by John Renehan
Danny wandered over and situated himself nearby, squatting on his haunches with his back against a tree. They chatted quietly.
An hour passed with little other talking, except when a nearby soldier asked Black to repeat his Chuck Norris joke. It had made its way through the outpost and was now famous in its lameness.
Caine’s radio chirped nearby, startling him. The sergeant, sitting on a log, looked like he’d been getting a bit groggy himself. He stood and unclipped the handset from his body armor, walking toward the edge of the wood line to survey the valley below.
He came back a minute later, speaking in low tones into the radio. Soldiers in the woods around them rustled to life and climbed to their feet.
“Time to go, L.T.,” he said. “They’re gonna meet us down there.”
They traveled the same route Merrick had taken. The downhill going was dodgy at first, loose dirt and pebbles slipping away beneath their sliding boots. As they descended, the slope lessened and grass came up underfoot. They emerged into clear sunlight. Soon they were traveling along reedy green flats near the river.
Black was surprised by how lush it was here, compared with the arid terrain of so much of the country. Flowering shade trees overhanging with shrubs springing up around them, everything subsisting on the nearby river water. It was, frankly, beautiful.
A squat building of timber and stone sat ahead among a clustering of trees between the trail and the river. It looked like it had several rooms in it. Black turned back to Danny questioningly.
“This . . .” Danny searched for the word. “Birth house. Babies, momma.”
He explained how in Nuristan villages children were born in a special building outside of town where they and their mothers would stay for a few days.
“Medicine is bad,” he said. “Many die.”
Past the birthing house they found Merrick and his squad. He turned wordlessly and pressed forward. After another hundred yards or so he turned and bore right, uphill. Caine and the rest of the patrol followed. They were now directly downslope of the village, which Black could see above them through the remaining trees.
Two dark-haired women came downhill, heading toward the river. One wore a black garment somewhere between a dress and a robe, which went down to her ankles. The other’s was similar but brown. Both wore embroidered blue scarves around their necks in a light fabric, which they loosely curled up and around the backs of their heads. They kept their eyes on the ground as the soldiers passed and moved on toward their business.
The patrol pressed upward and reached the outskirts of the village, passing the first mud homes as they climbed toward the hillslopes. Outside one a boy of about fifteen in a goatskin vest bent to lace a hide boot. He straightened as they passed. Caine gave him a small wave good morning. The boy watched them impassively from behind green, studying eyes.
More homes appeared on each side. Some were more or less huts. Some were made of stone and logs, and others almost entirely of skillfully crafted wood. A couple had more than one story to them. Smoke from morning hearths trickled upward from more than one.
None of them had fences or barriers around them, despite being built in some cases very close to one another. He’d never seen that in Afghanistan.
People came and went on their morning business. Silver-haired men in gray and black cloaks trudged uphill, squat Chitrali hats or checked keffiyeh scarves protecting them from the sun. Probably heading toward the slopes where their goats grazed.
Women headed uphill too, veering off in a different direction from the men. Black followed their path with his eyes and saw that the lower hillsides were terraced for crops. The usable land must have been extremely limited in a landscape like the Valley’s.
Beyond the immediate buildings, sprightly children tore around corners after one another. Black heard Danny speaking behind him and turned. The linguist had broken off to the side and intercepted one of them, a boy of twelve or so whom he apparently knew.
After a perfunctory embrace he spoke a few words to the child, who nodded once before turning and jogging away uphill, past Black and the rest of the patrol, waving here and there to a soldier he knew. Past Merrick, who trudged on purposefully, straight through the heart of town, making no effort to interact with anyone.
None of the adults seemed to pay them much attention regardless. Caine waved or nodded to people here and there. These overtures were received with what Black could only read as tolerant disinterest, a sort of blankness. The rest of the soldiers seemed to follow Merrick’s lead and kept to themselves, scanning the distance and climbing the hill.
Danny had fallen in beside Black, who looked over his shoulder at the line of guys behind him. Corelli was two soldiers back, making his way up. He stared straight ahead as he went, both hands on his rifle, eyes fixed on some invisible point before him.
A scrum of children playing chase came tearing around a close corner and nearly ran smack into Black and Danny. Seeing the soldiers they skidded on the brakes, coming up short. They looked up at the two men wide-eyed.
Danny gave them a smiling wave and greeting in a language that didn’t sound like Pashto. The children just stared at him and Black and began backing up toward the houses, nearly tripping over one another.
A girl in a loose head scarf and dark robe with brightly colored, ornate stitching at the cuffs and hem stepped forward from the gaggle and looked up at Black. Her eyes were such a bright blue they almost looked silver. She smiled and reached under her scarf and pulled a red flower from her short-cropped dark hair, offering it to Black. He reached down and had just taken it before an older boy smacked her head and sent her scampering away.
Black poked the flower’s stem through the nylon webbing on his body armor. Danny and Caine had been right. The people were striking. He saw red hair and fair skin mingled among the more traditional Afghan types.
They seemed . . . healthy. Hearty. He was used to Afghans who looked like they could use a good meal. They shook your hand like a wisp of willow. There was no doubt these Valley people were deeply impoverished by Western, or even Afghan, standards. But the hard mountain living had done something to them. They held an intense energy within themselves, even when still.
The patrol was nearing the slopes. The houses spread out ahead of them around a patchy clearing of grass and dry dirt.
Black figured this for the center of town that Brydon and Corelli had spoken about. At the far end of it, nestled against the hill, sat what was obviously the chief’s house.
It was nothing impressive except by the standards of the town. It had two floors and its walls were smooth, neither stone nor stucco, with heavy woodwork including a wooden balcony on the second story. It too had no fence, and as they entered the clearing Black saw a middle-aged man in a gray robe standing before it. He turned to Danny and raised his eyebrows: Him?
Danny shook his head.
Merrick had come to a stop in the middle of the clearing. Soldiers spread out briskly to take up security positions at regular intervals around the fringes. Townspeople here and there cast glances over their shoulders, curious what was going on.
Merrick motioned Caine to him. Black and Danny hung back.
Black could hear little of what was said between them except Merrick saying, “You.” Caine turned and waved Black and Danny forward.
They strode across the grass and dirt to where the two sergeants waited.
“Okay, Lieutenant,” said Merrick irritably. “We’re here.”
He gestured about himself as though at a total loss.
“What are your orders?”
It was a war-movie line. No one said What are your orders? in the actual Army, unless they were sending the message that Merrick was now obviously sending: You wanna come here and play investigator? Fine. This whole thing is yours, SIR. Anything that goes wrong is on you.
Black ign
ored the provocation.
“You know why we’re here,” he answered, letting his weariness with the sharp-elbowed sergeant creep into his voice.
“One half hour,” Merrick said tersely. “One minute more and you can walk back by yourself.”
Black was considering what to say in reply to this when Caine stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder.
“All right, then, sir,” he said, gently turning Black away from Merrick. “I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time.”
“No, you won’t,” Merrick said sharply. “Half an hour, Caine.”
Caine turned and gave Merrick a look as he ushered Black around the tall sergeant and toward the house.
“Don’t worry about it, L.T.,” he said as they crossed the clearing away from Merrick.
He stepped into the lead, letting Black and Danny follow him.
The man waiting in front of the chief’s house stood rock still and watched them as they approached. His robe was plain, but the flattened little hat was roped in ornate blues and silvers. His face was sun-lined and his short beard showed touches of gray, though Black figured him for early forties, tops. Black slung his rifle over his back and removed his gloves, stuffing them in a pocket.
Caine stepped up to the man and placed a hand over his heart.
“Salaam alaykum.”
The man returned the greeting with a blank face and leaned forward for a perfunctory embrace. He looked over Caine’s shoulder at Black as he did so. Danny stepped forward next and repeated the ritual, adding a few words in Pashto. Along with Dari, it was the closest thing there was to a lingua franca in the province, whose remote valleys hosted five Nuristani languages in many subdialects.
The man shook his head as he responded and waved a hand as though to say No, no, not a bother. His face looked like it most certainly was a bother.
Black guessed that Danny was apologizing for asking to meet the chief on such short notice. Probably the first word the chief had gotten was from the boy Danny sent scurrying up the hill.
Danny turned and indicated Black, speaking again to the man in Pashto. The man nodded curtly.
“Salaam.”
He turned without another word and walked up a little stone path to the chief’s house. They followed.
“Chief’s brother,” Danny whispered to Black. “Cranky.”
The man strode to the door and pulled it open, shouting two words into the threshold. He stood to the side and held it open, frowning. He raised his chin and looked into the distance as they passed.
Caine went first, then Danny, then Black. He was immediately impressed.
The place was deceptively spacious and unexpectedly well appointed. Smooth tan walls rose from a dark tile floor to a lofted second story, leaving a high ceiling over the great room in which they stood. Natural light spilled down from an opening in the second-floor roof. Music filled the room from somewhere—a scratchy monophonic recording of a woman singing joyously in yet another language Black did not recognize.
On the floor before them lay a broad rug in a roughly Persian design. Dark tapestries hung on the walls. A squat, expertly crafted table in pitch-dark wood sat in the middle of the rug. Around it at leisurely intervals were arranged several high-backed chairs in the same wood, with seats of leather cross-strapping. In the tallest of these, facing the doorway, sat the chief. He rose as they entered and spread his hands wide.
He was tall, nearly as tall as Merrick, and impressively built. Beneath his light tan robes stood a man of obvious prowess. He was strapping and vital where his brother seemed clenched and mild, and despite his gray whiskers he looked as though he could jog to the nearest mountaintop on a whim. His eyes shone silver over bladed, wax-brown cheekbones as he extended ropy arms out before him, beaming toothily as though these foreign intruders were his dearest friends.
“Sergeant,” he said in deeply accented English, stepping forward to Caine and drawing him into an embrace.
He turned to Danny next and greeted him in Pashto, squeezing him around the middle like a tube of toothpaste. Stepping back, he looked expectantly past the two of them at Black.
Danny spoke a couple of sentences while gesturing toward Black, who heard his name spoken. When he finished, the chief stepped forward.
“Lieutenant,” he said in deeply accented English.
“Salaam,” Black choked out as he too was crushed in a muscled embrace.
The chief stepped back again and spoke to the three of them, gesturing broadly with his arms as he did so.
“Welcome again, my friends, to my home,” Danny translated for him. “And welcome to Lieutenant Black, a new friend through the blessings of God.”
Black smiled awkwardly and nodded.
Still looking at Black, the chief inclined his head toward Danny and spoke a couple of sentences, eyes twinkling. Danny chuckled and turned to Black.
“He says the last officer who comes visit him is a captain, and he hopes he has not offended the U.S. Army.”
He meant the Civil Affairs guy. Black forced a laugh, which the chief returned.
“Breaking your balls, L.T.,” said Caine, grinning.
“I explain,” Danny told them, and began speaking to the chief again in Pashto.
The chief’s brow furrowed and he asked a question.
“The other lieutenant,” Danny said, “he says he has not seen in many days. He asks where he is today? I tell.”
Black listened while Danny explained. The chief apparently took great interest in the concept of R&R leave. At the end, he smiled pleasantly and spoke in measured tones, looking at Caine as he did.
Danny registered surprise.
“Um, this is . . .” Danny began, flustered, hands circling.
“This is . . .” He searched for the word. “Nervous?”
He found it.
“Awkward.”
“What’s up?” Caine asked.
“Um, the chief, he says . . .”
Danny looked at the floor and cleared his throat.
“If you do not mind, Sergeant Caine, he asks if he talks to the lieutenant alone.”
Caine’s face went blank a moment.
“Uh, yeah,” he said, brightening unconvincingly. “Yeah, sure. No problem.”
Black looked at Danny, confused. Danny looked at the chief. The chief looked at Black.
16
I like this,” said Black to the chief as he sat in the chair.
He motioned with his hand to indicate the music. Danny translated. The chief grinned.
“This is music of my people,” Danny relayed. “Very old. Before Islam comes this place.”
“Her voice is beautiful.”
Black wondered if any American had ever asked the chief about his music. The chief smiled and nodded. He said something to Danny, who nodded and chuckled something in reply.
“He says the young officer has good taste,” Danny told an expectant Black. “I tell him you are scholar. Man of history.”
A thought struck the chief. He waved Black back out of his seat—come, come—and led him around the chairs to a far corner of the room, near a bright window. He gestured proudly to a wooden cabinet in the corner, chest high with a drawer at the bottom, a fabric opening overlaid with wooden scrollwork in the middle front, and an open lid on top. As he approached, Black realized it was a large and clearly very old record player.
It was gorgeous. Rose-stained woodwork with careful piping carved along the rim. A removable crank protruding from a metal notch in the side. A real mechanical phonograph. The amplification horn must have been hidden in the cabinet beneath the turntable. The woman’s voice rang out strong and full from behind the fabric opening.
He bent and inspected the metal badge screwed behind the turntable. EDISON, it read. MODEL C200. Black guessed 1920s. What it was doing far up
this Nuristani valley in a house on a mountainside he could only guess.
He realized that he had his nose practically to the side of the player. He straightened, embarrassed.
“This is a beautiful piece of equipment,” he said to Danny. “Can you ask him where he got it?”
Danny did so. It was obviously what the chief had been waiting for. He beamed, hands on his hips, and spoke a single word.
Even Danny seemed surprised.
“Russians,” he said in wonder.
When the Soviets invaded and occupied Afghanistan in the 1970s, the chief explained, his valley and those all around it were the site of a great deal of heavy fighting. Nuristan, he said, had been the first province to mount a successful revolt against the communists and expel them.
“From this fire,” Danny translated, “all Afghanistan catch the fire. All Afghan people see people of Nuristan defeat the Russian army. All Afghan people fight Russians.”
The chief spoke directly to Black next, his eyes shining.
“All times in history, all peoples love Nuristan land and Nuristan beauty. All peoples want have Nuristan for his own land. Alexander and Greek man, British man, Russian man. All man try.”
His gaze bore into Black.
“All man fail.”
Black shifted uncomfortably.
“Now Taliban man,” the chief went on, through Danny. “He will try. He will fail. Valley belongs only to God. And we keep for him.”
Black nodded. The chief brightened.
“The officer forgets his question,” came the translation. “Where I get this player? I get this from Russian big general.”
Black’s eyebrows went up in surprise, which the chief clearly loved seeing.
“Fancy H.Q.,” he went on. “Far down valley. Food, alcohol, music.”
With a sweeping arm he cast all these aside like toys. Then he shrugged.