Daniel asked how long it would take for the khans to make the sale and receive the diamonds. A few days, Taj said. The transaction would not be difficult. The Manticores used nomads and villagers, who passed the bricks of resin to other men like them until someone took the product to the edge of Pakistan. They did not use the formal crossings but crossed anywhere along hundreds of miles, some empty and unguarded, some part of a no-man’s-land, a disputed zone few dared approach. The Manticores were allowed to cross, thanking the local warlords with cash, opium, gemstones, and gold, and sometimes medicine, food, and blankets in winter. There was an understanding between them and the Manticores, who also refused to be part of any government.
“Where will you go afterward?” Taj said.
“I’ll find a way home.”
“And where is home, Daniel Sajadi?”
“I’ll know when I’m there,” Daniel replied, but he suspected he already knew. All he could see now when he thought of home was Rebecca.
The khans gave Daniel’s belongings back to him, even the gun. Taj left with the others to seek out their carefully hidden stores of resin. When they were gone and cooler nighttime temperatures came, Daniel walked toward Little America. It was eight miles away, and he stopped twice to rest. He arrived at dawn. It was framed by three sides of desert and a bluff overlooking the Helmand River. Water looked almost out of place here. He passed the project’s abandoned apartments and the shuttered café that served burgers with Thousand Island dressing. No one was there except a local shopkeeper who was asleep behind a counter in a cigarette and soda shop. When Daniel knocked, he rushed out the glass doors and said, “Sir, buy something, please. I have many things for you, many things!” and Daniel bought cigarettes and water before asking the puzzled man for a crowbar, anything he could use to open the gate to the shuttered compound. The man rummaged around under the counter. He found an ax. It would do.
Daniel struck at the lock until it yielded. Then he found the warehouse and broke its lock, too. Rolling up the corrugated door, he dropped the ax and wiped his hands. The Americans had left everything behind: bins of Agent Ruby and two crop dusters parked side by side, already covered in a layer of dirt. He tore off his turban and wiped the windshield with it. He thought he could fly it but struggled to load the spraying systems, which were attached to the edges of its wings. He turned the warehouse inside out looking for instructions and finally found them in a cupboard that held dozens of manuals along with Styrofoam cups and a radio. He felt the old thrill of lifting a little plane into the air. He flew toward the distant mountains, trying to maintain control, the wings tilting more than they should. He hoped he hadn’t miscalculated. Crop dusters weren’t made to fly so high. Theirs was an intimate relationship to the soil. Soon he crested the mountain, gliding over the field he had admired as a child and again as a man.
He lowered the aircraft until he was twenty feet above the hidden valley with its tall weeds, and just as he moved to pull the lever and release Agent Ruby, something caught his eye. It was a cluster of flowers. Not poppies but yellow wildflowers that had no name, pretty and alone like wild princesses. They trembled in the winds caused by the plane, bending until their petals were level with the flat, patchy grass, rising again when he pulled higher.
His hand on the controls, he turned and sailed above them once more. Again he pulled away. He tried a third time. His knuckles were white like the hills of Middle-earth in winter and his fingers disobedient and stiff. Perhaps it was stupid to do this before knowing if Taj had sold the opium, but the line between stupidity and courage had dissolved, leaving only necessity. It was all that was left when time was running out. Daniel flew the length of the tranquil valley, circled back, then dove toward the earth until he almost grazed the shrubs. The plane teetered. He struggled to keep it steady.
The flowers were under him. They bowed in the wind, then straightened. They had found a way to push through the earth, to come alive without the help of people and little help from nature, and they had survived. They were everything that was good about life, strong and free and determined to thrive. The flowers had a right to be. Their home was here. Daniel wondered how he had ever thought he would or could do this. Their presence was so self-evident that he felt as if he’d just plotted a crime against nature. The valley untouched, Daniel flew the plane back to his hideaway.
He spent two days waiting for the khans and their diamonds, the crop duster still on the sand. He explored other caves, finding the bones of small animals in some. An eagle stood alone on a peak, watching the world below. On the third evening, a pickup truck arrived on the highway, a glimpse of metal reflecting the sun. Anxious, Daniel scurried down the mountain. When he asked Taj how it had gone, the man said, “How should it go? It always goes the same.” Taj glanced at the grounded plane. “I see you’ve upgraded your form of transportation, but I suggest we take my truck if it isn’t beneath you.”
There was no way to explain a crop duster at the foot of a mountain. Daniel had expected to hitch rides on gadis and trucks to Kandahar and, once there, use one of the diamonds brought by Taj to procure a car and flee to Pakistan.
“I know what you did,” Taj said.
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Taj told Daniel he had followed him through the night, stopping when he did, wondering where he was going. “For the last time, I’m telling you that you don’t inspire trust, which my colleagues knew immediately when they met you.”
“I didn’t do anything to harm you or your friends.”
“They are not my friends. I don’t mix business and friendship. Except, apparently, with you. Get in the truck.”
“Did you get the diamonds? How much?”
“Get in the truck.” The elegant accent and causticity were gone. His gun was with him, as always. Daniel saw a street boy who had grown up to become a killer. “Do as I say,” Taj said. “Your life depends on it.”
The Toyota shuddered when Daniel engaged the gears. It smelled of diesel and stale cologne. Taj laid the gun across his lap. “This is in case you get any ideas,” he said. “I can’t allow you to stop me from saving your admittedly questionable life.”
“We have to stop in Kandahar.”
“Yes. And then I will take you to Pakistan.” Taj’s face was damp with sweat, and his eyes red.
“Why are you helping me?”
“What a stupid thing to ask. Explain the airplane.”
“I told you, I didn’t do anything. Your land is intact.”
“I know. I would have smelled it. When you sprayed Gulzar, anyone could smell it for a week. But the others won’t believe you, so let us be on our way.”
“Where’s the payment?” Daniel asked. There would be no point to his having stayed if the Manticores hadn’t made the sale. He couldn’t bear the thought of having shown that land to them for nothing, not because the land had value to him but because the khans were among the few who could raise enough money to fight. They were part of this, even if they liked to think they were in a separate world.
Taj switched the radio on. A singer struggled against the weak signal. He and Taj drove in near-silence for hours, stopping twice, refueling with the gasoline cans in the back. After dusk chased away the day, night came quickly, their headlights barely piercing the viscous darkness. That night’s warrant report was the longest yet. The evacuations were over. When the announcers said Daniel’s name, he felt like he did when Sandy had died, receiving long-awaited news that still struck like a small bomb. He was a fugitive, they said. They had seized his home, which they’d found abandoned—Daniel was grateful for this, as it meant Firooz and Elias had left in time—and had found many expensive things they claimed didn’t rightfully belong to him.
In a few terse sentences, the Kalq mouthpiece claimed that the people had taken back items of value that would help the great cause. They had also found a Mercedes that would be put into service of the state. Daniel couldn’t help but chuckle. Those preaching equality apparently needed luxury cars to drive around, liberating in style. He tried not to think about Rebecca’s things still at the house, or the few pictures he had of his mother. He had left those behind.
He steered the truck into Kandahar. Military shadows hovered everywhere. The Communists were infiltrating like an invasive species. The place Khaiyam had written on a piece of paper was hard to find. Finally, Daniel saw the unnamed road, smaller than an alley. He inched his way forward and pulled up at a low mud house. He’d been told to look for a cherry blossom on the wall. This was it. He glanced around. No one. No Kalq, no shepherds or beggars, no ordinary men, and no women at all since it was night.
Taj pulled two canvas sacks from under the seat and gave him one. At the bottom were thousands of glistening teardrops, maybe a million dollars’ worth of diamonds—of opposition. The drop-off was quick. Daniel used the code word Khaiyam had given him, blossom, and the cloaked woman who cracked open the door gave her word in return. She snatched the bag and thanked him, locking herself inside.
When he was back in the driver’s seat, she slipped out of the house and ran to the car. She lifted the chaderi from her young face, her eyes wet with joy.
“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know how you did this, saheb, but thank you. It’s more money than our jihad has ever seen.”
Daniel sat quietly until Taj finally said, “How long is your profound contemplation going to go on for? I’m starting to get bored.”
“Only boring people get bored,” said Daniel, quoting one of his mother’s old sayings as he brought the engine to life.
Hours outside the city limits, the truck twitched as Daniel rolled over something sharp. For four miles, they traveled with a flat left tire before finding a cluster of shops the same color as the desert. They served kebabs and tea and sold onions, candy, rice, and tins of margarine along with clothes, jewels, and shoes. An upbeat instrumental blared from a cassette player, an old melody set to a modern rhythm. Daniel knew they would have tools and gasoline here for the cargo truckers who drove this road into Pakistan. They gave him what he asked for, and Taj watched from the window as Daniel patched the tire, a boy illuminating the spot with a flashlight. The clerks seemed uninterested in helping and showed him little courtesy. Normally, places like this were run by hospitable men who offered a free Coke or a cigarette.
As Daniel pulled away, he saw a cluster of military trucks half-hidden behind the shop, soldiers craning their heads to watch him. The store window glided past. Among the shoes on display in the dimly lit window was a pair of hot-pink slippers with silk flowers, like Pamela’s fuchsia pumps, though with a lower heel. Something a girl Telaya’s age might have worn. Or something Lolita might have worn. Daniel had never finished that book, although everyone knew the story. Nabokov was still in the pile that for years he had promised himself he would read.
“Those men at the gas station, they were behaving quite normally,” Taj said. “You only found it surprising because you’re used to special treatment, Daniel Sajadi.”
That dissonance between memory and truth returned, each breath becoming sharp and painful.
Lolita.
Look at me, Telaya said. Look.
She was framed in the windshield, a sheer and pale mirage hovering over the road, but instead of pushing her away, this time Daniel looked. She drifted away, growing smaller. Farther and farther, until he could see not only her but everything around her. Her family, the camp, the tents, the wide blue sky. They floated in the distance, faint but unmistakable, like a natural part of the road.
Telaya was wearing Pamela’s pink shoes, which were far too big for her little feet, and she said, I am only ten years old. Maybe nine. It’s not fair.
And then Daniel saw it.
Taj was still talking. “You are not special today. Today you are an ordinary man from the village. Today is reality, Daniel Sajadi.”
Today is reality. Daniel would never forget those words. Traitor, Telaya had called him when he’d struck the deal with Taj. He would never forget that either. His breath was like barbed wire scraping his lungs, his heart, his chest. It wasn’t over, that struggle between old details and new epiphanies. Chips of mica sparkled in the asphalt, and it was like the whole road was winking at him, daring him to keep coming.
The scene from August seventeenth continued to unfold, the story becoming whole. He saw the elders sweeping into view as Telaya’s parents wept. Go find Taj, they said.
Telaya’s father appeared. She was the only thing of value in my life.
Daniel saw Taj take the money at the police station, count it—and never give it to the Kochis. That morning downtown that Daniel had chased the girl, a mirage. She hadn’t led him to the hotel where Rebecca was with Peter. She had led him to the brothel where children were being used by men.
There was so much more. The truth crashed toward him, gaining strength and speed.
I am faster than you are. I can make it.
Telaya had shown him a thousand times. He wanted to reach across and wrap his hands around Taj’s neck, squeezing the life from him. Instead, he tightened his grip on the wheel.
“You didn’t save my life,” he said to Taj.
“If we make it to Pakistan, I believe I should be given some credit for your survival.”
“The day of the crash,” Daniel said.
Taj paused before answering. “I never said I did. Only that I got you away from them. You seemed to think I’d saved you, and who was I to argue with a man of your birth and standing?”
“God help you. You’re a monster.”
On the highway behind them, two Jeeps rushed up in the darkness, passing them abruptly before coming to a stop diagonally across the road. Daniel slammed on the brakes, which screeched in protest. Four uniforms charged toward the driver’s-side window and told Daniel and Taj to step out. They were looking for fugitives, they said. One of the men had that terrible book with him, the collection of photos of wanted men. When he flipped through it, Daniel noticed a red X drawn across many of the faces. There were few left, and he was among them.
Taj was unflustered. He told them his name was Ahdam and deftly lied about driving to work in a soap factory near the border, a new job his cousin had found for him and his friend Abdullah. His poor-man dialect was back. The soldiers stood close to Daniel, almost nose to nose, and asked him the same questions again and again. What was his name? Abdullah, he said. Where was he from? They kept coming, as if trying to catch him in a lie. What did he think of the new government? He knew nothing about it, he insisted, but he was sure it would be good.
Telaya hid in the ditch and waited. If the driver in the big car saw her, he would stop. Did he see her? She prayed he did not. I am faster than him, she thought. I am faster than you. The man wasn’t looking. Even if he tried to avoid her now, he couldn’t. She would win. And they would be sorry, her parents and that awful man Taj. They would be sorry, and she would be free.
One of the officers wanted to separate Ahdam and Abdullah to ask questions, but the captain refused, reminding him that they had more important things to do in Kandahar. The cities had to be brought under control. They reluctantly let the men go. One of them seemed especially unhappy, watching Daniel, checking the photos in the book twice, three times. Daniel drove away, fighting the urge to gas the engine.
As he rolled toward the border zone, which was maybe ten miles away, Daniel noticed that his star-sapphire ring, which he still wore around his neck, was dangling freely outside his piran. In the right light, the star inside the sapphire was plain to see, but from other angles, it wasn’t there at all. For the last nine months, his life had been like that stone, the twinkle of truth always there for him to see, but he had been looking from the wrong angle. He’s been bluffing from the start, Telaya had said, and Daniel had thought she meant blackmail. When she had said Look at me, he’d believed her to be cruel.
“I didn’t do what you think I did,” Taj said.
“Let’s not talk.”
“I considered it, I admit. You compensated me well. Five hundred dollars was three times what I paid for her. The government imposes larger fines than the elders would have.”
They were mere minutes from the border zone. Headlights approached from behind, slashing at the rear window.
Taj turned his head. “It’s them,” he said. “Drive faster!” Taj pushed the gun into Daniel’s temple, nearly crying when he said, “Go. I cannot save myself if I don’t save you.”
Behind them a soldier was standing up in the Jeep, waving the photo book and shouting Daniel’s name, but they called him Abdullah, just like they did when they thought he was a poor man hoping to work in a soap factory. The youngest soldier had seen the star sapphire around his neck and connected it to the ring in the picture. It was the only explanation. Daniel slammed the truck into a higher gear. The man raised his gun and fired, Daniel zigzagging on the road, the car jerking forward when it took a bullet in the back. Another gunshot blew out the sideview mirror. Taj turned around and shot back. The rear windshield exploded. The Jeep lost a headlight, swerving before the driver righted course and sped up. Taj pointed to the empty desert off the road and told Daniel to swerve onto the sand.
“Are you crazy?” Daniel said.
“It will save our lives. Do try to drive faster.”
Daniel drove off-road into the desert. It seemed endless and flat, embedded with baked-in stones that barely slowed him down. Everything looked the same. It wasn’t possible to know if he was heading toward an empty, unmanned stretch of the Pakistani border or a zone settled by unfriendly tribes. To Taj, it didn’t all look the same, because he told Daniel they were heading close to a tribal zone. The locals would know him, he said. On the antenna was a green and white ribbon they would recognize as his, and when they aimed their weapons at the car, as they would, they would wait and see before they shot.
“They’re not unreasonable,” he said. “You are not the first man I’ve had to help out of the country, Daniel Abdullah Sajadi. My business is a delicate one.”
I am faster than you, Telaya had said.
Thirty yards away, poles rose from the earth, displaying gray flags. A formal, printed board explained that the government couldn’t help you past this point and advised drivers to turn around and head a few miles north to a border checkpoint. Daniel pushed past the signs, the new army on his heels.
Crouched in the seat beside him, Taj lamented the new military’s insensitivity to borderlands. “They’re not supposed to come in here,” he said. “They must have a death wish.”
A fluttering shape appeared on the horizon. It was a wall of men on horseback, riding as if they spent their lives like this, never dismounting. Taj told him to flick the lights in a special sequence, a sort of Morse code shared by border-zone warlords and Manticores, who most of the world did not know existed. The riders aimed flashlights as they rode by, and when Taj leaned from the window they raised a hand in salute, riding on toward the soldiers. One of the Jeeps slowed down. Uniforms jumped out with assault rifles and opened fire, the horsemen shooting back with long guns, and the screams of horses and men rang out as Daniel drove, drove, drove, watching the line of horses dissolve. There was still no border in sight, no Pakistan, only darkness without end.
“Now!” Taj said. “Jump.”
Daniel seized his gun and jumped, and bullets tore the sand at his feet as Taj jumped from the truck, too. A small light bounced in the night, and Taj gave a strange whistle: long, then short, then long and very high, and someone was running toward them with a light in his hands. A towering man wearing a Pakistani uniform resolved in the darkness.
“Help this man cross,” Taj told him. “Fast. He is a friend. I will pay you later.”
The man seized Daniel by the arm and said, “Come.”
Behind them, a soldier was dead. The second Jeep kept coming, swerving through the hail of bullets, taking fire from warlords who disliked any man they didn’t know. Especially ones sent by the state. They had never heard of the revolution or the Communists, but they had heard of soldiers and governments, and they wanted no part in either. Taj turned his back to the border and walked back the way they had come, toward his nation, the Jeeps, the violence and death.
“Wait,” Daniel said, clutching the gun tightly in his hand. But Taj did not stop, nor did he turn around. He moved quickly, crouching to avoid the guns, and Daniel lurched toward him and took his arm, pulling him toward the border as bullets pierced the night, the warlords barely keeping the red soldiers at bay.
“They’ll kill you!” Daniel shouted. “Come with me.”
“I belong here,” Taj said, breaking free from his grip. “Until next time, Daniel Sajadi.” He extended his hand as if they were meeting for the first time, and in the blood-soaked night, under a thousand gaping stars, Daniel shook Taj Maleki’s hand.
“Come!” cried the Pakistani gatekeeper. “There’s no time!”
“Go,” said Taj, and Daniel watched him turn around and head into a shower of bullets. It happened suddenly. Taj’s body jerked and he fell to his knees, blood spilling from his chest, which he clutched with his hand. Daniel raised his arm, and it was like he had no choice at all when he fired into the night at the man who had shot Taj Maleki, and the Pakistani pulled Daniel back and dragged him away. Soon Daniel was across the border, slumped in the back of a pickup, speeding away from Afghanistan, wondering what would happen to Taj, the country, agha, Laila, Elias, and an old way of life. His fingers were tight around the gun like they had been around the steering wheel the day of the crash, and it felt as if they would never come loose. He thought about Rebecca. He would call her from Quetta and tell her he was ready to come home, and it would finally be true. He loosened his grip and put the gun down. As the truck lurched deeper into Pakistan and the sound of gunfire became an echo, Daniel thought of Telaya’s last moments on that road and saw his own face in a hundred small round mirrors, and in his reflection he saw his tears as they melted with hers.
Do you see me?
He closed his eyes, and in the darkness everything became light. “I see you.” He crushed the pain rising in his throat. “I see you now.”
Goodbye, Abdullah, Telaya said. And she went out like a candle.