"That, too. Would you believe me if I told you I haven't got a clue? I really, honestly, don't know why the fuck I'm doing it.
Khader asked me to be his American, and I'm doing it. But I don't know why."
We were silent for a while, sipping at our drinks and listening to the clatter and buzz surrounding us in the busy Faloodah House. A large portable radio was playing romantic gazals in Urdu. I could hear conversations in three or four languages from customers close to us. I couldn't understand the words, nor could I even identify which languages they were: Baluchi, Uzbek, Tajik, Farsi...
"This is great!" Khaled said, using a long spoon to scoop noodles into his mouth from the glass.
"It's too sweet for my taste," I answered him, drinking the treat nonetheless.
"Some things should be too sweet," he replied, giving me a wink as he sucked on the straw. "If faloodahs weren't too sweet, we wouldn't drink them."
We finished our drinks and walked out into the late afternoon sunlight, pausing beyond the doorway to light our cigarettes.
"We'll take off in different directions," Khaled muttered as he held a match for my cigarette in his cupped hands. "Just keep walking that way, south, for a few minutes. I'll catch you up.
Don't say goodbye."
He turned on his heel and walked away, stepping out to the edge of the road and into the fast lane of foot traffic between the footpath and the cars.
I turned and walked off in the opposite direction. Some minutes later, at the perimeter of the bazaar, a taxi slid to a stop quickly beside me. The back door opened and I jumped in next to Khaled. Another man was in the front seat beside the driver. He was in his early thirties, with short, dark brown hair receding from a high, wide forehead. His deep-set eyes were of a brown so dark as to seem black until direct sunlight pierced the irises to reveal the auburn earth tones swirling within them. His eyes stared evenly, intelligently, from beneath black brows that all but met in the centre. His nose was straight, descending to a short upper lip, a firm determined mouth, and a blunt, rounded chin. It was obvious that the man had shaved that day, and probably not long ago, but a blue-black shadow darkened the lower half of his face along the neat, sharply defined lines that governed his beard. It was a strong, square, symmetrical face, handsome in its strength and even proportions if not in any one outstanding feature.
"This is Ahmed Zadeh," Khaled announced as the cab moved off.
"Ahmed, this is Lin."
We shook hands, sizing one another up with equal candour and affability. His strong face might've seemed severe but for a peculiar expression that screwed his eyes into a gentle squint, and creased the crests of his cheeks with smile lines. Whenever he was concentrating, whenever he wasn't completely relaxed, Ahmed Zadeh wore an expression that made him look as if he was searching for a friend in a crowd of strangers. It was a disarming expression, and it endeared him to me at once.
"I've heard a lot about you," he said, releasing my hand and resting his arm on the front seat of the taxi. His accent, speaking a hesitant but clear English, was that melodious North African blend of French and Arabic. "I hope it wasn't all good," I said, laughing.
"Would you prefer people to say bad things about you?"
"I don't know. My friend Didier says that praising people behind their back is monstrously unfair, because the one thing you can't defend yourself against is the good that people say about you."
"D'accord!" Ahmed laughed. "Exactly so!"
"Shit, that reminds me," Khaled interjected, fishing through his pockets until he found a folded envelope. "I almost forgot. I saw Didier, the night before we left. He was looking for you. I couldn't tell him where you were, so he asked me to give you this letter."
I took the folded envelope and slipped it into the pocket of my shirt, to read when I was alone.
"Thanks," I muttered. "So what's going on? Where are we going?"
"To a mosque," Khaled replied, with that small, sad smile. "We're going to pick up a friend first, then we're going to meet Khader and some of the other guys who'll be going with us across the border."
"How many guys?"
"There'll be thirty or so, I think, once we're all together. Most of them are already in Quetta, or at Chaman, near the border. We leave tomorrow-you, me, Khaderbhai, Nazeer, Ahmed, and one other guy, Mahmoud. He's a friend of mine. I don't think you know him.
You'll meet him in a few minutes."
"We are the small United Nations, non?" Ahmed asked rhetorically.
"Abdel Khader Khan from Afghanistan, Khaled from Palestine, Mahmoud from Iran, you from New Zealand-I'm sorry, you are now our American-and I am from Algeria."
"And there's more," Khaled added. "We've got one guy from Morocco, one guy from the Gulf, one guy from Tunisia, two from Pakistan, and one from Iraq. The rest are all Afghans, but they're all from different parts of Afghanistan, and different ethnic groups as well."
