lineofbattlechapter1

                                   THE LINE OF BATTLE
                                               By
                                          Barbara Bell

"If we let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now." Richard Perle, former chairman and current advisor to the Bush Defense Policy Board; called by Beltway insiders "The Prince of Darkness."

"Look, our strategy is to create chaos, to create a vacuum." President George W. Bush, September 26, 2001 (Bob Woodward, "Bush at war," Simon and Schuster, 2002, page 153.)

"Now is the time of the furnaces, and only light should be seen." Jose Marti

                                               - one -

        She never wanted a life of taffeta and wine set on ice. She wanted life dirty.
Mara had been cautioned. Of course she had. By everyone every time she made plans to return.
        It's not advisable at this time. This is what she'd been told by a young attache at the embassy in Nepal. His face was red from the heat. She'd flown in the night before. He'd seen her wrapping the veil about her face, preparing for a morning stroll outside the embassy compound.
        There's been trouble? she asked the attache. He was blond, his fingernails immaculate. He smiled, friendly.
        No. Not trouble. Not exactly, he said. Nothing here in the capital.
        Mara smoothed the body of the veil that covered her clothing.
        Certainly, Miss Adams, you understand your particular position, he added. But she'd stopped listening. Sunlight streamed through windows. Bullet-proof, she guessed. But beyond the wall, rolls of barbed wire, and armed guards at the gates, the city spread in all directions.
Hidden doors, a film of dust, and windowless walls. Openings in this part of the city all faced inward. She understood.
        For her walk outside the Consulate, she'd covered not only her head and face, but also her hands. In the orthodox sections of Kathmandu, something about a woman's fingers could inflame a man.
        The attache stepped to the side, opening a path for her to return to her room. And we'll see you at the palace this evening? he asked. Mara smiled at him before she turned the opposite direction, toward the main entrance. Not the direction he intended at all. Of course, she said in answer to his question. Or maybe she hadn't. Because by that point, she'd forgotten him.
        A period of adjustment is recommended. She had read this in the travel brochure on the plane. It was intended for those arriving for the first time: embassy staff, military personnel, and technical consultants. But it was her third season of fieldwork in the region. And before that, she'd lived and studied in Kashmir near Srinagar, completing her doctoral work.
From the embassy, several days of backcountry travel awaited her, through the "middle hills" as they were called, though hardly hills, rising up to nine thousand feet. They were the front range of the great mountains, the ones called the "dwelling place of snow." The greatest peak of all was known on both sides as "Mother of the Earth" - Everest. The long ridge of terrifying peaks formed an ancient perimeter, a boundary.
        On one side Heaven. On the other side Hell. That is how the Minister of Foreign Affairs explained it to Mara at a state dinner she attended her very first week of her first year. She had not yet finished her period of adjustment that time either. But for her, affairs of state in this backward little country could not be avoided. Of course, the Minister never once mentioned her father. He never spoke his name. But there he was anyway, her father, a dense surrounding storm. It is what the attache had implied when he spoke of her 'particular position.' He had not said, "Your father," either. He didn't have to.
        She later overheard the Minister explaining to one of the generals. The daughter of the Bull, he said in the native tongue. That first year, none of them knew Mara's talent with language, so she heard quite a lot she was not intended to hear. Her period of study north of Pokhara had made her fluent in several dialects. An American, especially a woman, well, they would not have guessed.
        That morning at the embassy, she found the attache's warning to be quaint. She wanted life dirty. It was stupendous, this urge in her, erotic, heavenly. As she walked out the embassy gates, it came over her, more than just the pleasure of walking free. She floated. It was that pure in her.
        Mara walked the long road to the bazaar where a few of the more venturesome tourists roamed with cameras. A cow with strands of garlands about its neck bumbled through the shops. Three young Hindu boys beat it with sticks, directing it back to the street. The far side of the bazaar echoed with the Moslem call to prayer. She walked past temples, shops, and Buddhist chortens. Hindu ascetics with painted faces charged tourists to take their pictures. Men, goats, bicycles, and rickshaws swirled in the press. Lepers, some of them children with missing digits and disfigured limbs, begged for a rupee.
        Dust. Flies. Filth.
        Slipping through the jostle and bump, she came at last to the cremation ghats beside the river. The body of a young man had just been unwrapped and laid upon logs. When the torch was brought, loose bundles of thatch caught fire. Thick yellow smoke swirled, obscuring the corpse.
        Fully armed paramilitary personnel stood to the side and watched the press of the crowds. Here and there a briefcase, a cell phone. All about her were men. Only men. Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem. A small knot of Sunni's stared at her. She always found her eyes drawn to their hands. Never their eyes, she reminded herself. Not in this part of the world.
And in the dark recesses that led back into enclosed gardens - groups of men knotted, some from as far away as Peshawar. She could tell by the way they wrapped the turban, the inward draw of the lips.
        But she sensed something different about the men this time, a precarious scent. It was in the feet, the hands going by, each and every turn of every head. Watching. Unease. A slight drag downward. It was then that she understood what the attache had meant about it not being advisable, her stroll.
        So it's about to explode, she remembered thinking much later. All it took were nineteen men and four airplanes. And suddenly, everything had changed. And in that moment, a hindu woman in full purdah bent to the ground. She touched her forehead to the foot of her husband. Of the crowd, even the lowest of caste looked away. The feet, after all, are polluted.
        Sunlight broke through to the river, splintering against the wavetops. Brown water churned. The river, above flood stage from the monsoons, had sullied the water supply.
        She smelled the water, a smell mingled with fish and defecation. And the ghats, she thought, turning that direction. Where they burn the Dead.
        It is not these men that haunt, Mara thought. Not words. Not even emotion.
        It is a place we cannot know, she remembered thinking. She understood that it drove her there to stand among these men, the danger, the reek of the water.
        What she didn't know at the time was that she should have turned back. She should have boarded the next plane to the states. In the next forty-eight hours, she was advised several times to do just that. Yet after everything had occurred, she never looked back. Not once.
        I was taken into the mouth of God, she will tell herself. I was made smooth.
        She will not recall anything of her walk that day for several years. Even then, what will stand out in her mind is her shadow. It merged with the movement of men on the street.
The Temple of the Dead, July, 2002.

                                                   *

        Her gown rustled with every breath. Mara adjusted the bodice. Taffeta always gave her a rash.
        "So irritating about the water," Delphau said, wiping his forehead. "You'd think by now these people would have learned modern treatment technology."
        His face glowed pink. A color, she decided, only the Swiss could achieve. His accent matched perfectly with the scene before her. The immense throne room of the royal palace glittered, filled with tuxes, gowns, and golden silk saris. Diamonds wept between the damp cleavage of the American ambassador's wife. She and the ambassador had paid their respects earlier, asking after her father.
        There was never a day when her father did not intrude. So it made perfect sense about Delphau. How, in order to move away from one man, Mara moved toward another.
        "A decent bath cannot be bought for the help," Delphau added, running his tongue inside his lower lip. "I'd been promised a post in Sweden. But the elections."
        Delphau's tux was immaculate. His watch, Cartier. His diamond cufflinks, several carats each. He must have a mistress, she thought. A very rich one that enjoys dressing up beautiful men.
        Mara stifled a yawn. She'd stayed too long at the ghats that morning. After returning to the consulate, jetlag set in. She'd fallen asleep and awakened late, having to rush through dressing.
        Sweat ran in droplets between her breasts. Her glass of champagne dangled between two fingers. It was not good, the champagne.
        "Have you heard?" Delphau said. "The insurgents bombed the lower mine. Operations on hold indefinitely." He stepped beside her and leaned close. His eyes brightened. The heat from his cheeks flushed her forehead.
        She edged away. "They've been crippling that one since the beginning. I hate the violence, but you have to admit a certain sympathy."
        "With terrorists?" He brought his champagne to his lips, sniffed, made a face, and poured it on the floor.
        She'd gone quiet, gazing out the huge window opposite the throne. A heavy monsoonal downpour drenched the lawn. She remembered the faces of the men she saw that day as she walked through the city. Thousands of them. The floods had driven them in. She'd heard them crowing last night. In the streets. Until dawn.
        Even the heavens have betrayed this country, she thought. It sits too close to the glare, the stab of the sun.
        It was in that moment, in the reflection off the window, that she first caught sight of the Ganang tribesmen. The elder of the two had long, braided hair wrapped upon his head. Both men wore beautiful blue dyed Tibetan robes, called chubas, woven from goat hair, typical of the mountain nomads.
        Stunned, she turned and searched the glittering crowd. Two wiry men stood alone in a sea of gowns and tuxes.
        "Ganangs?" she said, then cautioned herself. Not too much interest. That would not work with Delphau.
        "Dear God, their smell," he said. "They've brought along some sort of mouth-foaming voodoo witch. Can you imagine? The king granted her a private audience. In his rooms."
Prickles of heat ran down her spine. She pressed her nipples against taffeta for his benefit.             "An ecstatic?" she said. And she searched the room, hoping to catch sight of the woman. "Do you know how the word 'shaman' translates out? From the manchu-tongu word 'xaman,' derived from the verb scha-, 'to know.'"
        "Ah," he said. "Strange group of bloody bitches."
Her eyes shot up to his. He smiled, smug. "My man filched seven pounds of ice from the kitchen. I've a bottle of Sauterne chilled in my rooms."
        It's like swimming against the sea, she thought. Delphau. All this chatter.
        "Black market?" she said, turning back to the windows. "That must have cost a pretty penny." But she missed his reply. Because in the reflection, the image of Delphau changed. Nearly imperceptible. It's the light, she thought. And she told herself that later also. Because she saw a certain blur about the edges of Delphau. Especially his face and his hands. It lasted a second. Very brief. She found it attractive. Sexual. Dangerously so.
        "Seven pounds of ice," she said. "A bit much don't you think? For a single bottle of wine." And she forced a smile at him, feeling a sudden dislike for herself and Delphau. She'd always disliked Delphau. From the beginning. It lay at the root of her attraction.
        So it was quite early in the evening when she'd made her decision about Delphau, when it became apparent how the evening would end.
        "I have to warn you," she said. "I'm leaving at dawn. Did I tell you? While I was sitting through absurd fundraisers with Daddy, my team struck a burial chamber. Pre-Bronze. At about twelve thousand feet. Well preserved." She turned, her eyes now fully on the Ganang tribesmen who stood together in silence. She squinted, trying to read the lines of the older man's face.
        The Ganang nomad had been slowly scanning the room. In that moment, by chance, his eyes stopped upon Mara. She took a breath, but didn't look away. "I don't suppose you would know how I might arrange an audience."
        Delphau, the vice-ambassador from Switzerland, gazed lovingly at her cleavage. Not that she was overly endowed. But the taffeta, custom fitted, compensated.
        "With the Ganang?" he said. "So you'd consider the wine?"
        She leaned closer to the windows and listened. She knew they were out there. All those men. Would they take to the streets again tonight? She'd never heard such a sound before. It was feral, chilling.
        And with this thought in her mind, Mara finally gazed up at the royal dias, where the king sat upon his throne.
         "Have you noticed?" she said to Delphau. "The king and his generals have earned truckloads of decorations since their last public appearance. Can you mail-order that kind of thing?"
        "Ah," Delphau said. "And I do believe that is your new Commander of the American Special Forces Advisors."
        Her smile disappeared. He wore BDU's, beret, and pistol on hip. "He's not my Special Forces Advisor," she said. She polished off her drink then said softly, "Land of the free."
        Mara placed her empty glass upon a passing tray. "Do you climb?" she said suddenly, not waiting for Delphau's reply. "I do. They're quite something, these Ganang. Everest is a walk in the park compared to their trek across the Himal. The Ganang should send over a troop of men. They'd make quick work of the insurgents."
        A voice came from behind her. "Some say the Ganang supply the insurgents."