The Ageless
By Alexi LeFevre
Copyright © 2010 Alexi LeFevre
“Who do you suppose has it easier? Ones with religion or just taking it straight? It comforts them very much but we know there is no thing to fear. It is only missing it that’s bad. Dying is only bad when it takes a long time and hurts so much that it humiliates you. That is where you have all the luck, see? You don’t have any of that.”
- Robert Jordan
In the south of the country like this, there was always a way to take shelter from the midday sun. The door to the small mud hut was a short rectangle cutaway covered by a thin white muslin cloth. The American slid it aside and found no one. The Afghan followed in behind him. The single room was bare with a bare earth floor and a table in the center where two chairs stood at odd angles. The single window was also a square cut into the packed earthen wall. From where the American sat, he could see a small stamp of Afghan countryside through it, the grim wind-blown sand of the earth in a flat terrain that gently rose towards where a small hill stood, faded and white in the heat. Atop the hill were two pistachio trees, nearly ready for harvesting with their fruit ripe from the long desert summer, which was slowly coming to an end. His clothes stuck to his skin.
“What time does it start?”
“Evening. Not until evening. The others must arrive. Day is too hot.”
The American nods. “And how long does it last?”
The Afghan says, “Not long.” He looks at the American. “You have not been before?”
“No. Never.”
“First time?”
“Yes.”
The Afghan nods and grunts. He sits easily and has a rifle across his legs. His hands caress it and wander gently along its hot skin as he speaks. The American wonders what the noise that the Afghan made means.
“How does it take you? The heat?”
“It’s not bad. Where I come from in America, the weather can be like this.”
“Where do you come from?”
“Arizona.”
“I don’t know Arizona. I know New York. You’ve been there?”
“Yes, once. It’s a very big city.”
“And Washington, too. I have heard of Washington.” The Afghan takes from his pocket a wrinkled plastic bag of several American cigarettes. They are old and it’s clear he smokes them rarely, for they are hard to come by. He doesn’t offer one and puts the bag away and smokes quietly in the heat.
“What do you think they’ll say?”
“What’s that?”
“At the jirga. Do you think they will go along with the plan?”
“Yes,” the Afghan says sincerely. “It is a good plan. They need courts here. Good courts.” He takes a long drag of the cigarette.
“And you think they will be okay with American advice?”
The Afghan says only, “As much.”
“So where are you from originally?”
The Afghan grunts questioningly.
“I mean, were you born in the south?”
“Yes, I am from this area, but west. Close to the border. Iran border. We are Pashtun here. My father. His father and all the way back. Our fathers.”
The American nods and recalls hearing about the patriarchy during his regional studies course. He recalls stories of ancient Pashtun leaders, fathers and brothers and sons, who fought endless invaders over centuries. There were still those who talked of besting the Soviets. The American watches the Afghan for a moment. His eyes are small, brown, and firm and move slowly from their deep thrones above his thick, rounded cheeks. There are lines from his nose to the corners of his mouth. He has smiled and frowned a great deal, the American thinks. On his left cheek, an inch below the eye, there is a crescent-shaped scar, the white, crimped line curving to the outside then coming round and cupping the cheek line. He is round in the stomach and has clearly eaten well his entire life. The American guesses at his age. Mid-fifties. Not nearly sixty. The Afghan’s beard is full with streaks of gray and comes down to his throat like a coarse brown sponge.
“And how well do you know this area?”
The Afghan says, “I lived here when as a boy. I went north when the Taliban came.” As if to emphasize this, the Afghan withdraws the cigarette and spits roughly onto the dirt. His saliva bubbles on the earth, dark and harsh. “I returned after the Americans. Now I am here for nearly ten years. With my wife. My family.”
“And children? How many do you have?”
“Some children.”
“Sons? Daughters?”
The Afghan doesn’t answer.
The sun heats the air like a warm coil around the American’s body. Minutes pass and he asks, “And how is it since the United States came here? Is it better?”
The Afghan looks to the ground. He blows smoke and says casually, “I am still waiting.”
At the jirga, the American and the Afghan arrived early. It was held outside under the darkened canopy of night stars that were freshly visible. The electricity was not reliable in the countryside. Three large fires maintained a luminous glow under which the gathered thirty men listened as the American and his six co-Americans gave an impassioned argument. The Afghan translated solemnly. They used phrases like ‘judicial reform’, ‘due process’ and ‘civic education’ and they dispersed Pashtun and Dari-translated pamphlets extolling the virtues of representative government. The Americans’ guards, white men with stern faces and fierce mustaches, held their weapons at bay and stood afar, talking amongst themselves, their eyes molesting and harmful, their uniforms martial but not military. The American wished the guards had not been there. After the jirga, the Americans left and returned to the town where they were staying for the next month as they traveled the countryside, speaking before other such jirgas. Most went inside the small compound on a remote street but the American stayed outside in the night for a while alone.
He was tall and sat off to one side of the compound entrance, resting his long, lean legs and stretching his arms. His face was long and thin and young and he had a light layer of beard growth. He wore glasses with thick brown rims. His clothes would need washing, the khaki pants and white cotton shirt now having grown foul in the dry heat that seemed to purge the body of moisture. He recalled having been first assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. “You ready to get out there, kid?” the Deputy Chief of Mission had asked upon his arrival. “Yes. The PRTs are the best hope for the country now.” And he believed maybe for his life as well. “Well get ready to sweat because the summer’s just kicking off and it ain’t gonna get any cooler for a while. And down near L-G, it’s a goddamned brick oven.”
It was not so hot now, in the late evening hours, and he stood and wondered if it might be safe to walk. They had recommended against it but they made so many recommendations that it was hard to tell which were right to follow and which were a product of paranoia.
Along the street he moved and found a shop front where men sat around a small table and there he saw the Afghan amongst them. A tall water pipe—shisha they called it—towered on the plain ebony circle. The Afghan and another man played at a backgammon board. The street was very quiet and from within the shop there was no movement. Two kerosene lamps flickered to the right and left of the men. The orange-burn of the light gently flooded and softened their faces and the American wished he had his camera.
The Afghan saw him standing there. He waved him over.
“Good evening,” the American says.
The Afghan says, “It is a good evening.” The backgammon suddenly stops, the smoking of the shisha ceases. There are four other men. They all look up at the American, then to the Afghan, then back to the American.
A short conversation begins between the Afghan and another man. The American
watches. The Afghan speaks several times with a powerful, guttural tone. The other man speaks forcefully but with noticeable deference. He falls quiet and looks angry and the others only stare at the American. The Afghan gestures. “Sit with us.”
A soft wind picks up and sweeps along dust and noises and scents, down the street, down their faces and the air is suddenly much colder than the midday heat that sent the Afghan and the American inside for shelter.
“Smoke?” The Afghan points to the shisha, then puts his hand as if holding a stick and pokes at his own mouth. “No opium.”
Another of the men jokes in English, “Drug-free,” and chuckles.
The American smiles and nods and doesn’t notice the angry man eye the Afghan and look down and move his lips soundlessly. One of the men stands and goes inside and returns with a tray of metal cups and a pot of tea. Enough for all of us, the American notes. He’s brought tea for everyone. Including me.
The shisha tastes warm and cool at once. The smoke is moist and reminds him unexpectedly of his childhood when his family moved to Vermont during the late fall, near where locals called The Kingdom. The winter tastes were of apple and spices, of sugar maples turning burnt and crimson. It was a secret, hidden world. He looks into the bulging bottom of the shisha and sees objects floating in the water, apples possibly, or cinnamon and cloves. This is a secret place, too. This L-G of southern Afghanistan.
“It is good,” the