Words in the Dust

by Trent Reedy

My cheeks were hot. “Bale, Baba,” I said.

  A car horn sounded outside our compound.

  “Hajji Abdullah is waiting!” He rolled up the rest of his papers and tied them with string. “Najibullah, help me carry all this to his car.” Baba ran out with his papers while Najib carried a trunk containing some of his tools.

  “Don’t be lazy!” Malehkah snapped at me. She handed me a rolled-up toshak and a sack of food. “Take this out to the compound door so your father and brother don’t have to walk so far.”

  “Bale, Madar.” I hoped Najib would be around the house a lot while Baba was gone. I carried the armload of my father’s belongings out to the street door. Najib took them from me and handed them to Baba out in the road.

  When he came back and locked the door, I heard the car outside pulling away. I’d have to wait a long time to be able to see Zeynab now.

  “Zulaikha!” Malehkah shouted from the front porch. “Go to the bazaar and get some rice. When you get back, Torran needs to be milked.”

  I looked at Najib and my shoulders slumped as I sighed. “Bale, Madar.”

  My brother frowned at Malehkah. “I’ll drive Zulaikha to the bazaar.” Najib grinned at me when he saw my smile. He opened the compound gate doors and gave me the same thumbs-up sign he’d given the doctor at Kandahar. “We’ll probably be gone a long time. We’ll milk Torran when we get back. Or have Khalid do it.”

  Malehkah stepped forward. “Zulaikha!”

  We didn’t wait around to hear Malehkah’s outrage, but instead climbed into the car. Najib drove down the street, then stopped, reached under his seat, and felt around for something. I felt so free and happy that I clapped my hands. Najib smiled at me. Finally, he pulled out a cassette tape and waved it around. He slipped the tape into the player and then squeezed my arm. Music unlike anything I’d ever heard came on. It wasn’t the usual strings, drums, and high-pitched Indian women’s voices. Instead, it was a group of men singing in a different language.

  “You like?” Najib asked. “I talked to one of the soldiers at Kandahar. He said someone sent him this cassette from America. He says this is rock and roll.”

  I smiled and shrugged. It sounded great. I hardly ever had the chance to listen to music. We stopped and bought the rice, along with orange Zam Zams and lamb kabobs. Then we just drove around listening to the music, Najib singing loudly in a terrible imitation of English.

  After a while, he stopped singing. “I hope you are enjoying your vacation day,” he said. He pulled the Toyota onto the road that circled the perimeter yard of the Citadel.

  “Why are you taking me along with you?” I asked.

  Najib shrugged as he pulled a chunk of lamb off the stick with his teeth. He spoke with his mouth open as he chewed, trying to avoid burning his tongue on the hot food. “When I went with you to Kandahar, it was fun because for a few days I did not have to weld. I thought I would try to pay you back a little.”

  I smiled. I never knew my older brother was so nice.

  “I like your smile,” Najib said. “And you do not cover your face anymore. This is good. Allah is kind to you.”

  “Yes,” I said. “He is.” Najib was talking more on this single ride in the car than I had heard him talk in years. The road wound its way down a little ravine and then up and to the left, bringing us around so that we could see past one of the big towers of the Citadel. “Right after the Americans first came to An Daral, Khalid ran off.” I pointed at the wall, tugging my upper lip with my other hand. “I found him halfway up the wall right there and then he got stuck. He was scared. When I climbed up to get him, he nearly fell, and the Citadel police almost caught us.”

  Najib turned to look at me, his eyebrows raised. “You climbed all the way up there?”

  I shrugged. “What else could I do? Malehkah would have been furious with me if I let Khalid fall.”

  We laughed at my mean little joke. Then Najib turned the car away from the Citadel. “I want to show you something,” he said. He drove back down the hill, winding among the walls of An Daral until we had passed the last compound on the east side of town.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “You’ll see.” He drove the Toyota up a long, winding road, over bumps and ruts, until finally we turned out onto a little flat place partway up the mountain. Then he pulled the lever up between our seats and shut off the engine.

  Ahead of us, down below, all of An Daral lay stretched out with its streets and houses. And above it all, in the distance, rose the high walls of the ancient Citadel.

  “It’s beautiful here,” I said. “Like flying.”

  “I used to sneak up here when I was a boy. Whenever I could get away.” Najib spoke slowly and quietly, looking straight out the windshield. “I mean, before I started working. Now all I do is weld.”

  I frowned and turned toward my brother. “Don’t you like welding?”

  Najib took a deep breath. “Does it matter? Since I was ten years old, and for the rest of my life, that’s what I’ll do. That’s who I’ll be. Najibullah the welder.”

  He sounded so sad. I wanted to put my arm around him. “But you and Baba-jan are making more money. The business is doing well.”

  He smiled at me. “It is. Praise Allah. We are doing very well. Only, when I was with you in Kandahar, I saw all these soldiers. Not just regular Americans either. Americans from China, Africa, everywhere. And they weren’t just fighter soldiers. There were doctor soldiers. Computer soldiers. Mechanic soldiers.”

  “You want to join the army?”

  He chuckled a little. “No! No, I could never do that. Only I wonder sometimes what I might have done if Baba had not made me a welder.”

  “Sometimes I wonder what I might do with my life,” I said. He folded his hands in his lap and waited for me to continue. I told him everything. I told him all about Meena and the poetry and about trying to learn to read and write. Then, although I almost lost my courage to keep going, I even told him about the school in Herat.

  “That’s wonderful! Did you ask Baba about it?”

  “How could I?” I said. “It’s a crazy idea anyway. He’ll probably say no.”

  “But you said the school would be free?”

  I nodded.

  Najib clapped his hands. “Baba will say yes. I know he will. He’ll be so happy when this Nimruz project pays off that he’ll agree to anything.”

  “You think so? It just feels like an impossible dream.”

  “Zulaikha, people used to say the same thing about you having your mouth fixed. I would have said that about flying in a helicopter to an army base in Kandahar. It’s like Baba always says, these are good times. A new Afghanistan!”

  “I don’t know,” I said, but I couldn’t hold back my smile.

  “I know. We’ll talk to Baba together when he returns. If he can be convinced to get you your surgery, he’ll agree to let you go to a good Herat school.”

  “Bale, Najib!” I practically squealed as I squeezed his arm.

  My brother started the engine and turned the car around. “And we’ll make sure to invite Zeynab back home to visit us too!” Then he turned the music up loud and we both sang along in our own made-up English. It was one of the happiest afternoons I could remember.

  We pulled up outside our compound as the sun was setting. Najib honked the horn and waited for Malehkah or Khalid to open the big double car doors. He waited and then held down the horn button longer.

  After the third horn blast, the doors swung open and Najib drove the car in. He shut off the motor and both of us climbed out as Malehkah closed the doors behind us. Waiting for her angry words, I stepped around the car, but instead I heard only her sniffling. She wiped tears from her eyes. We’d hurt her feelings, leaving her like that.

  Somehow, even after all she had done to me, I felt bad for her. “Malehkah,” I said. “I’m sorry we —”

  “Zeynab has been burned. They came with the news maybe twenty minutes after you left. I se
nt Khalid out to find you, but …” She struggled to speak. “They say it’s pretty bad.”

  I couldn’t move. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t breathe.

  “Where?” Najib asked.

  “All over her body.”

  “Where is she?” Najib shouted.

  Malehkah took a step back. “At the hospital in Farah.”

  Najib ran to the corner of the compound and grabbed a big white plastic jug. He opened the gas cap and stuck in a plastic funnel. But even with that, his shaking hands still spilled some fuel. After a few minutes, when gas overflowed and splashed back out, Najib cursed. “Get me a wet rag!” he snapped. He dumped the extra gas on the ground. When Malehkah returned with a dripping cloth, Najib washed his hands the best he could before running around to the driver’s seat.

  I rushed forward to the passenger side. Malehkah grabbed me as I opened the door. “Zulaikha, you should —”

  “She’s my sister!” I slapped her hand away and slammed the door closed behind me. The motor was already running and Najib leaned against the horn, screaming curses at Malehkah to open the door.

  “Najib?” I asked. He didn’t answer, backing the car out of the compound before driving off down our street. “Najib?”

  “Be quiet!” He leaned forward, staring carefully ahead as he drove the car faster and faster, spinning the back wheels out in loose rocks on some curves, slamming the brakes when we came upon a deep rut in the road. Every time he had to slow down, he cursed or hit his fist down on the dashboard.

  I rubbed my hands together and then put them over my face. My legs shook. The afternoon’s kabob wanted to come back up. Zeynab was burned. What did that mean? How was she burned? What happened?

  “Maybe it’s not so bad,” I said. Then the tears came.

  We reached Farah City in far less time than it had taken before. Najib asked for directions to the hospital as soon as we got to town. He brought the car skidding to a stop outside the hospital gate. Night had fallen.

  A guard rushed out of the gatehouse. He pointed his rifle at us. “Slow down! What’s your hurry?”

  “My sister,” Najib shouted out his window. “She’s been burned. They say she’s here.”

  “Well, you’re not driving that fast in here!”

  “Bale,” Najib said. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

  The guard pulled the gate open and Najib drove inside. The front courtyard was mostly gravel for parking, but there were several large, dried-out flower beds. Not even weeds grew in them. Tall trees formed a sort of canopy that drenched the place in gloom. When the wind stirred the branches, little jagged shadows cut the moonlight along the ground. It would have been pretty, if it weren’t such a horrible place.

  We stepped out of the car. Smoke billowed from under the hood. A group of men sat on the cement front porch. The red-orange lights from their cigarettes flared in the dark, and the conversation quieted as we approached.

  “You tear your car up driving so fast.” Tahir drew a long drag on his cigarette and stood up.

  “Tahir, sahib.” Najib addressed Zeynab’s husband in tight, controlled words. “What happened?”

  “Nobody knows.” Tahir shrugged. “There was an accident. A hose must have come loose on the cookstove when she was making supper. She caught on fire.” He blew out a big puff of smoke. “But we put it out quickly. She’ll be fine.” Najib nodded and we turned to go into the building, but Tahir grabbed my brother by the shirt. “Whoa, rafiq. She is in the women’s section of the hospital. You cannot go in there.”

  I didn’t even wait for Najib’s approval. I ran inside, letting the wooden screen door slam shut behind me. Blinking from my tears and from the light as I came in out of the dark, I was horrified at the sight of the filthy place. The bare cement floor needed to be swept. The single light in the middle of the hallway barely prevented total darkness, but still attracted a frantic swarm of flying bugs. I called out to the first person I saw. He was at the end of the dingy hallway, looking at some papers. “My sister, Zeynab Frouton, was burned. Where is she?”

  The man looked up with a frown. “Are you a visitor here? Did you check in with the hospital administrator?”

  “What?” I couldn’t believe this man was going to bother with procedure in this disgusting, run-down place. “Let me see my sister!”

  The man sighed, shook his head, and then gestured for me to follow him down the hall. A door was open to the night, without even a screen. In the next dark room, a horrible rotting smell stung my nose. The man pulled a string to turn on the light. Next to a large empty washtub, blankets stained in blood or waste made a feast for the buzzing flies.

  This was a hospital? They had brought my sister to this place to get better?

  The man led me past the laundry and stopped outside an open door, motioning into a chamber lit only by a dim lamp in the corner. I went inside. From across the room, I saw my sister in the only bed. She didn’t look so bad. She was wearing her pretty dress with the pink and purple flowers. I slowly stepped closer.

  “Oh, Allah, have mercy,” I whispered. “Zeynab.” She wasn’t wearing a dress. She wasn’t wearing anything except a stained white sheet over her legs. The beautiful pink and purple flowers weren’t flowers at all, not beautiful at all. It was her scorched and blistered skin.

  “Oh.” I looked at her. I shifted my weight from one foot to another. “Oh, Zeynab. Oh.”

  My sister lay naked from the waist up, moaning softly. She was burned everywhere, all over her body. The top layers of her skin had somehow shrunk back, tearing into clumps that had then bubbled and blistered into a dark purple-black. The exposed skin below was bright pink. A section of the skin over her stomach had scorched to a sort of yellow and peeled back. Her breasts were bright pink, her nipples bits of black char. Her neck was a bleeding, oozing black wound.

  But the worst was her face. I sobbed almost to a scream. Her beautiful, long, dark hair looked as if it had melted into her seared scalp. Her nose had disappeared almost completely. There were no lashes on her closed eyes. Her eyebrows were gone.

  And her mouth, her lips that had never been horrible like mine, was twisted and cracked. Her upper lip had split in the middle, rolling back to expose her teeth. All my life, I had wished and prayed to be like my sister. To have a pretty face and a normal mouth. I never ever, not for one second, wanted her to look like I used to.

  “Zeynab,” I wailed. “Zeynab.” Was she dead? I did my best to stop sniffling and lowered my ear over her mouth. The smell assaulted my nose — a horrible salty-sweet-sour smell, like the worst stench from the butcher district on the hottest day — and I clamped my hand to my mouth as I gagged. But she was breathing. She was still alive.

  I fell into a chair beside my sister’s bed, almost dizzy. “Zeynab,” I cried. “Zeynab. Zeynab.”

  I don’t know how much time passed before I felt the hand on my shoulder, but it startled me so much that I sprang up and spun around.

  “Zulaikha.” It was Captain Mindy and Shiaraqa. Next to them by the hallway door was Corporal Andrews. He looked at me and nodded. Seeing him so serious, where before he had always been smiling and happy, brought fresh tears to my eyes.

  “Why are you here?” Shiaraqa asked.

  I wiped my eyes. “My sister.”

  Shiaraqa told Captain what I had said and she gasped, covering her mouth. For a moment, I wondered how Shiaraqa and Corporal could be in the women’s wing, but then I sobbed. The Americans with their stupid guns could do whatever they wanted. Anyway, it didn’t matter. They weren’t looking at my sister in a bad way. How could they? How could anyone look at her that way ever again?

  I took a deep breath to try to collect myself, and a heavy smell hit my nose. It was Zeynab on the bed next to me, her eyes open, staring at the ceiling. She did not speak.

  “Zulaikha, are you okay?” It was Shiaraqa who spoke, translating again for Captain.

  Of course I was okay. It was my sister who w
as … who was …

  “Can you help her?” I asked, speaking directly to Captain Mindy as though she could understand.

  When she heard the translation, she wiped a tear from her eye and blinked several times. Shiaraqa translated her words. “Captain Edmanton is very sorry about what happened to your sister. She says the Farah Hospital doctors called for American help. She has radioed the American base at Kandahar and asked them to send a helicopter so that your sister can be flown to the good doctors there. They are waiting for an answer. She wants to try to help her the best she can.”

  Captain opened a bag that she had brought with her. She took out a small wet white cloth and rubbed it on Zeynab’s arm. Then she pulled out a clear bag with a tube and prepared a needle. Once the needle was in my sister’s arm, she taped it down before turning to me. “This will help her feel a little better until we can get her to a good hospital,” Shiaraqa translated. “She says there is not much else we can do for her in this place.”

  Captain Mindy knelt down in front of me and took hold of my shoulders. She looked into my eyes and said something to Corporal Andrews. In a moment, he handed me a plastic bottle of cool water. Captain helped me tip the bottle to my lips and I drank. Then she ran her hand over my hair and spoke. Shiaraqa translated. “If we move her to a good hospital quickly, there is a chance we can save her.”

  “Zul … aikha.” It was Zeynab, speaking in short hisses. I rushed to her side, leaning over her to hear her better. Her eyes, thank Allah, were not burned. When she saw me, her smile turned into a wince as the hot skin at the corners of her mouth cracked and bled.

  Captain said through Shiaraqa, “Tell her she must not try to speak. She must rest. A helicopter should be on the way to take her to get help.”

  My sister turned her eyes, not her head, to see who was there. She seemed to focus in on Shiaraqa for a moment before her gaze returned to the ceiling. “No,” she whispered.

  “What, Zeynab?”

  “Zulaikha,” Captain Mindy said softly.

  I ignored her. “What did you say, Zeynab?”

  Captain put her hand on my shoulder. “Zulaikha —”