Chloe Madison first saw the tall American at the Kashi
stadium after a public execution. It happened as the
throng, most of them Taliban militia officers, was leaving
the sports arena.
The program had been a full one - the removal of the right
hands of two thieves, the whipping of a woman who had
refused the marriage arranged by her father, and finally
the hanging from the goalpost of a man who had struck a
holy mullah. The few women present were huddled together
near the segregated section where they'd been seated while
waiting for their men to push their way through the crowd
to collect them. Chloe, waiting with her stepsister, heard
her stepbrother's harsh call. Sickened by the barbarous
spectacle and also by the suspicion that she'd been
brought here expressly to see the woman punished, she was
off balance as she swung around to locate him.
It was at that moment that the stranger shoved into her.
She stumbled, caught her sandal in the hem of the
voluminous burqa that covered her from head to foot and
fell to one knee.
Immediately the stranger was beside her, grasping her
cloth-covered elbow as he spoke in English. "I'm so sorry.
Are you hurt? Let me help you up." Then in a lower, almost
inaudible rumble, he added, "Your dad sent me to get you
out of this hellhole. Meet me tomorrow in theAjzukabad
bazaar."
It was a shock to hear her own language spoken after so
many years in Hazaristan and amid the babble of Pashtu
that was the lingua franca of a country with several
different tribes and their dialects. Chloe lifted her eyes
and met the man's gaze from behind the small rectangle of
crocheted mesh that allowed her to see. It was an act of
outright provocation according to all the precepts drummed
into her these past few years, but she couldn't help it.
He looked down at her with clear, steady purpose, this
American in his jeans, neatly pressed white shirt and
engineer's boots. His broad shoulders filled her view. His
chiseled, hickory-tan features, clean-shaven so they
appeared ridiculously easy to read compared to the bearded
males around her, were set in lines of determination.
Shadowing the mint-tea-brown of his hooded eyes was an
unnerving concern.
Seconds ticked past, stretching endlessly. The last time
Chloe had been this close to a male person not of her
stepfather's family, the last time she'd known casual male
contact of any kind, was as a California teenager almost
twelve years ago. His nearness was overwhelming, his grasp
searing in its intimacy. She could catch the almost
forgotten scents of American deodorant soap, warm denim,
and clean male. The combination touched some powerful
chord of memory, bringing the flashing images of loud
music with a hypnotic beat, dune buggies in unlikely
colors, hot sand, cold ice-cream cones, coconut-scented
suntan oil, and clean ocean breezes. It was a vision from
a time when she had been young and free. So young, so
incredibly free. Before she could stop them or even guess
they would come, tears rose into her eyes.
"Chloe! Imbecile, get up at once." That command in the
harsh, unmistakable voice of her stepbrother struck like a
lash across Chloe's nerves. She snatched her exposed foot
back under the turquoise blue cloth of her burqa and
lowered her gaze. Wrenching from the American's loose
grip, she struggled to her feet within the hot, cumbersome
folds. The American put out a hand again as if to steady
her, but she stepped away from him. Moving swiftly, she
rejoined Ahmad and her family. Her stepsister Treena
reached to draw her nearer to where she stood with her
husband, Ismael. A shiver for the close call rippled along
Chloe's nerves. She could have been beaten for the
exposure of skin above her ankle, might still be for
appearing to encourage male attention.
The American took a hasty stride after her, as if he meant
to insist on an answer to his suggestion.
"Be gone, infidel," Ahmad said with a growl in his voice,
blocking the way with a hand on the knife in his belt and
his turbaned head set at an arrogant angle. "You are not
wanted here."
"I was just apologizing to the lady," the American
said. "Didn't mean to knock her down."
Ahmad's English was rudimentary since he scorned to learn
the language of a people he considered to be demon-ridden
aggressors. Without so much as a glance in Chloe's
direction, he answered in his own tongue. "She does not
require your apology as she received no injury beyond the
filth of your touch. You will not know because you are a
foreign dog, but it is forbidden to look upon our women,
much less lay hands upon them. Do it again, and your
ignorance will not save you."
"Even a cat - or a dog - may look at a queen." Chloe
stifled a gasp at both the American's apparent
understanding of Pashtu and the challenge in his reply.
Ahmad would not recognize the English saying, but would
understand the defiance all too well. "And a dog may be
blinded!" Ahmad began.
"Please," Treena said as she leaned toward Ismael, a
slight figure with bowed head, drooping under the weight
of her burqa. "The heat, the dust, the ... the terrible
things seen have been too much ... I am unwell. Take me
home, I beg you."
Ahmad's sister, pregnant for the fourth time in six years,
should not have been present at this ugly spectacle at
all. The Taliban government required every able-bodied
citizen of Kashi to attend, however, and encouraged those
from outlying areas to view the proceedings. It had been
Ahmad's pleasure that his family make the drive from
Ajzukabad for it today. Since he had become the nominal
patriarch after his father, Chloe's stepfather, had been
conscripted into the Taliban militia and sent to guard the
northern frontier, his wishes must be obeyed in all things.
Ismael nodded at his wife's request, then squared his
shoulders and looked toward his brother-in-law. "Ahmad,
brother of my wife's heart ..."
"I heard," Ahmad said shortly. "Very well. Chloe must do
the chores of my sister for the next week as punishment
for her clumsiness. Come." Shouldering his way past the
American as if he didn't exist, he led them all toward the
exit.
Chloe did not dare look back at her countryman as she
followed with Treena behind Ahmad and Ismael. It was
Treena who turned her head. Her eyes mirrored both
apprehension and satisfaction as she glanced toward Chloe
once more. In a voice that was little more than a breath
of sound, she said, "He watches."
"I care not," Chloe answered in the same whispery mouthing
of air that women had perfected out of necessity in male-
dominated Hazaristan. "Though I am grateful for your
intervention just now."
"So was my brother, I think. These are troubled times. To
take revenge against an American in some dark alley is one
thing, but to do so in a public brawl would have been
foolish."
Chloe, discovering that her hands were still shaking,
closed them on the inside folds of her burqa as she
walked. "Just so," she agreed. "But still."
"Yes, my brother has more pride than wisdom, more thought
of his rank and consequence than of diplomacy."
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