The Swallows of Kabul Page 6

  Now Mohsen makes no effort to conceal his relief. He even tries to display it in all its fullness to his wife, so that she may judge how he languishes for her when she turns her back on him. He can’t bear her not speaking to him; she’s the last link that still connects him to anything in this world.

  Zunaira says nothing, but her smile is eloquent. It’s not the same smile her husband is used to seeing on her face; it is, however, more than enough to make him happy.

  She serves him his breakfast and sits down on an ottoman, resting her folded hands on her knees. Her houri’s eyes follow a wisp of smoke, then fasten on her husband’s. “You got up very early,” she says.

  Mohsen flinches, surprised to hear her speaking to him as though nothing has happened. Her voice is gentle, almost maternal, and he deduces from it that the page has been turned.

  He swallows a mouthful of bread so hastily it nearly strangles him. Wiping his lips with a handkerchief, he says, “I went to the mosque.”

  She knits her eyebrows. “At three o’clock in the morning?”

  He swallows again, clears his throat, searches for a plausible explanation, and tries this: “I wasn’t sleepy, so I went outside to get some fresh air.”

  “It really was very hot last night.”

  They mutually acknowledge that the humidity and the mosquitoes have been particularly disagreeable for the last few days. Mohsen adds that most of their neighbors also resorted to the street last night, escaping their baking hovels, and that some of them didn’t return home until dawn. The conversation revolves around the pitiless season, the drought that has ravaged Afghanistan for years, and the diseases that are swooping down like maddened hawks on entire families. They talk about everything and nothing, without ever alluding to last night’s misunderstanding or to the public executions, which are becoming more and more common.

  Then Mohsen suggests, “How about taking a walk to the market?”

  “We’re completely broke.”

  “We don’t have to buy anything. We can admire the heaps of old rubbish the merchants are trying to pass off as antiques.”

  “What will we get out of that?”

  “Not much, but it’s an excuse for walking.”

  Zunaira laughs softly, amused by her husband’s pathetic sense of humor. “You don’t like it here?”

  Mohsen suspects a trap. With a gesture of embarrassment, he scratches the wispy hairs on his cheeks and pouts a little. “That’s hardly the point. I feel like going out with you. They way we used to in the good old days.”

  “Times have changed.”

  “We haven’t.”

  “And who are we?”

  Mohsen leans back against the wall and crosses his arms over his chest. He tries to ponder his wife’s question, but he finds it unreasonable. “Why are you talking nonsense?”

  “Because it’s the truth. We’re not anything anymore. We had some privileges that we didn’t know how to defend, and so we forfeited them to the apprentice mullahs. I’d love to go out with you every day, every evening; I’d love to slip my hand under your arm and let you sweep me along. It would be marvelous to stand in front of a shop window, leaning against you, or to sit at a table, just the two of us, chatting away or making fantastic plans. But that’s no longer possible. There will always be some foul-smelling ogre, armed to the teeth, who’ll reprimand us and forbid us to speak outdoors. Rather than be subjected to such insults, I prefer to stay inside my own four walls. Here at home, at least, when I see my reflection in the mirror, I don’t have to hide my face.”

  Mohsen doesn’t agree. He pouts harder, evokes the shabbiness of the room they’re sitting in, points to the worn curtains, the rotting shutters, the crumbling walls, the sagging beams above their heads. “This isn’t our home, Zunaira. Our house, the place where we created our own world, is gone. A shell blew it away. What we have is just a refuge. I don’t want it to become our tomb. We’ve lost our fortunes; let’s not lose our way of life altogether. The only means of resistance we have left, the only chance we have to reject tyranny and barbarism, comes from our upbringing and our education. We were taught to be complete human beings, with one eye on the Lord and the other on our own mortal nature. We’ve been too close to the bright lights to believe that candles are enough. We’ve known the joys life has to offer, and we thought them as good as the joys of eternity. We can’t accept being treated like cattle.”

  “Isn’t that what we’ve become?”

  “I’m not sure. The Taliban have taken advantage of a period of uncertainty. They’ve dealt a terrible blow to people who were already defeated. But they haven’t finished us off, not yet. Our duty is to convince ourselves of that fact.”

  “How?”

  “By thumbing our noses at their decrees. We’re going out. You and me. Sure, we’re not going to hold hands, but there’s nothing to prevent us from walking side by side.”

  Zunaira shakes her head. “I don’t feel like coming home heartsick, Mohsen. The things that go on in the streets will just ruin my day, to no purpose. I can’t come face-to-face with horrors and just keep on walking as if nothing’s happened. Furthermore, I refuse to wear a burqa. Of all the burdens they’ve put on us, that’s the most degrading. The Shirt of Nessus wouldn’t do as much damage to my dignity as that wretched getup. It cancels my face and takes away my identity and turns me into an object. Here, at least, I’m me, Zunaira, Mohsen Ramat’s wife, age thirty-two, former magistrate, dismissed by obscurantists without a hearing and without compensation, but with enough self-respect left to brush my hair every day and pay attention to my clothes. If I put that damned veil on, I’m neither a human being nor an animal, I’m just an affront, a disgrace, a blemish that has to be hidden. That’s too hard to deal with. Especially for someone who was a lawyer, who worked for women’s rights. Please, I don’t want you to think for a minute that I’m putting on some sort of act. I’d like to, you know, but unfortunately my heart’s not in it anymore. Don’t ask me to give up my name, my features, the color of my eyes, and the shape of my lips so I can take a walk through squalor and desolation. Don’t ask me to become something less than a shadow, an anonymous thing rustling around in a hostile place. You know how thin-skinned I am, Mohsen. I’d be angry at myself for being angry at you when you were only trying to please me.”

  Mohsen lifts up his hands. Zunaira feels a sudden pang for him, a man who can no longer find his place in a society turned upside down. Even in the old days, before the Taliban came, he didn’t have very much drive. He was always more content to dip into his fortune than to embark on demanding, time-consuming projects. He wasn’t lazy, but he detested difficulties and rarely did anything that might complicate his life. He was a man of independent means but with no tendency to excess, and he was an excellent, affectionate, considerate husband. He deprived her of nothing, refused her nothing, and yielded so easily to her requests that she often felt as if she were taking advantage of his kindness. But he was like that: openhanded, easygoing, readier to say yes than to ask himself questions. The thoroughgoing upheaval provoked by the Taliban has completely unsettled him. Mohsen’s former points of reference have all disappeared, and he hasn’t got the strength to invent any new ones. He’s lost his possessions, his privileges, his relatives, and his friends. Reduced to the ranks of the untouchables, he spends his days stagnating, always deferring until later the promise to pull himself together.

  “Well, all right,” Zunaira concedes. “Let’s go out. I’d rather run a thousand risks than to see you so demoralized.”

  “I’m not demoralized, Zunaira. If you want to stay home, that’s fine with me. I promise I won’t hold it against you. You’re right—the streets of Kabul are hateful. You never know what’s waiting for you out there.”

  Zunaira smiles at her husband’s declarations, which are flatly belied by the miserable look on his face. “I’ll go put on my burqa,” she says.

  Seven

  ATIQ SHAUKAT shades his eyes with his hand.
The fierce summer heat still has many bright days to last. Although it’s not yet nine o’clock in the morning, the implacable sun beats down like a blacksmith on anything that moves. Carts and vans converge on the big bazaar in the center of town. The former are loaded with half-empty crates or shriveled produce from local truck farms; the latter carry passengers piled on top of one another like anchovies. People hobble along the narrow streets; their sandals scrape the dusty ground. Behind opaque veils, stepping like sleepwalkers, sparse flocks of women hug the walls, closely guarded by a few embarrassed males. And everywhere—in the squares, on the streets, among the vehicles, or around the coffee shops—there are kids, hundreds of little kids with snot-green nostrils and piercing eyes, disturbing, sickly, on their own, many barely old enough to walk, and all silently braiding the stout rope they’ll use, someday soon, to lynch their country’s last hope of salvation.

  Whenever Atiq sees these children, he feels a deep uneasiness. They’re invading the city inexorably, like the packs of dogs that turn up out of nowhere, feed in rubbish dumps and garbage cans, eventually colonize whole neighborhoods, and keep the citizenry at bay. The innumerable madrassas , the religious schools that spring up like mushrooms on every street corner, no longer suffice to hold all the children. Every day, their numbers increase and their threat grows, and no one in Kabul cares. All his adult life, Atiq has regretted that God never gave him any children; but now that the streets teem with them, he considers himself lucky. What good does it do to burden your life with a pack of brats, just so you can watch them croak little by little or wind up as cannon fodder in a war so endemic, so endless, that it has become part of the national identity?

  Persuaded that his sterility is a blessing, Atiq slaps his thigh with his whip and walks toward the center of the city.

  Nazeesh is dozing in the shade of his umbrella, his neck strangely twisted to one side. He’s probably spent the night there, in front of his door, sitting on the ground like a fakir. When he sees Atiq coming, he pretends to be asleep. Atiq passes in front of him without saying a word. He strides on for about thirty paces, then stops, weighs the pros and cons, and retraces his steps. Watching him out of the corner of his eye, Nazeesh clenches his fists and scoots a little deeper into his corner. Atiq plants himself in front of him and crosses his arms high against his chest; then he squats down and begins drawing geometric shapes in the dirt with his fingertip. “I was rude to you last night,” he acknowledges.

  To enhance his impression of a beaten dog, Nazeesh presses his lips together, then says, “And I hadn’t done anything to you.”

  “Please forgive me.”

  “Bah!”

  “Yes, I insist. I behaved very badly toward you, Nazeesh. I was mean, and unfair, and stupid.”

  “But no, you were just a tiny bit disagreeable.”

  “I blame myself.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “Do you forgive me?”

  “Come on, of course I do. And besides, to tell the truth, some of it was my fault. I should have thought for a minute before disturbing you. There you are, in an empty jail, looking for a little peace and quiet so you can sort out your problems. And here I come, I drop in on you unannounced and talk to you about things that don’t concern you. I’m the one to blame. I shouldn’t have disturbed you.”

  “It’s true that I needed to be alone.”

  “So it’s up to you to forgive me.”

  Atiq extends his hand. Nazeesh seizes it eagerly and holds on to it for a long time. Without letting go, he looks all around to be sure it’s safe for him to speak. Then he clears his throat, but his emotion is so great that his voice comes out in an almost inaudible quaver: “Do you think we’ll ever be able to hear music in Kabul one day?”

  “Who knows?”

  The old man strengthens his grip, extending his skinny neck as he prolongs his lamentations. “I’d like to hear a song. You can’t imagine how much I’d like to hear a song. A song with instrumental accompaniment, sung in a voice that shakes you from head to foot. Do you think one day—or one night—we’ll be able to turn on the radio and listen to the bands getting together again and playing until they pass out?”

  “God alone is omniscient.”

  A momentary confusion clouds the old man’s eyes; then they begin to glitter with an aching brightness that seems to rise up from the center of his being. “Music is the true breath of life. We eat so we won’t starve to death. We sing so we can hear ourselves live. Do you understand, Atiq?”

  “I’ve got a lot on my mind at the moment.”

  “When I was a child, it often happened that I didn’t get enough to eat. It didn’t matter, though. All I had to do was climb a tree, sit on a branch, and play my flute, and that drowned out my growling stomach. And when I sang—you don’t have to believe me, but when I sang, I stopped feeling hungry.”

  The two men look at each other. Their faces are as tense as a cramp. Finally, Atiq withdraws his hand and stands up. “I’ll see you later, Nazeesh.”

  The old man nods in agreement. Just as the jailer turns to go on his way, Nazeesh grabs his shirttail and holds him back. “Did you mean what you said yesterday, Atiq? Do you really think I’ll never leave? Do you think I’m going to stay here, planted like a tree, and I’ll never see the ocean or far-off lands or the edge of the horizon?”

  “You’re asking me too much.”

  “I want you to say it to my face. You’re not a hypocrite; you don’t care how sensitive people may be when you tell them the truth about themselves. I’m not afraid, and I won’t hold it against you, but I have to know, once and for all. Do you think that I won’t ever leave this city?”

  “Sure you will—feetfirst. No doubt about it,” Atiq says, whereupon he walks away, slapping his whip against his side.

  I could have been gentler with the old man, he thinks. I could have assured him that hope is legitimate even when it’s impossible. Atiq doesn’t understand what came over him all of a sudden; he can’t figure out why the malicious pleasure of stoking the poor devil’s distress suddenly seemed more delightful than anything else. He’s worried about his irresistible impulse to spoil with two words what he’s spent a hundred begging for. But it’s like an itch: Even if he scratched himself bloody, he wouldn’t want to be rid of it altogether. . . .

  Yesterday, when he went home, he found Musarrat drowsing. Without understanding why, he purposely knocked over a stool, banged the shutters, and recited several long verses aloud before finally going to bed. When he woke up this morning, he realized what a boor he’d been. Nevertheless, he’s sure he’ll act the same way tonight if he goes home and finds his wife asleep.

  He wasn’t like this before, not Atiq. It’s true, he never passed for an affable person, but he wasn’t evil-tempered, either. Too poor to be generous, he prudently chose to abstain from giving, thus deliberately sparing others the duty of returning the favor. In this way, never requiring anything from anyone, he felt neither indebted nor obliged. In a country where cemeteries and wastelands compete with one another for territory, where funeral processions prolong the military convoys, war has taught him not to get too attached to anybody whom a simple caprice, a change of mood, may take away from him. Atiq has consciously enclosed himself in a cocoon, where he’s exempt from making futile efforts. Acknowledging that he’s seen enough of those to be moved by the plight of his fellowman, he’s wary of his tendency toward sentimentality, which he looks upon as a sort of ringworm, and he limits the sorrow of the world to his own suffering. Recently, however, he’s found that he’s no longer content to ignore those who are close to him. Although he’s made a vow to mind his own business exclusively, here he is, of all people, intentionally drawing on others’ disappointments for the inspiration to master his own. Without realizing it, he’s developed a strange aggressiveness, imperious and unfathomable, which seems to fit his moods. He doesn’t want to be alone anymore, face-to-face with adversity; or rather, he’s trying to prove to
himself that burdening others will make him better able to bear the weight of his own misfortunes. Perfectly aware that he’s doing Nazeesh harm, and far from feeling any remorse, he relishes his assaults as though they prove his prowess. Is that what’s called “malicious pleasure”? No matter; it suits him, and even if it does him no practical good, at least he can be sure he’s coming out on top. It’s as though he were taking revenge on something that keeps escaping him. Ever since Musarrat fell ill, he’s felt profoundly convinced that he’s been cheated, that his sacrifices, his concessions, his prayers have all come to naught, that his luck will never, never, never change. . . .

  “You ought to get yourself an exorcist!” a heavy voice calls out to him.

  Atiq turns around. Mirza Shah is sitting at the same table as last evening, outside the coffee shop, fingering his beads. He pushes his turban back to the crown of his head and creases his brow. “You’re not normal, Atiq. I told you I didn’t want to see you talking to yourself in the street again. People aren’t blind. They’re going to decide you’re a crackpot and sic their progeny on you.”

  “I haven’t started tearing my garments yet,” Atiq mutters.

  “The way you’re going, it won’t be long.”

  Atiq shrugs his shoulders and continues on his way.

  Mirza Shah takes his chin in his fingers and shakes his head. Certain that the jailer is going to start gesticulating again before he reaches the end of the street, Mirza watches Atiq until he’s out of sight.

  Atiq is furious. He’s got a feeling that the whole city is spying on him, and that Mirza Shah is his chief persecutor. He lengthens his stride, determined to get away from Mirza’s table as quickly as he can. He’s convinced that his friend is watching him, ready to hurl another rude remark in his direction. He’s so enraged that he collides with a couple on the street corner, banging first into the woman, then stumbling against her companion, who must cling to the wall to keep from falling over backward.