Into the Sun

by Deni Ellis Béchard

  He and Steve had discussed K&R over drinks. Clay had been in charge of training the company’s Nepalese guards, but he’d been bored. Establishing K&R, they agreed, would bring an influx of cash with little overhead. The operation had no offices, floating inside the parent company, and if it were to close, some permits wouldn’t get renewed; that was all. Clay was its only employee on the books.

  In its first months, he’d freed three kidnapped businessmen. He’d built a relationship with Afghan Special Forces, who’d arrested the kidnappers after the fact and recovered ransom moneys, taking their share, a reasonable one in Clay’s view. But then something stalled. Kabul’s aid bubble began imploding, and Afghans increasingly solved their own problems.

  Clay’s thoughts shifted, an impression like someone reaching for his shoulder in a crowd, and his anger was back, a memory of Justin’s big ideas when they were in high school: evil’s axis and the imperatives of freedom. After repeating things his father had told him about America’s duty to spread democracy, Justin would get a wistful look, as if realizing that the words he’d spoken hadn’t changed anything; the world was the same.

  Clay reached the mountain and raced up the rain-gutted road, the front wheel weightless as he dropped gears. The sun had almost set, and he squinted against its brilliance, taking the first hairpin turn and skidding. He climbed again, Kabul spreading out at his shoulder beneath smog and dust that thickened with distance into a black line.

  After the American invasion, the slopes had been largely bare, but now mud-brick homes crowded them, migrants from the provinces competing for every scrap of land, and Kabul was the fifth-fastest-growing urban area on the planet. His house guard had told him that the farther you ascended, the more the ethnic groups changed. The top, being difficult to provision with water, was for the poorest. But someday, Clay thought, if Afghanistan calmed, Kabul would be the new Provence or Tuscany. Tourists would flock here to buy up and renovate the highest houses. With enough white paint, the mountainside slums would look fine on a Greek postcard. A new breed of expats could reminisce on history and romanticize the war, writing memoirs as they enjoyed the view: the successive ridges of the Hindu Kush running against the sky.

  He rode faster, rushed into the next curve, barely staying upright. His anger needed a target — it was always there in his youth, in the military, aimed at those who hadn’t earned their status or who profited from the effort of others, from casualties they’d never see.

  After he’d fled his father and crossed the continent, he’d gone back to Lake Charles, to the familiarity of the swamp town. No one answered at Demetrie’s. Between cupped hands, he peered through the windows at empty rooms.

  Later, his mother told him that Demetrie had hung himself. He’d left everything to Clay, but their family had descended upon Lake Charles and plundered the house, a tribal arrogation preceding written wills, a levy for having to mourn the body of the deceased.

  Holding Clay, his mother cried as she told him about Demetrie. He’d never seen her tears before. They shone on her pale skin like beads, like an image from an old movie or a book, of ancient queens curtaining their faces with jewels.

  Then she told him about Justin.

  While I was in the bathtub, she’d said, I’d adjust my head real slow. I could see through my eyelashes. His eye was right at the edge of the window.

  Before Clay’s shock could explode into anger, she confessed that she’d liked it.

  You know, with his life in there with that family — who wouldn’t be lonely? I felt close to him. He was so desperate, and I knew he liked me.

  But then she said that Justin changed his mind, as if she were a mistake — and her tears became those of a child.

  Clay began the paperwork for his inheritance so that he and his mother could move into Demetrie’s. Elle had been hesitant, saying she enjoyed living in the carriage house and had committed to cleaning for the Falkers, and he’d realized she was still hoping to be with Justin.

  Now, climbing the mountain, Clay took each turn harder, the dim plate of the city tilting. He cranked the accelerator and went into a slide, his elbow scraping the road as the bike swung like a pendulum, ripping at loose dirt and rock. The muffler burned against his jeans. He heaved and kicked. The bike clattered down. The engine sputtered and then stalled.

  Sunlight from a distant range struck the earth around him, dividing it between shadow and an ancient yellow radiance that seemed to emanate from the mud homes and naked stone.

  In Lake Charles, he’d walked, trying to envision who he could become, as he had the first time he’d moved there. He followed roads through the swamps. At a yard sale, he opened a book of essays by Frederick Jackson Turner. In its musty pages, like a bookmarker, was a torn strip scrawled with, An American hero is the lover of the spirit of the wilderness, and his acts of love and sacred affirmation are acts of violence against that spirit and her avatars. He bought the book for a quarter, and though he’d read it twice, the line was written nowhere in its pages.

  The night of the party, he’d tracked Justin easily. He aimed at his heart but followed the barrel up and in that instant, controlling his impulse, shot him in the hand.

  Clay’s body had gone silent, without breath or heartbeat. Justin swung his rifle toward him.

  And then Clay had the thought, clear as if speaking it — My mother isn’t your rite of passage, you privileged son of a bitch — and shot out his eye.

  ALEXANDRA

  A dry wind stripped Kabul’s smog even as it stirred up a haze of dust that muted the sun. In front of Alexandra’s taxi, a poorly repainted Toyota Hilux slowed, its bed heaped with handmade furniture, rugs between the pieces as padding. Dozens of cardboard boxes were tied on top, one torn, exposing a red soccer ball. As the truck jolted over potholes, a gust freed it.

  She leaned close to the window as the ball bounced, ricocheted against the grill of a passing car, and soared across the street, veering as the wind pushed it off course. Pedestrians stopped, staring as it rolled, bumped a tire, skittered, and fell into a gutter. A man in a tan shalwar kameez scooped it up and walked down a street with it propped between his wrist and hip, looking as natural as someone who’d finished a game and was going home.

  Alexandra exhaled. She’d been holding her breath. She felt as if something was going to happen. Since that morning, her frustration had been worse than usual. She’d been putting together a file on a girl incarcerated at fifteen for immorality: her uncle had raped her, and she’d had three children in prison in three years. Working in a place like this had been part of Alexandra’s vision, but she could have done meaningful work in a number of countries — or, indeed, in Canada, where many women were also abused and unprotected, and the rapes and murders of Aboriginal women often went unpunished. But Afghanistan had seemed the greater challenge, and there was the appeal of the war itself: a chapter in history, generations of violence visible in people’s lives. War had shaped the human race, and she wanted to experience a country depicted like a frontier, where she could test her will and courage.

  The cold and pollution of Kabul, the rundown offices and houses and vehicles, the obvious corruption and ineffective foreign aid, the angry, discouraged, or manic expats, and the angrier, genuinely desperate Afghans weren’t what she’d expected. Her job kept her in the office, and she had to argue with her employers so that she could live among other expats without armed guards. But she met few Afghans and wanted to work in the prisons. At the same time, she wanted to go home and have a drink with friends and take on less impossible cases. She accused herself of insincerity, worrying that she’d come here to satisfy guilt or prove something, so she pushed harder and each day woke more resentful. No one else knew how she felt, so self-absorbed that they took her silence for allure, not inner turmoil bordering on depression at her daily study of brutality.

  There was no lack of men here who saw her as a seductive
secret. Expat women had a saying: the odds are good, but the goods are odd. She’d smiled when she’d first heard it, but now it had become clichéd, repeated often in the same way that expats obliquely praised themselves for being here, making light of hardship to convey how superior they were for enduring it. In the past few years, the men she’d dated had been masculine, aggressive, on the verge of overcoming whatever was destroying them — drugs, rage at society, indifference to the future — but in the end, she walked away from all of them because change never took place.

  Justin, though odd, also struggled with his purpose. Other men were more at ease here, but they tried so hard to convince her of their worth that she doubted it. Justin was big and muscled, yet cautious, a shyness that she imagined in recluses.

  The taxi crossed the highway and pulled onto the school’s street. She’d taken half the day off and arrived in time for lunch. As everyone ate oily rice mixed with raisins, Frank told a story about a day a few years ago when his car got caught in the middle of street protests.

  There was a rumor, he said, that an American soldier out in the wilds somewhere had burned the Holy Qu’ran, and people were angry, though the protests never made the news in the US. I had no armed guards, no armored vehicle, and I got through. I live here without guns because the best defense is no defense. You can’t be part of the people if you’re locked in a fortress. I’ll never live inside the wire. Everyone here knows this school is theirs. It’s not separate. But it requires the bravery to fight evil. Evil is just live spelled backward. A great man wrote that. These girls are trying to live, and the people who want to prevent that are nothing less than evil.

  Frank’s bombast dominated the meal, but when he shut up and the girls spoke, Alexandra felt changed. She’d had contact with two Afghan women in her offices, both raised and educated abroad, and she’d expected local girls to be submissive and quiet. But these young women told her they intended to be journalists, doctors, and lawyers. Some lived in Kabul and commuted. Others were from the provinces. Frank found them through acquaintances. He listened for talk of strong-willed girls and invited them to live in the dormitory for free.

  Sediqa told her story, how she’d convinced her father to let her go to school on her own.

  Many men, she said, when they see you without a burqa, in the street, without a man, they are not kind. They think you are bad for leaving the house alone. So I did not look to the sides. I did not look at the men who were looking at me. I went to school. I got a job. I am still studying. Mr. Frank has helped me. But now my father is dead. My uncles will sell me. If they catch me trying to leave, they will beat me or kill me for dishonoring them.

  Afterward, in Justin’s room, Alexandra asked him if Sediqa would receive a scholarship. He closed the door and stopped, his back to her.

  There is only one available, he said.

  She put her hand on his shoulder and turned him, as if coaxing a child out of a corner.

  Why wouldn’t she get it? Her life is at stake.

  He went to the bed and sat, his hands clasped beneath his chin, his elbows against his knees — his posture preacher-like and distinctly Southern. She sat next to him, and he explained how Frank had been using Idris, stringing him along with promises.

  If he doesn’t get a scholarship, what has he been working for all these years?

  She had the sense he was talking through his decision and would come to the right conclusion. He mentioned Clay, an old friend who’d become a security contractor here and whom Idris had contacted, probably for work, and how Idris hadn’t been showing up to class.

  If he isn’t attending class, she asked, why are you considering him for the scholarship? He’s a man. He’ll be fine. His life won’t be destroyed.

  Justin put his forehead to his knuckles.

  She felt a twinge of disgust. Like the Afghans, he was caught between two cultures: progressive society and that contorted evangelical anachronism.

  Sediqa is an amazing woman, she said. You have to save her.

  He sighed and rubbed his face. I know you’re right. I may as well do it now.

  She followed him downstairs, where she was scheduled to give a talk to the class about her work and education.

  Sediqa, Justin said.

  She came from the girls clustered around the table and adjusted her headscarf as if his presence demanded modesty.

  I’m pleased to announce that you will receive the scholarship to study in the United States.

  Sediqa took two quick steps and wrapped her arms around him. Some girls smiled, and others blushed. Alexandra became aware of her heart as it gave a few sudden strong pulsations. Living here had so quickly accustomed her to distance.

  Sediqa backed away, and for the sake of those who’d just arrived, Justin reintroduced Alexandra, describing her work as a lawyer.

  When she began to speak the girls changed, an easing around their lips, the dispersal of wariness. She talked about the legal history of sex crimes in Canada, how even there, abused women had often been blamed. The girls asked questions, and she told them about her studies.

  Frank came in and sat in the back of the room with the air of a general arriving unannounced to inspect his troops.

  Afterward, in front of the class, he asked Alexandra to be a mentor. The girls clasped their hands and raised their eyebrows in expectation. Saying no wasn’t an option — not that she would have — and yet who was she to mentor girls this courageous?

  What you said in there, Frank told her and Justin later, as they waited outside for Idris — that can change a girl’s life. He appeared deep in thought, chewing the earpiece of his glasses, and spoke like a man with a cigar in his teeth.

  They stood just inside the gate, in the winter dusk that sapped the world of color. Justin’s cell rang. It was Idris calling to say he would be late because traffic was bad and had been restricted from several roads due to security concerns. She and Justin had dinner reservations, and he’d planned on having Idris drive them. He suddenly appeared dejected, no doubt realizing he should have called a taxi now that Sediqa was getting the scholarship.

  As they huddled in their jackets, Frank began to speak about scholarships, and how, unless instilled with national pride and hope, most young Afghans who went to America would cross the border to Canada as refugees.

  Alexandra recalled Tam telling her about cowboy development workers who, drawn by the gold-rush aura of Obama’s civilian surge, set up one-man shows whose apparent merits they preached in bars. She described a former National Guard from Missouri who told the Afghan security forces he was US Special Ops and, for a year before he was found out and arrested, kept a prison in his compound, interrogating Afghans so he could track down Mullah Omar.

  The white Corolla splashed along the street and honked. Alexandra said good night to Frank, and he told her, Don’t forget the girls. They need you.

  Justin sat in the front, next to Idris, and she got into the back.

  Idris, he said, this is Alexandra.

  Pleased to meet you, Ms. Alexandra.

  Pleased to meet you, Idris.

  Idris drove fast, not along the main road but the side streets, dodging potholes and heaped stone, the tires swimming in the ruts. After ten minutes, he pulled onto a paved avenue, the rear window glowing with the condensed lights of the traffic jam he’d bypassed.

  Kabul was largely unlit, and oncoming drivers jockeyed to pass each other, their headlights flashing into the windshield. The repeated acceleration and braking soon made Alexandra nauseous. Idris’s focus seemed to justify their silence.

  Closer to downtown, the traffic slowed, five cars side by side in two lanes, exhaust rising, and dust so thick that buildings became visible suddenly, materializing like mountains from behind clouds. Men who’d finished work edged between cars the way people squeeze behind chairs in a cramped dining room. They tapped on the
windows to inquire after free space.

  The car now inched along the river, next to a low stone wall. Forty-five minutes had gone by. Idris turned left, away from the river, and she pulled her headscarf down as men looked in, maybe hoping for a ride. She’d never seen traffic so congested, cars wedging in, six inches between doors.

  Suddenly, a shrill sound — she couldn’t tell from where — rose to a shriek. Ahead of them, across from the Serena Hotel, above a rooftop, a reddish flare traced a line before slanting down. From the far side of the hotel, pale light radiated like a camera flash, illuminating the street. Red embers leapt into the night and vanished. The detonation thudded in her bones, through the frame of the car.

  The sound, the flare, the reverberation — the flash and embers — nothing connected. They hung in her mind, each impression separated by a sense of immeasurable time.

  Rocket, Idris said flatly.

  With a tidal pull, the traffic before their car vanished, pressing into streets and alleys beyond the hotel. In front of them appeared unlit asphalt like a dark plaza. Somewhere behind them, pedestrians shouted as they fled.

  Idris accelerated and then struck the brakes almost immediately, and the car jolted in place. The street was open. A rocket had passed directly over it seconds ago. The only direction to go was through the line of fire.

  Justin had his hands braced against the dash, his feet planted.

  Idris hit the accelerator, his arms rigid.

  The car lunged with the suddenness of a roller coaster after its first peak. Unlit buildings blurred past, broken asphalt streaking beneath the headlights. Another car raced at their side. Alexandra lay down and crammed herself behind the front seats.