Chapter Thirty-One
In the bright early morning of the following day, on the way to school, Najiba, who had thin lips and a headscarf covering her forehead down to the bridge of her nose, popped in to explain the plan. We thanked Najiba for her invaluable help. She did this because Khudailoved those who assisted two young people to ‘build a future’. Plus, Nazia, ‘a quiet and hard-working student’, deserved to marry a ‘doctor’ from a ‘decent family’ fortunate enough to live in ‘London’.
Afghans considered a jelai lucky if she married in the West because scarce proposals of a khastegari came from there. She’d have a peaceful future in an environment where sorrow, stress and depression had no existence. After all, what did Western Afghans have to worry about? They had three meals a day, clothes to wear, a place to live and, most importantly, the certainty to return home in one piece after a day’s work.
Maybe foreign Afghans’ concerns about marital relationships, their children losing Afghan traditions, struggling to find a suitable person for their sons or daughters, and getting buried thousands of miles away from your ancestors in the wet soil of a foreign country weren’t worth stressing over in the eyes of local Afghans.
***
MY HEART POUNDED as though everyone glared at me for the shameful deed of loitering in front of a jelais’ school. I looked at my watch: 10:52. My Khudai, another eight minutes to linger around in the unbearable sun; maybe more before Najiba and Nazia walked out. I preoccupied myself with the make-up items and pointed to a pair of earrings for Farzana, Nazigul’s younger daughter, in the corner of the four-wheeled cart. A 12- or 13-year-old jelai priced it at 20 Afghani. I paid a 100 note and told her to keep the change. She glanced at a shaven, middle-aged man who uttered an ‘OK’ to his ‘daughter’. She took the earrings out of their plastic case, cleaned them with a cloth, which appeared dirtier than the earrings, put them back in, and passed me the plastic case.
A row of white and yellow taxis near the metal school gate and carts bursting with leek bolanis, pakoras and shornakhud on both sides of the road squeezed in and their drivers abandoned their transports, as American soldiers in military helmets gestured to stay away from the three Humvees beeping their ear-splitting trumpets. A woman relinquished her crossed-leg posture and sprinted away from the road, leaving – like the rest – her circular straw tray full of samosas unattended. I followed the father and daughter and sat under a tree. The road bustling with traffic a moment ago went empty as if a Bollywood villain had made an entrance. The Humvees flew past.
‘Alhamdulillah, a fedayi didn’t explode himself,’ the shaven man ‘thanked Khudai’ as he shifted his cart back closer to the street. His neatly organised departments of stationery, biscuits and chewing gum had scattered messily.
‘And didn’t get run over,’ the daughter said.
The cart next to us opened his steaming pot and served a halek with a plate of shornakhud. The whiff of boiled chickpeas and potato salad, coupled with hot sauces, took me back to my schooldays.
‘…Standing close to Americans in Afghanistan equals committing suicide,’ the father said and put blue, red and green packs of crisps back in their place.
A tall man with bushy eyebrows covered his face with his turban and jumped into a red Carina as my eyes caught him. He drove off in the opposite direction to which the Humvees had vanished from sight. I was filled with trepidation. What the hell did the broad-shouldered man want from me? Khudai, You’re my strength and my support. Please help me go forward and win my fight. I don’t want to chicken out, not anymore.
I tuned into the father talking as I grappled with my heart beating against my chest.
‘How would they protect us if they don’t step down from their vehicles? They see every single passer-by as a detonating bomb,’ the father said.
‘They’re even scared of a little jelai,’ the daughter said and laughed.
‘Tell him the story,’ the father said.
She hesitated.
He encouraged her, informing me how she wanted to be a journalist.
‘A school jelai runs towards the American. He shouts, “Stop, stop,” but she doesn’t know what “stop” means. He fires by her feet. She freezes – her schoolbag drops. The Afghan soldier finds nothing in the backpack but books, notebooks and pens, telling the American she raced because she was late for school. The American collapses, his body trembling, saying, “Same-age daughter, same-age daughter”. Another American walks out of a Humvee, gives the crying jelai chocolates, and tells her to rush for her class. He drags his weeping friend in.’
‘You can’t secure Afghanistan with cry-babies,’ the father said.
Enlisted in the military service to make some kind of difference, but a trivial mistake could’ve turned him into a monster in his own eyes and made the man hate himself all his life. I identified with the feeling. At least the American soldier had been lucky; some of us hadn’t.
‘China’s now roaring as the world tiger,’ the father said.
‘A giant one,’ I said.
‘It’d be soon China’s turn to invade Afghanistan. Like the Red Shorawi and the kafir America, we’d tame China, too,’ the father said. This time, I also joined the father and daughter’s laughter and checked around for the bushy-browed man. No sign of him, thankfully.
He carried on speaking about how Karzai’s disagreements with America were showy. Realising I showed no interest in politics, he discussed how today’s students preoccupied themselves with games and mobile phones, and how ill-mannered they’d become, especially ‘Kabuli haleks’ who had nothing else to do except to ‘harass’ women. He sighed. ‘Where have those honourable men gone?’
‘Is this why she isn’t in school?’ I said.
He required the daughter’s companionship to look after her section because his department alone failed to support his family unless he sold ‘mobile accessories’, which he didn’t have the capital for. Some people were ‘bad’: they paid a double or triple price but asked for ‘dirty things’, he added, shaking his head. I realised why she glanced at the father earlier on when I said to keep the change.
‘You’re different, of course. You’re a good man.’
‘What makes you say that?’ The corners of my mouth stretched.
‘Your manners.’
‘Thank you.’ Politeness wasn’t a habit. You had to make an effort. It felt good when someone appreciated it.
‘Importantly, you haven’t looked at a single female passer-by.’
‘Women have an honoured position. They’re mothers and sisters.’
He nodded. ‘You’re a man of integrity.’ His eyes watered. ‘My trust has been restored in humanity.’
‘Integrity,’ I found myself saying, thinking how desperately I had once wanted to discover what the word meant. ‘I’m nowhere near what you think,’ I said to the man. I indeed was nowhere near my hero, Frishta. My phone rang, and I excused myself. Nazigul was at the other end, saying to mention nothing about the khastegari to Nazia; we’d meet today, and Nazia would be told later on about me, and if we liked each other, then we’d move to the next phase. This wasn’t part of the plan, I annoyingly told Nazigul. She apologised, adding that Najiba and Nazia’s mother had just phoned to say that Nazia was ‘shy’ and would ‘lose confidence’, and might ‘refuse to walk out’ with the teacher if she found out about the meeting. Unlike Qandigul, Nazia’s mother favoured that the halek and jelai sit together under supervision, but believed her husband and sons would disagree. I took a deep sigh and uttered an OK, discouraged by the meeting’s woulds, mights and ifs.
I heard the school bell in trepidation. Jelais in black dresses and white headscarves covered the school’s front like ants coming out of their anthill, chatting, giggling and screaming. How to spot Najiba and Nazia among hundreds of jelais? One excited jelai of around 15 or 16 ran past me, shouting after another that she had some cake left. None of the jelais looked older than mid-teens. How come Nazia was at least in ‘her mid-twenties’? The question concerned me. Ustads in light green overalls and coloured headscarves now walked out in twos and threes. Where was Najiba? What if… A hand waved. To my relief, it was Najiba in emerald-green overalls. ‘For the mobile accessories,’ I placed pound notes in the father’s hand. ‘Send my niece to school.’
He gasped, his eyes widening. ‘Thank you, brother.’
‘I’ll take the money back if she doesn’t start attending school.’
As a university graduate, the father understood the importance of education.
‘You’ll make a talented journalist, inshallah.’ I told the jelai what I’d said years back to Zarghuna.
I said goodbye to its owners and strode towards Najiba and a medium-sized figure in a black dress and white headscarf.
Najiba took a step forward. We greeted.
‘Oh, I forgot to bring your book,’ Najiba said.
‘Enjoy it?’
‘Loved it. So proud of Khaled Hosseini.’
The name rang a bell.
‘This’s my student, Nazia, by the way. My cousin, Ahmad jan.’Najiba pointed with her eyes to the jelai.
Nazia’s gaze fixed on her feet, the searing sunshine reflected in her hair clip.
‘Salaam alaikum,’ I said, my mouth getting dry and heart pounding harder.
‘Salaam brother.’ Her voice was barely audible. She didn’t even put her eyes up for greeting. Nazia’s wavy hair favoured her: it covered half her face. She did possess Mour’s wow factor, but to me, she wasn’t more than 20.
‘Back in seconds,’ Najiba said and rushed off in the direction where cheering jelais sprang out.
‘Don’t need it now. Bring it home,’ I said. Najiba rushed inside the school, anyway. I made up my mind. Despite all the wow factors, I’d never make Nazia my wife. Would’ve got a daughter her age had I married earlier on. I didn’t know what convinced Mour and Nazigul to estimate Nazia’s age at over 25?
My heart beat faster; I was clueless about what to say. Nazigul’s solution proved humiliating, even cruel.
Sweat erupted on her forehead. Her left hand trembled. Najiba’s decision to leave her with a man, I reckoned, confused Nazia. A man she’d never seen before. A man and the situation she’d known nothing of.
‘Is my cousin a good ustad?’ I broke the awkward silence, praying in my heart for Najiba’s swift return. The back of my neck started to itch. The sun was right overhead.
She nodded, her face blushing. She pulled her white headscarf forward. I bet she had a heart as tiny as a warbler. No wonder she’d grown on Mour. She appeared as if I was about to take her to the gallows. I decided to stop torturing her and leave at once.
‘Tell Najiba I’ve gone home. She can bring the book–’
Bang. A whack stung my face, the force of which made me lose my balance. Another smack. I fell to the floor. Legs flew around me in a circle. My ears rang. What was happening? Did a hand hit across Nazia’s face, too? Another one grab her ponytail and pull her onto the dirt floor?
‘You whore. Instead of studying, you bring your lunda to the school,’ a rough voice said.
A kick hit me in the thighs. A hard object against my head. A kick in the stomach. Another knocked the wind out of me. Attempted desperately at breaths.
Fists, slaps and kicks came from all directions. I curled up and covered my head with the hands and elbows. Noticed some from the crowd wore dark green uniforms.
‘Our daughters cannot go to school because of people like him,’ a voice said. Did I know the voice?
‘Hit the bastard,’ another said. ‘He’s got no obro or ezat.’
‘Give the son of the dog a lesson, so he never lundabaziin front of the jelais’school,’ said another voice among many more.
The words obro, ezat and lundabazi struck me like the airport fedayi attack, eating into my sense of honour.
‘Beat the fatherless whore. She’s brought shame on the whole school.’ Another voice.
A couple of hands shoved dried biscuits into my mouth, but as they squeezed against my teeth and tongue, they tasted like dried leaves having gone bad. Their odour rang the alarm. I spat out the dried faeces, spat again and again until no saliva remained in my mouth.
A figure in dark green uniform shouted, ‘Bas.’ Enough. ‘No more beating. No more laughing,’ the voice added. Two dark green-uniformed men pushed the mob away.
‘Tffff.’ Saliva landed on my face. The green-uniformed men shoved away the spitter. I wiped my face. ‘How dare he speak to my daughter? I’d have killed him had I known the hypocrite’s business,’ he said. ‘Take your haram money with you.’ He hurled the folded £20 notes at my feet and spat in my direction again.
The green-uniformed men placed Nazia and me in a dark green pick-up with the word ‘POLICE’ written on it.