Chapter Thirty-Two
A green-uniformed man, sitting in between Nazia and me, warned that each word earned us a slap. He held the rose flower design earrings I’d bought for my cousin sister. Glanced at them, glared at me and shook his head. Abstained from battering me, perhaps, because his boss in the front passenger seat received walkie-talkie reports of how another child fedayi surrendered to the authority, and how the child’s handler had promised the child that Khudai would spare him from the flame and shrapnel, and only obliterate the ‘American infidels’.
The pick-up truck drove into a metal gate above which read ‘District Nine Police Headquarters’, and pulled over in front of a white building. The policeman, with the earrings in his hand, escorted us inside the building, down the stairs to a basement and shoved me into a urine-smelling concrete cell, as narrow as my shoulders’ width and as high as my neck. I sat on the rough floor and leaned against the wall. Orange bulb light fell through the square-shaped food hatch.
As my eyes became acquainted with the dark, I read on the unpainted walls, Fuck the police chief’s wife. Another one wanted pussy. A topless woman with enormous breasts was drawn beneath the writing. Was what happened before the school real? Was I locked in a cell? Did I feel like Khudai had taken off my and Nazia’s clothes and stood us nude in the Makroryan Market?
Khudai had taken Frishta, my father, sisters, friends, watan from me, and the one thing He hadn’t fully denied me was my obro and ezat. He confiscated what’d been left today. Dishonoured me and, more distressingly, Nazia. My action defamed her before the entire school. Destroyed her future. Who’d marry a jelaiwho had a lunda? Nothing restored your obro and ezat once you lost them in Kabul. Khudai, why do You keep punishing me? What sins have I committed that You don’t let go of? If You’re angry with me, why did You stigmatise an innocent jelai? How can she take all this with a tiny heart? You could’ve broken my legs and smashed my face but spared Nazia the humiliation. I’d have gladly swallowed all the poop before the school if only it spared Nazia. My eyes welled up, and I let Ahmad loose. Let him scream as loud as yesterday’s fedayi bomb. Let him bang the walls with his fists, heads and legs, as hard as the mob beat me. Let him sleep, as comfortable as the Chaman-e-Hozori’s addicts high on heroin.
***
WHO’S SOBBING? And why? Why am I distressed? My eyes opened. My senses came to me and my heart fell – thunder had hit Nazia and me in front of the school.
The sound of footsteps followed by a key turning in a padlock, and the metal door opened. A darker-faced officer in a uniform spat. Saliva mixed with hard fluids bombarded my face. I knew it from its pungent smell, like a fresh bundle of coastal hay, to be naswar. I wiped the grains of naswar with my sleeve.
‘Out.’
I stepped out in the dim orange light, suffering pain in my thighs and arms.
‘Jot down your details,’ he said, his mouth still full of naswar. He extended a file. Half of his jumper buttons were undone, allowing his many-sizes-larger shirt to come out.
‘There’s a misunderstanding,’ I said.
He punched me in the stomach.
I folded and sat on my knees, unable to breathe.
‘Must be ashamed of yourself, a chatal womaniser.’ It stung when he accused me of being a ‘dirty’ womaniser: an accusation I tried to avoid all my life. I remembered from time to time Satan tempting me in England to have a girlfriend, especially when I discovered jelais had developed feelings for me. Every time the urge came, I’d perform ablutions, pray nafl-prayers, and ask Khudai for a halal relationship – a righteous wife.
‘Stop acting pain.’ He kicked me with the heel of his military boot.
‘You’re breaking the law. You have no power to raise your hand.’
He shadowed over me, smelling of hashish. ‘Tonight I’ll tear your balls off. You’ll no longer be man enough to harass jelais.’
I didn’t doubt him, given he was high at work and had already violated my civil liberties. ‘Please let the jelai go. For her obro and ezat.’
‘Did you think of them when you loitered before the school?’
‘Why don’t you like a man say the real reason why I’m here–’
‘Chup. One more word and I’ll kick you in the face,’ he said, raising his right boot. He clenched the jaws and his joined eyebrows lowered, which turned the dark circle around his eyes darker. He looked mad.
I believed in the power of reason. In logic. He lacked it, so I couldn’t win with him.
After a pause, he put his leg down, passed me the file with a pen stuck to the side.
‘You’re old enough to be her father. Where are your principles?’
Like the suffocating cell, principles had caged me and compelled me to go through plenty of trouble and humiliation, those of today included, or else I could’ve been long married. Still on my knees on the damp concrete, I jotted down my details in the shadow as his head covered the pear-shaped light bulb. He took the file, locked me up and stepped away. The sound of a key turning in a padlock from two cells away.
‘Name?’ I overheard him asking.
Nazia burst into sobbing.
‘You should’ve thought of the consequences.’
Nazia sobbed.
‘Don’t waste my time. Write.’
‘I’m not such a jelai.’
‘Yeah? Was I doing lundabazi?’
‘I swear on Khuda jan I don’t know him.’ She burst into tears.
‘Details.’ He raised his voice. A taqq sound.
‘Khudai, damn you for raising your hand on a woman,’ I screamed, and punched the door.
‘Chup, bastard.’
‘I won’t let you get away with this. My first complaint will be to the Independent Human Rights Commission as I step out from this damn place. I’ll leave no stone unturned.’ Yesterday, besides travelling to the Qargha Lake and popping into the state-owned Jamhuriat Hospital to say I could provide free online advice from England if they needed it, I visited the Commission, the main motive for my disappearance, and told them how I felt threatened by the NDS. For 15 years, I explained, I’d been volunteering to the Racial Equality Council in Durham and produced reports when human rights organisations required them. Was I a terrorist because I criticised the government’s policies? Or did MI5 or MI6 suspect I planned a terrorist plot because I prayed in the same mosque with people who possessed extreme views and, on occasion, supported their racial discrimination claims? The Commission reassured me of their support, took my phone number and address in Kabul, and told me to let them know if anything happened to me. I reckoned the mad officer followed the broad-shouldered man’s orders. Nazia paid for whatever wrong I’d committed.
Quietness. A couple of minutes passed.
‘Makroryan? The centre of lundabazi.’ Hearing Makroryan being a centre of corrupt behaviour wasn’t a first – or fair. The sound of a cell getting locked, footsteps up the stairs, and a door shutting.
For the next few lingering hours, Nazia wept silently, went quiet, and wept again. I did nothing; couldn’t even comfort her. Hoped Najiba had informed Shujah, or someone from Nazia’s family, about our arrests – our uncertain fates. I’d known getting married in Kabul was not straightforward, but I’d never foreseen that my khastegari would lead to dishonouring a jelai. Mour and I failed to find an Afghan jelai from the thousands of Afghan families who lived in England, mostly in London. Perhaps we had nobody like Nazigul to look for a suitable family, or maybe many families found us too backward. One Afghan jelai told me she had no intention of marrying a ‘Pashtun from the Rahman Baba period’. Another took a lenient approach and made me feel I belonged to two centuries later, ‘the 19th century’, and expressed shock that I held to its ‘backward values’. Yet another wanted me to give up my ‘radical Islamic views’ and shave my beard on the day we got married. For many others, we never got to the discussion stage since, as they kindly confided in me, they already found their future husbands without their parents’ knowledge, but would inform the parents at the right time when I opined that the relationship might not be solid without the parents’ blessing.
Mour and I liked a jelai, the only one who wore a hijab and taught in an Islamic madrasa, but she and her family wanted me to move in with them. ‘She wears the hijab and is an ustad. She does so without you forcing her. All your conditions met. Go ahead, you won’t find such a jelai,’ Mour said. ‘Don’t worry about me. Khudai will look after me,’ Mour added. I refused to trade my mother for a wife. ‘How would you feel if your son cherishes you until he needs you, and then throws you away in your days of need?’ I remembered telling the jelai.
‘I don’t need a son to babysit me.’
‘Your demand violates both Islam and Afghan tradition,’ I added. We never returned to the family.
Finding an Afghan jelai from a traditional family who’d know a daughter-in-law’s responsibilities and give me a hand in looking after Mour if need be proved as difficult in England as discovering a solution for the US-Taliban conflict. Afghanistan presented itself as the obvious choice.
Nazia was silent. She might have run out of tears. How worried would Nazia’s parents be about her sudden disappearance? What would they think of a daughter imprisoned for having a ‘lunda’? According to Najiba, Nazia was a punctual student. Always did her homework. Scarcely discussed anything else apart from her studies. How would her classmates view her now, though? How would she keep people’s mouths shut? Or repair her obro and ezat? What if they kept her overnight? People would gossip about how the policemen ‘touched’ her. The thought of it turned my stomach.
I did dry ablutions. Clueless of the time of prayer, I performed nafl-prayers. Dropped on my knees, pressed my face to the urine-smelling concrete, and begged Khudai to save Nazia. I pleaded He heard me this time. My face pressed to the ground. Please. Please. Please…
***
THE SOUND OF footsteps, lots of them. I sat up and, through the food hatch, caught a glimpse of a figure in black between policemen. A key turned in a padlock. Green-uniformed men filled the tiny, orange-lit corridor and obscured my service hatch. The door of the parallel cell clink opened. A woman’s voice asked if Nazia was OK. Nazia burst into tears. The woman reassured Nazia. The person before the food hatch stepped off and followed Nazia and a figure in black – I reckoned, the woman – surrounded by policemen and people in black suits and ties walking upstairs. The woman’s voice troubled me. Had I been listening to it for years? It sounded like… Mour. No, like Zarghuna. Or Nazo? Were they here to save their brother from the wolves? Did Khudai send them? Or was I losing it?
More footsteps. My service hatch opened, and a hand entered, holding a disposable plate full of white rice and a small piece of meat in the corner with a buttery odour. The plate travelled back out when I didn’t take it. I had no clue whether Khudai heard me or there was some plot. Where did they take Nazia? Who did the familiar voice belong to? Sound of steps rushing down the stairs. Key turned in my padlock, plate qeghgh moved to the side, and the door opened, revealing the mad officer, holding a teapot and a towel. He’d buttoned up and combed his side-parted hair.
‘Can you step out, please?’
Was he the same person?
He passed me my iPhone, the folded notes and the earrings. ‘The school constantly complains about bad haleks. We have to be strict.’
‘Where is the jelai?’ I stepped outside.
‘Wakil saheb’s taking her home.’
‘Which Member of Parliament?’
‘She’s for… Kunduz.’
‘Dr saheb, please don’t complain to Wakilsaheb.’
‘What about Khudai? You fear a Wakil saheb but not the entity Who’s created her?’ I suppressed the urge to punch him in the face. I remembered once kicking someone and the next time pushing another person. Apart from those two incidents, I’d never laid a finger on anyone in my life and wouldn’t do so even if I had the power to break the nose of this cocky plus mad officer. What good would have come of it? It wouldn’t mend Nazia’s obro and ezat. She’d forever carry the social stigma. ‘You can’t punish prisoners before they’re proven guilty; it’s the job of the court to pass judgments.’
He nodded. ‘Please freshen up.’
Maybe he didn’t want Wakil sahebto see my broken head and bloody hands. He held the teapot and poured the cool water. Under the dimmed light, blood mixed with water made its way on the concrete floor as I washed my face and hair, feeling the stiffness in my knuckles. Completed the ablutions. Drank from my cupped hands the water, as pure as that of Paghman, once he confirmed its cleanliness. He passed me a ‘clean’ towel, which I also used as a praying mat.
***
AS MY EYESIGHT became accustomed to the reddened sunlight, I noticed five white Mitsubishi jeeps parked behind one another, and two or so dozen armed guards in black suits and black glasses scattered around them.
‘We’ll take Dr saheb home,’ a neatly trimmed bearded man in black suit and tie said to the mad officer. With a muscular physique like one of the security guards from the CIA, the middle-aged man shook my hand, introducing himself as Ashraf, the chief head of Wakil saheb’s security detail. His hairy hand with long fingers buried mine. He’d fixed his eyes on me from the time he’d introduced himself as if I was some expensive goods and he was interested in purchasing me. It was unsettling. Did he plan to kidnap me? Or he worked for the NDS, for the broad-shouldered man, the director of every single scene of today’s drama?
‘Which Member of Parliament?’ I tried to suppress my fear.
‘Wakil saheb Afghan. She’s representing the courageous people of Kunduz.’
The mad policeman thanked Ashraf, whispered another apology to me before disappearing.
Agha was right, if you had money, power, or connection to power in Afghanistan, everyone respected you. No one hindered your business. Everything flew. No matter what crime you committed, you got away with it if you had one of the above three magical weapons. Apart from Khudai, I knew no one with power in Kabul. I reckoned Nazia had the last one: connection to the woman who owned the polished Japanese jeeps, the woman whom all those bodyguards protected and the mad policeman feared. But I had faith in Khudai and believed my prayer must’ve played a part.
The mad officer reappeared – they required me in the office of the police chief. The broad-shouldered man won’t let me go, I thought with a sinking heart. Khudai, I take refuge in You. When You protect, no one will overcome me. Carrying pain with every step, I followed Ashraf and the mad officer walking to a long corridor on the first floor and into a large room with the photos of President Karzai and someone who once gave me his blessing, the legendary Northern Alliance leader, Ahmad Shah Massoud, sitting up above the giant desk.
I remembered writing an A-Level assignment one midnight when Mour knocked on my door and broke the news that two Al-Qaeda terrorists posing as journalists exploded their bomb hidden in a camera, killing the charismatic leader. ‘They’ll inshallah capture the entire country,’ Mour said. The Taliban held 90 per cent of Afghanistan, and with Massoud’s death, everyone believed the Taliban would capture the remaining 10 per cent. Two days later, 9/11 occurred and America, to Mour’s disappointment, re-energised the Northern Alliance to overthrow the Taliban and their benefactor, Al-Qaeda.
Security guards in black suits and ties, and policemen and women, stood before the desk. No sign of the broad-shouldered man, thankfully. I caught a glimpse of Wakil saheb and Nazia standing with their faces towards the mahogany desk as the mad officer guided me to the back of the room. Ashraf made his way to Wakil saheb and whispered. Wakil saheb nodded and jotted down something on a piece of white paper over the desk. The police chief behind the maroon desk saluted Wakil saheb and they shook hands. Wakil saheb touched the rotating world global map with his right hand, touched the eyes with the same hand, and then kissed the hand.
Four guards in black suits rushed and held the door open. Three more and Ashraf marched behind, and the two sides of Wakil saheb and Nazia; they looked like the CIA agents around President Obama. The entourage stopped by the door, bodyguards squeezed to opposite sides, revealing Wakil saheb’s glaring face. She held the penetrating glare and shook her head, and out she went. Thunder struck. The ceiling fell. The room and its maroon sofas turned round and round. My hands shivered, my body trembled, and my legs collapsed.
‘You OK, Dr saheb?’ a voice asked. ‘The floor’s dirty: sit up.’ The police chief held my left arm and sat me on a soft object. ‘What’s happened?’ He rested my head against the squashy thing like a pillow.
The police chief’s iPhone rang. ‘Me and another officer,’ he answered. He ordered the mad officer to leave. Extended his Hugo Boss-smelling hand.
‘Still a thief?’ the familiar voice from the basement said with a relaxed tone.
My gaze fixed on the police chief’s hairy hand holding the iPhone. Perhaps he sensed my hands didn’t have the nerve to hold a mobile.
‘Stole Nazia’s peace of mind, too?’
My mouth lacked the strength to utter any words.
‘Since when have you become a pervert?’
My lips remained sealed.
‘Do you know who you’re speaking to?’
My heartbeats elevated.
‘Think hard.’
My body shivered.
‘Scared?’
Was I scared? Actually, the ceiling had just fallen on my head, causing such concussion that I didn’t know what to make of everything I saw or heard.
Silence, except for my heart’s fast beats.
‘Have you gone mute?’
Like my body, my lips had no energy to move.
‘I’m Frishta.’
The brain blocked the word ‘Frishta’ from entering my head. How come the dead turned up alive? Frishta had been killed, buried, dusted.
‘Already forgotten about me?’
My brain remained paralysed.
‘Frishta? Your neighbour, the daughter of Brigadier?’
Did I dream of a voice telling me on the phone she was Frishta? Did Frishta turn around and look me in the eye earlier on?
‘The Leopard, remember?’
The Leopard, my lips moved to repeat the words without a sound.
‘Hello,’ she said, raising her voice. ‘Chief, can he hear me?’
The police chief brought the handset closer to his right ear, saying I heard everything. She asked him to pass the handset back to me. He held it close to my right ear; the Hugo Boss scent got stronger.
‘Stay away from jelais’ schools. I don’t want to hear another complaint. Understood?’
The police chief’s fresh bouquet at the corner of the desk containing red, pink and orange flowers kept getting blurry.
‘I’d have left you to rot in those urine-smelling cells if it wasn’t for Nazia. I won’t allow you to destroy the life of another woman.’ She cut off. Seconds later, the mobile rang and the police chief answered.
He took a few steps, pushed away the three-tier filing tray with his backside with a scratching sound and sat on his desk. ‘I can give him a lesson if you–’ I overheard. His face changed colour. His right hand moved to the back and brought out a black pistol with a dark orange hand. He pointed the handgun at me. Revenge, a voice whispered. Please, Khudai, don’t punish Frishta for my death; I deserve it after what I’ve done to her, I prayed and read Shahada, There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. He shook his head and pressed a bell with the pistol. The mad officer stepped in. ‘Throw the coward out,’ the police chief said, waving his head towards me.