Back in Khan-T, a figure came right out into the open, and from the way he stood next to an ugly, dilapidated faux-Greek column, even I could tell he was aiming an RPG at us. I prayed that Moalem would shoot the son of a bitch already. And Moalem did—but not before the departed cleared his round. I didn’t hear a blast, just the sound of something solid hitting somewhere above us and out of my field of concern. A dud? I glanced behind us and saw that Nasif had finally arrived with ten of the Afghans. They fanned out across the red building. Carrying a heavy 12.7 mm, Nasif looked me hard in my one good eye and barked, “Feed me rounds, Ostad, Professor!”

The dance lasted less than ten minutes. It was deafening, like always. And when it was done, all I knew was that something in our dynamic had changed. The plucky, formidable Afghans who had been guilted into coming back to their positions were kissing Moalem. Then they were doing the same to me. Meanwhile, there were three more dead bodies in no-man’s-land.

The BMP retreated but survived intact.

And I, who didn’t have the patience to read Marcel Proust’s beautiful book, would learn in the days and weeks and months ahead to content myself with those highlighted passages. In one passage, for instance, the writer observes how some men confront death with complete indifference not because they are more courageous but because they are lacking in imagination.

Later, I’d look back on this moment at the red house as a rite of passage. Moalem had never had much imagination, and during this half-hour interval mine was also mostly—but not entirely—suspended. Otherwise, Moalem and I would both be dead. None of the young men kissing me now had an inkling of any of this. They only knew that somehow we—two old-timers pushing middle age—saved the day by just being here. They needed to believe in our courage to believe in their own. It was an acceptable fiction.

Afterward, Moalem came up to me, smiling. “Saleh, when I finally have the good fortune to be martyred, you must take all of my notebooks. Qabul? You accept?” I nodded at what he thought was his generosity. What he was really doing was taking his first cautious steps toward inevitable martyrdom. He had set his feet in that vortex and there was no turning back from it.

* * *

I’d begun wearing diapers. I did not want to be in a situation in Syria where I had to piss and couldn’t. Nasif, who was driving us to Damascus, had caught me with my pants down one day when I was relieving myself. It was sniper territory, with a grown man’s diaper hanging in the balance. He pretended not to see it and said nothing because what is there to even say? But the whole thing made us both uncomfortable and I felt even worse for Nasif, who had to act as if there was nothing unusual happening.