Ashes and Light

by Karen L. McKee

  “Believe nothing of what a kofr says. They are the galamjam of these days. No better than carpet thieves. They take everything.”

  “But sometimes they know more of our history. So much has been destroyed.”

  “History is not as important as Islam.”

  “History brought me here, Aisha.” Khadija felt the other woman’s anger as Aisha dragged Khadija from the lapis display. “My mother’s great-grandmother was a Tajik princess. Her father was a great mystic and a poet. Rabbani hopes my father’s marriage to that bloodline will aid in the meetings here. That history let me bring the precious thing I carry.”

  “It is a history of unbelievers,” Aisha said. “It should be destroyed. The devout have no room for pretty stories or poetry. There are only Allah’s and the Prophet’s words. They sustain us.”

  Khadija’s logical side thought of her father’s penchant for Sufi philosophy, of her mother’s family. They had been Shi’ite. Why should that history be rejected? It was Afghani. But she was not here to argue family pride.

  They passed the two ragged buildings that served as hotels to the few foreign press, and avoided the new town that housed aid agencies such as Médicins sans Frontières. Aisha led the way down to the bridge that crossed over the Kokcha River where old men used sheepskins in an ancient practice that netted gold dust from the water.

  Not far along a dirt road outside of town, they came to a stone-fenced holding with a low, crumbling, mud house.

  Aisha knocked boldly on the faded wooden door and they waited. The scent of sheep and dung lay sweet on Khadija’s tongue, but the wind was too cold, the sunlight too bright reflected off stone.

  All her small Kaabul errands were nothing compared to what she did now. She had become a soldier of the jihad. She would kill those who killed her brother.

  “This is no place for women. Leave!” A man peered down from the roof of the house, brandishing a rifle. He was dressed as a shepherd, with a shepherd’s small, crowned hat.

  “We have business,” Aisha said. “We are the sheepskins of Allah.”

  The door pulled open a crack.

  “We find the gold of his words. We reject the kofr ways the West would impose.” A man’s voice came from the dark interior.

  The door pulled farther open, exposing a thin, bearded man wearing a long salwar kameez and a black turban. His eyes were almost black, and seemed to glitter coldly with inner light. His gaze flickered disapprovingly from Aisha to Khadija.

  “This is the one? A woman?”

  Aisha pulled Khadija inside. “I told you it was so.”

  The man scanned Khadija up and down, as if he could see her through the burka.

  “Give it to me.”

  “There is nothing to give except words.”

  He frowned and cast an angry look at Aisha as if to say the kind of fool she was.

  “This was too precious for paper.” Khadija stepped forward and whispered to the man, fighting back a tight bubble of elation.

  She could laugh at how easy this had been. She could finish helping her father and then—then she could resume her life in Kaabul. Mizra would finish his courtship and she would be married and her life would have honor again. Mirri would truly be her sister and Khadija would be worthy of Allah’s love.

  The man considered her. “You are a doctor? You trained in the West?”

  The question surprised her and her elation crumbled like dust.

  “I—I trained in London, but did not….”

  “You come.” He didn’t allow her to finish and fear tightened her stomach.

  Was she to be punished for her time in the West? Killed? Surely Mirri would not send her on such a mission. But soldiers of Islam could be sacrificed.

  The man in the black turban waited by a door that opened into the house’s courtyard. Heart pounding, she followed.

  He led her from the safety of Aisha’s company out the rear of the house and across the stone enclosure, then up slope towards a copse of aspen, cedar, and pistachio that grew at the edge of the valley. A small trail led through the trees and Khadija shivered as the mud-brick house disappeared from view.

  All bird call stopped. The landscape filled with foreboding. She wanted to ask where she was being taken, but she was a soldier. Then why was she so afraid?

  The slope steepened as the narrow defile wound into the mountains. The only sound was the scrabble of her footfall. The man moved silent as the wind. The trees ended and the loose stones tripped Khadija. They were on the mountainside now and she would not be able to manage much more of this, dressed as she was.

  The trail led up amongst the scree, through a maze of huge boulders, and then Khadija teetered on the ragged lip of a hole that tunneled deep into the mountain. The damp breath of the earth blew in her face and she tasted fear.

  Her companion leapt down worn stones to the tunnel floor, and beckoned her to follow.

  “Stay close.” He ducked beneath the low ceiling and led her into the mountain.

  Like a thick curtain, darkness stole everything but the sound of her breathing and their footsteps. The over-sweet scent of old urine and bat guano made her queasy. The wind sighed against the tunnel entrance and she stole a glance at the receding disc of light just before she stumbled around a corner and into total darkness.

  She froze.

  Seconds ticked by—warped into forever. Did the tunnel keep turning? Was she in an open chamber? Was there a pit before her?

  She reached, but her fingertips found nothing. She was afraid to move. Where was her escort? Her breath came in sharp little gasps and the scent of bat guano choked her. Panic twisted in her throat.

  It wasn’t the dark. It was not knowing her next step was safe.

  “Please,” she said in a whisper too loud, too distorted by echoes and distance and time. “Please. I’m afraid.”

  To move. To live. To listen to her father.

  A low epithet and the sound of stone crunching, and then a hand closed on her arm. He jerked her forward.

  “I said stay close!”

  As usual she was a fool.

  She stumbled after and light blinded her as they turned another corner. The scent of smoke and something copper hung strong on the air. Another corner and Khadija found herself in a room piled high with boxes.

  Some were marked with Chinese figures. Others held Cyrillic letters. Three men sat smoking Turkish cigarettes and talking quietly. Trails of cigarette smoke and kerosene vapor coalesced in the space near the ceiling. A fourth man, an Arab by his darker skin and aquiline features, sat apart reading the Quran.

  When he saw Khadija, he stood. “You bring a woman here?”

  Her escort paused—why did he, an Afghan, act subservient to this Arab? This was his country!

  “She’s a doctor. She brought the information. I thought she could deal with your other problem—unless you’ve completed your work…?”

  The Arab’s full black beard couldn’t disguise lips pressed in a line as hard as his eyes. He was taller, straighter than the Afghani, and wore his black turban like a crown.

  “I will—though he does not know it—yet.”

  “Why not kill him and be done with it. He knows too much.”

  “And we must learn his secrets if we are to cleanse our world of infection.” The Arab turned back to Khadija and his gaze lashed her, even through the shelter of her chador. “Where did you train?”

  “London.”

  He spat.

  “Then why are you here?” he asked in perfect, Oxford-accented English reminiscent of Dr. James Hartness’s clipped tones. “Those who train in the West are subverted by the wealth. Few return home.”

  Memories of the couch, of James Hartness’s hands, sent a shiver through Khadija. But she had done Allah’s will and brought the message.

  “My father needed me. He’s blind,” she answered in Dari, hoping her trepidations didn’t show. A flicker showed in his gaze.

  “In English,” he demanded.


  Uncertain, she repeated her answer. He interrogated her about London Hospital.

  “So. You did train there. Why do you work with us, then? The kofr say we treat our women ill.”

  She was glad the burka hid how she colored as she lifted her chin. This man would read the truth and would not condone her past.

  “Islam treats women with honor. I know Islam and the Word. I saw the kofr’s evil in London even as they killed my brother here.”

  “So you help us for revenge?”

  “I’m a soldier of the faith!”

  Doubt filled his face. Then he shrugged.

  “I am Abdullah Hashemi. You will obey me in all things. When you leave, you will speak to no one of this place, your message, or me. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, suspecting he would kill her if she disobeyed. Then he turned towards a farther tunnel and crooked his fingers for her to follow. Leading her with a kerosene lantern, he took her farther into the mountain. The tunnel sloped down; the lantern created strange shadows across rough stone walls. The weight of the earth made it hard to breathe.

  Finally Hashemi stopped and Khadija shivered behind him. The lantern illuminated a small, low-roofed chamber carved from the mountain. Yellow-brown walls and floor were splattered with rust-colored streaks. The stench of burned flesh, vomit, and blood overpowered the stink of bat guano.

  All, it seemed, had come from the man sprawled on the floor.

  Chapter 14

  “Who is he?” Khadija asked as she stepped into the cell, for cell it was. Cold and lonely with the ceiling pressing down. Hard to breathe the stink. If the earth quaked would the roof hold?

  The man lay, half-twisted on the floor, dressed only in the bloody remains of a brown salwar kameez. Lantern shadows danced crazily across him as he lay, face towards the wall, his skin pasty white, bloody hands bound behind him. She had never seen anyone like this in the emergency room in London. A prisoner.

  “A kofr agent. He meddled in our affairs. We need to know who helps him. When we rid Afghanistan of his kind we’ll bring a holy Islamic state.”

  Khadija shivered at the cold hatred in the man’s voice. Against one wall sat an old car battery with two long, raw, wires. Beside it stood a blood-stained wooden bench. To be trapped here. To die here. Would Hashemi let her leave?

  The lantern hissed and spit as she knelt beside the man. The left side of the man’s salwar kameez was caked with blood in a crazy piebald pattern. Thankful for the gloves propriety demanded when in public, she gently rolled him towards her and he groaned.

  Alive and responsive, then. She grabbed hold of her medical training to steady herself.

  The sight of his face almost made her let him go. Made her stand. Run.

  Covered in yellow dirt, bruised and blackened around one eye, still the fine features and hawk nose, the smirk of lips could only belong to one person.

  Her hands recoiled from Michael Bellis.

  Did Hashemi know how this man confused her? Was this a test to see if she would kill him? Or to trap her?

  The weight of earth was too much and a cold wind seemed to gutter the lantern. She stood, fighting for calm when all her inner alarms jangled.

  “He’s a kofr, a man. Our Afghani brother is right—let him die.” What would her papa say if he knew? She turned towards the tunnel, but Hashemi shocked her by grabbing her arm.

  “I need this man’s information more than I need your devotion to Islam. If you’re a soldier, you’ll do what’s necessary. Has not the Prophet said there is no good or evil, but by Allah’s provenance?”

  Her father had once said something similar, but did Hashemi know that she knew this man? To touch him was more dishonor—she had dreamed of Michael Bellis.

  In person and in her dreams he had been proud, like a lion the way he moved, like a mountain the way he made you look at him. She remembered the way light caught his hair, turning it copper like the sides of these barren mountains. Even now she felt the man’s powerful life force.

  But to treat him would bring an intimacy she dared not feel. Had not Allah said that women carried nine parts of desire within them, while men carried only one. It was women who tempted and were corrupt at the heart.

  “Are you a doctor or a child? Allah said even the enemy is to be treated in justice and kindness. Not to provide it is to disobey God and be admitted to fire, to suffer his punishment!”

  The harsh words cut through her fear. All her training had made her a doctor, but her desire to regain honor had stripped that away.

  “I can’t.”

  Hashemi’s fingers dug into her arm. “You say you’re a soldier of Islam. Then do as ordered. If not, there are many dangers in this world.” He shrugged. “Who can say what will happen—especially to the old and infirm.”

  Khadija went cold at the words. Papa was a blameless old man, but Hashemi’s hard eyes said it was more than a threat. She was glad of the burka, for it hid her fear.

  She looked at Michael Bellis.

  To treat him she would move her hands so. She would do this first and that second, following the ABCs of trauma work just as she had done in the market. Her teachers had taught her well. It was more natural than honor.

  She shuddered.

  “Bring me water. I must be able to see what I work with. And any medical equipment you have.”

  Abdullah nodded at a small backpack that stood at the entrance to the room.

  “The medical supplies. I’ll have one of the men bring you water.”

  He left her, the lantern swaying from a hook in the rock. Wild shadows danced over the walls, so the world was unsteady under her feet.

  She grabbed the pack and went to Michael Bellis, then pulled the front of her burka back over her head so she could work. An old set of scissors in the medical bag allowed her to saw through the rope that held his arms.

  He slumped onto his back and a long sigh escaped him. She checked his airway and breathing. His breath came even, but its stentorian rattle was counterpoint to the hissing lantern.

  She checked pupil contraction and pulse. Slow—very slow, but steady. That could be due to blood loss, or to the overall good conditioning of the man. But his body radiated heat and sweat beaded his forehead.

  She dug in the medical kit and found a rusted stethoscope, then eased apart the shreds of his shirt. The brown salwar kameez stuck to his chest in many places—on his left side where a crude bandage was caked with dried blood, and over numerous burns that wept serous fluid. She tried to ease the fabric away from his skin, but finally used the scissors to cut away the tattered cloth.

  The broad expanse of his chest lay before her again. She remembered the look of him in her father’s clinic, the way his skin gleamed, and the way he looked at her with those hungry eyes.

  Now his skin was ruddy with fever and the livid burn marks dotted his torso. The fingers of his right hand were blackened at the tips. She glanced at the battery and shivered at the pain he must have endured.

  The torture was for a purpose, though. This man was a spy. He might be her father’s friend, but he was Amrikaayi—one of the kofr who had killed her brother.

  By the look of him, it was not his first injury, but then she’d seen that at her father’s clinic. She touched the puckered ridge that ran a patchwork across his left shoulder. A larger scar trailed into the top of his low-slung trousers. It took effort to pull her gaze away and listen to his heart and lungs. This close, even through the stench of his clothes, he smelled of forge-heated metal. His slow thump of heart showed the honed strength she’d seen in him.

  She easily peeled away the bandage on his side; the cheap medical tape was not like what she’d used in London. The stench of rotting flesh caught in her throat.

  A bullet wound—she’d seen enough of them—had ripped through his well-developed latissimus dorsi, not far from where the scar of her father’s stitching gleamed pale pink on his skin. The entry wound had almost fully closed with new flesh, but
around the wound the skin was red-blue. Livid red stripes trailed across his side.

  Khadija swore as all her medical instincts kicked in. If the infection had made it into the chest cavity, there wasn’t much she could do.

  Where was the water? She needed to get this wound cleaned.

  She dug in the bag to inventory her supplies. An old scalpel complete with a few drops of dried blood. She wondered if it had ever been used to help someone.

  A few antiseptic bandages of various sizes, still in sealed wrappers. Tensor bandages. A small tube of antiseptic cream long past its expiry date.

  She fought back frustration. This was a medical bag? How could they run a war like this?

  Footsteps came from the tunnel and she pulled her burka over her face. She was met by an Afghani carrying a bucket of water still murky with river sediment.

  “I need hot water. Water that has boiled.”

  The man ignored her and she almost grabbed his arm.

  “I can’t do my job with this. I need hot water and clean cloths.” She saw the refusal in the man’s face. “You want to anger Hashemi? He wants this man saved.”

  The Afghan dropped the bucket and left her with a mounting anger. She didn’t dare try to clean the wound with this. At best, this would do to wash the filth from her patient and possibly bring his temperature down. She hauled the bucket closer.

  A strip from the hem of Michael Bellis’s ruined salwar kameez became a cleaning rag. She dabbed carefully at his face and chest, but a fist shot up and caught her arm like pliers.

  Pale blue eyes glared at her, and then the shock of recognition filled his gaze.

  “You?” His hoarse voice was barely a rumble in his chest, but the grip on her wrist made her hand numb. The heat of him flooded into her body.

  “Let go,” she hissed. “I’m trying to help.”

  Why was she whispering? She tried to twist free.

  “Save me, so they can kill me?” There was his wry humor. “I didn’t think you were inclined to sadism.”

  “You know nothing of me.”

  “Aah.” He went to move and pain flickered in his face. Then his nose wrinkled and for a moment she saw a small boy—the boy that had grown into this man before her. He would have been a wild child—running the streets of a city and causing his mother constant consternation. But that wildness meant he had found ways to deal with pain.