Part 8 (1/2)

She nodded.

The stiff posture of her back, the rootedness of her feet, made a statement that demanded a response. ”I have to,” he said.

She shook her head. ”No, you don”t.”

”I have to do everything I can.”

”Everything you can from the safety of our home, fine. Traveling into Ghazni, speaking out there on behalf of an American: this is madness. Were you so long away from this country that you forgot?”

”I have to do what I can. He”s my boss, and he”s human, and he”s done nothing wrong. It”s not nationality that matters.”

”In your mind, yes. But not in theirs.”

”What about yours?” he asked. ”Would you feel better if it weren”t an American I was trying to help?”

She didn”t answer.

”It”s not as simple as us against them,” he said. ”It”s never been that simple. It”s all of us-Mr. Todd, and you, and me, and the others-and among us are some of them. You know that.”

She turned and knelt before a wide-mouthed bowl she”d already filled with bread dough. She dove her right hand into the bowl and began kneading. The sight soothed him.

”Us. Them,” she said after a minute. ”A fine and esoteric argument. It will not help when they ask if you love infidels.”

”I can manage their questions.” He spoke with greater confidence than he felt. She wasn”t fooled.

”Like my uncle did?” His wife”s uncle, a policeman in Wardak, had been shot to death by Talibs five months ago simply because he worked for the government.

”I am not going to be killed, Samira. This is a jirga.”

”And you think they will support this American over their own?”

”It”s a matter of honor. They are real Pashtuns. They will decide as they should.”

She laughed, a little harshly. ”Real Pashtuns. That”s what you count on?” She rose, dusted her hand on her skirt, stepped back and examined him. ”Do you know a single one of them personally?”

”My uncle is part of the jirga; I told you that.”

”He is your mother”s cousin. What do you know about him?”

”Samira, enough,” Amin said gently. ”If I am to be the father my children would look up to, I have to do this.”

She lowered her voice and moved closer to him. ”Oh no, don”t bring your children into this. Your impulse is as pure as a mud puddle, and you are only paying half-attention to your own mind and heart, Amin, if you don”t see that.” He didn”t answer, so she went on. ”You”re trying to change something that can”t be changed anymore. Something I think could never have been changed by you alone, but in any case, that caravan has moved on, years ago. Why are the dogs still barking?”

He sighed and sunk to his heels, squatting, so that he looked up at her as he spoke. He knew this would help soften her. ”I could have done more, back then,” he said. ”And yes, it troubles me still. But this is not related to that.”

”Really? I think-do you want to know?”

He smiled. ”If I didn”t? Whatever is in your heart always rises to your tongue, Samira jan.”

”You are being selfish in putting yourself in danger because of decades-old guilt. You”re not thinking of your children at all.”

He almost laughed at the courage it clearly took her to say this. Theirs had been an arranged marriage; she was the daughter of his father”s cousin, seven years younger than he. He”d found her beautiful, but so shy. They”d lived together in the States for two years while he studied, and then returned. Once back, she”d faced the criticism of her family, who thought Amin was misguided-or even immoral-to work with foreigners. Under these pressures, he”d observed her strength and confidence grow, and he loved her more profoundly than when they were first married.

He rose. ”Is this what you want to say to me in the moments before I leave?” he asked mildly.

”Our final conversation, you mean?” She glared at him.

”Samira, Allah is with me,” Amin said. ”But that was easier to achieve than gaining your support.”

A weak smile appeared unbidden on her face, then vanished. ”I see what you refuse to,” she said.

”I see it,” he said. ”But I have to try. Inshallah, Mr. Todd will be freed, and I”ll come back. Inshallah, in three days this will be done. Now, give me something of your love to carry with me.”

She stood silently for a moment, then went to the corner of the room, rummaged in a trunk and returned with a piece of cloth he knew she”d cut from her wedding veil. He handed her his cup and put the cloth in a pocket inside his vest. He put his hand on her cheek, but she pulled away. ”I am not ready to be a widow,” she said. ”My children are not ready to be fatherless.”

”A few days, Samira.” He smiled at her, gave her a wink. ”And then I will be hungry, my wife. So be ready for my return.”

Clarissa, September 12th By the time Clarissa reaches the phone, it”s gone dead. It rings again, almost immediately, and she lifts the receiver. Todd”s voice, asking for something both urgent and vague. She calls his name and rushes to reply-wait, Todd, wait for me-but then out of her mouth, instead of words, a river of color spills: yellow becoming orange becoming red, flowing away from her in an arc.

Clarissa awoke fevered, and fully, as if she'd just run a block, panting, with no tendrils left behind in the thick mud of la.s.situde. The call, Todd”s voice, the colors: it felt like a memory, but must have been a dream.

She turned on her side. Thursday morning, 2:53 a.m., if one believed the clock by her bed. More like noon, going by her own body. Which made some kind of sense: it was nearly 11:30 a.m. in Kabul, and she was living in two diametrically opposed time zones now. She flipped on the lights and glanced around the bedroom. Her possessions had begun to look strange to her, unfamiliar and unwelcome: an oblong tube of hand-cream erect on the nightstand as if prepared to blast off and take flight, unread magazines lying fallen and limp, a closet with skirts clinging one to the next like timid sisters. None of it meant anything to her. Grief combined with fear had the force of a blizzard in the city, changing the shapes of buildings, turning the solid suddenly illusionary, obscuring all dependable landmarks.

The only item she felt she needed-and even its practical use remained unclear-was a map of Afghanistan the FBI had given her; she”d posted it on the wall. Sometimes she stood close to it, becoming intimate with the country”s geography: the terrain of regions, the location of provinces, the jumble of letters that made up the names of tiny villages. Sometimes she stood at a distance to study it, and the shape of Afghanistan became the profile of a woman gazing thoughtfully down at Pakistan, with Iran at her back and Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan on her head. What were these places? Except for Todd”s presence, they meant nothing to her. She knew little of the terrain or the weather, and the towns were filled with strangers. Jack said they thought Todd was being held in Ghazni Province, right about where the woman”s eye would be. A US military presence remained in the province, but it was Talibanheld, Clarissa knew. Talibs had carried out a.s.sa.s.sinations of local officials, as well as previous kidnappings, including the well-known abduction a few years back of 23 South Korean missionaries. After 42 days, all but two were safely released. The other two: killed. Grim details; still, in certain moods, she found them comforting. As though mathematical odds could be extrapolated.

At this moment, however, nothing comforted. She went downstairs to the tiny room that was Todd”s study, opened the door and flipped on the lights. On the long desk sat a pile of yellow legal pads. She picked one up to read Todd”s scrawl. ”Center expansion. Laura? Technical training-social media.” In a corner on the floor, she saw three news magazines and a book spread at its spine, as if Todd had just put it down. Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence. Pinned to the wall above the light switch, a snapshot showed Todd, grinning, standing in the middle of a group of people. He”d told her the names of some, but Clarissa had met none of them. She felt sharply isolated. Who were they? How well did they know Todd? What would they tell Clarissa to do? What should she be doing?

Looking at the photo, she began to feel the walls squeeze in, an image from horror movies, she told herself. She sought a logical mind, but could find no other way to cla.s.sify the sensation. In the first days after the kidnapping, shock had made it seem as if her eyes were being tugged toward her temples. Then fear left her stomach as raw as the inside of a carved pumpkin. But this new off-kilter reality-this sense that what had previously comforted her now threatened her-was something else, something she couldn”t yet name. She found it hard to breathe and even more, she was struck by the illogical certainty that if she didn”t eject herself from her home, she might be crushed.

She”d never been given to insomnia before. She loved this two-story apartment that she and Todd had bought three years ago. On the rare occasions when she did awaken in the night, she”d found comfort in knowing she was safely coc.o.o.ned in a place that felt, for the first time she could remember, like home. With all lights off, she could glide to the fridge, or find her way to her reading chair, or confidently locate the front-door handle to make sure it was locked. This home felt like an extension of self, a sanctuary.

Now, though, it seemed whatever turmoil waited on the city streets for a lone woman on foot was less dangerous than what hovered inside.

And if she was feeling trapped here in her sanctuary, how did Todd feel, confined in someplace she struggled to imagine? She”d pictured a small compound, set apart from its neighbors and surrounded by high walls. Within, a building, the color of terracotta. She envisioned a thick but dusty rug on the floor along with a thinly padded mat for sleeping. One window, surely: the bit of blue sky a redemption. Any books? Probably not. A radio would also be too much to hope for. And the food? She wondered if he”d lost weight. He”d told her he had an iron stomach, which must be acting in his favor now, helping him stay physically strong. Emotionally, she imagined him solid too, calm and confident. She didn”t have it in her to imagine anything else.

Already wearing sweatpants and a T-s.h.i.+rt, she tied the laces to her tennis shoes, tugged a sweats.h.i.+rt over her head and slipped downstairs. Her stomach felt hollow. Hunger had largely left her during these last days-she”d always been an indifferent eater, but now she found herself forgetting about food altogether until she”d notice her hands were shaking. Ruby kept dropping off dishes, and Clarissa didn”t have the heart to tell her to stop. Clarissa”s kitchen had grown crowded and she felt guilty having all that food around as if she were preparing for a party. Now, by the light of the refrigerator, she ate half a yogurt, putting the remainder back before going out the side door on the ground floor.

The air had fallen still, almost tranquil, something that happened only at night in the city and rarely even then. It felt crisp, but tempered by a bit of Indian summer. The street lamp in front of her building spilled a murky teardrop on the sidewalk. To the left was the known neighborhood, to the right, less so. She hesitated only for a second, then turned right and began to walk, focusing on long strides, wanting to feel her body in motion, her arms swinging. Her sluggishness diminished with each step. At the corner, she headed toward Eastern Parkway, relatively well lit, and began to walk under the shadow of its paired trees, their kissing branches like a promise above her head.

She tried to relax as she walked. She wished she could think about something else for a while, but she couldn”t, and now the previous day”s conversation with the FBI ran through her mind. Jack on the speakerphone, Ruby, Mikey, Bill Snyder and Clarissa sitting in her kitchen.

”One more contact,” Jack had said at the start of the conversation, and she”d felt her breath catch in her throat-each ”contact” felt hopeful and abrasive at once. The Feds had a local guy speaking to the kidnappers separately, even as Amin tried his own path. To Clarissa, it seemed a little muddled, but Jack told her they didn”t want to let this connection go unless Amin seemed to be making what he called ”bankable progress.”

”They repeated their demand for $1.5 million,” Jack said. ”They also said they”d like to speak directly to you, Clarissa.”

”They asked for her by name?” Mikey asked.

”To his wife, they said. We told them we would check to see when that would be possible, and they are calling again this week, they said.”

”What do they want with Clarissa?” Mikey”s tone was protective.