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…

Chapter Six 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.…