The First Stone

  A spicy, balsamic smell surrounds us in the darkness. A small group of men, their patus pulled over their heads, are sitting around a smoldering fire, breathing in the smoke from the embers.

  “What are they doing?” I ask.

  “They’re meeting Qais Abdur Rashid.”

  Bazgar points at the trees, and I suddenly notice we’re no longer surrounded by pines. These trees are evergreens, but their needles grow in small wreaths. He plucks a handful of dark-blue berries from one tree and places them in my hand. “Juniper,” he says. “In other places, they grow on bushes. With us, they become trees. The trees are many thousands of years old.” He points at a tree with an especially gnarly trunk. “That tree was here when Qais Abdur Rashid came by.”

  I search my memory. Bazgar obviously assumes I know what he’s talking about.

  “Qais Abdur Rashid is our ancestor,” he says, as if sensing my confusion. “He is the ancestor of all Pashtuns. He’s buried near here. The smoke from the juniper berries gives us visions, and when we inhale it, we meet him.”

  My father, I think. He’s everywhere. Well, you meet your ancestor, and I’ll soon meet mine. Is my mission really so different from your hallucinations?

  45

  Searching for a place to lie down, I notice a small group of soldiers sitting around one of the bonfires and talking. I thought everyone had turned in, but they probably can’t sleep, either. As I walk over to join them, I discover that Andreas’s camera is circulating among them. They’re speaking into the camera—not to each other.

  “Okay to sit down?” I ask.

  Andreas lifts one hand. “You can sit down,” he says, “but just don’t talk. We’re filming.”

  “What are you filming?”

  “The other day we lost Karlsen,” says Dennis. “We think tomorrow’s going to be really bad. So we wanted to say something to the camera. About ourselves, no matter how hard or painful it all is.”

  Hannah told me about this. I want to contradict him. Tell him: You’re going home! That kind of thing. But it’s not the right time.

  Simon grabs the video camera and holds it up in front of his face. He looks around uncertainly, as if he has to pull it together before he starts.

  “Look into the camera! No, wait!” Andreas takes the camera. “I’ll do it.”

  I look over his shoulder. The firelight flickers across Simon’s face. The picture on the screen is blurry and grainy. Andreas hasn’t turned on the camera’s light.

  “I’ve worked on so many dead bodies,” says Simon, “and each time I feel the same guilt. I think I should have saved them. It’s all hopeless. I have two weeks’ training as a medic. Death has been practicing since the beginning of time.” He stops and looks down while rubbing his face with one hand.

  “I’m a trained butcher.” Simon looks up again. “When my friends heard I was leaving for Afghanistan, they all said the same thing: ‘Simon’s becoming a halal butcher—he’s going to slaughter Muslims.’ I have to be honest. I came here for the money. As a butcher’s apprentice, I made eight thousand crowns a month. As a journeyman, twenty-three thousand. Before taxes. Out here I earn the same amount after taxes. I don’t want to work in the meat industry—I don’t want to stand there firing a bolt into the forehead of some stressed-out animal a hundred times a day. I can become a sausage maker. Or intestine cleaner. Can’t you just hear me on a date? Hi, there—I’m an intestine cleaner. And when I eventually have kids? My daddy cleans intestines. Prepared meals are the wave of the future, they said at vocational school. I got bad grades in sauces and potatoes. No, I want my own little slaughterhouse. The good death—the good meat—as my old master butcher used to say.”

  He stops again.

  “Finished?” Andreas asks impatiently. He hasn’t really been listening—he just wants to get the recordings in the can.

  Simon shakes his head. “Just one more thing.” He lifts an index finger as if asking for everyone’s attention. “Sometimes I feel like a bank robber who wants to pull off one last heist before he retires. And then he makes some stupid mistake and winds up on the ground, holding his stomach. Do you think we’re ever going home? I know it’s bullshit to ask about it that way, but sometimes I feel as if my head’s going to explode. Because I don’t think we’re ever going home.”

  His expression turns dark and he looks away. Andreas turns off the camera. “Camper,” he says. “What about you?”

  Camper takes the camera and turns it back on. “I want to quote something from one of the Icelandic sagas. It’s a song of death.”

  Camper closes his eyes to concentrate and then opens them again. His gaze is piercing. I imagine what his expression must look like when, from some high point, he scans the landscape through his rifle’s scope.

  “First came the blows, then the wounds,

  And death’s boat sails on a river of blood.

  A screeching flock of vultures

  Flies to the blood-covered shores.

  And now they sit, full and drowsy, dozing

  By the river, bleached by the sun all day.

  I am left there, too, beside a grave,

  A reputation, all too poor in praise.”

  Camper turns off the camera. Dennis finally breaks the uncomfortable silence. “You knew that by heart!”

  “My father used to read the sagas to me.”

  “But doesn’t that song say we’ll get a bad reputation? ‘Poor in praise’?” Dennis frowns.

  “I think about the sagas a lot out here. I think the Afghans’ war stories will outlive our own. And I don’t think we’ll be remembered for doing any good.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was on a mission with Karlsen. We were lying up on High Ground, where you guys had been ambushed. I nailed a Taliban fighter who had just dug up a roadside bomb. He was reaching for a little boy when I shot him. All the locals ran, but the boy just stood there, screaming and screaming. Karlsen was all wound up about it—he thought I had really fucked up. Back then I couldn’t see it, but I think about that boy a lot now. How will he remember us? ‘A reputation, all too poor in praise.’ You know what I mean?”

  “I’d like to say something.” Dennis reaches for the camera and turns it on. “It was something I argued with my father about—”

  “Christ, not him again!” interrupts Viktor. “We don’t want to hear about your fucking father right now.”

  “Shut up and listen, Viktor!” Dennis shuts off the camera and then turns it on again, staring seriously into the lens. “My father always thought the Danish soldiers had done such a great job during the civil war in Yugoslavia. So I asked him if he didn’t think most Danes were just happy they weren’t part of the Dutch UN peacekeepers. Weren’t the Dutch toasting with General Mladić in Srebrenica right before they stood by and watched him massacre seven thousand Muslims? Would the Danes have behaved any differently?”

  Pausing, Dennis looks up from the camera and stares at the circle of soldiers gathered around the fire. “Deep down inside, we all know that any soldier with a sense of honor would have used his last bullet to defend those civilians. And it has nothing to do with choosing sides—it’s about taking your job seriously.” He stares spitefully at Viktor. “And that’s what we’re doing in these fucking Afghan mountains. We’re defending these civilians!”

  He pauses the camera.

  “Holy shit,” says Viktor. “I never thought I’d hear the fucking queen of the equipment whores speak like that. Very nice. Hats off!” He gives Dennis a thumbs-up.

  Dennis places the camera on Viktor’s lap. “Now you say something.”

  Viktor stares helplessly into the camcorder before handing it to Andreas, who turns it back on and points it at the sergeant.

  “Okay,” says Viktor. “You all know I’m a social worker. Well, I keep thinking about this boy. Eight years old, the usual story, crappy parents, zero time with adults. One day I’m sitting with him on my lap and reading aloud to him. A nice, cozy m
oment. Or so I think. Suddenly he turns around and slaps me. Right in the face. Don’t ask me why. Disturbed kids are like that sometimes. It fucking hurt—the little asshole was strong. But that wasn’t the worst part. Then he starts to fucking laugh. Two things are important in situations like this—not to lose your composure and to try to understand why he’s laughing. He’s not laughing because he’s a bad boy. He knows he did something wrong. He’s laughing because he’s afraid. Maybe Afghanistan is like that boy. Most of us came out here because we wanted to help, and we’ve made every possible mistake. We lost our composure. Then we struck back instead of trying to understand. We were crappy social workers. Now it’s too late. We have to believe we’re going home again. But what are we taking back with us? A whole lot of shit!”

  Andreas hands the camera to Sylvester.

  “Remember that old Kim Larsen song?” Sylvester asks. “The one they always sang at graduation, about the beautiful young people who ran off like playful butterflies. That’s what we were when we came out here. Playful butterflies.” He thinks for a moment. “I can’t sing the song, but there’s a line that says it all. It’s something like ‘what they want from life only they understand.’ What is it we want? I don’t know anymore. I just want to go home, so I have something I need to say to Mette. You can’t name our baby girl Gabriella. Forget it! Her name has to be Marie. So this is to you, Mette, if I don’t come home. Marie!”

  Andreas looks at me. “Want to join in?” he asks.

  I wave a hand dismissively. “Not now. Later. Tomorrow. We’ll do it tomorrow.”

  I know he’s inviting me into the fold. I’m tired and depressed, but that’s not why I’m saying no. I just want them to believe that there’s tomorrow for them also.

  I’m about to stand up when I hear Andreas sob, followed by a long groan as if he’s suddenly suffering from severe pains. Doubling over, he hides his face in his hands.

  Viktor kneels down next to him. “Hey, man, what’s going on?”

  “I can’t say it! It’s so fucking awful! It’s all my fault!” Andreas’s voice breaks in desperation.

  Viktor helps him to sit up and removes his hands from his face. “Look me in the eyes,” he says. “What are you talking about?”

  “No, I can’t! I can’t!”

  Viktor hands Andreas a bottle of water. “Drink,” he says. I can see the social worker in him. Andreas obeys. “Now tell us, calmly, what’s wrong.”

  “You’ll all hate me when you hear it!”

  “No one will hate you.”

  “Promise?”

  Everyone around the fire mumbles affirmatively. Viktor is holding Andreas’s hand.

  “Okay. So Schrøder . . . Remember when we visited those kids at the field hospital? And Schrøder said something to them in Pashto? I filmed it. None of you wanted to see the recording, but I showed it to that interpreter, Roshaan. I asked him what Schrøder was saying. He totally freaked out. He said Schrøder wants to kill all of you. We all had to die. I didn’t believe him. I told Roshaan that if he spread that kind of rumor about our platoon leader he’d be fired. I thought he was nuts. And I told Schrøder about it, too.”

  “Didn’t you think something was wrong when Roshaan suddenly died?” I ask.

  “Like everyone else, I thought he committed suicide. He had problems—he was crazy. I was convinced . . .” Andreas breaks into a long wail. Viktor holds him like he’s an unhappy child. I place a hand on his shoulder. There might be a lesson in all this, but it’s come too late. We have too much faith in our own people and don’t listen enough to others. An Afghan interpreter instead of a Danish platoon leader? No contest.

  “It’s not your fault,” I tell Andreas.

  46

  I wake up a little before dawn. I wound up wrapping myself in two woolen shawls I borrowed and lying next to a random group of sleeping men who immediately made room for me. I haven’t slept much, though, and my body is stiff. The light around me is a grainy red. In a few minutes, the sun will come up, but it will stay hidden behind the mountains for a few more hours.

  Something wakes me up. I’m not the only one who’s sat up. I’ve been sleeping among vigilant men.

  Silence. The drone is gone. It’s gone back to its base, probably down south in Balochistan where the pilot, sitting in front of a screen in Nevada, landed it. Or it’s climbed higher and is out of hearing range. We mustn’t think for a moment that we’ve been forgotten—but a nail has stopped scratching on a blackboard. At least that’s how it feels. Right now there’s no eye watching us. No one’s messing with our heads.

  Sharif, who’s standing next to me, is breathing on his hands to keep them warm. “We need to talk,” he says, his tone still as direct, teasing, as it was yesterday.

  “Okay.” I stand up and we walk a little ways off.

  “They will attack us today,” he says. “You realize that, don’t you?”

  I don’t know whether to laugh or take him seriously.

  “It won’t be a drone this time. They’ve learned their lesson. They’re coming in helicopters. Tomorrow we’ll be in Pakistan. They can easily send a drone over the border, but not troops or manned flights. So today is their last chance to attack, unless they want serious problems with the Pakistani authorities.”

  “And you know all this because you’re just a typical Afghan boy, as you told me yesterday?”

  Smiling, he gives me a high five. “Exactly,” he says. “It’s what all us very typical Afghan boys know. What we have to know. Because the old men are idiots.”

  “How old do you have to be before you turn into an idiot?”

  “Around thirty. That’s when it starts. The old men and their advice. They’re at least a hundred years old. All that shit. No one can take it seriously. They know nothing, they’re just old. They say they’ve seen many things. Maybe they have. But not anything we can use.”

  “The Taliban certainly respect the old.”

  “Yes, in some places. But not in Waziristan. The Taliban push the old aside if they try to make decisions.”

  We’re headed for Waziristan. I don’t know whether to be amused or scared. I decide to change the subject. “What is it you suggest?”

  “These fools here—” He waves his hand at the villagers who are just getting up. Bonfires pop up here and there. “They feel safe now. Because Allah helped them yesterday. They think he’ll do it again today, but we have to be ready.”

  “Tell me something—how did you learn all this? English? How to make a booby trap? Your ideas—where do they come from?”

  “From the internet. Where else?”

  “The internet? You’ve grown up in a village with no electricity.”

  “I worked at a police station that had internet access. They were too dumb to use a computer, so I had it all to myself. English courses. Films. YouTube. Sometimes American soldiers would come by. They’re always bored. They like to talk to children.”

  “You were a tea boy at a police station?”

  “Yes. I was a tea boy. You know what a tea boy does, don’t you? So we don’t need to talk about that. Did I enjoy it when they stuck their unwashed dicks up my ass? No, I didn’t enjoy it. Why didn’t I run away? Three other tea boys tried that. They were all killed. Why did I stay so long? Because they had a computer, and I needed to finish my education. How did I escape? I cut the throats of two of the guards while they slept. Why didn’t they capture me? I knew the country better than them. Any more questions?”

  I clear my throat. “Okay, what do you think we should do? What are you suggesting?”

  “Your men know how to shoot. My men don’t.”

  My men, the little shit says. I don’t say anything. Surely he can see I’m controlling myself.

  A smile creeps across his face. “You have your own weapons. They’re more precise than our Kalashnikovs. Your automatic rifles have an effective range of three hundred meters. That’s about the same as our Kalashnikovs. But you also have sharpshooters. We�
�ll give you our rockets. Our job is just to deliver the noise.”

  “Okay,” I say, “a helicopter is on its way. Let’s say it’s a Chinook full of special troops. And it’s accompanied by an Apache helicopter, which can fire in close combat. What do we do?”

  “To land, they need to find a clearing in the woods. They’re far apart. We know where the clearings are, so we choose the battleground. We place women in the clearing to distract them. The men hide behind the trees. That makes them harder to hit. And we find specially chosen places for your men. When the Chinook prepares to land, you fire the rocket launchers. At least one of you will hit it, and they’ll go down in flames. Then they’re done. The Apaches won’t try to land. They’ll just fire some shots before taking off. That’s the first round. Then we’ll have to see what they do.”

  He stares at me inquisitively. “Do you have a better plan?”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “Then go tell your commander my ideas. You don’t have to say they’re mine.”

  “You don’t want the credit?”

  “I know from the internet you have this thing about children in your part of the world. You think we’re all so fucking innocent. It won’t be taken seriously if it’s coming from me. Your commander will send me to a psychologist or something.” He hesitates for a moment, teasing me with yet another smile. “Do you think I need to see a psychologist, too?”

  “No, I think you are your own psychologist.”

  “Yes, it always helps to slit their throats.”

  I don’t really know what to think. Sharif is either full of shit or he’s just another frightening example of what this country has done to its children. Either way, he’s obviously gifted—but he’s used his gifts in the service of destruction.

  I walk over to Steffensen. I don’t present any finished plan. Instead, I say I’ve been thinking about some things and I want to hear his opinion.

  “I’ll be honest,” he says when I’m done. “I don’t like it.”