Ground Zero(6)

“The Afghan army is here!” Reshmina cried. “They’re searching everyone’s homes!”

Marzia stood. “What? Why?”

“It’s the Americans. They’re the ones in charge,” Pasoon said. “They don’t need a reason!”

Reshmina’s father came into the room on his wooden crutch. The rugged mountains of southern Afghanistan had stolen years from their baba, carving the lines and wrinkles of an older man into his reddish-brown face. His beard was short and bushy, more gray now than black, and he wore baggy pants, a long olive-green tunic, and a gray turban.

Someone pounded on their door. Boom boom boom!

Reshmina’s mor—her mother—hurried out of the kitchen. Mor was clutching a gray scarf around her face. “What is it? Who’s come?” she asked.

“The army,” Baba told her. “I will speak to them.”

Pasoon followed Baba to the front door while Reshmina waited nervously with the rest of her family in the women’s room. A few minutes later, Reshmina heard the soldiers enter her home and begin to search the family room. She could tell that Baba had come inside with them but not Pasoon.

Reshmina couldn’t make herself stop shaking. What did the soldiers want? She and her family had nothing to hide! Marzia took her hand and squeezed it, and Reshmina knew her older sister was frightened too.

Baba led the Afghan soldiers into the women’s room. The American soldier Reshmina had passed on the stairs was with them. He had brown skin and was short, with wide shoulders.

“Baba, where is Pasoon?” Reshmina asked her father.

“They’re keeping him outside,” Baba said.

Anaa continued to do her needlework, unperturbed, but Reshmina’s mother snatched up little Zahir, then pulled Reshmina and Marzia to her, like the soldiers had come to take them all away from her.

“Tell them we’re not here to hurt them,” the American soldier said in English. Despite her fear, Reshmina felt a small thrill go through her. Her English lessons had paid off. She understood what he said!

“The soldiers are not here to hurt you,” someone said in Pashto, and Reshmina’s jaw dropped as the translator stepped out from behind the American. The translator wore tan camouflage pants, tan body armor over a black long-sleeve shirt, and a green headscarf.

The translator was an Afghan woman!

“The Americans were told there is a cache of Taliban weapons in this village,” the translator told Reshmina and her family in Pashto. “The Afghan National Army is here to search your house. The American sergeant is here as an advisor.”

“There are no weapons here,” Anaa said to the translator. “No Taliban either.”

Reshmina was barely listening. All she could do was stare wide-eyed at the translator. All the Afghan women Reshmina knew were mothers, wives, and daughters. None of them had jobs outside the home—and especially not important jobs like translator, where they worked and talked with men outside their families.

“Who are you?” Reshmina whispered to the translator.

The woman smiled. “My name is Mariam. I’m from Kabul.”

Reshmina couldn’t believe it. It was like a whole new path had appeared before her that she hadn’t known was there before. A whole new person she could become.

Mariam.

The two Afghan soldiers searched the women’s room, and then the American soldier sent them to search the kitchen and the goat pens. The American certainly acted like he was in charge, just as Pasoon had said.

Reshmina studied the American again. This time she noticed a silly-looking stuffed animal tucked into the gear on his vest. The doll was all mouth and tongue and long spindly arms and legs, and it had a wild, mischievous look in its eyes. It was shabby and faded and dusty, like everything else in Afghanistan, and it was coming apart at one of the seams. Reshmina frowned. Why would the American be carrying something as strange as that? And what did it mean?

One of the Afghan soldiers came back into the room with a small object in his hand. Reshmina recognized it immediately—it was a toy airplane their sister Hila had bought Pasoon as a gift two years ago. Now that Hila was gone, that plane was Pasoon’s most treasured possession in the world.

“I found this in a hole, high up on the back wall of the house,” the soldier said in Pashto to Mariam, who translated for the American soldier.

The American took the toy and turned to Reshmina’s family. “Why was this hidden?”

Mariam translated, and Anaa laughed. “It’s my grandson’s. He’s a boy. He hides things.”

Reshmina nodded. Anaa was right. Why should the soldiers care what Pasoon did with the little airplane? It was none of their business!

“It’s only a toy,” Baba told the Afghan soldier.

The American frowned and handed the airplane to Baba. “Tell them not to hide things from us,” he told Mariam in English. “It makes them look suspicious.”

The soldiers finished searching the house, and Baba escorted them and the American and Mariam back to the front door. Reshmina pulled away from her mother and followed them. Mor hissed, but Reshmina ignored her. She wanted to watch Mariam. Hear her.

Mariam and the American soldier stopped outside the house to speak to Baba. Reshmina saw that Pasoon was there too, flanked by two other ANA soldiers. Pasoon was scowling. His fists were clenched tight, and his arms were straight down at his sides. Reshmina could tell he was ready to fight.