Lipstick in Afghanistan

by Roberta Gately

  Elsa shook his hand and, composing herself, replied.

  “I’m Elsa Murphy, a nurse with Aide du Monde,” she answered. It was wonderful to be in the company of another American, to think and speak in English, but she was anxious. “I’m not sure that it’s safe for me to be seen with you,” she said softly.

  “I understand,” Lieutenant Martin said reassuringly. “That’s why I’m here. We’d like to talk with you, Miss Murphy, and the Chief would like to invite you to come to supper a week from Sunday. Are you available?”

  Elsa hesitated. More than once the French-based ADM had warned her to avoid the soldiers—“the invaders,” they’d called them. You are forbidden to fraternize with them, Pierre had said. It is our first rule. But unless she told the office in Paris, how would they know she’d broken their rule?

  The lieutenant must have seen the doubt in her eyes.

  “You’ll be safe; we promise you that. We know where the ADM compound is, and we can pick you up at eighteen hundred hours.” He paused and smiled. “Sorry. Six P.M., outside of your house. If you wait there, we’ll collect you. No need to worry.”

  She forced a smile. “Then I’ll be there,” she said, wondering if her blue-eyed soldier would be too.

  “See you then.” He waved cheerfully as he headed out the gate. Elsa watched as he jumped into a jeep and drove off in a cloud of dust.

  Elsa returned to the clinic and to ten Taliban prisoners who were waiting to be seen.

  “Taliban?” she asked Hamid uneasily. “I thought they were all in jails around Kabul.”

  “There is a prison here in Bamiyan that now holds about one hundred Taliban,” Hamid answered. “They were captured by villagers or the police or the U.S. soldiers, and they are here still. They have come today with medical complaints. The Bamiyan police are with them, and it is your decision whether or not they will be seen.”

  Elsa hesitated. “Why is it my decision?”

  “You are the administrator of this clinic and it is your job, Elsa, to make these decisions.”

  “Hmm.” She paused to think. “Well, we have a duty here to provide medical care. I suppose I should have a look. Where are they?”

  Hamid led her behind the clinic to where the prisoners sat huddled on the ground with four police officers nearby. Elsa approached them slowly. They were a wretched bunch, not particularly vicious or frightening, just pathetic. They were filthy and their clothes were tattered and probably infested with lice. All of them were bearded, scrawny men who’d had any arrogance beaten out of them.

  Through gritted teeth, Elsa asked each of them, in Dari, what was wrong.

  “Mariz? Che taklif dori?”

  Each had a minor complaint—a cough, red eyes, the terrible itch that comes with lice. There wasn’t a really sick one among them. Elsa noticed that one of them sat trembling, tears running like little streams through the layers of dirt on his face.

  “Che taklif?” she asked Hamid, nodding toward the little man.

  Hamid spoke to the filthy man, who spoke softly as he condemned the Taliban and declared that he was not one of them.

  “I was taken prisoner only because I was caught taking food for my starving family. I am not Taliban!” His tone was fierce and convincing, so much so that one of the police officers moved forward menacingly, only to be waved off by Elsa, who asked the man his name.

  “I am Mohammed from Sattar,” he replied politely. “I am but a simple farmer whose fields these infidels burned. I have a cough and am very tired.” He placed a bony hand over his heart. “May God bless you for helping me this day.”

  Elsa wanted to know if his story was true, so she wrote his name and village down. Perhaps Hamid could help her confirm his claim.

  Finally, with the rest of the prisoners looking on, Elsa nodded to Hamid. “If you move them all to the emergency room, I can see them quickly. We don’t want them here for long.”

  Hamid grunted at the prisoners and guided them to the clinic.

  Two days later, Elsa and Hamid stopped at the village prison and spoke with a representative of the provincial governor’s police. Elsa saw Mohammed through the bars of his crowded cell, and he watched intently as she inquired about his crimes. He waved and put his hand over his heart.

  “Salaam alaikum, chetore asti? Khoob asti? Jona jurast?” he said loudly.

  The police were frank. “Oh no, no, he is not a Taliban soldier. He stole food and he must pay for it before he can be released,” one policeman declared.

  “But he has no money. How can he do that?” Elsa asked.

  “That is his problem, not mine,” the policeman replied. “It is the law.”

  “But—” Elsa felt Hamid’s foot nudge her own.

  “We must go,” he said. “He is just doing his job.”

  Before they left the jail, she turned and raised her hand to Mohammed.

  “Alaikum salaam,” she called out as she turned to the door.

  On the walk home, she asked Hamid to find out how much money Mohammed would need to buy his way out of jail.

  Hamid reported the following day. “It will take five hundred afghanis—ten U.S. dollars—to get him out of jail.”

  “Just ten?” Elsa turned and fished a ten-dollar bill from her bag. “Here,” she said, handing it to Hamid. “I knew I’d need it one of these days. When you have a few minutes, will you go back?”

  Hamid smiled. “You are a kind woman, Elsa.”

  When Mohammed was released, he returned to the clinic with Hamid to bestow endless blessings on Elsa.

  “Tashakore, you are very kind to help me. Because of your kindness, I will return today to my family in Sattar. I hope that someday, inshallah, I will see you again.”

  “You are very welcome,” she replied somewhat self-consciously. “I hope that someday, you’ll come back and visit us.”

  Mohammed salaamed, bowed, and headed home.

  Though Friday was Islam’s holy day and most of the village and the clinic were closed, Elsa and Hamid continued to work most Fridays for at least part of the day. There was so much to do when the clinic was open that it was her only time to do paperwork and to figure out what supplies and medicines they needed. Besides, it wasn’t as if there was much else for either of them to do in this tiny village, far from home.

  So she threw herself into work. She started by organizing the pharmacy. Located in an old stable behind the clinic, it had never been properly cleaned before the medicines and supplies were moved in, and it still carried the unmistakable stench of animal waste. Containers of drugs were covered with bits of hay and other remnants of the stable.

  She worked with the record keeper, Sidiq, a hunched-over, humpbacked young man who spoke excellent English in the whiniest voice Elsa had ever heard. He had nothing else to do on Fridays and he welcomed the chance to work. His face was etched in a permanent scowl, not from any bad intentions, but from the jinn, he said.

  He had been arrested in Kabul for having a clean-shaven face in a time when only long, flowing beards were allowed. He had been thrown into the infamous Policharki prison for a full year and during that time the jinn had stolen into his mind. They had made him sad and crazy; he screamed and spit, and feigned seizures. Inexplicably the Taliban didn’t kill him. Instead, they’d thrown him out of the jail.

  “If the jinn want you, then they can have you,” the Taliban had finally declared.

  “And so I left Policharki, thinking the jinn would escape from my soul once I was released, but they didn’t let go,” Sidiq explained sadly. “They held on tighter to my mind and made me an unpleasant sort. Even my mother hated to be around me. I would suddenly start to spit and scream for no reason, and there was nothing I could do but let the jinn have their way.

  “Finally, I mustered the strength I would need to pass ADM’s interview for national staff, and I came here to Bamiyan. The jinn don’t seem to like Bamiyan and I think they may have left me, though you can never be sure with the jinn.”


  Elsa learned then that he was looking for a wife. “I don’t think I’ll get one in Kabul, though. If people know the jinn have you, there’s no way they’ll let you near their daughter. I think that maybe here in Bamiyan, I can make a match.”

  Elsa immediately thought of dear Amina, who so desperately wanted a husband. She looked closely at Sidiq. Though homely and cursed with a voice that could cut through wood, he was sweet and intelligent. And after all, if the jinn had prevented each of them from finding a spouse, why not damn the jinn and introduce them to each other?

  What could it hurt?

  When he paused for a moment to catch his breath, she spoke up.

  “I know it’s not my place to make introductions, but my friend Amina is unfailingly kind and beautiful, and it is only an extra finger on her right hand—which she says was given to her by the jinn—which has prevented her from making a match of her own.”

  “Ahh,” Sidiq replied. “When the jinn get hold of a girl, well, that’s it, isn’t it?”

  “But surely you have to agree that it’s silly,” Elsa said, pleading with him. “Her only affliction is an extra finger, nothing else. We can even try to have it cut off. Would you consider meeting her?”

  “Hmm.” Sidiq seemed to consider it for a minute. “It’s not our way here in Afghanistan, but, well… I guess it can’t hurt, just to meet her.”

  “It’s agreed then. Come home with me this afternoon and have tea with us.”

  At the news of Elsa’s tea, Hamid’s mouth wrinkled into a frown.

  “Elsa, families arrange marriages here, not foreign women with teas and special afternoons. This is Afghanistan. I think that you are making a big mistake.”

  But she wouldn’t be swayed.

  “Oh, Hamid, both of these people want to be married and their families have had no success in finding them partners. What’s the harm?”

  Hamid shook his head and fell silent.

  Sidiq confessed timidly that he agreed with Hamid.

  “I’m not so sure that this is a good idea.” His voice rose to a higher pitch as they headed up the road to Elsa’s house. “Still, tea in the afternoon is always welcome.”

  When the three of them arrived at home, Amina, who’d had no warning, was so flustered at having two men in the house that she had to be coaxed from her room. Even then, she sat holding her veil over her face and across her extra finger, too nervous to speak or even drink her tea.

  As for the usually chatty Sidiq, he was suddenly struck silent except for the loud slurping sound he made as he sipped his tea. If he even noticed Amina, he showed no sign. It was left to Elsa and Hamid to somehow fill the unexpected silence, and mercifully the afternoon tea was over almost as quickly as it had begun.

  That evening, Elsa apologized to Amina.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. She repeated it several times. “It’s just that he’s looking for a wife, and he’s really very nice, but I should have asked first. I hope you’re not angry. I won’t try anything like that again.”

  A smile crept across Amina’s lips. She lowered her gaze and caressed her extra finger. Elsa noticed the smile and realization swept over her.

  “Ohh, you liked him, didn’t you?” she asked.

  Amina remained silent, but her smile grew wider.

  For all of his seeming indifference to Amina’s hidden charms, Sidiq arrived at the clinic the following morning and presented Elsa with a cherished gift. It was a delicately beaded hand mirror held in a tiny, hand-sewn velvet pouch.

  “Oh!” Elsa exclaimed. “It’s beautiful. I can’t accept it though; it wouldn’t be right.” She tried to give it back to Sidiq but he pushed it into her hands again.

  “It is for you. You must take it. I made this and others when I was in Policharki. My mother brought the beads and mirrors, and I would work all day gluing and arranging the little beads to frame the small looking glass. My mother hoped that if the jinn caught sight of me and my reflection, they would become confused and take their leave of me.

  “But it never happened, until yesterday, when I felt the jinn leave me forever as I sat to tea with you and your friends. I believe that I am going to speak with Amina’s brother. Hamid has pointed out his house to me and has promised to accompany me there so that I may present myself and my intentions.”

  He finally stopped to take a deep breath, and he smiled.

  “No rose is without thorns, and she is a rose, my dear Elsa. Besiar tashakore, many thanks to you, my sister.”

  Elsa murmured her own thanks and rushed off before Sidiq could see her tears. She clutched the little mirror and placed it gently into her pocket.

  14

  With her routine established, Elsa found time to write to Maureen, and though there was no postal service in Afghanistan yet, Johann had promised to slip the letter into his next UN pouch and have it mailed from Geneva. She’d knocked one morning at Johann’s gate on the way to the clinic but there was no answer. She stuffed the letter back into her bag, and she and Hamid headed off.

  When she arrived at the clinic, she made her way through the hospital ward in search of Laila for their morning rounds. There seemed to be an undercurrent rippling through the waiting crowd, but with her still limited grasp of the language, she wasn’t able to put a finger on it. So she scanned the halls for Laila and as she did, she spotted Johann.

  “Johann,” she called, pulling the letter from her bag and marveling at this bit of unexpected luck.

  Pushing his thick eyeglasses over his nose, Johann turned and almost ran into her. “Elsa, I’ve been looking for you. You are needed.” In his already shaky voice, he explained that a local bus had exploded when it drove over an antitank mine in a nearby village.

  “It is just terrible. There will be many dead and injured. When these mines explode, everything nearby is decimated. Everything.” His voice quivered as Laila joined them, listening intently. “We need you to help at the scene. Can you help, do you think?”

  Elsa turned to Laila, who nodded her approval.

  “Go, Elsa,” she said quickly. “And take Ezat with you. I’ll get ready for the injured.”

  Elsa turned to Johann. “I can help.” Noticing the hesitation in her own voice, she repeated it. “I know I can help.”

  If he noticed her anxiety, he gave no sign.

  “You can go in my jeep. I will send another soon.”

  Elsa quickly packed first aid supplies and other necessary items into a backpack. Ezat appeared beside her and worked silently, gathering equipment. Together, they found Hamid and the trio set off in the UN jeep.

  Hamid sped over the rugged terrain and through dusty villages, but it still took more than thirty minutes to get to the scene. They had no way of getting more detailed information, of even knowing if anyone survived. Elsa sat in the jeep, clinging to her seat, checking and rechecking her supplies and glancing at her watch. Ezat sat quietly, looking out.

  When they finally arrived, Elsa stepped quickly from the jeep. Twisted metal, charred body parts, and blood-soaked clothes lay strewn about as if they’d rained down from the sky. Everywhere she looked, a body or a body part lay in a pool of blood. Elsa felt her mouth go dry and her legs go weak; she fought the urge to look away.

  Small pockets of fire still blazed and the smell of smoke and burning flesh filled the air, stinging her eyes and throat. Crying survivors, their clothes torn and bloodied, wandered through the wreckage and searched through the burned and crushed bodies that littered the ground. Even the road and the trees bordering it were charred and pockmarked from the blast.

  A gray-haired woman, her veil in shreds and scattered like confetti in her loose hair, kneeled in the road as though praying. She held something tight in her hands, and as Elsa moved closer, she saw that it was a child’s bloodied sandal.

  Nearby, a young man whose head was laced with cuts and skin was scorched stood in the midst of the blast site, his arms outstretched and face turned to the sky. Though he seemed to be screaming, onl
y a faint mewling sound came from his lips.

  Clusters of people huddled together, some bleeding, some crying, some just watching. Suddenly, they stopped and turned, and Elsa felt their eyes come to rest on her. Her throat tightened. She looked around again and gulped a mouthful of air.

  The devastation was unimaginable.

  She turned and saw Hamid and Ezat nearby, standing perfectly still and just looking over the scene.

  Oh God, she thought, what do I do? If we were in Boston, what would I do? And suddenly, she knew.

  “Triage.” She said it out loud. “I need to triage and then we can help.” She hesitated, took a slow, steadying breath, and turned to Hamid and Ezat.

  “Hamid, please ask the injured—those who are able to walk—to sit over there.” Her hand trembled as she pointed to a crumbling stone wall by the side of the road. Then she gestured to a clear area closer to the wreckage. “See if the onlookers can move the badly injured here where Ezat and I can examine them.”

  Ezat nodded agreement, and Hamid rushed off to direct the movement of the injured.

  As she stood in the road, Elsa saw that there were still people lying under the mutilated wreckage of the bus. She walked to the twisted metal frame and knelt down for a better look, but it was too dark. She hunched down farther and crawled through the pieces of wreckage. The metal and glass gnawed at her hands and knees as she made her way along the edge of the mangled wreck. She adjusted her eyes and looked again. She could just make out three lifeless bodies, two of them crushed by the weight of the bus. They lay in pools of blood, pieces of jagged metal piercing their lifeless frames. She scrunched down and reached out to touch the face of a tiny girl, but she could find no pulse and the little girl’s skin was gray and scorched. She was dead. Elsa gently closed the child’s eyes before briefly closing her own, praying for strength. She took a deep breath and reached in to feel two more bodies, both crushed beyond recognition. They were dead too.

  Moving on, she searched for any signs of life—a pulse or a breath—but there was nothing, just silence. She crawled away from the wreck, tears blurring her vision.