Mom once described Tilly as a roller-coaster mother. If what I saw were the highs, I can only imagine what the lows were like.
“I wonder if I should have asked you more about your parents, your brother. I thought I’d be pushing you into uncomfortable places, but now I think I might have been sparing myself.”
I consider this. We both deserve more than coddling answers right now.
“You did the best you could. You’re not to blame,” I say. “I . . . I really hate the way I tried to keep them deep in me. It’s my fault too that I couldn’t hold on to them better.”
“Sweetheart, you were just a child then.”
We were all something different then—even Shair.
“Do you think I should forgive Shair?” I ask.
“That’s not for me to decide,” Mom replies. “And I’m more interested in you forgiving yourself. You have carried around this guilt because you made it out and they didn’t. You did nothing wrong. You have held them in your heart and become an amazing person in their honor. I hope, no matter what happens on this trip, that you’ll believe that and give yourself a break. You deserve to be happy and loved.”
Mom rises and disappears into the bathroom. While the pipes whistle, then shirr with the flow of water, I take a moment to think about what I deserve.
I'll confess, I have craved romance, the kind I saw when my father would sing off-key love tunes to my mother and she would hide her smile, her flushing cheeks. There is a single quatrain from the Shahnameh embedded in my mind, as out of place there as a chandelier in a cave.
So tightly they embraced, before Zal left,
Zal was the warp, and Rudabeh the weft
Of one cloth, as with tears they said goodbye
And cursed the sun for rising in the sky.
I’ve always believed that if I just worked hard enough, practiced enough, insisted enough, anything would be possible—even some form of love.
But I’ve never believed I could have the bewildering passion of Rudabeh and Zal—one of the many things I lost in the fire. It is a petty thing to lament now, especially as I stand within kilometers of where I lost everyone.
Mom may be right about forgiving myself, but she does not know the abyss I see when I look inward. What if I forgive myself and nothing changes?
Chapter 57
The driver still hasn’t told us where we are headed. We’re stuck in traffic, feeling directionless. I scan the cars around us and the pedestrians along the road looking for the man I saw last night. I don’t see anyone of the same height and build, no one with a khaki-colored jacket like his.
I haven’t said anything about him to Clay or Mom. I don’t want anyone to limit my movements or try to cut this trip short—not when I’m so close.
Right after the coup, I felt like all of Kabul was hunting me, but so much time has passed since then and so much has happened in those years that I can’t possibly be of any interest. On the other hand, I’ve read that kidnappers prowl the country for foreigners in hopes of a hefty ransom. Judging by the comments I overhear, I know it’s no secret I’ve come from abroad. Maybe she’s come to take a soldier back home, one woman had muttered to her friend as I walked past.
My stomach growls. I didn’t have much of an appetite this morning and didn’t eat more than a square of toast.
“Clay, is this the block you were talking about?” Mom asks. As we got dressed this morning, she told me she and Clay ended up talking late into the night. Their conversation drifted from Afghan history to Beatles albums and the best way to brew a cup of coffee. Clay is interested in trying the coffee sock technique Mom learned in Malaysia. They seem downright chummy this morning.
“Yup, this is the one,” Clay says. Holding his cell phone just below the car window, he snaps a photo. We are driving past a row of soaring mansions with elaborate balustrades, gilded columns, and second and third floors boasting wide balconies. “You know those pictures of drug kingpins wearing a dozen thick gold chains around their neck? You see that same flash in home construction too. It’s called narcotecture.”
“These are criminally ugly,” Mom comments.
I catch the driver looking back in the rearview mirror. When our eyes meet, he glances at his cell phone. I wonder if we’ve been too trusting in getting into this car, then chide myself for being so paranoid.
“Agha,” I ask, trying to sound casual, “we will need to stop along the way to pick up a couple of bottles of juice. We didn’t have much breakfast.”
The driver shakes his head.
“There is no need, sister. They will have something for you there,” he says.
I swallow hard. Mom tries to read my face.
“I just asked if we could stop somewhere to get drinks,” I say softly in English. I repeat the driver’s response to Mom, who stiffens a bit. Clay, sitting in the passenger seat next to the driver, swivels his head to look back at Mom and me.
“How’s everything going?” he asks.
“Good,” I say, even as I run escape scenarios in my head. We could jump out at an intersection, press the driver for the truth, or send a distress message from my phone. I will not let us become three more ticks on the register of stolen lives.
We pass billboards advertising cell-phone companies and travel agencies. The road becomes wider, the buildings shorter and farther apart from their neighbors. The smoke gives way to dust. We are on the outskirts of Kabul, heading east. The city falls away and the driver’s cell phone rings. He answers, telling the caller we will arrive shortly. Then he listens, nodding and looking at me in the rearview once more.
I search the backseat for anything that can be used as a weapon. I take a pen out of my purse and make a mental list of the places into which I can plunge its tip. When Mom sees my white-knuckled grip on the pen, her forehead wrinkles with worry.
“Ary . . .” she says. She means to reassure me, but I see a flicker of doubt cross her face. She looks at the back of the driver’s head.
“My friend,” Clay says, with his usual charm, “are we going where I think we’re going?”
The driver looks at him briefly, then turns his eyes back to the road.
“He’s asking if you’re taking us to Pol-e-charkhi,” I say in Dari.
The driver nods.
My father had advised President Daoud against the creation of a prison so large. When you build a prison large enough to swallow all our schools, do not be surprised to see it do just that.
The prison appears like a citadel in a desert. High stone walls topped with barbed wire. Corner towers with watch guards in position. It is ten blocks long and just as wide, with the central buildings laid out in the shape of a wheel. Clay looks over at me, his cell phone in his hand.
“No signal out here,” he says. “How about you?”
I check my phone. Reception is faint for me as well. Still, I tap out a quick email to Carla at the U.S. embassy.
We’re at Pol-e-charkhi. Brought here by people from Ministry of Interior after I met with them and inquired about recovered bodies. They are not saying much yet.
I click Send. The message goes into a queue, to be sent when a network becomes available.
Clay looks at me, his face shadowed with uncertainty too.
The driver pulls over and takes the keys out of the ignition. He points to a gate and tells us we can disembark.
“They are waiting for you inside,” he tells us. One by one, we exit the vehicle and assemble by the passenger side. Mom adjusts her headscarf, pulling one end across her mouth to block the dust.
“I suppose we’re going in,” she says.
The driver walks to the gate, cups his hands around his mouth, and hollers for someone to open the door. A guard appears and eyes us slowly through the metal bars before turning a key. With a grating sound, the door swings open.
The guard motions with his head for us to follow him into a building smaller than the one beside it. It’s an austere structure with windows a ten-yea
r-old child couldn’t fit through.
Inside, three uniformed men sit around a wooden table. One holds a cigarette between two fingers; he squints as he exhales a cloud of smoke into the room. The men eye us curiously while I take in the layout of the room. There isn’t much to look at. There’s a calendar on the wall, a desk with a shoebox on it, and a filing cabinet shoved into a corner of the room.
The men stand, and I note that each has a handgun holstered at his hip.
“Please sit,” the smoking man says. The driver is gone. One of the soldiers opens three folding chairs and sets them at the table. We slide into the seats, positioned with our backs to the door. Not that it matters. If we were to run outside, we would run into an open dust bowl. “Tell us, please. We hear you have been asking about the bodies of President Daoud Khan and his family.”
I sit with my legs crossed, my back straight. I imagine myself in an operating room and try to feel like I have some control.
“We’ve already discussed our situation with the Ministry of the Interior. They arranged for the driver to bring us here, so surely they must have told you that my family was killed along with President Daoud Khan’s family.” I repeat my story, leaving out the detail of my presence at Arg the night of the coup. When I finish, there is a long pause.
The smoking soldier stubs his cigarette out in a glass ashtray.
“It is true,” he says gruffly. “We have found a grave with bodies in it.”
I feel my heart thumping. I sit forward in the chair.
“But this is nothing new. Every year at least one grave is found. Sometimes five, sometimes five hundred anonymous skeletons.”
“And they all deserve a proper burial. Surely the remains of the people who died in the coup aren’t only of interest to me.”
“It was long ago,” he says.
“There were many boots bloodied at Arg,” I insist. “Surely someone has been willing to come forward and break his silence.”
My voice rings with desperation. I fight to regain control.
The two soldiers look at the one who seems to be the superior of this trio.
“The investigation is ongoing,” he says with an air of authority. “We are not yet confirming the identities of the bodies we have found.”
“But you believe them to be the bodies of those killed in Arg?” I demand, a half-question, half-statement.
“You know, not everyone in Arg was killed that night. Some were brought to this prison and later exiled. The shah of Iran flew them to Europe. Perhaps your family has been living in exile?”
Having seen what I saw that night, I did not believe this. I’d read it online but saw no pictures to prove it had happened. Clay and Mom watch my face intently, struggling to track the conversation. They see my head drop, as if pulled to the ground by a force stronger than gravity. Finally, I muster the strength to continue.
“They were not exiled,” I say softly. “They were not even given the mercy of prison. I am looking only for their bodies, brother. I was witness to their martyrdom.”
Shahid. Witness.
Shaheed. Martyr.
So close. We were so close.
His expression softens.
“May their souls rest in heaven,” he says, a small act of grace by a man who has likely seen little of it in his lifetime. I watch him reach for the shoebox on the desk.
“What I am about to tell you is not information for the public. I know your friend here is a journalist, but this is strictly confidential. Is that understood?”
“Absolutely,” I say, looking at Clay and Mom and nodding. They follow my lead, sensing the direction of the conversation. I look at Clay’s lap pointedly. He puts his pen down, closes his notebook, and sits back in his chair.
“We received word about the location of the bodies. We began digging. We found sixteen sets of remains and are currently working on confirming their identities.”
“You’ve found them,” I say. “They must be among the sixteen.”
The soldier shakes his head.
“Sister, we believe the bodies we’ve found are all members of Daoud Khan’s family.”
“How can you know?”
He opens the shoebox and pulls out a clipped stack of photographs. He spreads the pictures across the table. I see a blue tarp and realize I’m looking at the site of the remains they found. In another photograph, small trinkets are arranged beside human remains and small placards. Among the skeletons, he explains, they had found clues left behind after decomposition. While I cannot read the names of the cards because my eyes have blurred, I can see metal suspender clips, a small golden Qur’an, and an orthopedic boot.
“He carried that in his pocket at all times,” I say solemnly, recalling the time Neelab had asked her grandfather to show us the Qur’an that a Middle Eastern king had given him.
The president and his wife.
Their six children.
A brother.
A sister-in-law.
Four grandchildren, including a toddler.
My eyes close against the rush of memories. Neelab had learned to knit just so she could make that baby a hat for the winter. I see each of their faces—the furrowed brow of the president, Neelab’s dimpled grin, and Rostam’s ebullient smile—as if we have gathered in the dining hall of the palace. We were meant to spend our lives together.
It is so hard to breathe.
I clear my throat. I have had ample time to think of the artifacts I would look for in the dust.
“My father had a silver pocket watch engraved with a horse’s head. My mother wore a gold pendant of God’s name. My brother . . . my brother was three years old. His teeth . . . he had baby teeth . . .”
My throat constricts. No amount of meditation or concentration can release me from the choking feeling.
Mom wraps her arms around me. Clay lowers his head. I wait for the soldiers to speak.
“Sister, I’m sorry to inform you—”
I brace myself.
“But we have found none of the traces you mention.”
I look up. That cannot be right. The bodies were all taken away that night. Surely they must have been buried in the same place. Then I remember the interaction in the Ministry of the Interior. I open my bag and pull out my wallet.
“How much do you want? Tell me. Fifty? One hundred? Two hundred?”
The soldiers look at one another.
“I want to give them a decent burial. You would want the same for your family.”
“Aryana,” Mom says sharply, as if trying to break me from a spell. A breath shudders through my chest.
The soldier in charge slowly collects the handful of bills I’ve tossed onto the table between us. He slides them back to me, and my stomach sinks.
“I have lost people I love too. With God as witness, I wish I could give you the peace you deserve this very moment.
“Come,” he says. They lead us outside, and I expect him to ask us to leave now, but he does not. Instead, he points to something beyond another building and indicates that we should follow. We walk ten minutes from the walls of the prison to the far end of the land. There is little for the eyes to see out here. The looming mountains. A circle of thick branched trees between the grounds of Pol-e-charkhi and the neighboring farm. We ascend a small hill and see freshly upturned earth, a trench dug into the ground.
“The remains were here?” I ask.
He nods.
I lumber down the hill, stumbling at times. At the edge of the ditch, I fall to my knees and stare into the earth. Have they been too hasty? Maybe I will spot a remnant they’ve missed.
But there is nothing here.
I think of how far I’ve come, how long I’ve waited. My headscarf slips away, irreverent, as I press my head to the ground and grieve the last ounce of hope I’d managed to hold.
Chapter 58
The ride back to Kabul takes much longer, as if the car has become heavy with defeat.
“I’m so sorry, love,”
Mom says, trying to console me. I keep my head turned to the window. I cannot look at her now. I cannot look at anyone now. Clay hasn’t said much, not after halting the soldiers who did not want me disturbing the excavation site.
Please. This is a lot. She needs a minute, he pleaded. He was right. The hurt was so raw that the coup might have been three days ago instead of three decades.
When we get back to the hotel, I take my migraine medication and sleep for the remainder of the afternoon. Mom tries to wake me for dinner, but I cannot drag myself out of bed. She rubs my back, caresses my hair. I hear her in the bathroom, trying to hide her heavy sighs and sniffles with the sound of running water. I want to tell her that my sorrow is enough for both of us, but I can’t form the words.
In the middle of the night, a noise in the hallway wakens me. It’s probably someone from the hotel collecting room service trays or dropping off newspapers. I shut my eyelids but cannot get back to sleep. I slide out from under the covers, open my laptop, and reconnect to the hotel Wi-Fi. I scan my email messages and, by force of habit, log in to the charting system to review any urgent messages from patients. My colleagues have been refilling prescriptions and following up on images. The staff have been making appointments and wrangling with the insurance companies for prior authorizations. There are only three unread messages. The first is a note that a patient’s MRI was denied, the second is from a patient asking for a referral to an acupuncturist, and the third is a letter from a primary care doctor letting me know a mutual patient has passed away.
The patient is Shair Nabi.
I should not be surprised that he’s gone. I recall his ragged appearance, the sallow color of his skin. I consider throwing my computer across the room.
I am furious with him for not telling me more before I left. I’m furious with myself for not pushing him harder, for tolerating his oblique answers and his evasiveness even in our final conversation.
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