The Road Ahead by Adrian Bonenberger

Author:Adrian Bonenberger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books

It may be that God will grant friendship between you and those who you now hold as enemies. For God has power over all things. God is forgiving, and most merciful.

Nasir placed his hand warmly on the old man’s shoulder. “How is the security line today, my friend?” Nasir asked.

“The Americans stopped the line going in. Many soldiers came out with their guns and long metal tools, searching under the trucks—more than usual,” the old man explained. “Maybe there is a threat today, or maybe we will make our deliveries to the base this afternoon, insha’Allah,” he said.

“Insha’Allah,” Nasir repeated with a nod. He reached his fingers inside the pocket of his waistcoat, pulling out a chrome pocket watch. He folded back the worn, smooth cover to reveal a yellowing watch face with bold, scripted numbers. A tiny star and Cyrillic print arced across the bottom of the watch face: CAENAHO B CCCP. Made in the USSR. He’d carried it in his waistcoat pocket for decades, a touchstone of the history that shaped him, and that he’d managed to escape. He dutifully wound the watch every night after his evening prayers before he went to sleep. He rubbed his fingers slowly through his beard.

“It’s two o’clock now. We may be spending the night outside, Akaa,” Nasir said.

The old man smiled and gave a small wag of his head. “I will stay hopeful,” he said, opening his mouth in a toothless grin.

Nasir smiled and took off his white skullcap for a moment to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He relaxed his shoulders and breathed deeply, reminding himself that this was in God’s hands, that the timing of all things is decided by God, not men.

The old man’s emerald-green eyes were watery with age, reminding Nasir of the shimmering water of the Panjshir river, a place he knew intimately in its astounding beauty—and a scene appearing in his many nightmares. Nasir’s first campaign as a young soldier was in Panjshir, where hardened mujahideen lay in wait, dug into their mountain positions—then pounced like lions upon his division of newly trained commandos. Nasir’s dreams dredged up the bodies of his comrades, thrashing them downriver, battering them onto rocks, dragging them under in the current. His sleep replayed these scenes through the darkness of night, but he wiped them away each morning before his first prayers.

Nasir remembered his first conversation with the old Tajik when they had waited at an American base in the north several years earlier. They’d exchanged memories of the green river and its valley, and the brutal battles that had turned grassland into barren waste. The old man’s eyes brimmed with tears as he told Nasir that his family was thriving, and that peaceful farms had begun retaking the old battlefields. This was the first time Nasir had spoken with an old enemy as a friend. Nasir spent years feeding his rage, nursing it more than his own hungry children. Yet the word came from his mouth: masha’Allah. God has willed it.

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