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Mandy

September 4th

Kabul from above was a panoramic movie— sensual sand rivers, thirsty cracks diving into the earth, a disembodied pilot's voice reciting Allahu Akbar three times on final approach, a prayer that the flight attendant failed to translate into English. But once Mandy had landed and had entered the airport's squat and tawdry buildings, the city abruptly seemed less romantic, emitting the scent of the dangerously foreign: dark and masculine musk. Mandy fought off a knife-like wave of fear. What was she? A middle-aged woman with a pale face and secret hopes, unnaturally adjusting her headscarf: she didn't belong. She had a sudden vision of high school dances— those petri dishes of adolescent insecurities, still mildly painful three decades later. Even though she'd been considered "popular," she'd known it to be a disguise that couldn't provide permanent cover-up, a mask in constant danger of slipping. Each time she'd entered that dolled-up lunchroom with its streamers and strobe lights and a band playing piercingly in a corner, she'd imagined everyone would finally notice the "Outsider" tattooed on her forehead.

Here, however, no one seemed to pay attention to her at all. On the airplane, men had watched her through slitted eyes at once deferential and bold, and other women had smiled shyly. Now everyone was far too involved in the business of pushing their way into the terminal or fighting their way to the exit. The lights appeared to have burned out, or maybe the electricity had shut off: the terminal was in shadows, and Mandy saw, as they inched forward, that the baggage carousel stood silent and still. A half-dozen men hustled in, pulling luggage on flat carts, shouting out unknown words and gesturing for everyone to clear a path, clear a path, and then dumping bags onto the stranded carousel as if they expected it to involuntarily leap to life. Passengers of both genders pushed their way toward the heap, the women gaining momentum whenever a man leapt back to avoid physical contact.

In this adamant rush of activity, Mandy hesitated. What to do now? She imagined she looked like some stunned whale washed onto an unknown shore. On the flight over, she'd asked for the window seat. She'd let the ticket agent imagine it was so she could see Kabul on approach. The real reason was less logical. Sitting by the window gave her the false sense that she could escape if needed, if this whole venture turned out to be as ridiculous as Jimmy had warned. Now it became suddenly clear: there was no escaping. There never had been, not since Jimmy had come home. She'd flown to Kabul in some unacknowledged attempt to bargain with God, or maybe fate, since her sense of God had become murky: in return for her work here, please, Whoever, give her son his legs back, so he could lift her up and twirl her around again, or take a hike, or press pedal to metal in his truck. Or if that was too much for a simple, sinful woman to ask, at least please give Jimmy back his spirit.

It was unrealistic and ill-conceived; she recognized that. Never had she been more out of place in her life. But before she could fall into a raging panic in full view of dark-eyed, turbaned men and silent women suffocated in cloth, an officer in an American military uniform strode directly toward her.

"Mrs. Wilkens?"

Thank God for her boy; he'd arranged this, even from bed, even though he disapproved. Mandy felt her eyes well up. Once she'd been the last to cry; often now she was the first. Silently, sternly, she warned her tears to stay put.

"Yes, sir," she said. "That's me."

The officer introduced himself as Corporal Holder. "Welcome," he said. "How much luggage do you have?" She identified one piece after another after another— more, with the medical supplies, than Corporal Holder might have expected, but he showed no surprise as, with fluid movements, he loaded the suitcases and boxes onto a cart. "This way, ma'am," he said, soothingly direct and familiar.

Outside the terminal, Mandy felt dust settle on her skin almost immediately. Holder led the way past a paved expanse to a graveled lot, chatting as they walked. "We're parked all the way over here— sorry. They don't allow you to get too close. How was your flight? You must be tired. I've brought some waters in case you're thirsty. They're in the vehicle. Here we are. And this is PFC Mendez."

Shifting her purse to one side, Mandy managed a handshake with the private. With Holder in the front passenger seat, Mendez at the wheel, and Mandy in the back, they pulled away from the airport.

Afghanistan felt immediately more chaotic than it had in the terminal, which moments earlier Mandy would have said was impossible. Cars hurtled toward one another on what could only loosely be called opposite sides of the road. Horns honked uselessly. Mendez swerved right and then left, careening past trucks, bicycles, men pulling large wooden carts, women in burqas like imploring blue ghosts at the roadside, and finally a legless beggar planted in the middle of the road, empty hands extended before him, undaunted as cars shot by close enough for him to lick if he tried. As they passed him, Mandy sucked in her breath.

Holder turned to look at her and seemed to read her thoughts, even those she couldn't form into words. " Jimmy showed me a couple photos once," he offered. "You look exactly like your pictures, Mrs. Wilkens."

Mandy managed a silent if vacant smile into the rearview mirror. She planned to ask Holder what Jimmy had been like here, and how he'd spent his time when they weren't fighting. But she wanted a more private moment for that conversation.

"So you're from Houston, then?" Mendez spoke over his shoulder.

"Right," Mandy said. "How about you?"

"St. Louis," said Holder.

"New Mexico," answered Mendez. "A little town south of Santa Fe. Watch out, dumbass," he said, addressing a passing vehicle, and then, over his shoulder again, added, "Excuse me, ma'am. They drive crazy here."

"I can see that."

"If you don't mind me asking, ma'am," Mendez said, "but what are you . . . well, what are you doing in Kabul? I mean, Holder here tried to explain, but . . ."

"I'm a nurse preceptor back home," Mandy said. , "Pre-what?"

"I work side by side with nurses that I train in the emergency ward. And we get our share of emergencies, especially on Friday . . ." Mandy trailed off, knowing that an emergency in Houston was nothing like one here. "On Friday and Saturday nights," she finished lamely. "Anyway, I'm here to visit some hospitals, maybe a refugee camp or two. I've brought supplies to hand out— antibiotics, sterile bandages, sutures, that kind of thing. I'll observe. Maybe I can offer some best-practice suggestions on evaluation or triage."

"Pretty brave of you to come here," Mendez said.

"Brave." It hadn't been the word Jimmy had used. Mandy touched the edge of her headscarf as if it were her hair. "I worked for the Peace Corps way back when. I figured if I could do two years then, I could manage a couple weeks now."

"But you're on your own this time."

She shook her head. "I'm working through an NGO that deals with refugees. The in-country director used to be married to a friend of mine. He's connecting me to the people and places."

"And where were you based back in the Peace Corps?"

"Ecuador. I worked in a clinic there."

Mendez drove in silence for a moment. "Forgive me, ma'am," he said, "but I don't imagine Ecuador is much like Afghanistan. Here, we're all just scooping teacups out of the Titanic. I'm probably not supposed to say that kind of shit, you know, morale and all." Mendez twisted the steering wheel to the left, and Mandy lurched into the turn. "I mean, it's great that you still care, that you know this place is part of our own American story by now, with all the blood and treasure spent. Still . . . let's just say I wouldn't want my mom here."

" Sorry about my buddy here," Holder said as he socked Mendez's right arm. "He's got too many questions and too many opinions."

"It's all right." Mandy had heard a version of this, only with greater heat, from Jimmy. She'd hoped not to respond to questions like these. She'd hoped to talk only about her desire to help heal others injured by a war that had cost her son his legs. But this Mendez, he could be Jimmy. He even sounded a little like Jimmy used to sound. For reasons she couldn't precisely name, she wanted to give him a fuller picture. "You're right," she said, "I'm not Doctors Without Borders. But I sent a son here to fight. It's the hardest thing I've ever done— you know from your own families. While Jimmy was here, I was living back there, but living differently. I lived with an everyday fear. He returned, thankfully. But he's— you know, he's . . ." She thought about saying changed, but she was trying to get at the root of what she felt now, and part of that involved veering away from euphemisms. "He's a double amputee." She paused, finding herself surprised again at the ugliness of this phrase. "So it's also personal. I decided to try . . . maybe to understand things better in the end. There have to be Afghan mothers here who feel like I do. I'd like to meet them."

A car honked its horn as it passed them, and Mendez cursed under his breath. "Yeah, well, good luck with your work," he said. "Hell, it's as likely to win hearts and minds as anything else we do out here."

" Jimmy was a good soldier," Holder said after a moment. He turned to Mandy. "So how is he, really?"

This was too complex a question to answer in this hurtling car, in front of strangers. What could she say? That loud noises frighten him and he seems to have forgotten how to laugh? That he says Afghanistan left him forever half a man, and that some nights he grows so dark it scares her, and then he drinks himself into oblivion? That sometimes she feels like she's just waiting for the day he'll give up altogether and become a delayed, unacknowledged fatality of this war, possibly taking her down with him?

She looked out the window, aware of the awkward fall of silence. "He's alive," she said. "In the end, I guess we're lucky."

"Damn straight," Mendez said. Then, mercifully, he turned on the radio, and Arabic-sounding music flooded the car, making Mandy think of young women dancing in gauze dresses. She gazed out the window, remembering when she herself had been a young woman with clingy dresses and shapely legs and an easy stride, a woman who'd not yet cleaned blood off a wound or leaned over a terminal patient or had a baby ripen in her belly.

She rested a hand on her chest, feeling the air move inside her. Something was badly broken in there, she knew. But maybe— and this was the secret hope she'd carried with her from Texas to Dubai and over the yawning stretch of Afghanistan— maybe she'd heal herself in their hospitals, by a taste of the country that had chewed up her son and then spit him back. Maybe, if God existed, if he were truly great, they'd all be healed.