“Baba, sit down please,” I said, tugging at his sleeve. “I think he really means to shoot you.”
Baba slapped my hand away. “Haven’t I taught you anything?” he snapped. He turned to the grinning soldier. “Tell him he’d better kill me good with that first shot. Because if I don’t go down, I’m tearing him to pieces, goddamn his father!”
The Russian soldier’s grin never faltered when he heard the translation. He clicked the safety on the gun. Pointed the barrel to Baba’s chest. Heart pounding in my throat, I buried my face in my hands.
The gun roared.
It’s done, then. I’m eighteen and alone. I have no one left in the world. Baba’s dead and now I have to bury him. Where do I bury him? Where do I go after that?
But the whirlwind of half thoughts spinning in my head came to a halt when I cracked my eyelids, found Baba still standing. I saw a second Russian officer with the others. It was from the muzzle of his upturned gun that smoke swirled. The soldier who had meant to shoot Baba had already holstered his weapon. He was shuffling his feet. I had never felt more like crying and laughing at the same time.
The second Russian officer, gray-haired and heavyset, spoke to us in broken Farsi. He apologized for his comrade’s behavior. “Russia sends them here to fight,” he said. “But they are just boys, and when they come here, they find the pleasure of drug.” He gave the younger officer the rueful look of a father exasperated with his misbehaving son. “This one is attached to drug now. I try to stop him...” He waved us off.
Moments later, we were pulling away. I heard a laugh and then the first soldier’s voice, slurry and off-key, singing the old wedding song.
WE RODE IN SILENCE for about fifteen minutes before the young woman’s husband suddenly stood and did something I’d seen many others do before him: He kissed Baba’s hand.