CHAPTER 5 - SO WHAT DO WE DO NOW?

It went on like that for quite a while. Marti crying quietly and me holding her...trying to comfort and wondering if anything I could do would really help.

I'm never really good at times like this, although I've been told I am. (I pay them well. LOL.). But after several minutes, I could feel her beginning to relax a little and then finally to lean back a bit.

"Sorry, Bear."
"Don't EVEN go there, Marti. You have NOTHING to be sorry about."
"I know, thanks. But..."
"No buts. None."
I looked at her and she looked back, nodding slowly.
I reached over to the counter and grabbed a box of tissues which I proceeded to push over in front of her.
"Thanks," and she grabbed a couple and began to work on repairs.

I just let her go. Do what she had to do. I sure as heck didn't want to do or say anything to make things worse and so I decided the less I said the better. 

After a few minutes she looked up at me. 
"Thanks."
"Sure, anytime."
"Bear?"
"Yep."
"Will you go with us to the funeral?"

I stopped breathing.
Of course, her son's funeral. I had been so busy with all the important stuff like cake and not sleeping and all...I had forgotten.

In truth, even though we had sat and talked all evening, it hadn't come up. I had forgotten somehow and I guess she didn't want to bring it up and...

But now she had. At least for once, I hadn't opened my big mouth with the best of intentions and stuck my size 10 1/2 footprint in it.

"Of course. Uh, do you know anything about..."
I paused...

"I spoke to my friends in the paramedic team when we were at the school. They assured me they would take good care of him...well, his body...you know."
"Yeh, I said softly..."
feeling none too steady myself at the moment.
"They will get him all 'presentable'," 
and for a flicker of a moment it looked like she was gonna lose it again. BUT...

"They will make sure he gets to the funeral home ok. I called my parents too, in London, and they will be flying in day after tomorrow."
"Really?" 

Another little detail I had forgotten completely about. Brain, where HAVE you gone?

"Yeh. Needless to say, they are pretty shook up."
"I can imagine. Will they be bringing your other son home with them?"

She got a real sorrowful look on her face.
"No."
"No?"
"No, Bear. They said they wouldn't. I asked them to but they wouldn't hear of it. He'll stay with a cousin until they get back."
"But why? You must miss him."

I saw the beginning of another tear start to form.
"They, uh, they..."
She gulped, caught herself, and then kind of got back in charge again.

"They said it is just too dangerous here now. Guess they don't want to lose another grandson. Bear, I guess I can't blame them...but you're right. I DO miss him. Badly, but would I only be thinking of myself and not him to insist that they bring him back. 
God, I wish there were easy answers."

She looked SO sad, and so unsure at that moment. 

"Marti, sometimes the easiest answers lie deep down inside your heart, NOT in your head."

She looked at me for a minute.
"Geez Bear, how do you do that?"
"Do WHAT?"
"Always know exactly what to say and when to say it?
Mustafa told me that in reading your writings and in talking to you, he had noticed that too. He said you seem so wise beyond your years."

"Pfui. I don't, trust me. I DO NOT. I AM not. I..."
I stuttered and stammered, ridiculously flustered as usual by my seeming inability to handle compliments. 

"It's all just common sense, really. 
I...uh...

Uhhhhh...
he...said...
MUSTAFA SAID...THAT?"

Ok, blame it on the lateness of the hour. Blame it on the cake and ice cream. Blame it on the stress and the emotional turmoil we were in.

Blame it on MY IDIOTIC PENCHANT for...being a vain twit. But suddenly I was finding it incredulous that ye olde combat journo would have thought that...let alone said it. I was thunderstruck.

"He didn't. You making that up."
I grinned, and so did she. 
Ok, necessary lighter moment here.

"No, honest. He said that."
"Well, I'll be switched. Wait..."
"Haha, Bear. Silly goofus. Anyway, you're right."
"I am?"
"YES SILLY, you are,"
and I got huggied. SWOON! 

Ok, I just revealed one of mah veddy few vices. HUGS. Oh, I am a veteran accompli of the Huggie wars, ever since I...uh, was IN Huggies.

"Anyway," she continued...
"I suspect you are right and they are too. So they will be flying into Kabul, and tomorrow I will need to go to the funeral home. Have to make the arrangements and all."

She grimaced and I suspect I did too.

"Bear?"
"Of course, and I am sure Mustafa will come too,"
I said anticipating her question.
"I can use all the help I can get."
"And that you shall have, mah lovely."
"Bear...you so silly."
"Yep. Dat I is."
"Bear, if you don't mind I think I WILL go and try to get some sleep. I think maybe I can now, thanks to you."

"You need to, and no. Not thanks to me. To YOU. Your inner strength is amazing."
"Thanks. Will you go to bed now too?"
"Maybe in a bit. Go, go zzz."
"Ok,"
and with that she got up, planted a kiss on the top of my head and headed to the hall and her bedroom.

"Sigh," I thought to myself. 
Who would have thought only a couple days ago..."

Amazing what life can hand you when you ain't looking.

 
I sat, once again picking lint out of my cerebral navel and ruminating on recent events. 

"I can NOT...BELIEVE," I thought to myself,
"How much has happened in less than 24 hours. 

The school, meeting Marti and Brian...after first meeting Mustafa at the airport. Odd it seems now, but we had never actually met in person before...
and I reflected on that and how nicely surprised I was to find that he is EXACTLY as I had thought he would be and more. Throughout the school thing, I kept being reminded of that. He was so collected, and yet I could SEE in his face what he was thinking and feeling. I SAW the depth of his caring in his face and his eyes. Maybe mostly in his eyes. 

Mustafa has the most expressive eyes of almost anyone I've ever seen. They read like a book. A very poignant and movingly interesting book. A book that says to the part of the world that notices such things and for whom that has meaning...

I am a passionate person. I care. I'm involved, 
and indeed he is.

Of course I had figured he was as genuine as he had seemed. It's just that that isn't always the case. But just in this little bit of time, only about 18 hours actually, I had really come to realize my impressions had been accurate. Nicely so.

Of course, now...it was not just Mustafa and I. Marti and Brian were now part of this little family tableau thrown together by circumstances and they were going through more emotional trauma than I have ever even thought of let alone endured, or so I was telling myself.

"Uh, Bear?"
I jumped a foot AGAIN. I really must stop doing that.
"Yep, Marti?"
"Sorry, but I just thought of something."
"SHOOT. 
Ummm...wait..."
"HAHAHA. You ninny."
I grinned. 
"DAT'S ME."

"Bear, have you noticed anything kinda...I don't know. Maybe...just...uh...ummm..."
"About Mustafa you mean?"
"You did notice."
"Yep."
"You think something is wrong don't you."
"Yeh, I do...but I have no idea wh..."
"Yes you do."

Yeh, the truth is I did suspect what it was.

"You do too, doncha."
"I can't be absolutely sure, Bear...but, yes I think 
I do know."
"The PTSD."
"Yeh. Bear, we gotta help him."

I remembered suddenly thinking that back earlier, but I also remembered how I didn't think I knew how to.

"I know. But, truth? I'm not sure I know how or at least how to broach the subject. If he doesn't want to talk about it..."
"Have you had any chance to really talk to him yet?"

"No. Not really. I arrived and we went from the airport to lunch, and we hadn't even gotten our food when you called...well, as they say the rest is history. Or in our case ongoing present."

"You NEED to, Bear. You need to have some time with him. Talk, you know? I know there are lots of things he wants to share with you...and I think it's the same for you."
"Yeh, but we been, oh I don't know, uh...kinda BUSY, you know? Anyway, kiddo, I'm not exactly sure how to bring it up."

"Maybe I can help with that, Bear. He has talked to me about it...so maybe I can broach the subject and then you can pick it up there."

"I'll try. I think that maybe the trauma of what happened earlier today kind of got to him. That was SUCH a horrid scene."
"I think so too, and yes it was."

"Marti, what happened to the other teachers? I didn't see any other adults but you, and I can't imagine you are the only teacher with all those kids."

"You didn't go any further back in the building than that front area, did you."

That startled me. I hadn't even thought about that.
"Uh, no. Actually we..."
"The actual classrooms are further back. There are also a teachers lounge, and several other rooms. 
Lab, offices, stuff like that. 

Some of the other teachers were back there. We had been on a break which is why so many of the kids were out in that front area. But about 70 or so of them were in the back...and the others were tending to them just as I was out front."

"Seventy kids in back? Geez."
"Yeh. It's summer, Bear. So we got a lotta kids here to keep them busy. Truth is, we aren't functioning like we would be doing normally. Things are so chaotic we have to just be here and teach as much as we can...when they need us to be. Which is pretty much all the time.

Fortunately that back part didn't get as shot up like the front did. The gunmen came in that way. I think one shooter did go part of the way, but was called back and then they left."

"Do you have ANY idea who they were?"
"Not precisely, no. But no doubt either Taliban or  some of the thugs from some of the other insurgent groups. But, I suspect Taliban."

"God, to shoot up a SCHOOL?"
"Bear, you gotta understand something. These bastards, sorry Bear,  are about ONE THING and one thing ONLY.

Controlling the Afghan people, and the government. It's about that. Control. Nothing else. They don't care WHO they shoot as long as it gets them closer to their goal. Women, kids, the elderly, it don't matter. Sometimes it's vengeance for some perceived slight, real or implied. Other times it's to make a point. To instill fear."

"You mean like...
'See, this can happen to YOU if you don't play by OUR rules'..."

"EXACTLY. Rule by intimidation. Again, Bear, that is one of the reasons why Afghans find it so hard to trust people. Outsiders, like the Russians? That's a bit easier to understand. But the internal strife, the civil wars? It's gotten so the average Afghan has NO IDEA who he can or cannot trust."

"GOD DAMN...that is SO goddawful, and SO sad."
"Yeh, Bear...that it is. These beautiful people...
and they are, Bear...they have suffered SO much."

"Yeh."
and I sat mulling that over, as she got up to get another mug of coffee...and then refilled my cup too.
"That ought to help me sleep. LOL."
"Silly."
"Yep. So Marti...what do we do now?"

CHAPTER 6-Click Here