Trauma does funny things to a person’s brain. Some people block out events completely, but for many the problem is that the memory becomes fragmented. For some it may splinter and for others it divides into delicate stretches of thread that are wound tightly together. They cannot reach one part of the thread without unravelling the part before. When you ask them “Who do you think killed your husband?” they must first tell you about the food that their mother was cooking at the time, or the washing that their neighbour was hanging on the rooftop, or the peculiar red of the dust that day. Sometimes I wondered about the kindness of what I was doing. If the erasure of traumatic memories is a coping mechanism, what happens when the experiences are brought to the surface again? Who helped to organise and fold and pack away the memories once I was done?
I tried to unravel the memories delicately, but it took patience and understanding and I knew that at other stages of the process the approach would not be the same. Most applicants went through two rounds of interviews. First there was an interview with my office, and then, much later (after many background checks and often months or even years), another with a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services official who made the final decision. These officials were not usually trained in the local language or culture. They barked questions and expected answers that were immediate and matched directly with anything we had written down from the first round of interviews. Any variation could be construed as an intentional attempt to mislead them. There was minimal room for error.
I did not need to worry about Ameena’s responses. All of her replies were clear and detailed.
After her father and brother died, Ameena and her mother had struggled on their own. When her late husband Hussein, a man from their neighbourhood, asked for her hand in marriage, she knew she had no other choice but to accept. He knew it too. It was unseemly for two women to be without a male family member.
Hussein wasn’t the kind of man Ameena thought she would marry. He was a lot older than her, uneducated and with conservative ideas. It was an unhappy marriage and she said she wasn’t surprised when her husband was killed.
“He was not a good man,” she told me. “I do not know who killed him, but he had many enemies.”
When her husband was killed, Ameena was already pregnant.
“He left my mother and I worse off than before,” she said. “He spent the little savings we had and when he was gone he left only debts. And me with a baby on the way too.”
It was Ali, her second cousin, who had helped her out.
“I thought he was working in a hospital,” she said. “I knew he hadn’t finished his degree, but someone said he had got a job anyway, alhamdulillah. I thought he could help me get a job too. But when I called him I found out he was an interpreter for the Americans. Then I didn’t know what to think.”
But Ali had come through. He got her a job working part-time at a local medical centre, which received USAID funding, where she did basic nursing and acted as a translator if there were ever donor visits. The hours were long and the conditions were tough, but Ameena said she enjoyed the work and sense of purpose. I recognised the sentiment.
“So what happened then?” I asked.
Ameena told me that the threats began a few months after she started work at the clinic. At first she thought it was the same people who had killed her husband, because she knew he owed a lot of people money. But then the threats started using words like traitor and infidel and she thought it must be to do with her work and the US involvement.
“It could even be both. Who knows?” she said, sounding tired now. “But my mother said I must stop working at the clinic and now I have no way of earning money. Ali is giving us what he can, but I feel bad – we are not his responsibility.”
That was the first time I wondered whether there had ever been anything between the two of them. Ameena was a pretty and intelligent woman. Marriages between cousins weren’t unusual here. Adam had told me Ali had never been married.
I looked at the birth date on her form again. Three years younger than me and she’d already been through so much.
At the end of the interview, I scanned Ameena’s documentation and told her that the next step was the background checks that would be completed. I was not allowed to tell her how the interview had gone or say anything to raise her hopes, but I wanted to reassure her somehow. I planned on taking her file straight to my manager to request expedition once she left. I wanted to help everyone that came through my office, but I was always extra invested in cases of young women. Perhaps part of me was doing it for Adam too.
“You gave me a lot of useful information today. I know it can’t have been easy,” I told her. “Thank you.”
“Ali helped me prepare,” she said, with a shy smile. “He researched the type of information you might need to know. He helped me to remember.”
15
Before Adam leaves, we head to the mountains. We go in search of green forests and cool air and space. We go in search of everything that is different to where he is going.
“One final trip,” I say and he frowns at me. Our conversations have been saturated with words like “final” and “last”. My words weigh us down with expectation. Everything has to be better, the best. The pressure of superlatives is too much.
Last week, he said I was talking as though he wasn’t coming back.
“Mountain biking is a first for us, not a last,” he says. It is true. We have been intending to go ever since I arrived, but the snow was slow to melt this year and the paths weren’t clear enough for a beginner like me. Now the snow has melted.
“This is our last chance to go,” I say, despite myself. And so we leave.
The drive there is quiet. Conversation is stilted. We don’t want to talk about his departure so we try to talk around it, but Iraq looms over everything. I even keep in my news. Next to Iraq it feels like nothing.
Adam brings his own bike with us on the trip, strapping it onto the back of the truck, but I need to hire one.
“It’s cheaper to rent for a season,” the man in the shop says. “Do you plan on coming more than once?” The answer is no, but I do not want to explain why.
Adam speaks instead. “I think we’ll just see how we go.”
The metal frame of the bike feels foreign underneath me as we set off, but Adam corrects me with gentle, specific advice.
“Put your weight back,” Adam says. “Don’t lean on the handlebars. You’re doing great.”
At first, I wobble unsteadily over the uneven ground, but with his reassurance I start to settle. The trails are peaceful. Sunlight shines through the trees and sends dappled patterns across our path. My arms vibrate as the wheels roll over rocks and roots. I loosen my grip on the handlebars and relax, watching Adam’s shape as he expertly navigates the path ahead of me.
After a corner, he disappears from view. After every twist in the path, I expect to see him again, but he is gone. Surely he will realise I am not with him and wait, or turn around and retrace his way to me. I keep pedalling forwards. He does not reappear. This was supposed to be our trip together. I am cycling on my own.
Up ahead there is a fork in the path. I stop, unsure of which way to go. Both routes head down the mountainside; both paths look uneven. I can see no sign of Adam. Perhaps I should stay here rather than risk the wrong direction, but I am not the kind of woman who sits and waits and so I ride.
I choose a path and pedal hard and fast. Faster than before. The speed is exhilarating. Air hits my face, drying my sweat as it forms. I feel a rush of adrenaline and welcome the familiar feeling. The bike speeds over a bump and for a moment we are weightless. I soften my knees to absorb the impact of landing and hear other tyres on the track behind me.
“Em, wait up!” Adam shouts.
I brake slowly, not wanting a sudden stop to pitch me forwards. He catches up.
“Wow, you were really speeding along,” he says.
“I didn’t know which way
you’d gone,” I reply.
His chest heaves as he tries to catch his breath. He must have been some way down the other path before he realised I wasn’t with him.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “My head was somewhere else.”
I know, I want to reply. You’re already half there.
We continue on together. We find a sign with a map and we pick a line and say let’s go that way. The path is steep and twists and turns and we twist and turn with it, dirt flicking up our backs. Sometimes he leads, sometimes I do. We stay together now.
By the time we get back to the truck it is late. We drive to the nearest town and find a motel to stay in. At the reception desk, the woman talks to Adam and not me. I wonder if there will be women who look at him like that where he is going.
We search for somewhere for dinner, but now he is hungry and I am tired and everywhere is shut. Eventually we see the familiar white and red of a Wendy’s burger sign.
“I guess it’s burgers then,” I say.
“I guess it is.”
There are two other cars in the parking lot. They are old and dented. I shut the truck door and the sound reverberates into the night. A disturbed bird flies up from a tree.
Inside Wendy’s we squint at the harsh strip lighting. There are no other customers, just a bored-looking kid behind the counter who must own one of the beaten-up cars. His eyes are red and his shirt is crumpled.
We order our food and wait in exhausted silence. A large clock on the wall ticks loudly. Adam rolls up his sleeve and examines a small graze on his elbow. I rub at my eyes. I want to tell him not to go. I want to tell him I want to go too. But then the bleary-eyed boy puts our food on the tray and we take it to a table.
We eat quickly. Adam orders another burger and I play with the straw of my soda, causing it to squeak loudly against the lid of the polystyrene cup. I feel better now I’ve eaten. More relaxed.
“Adam, I have something to tell you,” I say.
He looks up quickly from his burger.
“No, don’t worry, it’s good. Very good actually, I think. I have a job.”
“What?” he swallows. “For real? What is it? Not that consultancy gig right…?”
“No, not that. It’s just part-time actually. Remember we talked about me going to the art shop? It turns out Penny needs help.”
“Babe, that’s great!” he says. The look of relief on his face makes me realise just how much he has worried about going away when I have nothing. “Seriously, awesome. When did this happen?”
“Only a couple of days ago,” I tell him. “I was just waiting for a good moment to tell you.”
That is almost the truth. I was waiting to feel content with it myself.
I went into the art shop early this week, in Old Colorado City, tucked between a small café and a shop that sells Christmas decorations all year round. It looked dark from the outside and I paused for a second before entering, wondering what memories I was about to unravel and whether perhaps leaving them packed away was better.
When I entered the shop, I was hit by the smell of oil paints and charcoal pencils, but I didn’t have long to dwell on the nostalgia the smells triggered because at the sound of the bell, Penny emerged from a back room. She looked different out of her hiking clothes. She wore a long top in a drapey fabric that flowed as she walked and a large pair of bronze earrings. Instead of having her hair pulled back into a ponytail, it fell neatly at her shoulders, and the only remnant of the Incline outfit was the burgundy scrunchie that now sat on her wrist.
“Emma!” she said when she saw me. In a place where I am a stranger, it came as a surprise to be recognised. “Sweetie, I was wondering whether you were ever going to drop by! I was telling one of my customers last week that I had met a British woman up the Incline and I was cursing myself for not taking her number.”
“I’m sorry it took me so long, Penny,” I said. “Just, you know, life stuff got in the way.”
“Life stuff?” She gave me a long look that made me realise I would not leave the shop until she had got everything out of me. “Let me pour us both a coffee, honey. Then you can tell me all about it.”
I was in the shop for almost two hours. I sat in a cushioned chair near the counter (there were a couple dotted around the shop, which seemed to fit an extraordinary amount in it despite its relatively compact size). When Penny left me to serve a customer, I looked around at the array of oil paints, brushes, crayons, canvases and, by the window, a small mirror that glinted in a beam of morning sunlight. Around the edge of the mirror was an intricate mosaic with tiny pieces of blues and greys and greens. It somehow made the mirror feel like you were looking into the mountains.
“Sorry about that,” said Penny, returning. “So, where were we? Your husband is going away. You want a job, or at least a hobby or something. You both agreed that you’d stay away from that awful war-related work…”
“It’s not awful,” I said. “But yes, we agreed that I would do something different. I just can’t imagine being here and not doing anything. I like to be busy. I need purpose.”
“And you didn’t happen to notice the sign by the counter? Of course you didn’t. You’ve been mesmerised by my spinning mirror this whole time.”
Penny gestured towards the counter and I shifted my eyes. There, taped to the dark wood of the counter, was a sheet of paper with the words Help wanted written in a curled script.
“You’re hiring?” I asked.
“Indeed I am, my dear. While you’re working out what you’re going to do in Colorado, maybe you could help me out in here. It might give you ideas for your art project too. The customers will love your accent. It’ll be like having a royal in the shop.”
“I’d love to,” I replied. It was one of those decisions you make quickly and figure out afterwards. I needed to say yes to something.
“That’s so great, babe. Really great,” says Adam again, after I have told him the story. “When do you start?”
“Next week. I thought I’d jump right in,” I tell him. I do not add that I hoped it would divert my attention from his impending departure.
“Great,” he says. “And it’s not forever, Em. I know you must want something that’s a bit more… you. But it’s a good place to start. And hey, perhaps your mother’s painting won’t be the only artwork on the wall when I get back.”
“Perhaps not,” I say with a smile.
We say thank you and goodnight to the boy who is now leaning on the counter with his chin resting on folded arms. Adam opens the door and puts his hand on the small of my back as we go through.
We drive through the winding roads back to the motel. We are still high up and the sky is clear. The grey glow of the moon lights up the silhouettes of trees on the mountainside and makes the jagged peaks look almost purple. I struggle to stay awake and my head tilts forwards. Then I feel the car slow.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Look,” he says.
There is something moving across the road.
Lit up in the headlights is a skunk. It shuffles slowly forwards, sniffing the tarmac, ignoring our waiting vehicle. When I was young, my father bought me a skunk soft toy after he went on a trip to Canada. Adam knows I have wanted to see one since I arrived in the States.
There are no other cars on the road so we sit and watch as it moves across the road, its bushy tail forming an arc behind its body.
When it disappears into the undergrowth on the other side of the road, I realise I have been holding my breath.
“I guess that makes another first,” says Adam.
16
The commissary at Fort Carson is full. Full of people. Full of children. Full of shopping carts stacked high with family-sized packs of cereal and soda and other weekly staples. Everything is colour and noise, carts and elbows jostling against each other. I wouldn’t have come if I’d remembered it was payday.
The art shop was quiet this morning. After the first few shifts I can already fe
el myself settling into its calm rhythm. It is a different pace there. People come not just to buy equipment, but to be in the shop itself. To talk to other people, to share community news, to just soak up the infectious creativity that seeps from the dark wood shelves. It is finding its way into me too. I feel it, working between my broken parts and fragmented memories. Fusing me unexpectedly together.
A woman with her cart bumps into me. Crowded places never used to bother me, but they do now. My heartbeat starts to rise. Someone in another aisle drops something and I jump. I look around for someone in uniform to see if they jumped as well. I can’t be the only one feeling this way.
I return the jar of peanut butter in my hand to the shelf. I have been standing and staring blankly at the label but I can’t remember what I was reading it for. Then I hear a voice I recognise.
“Hey! Emma! British girl! Hey!”
Kate is pushing a shopping cart towards me, waving. In the front of the cart is a toddler with dark hair and large eyes, chewing on the end of a carrot.
“Wow, what planet were you on?” she asks, hugging me as if we’ve known each other for much longer than the duration of an army briefing.
“Planet pre-deployment I guess,” I reply ruefully, glad for the distraction.
“Tell me about it,” she says. “Dave is being a frickin’ nightmare at the moment. Noah and I just came here to get out of the house. Hey Noah, this is Emma. You wanna say hi?”
“Memma?” he says questioningly, pointing the carrot at me and then looking back towards his mother.
“Hey Noah. Nice to meet you,” I say. I am always awkward around children, which I put down to lack of experience. I guess that he must be a bit younger than my niece Sophie, but I could be wrong. My relationship with her consists of intermittent appearances on Skype calls, and each time I see her I am always surprised about how much more she has grown.
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