Wazir waited in the bright morning under the acacia tree on the lawn in front of Baktash’s corridor. Normally, Baktash joined me second, and Wazir last. Shirullah met us in the Market, and we dawdled to school. Why’s Wazir first today? I wondered. ‘It’s the time,’ Wazir said. Sunrays, coming through the trees, lightened…

The post-dinner evening teas became a nightly routine. To my surprise, Agha talked a lot to Brigadier. I soon discovered they’d fathered the same child: they sat on sofas in the top two corners of the room, opposite each other, with cups of tea and bowls of sugar-coated almonds and chocolates placed before them,…

Frishta held two thermos flasks of green tea and three plastic trays of sugar-coated almondsand chocolates, and placed one tray before Mour on the Afghan rug, and the other two on the oak table in front of Agha and me. Poured the steaming tea into cups and placed them next to the trays. I…

The rukhsati bell clanged. Every student cheered the occasion; I found it the scariest rukhsati of my life. We crossed the black school gate in the chilling weather and, thanks Khudai, saw no Rashid. Hurried by the sideway along the school walls and onto the muddy playground with pools of surface water. My heartbeat…

The wooden canteen – big enough to accommodate the salesman and a few jars of spicy simyan or a home-made snack, chickpeas, biscuits and lollipop – often took up half of our break owing to its location in the far corner of the schoolyard, and its lengthy queues. Today was no exception, but Baktash’s…

A short man in a washed-out suit was gesturing. He leaned against a Russian jeep parked on the pedestrian way in front of the Russian-subsidised cooperative. My heart fell as the short man showed his red-coloured card: a KHAD agent. ‘Asnad?’ The KHAD agent checked our ‘documents’, tazkiras or birth certificates, and handed them…