“They asked if we had seen or heard anything out of the ordinary or that they needed to know. I informed them that we had not. I assured them that if there were anything of concern we would make sure to ask for assistance.”
You, sly dog. It seems that we Americans are not the only ones to master manipulation of words and dance around the truth without actually lying.
“And they were satisfied?”
“Of course,” he responded, a little offended.
I quickly backpedaled, apologizing for even questioning his word to a fellow brother, not meaning to disrespect him in any way, nodding and bowing humbly at my grievous error.
He reached his hand over and placed it on my bowed head. “My son,” he said. “You must not apologize. Abraham told us that Allah has sent you to help liberate those of us circumscribed by poverty and oppression.”
I closed my eyes. “I’m a simple man like you,” I said, hoping the words would not offend him more.
“No, my son. You are much more than that. And you are welcome for as long as you need or desire to stay.”
With my hand on my chest, I bowed once more. “You are a kind people and Allah will do well to bless you, your families and your herds.”
He invited me, again, to dine with him soon. I promised not to delay him much longer. And then we shared more tea and sweets and talked of family traditions until he excused himself, bowing as he backed out of the tiny dwelling.
I glanced at Abraham, who had sat quietly on his own throughout the mullah’s visit.
“I think he likes me,” I said, with a smile.
Abraham gave me a thumbs-up again. Since he had fashioned my crutch extensions, I asked him if he could find me some small pieces of wood and a knife that I could use to carve. Since I couldn’t translate whittle, I merely made the motions, and he understood, hurrying from the building in his ongoing attempt to please me. I restlessly settled in for the evening, leaning against the wall, rather than laying down, replaying the kiss over and over.
Minutes later, I heard a soft knock, and then Mary Beth peeked around the wooden door. I know it sounds cliché, but my heart leapt at the sight of her. I quickly motioned for her to come in. She sat beside me as I told her all about my conversation with the mullah. The wind whistled and beat against the bits of metal on the home, screaming through the tiny cracks, chilling the air. She pulled her wrap tighter around her and then leaned against me. I wanted to tuck her under my arm, to take away her pain. I wanted to take her into my arms and kiss her again. Suddenly, I wanted more, much more. It was no longer just her eyes I thought about, since there was no longer any guessing what was beneath the layers of clothing she wore.
I looked down as she glanced upward, and our eyes became locked on one another’s. There’s so much more I wanted to tell her. And yet, I was suddenly at a loss of what to say.
She smiled up at me. “So, what happens next?”
“What do you mean?”
“In Eddie Roark’s life. What will you do when you go back to the States?”
I exhaled dramatically. “Well, of course, first, I’ll visit the family so that they can see I’m alive and well.”
“Of course.”
“And Mom will grill me all about my adventures over here.”
“Adventures?”
“Yeah, that’s what she’ll call them.”
“So, she’s the glass half-full kind of lady. I like her already.”
“Yup. Sadly, I got the pessimism from my dad.”
“Mm-hmm,” she murmured. “So, what will you tell her?”
“I’ll tell her that I fell out of a damned helicopter.”
Mary Beth giggled. “Then what?”
“Then I’ll tell her this incredibly sexy, naked woman rescued me and took advantage of me in a cave.”
Mary Beth elbowed me playfully.
“After which I’ll tell her how that amazingly beautiful, tenacious, frustrating woman changed my life.”
When I looked down at her, her eyes met mine again.
“Yeah,” I exhaled dramatically. “And then she’ll be brokenhearted and cry when I tell her that I’ll volunteer to come back over to this God-forsaken place, just so that I can be near that girl again.” Mary Beth blushed and quickly glanced away.
Her fingers nervously toyed with loose threads in her shawl as an unbearable silence permeated the tiny mud house. “I’ve been considering going back to the States for my masters. I want to be a nurse practitioner.” Mary Beth confessed, staring at the wall in front of us. “Maybe it’s time.”
“Really?”
“My commitment here ends in two months.” She tilted her head as she turned to me. “So, maybe... Of course, I’m going back with nothing. We gave everything away when we moved here.”
“Hmm,” I murmured. “Me, too. Well, I have a recliner and two cars.” Mary Beth chuckled, then leaned closer, adjusting her position until she was nestled against my arm “Sounds like we’d both be starting from scratch, a clean slate.” I rested my cheek against the top of her head. A million things ran through my mind, only, I didn’t know how to start. “Mary Beth,” I began. “You need to know—.”
Suddenly, she sat up, her fingers moving to my lips, as she slowly shook her head, without saying anything. When they slid to my cheeks and caressed them, I thought I would come out of my skin.
“There’s nothing I could say,” she said softly as her eyes searched mine. When she abruptly stopped talking the silence was maddening.
My hand tentatively moved to her face. “No words,” I agreed.
“No words.” And then she kissed me gently, sweetly, her lips catching the side of mine, the gesture alone taunting me in ways I can’t begin to describe.
Finally, she broke the embrace. “I have to leave soon, for a few days.” Then she added quickly, “But, I’ll be back before the pass melts.”
“What?” I pulled away. Bewildered. That could be a few days to a few weeks. “Again?” I sat upright.
“I’m expecting an airdrop for the WHO, and when it comes, I have to leave.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know. Two weeks, maybe three.” She must have read the confusion on my face because she added, “Sorry. Drops are scheduled months in advance. And, as you know, we have no way to contact anyone. They deliver once a year in the winter because what they send must stay cold.”
“Supplies?”
Mary Beth nodded. “Vaccine. They rely on us to help immunize the mountain people. They are some of the last holdouts to receiving it.” She held up her forefinger and her thumb, only a breath of air between them. “We are this close to eradicating polio in the world. There are only a few countries left. Because of war, the Afghans are some of the hardest to reach.”
“The mountain people—as in, the Taliban?”
She hesitated before nodding again.
“Christ,” I shook my head. “You can’t go. It’s too dangerous.”
“I can’t not go. Children could die.”
“You could die.”
“And statistics are higher that I could just as easily be killed in a car crash in the States or get hit walking across the street,” she stated matter-of-factly.
Crap. She had to throw out statistics. Without even knowing it, she had just hit below the belt.
"Usually, we have someone from the WHO, Doctors Without Borders, Rotary International, or another organization helping, and they would have been here by now. They must have been snowed in with Teddy, I’m guessing.”
“You should wait until the snow thaws,” I insisted.
“We could lose the vaccine. It’s too valuable. I have to go when we get it.”
“Then I’m going with you.”
“You can’t.”
“I can, and I am,” I said firmly.
“But—.” she began.
“No buts. You just said that someone else usually goes with you. They’ll expect more than one person, so that someo
ne will be me.”
“I can’t risk—.”
I interrupted her again. “I have a medic’s training. They don’t know me from Adam. I can do this.”
I watched as Mary Beth ran out of arguments. She became pensive, then sighed. “Okay,” she said. “On one condition.”
I awaited my instructions.
“Lose the limp. If you look injured, they might get suspicious. If you are still favoring that leg at all, then I can’t let you go. The terrain is rough and dangerous, and you’ll never make it injured.”
“I’m a soldier,” I reminded her. “We can—.” When she crossed her arm and assumed the stance, I stopped arguing and replied compliantly. “Yes, Ma’am.”
Mary Beth narrowed her eyes. “So, I have to be satisfied that you are physically able to go.”
“But—,” I began.
This time, she interrupted. “I’m your nurse. It’s my job to get you well enough to travel off this mountain. You’re no good to me injured or dead,” she said firmly, flexing her authoritative muscles. “You go if I say it’s okay to go.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Tomorrow your training gets tougher, to get you prepared.”
“Ooh. I love a woman who takes charge.” As she stood, I took her hand and held her in place. She looked down at me. “Thank you,” I said.
“Don’t thank me yet. You thought Boot Camp was tough!” Slowly, she slid her scarves back over her face. However, I could see the smile in her eyes just before she walked out the door.
“Oh, how I love a woman with spunk!” I said under my breath. Slowly my smile faded as Kevan began talking into my ear. You still have a mission, soldier. I nodded to myself. It’s not over ‘til it’s over, Ro. Time to get ‘er done. I stared at the door. Now, I had one more incentive to be on this little medical trip.
Find and eliminate the target.
Preparedness
Chapter Twenty-Five
And so, it began.
I rose early every morning, prepared to meet her challenge of tougher than Boot Camp. I started with easy stretches, to work out the kinks in the muscles of my calves and thighs. My leg continued to be stiff, which Mary Beth attributed to the unknown, more extensive damage that might have occurred in the fall. I did a lot of walking, or limping, depending on your perspective. I’ve been on a weekly workout regimen since I was thirteen years old and joined the football team, whether doing weights or running or using a variety of gym equipment available to me. I went from being the scrawny kid with no shape and no muscle to a young boy with a well-defined body that could turn heads. And hey, by fifteen when all you’re thinking about is girls and sex, that’s a plus.
Mary Beth gave me my instructions, and let me go, which is how I prefer it. I perform much better when someone’s not hovering over me. I worked out mostly inside her home, so as to not be too much of a spectacle. And what I couldn’t do within the confines of her home, I ventured out to do. Abraham stayed by my side throughout, watching with great interest. I showed him how to do sit-ups and crunches, explaining to him the difference as we worked out. The next day, realizing there was pain involved if you didn’t keep it up, he decided working out wasn’t for him. So, he settled on watching me. His watching, I didn’t mind so much. Whenever Mary Beth dropped by to check on me, however, I felt self-conscious. She had definitely become a distraction.
Almost every evening Mary Beth came by not just to change my dressing, but to bring me foods that either she or someone else in the village had prepared and left for me at the clinic. Often, we would sit and talk, and after putting me off for a week, she finally allowed me to teach her to play chess. I was as patient with her as my grandfather had been with me when he first showed me how to play.
Every Thursday after school he’d take me to the Tishomingo Community Center, just across the Washita River, mere miles from their farm, where we would play, under the watchful eyes of the other residents that spent their afternoons there. It was a tradition that I continued every time I came home from college or a tour. Even after he broke his pelvis during my second tour, I simply played him while leaning over his hospital bed.
After a week, Mary Beth could play chess without any help, and even came close to beating me once. Some days she and Abraham would play, and I would watch them. Actually, I watched her. The more time I spent with her, the harder it was for me to tell her goodbye each night. And it was even harder not to kiss her, or to touch her. Such things just weren’t done here. Public displays of affection are never shown, not even by husband and wife. Neither of us would dare offend those whose hospitality had been so gracious.
So, mostly we just talked. I shared with Mary Beth stories of growing up on an Indian reservation; she shared with me hers of growing up in Texas. She’d always wanted to be a nurse, ever since she could remember. Now she hoped to be a nurse practitioner, which would require her going back to school to earn a master’s in nursing and do another five to six hundred hours of clinical work. But to do so, she would have to give up her post for at least two years, maybe longer. Before I came, she said she wasn’t sure if she would ever be ready to leave this place—to start over without Henry.
Some days I would save Mary Beth a trip to her place and hobble over to the clinic. I was amazed by the courage of the people who came for care. Most had traveled many miles—sometimes dozens, in the elements—for healing. Many she could help. Some, she could not. I would stand in the distance and watch her work, in total awe of her gentleness and her compassion. I felt her joy, and theirs, when treatment was successful. And I could feel their pain, see it in her eyes, when it was not. I watched her pray over patients. A Christian praying with, and sometimes over, a Muslim—that’s something I never imagined I’d see in my lifetime.
By week three, I was walking, occasionally sans crutches, albeit with a very pronounced limp. Every time I left Mary Beth’s dwelling, I had a better sense of the dynamic of the village—who stayed indoors, who worked, and what their craft was. I was the stranger in their strange land. And though I was dressed the same as them—with a beard, my head covered, scarves wrapped around my face to protect it from the bitter cold—many still looked at me with curiosity, seeming to know that I didn’t belong. It must have been a real adjustment having the two Western couples moving into their community, learning to accept them and learning to trust them. And now there was one more.
Somehow, my mind couldn’t get past the sight of the locals and Mary Beth praying together. I thought of my mother. How often she must have prayed as she waited to hear the news of my death; how many rosaries she would have said. How many candles she must have lit. I knew how heartbroken she would have been, thinking that her prayers were unanswered. I couldn’t wait for the day I would scoop her four-foot-nothing frame into my arms and hug her again. I would be the miracle that she would claim for the rest of her life.
I did several more crunches, feeling the burn. In my mind, I was already working through how I was going to be infiltrating the Taliban camps as a healthcare worker. And how I needed to do so without putting anyone else at risk. At worse, I’d recon while on the vaccinating mission and return if I found the camp I was seeking, to do what I had come to do. In and out, with no one the wiser. I would probably not be able to carry my pistol, but surely, I could get away with a knife.
The vaccine was simple, just a few drops on their tongues. Mary Beth had told me that Abraham would be going with us, and possibly one other young man. We would try and go to twelve villages in as many days. Some of them didn’t have children, but most did. She had shown me the record books where they had vaccinated in years past. They kept very detailed records, since many of the villages had been evacuated, some destroyed—refugees claiming homes others had long since abandoned after being chased from their own abodes. Because of the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin, Al Qaeda, and other rebel groups that popped up here and there, morphing together and then separating, the tension an
d danger in Afghanistan changed daily. Sometimes hourly. The situation was very fluid. And very unpredictable.
When I walked into the clinic, there was no one in the tiny waiting room. Usually, a few people were sitting on pillows that lay against the walls. Sometimes people were lined up inside and out, just waiting for their opportunity for someone to tell them they would be just fine. As I rounded the corner to the surgical suite, I glanced at the wooden gurney that I had hidden below just days before. Now it was covered with assorted medical gear. I watched as Denice and Mary Beth studied a list, inventorying items on the papers in their hands, returning those items to boxes and containers and then stacking those into the far corner. Denice looked up and smiled when she saw me.
“I’m going to take a break, sweetie,” she said to Mary Beth, who didn’t look up.
“Mm-hmm,” she mumbled, continuing to record items onto the sheet before her.
Denice winked when she walked past, patting my arm as I smiled at her. I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms, surveilling Mary Beth as she worked. I could have stood there and watched her forever. Her curly, dark hair delicately framed her fair features. Her lips were perfect and pouty, soft and pink, and I ached to taste them again. I loved the way she wrinkled her brow when she became pensive. Mary Beth tapped the pen on her forehead and began talking to herself.
“Now, where did I put you?” she asked as she turned and started digging through one of the boxes on the gurney. Peering into it from her tiptoes, she smiled. “There you are. How did you get in here?”
I couldn’t help but chuckle, causing her to turn. “Do you always talk to yourself?”
Mary Beth batted her eyes. “My mother always said I loved to hear myself talk,” she replied as she looked back down at her list.
“I love hearing you talk to yourself, too.”
Her shoulders drooped, and she gave me a frustrated look. “Shouldn’t you be working out?”
The Missionary Page 13