Farishta (28 page)

“You must all come to Balkh to see what we have found,” said Jeef, his eyes sparkling. “I have promised to show Angela something quite amazing which my men have just uncovered.”

“I have no appointments this afternoon and neither does Mark, I believe,” said the colonel. “How about now?”

“With pleasure,” said Jeef.

An hour later, Mark, Rahim, the colonel, and I were peering over the edge of Jeef’s terraced excavation just outside the ancient walls of Balkh City. Below us a parade of perspiring Afghan men in ragged turbans and soiled trousers were passing buckets of earth up rough-hewn ladders.

Jeef waved his hand in the direction of the towering ochre walls that had completely surrounded the city of Balkh two millennia ago when it was known as The Mother of All Cities and had served as a transit point on the great Silk Road. He explained that this city, one of the world’s oldest, had been a major commercial center as early as the third century B.C., when traders from Mesopotamia traveled here to purchase lapis lazuli mined in the Hindu Kush.

“It is generally accepted that Zoroastrianism originated and flourished in Balkh between 1000 and 600 B.C.,” he said.

“We also have definite proof that Alexander the Great established a colony here around 328 B.C., but we’re still sorting out the precise progression of the cultures that supplanted his armies and colonists.”

Jeef stepped onto a narrow wooden ladder and began his descent into the multilayered pit. “Follow me, everyone. I want to show you our latest find,” he said, vanishing over the edge.

“If I had the money to steal you away from the PRT, I’d have you stay here and work with me,” Jeef said as he winked at my strapping but shy interpreter, who had followed behind him down the first ladder.

This well-intentioned comment made Rahim extremely nervous. He loudly assured the colonel that as fascinating as he found Jeef’s work, he had no intention of giving up his job at the PRT.

“Of course, we know you won’t leave us, Rahim,” replied Colonel Jameson, who had sensed the young man’s need for reassurance. “I’m certain even Professor Mongibeaux knows that we have the more pressing need for your skills.”

The PRT’s aging senior interpreter, Professor Sayeed, had returned from Kabul the previous week after his long illness and had resumed his position as the colonel’s personal interpreter. Since Colonel Jameson no longer needed Rahim, he would now be expected to accompany the MOTS on their patrols when he wasn’t traveling with me. But Rahim was a skilled linguist, and I knew the colonel wanted to keep him at the PRT.

Mark had descended the third ladder ahead of me and was standing at the bottom when one of the wooden rungs snapped under my boot and I tumbled backward. He caught me under both arms to break my fall. I braced for a mini-lecture on the proper way to climb down a ladder.

“Are you all right, Angela?” was all he said.

“I’m fine. Thank you, Mark,” I muttered, hoping that no one else had seen me fall.

At the bottom of the pit, we gathered in a tight circle as Jeef knelt in the dirt before an elaborately carved Indo-Corinthian capital still half embedded in thick red clay.

“The skill of the carving and the realistic design of the foliage has most of us convinced that this work was done by Greek craftsmen, but look at what is in the center! ”

Sculpted into the granite capital and still crusted with bits of rust-colored earth was a rotund seated Buddha. “This is the first of these we have found so far north,” Jeef exclaimed.

Rahim bent down and ran his fingers over the tiny figure. “
Khuda-hafiz,
” he murmured. “God be with you.”

July 13, 2005
✦ HAIRATAN, BALKH PROVINCE

A message from the U.S. Embassy had arrived informing me that Afghan customs officials in the northern border city of Hairatan were reportedly skimming off a portion of the U.S. jet fuel destined for Bagram Air Base as soon as it came across the bridge from Uzbekistan. Afghan women who bought the stolen fuel on the black market thinking it was kerosene were suffering terrible burns. I remembered seeing one of those women at the prison in Mazār. The embassy wanted me to do something about it.

“Angela, I’m delighted that your government is taking action on the missing jet fuel,” said Colonel Jameson when I told him about the request and the documents I had received from my embassy.

“I’d like you to take the professor instead of Rahim with you to Hairatan tomorrow for your meeting with the customs officials.”

“Good idea. He’s the only terp I haven’t observed in action.”

“I want Mark to go with you as well.”

“Mark? Why? This is a U.S. issue,” I said, sounding more upset than I had intended. As much as I had grown to like Major Davies, he still made me nervous. I didn’t want him hovering in the background while I undertook this awkward negotiation on behalf of my government.

“Because, Angela,” the colonel replied, peering at me over the top of his glasses, “some of the new police officials being sent to Hairatan are Pashtun. You have monitored every one of our terps since you arrived in January, and they have all passed with flying colors. As you noted, the professor is the only one you have not observed, but since he speaks both Dari and Pashto, I want Mark to be with you listening in as well.”

“Of course, Colonel,” I replied, surprised and embarrassed at my outburst. “It makes perfect sense.”

The formerly bustling port city of Hairatan was a major smuggling center in northern Afghanistan. Although its riverside loading docks sat silent and abandoned next to the lumbering Amu Darya, rail and truck traffic flowed in a steady stream across the Soviet-built Friendship Bridge, where three months earlier, I had made my frantic after-dark dash back into Afghanistan with the ailing agricultural specialist curled up and moaning on the backseat of the Beast. This border crossing was a cash cow for corrupt government officials and for the Afghan warlords who controlled the surrounding districts in Balkh Province.

 

 

Professor Sayeed accompanied me in the lead vehicle the following morning. He tugged nervously at his clipped gray beard and spoke little until after we left the Mazār city limits. The old man was clearly not thrilled about having to ride with “the woman” instead of with Major Davies in the follow car, but he knew I represented the U.S. government, which made me almost the major’s equal in his eyes. He started to relax after our first hour on the road when I inquired about his time in Kabul. My efforts succeeded.

By the time we reached Hairatan, we were both laughing at his stories about the antics of his grandchildren during the long months he’d been recuperating at his son’s home in Kabul. He seemed like a nice guy, and after today’s meeting I looked forward to finally being able to check the last PRT interpreter off my list of suspects.

The meeting dragged on well into the afternoon. The first hour was routine. I made my points in English about how the jet fuel should be accounted for, and the professor translated my words into Dari with great precision. I handed over the documents from the minister of the interior, which the three customs officials and the Pashtun-speaking police chief read carefully, assuring me they would do their best to comply. Mark and I, on our fourth or was it our fifth cup of tea, began exchanging silent glances of desperation—would this meeting never end?

Well into the third hour, the conversation took a stunning turn. The meeting seemed to be winding down, when Mark and I watched in astonishment as the professor, having no idea we understood both of his languages, began to negotiate a deal with the four men to help them conceal their continued theft of fuel if they would give him a cut. The professor explained to us in English that he was telling the men how important the jet fuel was for fighting the Taliban in the south.

Confident that local warlords would protect them, the men plotted to continue sharing in the profits and completely ignore the documents I had just handed over to them.

The crafty old interpreter’s belief that we ignorant “foreigners” had not a clue what he was doing was about to come crashing down. It was clear that this was not the first “deal” struck by the professor during his years at the PRT, even though we had no proof he’d ever been involved in drug trafficking. The colonel sent him packing as soon as Mark and I returned and made our report in the afternoon.

Mark joined me upstairs for a cup of tea after the ops room briefing the following morning. “Angela, your draft memo on yesterday’s meeting in Hairatan is excellent, but you’re looking quite exhausted this morning. Did you stay up all night writing it? ” he asked.

“No. I called the embassy when we got back yesterday and gave them the unclassified version, then typed up the first draft as soon as I got off the phone. They’ve finally authorized me to start speaking Dari,” I added with little enthusiasm.

“You don’t sound very pleased,” he said. “I thought you’d be over the moon about it. The colonel has also authorized me to start using my Pashto.”

“That’s great, Mark, and I am thrilled that the mystery of the unreliable interpreter has finally been solved, but I’m worried about the terps’ reaction when they find out how we’ve been concealing our language skills.”

My voice cracked, betraying the exhaustion I felt after having lain awake most of the previous night wondering how I would explain these months of deception to my young friend without losing the trust I had worked so hard to build.

“I’m sure Rahim will understand,” Mark assured me. He knew exactly which terp I was referring to.

“The colonel seemed quite relieved at our morning briefing when he announced that the good professor was already on his way back to Kabul,” Mark added as he poured milk into his tea.

“Yes,” I replied wearily, “I think he was right to get him out of here immediately and leave him to the mercy of the Afghan authorities.”

Mark took a deep breath before continuing. “Angela, you know that the Friendship Bridge may someday soon become a much more strategic choke point for NATO supplies coming into Afghanistan.”

I nodded.

“I know that yesterday’s meeting was at the request of your embassy, but I do hope you won’t mind if I insert a few points on military security into your report before comms sends the classified version to Kabul.”

I had no reason to object and was too exhausted to discuss the matter further. “Put in whatever you want and send it off. Leave a copy in my READ file. I have to go up to my room and lie down.”

“Right,” he said, looking concerned.

“Thanks for coming with me yesterday, Mark. I’m glad you were there.”

“Anytime, Angela.”

July 14, 2005
✦ MAZĀR-I-SHARĪF

Colonel Jameson saved me the trouble of explaining my sudden fluency in Dari to Rahim by summoning him to his office and offering him the position of head interpreter. The colonel left his door ajar so those of us in the bullpen could listen in on their conversation.

“Sir, I am most grateful for your generous offer,” said Rahim. “We were all saddened and ashamed to learn about Professor Sayeed’s deception, but, sir, I have always interpreted for the Americans, and I have been working with Miss Morgan for more than six months. It will be very difficult for her to start again with another interpreter.”

I was stunned to hear Rahim turning down this promotion so he could continue working with me. His incredible loyalty was about to be rewarded with the news that I had been deceiving him all these months. My heart sank.

“Rahim, Miss Morgan doesn’t need an interpreter.”

“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t understand.”

“She speaks Dari almost as well as you,” the colonel replied.

“Oh, no, sir. I know she took lessons in America, but she still needs me with her to translate when she goes to meetings.”

He was defending me while still insisting that I needed him. What a wonderful kid. I cringed at what the colonel was about to tell him.

“Rahim, Miss Morgan has been under strict orders since she arrived at this PRT to conceal her knowledge of your language. Before anyone could know this, we had to make sure that none of our interpreters was providing inaccurate translations,” explained the colonel as gently as possible to the stunned Rahim.

“She gave all of you glowing reports months ago, but until she and the major discovered the professor’s deception yesterday, she was forbidden by her embassy from revealing her fluency in Dari. It’s been difficult for her, but our long efforts have paid off and we have been able to rid the PRT of the one interpreter who was deceiving us.”

Rahim was silent.

“So what do you say to my offer? ” asked the colonel.

“Thank you, sir. This is a great honor and I accept.”

Rahim stepped out of the colonel’s office and into the bullpen, where my office mates stared at us both in amazement.