Lipstick in Afghanistan

by Roberta Gately

  One was a pretty young woman named Laila. She was tiny, with sparkly eyes, dark hair, a singsongy voice, and a persistent smile. She looked so happy, Elsa thought, unable to grasp why.

  Laila’s husband, Ezat—a dour-faced man with a full beard and what seemed to be a permanent frown—was the other physician. Elsa wondered if Laila’s constant smile was meant to offset Ezat’s expression of choice.

  Ezat stood and spoke, his voice soft despite his scowl.

  “Why have they sent a woman, a nurse, here? It is an insult to me. What can you possibly teach us?”

  Elsa felt the color rise in her face and spread to her ears. Her voice sounded timid despite her frustration.

  “Aide du Monde has sent me here to work with you, not to teach you. In fact, you can probably teach me a thing or two.” She paused and took a deep breath. “But I want you to know—I am here to stay.”

  Ezat scowled again and strode away.

  The rest of the introductions were a blur, and Elsa could barely remember the names, though the staff—two male nurses and a cleaner—had been welcoming. Still reeling from Ezat’s anger, the sheer number of patients, and the dizzying array of situations, she announced her intent to look around. She wanted to become as familiar as she could with the setup.

  Though the hospital compound was tiny compared to Boston, she could see immediately there was a lot to be done, yet somehow, she had forgotten everything Pierre had said. There was something about managing the hospital and clinic, and creating protocols and procedures, but beyond that, she was at a loss. Panic welled up inside of her again, and she went outside to find a place where she could be alone.

  She sat on the low stone wall behind the hospital and pulled the medical handbook from her bag, hoping it might provide some answers. As she turned the first page, Laila appeared and joined her on the wall, pulling herself up to sit.

  “I speak a little English, Elsa,” she said tentatively. “I am sorry about Ezat. He is not always the most polite, but he is a good doctor. Are you all right? You seem so nervous.”

  “Oh God, Laila,” Elsa said. “I’m terrified. Ezat may be right. Now that I’m here, I’m not sure what I can do.” She closed the book with a thump and set it in her lap.

  “Do not worry.” She put her hand over Elsa’s. “You are here to help us. We want to know how best to really help our people, and you can show us with what you know and with what is in there.” She pointed to the green book. “One thing that would help would be to get more of those, so that Ezat and I can have one.”

  “There’s a little library at the office. I’m sure I saw another copy. I’ll bring it tomorrow.”

  “You see?” Laila smiled. “You have helped us already. We can study the book together.” Then she jumped down from the wall. “I have to get back. There is much to do. Tomorrow, you can work with me.” With that, she turned and walked back toward the clinic.

  “Thank you, Laila,” Elsa called after her. She felt better already.

  Elsa opened the book again, to read through the table of contents and introduction. To her dismay, she’d never even heard of half the things that were listed there: filariasis, leishmaniasis…

  Good God, what is this stuff?

  She spent the morning on the wall, reading and memorizing the symptoms of malaria, typhoid, meningitis, goiters, worms, and dysentery, and then she read the treatments and doses of the medicines again and again.

  She finally closed the book and sighed.

  She couldn’t imagine how these people survived at all.

  She and Hamid ate a dinner of beans and rice, and once she was alone, she tried to work out her new daily routine. She used a large ladle to transfer water from the tank in the courtyard into a bucket. She half carried, half dragged the full bucket into the bathroom and poured the water into the heating urn. She took a handful of the kindling that Hamid had left and placed it under the urn, then struck a match and fanned her little flame to life.

  One small victory.

  She gathered her soap, shampoo, towel, nightgown, and kerosene lantern. Once her water was heated, she filled a large bucket and squatted down. She soaped herself up, scrubbed, and then rinsed off with some of the water. To wash her hair, she knelt over the bucket and dunked her head in. She poured shampoo over her head and dunked her head in again to rinse her hair.

  There was no way she’d go through this every night, she decided.

  At least tonight I’m clean, she thought with relief. That’s something.

  Back in her own room, Elsa shivered and wrapped herself in a heavy sweater and a pair of thick socks before burrowing under two blankets for the night. She leaned over and blew out the flickering light on her lantern. Before she could think about how tired she was, she was asleep.

  The following morning, she met Laila at the clinic and gave her the green handbook. Laila’s smile grew even wider than it had been yesterday.

  “Besiar tashakore, my friend. Ezat, come and see what Elsa has brought!”

  Ezat poked his head out of the examining room. His brow wrinkled at the intrusion.

  “Che’ast? What is it?” he asked impatiently. Unfazed, Laila answered in her singsong voice.

  “A book, Ezat. Elsa brought a handbook for us to share.”

  Ezat strode from the room and took the book from Laila. He ran his finger over the cover and a faint smile crept onto his lips.

  “Tashakore, Elsa, tashakore. Pierre could never remember to bring this.” He held on to the book and disappeared back into the examining room.

  Elsa followed Laila on her hospital rounds, and Hamid followed Elsa like a shadow. The little parade caught the attention of patients and visitors alike, and to each one Laila explained that Elsa was a nurse from Amrika, come to help.

  A wizened old woman, who seemed too frail to even sit, pulled herself from her bed and leaned in to Elsa, running her fingers along Elsa’s face. She smiled then, nodded, and took Elsa’s hand and caressed it.

  “You see,” Laila said. “She likes you. Many people will feel the same way. You’ll do fine.”

  Once rounds were complete, Laila headed to the clinic. “I am already behind. See the crowds. It is like this every day. There are too many and not enough of us. We will see the sickest first, maybe others if there is time.”

  Elsa watched as people were turned away. To be chosen from the line, the villagers seemed to have to prove their sickliness. Fights broke out, and desperate people became even more desperate.

  “Too many patients for just the two of us,” Laila said. “But there is nothing we can do.”

  “Isn’t there something I can do to help?” Elsa asked.

  “There are so many waiting, and many have simple problems—skin diseases, coughs. See those for us, Elsa, and choose patients whose problems are familiar to you. That would be a good way to help.”

  Armed with penicillin, ointments, painkillers, and her little green handbook, Elsa made her way through the crowds and tended to rotting leg ulcers and long-festering sores. She squatted down and gently cleaned away the dead tissue and pus from a bony old man’s rancid leg before rubbing in ointment and covering it with gauze. She was comfortable with this stuff. Back in the ER, she’d tended the same decaying ulcers on the homeless men who’d slept in the city’s tunnels.

  Another gnarled old man bent and watched her as she cleaned his wounds. When she’d finished wrapping the gauze and taping it all up, he held up his leg for a look. Satisfied, he gave her a wide grin, and holding his hand on his heart, he bowed to her before he limped away.

  She doled out penicillin and pain pills to shriveled villagers with deep, wracking coughs, and she dispensed tiny pills to flush out worms from children’s bloated bellies. Caught up in her work, she forgot her nervousness, and she smiled at them while she did what she could to make them feel better.

  She noticed that the crowd watched her with interest, this young foreigner who’d come so far to wash an old man’s foul-smelling sor
es. At the end of the day, Laila came out to watch, and she told Elsa that she’d heard one patient murmur, “She is sent from Allah.”

  A persistent knocking at the front gate roused Elsa from her routine the following morning. She pulled on her head-scarf and hurried to open the gate, expecting to see Hamid. Instead, a small, nervous European man stood before her. He pulled his wire spectacles from his nose and spoke.

  “You are Elsa Murphy?” He wiped his sweating brow with his sleeve.

  She nodded and wondered if he was from ADM.

  “I am Johann, from the United Nations,” he said as he turned and pointed out a nearby compound where a UN banner hung. “Pierre Dubois gave me your name. May I come in, please?” he asked, his voice quivering.

  “Of course. Come in, come in. It’s good to meet you,” Elsa said as she stuck out her hand.

  Johann took her hand with both of his and held it surprisingly tightly. She could feel the dampness in his palms. He’s more anxious than I am, she thought with a smile.

  “I…” He seemed to have trouble getting started. “I am sorry to be blunt, but I have come to give you bad news. Aide du Monde has contacted me and asked that I inform you—” He stopped, the words catching in his throat. He raised his hand to his eyes, and she was surprised to see tears there. After a moment, he continued.

  “Pierre never made it to Yakawlang. His vehicle was stopped by bandits or maybe Taliban, and—” Johann wiped the tears from his eyes with his hand and cleared his throat. “He and the driver were killed.”

  Elsa felt the color drain from her face.

  “Dead? Pierre and Ismael? Oh, God.” She felt her knees go weak and she leaned against the wall.

  “It is terrible news, I know. Pierre was my friend.” Johann blinked his tears away. “But this is Afghanistan. It is a sad reminder to us all that this is a dangerous place.”

  Though she’d barely known them, Elsa felt a deep sadness envelop her. What had Pierre said? We must all make sacrifices.

  Her eyes welled up, and she glanced at Johann.

  “Did ADM say what they want me to do? Will the program close?”

  “No, no, I think nothing will change for you. Of course, it will be some time before they can send another person, but you are needed here, and for now at least, Bamiyan is safe.”

  He sighed and turned to go, but he paused and glanced back.

  “If I can help you, Elsa, please come and see me.”

  She thanked Johann, closed the gate, and stumbled back to her room.

  Dear God, she thought, what am I doing here? Alone in Afghanistan in a Taliban house.

  She almost wished they would send her home. Maybe she shouldn’t have come after all. She closed her eyes and waited until Hamid arrived. When she shared the news with him, his eyes grew wide.

  “It was almost dark when they left… too late, I think, to travel those roads. The bandits see a fancy foreign vehicle, and they know it carries men who possess money and radios. If Pierre had waited till morning, the roads might have been safe.”

  He shook his head sadly, and they set off for the clinic.

  Elsa’s day passed in a blur, a heaviness settling in her chest and worry tangling up her thoughts. She knew when she came to Afghanistan there’d be danger, but it hadn’t seemed real until today. What could she really do? She wasn’t ready to go home. She hadn’t even been there a week; she had to give it time. She couldn’t leave. She wouldn’t abandon the clinic, and Pierre, after all, had been killed leaving. No, it was safer to stay put. She took a deep breath. ADM would send someone.

  When she told Laila and Ezat about Pierre’s death, she was sure that she saw something in Ezat’s eyes—perhaps even tears—but he turned away quickly.

  7

  Elsa had been in Bamiyan less than a week when she’d seen the U.S. helicopters roaring overhead as she walked along the road. She’d stopped and watched, her head thrown back, her eyes open wide. The mere sight of them had enlivened her, and she’d known it was only a matter of time before she saw the soldiers. She looked for them each morning as she climbed the stairs to the roof. But wherever they were, they were well hidden from her view.

  Elsa began most mornings there on the roof, sipping coffee and watching as the village came alive. She listened to the first crow of the roosters, the bray of the donkeys, and the sounds of people stirring as they echoed across the village.

  One morning, as she and Hamid crossed the nearby stream and headed off to the clinic, a band of tiny boys and one little girl joined them and tagged along all the way to the hospital. They chattered and asked Elsa questions all the way, which Hamid translated with undisguised amusement.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Elsa. What’s yours?”

  With laughter, the string of names filled the air all at once.

  “Seema.”

  “Bouman.”

  “Noori.”

  “Hussein.”

  “Syed.”

  “Assadullah.”

  Then they resumed their interrogation.

  “Do you have children?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “Oh,” they replied sadly, for to be childless was considered a tragedy in Bamiyan.

  “Where’s your husband?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  And their eyes searched her face and her hands for the deformities that surely must have prevented her from acquiring a husband.

  Finding none, they sighed and chattered on.

  “Can you read?”

  “Can you count?”

  “Are there schools where you come from?”

  “Balay, yes,” Elsa said, nodding, and she asked Hamid to tell them that they should be in school. But they just laughed again.

  “There are no schools here. We can’t go to school. We have work to do.” And, as though they’d just reminded themselves of their chores, they were off, running back through the fields.

  Childhood was short-lived in Afghanistan.

  The band of children followed her every day. One bright morning, Elsa watched as they ran off, and there, just beyond the field, she spied a small U.S. Army convoy traveling the main road. Hidden from view by the field’s shrubbery, she paused and stood on her toes to watch as the convoy stopped and a soldier jumped from his vehicle. Craning her neck to see what he was up to, she saw that tiny Syed had fallen and scraped his hands. He sat alone at the side of the road sniveling and crying. The soldier knelt by Syed’s side and spoke quietly to him, then reached forward and lifted the small boy onto his shoulders. Syed shrieked with laughter and the soldier turned, and Elsa’s breath caught in her throat. Even from this distance, she could see that his eyes were the deepest blue imaginable, and when he smiled, they sparkled. It was that easy smile that held her gaze. She exhaled slowly and watched as he gently set Syed on a heavy rock by the side of the road and examined his injuries. He spoke to the boy, who smiled and nodded, and with a wave, the soldier jumped back into his jeep and the convoy moved off.

  “Come, let’s go.” Hamid’s words pierced her trance and she turned.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I was daydreaming.” She turned back to the path, her mind racing with thoughts of the handsome soldier.

  Shortly after her arrival in Bamiyan, Hamid found a female neighbor to live with Elsa. Her name was Amina, and though she was about Elsa’s age, she would act as her chaperone, the protector of her virtue and her reputation, as well as be her cook and companion. Amina had lived in the compound next door, and she had eagerly accepted the position when Hamid had offered it.

  Amina had been born with an extra finger on her right hand, her “good” hand. In Amina’s culture, Elsa was told, the left hand was considered dirty, used for cleaning oneself but never for eating or touching another person. To have the good hand somehow marked made it dirty as well, evil in the minds of the superstitious. More than one man had refused to marry her once he learned of her extra finger.

  In spite of h
er affliction and the sentence it carried, Amina was possessed of a relentlessly cheerful nature and a strikingly serene face with clear brown eyes, flawless skin, and waist-length black hair. She smiled broadly when Hamid introduced her to Elsa, and though she spoke no English, she seemed to communicate well enough through gestures and nods.

  Elsa led her around the small compound and when they arrived at Elsa’s room, Amina scowled. Shaking her head, she walked right in and motioned for help as she propped Elsa’s suitcase on end and showed how it could be used as a small table. There she arranged a flashlight, a lantern, and a few books. She smiled then and nodded.

  Together they hammered hooks into the bare wall to hang clothes and trekked to the bazaar, where they bought a colorful floor mat woven of hard plastic, as well as small pillows decorated with intricate beads and tiny mirrors, all intended to cheer up Elsa’s room.

  Amina negotiated the price of every item Elsa purchased. She tucked her extra finger into the palm of her hand and held her sleeve over it, waving the covered hand widly, frowning and raising her voice until she deemed the price reasonable. As they left each shop, her sweet nature returned instantly, and she demurely lowered her gaze and almost whispered, “Tashakore.”

  At each stop Elsa watched, fascinated. It became clear that Amina was a force to be reckoned with.

  At home, they developed a familiar routine. In the morning, Amina prepared tea and rice, and Hamid picked up the warm naan on his way to the house. After their shared breakfast, Hamid and Elsa headed off to the hospital and Amina remained behind to do the chores. She cleaned and prepared dinner.

  But Amina was paid for her labors, a fact that separated her from most Afghan women. And Hamid revealed to Elsa that Amina had dreams now, not just because of the money but because she worked for a foreign nurse. She planned to ask Elsa to cut off her hated extra appendage, convinced that without it, she would find a husband.

  I hope it never comes to that, Elsa thought. But she kept her silence.

  Every morning, Elsa conducted her own nursing clinic, and with Hamid by her side, she saw countless villagers complaining of simple problems. She kept her green handbook in her pocket and she consulted it frequently. The first time she identified leishmaniasis on her own, she wanted to shout with joy. Instead, she smiled broadly as she painted the wound with gentian violet and sent the patient on his way. Each day brought more small victories, and before long, the endless line of patients had dwindled to a manageable length.