Enduring Freedom, page 23
They pulled into the local hospital compound and, after their two Humvees stopped, Sergeant Paulsen called Joe down from the gun. “We’re not going to be firing a bunch of grenades around in this enclosed area.” Paulsen handed him the AN/PRC-148 radio, a little black box the size of a big TV remote control with a black coiled cord leading to the hand mike that clipped to the front of his vest.
“Go inside with the medics,” Sergeant Paulsen said. “We’ll stay out here to guard the vehicles. If you need help, give a call and we’ll be on our way.”
“Help in a hospital?” Joe said. “Not like I’ll be scrubbing into surgery. I won’t need an assist.”
Paulsen laughed. “Yeah, well, we gotta stay connected just in case there’s trouble.”
“Ready?” Master Sergeant Dinsler asked. He and Farida the interpreter stood in a little shaft of moonlight that shined down through the trees. A warm breeze shuffled the branches, shaking and mixing light and shadow, so that the two of them seemed to shimmer like ghosts.
Joe escorted them into the big concrete building through a flimsy screen door that snapped shut behind them, making him tense up on his weapon for a moment. “This is a hospital?” he asked.
The master sergeant nodded. “Best in Farah,” he said. “Sad, isn’t it?”
Paint peeled off the walls of the dimly lit rooms, and they moved through shadow as they made their way down the hall.
Farida spoke to an Afghan man where the hallway split in two different directions. He answered her. She pointed to the left. “Women’s ward is this way.”
Joe raised an eyebrow. It would be interesting to have the chance to interact with Afghan women. Someone said Farida had been born in Afghanistan but had lived in America since she was two. There was a big difference between Afghan and Afghan American women. Afghan girls were allowed to play outside and didn’t have to be covered up, but once they hit puberty they were, most of the time, hidden behind walls or under a burqa.
Joe wiped his brow. It might have been a nice night outside, but the inside of the hospital was hot and humid. The concrete building had cooked all day in the sun and then held on to that heat into the evening. He’d been naive to hope Farah’s chief medical facility might have air-conditioning.
They passed one room where a sour-sweet stench hit his eyes and nose like a slap in the face.
“Oh, that’s putrid,” Farida said.
The horrid odor rose from a pile of red-brown blood-soaked rags on the floor of a room to their right. Flies buzzed over the messy mound, and Joe was glad the room was fairly dark, because he was pretty sure he saw maggots wriggling around in there.
They emerged into a large room about the size of his high school English classroom, but slightly narrower and with a higher ceiling. The only light came from a couple of dim light bulbs hanging from wires at either end of the room. Some of the concrete up there had crumbled away, exposing rebar.
The beds were arranged side by side along either wall, with an aisle down the middle. They were nothing more than thin foam mattresses with dingy blankets resting atop stacks of wooden shipping pallets. Only four of the beds were occupied, two of them with mothers who, themselves sick, nevertheless tried to console crying children. A third bed had someone lying on her side, covered in a thin sheet.
There weren’t even screens on the open windows. Flies buzzed and crawled about everywhere.
Master Sergeant Dinsler led them down the aisle to the far end of the room, where an Afghan girl about his age, maybe a couple of years younger, rested on the slab, dressed in a long-sleeved pink-and-purple-flowered dress.
Those Afghan girls sure are talented, making all their clothes by hand. “How do they—”
Joe froze. Something tightened in his stomach, and despite the heat in the room, a cold terror filled him. “Oh no,” he whispered.
His eyes had deceived him. Or his brain didn’t want to recognize the true sight before him. The girl wasn’t wearing a pink-and-purple dress. She wasn’t wearing a dress at all.
She had been burned. The outer layer of her skin had turned a dark yellow-tan and peeled away, clumping into brown-red-purple charred clumps on her arms, lower abdomen, and neck, leaving exposed a light pink underflesh. The fire had missed most of her face, but her neck was charred and her lower left cheek singed. She’d once had shoulder-length midnight-black hair, but much of it was fried into clumps around her burned left ear. She’d been burned terribly from her neck at least to her waist. Green pants covered below that. A towel covered her breasts, though the edges still showed, a furious, painful pink.
He stared at her, open mouthed. She didn’t cry. She made no noise, but the look of agony on her face was unmistakable, like the fire had pushed her beyond the mind’s capability of understanding pain.
Somehow, she seemed to notice him looking at her, and her eyes met his, as if to say, Well, what do you think?
Master Sergeant Dinsler leaned close to Joe and spoke quietly. “The hospital sent a messenger to the PRT. He said they had a burn victim but lacked the resources to care for her. He asked us to try to help her.”
Another Afghan woman sat by the burned girl’s bedside. Farida spoke to her and then to us.
“The girl’s name is Shaista. This is her mother,” said Farida. Her mother? She did not look even close to old enough to be Shaista’s mother. Farida continued, “Her mother says she was burned in a cooking accident.”
“But you don’t believe her?” Master Sergeant Dinsler asked.
Farida shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s possible.”
“Ask her if she has had any medications,” said the master sergeant. “Ask her if she is allergic to any medications.”
“It’s possible she’s had no medications in her entire life,” Farida said. “The Taliban wouldn’t allow women and girls to get medical attention, even if it were available, and—” She gestured around the room. “Look at this place.”
Nevertheless, Farida did as she was told and found out basically nothing had been done for Shaista. After getting permission to help, the master sergeant ran an IV and issued medicine to help with the pain and to fight infection.
Farida and Shaista’s mother talked a lot. Farida learned the girl was only about sixteen. She was married.
Married? At sixteen? What was happening here?
After a while Farida turned to Joe. “Can you get her mother out of here?”
Joe shrugged. What was he supposed to do? He couldn’t physically push her out of the room. Half of Farah would probably riot if they found out he’d touched her. He looked to Master Sergeant Dinsler for confirmation.
“Just step closer to her, motion toward the door. Be firm when you suggest she step out of the room for a moment. Farida will translate.”
“She’ll be more likely to listen to a man,” Farida said.
Joe took a deep breath, sorry at once that he’d done so, due to the horrible burn smell.
He approached the woman at Shaista’s bedside and pointed to the door. “Ma’am, please step out of the room. Come with me.”
As soon as Joe moved closer, the mother stepped back, a worried look on her face. When she heard Farida’s translation, she looked from Joe to Shaista and back again. Then she nodded and hurried from the room.
Farida looked down on Shaista with a pained expression on her face. She reached out to pat Shaista’s shoulder, to comfort the girl, but immediately stopped herself. “Shaista? Shaista?” She continued in Pashto, but Shaista didn’t seem to hear.
After a minute or so, Shaista spoke, slowly, careful not to move.
Tears welled up in Farida’s eyes. “She says she doesn’t like her husband. She’s his second wife.”
“Did his first wife die?” Joe asked.
Farida and Master Sergeant Dinsler glared at him. “It’s called polygamy,” Farida snapped. “Now be quiet.”
Shaista continued to speak slowly and softly. “She says her husband and his first wife had no kids.” To the soldiers, Farida explained, “So of course, it’s automatically viewed as the wife’s fault and he marries Shaista. His first wife becomes more of a servant. Then he and Shaista couldn’t have kids.”
“Ask her how the fire happened,” said Master Sergeant Dinsler.
Farida said something in Pashto. Shaista answered. Farida looked up, shook her head. “She says only that she does not like her husband.”
“Do you think she burned herself?” asked the master sergeant.
Farida wiped a tear from her eye. “Some Afghan girls commit suicide that way. Some are burned to death by their ignorant families who believe she’s dishonored them in some way, like if she’s been with a man before she was married. It doesn’t happen a lot, but it happens enough to be a known phenomenon.”
“I’ve read about it,” Dinsler said.
Joe looked at Shaista. This was sick. This was wrong. The very best-case scenario here was that she’d been burned in an accident. Otherwise either her life was so miserable that she thought being burned to death was better than living or her family was mad at her for some primitive reason and set her on fire.
“The name Shaista means ‘beautiful,’” Farida said.
Joe was sure she had been beautiful once. He could see it in what remained of her face and hair. Only sixteen. She’d never been given a chance.
Like so many of the other women and girls in this country. What the heck was wrong with these people? How could they let something like this happen?
“There’s not much more we can do for her tonight,” said the master sergeant.
“We can’t leave her here!” Farida waved a fly out of Shaista’s face. “Not in this dump.”
“When we get back to base, I’ll try to persuade Lieutenant Colonel Santiago to ask for a medevac. But a lot of his answer will depend on what her family says. We can’t fly her away without their consent. They’d say it was an abduction, or that we burned her. Rumors like that can hurt our position throughout the entire province.”
That was it. Master Sergeant Dinsler nodded toward the door. Farida and Joe followed him out.
Joe keyed his radio. “One-One Bravo, this is Ernie Pyle, over.” He was calling for the First Platoon, First Squad, Bravo Team leader, Sergeant Paulsen.
“Go ahead, over,” Paulsen radioed back.
Joe called again. “We’re coming out. Time to return to base. We’re done here.”
“Roger. We’ll prepare to RTB. Out.”
Joe was the last of his group to leave the room. He stopped at the door and looked back at Shaista. She did not move her charred body but met his eyes. “I’m so sorry. Khuda Hafiz,” he said. Goodbye.
He caught up with the other two outside on the concrete porch in front of the building. A big Afghan man with flecks of gray in his black beard stood calmly, smoking a cigarette. Farida stopped and said something to him in Pashto.
The man replied evenly.
Then Farida started in again. Joe couldn’t understand her words, but he understood she was furious. The man tried to say something else for a moment, but she stepped closer to him, shouting, pointing. The man yelled something back at her, but she wasn’t having it. She screamed at him.
Other Afghans, security guards, a couple of men who worked at the hospital, were watching the exchange with shocked expressions. This simply did not happen in Afghanistan. Women never spoke with men outside of their families. They certainly didn’t shout at them.
“This scumbag is Shaista’s husband,” Farida explained.
“Her husband?” Joe asked. “He doesn’t seem too concerned about—”
“No, why should he care!” Farida said. She launched into another tirade, this time even closer to the man. The man’s fists clenched, and his neck muscles tightened.
You have a duty. You must protect your people at all costs, Joe reminded himself. If that man tries to hit her . . .
Joe held his rifle a little higher and stepped closer to the two of them. He didn’t aim his weapon at Shaista’s husband, but held it up across his chest, still pointed down at a forty- five-degree angle. The man saw it, got the message, and backed up.
And for just a moment, Joe was sorry that the man had backed down. Hit her. Just try to hit her, and I swear, at this range, I’ll put four rounds through you before your worthless dead body hits the ground. Come on, guy. Do it.
But Master Sergeant Dinsler gently pulled Farida away, leaving the man not mourning the probable loss of his wife, but shaking with anger from Farida’s outburst.
Back at the PRT, Baccam caught up to Joe after they’d parked the Humvees and put the covers on the machine guns. “What happened in there?” he asked.
Joe shook his head. “Man, I don’t want to talk about it right now. Tomorrow maybe. This is the worst night of my life.”
The next day was another beautiful spring day in Farah, but Joe felt no relief, no comfort in routine or from experience with his job. He couldn’t even summon joy from the knowledge that his tour was nearing its end. He felt it would be an eternity before he ever left the country. Master Sergeant Dinsler passed the word to him at breakfast. Shaista had died shortly before dawn.
Without a word, Joe dumped his full breakfast in the trash, threw on his gear, and trudged out to his duty post. He was stuck on gate guard that morning. Already three jingle trucks waited outside the wire to be searched before they could come in and unload.
This time he was on the rotation with Corporal MacDonald. “Want me to search the trucks?” MacDonald asked.
“No!” Joe said quickly. “I’m doing it. You stay here and pat down sweaty man crotches.” Then he remembered Mac did outrank him. Technically, he was an NCO. “I mean, if that’s OK, Corporal.”
“Sure, man,” Mac said. “Go ahead.”
Joe took his sweet time searching the trucks. Spring was well underway and would erupt into Afghanistan’s brutal hot summer any day. It was already getting hot under his armor out here in the sun. The second driver complained, asking through the interpreter why the search was taking so long. “Shut your mouth!” Joe shouted at him. “I will clear your truck to enter when I am good and ready! Translate that,” Joe shouted at his terp.
But before he could finish his search of the second truck the passenger door of the third truck swung open. “Killian,” Baheer called, the usual cheerfulness absent from his voice. He was on the ground, quickly heading for Joe. “I must speak with you.”
“You know, this isn’t actually a good time,” Joe said.
“You told the THT about Haji Dilawar. You told them he was Taliban,” Baheer said.
Joe let out a long breath. I do not need this right now. He couldn’t stop seeing Shaista’s burned body, the defeated look in her eyes. He couldn’t lose the smell of that filthy hospital and burned flesh.
“I didn’t . . .” Joe’s armor and weapon felt heavy enough to pull him right down into the endless Afghan dust. Jase and the other THT guys hadn’t left him alone. “I thought if I handed over that useless information—just speculation really—that you’d given me, they’d realize you couldn’t help them anymore and they’d finally stop bugging us.”
“Americans or somebody came to Haji Dilawar’s compound, kicked down the door. They took him away.”
“Well then he was probably some Taliban scumbag who deserved it,” Joe said. “Nothing I can do about it now.”
“I did not tell you about Haji Dilawar so you could tell THT,” Baheer said.
“What do you care?” Joe shouted. “What? Are you sad that we stopped some Taliban guy now?”
“You are not understanding,” Baheer said.
Joe wanted to scream. He wanted to punch something or someone. There was so much terrible, evil stuff, and he was supposed to be here fighting against all that, but he couldn’t make it right. “I do understand that last night we were called out to what you people call a hospital. There was a girl there, younger than me, who had been married to this guy, had to be forty. She was all burned up. The guy didn’t even care. Wasn’t concerned at all. Now she’s dead.”
Baheer looked down for a moment. “These things happen,” he finally said.
“How can you be so casual about it!” Joe shouted. It felt good to yell, one small action he could take in the face of helplessness.
“What is the meaning of ‘casual’?” Baheer tried.
“You don’t even care! In what kind of sick and twisted culture is it perfectly normal for a girl to burn herself to death rather than live in her sick arranged marriage to a guy old enough to be her grandfather?”
Baheer frowned. “This is not fair. You are—”
“You’re right, it’s not fair! Shaista deserved better.” Joe kicked a rock, sending it skittering across the dirt.
“I trusted you, Joe,” Baheer said. “You shouldn’t have told THT—”
“You’re more upset because some Taliban lover was arrested than you are about an innocent girl who was burned to death?” Joe took an angry step toward Baheer.
Baheer stepped up too. “You don’t live here! This is my home, not yours! You’ll go home to America soon and Americans will say you’re so brave for coming here. The war will be over for you, but not for me! Not for me! My grandfather! My father! My whole life, we live this war! Someone found out I told you about the stolen truck of explosives. They trashed our farm. They’re going to blame me for Haji Dilawar’s arrest. You have big guns and an army! You’re leaving soon!”
“I can’t wait,” Joe said.
The gray-uniformed Afghan guards at the checkpoint outside the wire had heard the shouting and were watching now. Joe didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything.
