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I didn’t believe Samad, but I kind of shared the blame. He was only twenty-two, a poor kid who lived in a one-bedroom apartment with his mother, sister, and various other relatives. I had handed him the keys to a five-bedroom house that he knew would be empty. I had helped him buy a car. I had given him my bank card and my bank code—although I would later figure out that he had never taken any money. I had handed him temptation. What did I think was going to happen?

“Give me the house keys,” I said.

Samad looked at me, eyes brimming with tears, chin quivering. He handed me the keys.

“We’re hiring guards, so you don’t have to worry about the house. We need to get locks for the alcohol. You’re not allowed to bring women here. You’re not allowed to bring friends here. You’re not allowed to come inside anymore. You’re going to have to earn back my trust.”

Samad sulked as he drove me to an interview. I snapped at him, suspicious that he had been stealing money from me.

“You probably work for the ISI,” I said.

“No, Kim,” he said. “You are my sister. No ISI. I don’t do anything.”

“I don’t believe you.”

That silenced him. He stared straight ahead and drove. For days, we barely talked. Eventually Samad drove me to the airport, and I flew back to the States, where things would be even worse.

CHAPTER 19

REBEL, REBEL

Something needed to give—my nose or my lifestyle. For my entire life, I had suffered from allergies, asthma, sinus infections, bronchitis. But in Asia, those illnesses had become my usual state. I was allergic to mold, pollen, grass, anything green, anything with four legs, but primarily I was allergic to dust, and in every country I visited, the dust was an unwelcome companion. I was always sick. Even though Farouq was a doctor, there wasn’t much he could do. Whenever I arrived at the airport in Kabul, the air immediately assaulted me. It supposedly had a very high percentage of fecal matter; the dust was called “fecal dust,” the air, “fecal air.” About eight times a year, a sinus infection knocked me out, and Farouq brought me antibiotics, a large IV bag of sterile saline water to shoot up my nose, nasal sprays with foreign lettering, and decongestant pills. Nothing really helped.

I opted for surgery in Portland, Oregon, so my father could take care of me. The surgery was actually very simple, and I had soon healed enough to travel. I couldn’t fly, so I rented a car to drive to Chicago. This would give me a chance to visit my relatives and evaluate my relationship with both Dave and the United States. I planned to think about this, and not at all about Sean and what might be happening to him.

Along the road, I saw my brother in Seattle, who was soon moving to London, making my parents wonder just what they had done wrong; my grandmother in Montana, who took me to a funeral and introduced me as a Pakistani; and a police officer in South Dakota, who made me sit in his police car with his police dog while he wrote me a warning ticket for speeding. Finally I pulled into Chicago. This was my so-called “home leave.” Every two years, the Tribune paid for its foreign correspondents to come back for a week, to make sure we didn’t go native while abroad. I was so far gone, even walking into the newspaper building seemed like entering another time zone.

But my newspaper was now a foreign country. I had always loved the Tribune Tower, a megalomaniacal Gothic temple to the industry. Pieces of landmarks from around the world had been embedded in its outside walls, from the pyramids of Egypt to a remnant from the World Trade Center. A piece of the moon even sat in a special window. For a journalist, entering this building had always meant something. Famous quotes about freedom of speech were carved into the walls of the lobby. From the time I first walked in here as a college student, I had felt awed by these constant reminders that journalism mattered. Now I had a hard time convincing the guards that I actually worked here.

“Kim