Part 16 (2/2)

She”d been calm and strong all the way through this last part, except with Mikey an hour before she”d left to catch the flight.

”You did good, Clarissa.”

She shook her head. ”I”d let Todd lift the pain of those other losses, so when I thought I was going to have to go through it all again, I...you know.”

”Grief is stubborn. It holds on a long time,” Mikey said. ”When you think it”s over, something touches it off again. But you weren”t like with Mom and Dad, Clari. If the worst had happened, you”d have found the resources.”

She wasn”t sure. She decided not to be too hard on herself now, though. Now was a time to feel grat.i.tude-especially for Amin. He”d given her something she really, deep down, hadn”t thought possible: a happy ending. Thinking about how close they”d come, she leaned against Mikey.

”I know,” he murmured as he let her cry. ”I know.”

Arriving Home Amin, September 22nd He left directly before dawn and stopped only once, pulling the mat from the trunk to pray by the side of the road. He tried not to let his eagerness to get home make him rush through the praise of Allah, because it was surely Allah Himself who had cupped Amin in His hands this time and seen him through this venture. But except for the prayer, he sped as quickly as he could over the pockmarked roads that led from his uncle”s home to his own. It was still early when he arrived. Though she”d been given no word as to when he might appear, his wife stood at the door as if she”d been expecting him, and he for his part was not surprised to see her there. He lifted her palms to his face, smelling on her the scent of dawn, and of his home.

”And so, my wife of little faith,” he said lightly.

”Congratulations, husband,” she responded as she led him inside. ”You have returned. You took a risk.”

”Not such a risk.”

She laughed. ”Such confidence rides on your voice.”

”I confess to a certain doubt at one point about whether Mr. Todd would agree to this compromise with his kidnappers,” he said. ”But I reminded myself that the past is not the present. Najib was asked to sneak from his own homeland. That”s different.”

”Except that a man”s pride is as powerful as it is illogical,” she said, pouring him a cup of chai. ”It can lead him to embrace an unreasonable act or refuse a reasonable one.”

”You speak not of me, of course, but of Najib and Mr. Todd,” he said, allowing himself to smile.

She ran her fingers lightly along his arm. ”And now, husband. Can we consider that whatever debt you thought you owed has been paid?”

”So you regard an infidel as adequate payment for an Afghan president?”

She shook her head. ”To me, such calculations always seem to be the work of men, not women.”

If he were a different sort of man, he thought, or if they were from a different country, he would laugh with a wide mouth and scoop his wife into his arms. She filled him with pride; she was strong and determined, and she would raise their children well in a place that tore its offspring from the ground by their roots and flung them into sharp-toothed canyons of fate. There were sorrows ahead, he was sure; there were always sorrows here. But with her, he could meet them. He drank deeply of the chai, controlling the leap of his heart within his chest.

She left him alone then, sensing in some way his need, and he sank onto a toshak. Mr. Todd-a thinner, weaker, limping Mr. Todd-had been both apologetic and grateful, and willing without question to do as Amin had promised the elders he would. He would leave immediately. He would never return. The elders could count this as a victory. There remained a much larger battle to be fought here, but someone else would fight it. Amin had been relieved.

”Crazy as it sounds,” Mr. Todd had said, ”I heard your voice sometimes. Telling me what to do.”

Amin laughed. ”And so you?”

”Did it.” Mr. Todd smiled. ”Mostly.”

They”d shaken hands. Amin wondered if they would ever see one another again.

Probably not-but neither would they forget.

One man is not the same as another. Success in one venture does not make up for horrible failure in another. And yet, in some way, this was a private commemoration. Dear Najib, Amin thought. You were large and flawed and prophetic and bull-like. I admired you, and still I could not save you. I will never stop being sorry. But at least, at least there was this.

CONCLUSION.

Cover him, cover him soon!

And with thick-set Ma.s.ses of memoried flowers- Hide that red wet Thing I must somehow forget.

-Ivor Gurney Najibullah: The Last Night September 26th, 1996 Only now has it fallen quiet, as if finally the day is finished, though in fact it is almost midnight. Only now have the distant gunshots stilled, the rockets stopped making exclamation points in the darkness. It is not, however, a peaceful silence, this Amin feels deep within his body. It is the hush of muscles tensed, breath contained, knees bent in readiness to pounce.

Both Najib and his brother are awake. They are in the room Najib uses for welcoming visitors. Najib, standing, wears socks but no shoes and the Afghan-style clothing he has favored here all along; his brother, who sits, is dressed as if a Western man. Only one of the two bodyguards remains outside the door. The other eloped into the warning night without explanation, and no one has mentioned his disappearance. It is, at the moment, too small a detail to be of import.

Amin could go, too. His services are not required. Najib has barely eaten for days; he won”t want food now. And the brothers have chai enough to last them through to morning, if morning still comes. They do not need him. They are as if in a bubble together, communicating with only a few words but with enormous intimacy. They seem, in fact, to have forgotten his presence. But Amin can”t bring himself to depart.

”These men are illiterate,” Shahpur says. ”They are animals. They all believe their swords must be reddened.”

”They are our Pashtun cousins,” Najib insists.

”This is not a fairytale. These are Talibs. You are too smart to be fooled by them,” Shahpur says. ”You have cursed the mujahideen, but these fighters will make the mujahideen seem like princes.”

”They have honor, I”m sure of it.” Najib paces toward the window. ”At least some. And besides, perhaps there is still time for...” His voice trails off, as if he himself can no longer believe his optimistic words. He drops into a chair and his shoulders slump in a way Amin has not seen in all these years.

”Perhaps,” Shahpur offers in a tone of appeas.e.m.e.nt, ”they will put you on trial, hoping to legitimize their government in international eyes.”

”You think they care about international eyes?” Then Najib straightens. ”You remember when we organized the protest, and threw eggs at Spiro Agnew? Perhaps they will throw eggs at me.” He laughs, but it is not a Najib laugh. It is weaker.

”Those were more innocent times. We ourselves were more innocent.”

”You want innocence?” Suddenly Najib grows animated. ”Remember when we decorated the camels in Peshawar, you and I? Bells and ribbons! They made music when they walked, and Father said: 'There is no holiday. You have decorated them pointlessly.” But Mother said, A decorated camel is never pointless.”” Najib laughs, stronger this time. ”Remember the game we used to play, trailing after Father as he wound through the old marketplace to visit his friend at the goldsmiths, or the man who sold spices? How we pretended to be invisible, and convinced ourselves we were because he did such a good job of ignoring us. Finally he would turn and shoo us away, and we would giggle and run. We never tired of that game. Remember the light in the Khyber Pa.s.s-oh, Shahpur-and the golden sand, and the way the dust would coat our skin? Magic. I used to hate to wash it off.” He takes a deep breath and his voice becomes quieter; Amin leans forward to hear. ”Remember Mama”s hands at the end, how they grew so soft and clumsy. But we held them, you and I, together that final night, Shahpur. Another ending, and we were together then as well.”

”What”s all this memory?” Shahpur asks, and he laughs, but his laughter sounds fearful.

”There are still things I can do; I can control my thoughts. I want to think of those times. You are given the task of helping me. Can you recite some lines of poetry Father taught us?”

”Now?” Shahpur spreads his hands helplessly. ”I am honored to be your brother, but I have not your wit or willpower.”

”All right then, we”ll make music. A thing they would forbid, those foolish boys. Join me, brother.” Najib begins to play the arms of his chair as if they were drums, and he sings-at least it is intended as song, Amin knows, and meant to summon bravery. But it emerges as a wordless, wide-mouthed tune from deep in the belly, from a soul in sorrow. Shahpur drops his head in his hands, and Amin himself cannot bear it anymore.

He should have stepped forward then, out of the shadows. He should have offered an escape route again; the plan was no longer ready for immediate launching but the two men might have followed him home and hidden there until something, something could be done. He doesn”t repeat his offer. The depth of his emotions, the complexity of the moment and his undone plans defy him. This, then, is his failure. Unable to think or to see through the water of his eyes, he hurries into the night. He believes he has witnessed history enough.

Epilogue.

In the predawn hours of September 27th, 1996, Taliban rebels fought their way into Kabul and, while most Kabulis slept, overran the UN compound, dragging Dr. Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai and his brother outside. They castrated and tortured Najibullah, dragging him behind a car through Kabul streets before hanging him from a concrete post in Aryana Square, in front of the city”s most luxurious hotel. Residents found his mutilated, bloated and blood-soaked body the next morning, with rolled up Afghani bills stuck in his nose and mouth and between his fingers, his brother hanging beside him. Their bodies remained on display for two days.

Najibullah spent ten years, from 1965 to 1975, getting his medical degree from Kabul University. During that time, he was jailed twice for political activities. In 1980, he was appointed head of KHAD, the secret police. Under his leaders.h.i.+p, thousands of Afghans were arrested, tortured and executed. Appointed President of Afghanistan in 1985, he oversaw the withdrawal of Soviet soldiers in 1989. He continued to rule Afghanistan until April 1992, when he agreed to step down as part of a UN-brokered agreement that involved him handing over power to an interim government and leaving the country. But before he could depart, Uzbek warlord Abdul Ras.h.i.+d Dostum, his former ally, blocked his safe pa.s.sage.

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