners near the airport. The area has turned into a refugee camp.
The afternoon has blurred into early evening. It is 5:33 p.m. but still light out. No one notices the man, cheeks sallow from
spending the past four years in a high-security prison for plotting a bombing, make his way through the crowd. He has been
out of prison for eleven days but still does not feel free. No one realizes he is twenty-five pounds heavier because of the
vest he wears, the vest that will give purpose to this lowly life, the vest that will make him a most exalted warrior for
God.
Another minute goes by.
Hawa wants to lie down. She hates that her legs are wet with sewage, the constant shouting around them. There is so much noise,
such disorganized sound. She wants to feel the calm of birdsong.
Hawa looks up. She looks at the trees in the distance, at the swatches of blue sky with frayed edges.
There are no birds. Where have all the birds gone?
Hawa’s question is answered by a thunderous boom and then a stunned silence. She cannot hear the shouting. She cannot hear
the birds. She cannot hear her mother shrieking her name.