Ground Zero(28)

Reshmina tried to fight off that awful memory, but it came flooding back to her, overwhelming her.

The day had started as one of the happiest days of Reshmina’s life. Her sister Hila had been sixteen and promised in marriage to a boy from a neighboring village. It was tradition to escort the bride-to-be to the house of her new family, where the wedding would take place, and the procession was always a party. Reshmina’s whole village had turned out for the parade. Married couples walked arm in arm, and young people sang and danced and fired rifles in the air. Reshmina and Pasoon had been nine years old. They’d chased each other around the adults, laughing and squealing at the top of their lungs. Reshmina had finally caught Pasoon and paused to catch her breath.

That’s when Reshmina heard it. An angry buzz, like a hornet’s nest. She and Pasoon had looked up at the same time, searching the sky for the source of the sound.

Reshmina saw it now in her mind’s eye, as clear and sharp as she had seen it that day. An American drone, high in the sky. It was sleek and gray, with wide wings like an eagle and a tail like a fish. She and Pasoon had watched as it flew closer, closer, coming up behind the wedding procession. Something small and black detached from the drone and streaked out toward the front of the parade. Toward her sister in her beautiful wedding dress, surrounded by all her friends. Reshmina remembered the whoosh of the missile, the gray trail of smoke behind it, and then—

Reshmina turned away, feeling the heat of the blast on her face all over again as she stood here in the mountains with Pasoon, two years later.

Now that she was older, she understood what had happened. The happy gunshots of the wedding procession had registered as an attack on an American airplane flying so high up that none of them had even seen it or heard it. But that had been enough for an American soldier in some tent miles away somewhere to fire a missile at them with a drone.

“If the Americans can’t be here without killing innocent people, they must leave the valley,” Pasoon told her now. “Otherwise, there will be jihad.”

Reshmina understood her brother’s anger. She felt it too. But a holy war wasn’t the answer.

“So you’re going to leave our family and join the Taliban,” Reshmina said. “Leave me.”

Pasoon swallowed. “Yes. And not because Darwesh and Amaan told me to. Because I want to.”

Reshmina nodded. She had known this day was coming, but a part of her wanted to pretend that things would never change. That she and Pasoon could be young and happy and carefree forever. But they were both growing up fast. Too fast.

A chill went through her, like the winter wind cutting through her shawl.

Pasoon chose that moment to dive forward, not for the toy plane but for Reshmina. He tackled her to the ground and tried to pin her to take the plane away. Reshmina kicked and grunted, but where she was quick, Pasoon was strong. She tossed the plane away instead.

Pasoon scrambled over her, trying to get at the toy, and Reshmina grabbed his foot. Pasoon fell flat on his face in the dirt, and Reshmina ran and snatched up the plane before he could get to it.

“Ha!” Reshmina crowed, and she held the little plane in the air triumphantly.

Pasoon stood, and Reshmina was shocked to see tears in his eyes. She’d wanted to make him mad, not sad. She suddenly felt terrible for taking the toy from him.

“Keep it, then,” Pasoon said. He kicked a rock in Reshmina’s direction, a little of the old anger overriding his sadness, and then he turned and walked away.

Reshmina’s heart broke. As twins, she and Pasoon knew exactly how to hurt each other. But they had always known where the line was, and when they’d crossed it.

“Pasoon,” Reshmina called, following behind him. “Pasoon, I’m sorry.”

Pasoon didn’t want to listen, and Reshmina trailed along behind him in silence.

There was a graveyard on the other side of the mountain, and it matched their quiet mood as they walked through it. Hundreds of stone mounds dotted the hillside. The larger ones were for men and women. The smaller mounds belonged to children and babies. Some of the rock piles had colorful blankets on them—mementos left by loved ones for the recently buried. Over others bent tall wooden poles with ragged green flags on top, marking the graves of people who had died fighting the jihad against the Soviet Union when Reshmina’s parents were children. In some places, the stones were scattered and low, and it was hard to tell there had been a grave there at all.

“So many dead Afghans,” Reshmina said quietly. “Pasoon, if you join the Taliban, you’re just going to end up dead and buried under a pile of rocks somewhere.”

“So I should wait around to die in our village, like our sister?” Pasoon said without looking at her. Without stopping. “Like Barlas? Like old Nazanina? Like Uncle Mehtar? Baba’s leg was torn up by a land mine just clearing a field for planting. If I’m going to die one way or another, I might as well die fighting.”

“For revenge,” Reshmina said bitterly.

“For freedom,” Pasoon told her. “Everybody invades and tries to tell us how to live our lives. The Greeks, the Mongols, the British, the Soviets, the Americans.”

“The Taliban,” Reshmina added.

“The Taliban are Afghans.”

“Yes, but they only became powerful because they were supported by foreigners,” Reshmina said. She had learned about it in school. “People from Pakistan and from Saudi Arabia who wanted to tell us how to live. And invaders always beat us so easily because they have better weapons than we do. Greek shields, Mongol bows, British cannons, Soviet gunships, Taliban rockets.”