black ribbon of highway. Cars like ants. A train inched along, a brown caterpillar on rails.
Gold snapped another photo, then another and another: the view out the windscreen. Parson, with his hand turning a knob on the center console. Colman, backdropped by cockpit windows. Dunne at his flight engineer panel, with its scores of switches and indicators.
As long as they don’t mind, Gold thought, it doesn’t matter if they think it’s weird. Mahsoud would enjoy seeing the photos if he felt like sitting up. But Gold was starting to worry about the pain he sometimes had breathing.
He’d probably have to talk about the photos in Pashto, since his English wasn’t yet fluent enough to cover higher concepts and unfamiliar objects. It always amused her the way he’d switch between English and Pashto in the middle of a conversation. He’d pause to reset his mind, then continue. It was like watching the hourglass symbol on a laptop screen as the computer searched its files. Gold understood why he did that. A foreign language wasn’t just a different set of words; it was a different way of thinking.
Back downstairs, Gold found Mahsoud raised up on his elbow. Wide awake apparently, perhaps feeling better. She pressed the REVIEW button on her camera and showed him the shot of the ground.
“That’s what Spain looks like,” she said. “Or maybe it’s southern France.”
“Beautiful,” he said in English.
Gold advanced the camera and showed him the photo of Parson. Mahsoud studied it with interest. Then the photo of Colman and his side of the cockpit.
“A marvelous piece of machinery,” Mahsoud said. Pashto now. “But can you go back to that photograph of the earth?”
Gold returned to the first photo.
“It is so very green,” Mahsoud said. “Is it always this way?”
“No. In the winter it is brown, but before that comes the fall. The leaves turn red and orange. It is even more beautiful. My home, called New England, is known for these colors.”
“I cannot imagine anything finer than this green.”
At first, Gold was surprised that Mahsoud showed more interest in the photo of the ground than the pictures of the cockpit. But she remembered he was from Helmand province. Though northern Afghanistan was mountainous and somewhat green in summer, southern Afghanistan’s desert, including parts of Helmand, could look like the moon.
“This place you are from in America,” Mahsoud asked, “why is it called New England?”
“The first settlers came from England and that is what they named it.”
“And your pilot friend. Where is he from?”
“Major Parson is from the American West. A state called Colorado.”
“Ah,” Mahsoud said, “a cowboy.”
“Exactly.”
“And what about the other fliers? Where are they from?”
“I do not know.”
Mahsoud looked at her strangely. She thought she knew why. To an Afghan, home and tribe defined you. Anyone you met on friendly terms would tell you about his home. Mahsoud could no more imagine American rootlessness than she could imagine a life of illiteracy spent under a burka.
The sunset came around again. Mahsoud looked out at it and said, “It is time to pray.” Then he added, “May I ask a favor, Sergeant Major? Could you bring my Quran?”
“Certainly.”
Gold found Mahsoud’s duffel bag and brought the silk-wrapped book, careful to hold it with her right hand. She knew Mahsoud could read only a little of its Arabic, but he seemed to enjoy merely running his eyes and fingers over words given to Muhammad directly from God. Perhaps now he might find in its suras something he could understand well enough to bring him comfort.
Gold gave Mahsoud a few feet of space for privacy and watched him while he prayed. She had no trouble reconciling her own religious beliefs with her admiration for traditional Islam. God revealed himself to different people in different ways. Gold loved the English prose of the King James Bible, translated from Greek and
Gold snapped another photo, then another and another: the view out the windscreen. Parson, with his hand turning a knob on the center console. Colman, backdropped by cockpit windows. Dunne at his flight engineer panel, with its scores of switches and indicators.
As long as they don’t mind, Gold thought, it doesn’t matter if they think it’s weird. Mahsoud would enjoy seeing the photos if he felt like sitting up. But Gold was starting to worry about the pain he sometimes had breathing.
He’d probably have to talk about the photos in Pashto, since his English wasn’t yet fluent enough to cover higher concepts and unfamiliar objects. It always amused her the way he’d switch between English and Pashto in the middle of a conversation. He’d pause to reset his mind, then continue. It was like watching the hourglass symbol on a laptop screen as the computer searched its files. Gold understood why he did that. A foreign language wasn’t just a different set of words; it was a different way of thinking.
Back downstairs, Gold found Mahsoud raised up on his elbow. Wide awake apparently, perhaps feeling better. She pressed the REVIEW button on her camera and showed him the shot of the ground.
“That’s what Spain looks like,” she said. “Or maybe it’s southern France.”
“Beautiful,” he said in English.
Gold advanced the camera and showed him the photo of Parson. Mahsoud studied it with interest. Then the photo of Colman and his side of the cockpit.
“A marvelous piece of machinery,” Mahsoud said. Pashto now. “But can you go back to that photograph of the earth?”
Gold returned to the first photo.
“It is so very green,” Mahsoud said. “Is it always this way?”
“No. In the winter it is brown, but before that comes the fall. The leaves turn red and orange. It is even more beautiful. My home, called New England, is known for these colors.”
“I cannot imagine anything finer than this green.”
At first, Gold was surprised that Mahsoud showed more interest in the photo of the ground than the pictures of the cockpit. But she remembered he was from Helmand province. Though northern Afghanistan was mountainous and somewhat green in summer, southern Afghanistan’s desert, including parts of Helmand, could look like the moon.
“This place you are from in America,” Mahsoud asked, “why is it called New England?”
“The first settlers came from England and that is what they named it.”
“And your pilot friend. Where is he from?”
“Major Parson is from the American West. A state called Colorado.”
“Ah,” Mahsoud said, “a cowboy.”
“Exactly.”
“And what about the other fliers? Where are they from?”
“I do not know.”
Mahsoud looked at her strangely. She thought she knew why. To an Afghan, home and tribe defined you. Anyone you met on friendly terms would tell you about his home. Mahsoud could no more imagine American rootlessness than she could imagine a life of illiteracy spent under a burka.
The sunset came around again. Mahsoud looked out at it and said, “It is time to pray.” Then he added, “May I ask a favor, Sergeant Major? Could you bring my Quran?”
“Certainly.”
Gold found Mahsoud’s duffel bag and brought the silk-wrapped book, careful to hold it with her right hand. She knew Mahsoud could read only a little of its Arabic, but he seemed to enjoy merely running his eyes and fingers over words given to Muhammad directly from God. Perhaps now he might find in its suras something he could understand well enough to bring him comfort.
Gold gave Mahsoud a few feet of space for privacy and watched him while he prayed. She had no trouble reconciling her own religious beliefs with her admiration for traditional Islam. God revealed himself to different people in different ways. Gold loved the English prose of the King James Bible, translated from Greek and
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