Missionaries Page 3

  He walked past the house where Jimena had lived before Franklin killed her, and where her family had shut themselves up in their grief. Empty. The door open on its hinge, somehow knowing there was no longer any point in securing the home. No one would return.

  Abelito kept walking, walking to where he should find the friends, families, traditions, stories, games, and songs he had grown up with, where even the dead, like Jimena, remained stitched into the continuing fabric of daily life. But Abelito was not heading to a place of mourning. He was heading to a place of silence, where even memory had died.

  He saw Pablo’s corpse first. Pablo, older than him, a hard worker, but shy among the other boys, lying facedown. Abelito knew him by his hands, tough, calloused hands. You can see a person’s soul in the eyes, they say, but you can also see them in the hands. Pablo’s left arm was twisted under his body, the hand just peeking out from underneath his right side, open palm to the sky, while his right arm was straight above his head, the right hand dug into the dirt. Abelito turned him so he faced the sky. Pablo’s face was trapped in an expression of terror, with a twisted, open mouth.

  Even now, I cannot bear to look at the hands and faces of the dead. Whenever death happened in front of me, I would focus on the arms, chests, necks, legs as the work was done. That way, no one would see me looking away, like a coward. I’d be looking straight at them, but not seeing them, only seeing their parts as the life fled. Abelito was young, and did not know these tricks.

  The sky was dark, the road hard to see. Abelito knew his way, even in the dark, but with each step his feet grew heavier, his heart more fearful. He passed Gustavo’s house, or what was left of it, one wall caved in and the tin roof crumpled inward. What has happened here? he thought, even though he knew. He had heard about other towns where people were chased off the land, towns become too troublesome so the whole population was turned out, become the displaced, ghosts haunting cities far away.

  The instinct to return home had faded, but Abelito had nowhere else to go, no other home. The house he had built with his father and sisters appeared on the road like an empty tomb. He could feel that the circles of protection and prayers, which had kept it safe and made it a place of joy, had dissipated. Abelito reached down for the bracelet his father had given him, with its tiny wooden cross. All the sacred power his father and mother had called on their whole lives, every prayer and blessing, it had been used up to save his life. Abelito walked into his house and felt nothing move his soul. There was less home here than when his father sketched out the shape of the walls in the dirt. He touched his face and felt tears on his fingers. Under his bed he saw the book his teacher at the evangelical school had given him, but it seemed like it didn’t belong to him anymore, that it belonged to a different person, to whoever had lived in this house while the blessings still held. He took off the bracelet and cross and threw them in the corner.

  He left the house and walked to where he’d seen the smoke. Chepe’s. His steps became slower and the dusk deepened into night. When Abelito reached Chepe’s he could only see the outline of it in the moonlight, and the outline was wrong, incomplete somehow. There was a terrible smell in the air, the smell of cooked meat, and it stirred Abelito’s hunger even as it made him want to vomit the contents of his empty stomach onto the ground. He couldn’t move forward.

  I do not know how long he stood there. I only know that it was with something like gladness that he saw two men in ratty clothes appear on the road, point their rifles at him, and demand he tell them who he was, where he was going, and what he thought he was doing, so close to a place of battle.

  The men were the same age as Abelito, made men and not boys only by their weapons. They had simple, honest faces, though they looked scared and excited. One had a large pimple on the right side of his nose. The other, the barest beginnings of a beard. They made Abelito kneel, and even then, Abelito did not fully understand how the world had shifted, and he thought he had the right to ask questions, to look into the face of another person, to speak words and be heard. He thought this even as they tied his hands behind his back, as he knelt before the smoking tomb of his family, his village, and what was left of himself.

  “What happened? Have you seen—”

  The first blow came like a shock of electricity, beginning in the right jaw and echoing up into the top of Abelito’s skull, jolting through his body, which unbalanced and toppled, dust in the mouth and the world tilted sideways. The muscles of his arms strained once, twice, unaware of the new rules, of the rope cutting into his wrists. The simple, honest faces were shouting. There was no pain, only surprise and the first movements toward Abelito’s final death, a slow reordering of the way the world works, in which a boy can be helpless, truly helpless, and a blow cannot be returned with another blow.

  Once, Abelito was beaten to the ground at school by Gustavo, a larger and crueler boy than the weakling Abelito had been. Gustavo’s beating hurt far worse than the one weak blow from the honest faces, but it had changed nothing in the universe where Abelito lived. Back then, with his own fists, Abelito had fought back. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, his pitiful fists had tried to shout. He knew he would lose, he knew how it would end—in blood, a chipped tooth, and shame. But while he could, he had thrown himself at Gustavo, and kept a shred of dignity.

  The honest faces dragged Abelito up by his hair, hit him again, and more dirt hit his lips, the smoke in the dimming light turned into a column floating leftward, the ground rushing up to the right, and God no longer above. Even then, as they dragged him to his knees a second time, the pain rising with him, Abelito thought if he could only understand what they were asking him, or explain who he was, and what he was doing, then it would stop. He still believed in rules. He didn’t realize he had passed into another world where rules didn’t exist. They hit him a third time, then pulled him to his feet, blindfolded him, and made him walk.

  Is there any reason to tell of the pathetic things done and said by Abelito as he walked back to the paras’ rally point? Does it help to say that the paras knew they were intruding on guerrilla territory? That they’d come at Chepe’s request but offered no help when the guerrilla entered the town, and no help when the gunfire started, or when the guerrilla’s rage overflowed, or when the rebellious people were herded into Chepe’s bar, or when the fire was set, or when the screams rose, death hidden from the murderers by four walls, smoke, and fire? That they waited until the guerrilla were drunk on death, and then they waited until the guerrilla were drunk on stolen aguardiente? That only then, as the guerrilla were leaving town, disorderly and sated, that the paras opened fire? Does it help to say that the honest faces had reason to be scared, that they were braced for a counterattack? That both the paras and the guerrilla were forcing villagers from their homes, shooting stragglers? That even though they were on opposite sides of the war it was almost as though they were working together to destroy all that people had built here? That the area was full of violence tonight and no one, not even the men with guns, was safe? No. Because those honest faces, faces he could barely catch a glimpse of out of the corner of the blindfold placed inexpertly over his eyes, faces shouting questions about the movements of the guerrilla, their numbers, their leadership, their weaponry, those faces cared nothing for answers.

  Abelito’s jaw throbbed in tune with his heartbeat. One part of his mind remained fixed on his family, on the fantasy that they were still alive and that he would find them. Another part screamed in terror at what was to happen to him. And another part, a part slowly invading the other corners, obliterating thoughts about himself, about his family, about Chepe and Pablo and Father Eustacio and what it meant that they were gone, was just devoted to pain.

  At the rally point were other paras, and the sound of a motorcycle running. The honest faces forced Abelito down on his knees. He heard them talking, and then new voices shouted questions, Abelito answered with the truth, still be
lieving the truth mattered, that the truth could stop what was to come. A balled-up rag was stuffed into his mouth. Another rag was tied over his face, covering his mouth and nose. Abelito was kicked onto his back. The part of his mind devoted to his family and the part of his mind devoted to pain receded. The fear took over. He tried to scream out but the rag stifled him.

  Wetness, then. First on his face, lips, spreading through the cloth, soaking the rag, the smell of gasoline and soap. It confused Abelito as the taste hit his tongue. Why this? What are they doing? Someone took the blindfold off, and he stared up at the honest faces. Quickly the mixture of gasoline and soap saturated the cloth. Abelito held his breath, unsure of what was to come. Then he breathed. The fumes entered his body. And Abelito’s mind, which had been divided between the pain in his jaw, his love for his family and town, and his terror for his own life, that mind disappeared.

  I could try to describe what it felt to breathe in the fumes from that mixture of soap and gasoline. I could say, “Fire spread inside Abelito’s skull and lungs.” I could say, “His nose and throat felt as though they were being burst open from inside,” or “His eyes felt as though they were being squeezed out of his skull.” But this is not helpful. The pain consumed. Whatever had existed before inside Abelito, memories, desires, dignity, and whatever had existed before outside Abelito, his father and mother, his home, the fields where he worked, the church where he prayed for redemption, these were replaced with nothing more than his sense of his own body, a body subject to pain and a body subject to death.

  Abelito held himself still, did not dare to breathe. The honest faces came back into focus, faces that no longer seemed the faces of people like Abelito, like the people he had grown up with, but the faces of something more than human, faces of the masters of his body and of his spirit, masters of what would be Abelito’s scream of pain and death, if only he could scream.

  The desire to breathe welled up in Abelito’s chest, in his throat. The sting of gasoline burned at his eyes. The desire to breathe grew stronger. It became a command. Abelito breathed again.

  I do not know how long this went on, how many times Abelito breathed and how many times the pain reduced him to the nerves inside his chest and behind his face, how many times the pain expanded his mind into the universe of his suffering body. When the cloth was removed, there were new questions, and Abelito’s mind tried to find scraps of thought to string together into answers. Honest answers—that he was just a villager, a coca worker, that he was searching for his parents—and dishonest answers—that he was a guerrilla, that he was a spy, that he was the Carpenter himself, back from the dead and here to kill all paras—they blended together. They made no difference. The cloth and rag returned, Abelito’s mind disappeared into pain, and then there were more questions. If only Abelito could have opened up his body to them, allowed them to shove their hands into his rib cage, grasp his heart, extend their fingers into his brain, along the inside of his throat and jaw, and work his mouth and tongue into the shape of some acceptable answers, he would gladly have done so.

  Then a word was spoken, and the honest faces disappeared, and the rag and cloth disappeared, and a new face, an older face, appeared. It was not a kind face, nor an unkind face. It had a thin beard and sorrowful eyes. The owner of the older face cut the ropes holding Abelito, checked his eyes and hands.

  “It’s good, it’s good,” said the older face, the face of a man I’d come to know, the face of Osmin.

  He held Abelito’s body firmly, but not without tenderness. He held him the way the Virgin Mary must have held the corpse of Christ. He said, “What is your name?”

  And I said, “My name is Abel.”

  4

  LISETTE 2015

  Two bombings in a day is new. New is bad. But for the moment, I have work to distract me. The AP beats me on the urgent. Suicide bombing in Karte-ye Mamurin. As I’m grabbing my bag Aasif calls and I put him on speaker.

  “Just civilians,” he says from the site of the first bombing. “Broken glass everywhere. Shops and houses. No possible military target.” He has Wahidulla, at the Health Ministry, confirming fifteen dead and possibly up to three hundred injured, Police Chief Rahimi confirming they’re all civilians.

  I’m nervous. Kabul has felt increasingly dangerous the past year and a half, since the attack on La Taverna du Liban, since the Swedish reporter shot randomly in the street, since the suicide bombing at the Christian day care, since the attack on the Serena Hotel, since the two Finns shot in broad daylight, since the Cure Hospital attack. But I’m smiling as I exit the door.

  Moments like these, they’re the best part of the job. The part where something awful happens, and I get assigned to do something about it. To write the story. To sort through the chaos and find narrative, meaning. Sure, it’s not giving blood, picking up the bodies, or hunting down the killers. And maybe those lines we recite about journalists writing the first draft of history, maybe those lines will rub the wrong way after you’ve filed the story. You’ve sent your work out into the void enough times with only the smallest hope that anybody will care. It even becomes funny when a colleague sends you an email from Washington telling you, “You know I got back from Afghanistan only a month ago and already I catch myself talking about the war as if it’s not still happening.” And you think, what am I doing here? But before I file, when I’m talking to survivors, when I’m gathering the pieces, and finally when I’m writing, when I’m piecing together the awful parts into some kind of whole that readers can accept and digest, I’m a believer. Doing something means believing in it. It means faith. So when horror happens I don’t just have to endure it, the way most people here do. I get to act.

  I arrive at the second blast site, where there are still dead in the street, and two shrapnel-riddled cars. Both of them have those back window stickers so popular here. One reads: “Don’t Cry Girls, I Will Be Back,” and the other, “Don’t Drink, It Is Sin,” complete with an image of a champagne bottle spilling alcohol onto, oddly, Che Guevara’s face. I take photos of the cars, of a can of incense on a chain, still smoking. A woman holding a baby sees me and begins yelling, so I put my phone on record as she shouts. I can’t always understand what interviewees are saying, especially when they’re upset, but I can always play it for Aasif later.

  “I was feeding my baby,” she eventually tells me, after she’s calmed down a bit. Her baby is covered in bandages. “I saw the roof fall in on me and fell unconscious. Then I heard my husband shouting over and over. He came to me. I was bleeding from my face, my hands, and my shoulders. My brother-in-law lost both of his eyes. My son . . .”

  She holds up the baby so I could see the injuries, though he is so swaddled in bandages it’s hard to tell. The mother herself looks young, with a pretty face still covered in grime and dried blood.

  “My husband, he was saying . . . he was shouting, ‘Where are the others? My father, my father? Where are the others?’ He was bleeding from the top of his head. He was wild, he did not know where he was. We have lost everything.”

  Later in the day we’ll get the official count for the police bombing—fifty-seven casualties, twenty-eight killed, twenty-nine injured. Add that to this and we haven’t had so much death in one day since the Ashura bombing four years ago.

  So this is different, this is dangerous, this is news. I should be excited. But midway through the interviews I realize I’m running out of steam. Or maybe I’m running out of fucks. Afghanistan has a way of leaching those out of you, which is why every wannabe war correspondent adopts an attitude of casual cynicism well before they’ve earned it. It’s our version of the military veteran’s thousand-yard stare. And I’m looking around nervously, worried about an attack on first responders, worried that I’m putting myself at risk, which is not where my head should be. I push those feelings away, and decide, fuck it, I’ll fight the Kabul traffic and head to the first blast site, too. Double the r
isk, you coward.

  When I get there I see this was a much larger blast. The bomb has blown in storefronts, leaving the concrete posts and steel beams and metal railings behind, baring the architectural bones of the market. Walking through a city after a bombing is like coming upon the decayed body of an animal in the woods—enough has been destroyed that you can see the rib cage, a bit of skull and jawbone poking through, the long delicate metatarsals of the feet, enough hints to imagine for yourself the whole skeleton that once structured life.

  I walk through the crater, see the edges come up to my waist. Beyond the crater, there’s a man sweeping glass and rubble out of a ruined store. I see a young man searching for valuables in the rubble. And then, shadowed in a doorway, a toddler beams at the world, a chunk of rubble in her fat hand, raised high. She brings it down on a battered piece of metal, making a loud clanging noise.

  “Ba!” she says, delighted. “Ba ba BAH!”

  And she strikes the metal again. And again. And starts laughing. I take out my camera and photograph her joy.

  As the sun’s going down I head back to the office. Everybody is there—Denise typing away, Omar sifting through photos, Aasif and Bob reading transcripts of interviews with Taliban leaders. I file around 9:40, scroll through my photos from the day. Log in to Facebook, where journalists who’ve left the country are posting news of the blast with posts like, “I’ve been there so many times, terrible to see . . .” “More violence in my beautiful Kabul . . .” “Two years ago I did an interview just around the corner from where this bomb . . .” I pull up the photo of the little girl, the happy toddler with the piece of metal in her hand. The girl’s face is in focus, well lit, and the background is a nicely unfocused blur, though you can see the devastation clearly enough. I save it to a folder labeled “Memories.”