Tiny Dancer (25 page)

With Zubaida showing signs of being overwhelmed, the only way of knowing for sure if her behavior had a brain chemistry imbalance to it or if it simply came from the aggregate of her suffering over the last year and a half, was to try the chemical approach and look for the changes in behavior. They sometimes come before the patient is even aware of anything being different, because the drug is fast-acting and doesn’t need to accumulate a therapeutic dose over time. The desired effects are a mixture of quietness and alert behavior, and will usually begin to show up on the first day.

The American Psychiatric Association lists 14 symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder that must be present for a child to be diagnosed with it:

1. Often fidgeting with hands or feet, or squirming while seated;

2. Having difficulty remaining seated;

3. Being easily distracted by extraneous stimuli;

4. Having difficulty awaiting turn in games or group activities;

5. Often blurting out answers before questions are completed;

6. Having difficulty in following instructions;

7. Having difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities;

8. Often shifting from one uncompleted task to another;

9. Having difficulty playing quietly;

10. Often talking excessively;

11. Often interrupting or intruding on others;

12. Often not listening to what is being said;

13. Often forgetting things necessary for tasks or activities; and

14. Often engaging in physically dangerous activities without considering consequences.

Zubaida’s behavior at that point in time included at least ten of those signs.Here Peter’s double position as her physician and as her personal guardian gave him a depth of doctor-patient insight as well as an opportunity to keep a watch on her at a level that few doctors ever experience. With Zubaida under his and Rebecca’s constant access, it was as safe a situation as there could be for attempting to expand the range of her medical intervention, and sending some support to places where the scalpel doesn’t go. He decided to begin a course of treatment for ADHD the following day.

On the home front, Rebecca needed more. She worked harder at the skills she gained from counseling, hoping to make sure that her reactions to the behavior issues were the right ones for both of them. She found that watching Zubaida try to bluff her way through so many struggles at the same time also managed to press old buttons deep inside of Rebecca. Feelings emerged of being trapped and frustrated, going all the way back to her own past as the latchkey child of a single working woman who struggled with depression and with the alcohol she used to battle it. Whatever choices that Rebecca made now on Zubaida’s behalf, she promised herself that they would come from her best consideration, not as a reaction to some old score of her own.

* * *

Back in Afghanistan, Colonel Robert Frame placed a call over to the 96th Special Forces Unit, instructing a small detail of soldiers who were operating out near the village of Farah to look up Mr. Mohammed Hasan. They were to inform Mr. Hasan that there had been a phone call from his daughter. Then they were to drive him directly to the U.N. office there so that the call could be put through on the their more reliable land line.

The local villagers didn’t mind the intrusion of a couple of jeeps, since the soldiers kept their weapons stowed, but it must have made a mighty impression upon everyone who witnessed it—armed American soldiers show up and seek out Hasan, who is smiling when he gets in their vehicles with them and rides away. Since it is clear to the villagers that Hasan is not being taken captive, and furthermore that he
desires
to go with them, then it stands to reason that the mighty American military was there to help him with his daughter. So much of what Hasan told the villagers in recent months had been dismissed as his own wishful thinking, but now it was apparent—as sure as pulling their own beards, there had to be some truth to it.

But how much?

And in a village crushed by the political whimsy of dueling rulers, a population of struggling husbands and fathers stood numb with confusion while they all asked the same question that any human being who stood in their sandals would ask:

How has he done this thing?

What could such a fellow as their neighbor Mohammed Hasan, aging now, past his chance to break out of poverty in this life, possibly say to a military force such as the American army which would cause them to send warriors out to escort him back?
And he departs with them while the joy is plain upon his face?

Because if their longtime neighbor and close friend Mohammed Hasan has made himself a man of such interest and importance to the Americans, then is it not abundantly clear that Hasan knows something which they themselves must also learn?

His friends and neighbors of day in and day out all knew from personal experience that with all due respect to Mohammed Hasan, he deserved nothing more in this world than what any one of them might also claim, if only someone cared to listen. And yet he had made the Americans listen, at a time when the villagers were not yet even sure whether or not the Americans were in their country simply to be the new conquerors there.

How has he done this thing?

He had to know something, some magic, some clever piece of something that made him of value to the Others. Logic alone assured all who knew Hasan and who had lived in this world with him over the years that he could never simply present a burned young daughter to invading soldiers and get them to do his bidding. What was there to compel them? She was a girl child of a crowded family, who lived on the edge of survival along with many others. Even if the child were male, it would still only be one child of one poor desert family.

When, the villagers asked themselves, do soldiers come for the father of such a child, bearing mysterious news that causes that father to go away with them grinning like a happy fool? When has anyone here ever seen such a thing?
When has anyone ever even heard of such a thing?

Before long, gossip floated out of the Hasan house on the wings of talkative visitors. The story quickly circulated about Hasan going off somewhere to place a phone call to America to his daughter. The answer gave them nothing but more questions.

After all, the landscape of Afghanistan was littered with millions of land mines and had been since the days of the Soviet invasion. Thus horribly injured and burned children were familiar to everyone in the country. Afghanistan, the battlefield, had given birth to a generation of amputees. Yet in the town of Farah, far from any of the cities or the important places in their country, one burned child had somehow caused the Americans to shelter her in their country, as Hasan has described it to them. And then, most unbelievably, their Army had come here to summon him—just so he could speak to her?

Their suspicions were a glove-tight fit with their lifelong experience, in a land where invasions have washed back and forth across the landscape like desert tidal waves for so many years. It left the other villagers with a clear mission: to get some of whatever Hasan was getting. Their old friend Hasan was going to share his bounty with them, anyway, they could be assured; peaceful existence among them was impossible for any man if the rest were collectively unhappy with him. But they also didn’t doubt that Hasan already knew that.

Logically then, Hasan already planned to be generous with his treasured friends and loved ones who have shared the laughter and sorrow of life with him in good times and in bad. This alone was cause for celebration. But there was also much left unsaid, and which did not need to be spoken in order to remain true.

These, after all, were men of the marketplace, existing in a broken village filled with farmers without land and craftsmen without materials. They haggled away their days over tiny pieces of a dwindling pile, and for any one of the men, the failure to perceive an opportunity for material benefit was not only a potential invitation to his family’s starvation but showed an unforgivable level of irresponsibility to his place as head of the household.

For these eagle-eyed husbands and fathers, the smell of enhanced opportunity wafted from every pore of this mysterious situation with Mohammed Hasan. But surely, they reasoned, this opportunity for Hasan must be far greater that the undoubtedly generous level of opportunity which he was no doubt already contemplating for them. Men of the marketplace know that a man who will pay you fifty has one hundred and fifty more in reserve, if you can separate him from it. The same is true for a gift. To the wise receiver of any gift, there is always a second gift available, just waiting to be gently pried loose from the giver.

Each of them knew that the first step in such a situation is to smother the giver with gratitude, like that of a man who has just been given his heart’s desire and ten extra years of life to enjoy it. Praise the giver as you would praise anything short of the Holy realms. Refuse to do anything but cry out to the giver and to all the witnessing world that the giver has saved your life and all of your family’s lives and restored your hope for the future.

Whet his appetite for a well-slathered tongue forking until he is so sated and pleased with himself and with his lovely life that he is as tender as a well-cooked lamb. Make sure that he is publicly recognized as a saint of generosity to the point that he has very little left to do but
follow up with another gift that will live up to his exalted image.

If he is like most others, he will go along with you the whole way, protesting that he knows what you are up to and that it isn’t going to work, even as he reaches for his purse.

That was just what they were going to have to do to Mohammed Hasan.

The sweet smell swirling up from every aspect of the Americans’ appearance in Farah grew stronger while the village men stepped back and thought about things. There was much to consider, and Hasan had only just left with the Americans. Gossip indicated that he was expected to return on the following afternoon. He would certainly have more to tell them then.

They realized, of course, Hasan would also have much more to tell them than he actually intended. That only made the possibilities more fascinating. In a land where possibilities had become as rare as desert rivers, the village men had plenty of free time to mull the main question from many different angles—how could each one of them attach himself to whatever it was that was flowing toward Hasan’s household, whom they all knew to be no more deserving than their own families, after all?

When Mohammed Hasan returned home the next day carried by the same military escort, he made it a point to go straight inside his house. He told Bador to keep visitors away and to have the children leave him in peace. Then he sat and savored the unbelievable experience of spending 24 hours under military guard while being treated with respect and allowed to move around among them—and even fed well there.

He savored knowing that the quiet village observers who had watched him arrive with eagle eyes wouldn’t tolerate waiting for the full story for much longer before they started getting angry. They were wondering how to get in on it themselves, of course. It was just as he would do in their place.

It seemed obvious to Hasan that his job now was to be as mysterious about everything as he possibly could, hiding most of the facts. If he only fed them tidbits, they might not notice that he himself had no idea what was really going on. He was baffled by the American soldiers and their willingness to come all the way out here for him. If his neighbors found out he didn’t really know the reason himself, he was sure to lose prestige. But if he hung on to that prestige—perhaps even bolstered it a bit—it became social currency that could be used to create more opportunities for him to end a work day with full hands.

Men of the marketplace know that if they are going to execute a true bait-and-switch maneuver, they must always create a distraction strong enough to get the buyer to look away for an instant, while the seller to switches a decoy with the real merchandise. Hasan knew the most reliable distraction available to him was the power of the other men’s greed. Instead of allowing them to focus on finding out everything about what was going on between him and the Americans, he decided to mention a few of the small things that he might be persuaded to do for his loyal friends. Mention additional ways in which he could thank the people who had loaned him the money for his many trips with Zubaida. Perhaps he could offer these things in place of giving them their money back.

And if it was money they demanded, could any of the town’s men doubt that Mohammed Hasan was going to be able to pay back every single
Afghani
he owed them, when he commanded such respect from the Americans? Couldn’t they all see that it was foolish to bother him about small amounts now or about beginning payments on the larger loans right away? A man who receives such friendly attention from a force as powerful as the American army is not a man to be bothered over a few million
Afghani
here or there, even though the sum amounted to thousands of US dollars in a land with a per capita income of about four hundred dollars a year.