by SAIMA WAHAB
Even though Ben and Eric both had southern, more traditional upbringings, their personalities could not have been more different. Ben was expressive. He said whatever sweet thought passed through his head. Once, while I was watching him play basketball and he kept missing his shots, he called time out, then jogged over and said, “I just really wanted you to know that I’m a much better player than this, but you’ve got me really distracted.” When he would come back from a mission, he liked to come to our tent just to smell the air around me. He said that he was too dusty to hug me. “When I’m out there all sweaty and dirty, I think about you and how good you smell.” The simplicity of his emotions and the way he expressed them were so unlike anything that I had ever had in my life.
Because John always asked to have me translate on his various missions, Ben and I sometimes ended up in the same convoy. One of the ways I measured how dangerous Afghanistan had become was the number of Humvees in our convoys. When I’d first arrived and had been posted in Farah, Eric and I had tooled around outside the wire in a bulletproofed Land Cruiser. Now no one ventured outside the wire with fewer than ten Humvees.
One day we found ourselves in the same Humvee, which happened to be second in line behind the lead truck. Ben took his position as the turret gunner and I sat in the backseat. Had we been ambushed, my job would have been to hand rounds of ammunition up through to Ben. We set off down the hill. Not twenty minutes after we passed through the friendly village where we’d held our tea party months before, there was an explosion. The Humvee ahead of us had tripped an IED.
The truck commander ordered us out of the Humvee to assess the damage. When we climbed back inside I was trembling. I have been in many convoys that were attacked, and it always unnerved me to think about how close we all were to dying. Why were we spared? What is it that we were still meant to do on earth? Thinking about unfinished personal missions, and my father and Baba and the three people I loved the most being so far away in Portland all got to me that day more than usual. Unexpectedly, I started crying.
“You’re going to be fine,” said Ben. “It’s going to be fine. I promise. Please don’t worry. No one will touch you. I’ll protect you.” He held my hand, there, in front of everyone.
I pulled it away. Before this moment, no one knew anything was going on between us. “Please,” I whispered, “you can get in trouble.”
“I don’t care,” he said. “I only care about you. If it makes you feel better to have me hold your hand, then I will do it.”
Our flirtation had advanced. Were we now dating? That hardly seemed like the right word. I liked him very much. People had started to realize that if I wasn’t out on a mission translating or at the Officers’ Club, most likely I was sitting on the bench at the top of the PRT—so if Ben and I wanted to be alone, we went for a walk around the perimeter, just inside the wire. Here people could still observe us, but no one bothered us.
The trail was mountainous. We found a fallen oak that looked as if it had been there for a hundred years. Smaller trees had taken root in its bark. After dinner, and after he had cleaned his weapons for the next day’s mission, Ben and I would sit on “our log” and talk. His tour was nearly over, and he’d be returning to the States. He had big plans. Fort Lewis was two hours from Portland, straight down I-5. We could be together every weekend. He talked about our future as if it were already decided.
He held my hand, just as he did after the IED explosion. Once the sun eased behind the mountain it got cold and he put his arms around my shoulders. Ben was an old-fashioned romantic—not only did he not expect that we would sleep together before marriage, he fully expected to wait. He told me that he had watched me for weeks before he approached me because he wanted to make sure I wasn’t like those deployed girls who slept around with everyone. He was kind and emotionally honest, and sometimes I felt like there was something wrong with me for not jumping up and down and telling him, yes, let’s be together forever, eating peaches in Georgia. He told me that he didn’t think he would ever be good enough for me, but he would spend his life doing everything to make me happy.
All of this only served to remind me of Eric, who was now working as a civilian in Hungary, training soldiers. Hadn’t he said similar things? And hadn’t everything fallen apart the moment we returned to the States and were forced to deal with real-life issues? I hadn’t known life in a war zone, and Eric hadn’t prepared me for it, for the ever-present fear of death, and the rush that creates, and how that rush fuels fantasies that lead to promises that make perfect sense at the time. Then your tour is over, you leave the wire, and come home, and everything dissolves, like dreams when you wake up.
How could I explain this to Ben, who was on his first tour out of the United States, who really did think that he was going to be with his Pashtun lady until the day he died?
Unlike Eric, Ben was young. He had no baggage, no ex-wife or children, no overpowering demons nourished by twenty years in the military. He said every word in the English language that conveyed his devotion to me, his commitment to our relationship—and his actions followed his words. It made me sad. I just couldn’t bear not to be independent. I wondered, as I sat next to Ben listening to him spin tales about our future, whether the pronouncement I’d made years ago about never marrying an Afghan pertained not only to Afghan men but to all men. I felt that familiar sense of dread in the pit of my stomach. I knew then, as I’ve always known, that it would be easier for me to find happiness alone than worrying constantly that the man I was with was trying to control me and take over my life. That is no way to live, I thought, for me or for any man crazy enough to want to be with me.
TWENTY-SIX
On a frigid day in fall 2007, I opened my in-box to find an e-mail from a Department of Defense company recruiting for a new program. It was called Human Terrain System, and the U.S. Army had already had some success with it in Iraq.
The first Human Terrain Team, or HTT, had been deployed to Iraq in 2003. The program mandate was to map the cultural and social landscape of the country in the same way the armed forces mapped the military landscape. When it came to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it had finally dawned on the coalition forces that we couldn’t simply roll into a country with our superior forces and weaponry, perform a little shock and awe, and expect to win the trust and support of the people who lived there. We needed to know about the culture, the way the locals thought, how they operated, what they needed and wanted, and then figure out how we might use all that knowledge to garner local support.
After seeing success in Iraq, the government had deployed the first HTT to Afghanistan, to Camp Salerno in Khost Province. Some of the recruits in this team were finishing their contracts and coming home, and the program was searching for replacements. Would I be interested in joining this first team? I would no longer be an interpreter. My official title would be research manager.
I felt settled in Asadabad. I loved the missions that took me into the surrounding villages, where I was able to chat with the locals. I loved living in the big tent with Haseeba, hosting the Officers’ Club, and hanging out with Ben in the evenings.
But during quiet moments when I sat on my bench at the top of the hill, looking out at mountains, at the enormous divots in the earth made by our outgoing mortars and the boulders tumbling into the river, I knew that I was ready for a change. I was growing bored with interpreting and felt conflicted about some of my duties—I was thrilled to be viewed as a Pashtun cultural expert but resentful that my job title as an interpreter didn’t reflect this. I felt the itch for change. The desire for a new challenge was always there, percolating just below the surface.
I knew that once I replied to the e-mail, something new would be set in motion. I wrote back, saying that I thought the position sounded very interesting. Before I’d logged off, another e-mail dropped into my box. I realized I was in correspondence with the team leader at FOB Salerno. They wanted me, as soon as possible. E-mails shot back and forth. T
here were decisions to be made, negotiations to take place. For me to become part of the Human Terrain System I’d have to meet new requirements and undertake new training—six months’ worth—back in the States.
Lieutenant Colonel Evan Sanders was the HTT leader at Salerno. He interviewed me over the phone.
“Look,” I said. “I want this position. But I have been working with the army for years now. I have been in Afghanistan for almost three years. I am from here. I don’t need a course on Pashtunwali. I don’t need to be taught how to find Kabul on a map. I don’t need area studies. And I really don’t need to learn how to live in a combat zone.”
Evan agreed. He was enthusiastic. He pulled some mighty strings. I asked to be transferred directly. Tiny, mountainous Khost was just southwest of Kunar. The brigade commander could easily have sent a couple of his birds to fetch me. It could have been done in a day—the end of the old contract, the beginning of the new. I could have slid down the southern flank of the country without having to face Mamai, Khalid, and Najiba, who would be deeply unhappy about my new plans.
But for bureaucratic reasons I was still required to return to the United States. I went home to Portland for seven days, before flying to Kansas for training. Evan had succeeded in reducing the six-month training requirement to a few weeks, and then I would head back to Afghanistan. My family and I sat in the big living room in the house my siblings and I had bought for Mamai in Beaverton. It was December, and the afternoon was dark with clouds and rain. Our tea had grown cold. I promised them that this would be the last time. Najiba sat with her arms folded. “You said that the last time,” she replied. Khalid added, “I should just lock you in the basement and take away your passport.” Mamai wondered for the hundredth time about the unforgivable sins she was paying for.
I told them it was a desk job. I wouldn’t even be going outside the wire. Research manager was my new title. Could any position sound more boring? In truth, I had very little information about what was going to be required of me. The job description sounded challenging. I was supposed to identify informational and cultural gaps in the army’s knowledge of the region, fill them in with facts about the villages and the local population, and brief commanders and soldiers about the findings. In addition, I was meant to ensure the continuation of said knowledge to incoming units.
My family was unhappy, but they were used to being outraged by my decisions. With Ben, it wasn’t so easy. Before I had decided to take the HTT job, Ben’s tour of duty had ended and he’d returned to Fort Lewis. I hadn’t told him about the job offer because I knew it would upset him. On the days before he rotated out he worried incessantly. His constant questions about how he was going to live without me both touched my heart and made me feel guilty. I loved him but couldn’t really imagine us sharing a future—a pattern, it was starting to seem.
Ben was thrilled when I told him I was coming home. I had given him Najiba’s cell number, and he had called her every day while I was traveling. He’d assumed I was home for good and that now we could begin making a life together. He drove to Portland from Fort Lewis the day after I’d arrived. When I opened the front door I was struck again by how handsome he was. He was wearing washed jeans with a white T-shirt. I’d never seen him in civilian clothes before.
He took me out to an Italian restaurant downtown. I remember that we went under a large parking structure to get there because I was trying to map out an exit route, a habit I had learned from living too long in a combat zone. The light was low and golden. The waitress brought bread for the table. Ben prided himself on his good southern manners and began ordering for me.
“My lady would like a glass of red wine,” he said, as if he’d accomplished a great feat. The girls he’d known before me had been beer drinkers.
“Which one would she like?” the waitress asked as she set the tall wine list between his fork and knife.
“Just the house red is fine,” I quickly said to the waitress.
“I think she would like the house red,” Ben repeated.
He didn’t look at her but reached across the table and placed his hand over mine. His smile was that of an eager young man taking the first steps down a new path. His lady, on the other hand, could not bear another moment of his optimism.
“I’m going to Kansas in seven days,” I blurted out.
“Kansas? What are you doing there?”
“Training for a new program.”
“Okay … Kansas. I can do Kansas.” He nodded, thinking, recalibrating our future. His flexibility was a precious trait, one I would need in a mate. He didn’t want to be at Fort Lewis forever. There were jobs he could apply for in Kansas, and Kansas was closer to Georgia, where his large family lived, including his twin brother, whom he joked would try to snatch me up the second he laid eyes on me.
“Afghanistan,” I said. “The training in Kansas is for a position in Afghanistan.”
Since he’d been back in the Northwest his tan had faded. His smile disappeared. The math he’d been doing in his head didn’t allow for an equation that included Afghanistan. My house red appeared, with his bottle of beer and a chilled glass. He didn’t know how he could get back to Afghanistan. He supposed he could reenlist, but he would have no power to choose where they sent him. But my contract wouldn’t be more than a year, would it? He said he would wait for me. “You can’t wait for me.”
“I love you. Of course I can wait for you. I can wait as long as you need me to.”
“I don’t want you to wait for me. You’re too young to wait for someone who is at war.” I am sure I was referring more to the war within me than the one in my country. “I want you to find someone here you can take care of, a nice girl.”
“Now you’re being silly. I want to take care of you,” he said.
“I might not be coming back, and I wouldn’t want you to have to mourn the death of a girlfriend,” I said. The words made it true. There was always the chance that I might die. That wasn’t new. But I was also tired of flying home between contracts for what had become the usual knockdown argument with my family. What if I loved my new position? I could easily imagine moving to Afghanistan and never returning.
The conversation stuck on his determination to wait for me and my refusal to allow him to. Nothing was decided. We ended the evening by my eating the salmon he’d ordered for me, but not the way I liked it, because he didn’t let me tell the waitress to cook it for longer. I remember thinking that I would have to eat raw salmon for the rest of my life if I decided to be with Ben, because I wouldn’t ever want to hurt his feelings by correcting him. I tried once again to talk him into breaking up, and not waiting for me. Life was too short to waste on waiting for someone to return from a lost cause, especially when he had so many other options, I argued.
For a while after I arrived at Salerno, he called and e-mailed me every day. In time, our e-mails got less and less regular. In 2009 he sent me his last message, with the news that he was about to get engaged and was giving me one last chance. I pretended I thought he was joking. His new girlfriend, soon to be wife, reminded him so much of me, he wrote. I asked how this could be—was she Afghan? No, he said, but she had long, dark hair and liked to drink red wine.
I PACKED UP my stuff: all my civilian clothes, my shampoo, body lotion, and pounds of Peet’s coffee, plus the stuff the army issued me—a gas mask, a mosquito net, and a little steel coffee mug. Twenty pairs of socks. Four uniforms. Knee pads, elbow pads, and random pads for which I never discovered a use. I shipped it all to Afghanistan, all except the military issue. I had to carry that myself.
I spent several days at Fort Leavenworth, undergoing a medical exam and weapons training. In my new role I would be expected to carry a sidearm.
I never imagined I would love shooting. We were required to be certified in the use of one type of weapon, but I was certified in three. Mike was the instructor administering the training. He was retired army and walked with a slight limp. From what I could tell he
had a single mood: annoyed. Still, he taught me a lot. Near the end of the training, I think I finally managed to invoke one other expression on his face—surprise.
I’d brought along a pair of beige boots with three-and-a-half-inch heels I’d purchased at Cathy Jean in Portland. I don’t know why I packed them. There would never be an occasion to wear them once I returned to Afghanistan. But I loved those boots, so I wore them to the range.
There was old snow on the ground. The sky was a sharp blue. The temperature was so far below freezing it wasn’t worth remarking on. There was a waiting room beside the range, with a heater, magazines, and hot water for instant coffee and tea. When my team was called to the range and Mike saw the shoes, he grimaced. “Are you kidding me?”
“What do you mean?”
“How are you going to maintain your balance in those things?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess we’ll find out.”
I raised my nine-millimeter and squeezed off a round, easily hitting the center of mass. The targets were man-shaped. I enlarged the first hole with a few more good shots. A pair of young guys training at the target next to mine took notice.
I reloaded my weapon. Mike ordered me to shoot three to the head. The guys cheered as I put three neat holes, all in a row, across the target’s forehead. It was impressive, but not that impressive. Were they responding to the fact that I was a woman? An Afghan woman? An Afghan woman in three-inch heels? I didn’t know, but when the guys, who later turned out to be working for one of the secret U.S. agencies going to Iraq, wanted to turn it into a competition I said sure. It was easy to beat them with the nine-millimeter, a smaller, sleeker weapon that fit my hand. We were shooting for beers. They’d arrived at some complicated equation: The person who wins has to buy everyone else three beers. Or else it was the other way around—the losers had to buy the winner three beers. It didn’t matter to me. I didn’t drink beer, and I wasn’t going drinking with them. I beat them.