Category: Afghan History

Chapter Sixteen The wooden door, crumbling with age, had no chink to peek inside.Should I knock, or jump over the wall into the house? If I knocked and someone answered, what was I supposed to say? If that person was Shafih, I’d thrust Mour’s kitchen knife into his stomach. But then I wouldn’t catch…

Chapter Fifteen Baktash cheered when he found me waiting in the bright morning under the acacia tree. I thanked Khudai for giving me such a loyal friend, and wished Wazir was also there. *** STUDENTS PEEKED AT ME, whispered, or shook their heads in the assembly. I must learn to face my new, embarrassing…

Chapter Fourteen It’d been two and a half hours since Frishta had entered a mud house. The day had turned into a moonful night, and, like a fearful shepherd standing on guard for the wolf’s arrival, I waited impatiently by the corner of a dirt alleyway with a thin stream dug along it. Open,…

Chapter Thirteen Brigadier and Mahjan greeted my parents in the hallway. A knock on the door, to my anxiety. I pulled the blanket over me. A pause. The door opened, stayed for a moment, and then shut. My withdrawal had worried Mour. Thanks, Khudai, she left without bothering me to join them. I freaked…

Chapter Twelve The buffalo-headed Mullah Rahmat lumbered in, followed by the religious studies ustad, Rauf Khan. The mudir told his two bodyguards, armed with Kalashnikovs, to go back to the edara. Instructed us to get some chairs and the students from nine jim. Baktash and I, together with a few others, executed the order…

Chapter Eleven The following day, to many students’ horror, the buffalo-headed Mullah Rahmat showed up at the assembly. He’d dismissed Raziq Khan for failing to follow his ‘clear instructions’ and reiterated his ‘feet-and-the-halek’s-stomach’ threat. We marched into separate year nine classes: one all jelais; the other all haleks. We were in the nine alef,…

Chapter Ten “Release yourself from people’s chains…and you’ll fly as high as the…pigeons.” The following day at school break, Shafih collapsed as we lay on the lawn to enjoy the warm sunshine and the smell of fresh grass. Students chilled out in twos and threes, eating simyan and chickpeas, sucking lollipops, or crunching on…

Chapter Nine 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…

Chapter Eight 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…

Chapter Seven Frishta held two thermos flasks of green tea and three plastic trays of sugar-coated almonds and 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…