Market Forces

By KEVIN PATTERSON

On Saturdays, at NATO’s International Security Assistance Force base in Kandahar, the merchants line up before dawn. They register with the military police, who photograph and issue ID cards to each of them, even the 7-year-old boys who hawk magnets for a dollar. They are searched, and the security dogs sniff their way through hundreds who come to sell carpets, DVDs and antique rifles. No one supposes that this is well received by the merchants, because dogs are unclean to Muslims. Nevertheless, in five years there has never been a bombing.

I went to Kandahar for seven weeks early this year to work as a civilian internist at the Role 3 hospital there. On a Saturday without casualties most of the hospital staff went to the market to buy carpets and chess sets. The men and boys — in traditional Pashtun country, the women are sequestered — called to passers-by with a dignified solemnity, not the obsequious desperation of street vendors in less desperate places. Among the carpet vendors this was easy to understand. The crimsons of the Mazar-i-Sharif carpets and the patterns of the Bamiyan — “You know Bamiyan, sir? Where the giant stone Buddhas were blown up? Yes, very sad, sir” — were unlike anything I, who grew up thinking that “shag” naturally modified “carpet,” had seen.

There is a tower hanging over the scene, with an Oakleys-wearing soldier with a machine gun. Every few weeks rockets are shot into the compound, reminders of the war all around. The soldiers, most of them Canadian, cycle in and out of the base, coming in every three weeks or so for showers and rest. The Canadians and the Afghan National Army soldiers also generate most of the uniformed casualties, though there are soldiers from several countries there. Otherwise we treated police and civilians, many of whom were children, burned and mined and shot in crossfire. The market was a relief from the business of repairing these boys and men and girls. Its color and vibrancy were striking contrasts with the dusty gravel and air of military tedium at the base.

If the Saturday market proved insufficient for any reason, there was also a Sunday market in the Special Forces compound. The Special Forces personnel, almost entirely American, stuck largely to themselves otherwise, and it was not possible to enter their compound on other days except on business. I’d see them in the huge dining facilities, but they sat only together, and attempts at conversation were defeated by taciturn disdain. It wasn’t clear why they opened their compound to the vendors, but I enjoyed their market. It was smaller and the selection was worse, but walking through it made me feel like a palace thief. Though the merchants there were ready to engage in conversation, the Special Forces people were no less mute than at supper. They nodded, flexed and observed closely. They did not speak. This was entirely unlike everyone else, especially the Australians and the American regulars, who talked until your ears buzzed.

One thing the Special Forces do is mentor Afghan National Army formations, and these men grow luxuriant beards and carry AK-47s and wear traditional clothing so that, when they speak, in English, in the kind of flat Midwestern accents you might overhear in line at the Piggly-Wiggly, anyone who doesn’t do a double take should really take up professional poker. With walnut-colored skin and rigid postures, they are utterly immiscible with the servicepeople around them.

I saw the pose break twice. The first time, a Special Forces sergeant came in with an Afghan National Army casualty with the unstated purpose of ensuring that he would receive the best possible care. When it became clear that he would, he told me how his colleague had run at the men who ambushed them, firing his rifle, yelling and turning the ambush into a rout of the attackers themselves. “You’ve never seen heart like that,” he said. I nodded. Then it was as if he realized how many words he had said in a row. He nodded, lifted his AK and walked away.

The other time was when a CH-47 Chinook crashed in the mountains with a Special Forces platoon on board. There were 8 dead on the site and another 14 critically injured. The wounded were brought to us, nearly frozen and exsanguine after a six-hour extraction. That day was mad, with every surgeon and anesthetist in a constant sprint, and the I.C.U. full, blood everywhere. We emptied the blood bank and had to activate the walking blood bank. Soldiers lined up outside the hospital a hundred deep to donate. I remember running to pick up another armful of blood bags, coming around a corner as two very young soldiers recognized each other through the carnage and asked each other who had been killed. Frozen looks and sobbing.

That Saturday’s market was particularly welcome.

Kevin Patterson, a specialist in internal medicine, is the author of a novel, “Consumption,” coming out in August, and co-editor of an anthology about Afghanistan due out in December.