NINETEEN
Again, the car sickness. By the time we drove past the bulletriddled sign that read THE KHYBER PASS WELCOMES YOU, my mouth had begun to water. Something inside my stomach churned and twisted. Farid, my driver, threw me a cold glance. There was no empathy in his eyes.“Can we roll down the window?” I asked.He lit a cigarette and tucked it between the remaining two fingers of his left hand, the one resting on the steering wheel. Keeping his black eyes on the road, he stooped forward, picked up the screwdriver lying between his feet, and handed it to me. I stuck it in the small hole in the door where the handle belonged and turned it to roll down my window.
Farid gave me another dismissive look, this one with a hint of barely suppressed animosity, and went back to smoking his cigarette. He hadn’t said more than a dozen words since we’d departed from Jamrud Fort.
“Try a lemon.”
“What?”
“Lemon. Good for the sickness,”
Farid said. “I always bring one for this drive.”
“Nay, thank you,”
I said. The mere thought of adding acidity to my stomach stirred more nausea. Farid snickered. “It’s not fancy like American medicine, I know, just an old remedy my mother taught me.”
I regretted blowing my chance to warm up to him. “In that case, maybe you should give me some.”