Tiny Dancer

by Anthony Flacco

  Or perhaps she could imagine it all too well. It struck Benson that Zubaida didn’t say a word about having any problems with the idea of leaving behind her American comforts. She accepted those things as part of this whole experience, but didn’t appear to have any concerns over leaving material wealth behind.

  The things that bothered her went deeper, and presented Benson with a dilemma she could neither fix nor teach Zubaida how to resolve. Not even Zubaida’s dread of yet another surgery, her relief at having her health restored, or even her enjoyment of school and friends was enough of a distraction to keep her from being haunted by the question—whatever was going to happen after this final surgery and recovery period?

  Peter and Rebecca had assured her that she could stay long enough to finish out the school year, since they saw it as an important milestone for her to add in with the entire experience of being in America. But that only extended her stay a couple of extra weeks. She had to wonder whether her last day in that elementary school would be her last day of schooling in this life.

  Kerrie Benson could only respond to Zubaida by reminding her of her strong inner qualities, which had frequently impressed Benson. She pointed out that whatever direction Zubaida’s life took, those same qualities that would ultimately determine how well she adapted to whatever new challenges were going to confront her back at home.

  Zubaida nodded, saying that she understood. But as usual, she kept most of everything masked with indifference until she could go off someplace by herself and try to figure things out.

  There wasn’t going to be a lot of time alone for that. The surgery was coming up two days later, on Friday, May 16th, when Dad/Peter/Doctor Grossman would change her body, one more time.

  * * *

  For this final surgery, Peter Grossman had to again project his imagination into the future—not just to set the healing process in motion in the best way, but also to choose the particular adjustments to Zubaida’s remaining scars so that she would retain maximum function over time, even if she was unable to receive the periodic adjustments she would get if she stayed in America. His work had to push her ability to absorb so much surgery within a compacted time against the possibility that this could be the last surgical intervention she would have, at least until she was old enough to travel on her own and make her own decisions—if that day was ever to come.

  Once his team had her prepped for surgery and placed under anesthesia, he began the first of the day’s four procedures. The main task of the day was to give back as much range of motion as possible to the heavily scarred areas beneath her left arm. He used two large “Z-plasty” cuts to open the areas of skin contracture, then re-folded the skin flaps to allow the flesh a maximum capacity for stretching. He rearranged the tissue in layers, stitching the deeper muscle layer first, then stitching the skin covering again. The length, depth, and angle of each cut were vital to success of the operation, and would control how much motion that the remaining scars would allow her to have.

  The next three procedures consisted of several dozen injections of a dilute steroid solution into the swollen areas of scarring to her torso, left arm and shoulder, and across her face. These were the final steroid treatments that he would be able to administer to her scars, boosting the process of smoothing them out. This final adjustment to her new suit of skin consisted of sixty separate injections to her body and face.

  A couple of hours later, the work was done and Zubaida was transferred to the recovery room. Peter planned to bring her home as soon as possible this time, knowing that her morale would be higher in a safe home situation.

  And with that, his official job came to an end.

  He was finished, a year and a half after first being contacted by his brother in law Michael and told all about an Afghan girl, burned beyond recognition, whom a bunch of soldiers and army doctors wanted to help out. He had performed the miracle of restoration they sought from him and which he had promised both to her father and to her. Video and still cameras had thoroughly documented the process of restoration, and future medical students or doctors would have it available as a reference case if they found themselves presented with a similar disaster.

  Ordinarily, there wouldn’t be much left for him to do. Check with his assistant of many years, Stephanie Osadchey—who began working at the Grossman Burn Center back when it was run just by Peter’s father—and make sure the record keeping on the case was up to date. Then, after a few follow-up visits to check on the patient’s healing, ordinarily, the case would be over.

  Now, however, the last surgery meant that he was finally going to shift from being Dr. Peter—who repeatedly carved on Zubaida as if he were whittling wood, each time leaving her bandaged and sore—to just being “Dad.” Then he could focus on doing whatever he could to help the girl who had become his surrogate daughter begin getting ready to make the transition out of her American home and back to an environment which had utterly changed while she was gone. With the fall of the Taliban rulers, there was talk about new levels of freedom for women, perhaps even access to schools. But there was also chaos among the local warlords throughout the country, so that existence was still carried out on a very provisional and day-by-day basis.

  He knew that when it came to helping Zubaida prepare to face that world, where so much of what was going on lay beyond the control of any individual, the best thing he and Rebecca could do was to keep impressing upon her how close to her they had come to feel. They intended to make it clear that they were determined to stay in touch with her after she returned home.

  Zubaida lay half-awake in the recovery room, balanced on the line between waking and sleeping. Her thoughts also balanced themselves; half of her awareness realized she was coming out of anesthesia after another surgery. That part knew the score well by now and was waiting for the first pain to hit. But the other half of her was still fading in and out of the place dreams and nightmares coexist, borne along on a flood of distorted images.

  The half of her who knew she was in the hospital and had a fair idea of what had happened to her felt completely cut off from the half of her who still wandered in a dream state. In dreams, she looked for herself and couldn’t find anything. Who was she, anyway? She had been Zubaida as she knew herself to be, then the fire dunked her in hell for months and brought her back out melted like candle wax. Who was she then, when strangers stared and the cruel ones laughed?

  Who was it that her father fought so hard and so long to help? Was that Zubaida? Was Zubaida that monstrous piece of beggar bait, drawing coins from sympathetic palms in the marketplace? If so, then Zubaida was gone now.

  But this person whom Peter carved back out of her melted flesh—was that Zubaida? Because as that Zubaida emerged, over time, she also allowed herself to be transformed by the Americans and their lives and their friendship. Her friends at school became a partial reflection of her, as had her wide range of experiences in this place. She had been forming an American version of herself, one who loved playful mischief and who delighted in having little adventures with friends in public places. That Zubaida also was deeply impressed with the kind of freedom women have in America, and with the kind of personal power they can casually employ, almost anywhere they go.

  She formed her rapport with the other girls at school by rapidly developing an Americanized persona which they found easy to accept. When she was in her most American mode, she tried not to think of her family or her home village, because she could sense how odd her behavior would look to the American girls. She knew her father would be alarmed at the changes in her, but when her American girl act became so natural to her that it didn’t feel like an act anymore, then was that the “Zubaida” she was, now?

  Whatever was supposed to happen to the American side of Zubaida after she returned to Afghanistan? If she hung on to it, would she be seen as corrupted by her journey? Or if she tried to hide it, could she keep it under the veil forever? She felt like a caged bird who had tasted fr
eedom over the treetops, and who was now expected to meekly fly back into her cage and voluntarily close the door on herself.

  But then there was her family, and her ache for them. There was her hunger for the warm and familiar sense of sitting around the house with everyone after dinnertime and listening to their conversations buzzing around her ears until the sounds lulled her into sleep. Even the firm feel of the sleeping pallet was an old and welcome embrace. The fine beds at Peter and Rebecca’s house might be far more comfortable once people got used to them, but they could never have the comfort of being associated with a lifetime of experience at the way a familiar sleeping surface feels. At home, when she curled up on the folded blankets, the familiarity of the sensations did more to comfort her than the most expensive mattress in the biggest American home.

  That small and personal level of familiarity was the thing that called out to her with the most compelling voice. The smell of her mother’s hearth, the feel of her native clothing, the sound of her family’s voices, all such memories filled her with a homesick ache that sometimes nearly bent her over. A million tiny memories of such things were all a part of who she was, who she had always been.

  But where was the place for Zubaida within those layered familiarities? Such things came from the memory of a girl who had never fit the profile of a docile Middle Eastern girl in the first place. Now, with her eyes open to countless possibilities she could not have dreamed of a year earlier, how was she supposed to be able to confine herself to that tiny little corner of the room that she would be expected to occupy in her parents home? Where was she supposed to exist after she was married off to some man who might or might not decide that her tiny corner of his house should be even smaller that it was in her parents’ home?

  The questions swirled inside of her until she was so dizzy that the bed seemed to spin. The part of her that knew where she was realized that the aftermath of anesthesia usually left her dizzy and nauseated until the chemicals cleared out of her body, but the part of her that was still lost to dreams and nightmares continued following behind the characters floating through her brain. Some of the characters represented family members, fellow villagers, and the glaring Taliban enforcers. Others reflected her recent experiences with images of Peter and Rebecca and the Burn Center staff, friends at school, her teacher. But every one of the rest of her dream characters was a variation of herself and all of them were trying to imitate the real Zubaida.

  She was eager to see what they would find, so that maybe then she would know which Zubaida she was supposed to be after she finished waking up and went back to Peter and Rebecca’s to recover. And which Zubaida she should be once she returned to school for the last weeks of the term.

  And which Zubaida she should be when she returned again to her side of the world.

  Chapter Fifteen

  By the time that the maximum restorative effects of Zubaida’s many surgeries started to show, the little fits and starts of publicity that previously ran through various news media turned into a steady stream. Quickly, a sandstorm of media interest filled Rebecca Grossman’s days. Finally the phone/fax/email queries overwhelmed her. Before long, she and Peter had to stop taking any media calls at all. They sat down to sift through the offers that had already come in.

  The first thing to consider was the potential impact that media exposure might have on Zubaida. Had her self-esteem been bolstered well enough that she could enjoy such attention, or would she just find the scrutiny intimidating?

  They decided to test the water by allowing L.A. Times reporter Steve Lopez to do a piece with the family, since there was no stress on Zubaida in a newspaper article. She seemed happy enough about the little interview, and an American newspaper wasn’t of much concern to her. Beyond that, there was one offer, though, that seemed like a safe way to start with something where she would actually participate, but would still be easy on her. They could postpone deciding about the other requests until after they saw how she reacted to this one.

  So they accepted an offer from a Los Angeles radio station that broadcasts in Farsi and has a large immigrant audience. They invited Zubaida to come in for a morning show interview. It seemed like a perfect setup; she and Rebecca would be together the whole time, sitting at a table across from the radio show host, and Zubaida would be wearing a headset and answering call-in questions in her own language from the listening audience.

  Zubaida not only agreed, but showed real interest in the idea of talking to a lot of people over a telephone at a radio station. She was so intrigued by the opportunity that once Rebecca escorted her into the station and everyone gave her a few minutes to get oriented, she answered all of the host’s initial interview questions without any apparent difficulty.

  Rebecca couldn’t follow the exact conversation, but she delighted in seeing how Zubaida came to life at the opportunity to tell her story in her own words. She could interpret Zubaida’s voice, body language and gestures well enough to follow along while she told the listeners all about dancing her way into the fire, and about the nightmare months, and about her present-day amazement at this second new life.

  For Rebecca, the indelible image of that day was the sight of Zubaida perched happily next to the large radio mike with her head engulfed in the earphones, answering the first call with the cheery words, “Hello, Zubaida here!” and then glancing over at Rebecca to raise her eyebrows and flash her a grin before turning back to the microphone and taking the call.

  For the next hour, Zubaida spoke without hesitation to the call-in audience. Rebecca visualized this girl’s life in the mud-brick ruins, followed by only a few brief months in America—much of which were spent in the hospital or in recovery—and then she tried to grasp the enormity of the cultural adjustment that she was seeing. She didn’t have to understand the process to be elated at witnessing this moment of glory for the little girl who called her Mom.

  So she and Peter decided to take another step, and allowed local TV reporter Linda Alvarez to do a feature piece on their little family. All Zubaida had to do was to sit down for a brief interview with Alvarez, and then let the cameras follow her around for awhile. Once again, she took to the whole experience. By this point it was plain that there was something appealing to Zubaida in this kind of attention. Instead of being intimidated, she clearly regarded all of it as an adventure. Peter and Rebecca watched her adapt to these media situations, minute by minute. She blossomed under the attention as if the spotlights invigorated her, like strong sunshine.

  That left them wide open for a trip to Chicago and then to New York city, as a threesome. They did a brief TV appearance in Chicago, although Zubaida didn’t have a chance to get warmed up before the segment moved on. She did, however, very much like the long black limousine that took them to and from the studio. The concept of having free fruit and soft drinks available from the moment that you step into a car seemed like a fine idea to her.

  She stood up to the intensity of downtown Chicago at rush hour while the trio posed for pictures beneath the skyscrapers. While she didn’t like the noise any better than Peter or Rebecca did, she didn’t shrink away from it either, and walked along happily between them.

  She showed the same casual acceptance of big city environment when they reached New York City, and happily posed for pictures on the streets in Manhattan.

  She was curious, however, as to why the limousine sent by the TV studio in Manhattan was not as long as the car they got in Chicago…

  * * *

  On a number of different nights, Peter and Rebecca sat up late talking over what they should do about Zubaida. Her impending departure was a giant stone hanging over them. They were a married couple hoping for a child of their own, and in many ways it was as if Zubaida was a strange fulfillment of that desire. As the day of her leaving approached, they finally began ask themselves one central question:

  How can we send her back to that?

  Peter and Rebecca now faced the dil
emma of many dedicated foster parents. The problem, of course, was that Zubaida was her parents’ child. Questions of life and livelihood or of health and safety or of education and possibility had to take a back seat to the simple fact that Zubaida was the daughter of another man and woman. So long as she desired to return home and her parents were actively interested in having her come back, the only decent thing Peter and Rebecca could do was to gracefully let her go. The pain of separation was merely an unfortunate side effect of the year-long experiment.

  Zubaida often talked of her family, about missing them. Once she abandoned the fantasy of having Peter and Rebecca come back to Afghanistan to live next door, she was able to accept that their lives and their families were in America, just as hers were in Afghanistan. She knew that to return to her own people was to leave Peter and Rebecca, to leave her American friends, her school, and perhaps to never attend a formal school again. But she needed to go. Peter and Rebecca both saw that in her. She needed to continue to feel herself as a part of the Hasan family and of their extended family as well. That feeling of wholeness was worth more to her than any material temptation her life in American had to offer. While it was plain to both of them that Zubaida returned their feelings of love, and that she had bonded with them as much as they had with her, they also saw the animation in her features when she talked about her family. It wasn’t just that she missed them in a general way; she worried about how they were, without her. She seemed to feel a strong need to be back with them once again as a functioning member of the family. She needed to be needed. Every time that Peter and Rebecca talked about Zubaida’s future, they had to face the blunt truth: She has been like a daughter, but all along, she was another family’s child.

  Zubaida participated in the school’s year-end ceremony with her classmates, and Peter and Rebecca threw a big back yard farewell party for her and her friends from school. Home videos from that day show a bunch of girls playing happily together, with Zubaida holding her own among all of them. The kids also had two huge boxes filled with presents that they collected at school, to send back to the other children in Zubaida’s family. The task fell to Rebecca of seeing to it that the articles actually arrived halfway around the world, to a town with no mail service.