What Changes Everything (22 page)

       "And you can speak with Amin now?"

       Mandy shook her head. "He‟s traveling. A driver from his office brought me here."

       "But you can pass on a message to the driver? Ask him to get it to Amin urgently?"

       "Yes," Mandy said, surprised. "I can try."

       "He will do it if you insist. You are a foreign woman. Amin must be told to remember that if Najib had agreed to leave, the story would have ended differently."

       Najib? Story? Mandy wasn‟t sure what Zarlasht meant, but on its surface, the message hardly seemed urgent. Still, she felt Zarlasht‟s intensity.

       "Can you write it down, to make sure you remember these exact words?" Zarlasht got up and produced a pen and paper from the desk. Mandy bent over to write. Zarlasht read over her shoulder, and then nodded. "He should be given this message right away," she said. "Today. As soon as you leave here. You can do that?"

       "Sure. I‟ll ask the driver."

       "Make certain Amin is told."

       Mandy looked directly at Zarlasht. "Can you tell me what it means?"

       Zarlasht hesitated a moment. "It means I believe in friendship between our countries too," she said. "Or at least between individuals from our two countries." Then she gestured, leading Mandy back down the stairs, past the emergency room, back to the entrance. She bid Mandy goodbye with two final words—"Make certain"—and watched as Mandy headed out of Maiwand and onto the Kabul street where her driver waited.

       Clarissa reached her hand through the dark, lifting the noisy receiver and pressing it to her ear. "Hello," she said, not fully awake but already beginning to feel adrenaline run through her.

       "This is the wife of Todd Barbery?"

       The kidnappers. She knew it. She couldn‟t speak.

       "Hello?"

       "Yes," she managed.

       "Wife of Todd Barbery?"

       "Yes," she said. "This is Todd‟s wife."

       "Good. I want you to hear from our guest."

       "Who is this?" she asked. She heard the sound of a muffled voice, something said in the background that she couldn‟t make out.

       "Hello?" It was Todd‟s voice.

       "Oh my God."

       "Clari."

       "Todd. I love you."

       "I love you too."

       "Are you okay?" She was standing now, grabbing a pen to take notes, even though they were surely recording the call.

       "Yes. I‟m fine. I miss you, but I‟m fine. Worrying about you."

       "We‟re all good here, Todd. Ruby‟s fine, too. We‟re strong. We‟re fine. We‟re working to get you home, that‟s all."

       "Clari, I‟m sorry." His voice faltered. "Really sorry."

        "Todd, it‟s not your fault." Clari took a deep breath, so that her own voice would sound solid, would give him strength. She tried to think: what had Jack told her? What was she supposed to say? "Is there anything you want me to know, Todd?"

       "I‟m all right. They said I could tell you that at least."

       "Any advice for us? Anything we should be doing?"

       "Just keep—" Todd broke off. Clarissa heard a rustle, the sound of the phone changing hands.

       "So you see, wife of Todd Barbery, that your husband is fine."

       "Wait! I‟m not—"

       "Listen to me. He is fine for now. Your negotiators need to respond to our requests. Time is important. You understand?"

       "Yes, but—"

       "We are not interested in a conversation with you. Only pass this information. You understand?"

       "Yes, but—"

       "Goodbye, then, Todd Barbery‟s wife."

       And the line went fully, frustratingly dead.

       Danil hung in a breath of space, frozen, as if he were one of the pinned butterflies Piotr used to collect. He lifted his hand, hesitated, then rang the doorbell, committing himself. Within a heartbeat, he regretted it. He half-turned away, imagined dashing down the street, ducking behind a car, and realized how bizarre that behavior would be. He turned back just as the door opened. A woman about his age stood there in jeans and boots, her hair pulled back.

       "Yes?" She looked stern, and puzzled.

       "I‟m here to see Clarissa."

       "Are you with the…?" She trailed off, obviously taking in his paint-stained shirt and jeans stretched at the seams. "Who are you?"

       "No one, I‟m just…" He suddenly put it together. "You must be Ruby."

       She took a half-step back, distrust on her face.

       "Clarissa gave me some food you‟d made."

       Her eyes narrowed.

       "It was delicious."

       She neither replied nor moved.

       "Is Clarissa here?"

       "What‟s this about?" she said.

       "Ruby?" He heard Clarissa‟s voice and then could see her coming down the stairs, behind Ruby, rubbing her damp hair with a towel. She seemed distracted, but oddly unsurprised to see him. "Hi," she said to both Ruby and Danil at once.

       "The door was unlocked, so I—" Ruby began

       "Sure, of course," Clarissa said. "You two have introduced yourselves?"

       Danil glanced at Ruby. "Actually, I‟m not sure I…"

       "This is Danil," Clarissa said. "He‟s an artist. And this is Ruby. Todd‟s daughter. Come in." She gestured toward Danil.

       "Thanks," he said, but even before he could step in, two men pushed open the gate from the street and walked up behind him.

        "This is my brother Mike," Clarissa said, speaking quickly now. "And Todd‟s boss, Bill. Mike and Bill, meet Danil."

       "Does he know my dad?" Ruby said.

       Clarissa shook her head.

       "Is this a bad time?" Danil asked. Clearly it was, but he‟d had to work up to this moment once and didn‟t know if he could do it again.

       "Come in, all of you," Clarissa repeated, adding directly to Danil: "You too."

       Danil stepped in, shaking hands with the two men. They moved as a group toward the kitchen. Danil hung back.

       "Not a social call, is it?" Clarissa asked, hesitating outside the kitchen door.

       Danil leaned toward her. "I wanted to…ask you about something… but I‟m sorry, this isn‟t…"

       "No, it‟s fine. You guys help yourself to juice or whatever," she said to the others, and then turned to him. "I heard from Todd. The FBI wants to give us some guidance based on that. But we have a few minutes."

       "Oh man," Danil said. "I can‟t interrupt—"

       "Let‟s go in here," Clarissa said.

       She sat on the bench at the entryway, and he joined her. He knew she didn‟t have much time, so he started right in. "It‟s about my brother, and…" He knew he sounded inarticulate. "I feel kind of silly."

       "It‟s okay. Go on."

       "There‟s this gallery owner in the city, and he‟s offered me a place in a show."

       "Danil. That‟s great."

       "But there‟s an issue to do with my mom and my brother and what happened in

Afghanistan. I haven‟t talked to anyone…and I thought maybe you…" Clarissa leaned toward him, listening in a concentrated way.

       "Clarissa." It was the daughter. "Any minute now."

       "I‟ll be right there," Clarissa said without looking away from Danil.

       The phone rang, and, Danil saw Ruby moved to pick it up. She set the receiver in the middle of the table.

       "I‟m sorry. This is rude."

       "Danil, listen," Clarissa said in a hushed tone. "I‟ve already talked to the FBI once today; this is really more for everyone else. It should take under fifteen minutes. Then I‟d like to hear your question. Really I would. So please just stay."

       "Clarissa," Ruby, who‟d approached them, said in a loud voice, "Jack told us not to—"

       "Danil already knows, Ruby."

Ruby raised her eyebrows and her lips, impossibly, narrowed.

       "He lost a brother in Afghanistan," Clarissa said, as though that would explain everything to the daughter.

       "I‟ll go," Danil said.

       "Stay here." Clarissa‟s tone held authority. "Fifteen minutes. Ruby, is Jack on speaker?"

       Until now, Danil had mainly seen uncertainty and vulnerability in Clarissa. But at this moment, everyone moved to follow her instructions, even Ruby. He could see Clarissa must be capable in her other life, the one she‟d lived prior to what happened to her husband. How far had she already traveled from that existence, he wondered, and how long would it take her to get back? It doesn‟t matter how distant you stay from the grenade launchers and helicopters, the carbine assault rifles and the battle tanks; war poisons the air half a world away and then travels on the wind to slip into your peaceful lungs, changing everything.

       He knew that he should leave but, like the others, Danil followed Clarissa‟s orders. He lounged on the cushioned bench, feeling tired now, worn out by his night work and the energy it had taken to come to this house and initiate this conversation.

       Though he was in another room, he could see the four of them sitting around the kitchen table and hear the disembodied male voice coming from the speakerphone. It seemed the authorities had nothing new to report on Clarissa‟s husband. "It‟s not like a television show; things don‟t always happen between commercials," the voice said. The man sounded calm and friendly. But Danil felt a rush of distrust, knowing that a level of bureaucracy, combined with covert political concerns and a wide river of details that fell under the umbrella of "national security," all tended to disguise facts and smudge meanings. He wondered how much of that Clarissa had already discovered.

       The group talked for about ten minutes and the mumble of their voices turned into Piotr‟s voice. "It‟s weird," Piotr had told him in one of their few overseas phone conversations. "In some ways, I feel faceless here, the proverbial cog on the wheel. In others, Dani, I feel like I belong. For the first time in my life."

       "You didn‟t feel that before?" Danil knew he sounded a little hurt.

       "You know what I mean. We need each other here."

       "
I
need you, bro." Danil startled even as he said it. He‟d been so clear about Piotr needing
him that he hadn‟t realize
d until that moment it went the other way, too.

       "I know, man," Piotr had said, struggling for the words. "But everything‟s different over here. All we‟ve got is each other. You get all these dark thoughts—" He broke off, giving up. "Anyway, this is only for now. I‟ll be home soon."

       The voice of Clarissa‟s stepdaughter, tight with tension, interrupted Danil‟s thoughts. "I don‟t know what we‟re waiting for. Do we trust the word of some Afghan kidnappers more than we trust our own troops?"

       "I agree, Ruby," said the voice on the phone.

       There was a moment of silence before Clarissa spoke. "I know it‟s frustrating," she said. "But Amin‟s in negotiations right now. I want to stick it out. If something changes on the ground, Jack, you will let us know."

       A few minutes later, they hung up. The daughter rose, noisily got herself a glass of water, and sank back down. "I still don‟t agree," she said, her voice strained.

       Danil realized they‟d forgotten he was there. He wondered if he should clear his throat to remind them, but before he could decide, the husband‟s boss spoke up. "I know it‟s hard, Ruby," he said. "But I strongly advocate leaving this in Amin‟s hands a little longer."

"It‟s more than hard, Bill."

       "Look, I‟ll say it again," the boss said. "As soon as you introduce guns, any situation has the potential to become more chaotic. Mix in cultural and language divides, and it‟s combustible. Besides, the Americans are juggling a lot of balls. One kidnapped relief worker is only part of the picture for them. Amin‟s interests are not muddied."

       "How can he succeed without money for ransom?" the daughter asked.

       "There are longstanding relationships between families that are beyond our

understanding."

       "When do you speak to Amin next?" the daughter asked.

       "Later today, I expect," the boss answered. "Tomorrow at the latest."

       "Well," the daughter said after a moment of silence, her voice dense with frustration. "I have to go."

       "Ruby," Clarissa‟s brother said. "We‟re all trying to do the right thing here."

       "I just wish we agreed on what that was."

       By now, Danil had shrunk back into the corner of the room and was deeply regretting not slipping away half an hour earlier. Ruby shot past the sitting room and through the front door without glancing in his direction. He heard the boss murmur something to Clarissa in a soothing tone and follow the daughter out.

       "Clari, hang in there," her brother said. "I‟ll call you tonight, okay?"

       After the brother left, Danil peeked into the kitchen and saw Clarissa sitting with her forehead resting in the palm of her hand. He backed up, and bumped into a chair.

       "Danil." Clarissa rose and came into the room. "I‟m sorry. I got so caught up that I forgot—"

"I should have left…"

"I think you were trying to. I wouldn‟t let you." Clarissa smiled wryly.

"I‟m going to get out of your hair."

"Not yet. Talking to you is actually helpful for me."

"So what did he say, your husband?"

       "Not much. Maybe twenty words. He sounded okay. But it was too fast. I‟m trying to process everything. All I‟m managing to do is be present for the FBI briefings; the rest of my life is complete confusion. And even during the briefings, I can‟t seem to handle it right."