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 increased as four henchmen rushed from different directions and stood before us, panting and puffing. They differed from the ones who accompanied Rashid at the break; the current ones wore long perahan tunban, shalwar kameez, with prayer beads on their necks. I followed their eyes and peeped back to see Rashid racing with two henchmen, one holding a Kalashnikov. Our bodies turned to him like coins to the pull of the magnet. A breathless Rashid stood like a hero, like Raja from the Indian movie. He, too, had a scarf around his neck. I spotted a Makarov pistol tucked into his right hip next to the knife; the nunchaku had disappeared. Whatifhe shootsus? I wondered. As we did many times in the past, anxious-looking students gathered to witness Rashid’s thrusts in our buttocks.
‘I’m sorry,’ Baktash said to Rashid.
Rashid placed his hand on Wazir’s right shoulder, ‘Wazir Gul Haqqani, the new school gangster in my absence.’
Wazir’s gaze glued into Rashid’s face. My best friend’s eyes showed no fear. Unlike me, his body was still. Wazir’s deep-socketed eyes like an eagle seemed eager to attack as soon as Rashid raised a hand.
‘Why do students call you Arnold?’
‘A real Pashtun defends the weak,’ Wazir said.
‘Bullies the weak,’ a henchman said, his Kalashnikov pointing at Wazir.
‘Ah, you side with the victims against the baddies like me?’ Rashid said.
Wazir’s eyes were fixated on the target.
‘A fight between a villain Bruce Lee and a hero Arnold.’ Rashid had a black belt in Taekwondo. ‘Arnold will end up with ten holes in the buttock,’ Rashid added.
His henchmen laughed.
Wazir didn’t match his favourite actor in fame, but certainly in height and build. Like Schwarzenegger, Wazir would knock Rashid out provided the thug allowed a fair fight.
‘By a Tajik Bruce Lee,’ another henchman said, and they all laughed.
‘We’re all brothers,’ I said.
‘Shut up, stupid Pashtun,’ the henchman said.
Wazir’s gaze was still glued on Rashid.
‘I’ve always feared those eyes,’ Rashid said to his armed hooligan.
I expected any moment a dull ache in my buttock before the thickening crowd in the ground surrounded by blocks of flats. No one rescued us. The ustads barricaded themselves in the school until Rashid knifed his victims. A few brave souls peeked from the corner classroom, visible to us.
‘Rashid, we’ve done you no harm. Baktash apologised. Please let us go. What’s the point in fighting?’ I said.
‘You’re as beautiful as Frishta, Shorawi.’ Rashid stung me with Russian. ‘You’d be very handy in the frontline. Cook for us daytime; keep our beds warm night-time. Isn’t he as handsome as a jelai, soldiers?’
‘He is yummy, Commander,’ one of Rashid’s thugs said.
They cackled, their tunbans, shalwars, stained with muddy water.
‘With your beauty… this soft baby skin… light brown hair…’ His cold hand touched my cheek and hair. ‘I’d have a jelai every day, even gorgeous-looking ustads.’
‘Ustads are like our mothers.’ How could he talk about them in this way? To even mention the idea was an unforgiveable sin. My mouth dried and my heart rate increased when the pervert made the inappropriate comment and touched my cheek but, apart from the mouth, which was only able to plead for mercy, the rest of my body had reached the frozen-up phase, shamelessly rendering me incapable of taking badal, revenge, for his dishonouring act.
‘Is your mother Afghan?’
‘Woh.’ If only I had black hair and a brown face, I wouldn’t have to answer the same question time and time again.
‘I thought she was Shorawi.’
Rashid’s insult pained me like a knife attack in my buttock.
‘I heard jelais fancy you in school?’
‘I’m not that type of a halek.’ I loathed this sort of talking.
‘What type are you?’
‘I’m Muslim.’
‘We’re all Muslims.’
The henchmen snickered.
‘Womanising is haram in Islam.’
‘Why’s Frishta your jelai, then?’
‘She is not my jelai. We live along the same corridor. Her father is my father’s friend.’ She’d thrown us to the wolves and herself might’ve lain in her warm room, crunching her midday snack.
‘I’ve been told otherwise.’
‘She’s my neighbour. I swear to Khudai.’
‘Have her. We don’t care,’ Baktash said.
‘No. We do,’ I blurted out, to my surprise.
‘Shut up, beghairat,’ Wazir said to Baktash, calling him a coward. ‘We don’t care about the Hazara,’ Wazir said.
‘He’s our friend,’ I said to Wazir.
‘That’s what the Pashtuns are good at.’ Rashid glared at Wazir. ‘Have you, fags, seen a doctor to treat your slain buttocks?’
‘Let Ahmad go. Your business is with me,’ Wazir said, perhaps having seen my frightened status.
‘I won’t go without you,’ I said. My legs shook. My heart was in my stomach. I imagined the deep pain with insatiable throbbing. So let’s get it over and done with.
‘Who sniggered?’ the henchman said, putting candy in his mouth and tossing its wrapper in the rainwater on the left.
‘The Mongol with chubby cheeks and a double chin.’ Rashid put the back of his two fingers on Baktash’s right cheek and pinched it. Baktash made an ah sound. His cheek turned red, the eyes tearing up. Baktash wouldn’t have been a victim of Rashid’s if it wasn’t for Wazir. Like me, Baktash hated conflicts.
‘Though it’s unfair to make the Hazara pay for centuries-long cruelty of the Pashtuns, right?’ Rashid asked his hooligans.
‘Right,’ they replied.
‘Go, Hazara,’ Rashid said to Baktash.
Baktash flinched. Looked at me and hesitated.
‘Now, Hazara, or never?’
Baktash sneaked off, getting a kick on his bottom from Rashid for ‘the sneer’.
One of the henchmen took a cigarette, lit it, inhaled, and offered it to Rashid, who took a puff and blew the smoke in our direction, making me cough.
‘Who wants who?’ Rashid said, passing the cigarette to another henchman to the left.
The henchmen had no time for a reply. Frishta darted, to my surprise, her bag swaying from side to side.
‘Why have you confronted my brothers? You wanted to settle with me,’ an out of breath Frishta said, her face flushing.
Rashid flinched.
‘Beautiful. Brave. Loyal. You aren’t actually a girlfriend but wife material.’
‘Making a khastegari, then?’
My Khudai, she talked about ‘marriage proposal’ like a halek.
‘Definitely. Mum will be sitting at yours tomorrow, my beautiful pussy cat.’
‘Except, I’m a leopard, and leopards don’t marry a dog.’
‘I’m a lion.’
‘I object. You’re given a gun to defend your watan. Instead, you use it to terrorise defenceless students and ustads. You’ve turned into a cancer in the school and must be cut out at its roots.’
I’d never imagined a smiley-faced jelai like Frishta, a female, was capable of confronting a bully.
‘You going to cut me?’ Rashid said. ‘Listen, soldiers, a jelai is cutting Rashid, the bloodsucker.’
The henchmen laughed.
‘If I give you birth, I can also eliminate you.’ Her voice broke.
Did I hear a loud, screeching noise? I followed Rashid’s alarming eyes and saw a Russian jeep braking a few metres from us, water and mud splashing. Another jeep. And another. Finally, a giant Russian truck full of armed guards pulled over. Armed men jumped off and surrounded us. Their guns pointed in our direction. The preparation sufficed to fight a battalion. A man like a giant gorilla emerged from one of the jeeps.
My Khudai, Agha would never come to school to save me from Rashid; he’d go through the roof for creating him ‘extra problems’.
Brigadier ordered blocking off the area and instructed students to clear off. Brigadier squelched across the muddy water with a dozen armed guards, who disarmed Rashid and handcuffed the henchmen. Rashid and the armed hooligan showed no resistance when their pistol and Kalashnikov were removed. None of the other henchmen was armed.
‘Have you called them?’ Two guards held Rashid.
‘I’ve used your language to communicate with you. Now, if you’re the son of a real man, not a bastard, if you have sucked your mother’s milk, then fight these men, the real men,’ Frishta said. Her rage was as loud as the Kabul River in spring, tears coming down her face.
‘No power can hold the bloodsucker for long. I’ll be back for you, whore.’ He headbutted one guard, punched the other, and snap-kicked Frishta in the face, then threw a sidekick, but Frishta lowered her head. Wazir’s two-kilo punch landed on Rashid’s jaw with a cracking noise, followed by Frishta’s kick in Rashid’s groin. Rashid folded with an ahhkh, his face as dark as the mud.
‘Beat up the dog,’ Brigadier roared. Punches, kicks and even Kalashnikovs’ stocks and barrels bombarded Rashid. Brigadier grabbed Rashid, telling the son of a ‘whore’ he was a coward, not a bloodsucker, promising Rashid – whose left eye blackened, and a mixture of blood and saliva drooled from the corner of the mouth – that he’d never see Kabul again. Rashid spat saliva and blood on Brigadier’s face. Brigadier pushed him against the ground and ordered his men to wash ‘the dog’ in the grey water. Hands pushed Rashid’s face in the rainwater and kicks struck his thighs, legs and sides. Rashid spat water and gasped for breath as they pulled his dirt-soaked head out like a dying, laughing dove. Brigadier ordered his men to throw ‘the dog’ and his ‘puppies’ in the jeeps. ‘Are you OK, padar jan’s leopard?’ Brigadier asked his daughter. She was fine. Brigadier asked if we were OK, too, wiping his face with a handkerchief. Better than OK, we were relieved. Thanks to Frishta, today’s episode climaxed in Rashid’s downfall.
Frishta jumped in the first jeep and faced the back seat, her hands and lips moving. The passenger door clicked open, and the person Frishta talked to got out. Ustads and Raziq Khan, along with some students, appeared, and after checking with us, Raziq Khan asked her what she did in the jeep and who these men were. Frishta had positioned Roya by the Makroryan Market to direct the vehicles on arrival, and the armed men were Special Guards from the KHAD, ‘Frishta’s padar jan’s army’.
Raziq Khan, himself a victim of Rashid’s public slapping, nodded, his head turning to the muddy water which had temporarily swallowed Rashid’s head. Locked his widened eyes with an ustad, then another and another. Tears spilt out of the sides of the grey-haired mudir’s eyes. ‘Afarin,’ he said, as if to himself. ‘Afarin.’ His head moved up and down. His eyes travelled to the direction Frishta had left in with her father’s army. ‘She’s what I call the true jelai of Afghanistan, the Malalai of Maiwand.’ Did Raziq Khan call Frishta the true ‘daughter’ of Afghanistan, the Grandmother of the nation?
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