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Above the slab was a very wide, flat shelf of flowstone frilled along its edge with a spiky beard of white calcite. The shelf was high enough that someone would have to look very hard to see all the way to the back. This made the shelf an excellent hiding place for the odds and ends he’d stolen over these last few months: a folding knife, a waterskin, a spare set of clothes. A small compass he’d discovered in one of Bas’s many trunks. A box of matches and a tin can he could use to carry a few embers as he made his way toward, well…wherever.
In his blacker moods, he knew the stash was pitiful. Stealing made him feel a little better, but only momentarily. He needed real supplies: a store of yak dung to burn, food, water. A weapon and ammo, too. A person would have to, as the Americans wouldsay, get his head examined if he ran into the wilderness without a rifle. He might steal Amu’s, but that would probably backfire, ha-ha. Amu might not care as much ifheran, but if he took the rifle, Amu would come after him. So, best to leave the rifle behind.
He had the passports his father had arranged, too: not only for Afghanistan but one for India, another for Pakistan, a third for Tajikistan. Even one for America.
But he still had a huge problem.
Even if I get ahold of a rifle, where do I go?Stepping onto the large slab, Poya reached into the shelf and pulled out a rough towel and a washcloth folded around a coarse lump of sheep’s milk soap.Where would a kid like me be safe?
Baba would probably sayAmerica, but since Baba’s handler had failed to materialize, that was off the table. Which meant that he was—as the Americans would say—royally screwed.
Okay, so I can’t escape just yet.Placing his toiletries on the flowstone slab, he slid out a plastic, zip-top bag with exaggerated care.But that doesn’t mean my mind can’t.
Because what the bag contained was treasure.
What the bag protected was hope.
What the bag held was a book.
7
Kabul:April 2023.
“Let’s play a game,” the man said. “We’ve got a long drive. It’ll help pass the time until we get to Herat.”
“Okay,” Poya said. That reply seemed the safest. Baba had introduced the man as Mr. White. That, Poya knew, was not the man’s real name because this man was the same American Poya had seen when he’d hidden on the landing and spied on his father. At that time, his father had called this American by a different name, too.
Today, the American had a new name: Mr. White. The name didn’t suit him at all. White was bland. White was the absence of color.ThisMr. White seemed to have stepped out of one of Baba’s movies. Something made by Taratino…Dog-something. Or was itDogsSomething? OrSomething Dogs? Poya couldn’t recall.
Even if this man wasn’t as dangerous as Harvey Keitel,thisMr. White stillfeltdangerous. Although Mami and Baba would never have allowed Mr. White to be alone with Poya if the man was dangerous, right? Or let Mr. White drive a truck with five of Mami’s girls hidden in the back.? Or tell Mr. Whitewhyall of Mami’s students were dressed like Poya in trousers, salwarkameezes, and shemaghs pulled up over their noses to hide their faces and bulky pakools into which they tucked long coils of hair? The students had little choice, though. None of them were allowed to go anywhere without amahram. Driving five hours out to a farm owned and operated by a farmer who alsohad to hide thatshewas a woman…well, that was inviting trouble.
So, if these students want to see the farm, the only option was for all ten to be like Poya. Well, all except for his eyes, which he kept hidden behind tinted glasses in a style that his mother said John Lennon used to wear. Which was flattering, in a way; Poya liked Lennon’s music. But he thought it might be bad luck to look a little like a dead man.
“What kind of game?” Poya asked.
“Well, not math. I’m not good at it, though I hear you are,” Mr. White said. “I hear you’re good at many things. Languages, for example. Your father said you’re fluent in four? Or was it five?”
Poya hedged. “Most people know Dari and Pashto.”
“True. Although the same can’t be said for Persian Farsi or Arabic or English.”
“Uh-huh.” His father always reminded him to be careful.No one should know how much you know, how smart you are. Intelligent people become targets.So, why had Baba said anything? Again, he prevaricated. “Farsi isn’t that different from Dari.”
“True, but English and Arabic are a stretch. What other languages do you know? Your father mentioned a few.”
There didn’t seem to be any way around this. “German.” No point in, as the saying went, showing one’s entire hand. “And French.”
“Persian?”
“Yes.”
“Spanish?”
“Mmm.” Mr. White seemed to know the answers already, so Poya let the information go in drips. That was, Baba said, always best, mostly because nearly everyone who asked about you didn’t really care because most people was much more interested in themselves.
“I see.” Mr. White was silent a moment. “I think you left out Russian. And what is it?” The man thought a moment. “Right, Greek. Latin, too, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Oh. Well.” What had Baba told this man? “Yes.”