Epilogue
“Come on. We’ll take Hawa to the children’s tent for her classes and then we’ll check out the women’s space,” Mina says.
“I’ll take Hawa, but I’m really not in the mood for the women’s group. Besides,” Marjan replies, waving at the large tent
they are standing in, the rows of green military cots, “every day here is a women’s group.”
“And every day you come up with some excuse. I don’t know how long we’re going to be stuck in this place. Let’s make the best
of it.”
Of course Mina wants to go. Her reporter’s blood craves stories, details, testimony, context, confirmation.
She also loves an audience.
“They promised they won’t force anyone to share,” she says. “You can go and not say a word.”
Marjan groans. “Why go if I’m going to sit there like a stone?”
“To listen, Marjan. What good is one person speaking if no one is listening? Come and be someone’s patience stone.”
“You should go, Madar,” Hawa says, sliding her feet into her sneakers. She laces them quickly, her eyes already on the door.
They walk across the tent, large enough to host a town hall.
This tent has been their temporary home since they arrived in the United States a month ago.
Marjan watches Hawa’s ponytail bounce. Last night, she dreamed they were once again in the airport and Abdul Khaliq grabbed her daughter from her and disappeared into the thick of people.
Marjan tried to scream for help, but she couldn’t make a sound.
Another night, she dreamed that she was back on the hill of Zanabad watching the last flight take off.
They were so lucky.
The marine who waved them in had plucked from Mina’s hand the letter she waved around, the one awarding her special recognition
for her courageous reporting on corruption. He admitted to them later—when they were waiting for the plane’s doors to open
and boarding to commence—that Hawa’s music had caught his attention.
I don’t even know how I heard it. Felt like the sound cut through the noise at just the right frequency or something.
Hawa held on to her tula for the entirety of their journey, the flight across the globe, until they disembarked in the gray
and cold airport somewhere in the United States, a city with too many syllables to its name. Phi-la-del-phi-a. From there,
they boarded another flight, one that took them to a desert.
Who knew America had deserts?
They stood in lines, were processed by uniformed soldiers who walked them from the plane to a cavernous tent, then directed
them to other soldiers seated behind folding tables equipped with bottles of hand sanitizer and boxes of pale blue face masks.
Their names were entered into laptops. Marjan looked over at Mina. Exhausted and famished, Marjan hadn’t heard the first question
asked of her. The man behind the computer signaled to someone, and an Afghan man in a plaid shirt and khaki pants appeared.
He introduced himself as an interpreter. Marjan had shaken her head and declined, not wanting to reveal anything personal
to him.
She gathered her remaining energy and assured the interviewer she could speak and understand English.
And are you married?
Marjan had looked to Hawa then. They would start fresh in this country, writing Abdul Khaliq out of their stories. He existed
in their past, and that could not be changed. But Marjan would not carry him with her, not one step further.
“I am a widow,” she told him.
They were taken to another area, where they sat in chairs behind a curtained barrier and bared their shoulders for vaccines. They answered more questions. They confirmed more information. And then they were shuttled to the village.
The village, Marjan learned, was a tent city erected in two weeks by American soldiers on this hot and tawny earth. Each tent
holds up to one hundred cots. Families, accustomed to the privacy of high walls, hang sheets to separate themselves from their
neighbors. Marjan, Hawa, and Mina live in a tent for single women.
The camp is run by soldiers and civilians. There is a medical team, kept busy with pregnant women, skin rashes, aching teeth.
Hawa asked one doctor if she had any medications to make her taller, which earned her a smile and a laugh.
The base hums with activity, with people wearing laminated badges on lanyards and others in military uniforms. Instructions
were given by word of mouth initially. The evacuees had questions, too, but theirs went unanswered. The people with badges
didn’t seem to know what was going on mostly. But within days, routines and systems were created.
Slowly, order replaced chaos. The process became clearer. They will be resettled somewhere in America. No, they cannot choose
where they will go unless they have family there willing to take them in. They will have permission to work, and they will
receive assistance for three months. After that, they’ll be on their own.
Marjan and Mina pass by the clothing tent, full of cardboard boxes and tables buried under fabric. So much of it cannot be
used. Shirts that are nowhere near a respectable length. Sweatshirts with faces of strangers or loud logos. They dig for clothing
in their sizes, for pieces that might match, for items that might make them feel a bit more like themselves.
Today, Mina is wearing a rare find—a blouse the color of pomegranate juice with dainty gold buttons. It has a small grease
spot on the left cuff but is in otherwise good condition. The collar is spilled open, revealing a heart-shaped patch of Mina’s
skin.
“Let’s stop in here for just a moment,” Marjan says as they pass the clothing tent. “I want to ask that lady one question.”
“I’ll wait for you here. I don’t have the patience for that place today,” Mina declares, so Marjan pops in alone. She emerges a moment later, beaming.
“Why are you grinning like that?” Mina asks suspiciously.
Marjan holds out her hand, raises her brows, and signals for Mina to take what she’s offering. Mina does so, her brows furrowed
as if she doesn’t trust Marjan with her life. Marjan drops a silver metal tube into her friend’s hand.
“You little devil. How did you find lipstick in that mess?”
Marjan had gone in there a couple of days ago with a request. The woman she spoke with had scoffed at her, explained that
they were providing essentials only. Marjan had nodded, almost embarrassed that she’d asked, but another woman had stopped
her on the way out.
I can’t even count how many women have come in here looking for makeup and tweezers. But I get it, sweetheart. I feel better
when I get a little dolled up too.
Mina opens the tube, twists the perfectly angled lipstick up. It is a shade somewhere between ruby and cherry. Mina takes
off her sunglasses, looks at her reflection as she pulls the lipstick across her lips then smacks them together.
“Khala Mina! You look so beautiful!” Hawa exclaims. She is cheerful during the day, but Marjan can see her retreat into her
thoughts when no one is looking. She curls up next to her mother at night, close enough that Marjan can feel her daughter’s
heartbeat. Like pendulum clocks sitting side by side, one pulse quickens, one pulse slows. It helps to keep the nightmares
away.
And Hawa looks forward to her time in the children’s tent. She’s made friends there, children who delight at her flute playing.
“There she is, our brilliant and camera-ready journalist,” Marjan teases.
“God save you, you’re a resourceful friend.” Mina smiles broadly.
Marjan feels her breath catch. Hawa leans into her mother. She must see it too.
“What is it?” Mina asks.
“This is Soraya’s shade. When you smile, you look so much like her.”
Hawa nods, her eyes welling with tears.
Mina scoffs. “If only I were so lucky,” she says softly. She touches her fingertips to the tender skin beneath her eyes, presses
away the tears. “She should be here with us.”
Marjan says no more. She still cannot talk about Soraya without choking up, without fearing she will fall apart. She needs
to change this, though, because she plans on telling a lot of people about her best friend, the most courageous and glamorous
soldier in their whole platoon. Mina links arms with Marjan.
“Maybe you’ll let me get a little of this lipstick on you too,” she teases.
“On me? No . . .” She’s never been one for vanity, but the past few weeks have made her self-conscious. Her skin is irritated,
and the pants she’s found here are too long for her legs. Marjan touches the back of her head, feels the shaggy, uneven hair
beneath the headscarf. It will take a long time for her hair to grow out.
“I think your short hair suits you, Madar. Maybe I’ll cut mine too,” Hawa says as she pulls back the flap door of the children’s
tent. Inside, it is bustling with activity, with children delighting in half-broken crayons, books they cannot yet read, and
a haphazard collection of used dolls, toy cars, and building blocks.
Mina and Marjan watch her take her place on the rug with a woman who has come to teach them English. Marjan utters a silent
prayer for her daughter, for this miracle of a child.
They go on to enter the community tent, where seven women are seated in folding chairs arranged in a circle. There are two
thermoses of tea and a plate of fanned-out graham crackers in the center of the circle. The tea is a simple comfort, despite
the awful squeaks made when a Styrofoam cup is pulled from the sleeve and the chemical smell of the foam.
A woman walks in, a volunteer. She carries a plastic bag heavy with fruit, a rare treat.
The women watch as she looks for a way to arrange a dozen peaches and plums on a table.
Two plums roll off. She catches one before it hits the ground.
One of the women in the group takes the other plum off the floor, wipes it clean with the sleeve of her shirt, and takes a bite.
The others follow her lead. One by one, they take two steps toward the center of the room, pluck out a fruit.
Only a few actually eat them. Most are saving it for their children.