MARY
I love talking to the women in villages like these. So often it is the women who suffer most in silence, and it’s the women who rarely have their stories told. In this part of the world, it’s common for one man to have several wives.
When Ken moves away, I get out of the LAV and see if there’s anyone wanting to talk. A lot of the younger women are curious when they see an American woman, so usually it doesn’t take too long for some of them to slip up to me.
I’ve learned enough Pashto to communicate basically, and sure enough, soon there is a small group of ladies congregated about me, fascinated by my clothing which is modest enough not to scandalize them, but so much more practical than their own in many respects. Their children cling to their legs, looking up with wide eyes. Some of the older ones giggle at my broken sentences.
I have a few supplies I like to share out, nothing special, just hotel shampoos and soaps, little treats they appreciate because most of the time they don’t make their way out to rural Afghanistan, and the little money they have in their households rarely stretches to toiletries. I give each of the women a little bit of eau de toilette and some soap. They secrete it in their clothing as fast as they can. Jealous eyes make for swift stealing out here.
They tell me that it has been three months since the Taliban left, but before they did, they warned a fiery retribution for anyone who allowed the invaders in. These people are expected to resist and to fight, even though there is no chance of them being able to do that. I know that they welcome us because they have no choice. Most of them have never known anything other than a life under occupation. This part of the world has been broken so many times it feels like it might never be whole. This is where civilization began, more or less. It should be the most advanced. It should be full of gleaming cities and great works. It should be a beacon of human advancement, an example to civilizations born later. Instead it is dust and rubble, people scraping out subsistence living as they have done for thousands of years. There’s probably a lesson in that somewhere, but I’ll be damned if I know what it is.
Their names are Asal, Larmina, and Damsa. Asal and Larmina are sisters married to a man named Mohammad. It may be two different men, but in a rural village like this, there’s a high chance it’s the same man. Polygamy is the way of the world where the male population is decimated by war. Damsa is married to a man named Mustafa. The others cringed when she mentioned him, so I take it he is not popular for some reason. They are all beautiful, but their hard lives are taking an inevitable toll. Asal tells me she has had seven children, of which four still live. Larmina has two, but she is only a new bride. And Damsa has six living. They ask me where my children are. I just shake my head and their eyes grow sad. Some things are universal, the regarding of children as blessings. Out here, they truly are. Sons work fields, daughters bear more sons. It’s brutally unfair in so many ways, but they know no other way. Years ago, I would have felt nothing but pity for them. Now I have a different understanding. There is not one world. There are a thousand worlds in a thousand places, maybe a million, maybe there’s effectively a world for every individual on the planet. At any rate, people do what they can with what they have. They pity me and I pity them, and what is the point of that?
Halfway through our conversation, the women squawk and fall back. At first I have no idea what is frightening them, then a big shadow falls over me, and a large hand grips me by the upper arm.
“I told you to stay in the LAV,” Ken growls down at me. He’s trying to maintain his friendly face for the benefit of the villagers, but women of all nations and all languages know a displeased man when they see one. More than one sympathetic glance is cast in my direction as they hurry away.
“I’m ten steps from it,” I argue back.
“I said inside. Not ten steps. You can be taken at ten steps,” he growls under his breath. “Get in the vehicle.”
Okay so he’s pissed now. Fine. Whatever. I’d trade that risk for ten minutes talking to these women. Women know more than anyone gives them credit for. That’s true almost everywhere, but especially here. Women hear things they’re not supposed to hear. Women talk. There’s no internet out here. Information travels at the speed of gossip. If he had any damn sense, he’d be asking me what the women were saying, not barking at me for doing my damn job.
I get into the LAV. The others are still outside, waiting for his orders. Apparently he’s going to deal with me in the cramped confines of this mutated minivan. I try to get to the back, put myself against a wall where he won’t be able to do anything but growl at me, but as he gets in, he grabs me by the back of my head, his fist grasping the hair at the back of my neck.
“Let go of me!”
“No,” he says, giving my head a tug. “You didn’t listen to me. I explained it nicely before, but I guess I’m going to have to explain this much less nicely now. You don’t take a goddamn breath without my permission, you understand? If you were military, I’d be wearing your ass out for the next month.”
“I’m not military. I’m a journalist. And you need to let me the hell go.” My words don’t really make sense, but we both know what I mean.
“I don’t care what you are, you’re still going to goddamn well do as you’re told.”
“I’m going to do what makes sense for the story.”
“This isn’t about you, or your story. This is about operational safety.” He pulls me back against his hard body, his lips right next to my ear. “You’ve got two choices, Mary. You submit to my punishment when we get back, or I put your ass on the next plane back to the United States.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Watch me.” He releases me, gives me enough space to turn around. I guess he thinks he’s made his point. He’s wrong.
“You’re not sending me anywhere.” I get in his face, just like he’s getting in mine. He doesn’t need to hold my head up to his, because I was never going to back down to him anyway. “I’m here because you were ordered to take me, so how about YOU start following your orders, and stop trying to turn me into your bitch.”
I can feel his powerful body less than an inch away from mine. I can see the frustration and anger coursing through him. He doesn’t get me at all. It’s not my job to hunker down in the back and wait for the good guys to protect me. It’s my job to go and see what the bad guys are doing.
“If these men take you, what happened to you in that laboratory is going to look like a summer camp,” he growls. “I can see you’ve got a death wish, but you’re not dying on my watch.”
“I don’t have a death wish. A death wish would be sitting in the back of the biggest potential target in the village and waiting for you to come back having achieved nothing at all. I’m entitled to talk to people. It’s literally what I’m here for.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you think you’re here for, or what you think you’re entitled to,” he snarls down at me. “You do as I damn well say.”
“Uh, sir? We need to get moving.”
A reluctant voice comes from outside the vehicle. It gets through to Ken in a way nothing I have said does and makes us both realize that we’re basically having a domestic spat in the middle of an Afghani village. Not a good look for anybody.
“Let’s go!” Ken calls out. I slink to the back and stay as far away from him as possible as we head out of the village and back to the FOB.
The ride back to base is slow and stony silent, on my part anyway. I’m not pleased with the way he dragged me away like he owns me. I’m not exactly an embedded reporter if I have to sit inside the car like a little kid every time we stop.
Ken’s protectiveness is out of line and way over the top, and we are going to have words, just as soon as they’re not in front of all his buddies who I know will back him up. Everyone is subdued and quiet. They didn’t find their gun runners and they obviously didn’t get the information they wanted in the village either. So this isn’t my fault, strictly. This is tired men being grumpy because the heat of the day is coming on now and we’re all starting to gently bake.
The smell of sweat, socks, and opened MREs starts to pervade the vehicle, amplified by masculine farts. I’d ask to have a window opened, but something tells me they’re not going to add ventilation just for me.