Minister Without Portfolio Read Free Page A

goalie. You’ll stay where the tradespeople camp out, Tender said. A secure area, inside the wire. A separate facility from the army station but protected by our Canadian compound. He smacked the steering wheel hard whenhe said protected. Beds are better, food is better, wages: better. So fuck you and fuck your benefits. I’ll tell you the one thing before you get all superior on me: you’re not as safe. Tender’s eyes patrolling the small houses and gates and vast blank areas of sand and rock and garbage. He was a reservist who volunteered for combat and was enjoying every minute of it. He was alive. On the safety issue I got to show you something, he said. Under your seat, John.
    John pulled out a heavy padded envelope. Inside, wrapped in clear bubblepack, the shapes of flat heavy things. John tore off the tape. Two dull metallic Sig Sauer automatic pistols slipped onto his lap.
    I couldn’t find ammo and I want those back when you go home, Tender said.
    The gun was heavier than it looked and Henry shoved it in his jacket pocket and made sure the velcro flap was sealed.
    Tender drove them into Kabul. There was a pig’s head on the ground beside a shaded cart and boys on skateboards zipped through the white rubble of an old government building. Tender drove through this into a quieter neighbourhood with high metal gates and the tops of established trees, their leaves covered in dust. He stopped the jeep behind a line of new black cars and climbed out and rapped on a gate made of galvanized metal. It was very loud. The sun was just setting. A rusted slit opened in the gate and Tender told them he had two civilians who’d like to eat. They’re looking for Chinese food, a voice said, just the top of a lip available at the slit in the gate. The gate pulled open and they walked into a cement courtyard. Razorwire on the walls. The lip of the man was not there.
    Look, Tender said, and took Henry in a headlock and rubbedhis head. I heard about Nora. This is a good spot to forget about Nora.
    I need to get her out of my head too, John said.
    You, Tender said, have to be good.
    The building was stucco and inside it suddenly got dark, men at small tables with white tablecloths, a music in the walls, men from various non-governmental agencies and tourists, Tender said. There were guns on the table. Two men studying the steel tang in a big knife, passing it back and forth almost in wonder as to how the metal got in there. A string of lamps shone over a buffet table with stainless steel trays full of vegetables and meat. The light bounced in a dazzle off the food but the food itself was dead. Around the buffet were perhaps a dozen Chinese women in tight tops with bare arms collecting white plates. They had red bows around their necks that somehow kept their dark hair pinned up and they were listlessly bending over the food to prepare the plates and then delivering these plates into corners of the darkness with some accelerated urgency.
    They took a table near the back wall by a hall to what was the washrooms and one of the servers came over. Her fingers touched the edge of the table. In English that was both bright and bored: What would you like, a drink? She was wearing a simple black and white outfit and you saw her midriff directly in front of your eyes—there was a lively rhinestone stuck to the bellybutton—and her shoulders were bare and a number of buttons undone at the cleavage. She was serving the food and opening up tabs on cans of beer and glasses of crushed ice and soda and small plastic bottles of hard liquor like you get on an airplane.
    This man here needs a full service, Tender said about Henry. And we’re his friends who will take care of his bill.
    I might need a little dessert, John said. Tender shoved him. Or watch some dessert.
    They ate and drank and Henry asked about the barracks and Tender said it was not a problem.
    They were all suddenly ravenous and they ordered more