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In the early weeks of Marjan’s tactical training, she was introduced to fast roping. Under a high sun, Marjan, Soraya, and
the other recruits gathered around a tall wooden platform about twenty-five feet off the ground. Two American soldiers climbed
up a side ladder, stood atop the platform, and, at the nod of their superior, slid down the twin ropes with such ease that
Marjan was eager to give it a try. She slipped through the other women and wrapped one hand on the wooden rung of the ladder.
She waited for a signal to ascend, and Soraya watched, her expression a mixture of pride and nerves.
Then came the order.
Marjan climbed the ladder with ease, but the moment she had two feet at the platform edge and looked down, her enthusiasm
dissipated. She wrapped her gloved hands around the rough rope, the material designed to protect her palms from friction.
Go!
Her limbs felt like clumsy appendages, the rope an untamable creature, and the height a brutal intimidation. Marjan gripped
the rope tightly, and instead of sliding toward the ground as the other women had, she dangled in the air, her legs flailing
beneath her.
Slide!
The word was just noise, though. Marjan was preoccupied with the distance between her body and the ground, and the not-so-distant memory of life in a cast. Elaha was on the second rope, descending while Marjan dangled. She could not loosen her grip on the rope.
Marjan, breathe!
Soraya’s voice cut through the noise like lightning against an inky sky.
Loosen your grip! Let the rope slide!
Nothing about her first descent felt right. Neither did her second or her third. Each time she climbed the ladder, she was
sure this go would be different, but then she would find herself dangling from the rope, legs flailing again. She landed with
a thud on her side, on her behind, on her knees.
She understood what she needed to do, but how did she get from theory to practice?
Elaha, the captain of the unit, pulled her aside.
The rope will not save you. Don’t cling to it. Use it. Trust your arms and legs.
Marjan looked down at her arms then, the arms that had climbed trees and protected her face from incoming blows and rocked
her two babies to sleep and loaded a weapon and carried home bread and milk to a little girl who should never have to live
through what her mother had survived.
Marjan climbed the ladder again, and this time came down the rope at a steady, deliberate pace. I trust my arms and legs. I trust myself.
The helicopter hovered over the drop site. Soraya signaled for Marjan to go ahead. She nodded and grabbed the thick rope,
her left hand over her right with just the right amount of tension. Her feet came together around the tail of the rope, and
she slid down in one smooth motion, landing on her feet and moving out of the way immediately so that Soraya and the others
could descend after her.
“We’re clear.”
The helicopter lifted away as they started their trek to the village.
Marjan could hear her own breathing, heavier than usual, and knew it was more than just the weight of her gear.
They were stepping into unknown territory with every mission, and even the best of people did not take kindly to unannounced visitors.
She needed to be on the alert for people who might spot them approaching in the dark.
Don’t think about Shahla, she told herself. Missions were dangerous and full of surprises. Intel stuffed inside a mattress. An AK-47 buried under two
fingers of dirt. Gunfire erupting in the dark. Pressure plates daisy-chained to maximize casualties.
But it wasn’t just her sister who was on her mind. She would be entering the village where her husband’s extended family lived.
What if someone recognized her and told Abdul Khaliq? What if he was there? She told herself she was unrecognizable in this
gear and tried to focus on her immediate surroundings, the location of her fellow soldiers, and the weapon in her hands. She
scanned left and right, the dark world glowing green with the aid of her night-vision goggles.
“I think I spotted movement. Due east from where I’m standing about a hundred yards out.”
“I’m close by. Looks like an animal. Maybe a dog? Or a goat?”
“Roger that.”
They advanced slowly, cautiously.
At the perimeter of the village, Marjan looked to her right to confirm Soraya’s presence. She hadn’t told Soraya about Shahla
and this village. She worried that her best friend would find a reason to talk her out of the mission. She couldn’t risk it.
Marjan had lost so much at such a young age. She’d been a sprig chopped off a tree. How many nights had she prayed to God
that she might one day see her mother, her sisters, and her khala Shaima again? She even prayed she might see her drug-addled
father, to tell him how much suffering he’d caused her. Maybe he regretted what he’d done to them. But there was no easy way
to reach out to them without the risk that Abdul Khaliq would find her.
“Entering. On my count,” a soldier directed.
When it was her turn, Marjan hesitated for a beat. No one but Soraya noticed. She looked over at Marjan with a tilt of her
head, a silent question Marjan could hear loud and clear.
Are you all right?
Marjan nodded at her friend, grateful that she hadn’t said anything the rest of the team would hear. She didn’t want to alarm or distract anyone. She pulled her shoulders back and corrected her stance.
“We want to keep you and your children safe,” Jenna shouted to the compound’s residents. “We will make sure the soldiers do
not come near you. To keep all of us safe, we will start by searching everyone. We are asking for your cooperation. Follow
our instructions and we can do this safely and quickly. We need everyone to come outside, adults and children.” Commands shouted
in English were immediately repeated in the local language.
There were shouts inside, the sound of footsteps and a door slamming. Marjan and the other soldiers stood with their hands
on their weapons, waiting to see if the people inside the compound would comply.
“All teenage boys and men over here!” a soldier yelled.
Slowly, a dozen people trickled out of the compound. Soraya and Jenna stood closest to the gate, pointing the women and children
in one direction while the men were directed in another. This was why Marjan’s platoon was so essential. Though they came
in the middle of the night, armed and in uniform, they were also Afghan women. They could reassure the nervous wives and mothers
that they meant no harm. They were not foreigners.
Marjan scanned the startled faces of the people jolted from sleep. What might Shahla herself be like now, seven years since
she last saw her?
“We just have a few questions for you,” Jenna told the gathering women. Soraya translated for her, projecting her voice to
the dozen figures standing before them. “Is this everyone? We will be searching inside, and it is safest for everyone if we
know. Surprises are not good for anyone. We need to know if the house is not yet cleared out. Is everyone outside now?”
“No, not yet,” a teenage girl blurted out. A woman standing beside her, perhaps her mother, chided her for speaking out. The
girl looked from her mother to the strange soldiers in front of her, unsure who to be more wary of.
“God damn you all,” an older woman called out bitterly as she emerged from the doorway. Her gait stiff, she rested her hand on the clay wall of the home. “Shameless. Good that you are hiding your faces. You can all eat shit.”
“I don’t know what she said but I think I understand what she said,” Krista muttered.
“She is not happy we are here,” Marjan explained.
Krista nodded. “Yup. That’s what I heard.”
They approached the women and began the searches, patting them down to look for weapons or concealed items. They were thorough
by necessity. Once, a platoon member discovered a rifle hidden under the bulky dress of a middle-aged mother. And another
search had revealed identification cards in the folds of an infant’s swaddling.
Soraya approached one of the women and asked again if everyone, including all the men, had exited the home. The woman nodded
in confirmation.
Marjan looked over her shoulder, trying to see the other homes in the area. If Shahla did not live here, did she live somewhere
nearby? Did any of these women know her?
“Let’s get started,” Krista said, and nudged Marjan.
Marjan blinked rapidly, brought herself back to the task. She was the lead during the interrogations. They’d all been trained
in tactical questioning, but the platoon quickly learned that Marjan excelled at it, finding ways to build some semblance
of trust and detect from body language when a woman had more to say. Sometimes it was a child who provided a key piece of
information. Marjan let her weapon hang over her shoulder. The others held theirs pointed to the ground but in their grips,
ready for any surprises.
“How old is your daughter?” Marjan asked a young woman cloaked in a long prayer shawl, a whimpering child in her arms.
The woman answered with a scowl. She turned away, shielding her daughter’s face from view, and then looked to an older woman
standing nearby. Marjan understood. She wanted to make sure the older woman had seen her scowling, that she was mirroring
the group sentiment in facing these strangers.
The child looked to be about a year old, wriggling and fussing. Hawa had been the same at that age.
“She will be a strong girl. Clever like her mother,” Marjan said, and saw the young mother’s face soften, because she had
said what every mother wanted to hear—that she carried something of her mother in her, something she would need to survive
this harsh world.
It wasn’t all performance for Marjan. She saw curiosity in the eyes of the little boys and girls even as they eyed her firearm
and uniform, and in the toddlers who clung to fistfuls of their mothers’ skirts while strangers entered their home. Even on