Flowers from Afghanistan

by Suzy Parish

  Then I heard a vehicle pull away and the front door close.

  “Mac?”

  “I’m here.”

  “The flowers are beautiful. There are roses and tulips and my favorite. How did you know to send Gerber daisies?” I reveled in the excitement in her voice. She sounded like the Sophie I used to know. I was also a little proud of myself over the Gerbers. I’d described them to Anthony, and between the two of us, we’d figured out that was what she had planted in the yard last year.

  “I saw you grow them in the backyard last summer. I remembered.”

  And then I heard a sharp intake of breath. Sophie found it.

  “A blue pinwheel, just like Little Mac’s,” she said.

  I tried to speak, but my throat closed up. I tried to breathe, loosen up. Swallowed.

  “I asked for that for you,” I whispered. “I wanted to honor our son. With a new baby coming, I wanted him to know we will never, ever forget him.”

  “That is the most romantic thing you’ve ever done for me.”

  “I love you, Soph. I always have.”

  The time couldn’t pass fast enough. I was ready to get on a plane right then. I’d have stolen Thorstad’s ticket if I thought I could get away with it.

  34

  “Students have been dismissed due to a VBIED detonated downtown, near police headquarters,” the sergeant said as he stopped me at the gate.

  I turned to go back to my tent. There would be no students for me to escort, no classes.

  “Our guys are tied up because of this. Since you’re walking back, can you escort Gul Hadi to the barbershop?”

  I looked past him and saw Gul waiting patiently at the gate with Bashir. My heart went out to them. This was the only world they knew, a world where they had to dodge explosions just to get to work. I glanced back at the sergeant. To him, Gul was just another worker he was letting in the gate. He didn’t know he was more to me than that. The man was my friend. “Sure, I’ll escort them.”

  The sergeant waved Gul and Bashir over and returned to his workstation.

  A smile engulfed Gul’s face when he saw it was me. He rushed up and grabbed my hand in a warm handshake.

  Bashir jumped up and down at my side and tugged at my sleeve. I fished in the pocket of my cargo pants and handed Bashir a pop. He hastily unwrapped it and stuck it in his mouth. A white sucker stick protruded from his apple-shaped cheeks.

  Gul took my arm and walked beside me. “How are you?”

  “I am excellent, my friend. I leave for the States in eleven days,” I said.

  “You are leaving for good?”

  I nodded.

  Gul spoke slowly so I could understand, trying to make himself heard over the grinding noise of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles rushing past us, responding to the explosion downtown.

  “Yaar zenda sohbat baqee. It means as long as the friendship lives, there will be more conversations,” Gul said. His generally jovial attitude was dampened.

  I wondered if he would miss our friendship as much as I would. It was an odd thing to make friends with someone as far away geographically and culturally as Gul. I couldn’t just schedule a vacation to come visit when the whim hit me. It sobered me to think this would likely be one of the last times I ever held a conversation with the man.

  “I’ll keep in touch with you. I want news about Bashir’s first days in school. He’s a smart boy. He’ll do well.”

  “He is a bright boy,” Gul said. “And my greatest desire is an education for him.” Sadness crept from his voice.

  I started to ask him what prospects Bashir had for higher education, but what was the point? If he said none, what could I do about it? The question sat in the back of my mind as we walked.

  Out of the corner of my eye, Bashir kicked his soccer ball then ran ahead and trapped it with his foot. The thought of having another child filled my chest until I thought I would burst from happiness. Through Bashir, I had experienced the joy of being a father again, though secondhand from observing Gul. Still, the relationship between the two was what I had dreamed I’d always have with my own child. I couldn’t wait to get home and be on hand for the birth of our little McCann. I nodded toward Bashir’s lanky form. Even for a four-year-old, he was tall. “He’s growing.”

  Gul’s expression swelled with pride. “Yes, and he is strong.”

  Bashir darted ahead of us, kicking his black and white soccer ball to the left, to the right. His thin legs were a blur. Showing off. The ball was so lopsided I didn’t see how he could even control it. Stitches on one seam had stretched and left an egg-shaped bump that sent the ball into an erratic zigzag each time his foot made contact.

  We walked a few more feet as trucks blasted past us making conversation difficult.

  Finally, there was a lull in the line of vehicles, and I turned toward Gul. “My wife is having a baby.” I was still in awe of it. It probably wouldn’t feel real until I got home. I kept repeating it to myself as if I’d dreamed it and was afraid the dream would vanish.

  Gul stopped on the side of the road, grasped my hand, and shook it firmly. “That is excellent news, Mac.”

  I felt my face draw up in a smile. “Yes, I am very, very happy.”

  Shouts from across the road turned my head. A soldier gestured wildly toward Bashir. An MRAP sped toward the boy. Dust swirled from beneath the tires of the beast, and exhaust fumes choked us.

  My heart felt like it would leave my chest as Gul and I took off at a sprint.

  The vehicle could not possibly stop quickly enough.

  Someone on the other side of the road saw what was happening and shouted at the driver.

  But there was no way the driver would hear them encased as he was behind the impenetrable windshield and armor plated cab. He probably couldn’t see Bashir.

  Gul called out frantically in Dari to his son, waved his arms at him, but Bashir’s focus was solely on the ball. He never saw his dad’s desperate motions.

  My breath caught in my chest. I willed Bashir to hear his father’s warning, but there was no way he could hear Gul’s shouts above the grinding, diesel-fueled noise. Bashir gave the ball a powerful kick, straight into the path of the MRAP. His eyes were still on the ball. He never saw the heavy vehicle bearing down on him. Instead, he took off right into the path of the monster to retrieve his only prized possession.

  I ran as I had never run in my life. I pushed my legs and lungs past their limits of endurance. Closer. The fabric of his shirt was between my fingers, then the flesh of his arm. I dug in with my nails. I heaved his spindly body tucked against my chest and rolled toward the chain-link fence. Then blackness.

  Gul pleaded in Dari, and I slowly opened my eyes to the unforgiving Kandahar sun. A shadow fell across me, and I looked up into Gul’s face, which was riddled with concern.

  Chunks of gravel bit into my back. A warm sticky liquid ran down my forehead. I reached across and drew back with blood on my hand.

  Gul’s strong hand wrapped around mine and gently pulled me to my feet. I wavered for a minute and tried to get my balance.

  Sitting on the ground next to me was the best trophy I’d ever won for a base slide. Bashir was crying but not from pain. He wailed to his father, “I lost my pop.” He was dirty, but he was whole. Bashir’s eyelashes curled thick with powder. The whites of his eyes stood stark against the monotone background of his dust-encased face. My arms and hands were covered in the same powder. We were indistinguishable. It was a baptism of dust.

  “Thank you. Thank you!” Gul wouldn’t stop saying it. I stared into his grateful eyes, and at that moment a knowing passed between us. A bond that crossed borders and governments, something only fathers of sons understood.

  “Awlaad-hoy-e watan, omeed-e watan. A nation’s children, a nation’s hope,” Gul said.

  I nodded. I understood. Better than Gul knew.

  We resumed our walk to the barbershop in silence. I dropped Gul and Bashir off and walked thoughtfully back
to my tent. My head was still back there on the road to Camp Paradise’s front gate. Slowly my emotions were playing catch up to the events. My insides quaked. I moved quickly to my tent and gathered my shower stuff.

  Inside the Conex, I was thankful I was the only one. Even greater luck, pump trucks had been there recently, and the drains were working. I threw a blast of hot water on in the shower stall and stripped dusty clothes from my shaking body. They fell in a muddy heap on the damp floor.

  I turned my face up to the stream of water. Hot water stung until my eyes threatened to tear up. Abrasions on my elbows and hands throbbed with each pulse of water. Gravel had chewed my skin like a cheese grater. I scrubbed the cuts as best I could with soap and washed the blood and mud away.

  What would have happened if I had been a second too late? But I hadn’t been. I managed to save another man’s son. The look on Gul’s face was more payment than I needed or deserved. It helped fill in part of the hole left by Little Mac’s death. In Gul’s face, I saw what great love he had for his son. In that instant, I saw the hopes and dreams he held for him.

  God, forgive me for Little Mac’s death.

  I held my arm out, shaking from adrenaline. A ribbon of water snaked its way from my shoulder and down my outstretched arm. I was mesmerized by it. The ribbon pushed silt ahead of itself until the dirty band reached my fingertips and then spiraled down the drain. It was as if the last of my guilt and shame swirled down the drain with it.

  I was crushed, poured out.

  And then I didn’t feel alone. The God Sophie loved was there. The one she’d talked about incessantly over the years. I’d been jealous of Him at times. I didn’t comprehend how she could so intimately know and worship Someone she wasn’t able to see. But now I understood because He was here with me. I felt His presence even in a muddy shower. Instinctively, I knew. He’d known my name all along, and He’d been biding His time, waiting for me to acknowledge His name, Jesus Christ.

  It was suddenly as clear to me as the clean water running down my body.

  I was as precious to Him as Bashir was to Gul, as Little Mac was to me.

  The only proper response was worship.

  It was what Sophie had been trying to tell me all along. I grabbed onto it like a lifeline with both my hands and held on.

  King David worshiped when he’d lost his son. He’d stumbled onto a secret none of his servants understood. His relationship with God was the only assurance he needed that he would see his boy again.

  Down at my feet, the remnant of dust turned to mud, swirled around, and disappeared down the drain. Little Mac and I were not alone that day in the chaos of my pickup truck. Jesus was with us, though I could not see or feel Him at the time. He felt my horror, heard my cries. He finally answered the pleading of my heart from so many months ago.

  The night I sat alone in a car in a funeral home parking lot and begged a starless sky for forgiveness. He forgave me.

  35

  Days later, I was packing when I glanced in the scratched mirror taped to the shelves above my desk. I needed to get a haircut. It wouldn’t do to see Sophie and look so scraggly.

  Besides, I wanted to see Gul and Bashir one last time.

  I pushed more T-shirts to the bottom of my duffle bag and closed it. I would finish packing after I got my haircut. I grabbed my backpack, stuffed my wallet in it, walked out of the tent, and down the path to the barbershop.

  Walking the perimeter of Camp Paradise probably for the final time, I pushed open the door to Abdul’s. I’d had my eye on two lapis lazuli stones in the window that looked like the night sky in Kandahar. I picked the stones up and turned them over in my hands. Weighty, they were cool to the touch, smooth like polished glass. The silver flecks of light covering each stone reminded me of the thousands of stars that littered the deep, blue-black Afghanistan sky. A streak of silver across the base of one looked like the shooting star I saw the night I learned Glenn’s secret pain.

  She wouldn’t think it was the most romantic gift, but I couldn’t think of a better thing to represent the country. They made me think of the hidden value in people and in countries.

  When I’d arrived, I had ambitions to see a change in the situations of the local citizens. I’d hoped to see a strong police force develop and see people have the opportunity to govern themselves. But after being in-country, I saw my timeframe for all that happening was way off. I was still hopeful the people of Afghanistan would one day live in peace. In the meantime, I was happy that I was able to train some of the bravest law enforcement officers I’d ever met.

  Abdul rang up my purchase and handed me the lapis lazuli in a plastic bag. I stuffed them down in my backpack, moving Little Mac’s pinwheel to an outer pocket. The little fins were covered in tan dust. I wiped them clean with my finger until I could see the shiny blue plastic again.

  It traveled all the way to Kandahar with me and would go home. At night, when I was alone in my tent, I’d pull the pinwheel out and watch it spin. It was the only thing I had left of Little Mac.

  I hurried across the courtyard and over to the barbershop. I glanced at my watch. It was almost closing time, but I hoped Gul could work me in. I pushed the door to the barbershop open.

  Gul looked up when I came in. Then, a broad smile stretched across his face, and he nodded hello. He was just finishing up a customer’s haircut.

  Bashir was there, perched on an empty barber chair. He ran across the floor when he saw me. Held his hand out. I patted my pockets in mock distress, held my bare hands out.

  Bashir looked crestfallen. He turned to sit back in the barber’s chair. I didn’t have the heart to tease him further. “Bashir,” I called.

  He turned back, an expectant, shy smile on his face.

  I dug in my backpack and produced a brand new bag of pops. Sophie had come through for me.

  I handed Bashir the entire bag. He had a look on his face as if he’d just won the lottery. He galloped to the chair, tore into the plastic bag, and shoved a cherry lollipop in his mouth. He cradled the open bag like treasure. I never thought I’d get so much satisfaction from watching a small child eat a sucker.

  “Bashir, sit in that barber’s chair with your bag of pops. I want to take a picture to send Sophie,” I said.

  “Who is Sophie?” Bashir asked. He rolled the sucker around in his mouth.

  I turned the bag of pops around so I could photograph all the colors and straightened Bashir’s shirt. “Sophie is my wife. Maybe one day you’ll meet her.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  I reached into my wallet and pulled out a photo of Sophie, the one I took at the fireworks show when she was pregnant with Little Mac. The same night I bought her the pinwheel for our baby boy.

  “She is pretty!”

  “The prettiest woman in the world,” I said quietly and then to Bashir, “Sit up straight now, and I’ll take your picture so Sophie can see what a great boy you are.”

  I backed up with my phone centered on Bashir’s face. My finger was poised over the button. “Say Pumperni…say ‘bread,’” I stammered, catching myself and changing the word at the last minute.

  “Bread!” said Bashir. He smiled with the sucker stick poking through a gap where a baby tooth had been.

  I snapped the photo and set my backpack on the floor. “Thank you, Bashir.”

  The ever-present smell of menthol enveloped the room. Fluorescent lights behind the barber’s chairs gave off a tilted glow. It was a pleasant feeling now. The past had been cut away from the room.

  I was up next, and I leaned back and closed my eyes as Gul took scissors and trimmed at my mass of unruly hair.

  “Not too short this time, OK? I’m going home.” Home, the word rang in my head, like a song that wouldn’t go away.

  “You want your beard shaved?”

  I hadn’t thought about it. I was getting rather fond of the beard. It had come to represent all I’d gone through, all I’d grown through. Every time I looked in the mir
ror I heard Travis’s excited proclamation, “We’ll have a Manliest Beard Contest!” and it made me laugh.

  I ran my fingers through the red hair covering my chin. It was a great beard, no doubt, but for back home, it should probably be neater. “No, I’m going to keep it. Can you just trim it a little, shape it up?”

  Gul nodded his approval. “A beard is a fine thing for a man.”

  “A very fine thing.” I grinned then made myself sit still so he could finish trimming.

  Gul finished his masterpiece, brushed loose hair from my neck, then applied talcum powder.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Bashir get up from his barber’s chair and wander over to my backpack. His gaze roved over the pockets. I was amused. He was probably looking for another bag of pops. He thought that magic black bag produced them. Bashir’s eyes came alive. I watched his hand reach for a pocket in my backpack, and my heart pounded when I saw what it was he was after.

  Little Mac’s pinwheel.

  Bashir’s eyes looked pleadingly from the pinwheel to me and then back again.

  No, not that. You can have anything but that. A familiar, clammy panic clawed its way up my back again. Would I ever be rid of it? This pinwheel was the last connection with my boy.

  Thinking quickly, I motioned for Bashir to come over. He complied, but I could tell he was still focused on the prize he’d found in my backpack.

  I yanked my survival bracelet roughly off my wrist. Made it myself from one continuous line of black five-fifty cord. I winced as the cord raked across the still fresh scratch marks on my palm. Marks from the gravel the day I’d rescued Bashir. If pulled loose at the right place the whole bracelet came unraveled. Like my life. That’s how I felt when I saw Bashir looking at the pinwheel. I wadded the bracelet up and placed it in Bashir’s tiny hand.

  “There, nice, huh?” Who was I kidding? He’d probably seen a million of these. Every soldier who walked through the door had one. And, as I suspected, he was not placated. He humbly shook his head and pointed toward my pack.

  I grabbed the backpack and ripped the pocket open, surprised at the violence of my own actions, but if I were to do it, I had to get it over with fast. My heart pounded in my ears. I found the stick, as smooth in my fingers as the day I’d placed it in Little Mac’s. His face had beamed with joy, a little boy’s laughter I would never erase from my memory.