What Changes Everything by Masha Hamilton Page A

know?
    Anyway, here‟s his email address and cellphone number. Contact him."
           "Yeah. Whatever. I mean, thanks, Joni. I appreciate you bringing this by."
           "But?"
           Danil reached for the coffee cup and swallowed a gulp. How many people in your life understood you with only a gesture, an expression, maybe a half-dozen words? The reasons he couldn‟t do a gallery show were too complex to explain to her, and to try would involve breaking a promise. "I‟m just not sure I want to be in a gallery, with all its expectations and requirements, with people who don‟t know anything about me or my brother—and don‟t really want to know— judging me based on shit that doesn‟t mean shit," he said.
            "Shit that doesn‟t mean shit?" She leaned closer to him. "T hat‟s bu llshit, Dani. You get your stuff in a gallery, with more eyes on it. Ultimately, the rest doesn‟t matter."
           Almost always, Danil thought, Joni saw through him.
           "That window?" She rose, pulled back the drape. "Every time I‟ve ever been here, it‟s curtained. And the refrigerator?" In two steps, she reached and opened it. "Damn close to empty. Dani. You‟re not doing too good. Why would you pass this up?"
           "I have a job, you know," Danil said. "I paint office and living spaces."
           "Are you kidding me? When‟s the last time you did that? Besides, that‟s not the work you want to get old with, is it?"
           Danil sighed. He cracked his knuckles one hand at a time.
           "I brought you a present." Joni reached into her bag and tossed him a cellphone. It landed on his lap but he didn‟t pick it up. "Brand new and ready to use," she said. "You can even set up email. Call the gallery owner. Then open up one of your mom‟s letters and fucking reconnect with your family."
           Danil shook his head. "Not an option."
           Joni shrugged. "Whatever. But while you‟re on your „alternate trajectory,‟ don‟t ignore a potential break that I gave up a lunch hour to help pass on. Opportunities only fall in a person‟s lap so often." She leaned over and kissed his cheek, and then waved over her shoulder without waiting for him to respond.
           Danil rubbed his palm over his chin and stared at the cellphone. Then he put it and the piece of paper with the gallery owner‟s contact information on the corner of the only table in his apartment, the table that still held the coffee. "I‟ll figure it out later," he said, as if talking to the phone itself, and then he headed into his bathroom.

    Amin, September 5th

           Bleach and yeasty bread: the scent of Maiwand Hospital as Amin entered through the main doors. A woman in a burqa s quatted by the entrance, holding in her arms a child whose head drooped like a wilted poppy flower. Amin couldn‟t be sure if she was begging or simply waiting, but he scrambled his fingers into his pocket and pressed a few Afs into her hand. "T ashakor," she sai d, barely glancing up.
           He‟d never been inside Maiwand. Though it was barely adequate, the hospital‟s primary purpose was to serve as a training ground for Kabul Medical University interns. Amin himself would never come here for care. Of course, he wouldn‟t go to any hospital in Afghanistan for anything serious—better to India, or the States if possible. Even Pakistan. Backward, violent, filled with war-battered souls: what was it about this country that drew him beyond all logic? He‟d been educated abroad and could have stayed. Yet he found himself rooted to this soil. Whatever he hoped to accomplish lay here, along with whatever debt he owed.
           To his right, in an office with huge windows, Zarlasht sat at a large desk. One other woman sat at a second desk across from hers. Amin strode into the office. For a moment she didn‟t glance up, focused on her paperwork. Then she saw him,