Part 14 (1/2)
”I”ll go,” Danil said.
”Stay here.” Clarissa”s tone held authority. ”Fifteen minutes. Ruby, is Jack on speaker?”
Until now, Danil had mainly seen uncertainty and vulnerability in Clarissa. But at this moment, everyone moved to follow her instructions, even Ruby. He could see Clarissa must be capable in her other life, the one she”d lived prior to what happened to her husband. How far had she already traveled from that existence, he wondered, and how long would it take her to get back? It doesn”t matter how distant you stay from the grenade launchers and helicopters, the carbine a.s.sault rifles and the battle tanks; war poisons the air half a world away and then travels on the wind to slip into your peaceful lungs, changing everything.
He knew that he should leave but, like the others, Danil followed Clarissa”s orders. He lounged on the cus.h.i.+oned bench, feeling tired now, worn out by his night work and the energy it had taken to come to this house and initiate this conversation.
Though he was in another room, he could see the four of them sitting around the kitchen table and hear the disembodied male voice coming from the speakerphone. It seemed the authorities had nothing new to report on Clarissa”s husband. ”It”s not like a television show; things don”t always happen between commercials,” the voice said. The man sounded calm and friendly. But Danil felt a rush of distrust, knowing that a level of bureaucracy, combined with covert political concerns and a wide river of details that fell under the umbrella of ”national security,” all tended to disguise facts and smudge meanings. He wondered how much of that Clarissa had already discovered.
The group talked for about ten minutes and the mumble of their voices turned into Piotr”s voice. ”It”s weird,” Piotr had told him in one of their few overseas phone conversations. ”In some ways, I feel faceless here, the proverbial cog on the wheel. In others, Dani, I feel like I belong. For the first time in my life.”
”You didn”t feel that before?” Danil knew he sounded a little hurt.
”You know what I mean. We need each other here.”
”I need you, bro.” Danil startled even as he said it. He”d been so clear about Piotr needing him that he hadn”t realized until that moment it went the other way, too.
”I know, man,” Piotr had said, struggling for the words. ”But everything”s different over here. All we”ve got is each other. You get all these dark thoughts-” He broke off, giving up. ”Anyway, this is only for now. I”ll be home soon.”
The voice of Clarissa”s stepdaughter, tight with tension, interrupted Danil”s thoughts. ”I don”t know what we”re waiting for. Do we trust the word of some Afghan kidnappers more than we trust our own troops?”
”I agree, Ruby,” said the voice on the phone.
There was a moment of silence before Clarissa spoke. ”I know it”s frustrating,” she said. ”But Amin”s in negotiations right now. I want to stick it out. If something changes on the ground, Jack, you will let us know.”
A few minutes later, they hung up. The daughter rose, noisily got herself a gla.s.s of water, and sank back down. ”I still don”t agree,” she said, her voice strained.
Danil realized they”d forgotten he was there. He wondered if he should clear his throat to remind them, but before he could decide, the husband”s boss spoke up. ”I know it”s hard, Ruby,” he said. ”But I strongly advocate leaving this in Amin”s hands a little longer.”
”It”s more than hard, Bill.”
”Look, I”ll say it again,” the boss said. ”As soon as you introduce guns, any situation has the potential to become more chaotic. Mix in cultural and language divides, and it”s combustible. Besides, the Americans are juggling a lot of b.a.l.l.s. One kidnapped relief worker is only part of the picture for them. Amin”s interests are not muddied.”
”How can he succeed without money for ransom?” the daughter asked.
”There are longstanding relations.h.i.+ps between families that are beyond our understanding.”
”When do you speak to Amin next?” the daughter asked.
”Later today, I expect,” the boss answered. ”Tomorrow at the latest.”
”Well,” the daughter said after a moment of silence, her voice dense with frustration. ”I have to go.”
”Ruby,” Clarissa”s brother said. ”We”re all trying to do the right thing here.”
”I just wish we agreed on what that was.”
By now, Danil had shrunk back into the corner of the room and was deeply regretting not slipping away half an hour earlier. Ruby shot past the sitting room and through the front door without glancing in his direction. He heard the boss murmur something to Clarissa in a soothing tone and follow the daughter out.
”Clari, hang in there,” her brother said. ”I”ll call you tonight, okay?”
After the brother left, Danil peeked into the kitchen and saw Clarissa sitting with her forehead resting in the palm of her hand. He backed up, and b.u.mped into a chair.
”Danil.” Clarissa rose and came into the room. ”I”m sorry. I got so caught up that I forgot-”
”I should have left...”
”I think you were trying to. I wouldn”t let you.” Clarissa smiled wryly.
”I”m going to get out of your hair.”
”Not yet. Talking to you is actually helpful for me.”
”So what did he say, your husband?”
”Not much. Maybe twenty words. He sounded okay. But it was too fast. I”m trying to process everything. All I”m managing to do is be present for the FBI briefings; the rest of my life is complete confusion. And even during the briefings, I can”t seem to handle it right.”
”I don”t know if there is a right way.”
”No, there is, there must be. Todd”s daughter, she”s ... she”s angry with me. She thinks I”m crazy-or maybe something worse than crazy. She can”t understand why I can”t just trust them. I almost want to give in for her sake; we don”t need tension between us right now, and Todd wouldn”t want it.” Then she turned to him. ”What you went through was harder, Danil, of course I know that.”
Danil raised his head to meet her gaze. Her expression was quizzical. ”My brother was killed by friendly fire.”
She put her hand to her mouth and then lowered it again. Danil remained standing. The words came slowly. He hadn”t spoken to anyone about this in so long.
”They didn”t tell us at first,” he said. ”They claimed he was killed by enemy mortar during a firefight.” He felt a surge of anger and wondered when-if-it would diminish. He hesitated for a beat, but now that he”d begun, he felt like a plug had been yanked from the drain. ”They expanded the story, even. They said he was trying to drag a wounded soldier to safety when he was killed. They said he was being awarded a distinguished service medal, that it had already been approved. My mom got a letter from the president.” He made a scoffing sound. ”But something never felt right to me. I tried to explain it to my mother but it sounded like I was one of those people who thinks 9/11 was a U.S. conspiracy. She thinks she can read people, and she was convinced they were telling her the truth. Then one day, out of the blue, a soldier in my brother”s unit called me. He told me it didn”t actually go down the way the army said. I wasn”t surprised. But to hear it said baldly like that-I was kind of ....” He paused, pulled in his breath. ”I wanted the details. The reason I went to Afghanistan? To look my brother”s commander in the eye. To tell him my brother thought these guys were his best friends. And it worked. Person to person, he came clean. He told me he never wanted to keep it secret in the first place.”
”How”d it happen?”
”They”d been airlifted to this area in the middle of f.u.c.king nowhere in the dead of night. They were told to wait until dawn and then they began foot-patrolling the outskirts of some village that they thought held al-Qaeda or Taliban. Insurgents, terrorists-what the h.e.l.l, probably just a bunch of farmers with guns. They spent a couple hours climbing down steep mountainsides, searching crannies in between rocks for stored weapons or ammunition. Finally they were on their way out when they got pinned down by small arms fire that seemed to come from across a ridge. It was morning, about ten-twenty. They ducked and radioed in coordinates. There was some kind of malfunction with the tactical communication systems, but one second lieutenant was able to radio information out. The military sent in air power as backup. Either the pilot got confused or the right message never reached him. It was chaotic; and I think that”s how it is more often than we know. These guys were in firefights about every other day. They”d lost four soldiers over the previous month. They were probably all mentally fried. My brother was killed by cannon fire from a low-flying F18 on a strafing run.”
”Oh G.o.d.”
Danil”s legs suddenly felt heavy; he sat down. ”But there were all kinds of PR reasons not to record it that way. When I got back, I tried to contact our liaison-they give you a liaison when you lose a relative at war. I left a message-a mistake-and told him what I knew, and pushed for an investigation. He didn”t call me back for weeks. When I got hold of him finally, he said they”d done an internal investigation, and the friendly fire allegation wasn”t true.”
”What?”
”Yeah. Can you believe it? So then I tried to contact my brother”s commander again, and I never have been able to reach him. It goes on from there; I spent a lot of time trying to be heard. Trying to get an inquest. They kept sending me reports that showed he was killed by enemy fire. During that period, I did my first street art about the war. And it felt more satisfying than all the struggling, and more important for my brother, in some crazy way. So I stopped. I stopped all those efforts to correct the official records, and put my frustration into the work.”
”Danil.” She shook her head.
”But here”s the deal. My mother won”t accept it. She insists my brother was killed by al Qaeda-not the Taliban, not farmers p.i.s.sed off by the foreigners on their land, and certainly not fellow Americans. For her, that”s the only way he”s a hero, if a bunch of internationally recognized terrorists killed him. That”s the only way she can accept that he”s gone. I told her the two have nothing to do with one another, that Piotr is a hero and he was before he went to war, but-” He broke off.
”That”s hard.”
”We aren”t talking anymore,” he said. ”But before we stopped talking, she begged me not to tell anyone what happened. What I say happened, that”s how she puts it. And I promised.”
Clarissa drew in a breath.
”Yeah,” Danil said. ”So that”s the problem with doing a show and getting asked questions about my brother. I”m not supposed to tell the real story.”