The Swallows of Kabul Page 4

  “It was winter,” the Goliath suggests.

  “It wasn’t winter. We were in the middle of summer. It was so hot, you could fry eggs on the rocks.”

  “Maybe your mujahideen were saints,” says the Goliath in annoyance.

  “All mujahideen are blessed by the Lord,” the legless man reminds him. The others nod in vigorous assent. “They don’t stink, and their flesh doesn’t decay.”

  “Our position stank to high heaven. Where do you suppose the smell came from?”

  “From your dead mules.”

  “We didn’t have any mules.”

  “In that case, there’s only one other possibility: You were smelling the Shuravi. Those pigs would stink while getting out of a bath. I remember when we captured some of them, all the flies in the country came around for a closer look. . . .”

  Pushed beyond patience, the Goliath says, “Will you let me finish my story, Tamreez?”

  “I thought it was important to point out that our dead don’t stink. Moreover, a kind of musky perfume surrounds them all night long, from sunset to sunrise.”

  The Goliath erases his dusty drawings with a forceful gesture and rises to his feet. After casting a baleful glance at the legless man, he steps over the low wall and moves off toward a tent encampment. The others remain silent until he disappears from sight, then feverishly gather around the man in the wheelbarrow.

  “In any case, we all know his story by heart,” says an emaciated one-armed man. “He was getting to his accident, but he was going the long way around.”

  “He was a great warrior,” his neighbor reminds him.

  “True, but he lost his eye in an accident, not in battle. And besides, I frankly wonder what side he was fighting on, if his dead stank. Tamreez is right. We’re all veterans. We lost hundreds of friends. They died in our arms or before our eyes, and not a single one stank. . . .”

  Tamreez fidgets in his box, adjusts the pillow under his knees—which are bound up in strips of rubber—and looks toward the group of tents, as though he fears the Goliath may return. “I lost my legs, half of my teeth, and my hair, but my memory survived intact. I remember every detail as if it were yesterday. It was the middle of the summer, and that year the heat was so bad, it drove the crows to suicide. You could see them climbing higher and higher in the sky, and then they’d let themselves drop down like anvils, with their wings pressed against their sides and their beaks pointing straight down. That’s the truth—I swear it on the Holy Book. We spread out our underwear on the rocks, and they were so hot, you could hear the lice popping. It was the worst summer I ever saw. We had let our guard down, because we were positive that none of those white-arses would venture outside of their camp with the sun beating down like that. But the Russian brutes spotted our position with the help of a satellite or something of that sort. If a helicopter or a plane had flown over our hideout, we would’ve cleared out in a minute. But we saw nothing in the sky. Everything was totally calm, in all directions. We were in our hole, about to have lunch, when the shell came down. A dead-center bull’s-eye, in the right place at the right time. Boom! I was caught in a geyser of fire and earth, and that’s all I remember. When I came to, I was lying in pieces under a huge rock. My hands were all bloody; my clothes were torn and black from the smoke. I didn’t understand right away. Then I saw a leg lying on the ground next to me. I didn’t for a minute think it was mine. I felt nothing, I wasn’t suffering at all. I was just a little groggy.”

  Suddenly, he turns his face toward the top of the minaret and opens his eyes wide. His lips tremble; frantic spasms convulse his cheeks. He cups his hands as if to collect water from a fountain. When he begins to speak again, his voice quavers in his throat. “And that’s when I saw him. The same way I see you. It’s true—I swear on the Holy Book it’s true. He was up in the blue sky, flying around in circles. His wings were so white, their reflection lit up the inside of the cave. He kept on flying, round and round. I was inside a circle of absolute silence—I couldn’t hear the cries of the wounded or the explosions around me—but I heard his wings. They beat the air majestically and made a silky, swishing sound. It was a magical vision. . . .”

  The one-armed man asks in great agitation, “Did he come down close to you?”

  “Yes,” says Tamreez. “He came all the way down to me. He was in tears. His face was crimson and shining like a star.”

  “It was the angel of death,” his neighbor declares. “It couldn’t have been anything else. He always shows himself like that to the truly brave. Did he say anything to you?”

  “I don’t remember. He folded his wings around my body, but I pushed him away.”

  “Poor fool!” someone cries out. “You shouldn’t have resisted him. The angel would have taken you straight to Paradise, and you wouldn’t be where you are now, moldering in your wheelbarrow.”

  Atiq figures he’s heard enough and decides to refresh his mind elsewhere. By dint of endless elaboration or unvarying repetition, according to the narrators’ propensities, the stories told by the men who survived the war are well on the way to becoming genuine tall tales. Atiq sincerely thinks that the mullahs should put a stop to this. But most of all, he thinks that he can’t keep walking the streets indefinitely. For a while now, he’s been trying to flee his own reality, the one he can neither elaborate nor recount, certainly not to the insensitive, obtuse Mirza Shah, who’s so ready to reproach people for the smattering of conscience they have left. Besides, Atiq’s angry with himself for having confided in Mirza. For a glass of tea he didn’t even drink! He’s angry with himself for shirking his responsibilities, for having been foolish enough to believe that the best way to resolve a problem is to turn your back on it. His wife is sick. Is that her fault? Has he forgotten the sacrifices she made for him after his platoon, defeated by the Communist troops, left him for dead in a wasted village? How she hid him and nursed him for weeks on end? How she transported him on the back of a mule, through hostile territory in snowy weather, all the way to Peshawar? Now that she needs him, he shamelessly flees from her side, running to left and right behind anything that seems likely to take his mind off her.

  But everything comes to an end, including this day. Night has fallen. People are going back home; the homeless are returning to their burrows. And the Taliban thugs often shoot at suspicious shadows without warning. Atiq thinks that he, too, ought to go home, where he’ll find his wife in the same condition as when he left her, which is to say sick and distraught. He takes a street lined with piles of rubble, stops next to a ruin, puts an arm against the only wall left standing, plants himself fairly solidly on his haunches, rests his chin on one shoulder, and stays like that. Here and there in the darkness, where a few dim lights halfheartedly expose themselves, he hears infants crying. Their wails pierce his skull like a blade. A woman protests against the unruliness of her offspring, and a male voice quickly silences her.

  Atiq straightens his neck, then his spine, and looks up at the thousands of constellations twinkling in the sky. Something like a sob constricts his throat. He has to squeeze his fists bloodless to keep from collapsing. He’s tired, tired of going in circles, running after wisps of smoke, tired of these dull days trampling him down from morning till night. He can’t figure out why he has survived two consecutive decades of ambushes, air raids, and explosive devices that turned the bodies of dozens of people around him into pulp, sparing neither women nor children, neither villages nor flocks, and all to wind up like this, vegetating in a dark, inhospitable world, in a completely disoriented city studded with scaffolds and haunted by doddering human wreckage—a city that mistreats him, damages him, day after day, night after night, whether he’s in the company of some wretch condemned to die and awaiting her fate in his stinking jail or watching over his tormented wife, doomed to an even crueler death.

  “La hawla.” He sighs. “Lord, if this is a test you’re giving me, give me also the strength to overcome it.”

  Striking his h
ands together, he mumbles a few verses from the Qur’an and turns for home.

  WHEN ATIQ OPENS the door of his house, the first thing that catches his attention is the lighted hurricane lamp. Usually at such an hour, Musarrat is in bed and all the rooms are plunged in darkness. He notices the empty pallet, the blankets neatly spread out over the mattress, the pillows propped against the wall, just as he likes them. He cocks an ear: no moaning, no sound whatsoever. He retraces his steps, observes the basins, upside down and drying on the floor, and the dishes, gleaming in their proper place. His curiosity is aroused; for months now, Musarrat has done little in the way of housework. Wasted by her illness, she spends most of her time whimpering, huddled around the pain tearing at her insides. To signal his return, Atiq coughs into his hand. A curtain is drawn aside, and Musarrat shows herself at last, haggard, crumpled, but on her feet. She can’t prevent her hand from clutching the doorway for support, however, and Atiq can sense that she’s battling with all her remaining strength to remain upright, as if her dignity depends on her success. He puts two fingers on his chin and raises an eyebrow, making no effort to conceal his surprise.

  “I thought my sister had come back from Baluchistan,” he says.

  Musarrat straightens up with a jerk. “I’m not helpless yet,” she points out.

  “That’s not what I meant. You were in a really bad way when I left this morning. Now everything’s in its place and the floor’s been swept. When I saw that, right away I thought my sister had come back, because we don’t have anyone besides her. All the women in the neighborhood know how sick you are, but not one of them has ever dropped in to see if you could use some help.”

  “I don’t need any of them.”

  “Don’t be so touchy, Musarrat. Why must you turn over every word to see what’s lying underneath?”

  Musarrat sees that she’s not improving matters between herself and her husband. She takes the hurricane lamp off the table and hangs it from a beam so it will shed more light; then she brings in a tray loaded with food. “I cut up the melon you sent me and put it on the windowsill to keep it cool,” she says in a conciliatory tone. “You certainly must be hungry. I’ve cooked some rice the way you like it.”

  Atiq takes off his shabby shoes, hangs his turban and whip on a shutter knob, and sits down in front of the dented metal tray. Not knowing what to say and not daring to look at his wife, for fear of reinjuring her sensibilities, he grabs a carafe and brings it to his lips. The water runs out of his mouth and splashes his beard, which he wipes with the back of his hand before feigning interest in a barley cake.

  “I made it myself,” says Musarrat, watching him closely. “For you.”

  After a pause, he finally asks, “Why do you give yourself so much trouble?”

  “I want to perform my wifely duties until the end.”

  “I’ve never demanded anything from you.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  Seated on the mat across from him, she sags a little, then fixes him with her eyes and adds, “I refuse to give up, Atiq.”

  “It’s not a question of that, woman.”

  “You know how much I detest humiliation.”

  Atiq gives her a searching look. “Have I done something to offend you, Musarrat?”

  “Humiliation isn’t necessarily caused by what others think about you. Sometimes it comes from not being responsible for yourself.”

  “Where are you getting this nonsense, woman? You’re sick, that’s all. You need to rest and gather your strength. I’m not blind, and we’ve lived together for many years: You’ve never cheated anyone, not me or anybody else. You don’t have to aggravate your illness just to prove something—who knows what?—to me.”

  “We’ve lived together for many years, Atiq, and for the first time I feel that I must be failing in my obligations as a wife. My husband doesn’t speak to me anymore.”

  “I don’t speak to you, it’s true, but it’s not because I’m rejecting you. It’s just that I’m overwhelmed by this everlasting war and the squalor that spoils everything around us. I’m a part-time jailer who doesn’t understand why he’s agreed to stand guard over a few poor wretches instead of dealing with his own misfortune.”

  “If you believe in God, you must consider the fact that I’ve become a misfortune for you as a test of your faith.”

  “You’re not my misfortune, Musarrat. You get these ideas all by yourself. I do believe in God, and I accept whatever trials He sends me to test my patience.”

  Musarrat cuts the barley cake and hands a piece to her husband. “Since we have a chance to talk for once,” she murmurs, “let’s try not to quarrel.”

  “Fine with me,” Atiq says approvingly. “Since we have a chance to talk for once, let’s avoid all disagreeable remarks and insinuations. I’m your husband, Musarrat. I, too, try to perform my proper conjugal duties. The problem is that I feel a little out of my depth. I don’t harbor any resentment toward you; you have to know that. My silence isn’t rejection; it’s the expression of my impotence. Do you understand me, woman?”

  Musarrat nods, but without conviction.

  Atiq pokes a piece of bread into one of the dishes of food. His hand trembles; it’s so difficult for him to repress the anger welling up in him that he hisses as he breathes. He hunches his shoulders and tries to regulate his breathing; then, more and more exasperated by having to explain himself, he says, “I don’t like pleading my case. It makes me feel as though I’ve done something wrong, when I’ve done nothing of the kind. All I want is to find a little peace in my own home. Is that too much to ask? You’re the one who gets ideas, woman. You persecute yourself, and you persecute me. It’s as though you’re deliberately trying to provoke me.”

  “I’m not trying to provoke you.”

  “Maybe not, but that’s what it feels like. As soon as you get a little of your strength back, you stupidly wear yourself out to prove to me you’re still on your feet, your illness isn’t about to keep you down. Two days later, you fall to pieces, and I have to pick them up. How long do you expect this farce to last?”

  “Pardon me.”

  Atiq heaves a sigh, moves his little bit of bread around in the cold sauce, and brings it to his mouth without raising his head.

  Musarrat gathers the folds of her skirt in her arms and looks at her husband, who makes moist, unpleasant sounds as he eats. Unable to catch his eye, she contents herself with staring at the bald spot that’s spreading out from the crown of his head and revealing his concave, ugly nape. She starts to talk in a despondent voice: “The other night, during the full moon, I opened the shutters so I could watch you sleep. You were slumbering peacefully, like someone with nothing on his conscience. A little smile was showing through your beard. Your face made me think of the sun coming through the clouds; it was as though all the suffering you’ve endured had evaporated, as though pain had never dared to touch the least wrinkle in your skin. It was a vision so beautiful, so calm, I wished the dawn would never come. Your sleep brings you to a safe place, where nothing can upset you. I sat down beside your bed. I was dying to take your hand, but I was afraid I might wake you up. So, to keep myself from temptation, I thought about the years we’ve shared, not often very good years, and I wondered whether, even in our best, most intense moments, we ever really loved each other. . . .”

  Atiq suddenly stops eating. His fist shakes as he wipes his lips with it. He mutters a “La hawla” and looks his wife up and down, his nostrils twitching spasmodically. In a falsely calm voice, he asks, “What’s wrong, Musarrat? You’re quite talkative this evening.”

  “Maybe it’s because we’ve hardly talked at all for some time.”

  “And what makes you so loquacious today?”

  “My illness. It’s a serious time, illness, a real moment of truth. You can’t hide anything from yourself anymore.”

  “You’ve often been ill.”

  “This time, I have a feeling the disease I’m carrying around isn’t go
ing to go away without me.”

  Atiq pushes away his plate and backs up to the wall. “On the one hand, you cook my dinner. On the other, you prevent me from touching it. Does that seem fair?”

  “Pardon me.”

  “You go too far, then you ask for pardon. Do you think I’ve got nothing else to do?”

  She gets up and prepares to return behind her curtain.

  “This is exactly why I tend to avoid talking to you, Musarrat. You’re constantly on the defensive, like a she-wolf in danger. And when I try to reason with you, you take it badly and withdraw to your room.”

  “That’s true,” she admits. “But you’re all I have. When you’re annoyed at me, when you’re silent and scowling, I feel as though the whole world is turning its back on me. I’d give everything I have for you. I try to deserve you at all costs, and that’s why I make all these blunders. Today, I forbade myself to upset you or disappoint you, yet that’s exactly what I can’t stop doing.”

  “If that’s the case, why do you keep on making the same mistake?”

  “I’m afraid. . . .”

  “Of what?”

  “Of the coming days. They terrify me. If only you could make things easier for me.”

  “How?”

  “By repeating to me what the doctor told you about my illness.”

  “Again!” Atiq exclaims in a fury.

  He kicks the table over, leaps to his feet, swiftly collects his shoes, turban, and whip, and leaves the house.

  Left alone, Musarrat puts her head in her hands. Slowly, her thin shoulders begin to shake.

  A FEW BLOCKS away, Mohsen Ramat isn’t sleeping, either. Lying on his straw mattress with his hands folded behind his head, he stares at the candle as it drips wax into its earthenware bowl and throws shadows that dance in fits and starts upon the walls. Above his head, a sagging beam in the exposed ceiling threatens to give way. Last week, a section of the ceiling in the next room came down and nearly buried Zunaira. . . .