The Deadliest Strain

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Austyn was perfectly happy with the new arrangements. As he'd discussed with Faas Hanlon, he would need to put more control of the mission in Fahimah's hands once they reached Halabja. Traveling with the Peshmerga just meant the transition had started a little earlier than planned.

Ahmad turned out to be a better ride and escort than they'd had before. Two cars were taking them to Halabja. Four Peshmerga soldiers were split between the cars. The vehicle Austyn and Fahimah were riding in — along with two of the fighters — was an older SUV, a 2002 BMW X5, and much nicer than the old van Ken had been driving. This one also had working air-conditioning. The other car leading the caravan was an old military four-wheel drive that looked like it had risen from the ashes of some scrap heap.

Austyn had been told that one way of going to Halabja from Erbil was through Kirkuk. But because of the daily violence in that city, they were going from Erbil to Lake Dokan to Sulaimaniyah to Khurmal to Halabja.

Fahimah had translated for him that this was slightly longer but more scenic… and safer. So far, Austyn wholeheartedly agreed. The view was beautiful. The well-paved road snaked through mountains carpeted with touches of green.

His only complaint was the driving. If it weren't somewhat bloodcurdling, the entire situation would be comical. Both of the Peshmerga fighters liked to gesture with their hands as they spoke. There had already been a few instances of the driver talking and gesticulating energetically. They would be off some cliff by now if the soldier in the passenger seat hadn't reached over to hold the wheel or make an adjustment. He did it all calmly, though. Obviously, this was the way everyone drove a car. Luckily, there weren't too many cars coming along the opposite side of the road.

"What are they saying now?" Austyn asked, seeing the Peshmerga fighters smile as they talked.

The two sitting in front only spoke Kurdish, and they never seemed to stop talking. The man behind the wheel was older. Fahimah said he was the one who had told her at the checkpoint not to be afraid. Austyn liked both of them. They were very pleasant and polite… now that they knew he was no threat to Fahimah. Anytime they said something over their shoulder to Fahimah, they'd follow it with the word tarjomeh.. which she told Austyn meant "translate."

"One is telling a joke to the other," she whispered. "I need to wait for the punch line."

The two men burst into laughter a moment later. Austyn saw Fahimah smile and shake her head.

"Tarjorneh, tarjorneh!" they both called to her.

"You need to realize that jokes in Kurdish are quite different than what you Westerners are accustomed to," she told him.

"How different?"

"They are racist. They are slanted against whatever ethnic group that they dislike."

"So I assume this one was an Arab joke?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Tell me."

"Tarjorneh," the driver encouraged, looking in the mirror at her.

"He's taking his eyes off the road," Austyn reminded her.

"Okay. But remember, I am just repeating it," Fahimah reminded him again.

He could understand her reluctance. Her extensive education, her years abroad, the time that she'd spent teaching, all must have reinforced her innate sense of tolerance.

She shook her head one more time, as if she couldn't believe she was actually relaying the story.

"All right. Two policemen in Baghdad… they were Arabs… came on duty and went out on their usual route through the city. A short time later, while they were in a park eating their lunch, before taking their naps, they found two American Tomahawk missiles that had never exploded. One said to the other, 'We should take them to the American base and get the reward.' So the two policemen loaded the missiles into the backseat of their squad car and drove toward the base. After an hour of driving, the second Arab said, Tell me something, what will we do if one of these missiles explodes in the car?' His friend thought for a few minutes and said, 'I've got it. We'll say we only found one missile!'"

Austyn couldn't help but laugh. The two men in front, although they didn't speak English, were in stitches at what appeared to be the end of the joke.

"Okay," she whispered. "Don't encourage them."

"Why?"

"Because they probably have a hundred Arab jokes each up their sleeves."

As if on cue, the younger Peshmerga started another one. This one was a short one, and both men burst into laughter afterward.

"Tarjorneh," they chanted at Fahimah.

She tapped the driver on the shoulder and said something to him sternly.

"Baleh, khanoom."

"What did you say?" Austyn asked.

"I said that this will be the last one."

"There's no harm in this," he said, smiling at her.

"Right now, maybe not. But when they start telling jokes that are otherwise inappropriate, I'm the one who turns eighteen different shades of red."

He nodded in understanding, holding back the comment that she was already turning eighteen shades of red. And actually, he thought, she looked quite beautiful in all those shades.

"Okay, tell me this last one."

She gathered her hands on her lap. "Two thieves broke into an Arab's house. The Arab woke up and asked them, 'What are you looking for?' The thieves told him, 'Money.' Hearing that, the Arab jumped out of bed and responded, 'Wait a second, I'll help you.'"

Again, there was a burst of laughter from the men in front.

The passenger made another casual grab at the wheel since the driver was laughing so hard that he'd closed his eyes. Austyn looked at the thin, foot-high guardrail that was the only barrier between them and what was probably a thousand-foot drop off the side of the mountain.

He tore his gaze away from the road when an argument broke out between the two fighters and Fahimah. Austyn didn't think it was anything too serious, though, as they were smiling and Fahimah had her teacher's voice on.

They started chanting. "Yek. Yek. Yek."

"What do they want now?" he asked, totally entertained.

"Yek. Yek Yek."

"They are reneging on their promise."

"They want to tell another joke?" Austyn asked.

"No, they want you to tell them an American joke."

"Okay, I can do that."

"Oh, God," she said, rolling her eyes.

"Seriously, I'm a good joke-teller."

"Only one," she agreed reluctantly.

"Yes, ma'am," he told her. "Give me a second to think of one."

"Keep it clean," she warned him.

Austyn decided to use some one-liners. "This is all one joke. Just translate after each line."

She nodded.

"Do you know what a redneck is?" he asked.

"A redneck." She thought and then nodded. "No education. Lives in the woods. Not very bright."

"Right. Okay, here we go… you know you're a redneck.. Tarjomeh," he reminded her.

She did as she was told. Her translation of redneck took a couple of minutes, and the two men in front nodded politely.

Austyn continued. "You know you're a redneck if the only tooth you've got left is the one you're wearing on a chain around your neck."

She simply stared at him.

"No, wait a minute," he said. "I'm not remembering that one right. It had something to do with your hound dog's tooth."

She looked at him. "You know, most of these people live in the mountains. They've never seen a dentist in their lives, and if they ever have seen one, it was for the sole purpose of having their teeth pulled."

"I'm sorry. That was insensitive," he said, feeling the heat rise into his scalp. "Okay, try this one for them. I've got it. You know you're a redneck when your dad walks you to school because you're in the same grade."

Fahimah smiled and translated. There were some nods and polite smiles. She didn't have to say anything more.

"Okay, I'm done," he said quietly.

The two men in front started making noises, motioning to him to continue. "Come on, you can come up with more." She spoke to him gently, as if she wanted to make sure his feelings weren't hurt.

"You know you're a redneck when you keep your food stamps in the icebox."

She shook her head. "I don't know what a food stamp is."

Rather than explaining it to her, he decided to try a new line. "You know you're a redneck when you and your wife get divorced and you're still cousins."

Fahimah shook her head again. "There are a lot of marriages in the same tribes and families among the Kurds. They won't find that funny." She lowered her voice. "In fact, you might insult them."

"I'm not doing too well, am I?"

"You're doing great," she said encouragingly. "It's just a different humor."

"Do Kurds love their mothers-in-law?" he asked, remembering another line.

"No. Not always. There are a few jokes about that."

"Then try this on them. You know you're a redneck when you're always hoping to find your mother-in-law's picture on the back of a milk carton."

"Why would they put anyone's picture on the milk carton?" she asked.

"Missing people's faces…" He shook his head. "If you have to explain it… it's not funny anymore. Guess I won't be going on the comedy circuit anytime soon."

She bit her lip, trying to hide a smile. "Well, perhaps not in Kurdistan, anyway."

Jokes forgotten, the driver pointed straight ahead and said something to Fahimah. The other man said a few words as well. Looking in the same direction, Austyn caught a glimpse of blue waters ahead.

She turned to Austyn when the two men finished. "They were telling me about this famous resort at Lake Dokan."

Along the way, Fahimah had told him about Dokan being a beautiful resort town northwest of Sulaimaniyah.

The man-made Lake Dokan was a large water reservoir that supplied drinking and irrigation water to many towns and agricultural areas in the region. In addition to that, the dam's turbines generated enough power to provide electricity to a large area.

"The Ashour Hotel is a luxury accommodation. It has been around for a while," she told him. 'The place has absolutely stunning views of the lake. It has terraces with pools and stone walkways that wind through beautiful gardens with flowering trees. It's really one of the most striking places in Kurdistan to stay."

"Did something happen to it?" he asked.

She shook her head. "They were telling me that American troops rented the entire hotel a couple of years ago for a few months. No Kurds were allowed to use it or even step foot on the grounds. I guess the people weren't too happy about that."

Over and over, Austyn was hearing the message. The Kurds loved Americans, so long as they didn't act like an occupying army.

"Do the Americans still have the place?"

"No." She shook her head. "The owner must have made a great deal of money, though. They say he's done some major renovations. Now it's open to the public again."

Austyn saw her look in the direction of the lake again. "Did you ever stay there?"

She smiled, nodding. "After I came back from England and Rahaf was back from America, we would try to go away, just the two of us, for a week during Norooz."

"Norooz?"

"The first day of spring. That's what the Iranians and Kurds celebrate as the new year," she told him. "We always took a week off and came here. Kurdistan is prettiest in the spring."

"How was it that the two of you ended up going to different countries for your education?" he asked. He knew the source of Rahaf's educational funds, but he had no idea how Fahimah had gotten to England.

"Our parents died in Halabja during the bombings," she explained. "Our brothers, all three of them, were taken away a few months before that. They were killed by Saddam's soldiers."

Austyn saw her chin quiver slightly. She looked out the window for a minute or two, obviously trying to compose herself.

"Rahaf was fifteen and I was sixteen. We packed our bags and made our way with some of our cousins across the mountains to Iran. We stayed in one of the camps where Rahaf is working right now."

This explained why Rahaf went across the border. Austyn had been a couple of years older than Fahimah back in 1988. He remembered when the news of the killing of the Kurdish civilians hit U.S. newspapers and television screens. The aftermath of the massacres had been photographed and reported, and he'd studied the events in his training as an epidemiologist. Still, none of that affected him as much as sitting next to Fahimah, a victim of that tragedy… right here, right now.

"We both got our high school degrees while going to school at Paveh. That is a city in Kermanshah province in western Iran."

"Did you go back and forth between the camp and the city while you were going to school?" he asked.

"No, an Iranian Kurdish family took us in. They were wonderful people. They had three girls about our age." She smiled, obviously remembering their kindness. "Paveh is a great ancient city that dates back three thousand years. They say the name of the city has something to do with Zo-roastrianism, the past religion of its people. In fact, there is still a fire temple that tourists can visit."

Austyn thought that it was sad that so much of the history of that region was lost to Westerners because of politics.

"One of the most amazing things about Paveh is the housing. The homes of the people are built in the shape of many long, wide stairs climbing the foothills of the mountain."

"Stairs?"

She smiled. "The buildings have been built in such a way that the roof of one house actually serves as the balcony of another house, built just a few meters above it."

"I wish someday I could see it," he said.

"So do I," she told him. "I would love to go back there. Anyway, after 1991 — the First Gulf War, I understand you call it…"

He nodded.

"After the U.S. and its allies established the no-fly zone to protect the Kurds, many of us felt much safer about returning to Iraq. So Rahaf and I, with our high school degrees in hand, went back to Kurdistan."

"Did you go to Halabja?" Austyn asked. He looked at the two men in the front seat who were laughing. They were paying no attention whatsoever to the discussion in the backseat.

"No, that was far too painful for us. It was just too soon to return there. We went to Erbil. We needed jobs to make a living."

"Did you have anyone to stay with in Erbil?" he asked.

"We did. That is the wonderful thing about the Kurds. They help one another. They are generous in their hearts. They throw open their doors to others," she said proudly. "The word went around that Rahaf and I were in Erbil, and we had dozens of offers from people who either knew our parents or considered themselves related… something like fifth cousins thrice removed or perhaps a little more distant. We stayed with a family whom we knew from Halabja."

"Now I really understand how inappropriate my joke would have sounded to these guys," Austyn said.

The driver must have been in the middle of another joke, because the passenger was again steering the car. Austyn turned his attention back to her.

"So what happened after that?"

"We were in Erbil for only a few weeks when a cousin who lived in Baghdad contacted us about a fund the Iraqi government had set up to educate promising Iraqi women overseas. Rahaf applied for it and took the tests. Despite being Kurdish, she was accepted. Three months later, in the fall, she was on her way to America."

"What about you? How come you didn't apply for it?"

"I was a year older than my sister. As soon as we arrived in Erbil, I found a job working in the office for a British organization. I was their translator."

"You could speak English?"

She nodded. "I wasn't as fluent as I am now, but I could do the job they were asking me to do."

"What was the organization?"

"The Kurdistan Children's Fund. They were one of many volunteer organizations that came to the region then. They were trying to somehow help all these parent-less children. There were so many children," she explained. 'They were truly good-hearted people that I worked for."

"Do you know who was funding the organization?"

"I didn't know then, but later I found out that the donations came from individuals and some large annual funding from the British government."

Austyn knew there were many programs like this that flew under the media radar. Sometimes they were fronts for funding resistance groups — like the Peshmerga — and sometimes they were legitimate.

"The man I was working for — Dr. Whittaker — was a retired British government official," she continued. "He was extremely kind to me. It was with his encouragement and recommendations that I applied to continue my education in England."

"But not to just any university," he teased. "You went to Oxford."

"Yes. To this day, I believe he had a lot to do with that. He was very proud to call himself an Oxford man."

"He paid for your education?"

"No. The Kurdistan Children's Fund paid. Somehow they convinced me that even as a nineteen-year-old, I qualified for their grants. They paid all of my traveling and living expenses, and my first four years of education. Beyond that, I became fairly self-sufficient."

Until she stepped in and took the rap for her sister.

"Can I ask you something?"

She shrugged. "I don't think there is very much I haven't told you yet."

"What were you doing in Rahaf s laboratory the day of the bombardment? Why exactly were you wearing her badge?"