Veil of Silence (2 page)

“Bathe?” Bahir asked, a little more enthusiastically.  She loved bathing.  The mountain streams were a favorite playground of the children.  She was still young enough to have gotten away with playing in them.  In a few years she wouldn’t have been allowed.

“Dib?” Amir said, understanding the word. 

Marsha smiled.  The children were so young.  She’d tried to teach them as much English as Zabi had allowed.  He took pride in his Persian heritage and his temper was so mercurial that Marsha had learned not to push her own culture on their children.  His beatings had only stopped when she was
with child
.  He didn’t want to lose ‘his’ sons to his temper.  He had been disappointed when Bahir had been born, but he’d allowed Marsha to heal sufficiently before he was on her again, raping her until she was, once again, pregnant.  She shuddered in remembrance of the child she had lost to Zabi’s temper.  She looked down at the two survivors before her.

“Yes, let’s bathe,” she said, using the Tajik word dib that they both understood.  She explained the use of the toilet, fascinating the children with this indoor phenomenon.  She soon had them stripped down and in a bathtub, another new novelty to the two children.  Zabi’s tribe had been very remote.  She supposed that was deliberate, to keep from being discovered.  They had no luxuries and lived pretty much like generations of his people had for thousands of years, nomadic to a degree, but with very little to show for their lifestyles.  They had no need of modern conveniences or luxuries. 

She dressed them back in their outfits after she had shaken as much of the dust from them as possible, and was just in time to hear the knock on the door.  She let Linda in again.  She came with a tray bearing foods Marsha had only dreamed of.  “Oh, thank you,” she said in a most heartfelt way.  The smells emanating from the tray made her mouth water in anticipation.

“I’ll put it down here,” Linda indicated the small couch in the room with a coffee table before it.

“Do you know when they will want to question me again?” Marsha asked.

“No, they’ll let you know,” Linda said, her glance taking in the woman who had removed her burqa, revealing a richer, enveloping outfit of gray with black patterns on the material.  She looked rich and not at all like the prisoner she claimed she had been.  Marsha noticed her looking at her garb.

“We were celebrating when the opportunity to escape came up.  These were our best clothes,” she explained, gesturing at her own outfit and then the children’s.  The children looked fresh and clean after their baths.  They were staring intently at the strange, but delicious-smelling food on the tray.

“You don’t have to explain to me,” Linda assured her, although she had wondered.  She smiled cheerfully, “If you need anything, just pick up the phone and dial zero.”

“Thank you,” Marsha said warmly, feeling so tired.  She too wanted a bath…a real bath after all this time.  The food, however, was not only smelling good, but was a necessity after days going without.

Linda left them and Marsha sat down wearily on the couch.  She filled two plates for her children, watching as they used their fingers to eat.  She smiled.  They would learn.  She herself picked up a fork and delved in.  The food proved as delicious as it smelled.  Perhaps it was the hunger they were all experiencing or perhaps it really was the food.  Marsha was careful not to let any of them eat too much.  Days without food, while common where they came from, meant that their stomachs had shrunken.  She didn’t want either of the children to eat and get sick.  So, despite their protests that they wanted more, she cut them off at one point.

“No, it’s time for bed,” she assured them.  They were both drooping from fatigue.  She herself was ready to sleep too.  The food had made them all even more tired.  She did, however, want that bath before she slipped between the sheets.

She stripped them down to their underwear and put them to bed, telling them a story she made up as she went, until they both fell to sleep.  She then stripped and bathed, washing out her underwear in the bath with her, then hanging it to dry.  She looked at it thoughtfully, wondering, not for the first time, what other Afghan women wore.  She also wondered, again, not for the first time, where Zabi had obtained an American bra.  The chemise many women wore, but the rest of the underwear was sexy, alluring, and surprisingly comfortable.  She knew Zabi had liked seeing her in these fine clothes, the best she owned.  It showed off his status.  It showed he could provide for her better than any other man of the tribe and showed he had deserved to take her as his wife.  His first wife, much older than both of them, hadn’t been pleased, especially when Marsha had proved fertile.  She had instigated the beating that caused Marsha to lose a child.  Zabi had sworn never to touch her again when she was pregnant and she was grateful for that consideration at least.  She had detested his touch from the beginning.

As she laid back in the tub, her hair longer than she could ever remember having it, she luxuriated in the feel of the warm water.  The heat of the water sank into her bones, relaxing her.  She nearly fell asleep, but pulled herself up with a jerk.  She quickly washed her hair using the little bottle of sweet-smelling shampoo that was provided, just like a hotel.  It was wonderful after years of using only whatever they managed to make.  The rough-feeling soaps that they created were a far cry from these manufactured luxuries.  Marsha loved the feel of the soap in her hair.  She found a brush on the vanity, and after squeezing out the excess water, brushed out her long curls.  She remembered how proud Zabi had been of her hair as it grew.  He had hated the short length that she previously worn as a necessity of being in the army.  Not that all women felt that way, but Marsha had liked the ease of caring for short hair back then.  She looked at herself in the mirror.  She looked very different from the woman who had gotten into that helicopter however long ago it had been.  Rough living had aged her.  Childbearing had aged her.  Zabi and his beatings had aged her.  She’d fought back at first, but the sheer number of beatings had worn her down.  Not wishing to be gang raped, she had succumbed to Zabi.  He felt he had tamed the American lieutenant, but he also respected this warrior woman in his own way.  Roughly translated, lieutenant was
lomri baridman.
She’d forgotten the meaning, but he was proud that he had conquered her.  At least Marsha let him
think
he had…to avoid gang rape and to avoid the beatings as much as possible.

She looked at the hair under her arms, wondering if there was a razor, but not bothering to look for it.  The hair on her legs had gotten to a certain length and stopped growing.  She wondered again how long it had been since she had shaved away these excesses.  She closed her eyes for a moment, luxuriating in the fact that she didn’t have to answer to anyone at the moment. 

She toweled off once more.  She was tempted to use the hair dryer, but knew it would terrify her children.  Even a car, the jeep she had managed to steal, had terrified them until they got used to it.  A robe had been provided for her just like in a hotel and she put her arms through the sleeves, feeling ‘normal’ for the first time.  She hung up her towel and looked around the bathroom, a luxury she hadn’t seen in forever, and turned out the light.

Suddenly curious, she went to the door of the room and opened it.  It was not locked.  In fact, she saw there was no lock on the inside.  Looking out into the hall, she saw an armed marine from the embassy security detail come to attention when he saw her.  She nodded stiffly and withdrew back into the room.  Of course they would have her watched.  It wasn’t unlike being back in the village.  She was watched, all the time she was watched.  Now, it was by her own people.  Only now, instead of being that American woman who some despised, she was that American deserter, at least she suspected that’s probably what they thought of her.  She didn’t blame them.  She wouldn’t believe her story either.

Approaching the bed, she saw that the children were soundly asleep.  Exhaustion had played a role in that.  They had been afraid for days, hungry and afraid, and the combination had made them all a bit weary.  She smiled.  That was an understatement!  She had been terrified that Zabi or his men would find her, that they would find where she had gone.  She’d deliberately turned east to throw them off her trail once she left their mountain roads.  The asphalt highway had hidden her tracks well when she turned around and made her way west toward civilization.  The highway had been like a river of lava to her and she sped along as quickly as the vehicle allowed.  She had left the jeep only when she got into Kabul.  She had run out of gas and had been too afraid to purchase more.  Keeping her head covered, her eyes lowered, and carrying the children when they couldn’t, or wouldn’t walk, she had made her way down Airport Road to the
Great Massoud Road where she knew the American embassy was located.  She was grateful to be able to sleep in a bed, a real bed, with her children.  She sent up a little prayer.  To Allah, to Yahweh, to God…whoever might be listening.  All she said was, “Thanks,” but that was all that was needed as she bowed her head and then got into bed with her children.  Her robe felt warm under the smooth sheets, but she wouldn’t sleep naked with her children.  It took mere minutes for her to fall into a dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER TWO

Marsha woke to the sounds of her children laughing, not an uncommon occurrence.  She hoped they weren’t too loud or Zabi would…it was at that moment she realized she wasn’t in the cave that Zabi and his people called home.  She wasn’t even in the earth-colored tent that they used during the summer months as they traveled nomadically.  She wasn’t on the ground on the compact mattress that constituted their bed, she was in the American embassy in Kabul.  She had made it!  Her dream for all those years was accomplished.  She had escaped!

Marsha looked up and around to see the source of the children’s laughter.  Linda was in the room with them and was showing them coloring books, demonstrating how to color with the magic markers she had brought.  The bright colors delighted the two provincial children.  She smiled at their wonderment.  Neither of her children had ever seen a coloring book, much less a magic marker.  There was so much for them to see and to learn.

“Good morning,” Linda called cheerfully as she noticed Marsha’s scrutiny.

“Good morning,” Marsha repeated back in a sleep-roughened voice, and actually meant it.  It was odd.  She could finally say it, in English, and mean it.  The women of the village had often said it, but it had never felt real to Marsha.  She shuddered at the memories.  No more would she hear the disparaging Mahsa that they had called her.  She knew it meant like the moon, but they said it with such vehemence that she knew it was spat at her as an insult.  Instead of trying to use her real name of Marsha, Zabi had given her an Afghan name of Mahsa.  She supposed he meant it kindly, in his own way, but she didn’t feel it.  His first wife, Malekah, which meant queen, made sure that she knew she wasn’t welcome.  It wasn’t like Marsha had any choice in the matter.

“I brought them some toys too, but I suppose they don’t know…” Linda began.

“Do you know if my family has been informed of…” she left off, not sure how to describe it.  Oh gawd, she’d thought of her family so much over the years.  Had they moved on without her?

“I don’t know,” Linda admitted.  “Are you hungry?”  She glanced at the tight-fitting robe and realized how pregnant Marsha really was.  “Are you okay?” she asked as the brunette awkwardly got out of the bed.  She was stiff from their trip, unused to the fine bed she had just slept in.  The children seemed to have already bounced back from their harrowing journey.  She smiled at their good morning greetings, heartfelt, and in the local Afghan dialect called Tajik.  It was one of the forty languages spoken in Afghanistan, which had over two hundred dialects. 

“English now, my babies,” she corrected them gently.

“I’m fine.  Just a bit stiff from the journey,” she admitted to Linda.  She got up in a typically pregnant woman’s manner, the stomach protruding before her, looking enormous and making her feel awkward at the same time.

“Are you hungry?” Linda asked again.

“Yes, starved,” she admitted.  While they hadn’t eaten all the offerings Linda had brought them the previous evening, she could see her children had helped themselves to the leftovers.  She could see the finger prints in the congealed gravy, her mind as a mother shuddered at that, but was grateful that both children appeared to be clean.

Linda must have surmised what Marsha was thinking.  “I showed them the bathroom and explained what the toilet was for,” she explained.  “They were both hopping a little,” she laughed.

Marsha knew that neither of the children had ever seen a toilet before last night, much less used one.  She wondered how much they had understood and was grateful to the woman.  She’d shown them last night too, but repetition was good.  “How much did I oversleep?” she murmured aloud as she waddled determinedly towards the bathroom.

“Not too much,” Linda assured her, still laughing.  “Once you’re dressed,” she glanced at the children, unselfconsciously still in their underwear, “we can go down.”

Marsha was grateful and got up, balancing her protruding stomach as she tiredly made her way to the bathroom.  She hadn’t felt like this yesterday, but despite the good night’s sleep her body was still exhausted.  She quickly changed and then calling the children to her one at a time, she brushed their hair and then dressed them.  Wiping their faces down with a clean washcloth, she kissed their little noses, looking into their dark eyes with a smile.  They looked back at her solemnly, so trusting.  She hoped she hadn’t done a disservice to them by taking them away from the only life they had ever known.  They were young though, she hoped they would adapt.