Then their mother would wrap herself around her and rock her and urge her to think warm thoughts. ‘Remember sunshine coming through the branches of the lemon tree, the golden lemons and there you are, half dressed and paddling in the wading pool to get cool. You will be warm again, I promise.’
Then she would sing, softly, the La La song, which Mahtab had not heard her sing for many years.
La la la la sleep,
Because the night is long,
It’s too early for you to count the stars yet,
Some people are smiling even in their dreams,
Some people have wet eyes even in their sleep,
La la la la sleep.
Three times, Mahtab heard the beating of two strikes against the wall of the cabin. At once her chest felt as if tight bands of steel were wrapped around it, being pulled ever tighter. The ice stone in her belly returned. Doors opened and slammed shut. She heard loud, demanding voices. One time the truck rocked as someone climbed on the tray and pushed the furniture and shoved the sacks of grain from their positions. She heard the slash of a knife tearing through a hessian sack and then grains of wheat pouring out onto the floor. Fine powder blew up and into every space between the furniture. Mahtab felt it in her eyes, her nose, her mouth. She wanted to sneeze, to spit, to clear her head. Feet stamped so close to her. Harsh voices cut through the air. She held her breath. One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven…
By the end of the first week, Mahtab felt she had never known another life. Had she really run through the yard, calling for Farhad in games of hide-and-seek, chasing Leila, squealing until told by Aunt Mina that girls did not make noise like that? Had she slept stretched out on a soft mattress, a cool fan blowing above her? Hour after hour, crouched, bouncing in the half-light, she listened as her mother told the stories over and over again.
‘Ali Baba, Mum,’ Farhad said.
‘No, Aladdin and the Lamp,’ said Soraya.
‘Listen,’ said their mother. ‘This one is the tale of Furhad and Sheenree.’
And so the old stories were retold, of wood-carters, stone-cutters, camel-herders, traders and chieftains, warriors and beautiful, steadfast women.
Between the tellings, Mahtab willed herself to remember. First it was the house, the only home she had ever known. She pictured herself getting up in the morning, casting off the bed covers and stepping onto the rich red swirls of the carpet. The shelf above held books, pencils, paints and the things for study. Then the cupboard where her clothes hung. Brightest of them all was the dress Uncle Rahim had sent from Paris that was too big for her. Now she’d never wear the yellow silk, never feel it fall softly over her skin. Never sit with Leila telling each other again of their future selves, faces made up, jewellery on, waiting for their husbands. There were her dolls too, porcelain ones from Paris, a wooden Russian one with secrets inside and the rag one left caught up in the tangle of blankets. Who would play with them now? Then she saw herself dressed in the blue cotton trousers with matching tunic, moving from room to room, sitting for a moment with her grandmother before going into the larger room where the family gathered for their meals. She willed herself to walk around that room. She stopped before the cabinet with the silver pieces that had been in the family for generations. When she was very small her grandmother had taken the key and unlocked the glass door and lifted out the pieces. One by one she had handed them to Mahtab, letting her run her fingers over the intricate patterns on the bowls and the carafes, telling her the story of how each came to be part of the family. For some time now the top shelf had been empty. Why hadn’t she noticed that before? She turned to the bookshelf with its heavy, leather-bound volumes of Persian poetry, some belonging to her father, more to her grandfather from their student days. Would Uncle Wahid read them to his sons the way her father had read them to her? And finally to the wall with the photographs: Uncles Rahim and Karim who had gone to Paris, her great-grandparents, all of them now long dead. One grandfather and grandmother dead before the time of the Taliban and then her grandfather, gentle Grandpa, gone so cruelly, so recently. Mahtab could not bear to think of them. She wanted to take her mind on to the heavy wooden door and then out into the garden with the fruit trees, the wading pool, but instead it was all blank and again she wept.
Another time, she tried again. She would remember people. Ms Mahboubeh, her tutor, the young woman who had come to the house so bravely when schools and learning were closed to girls. Her brother had been taken to fight in the north with the army of the Taliban and she didn’t know if he was alive or dead. Beneath her burqa she carried books but it was her face that Mahtab brought to mind; the huge dark eyes, filled with a determination to share what she knew with Mahtab and Leila, whatever the consequences. She had a mole on the side of her nose and a tiny scar on her cheek, got, she said, when she fell from an almond tree as a child. Mahtab could hear her voice, one minute reciting the poems, then gently correcting her pupils as they tried to imitate. How would she earn a living now?
One night as they travelled on in the darkness, there was a sudden lurching. The side of the truck seemed to fall away. There were shudders, the sound of gears dropping back and then they pulled off the track and stopped. Farhad and Soraya stayed sleeping as Mahtab and their mother joined their father and Jamal in the moonlight. He shrugged, shook his head and kicked the rear left tyre. It was shrivelled, sunken in the dust. ‘We’ll have to wait till morning. I’ll change it then. We’ll be all right here.’ He climbed back into the cabin as the others pulled their blankets around their shoulders and huddled by the edge of the road.
After a few minutes, Mahtab’s mother climbed back into the truck.
Mahtab stayed with her father. She looked up at the clear night sky. ‘It’s like the times when we used to go up on the roof at home,’ she whispered. ‘Remember? You used to let me sleep up there with Leila and when I was really little you said the sky was a giant ceiling over us scattered with diamonds. And then you taught me that star was Castor and that one Pollux and the brightest group was the constellation the Great Bear. Will we be able to see them in Pakistan?’
Her father put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Yes. The moon and the stars are constant. That’s why we named you Mahtab: “moonlight”.’
Mahtab wasn’t sure what he meant but she nodded.
‘Come on now, back in the truck. ’
‘Can’t I stay a bit longer?’ She leant against him. ‘I’m warm here with you.’
‘Just a few minutes then.’ They sat together in silence.
‘You know, Mahtab,’ he said, after a while, ‘it’s a pity I didn’t get you a diary. You’re big enough to write down all the things that are happening, and then when you are as old as your grandmother you could tell your story to your grandchildren. They will want to know. Writing things down can be a help too, for you.’
Again Mahtab felt unsure of what he meant. Wouldn’t writing about the bad things that might happen make the feeling worse? This time when he suggested she climb back into the truck, she stood up and whispered goodnight. At that moment, from somewhere high above them came a high, whining howl, then another.
Wolves.
‘They are far away. They cannot hurt us here.’
But when Mahtab tried to sleep, she saw a confusion of whips, turbans and wild animals, their black hair streaked with grey, their jaws gaping, saliva dripping from their huge, jagged teeth.
In the morning, Mahtab’s father and Jamal lifted the heaviest wardrobe from the truck and shifted other furniture forward. Then they pushed a huge jack under the frame of the tray and worked the lever up and down until the wheel was lifted free of the road. Farhad held the bolts while the wheel was pulled off and the spare one worked onto the hub in its place. The bolts were tightened, the truck lowered and air was pumped into the tyre.
All the while, Mahtab sat with her mother and Soraya in the shade of the truck, hidden from view of anyone on the hillside that ran down to a river vall
ey. Flocks of sheep grazed the lower section of the mountain, splashes of white and grey set against the green. Mahtab saw the low black tents of the shepherds’ families set out on the flat land, the valley floor. She glimpsed a child the size of Soraya, her clothing scarlet against the dull brown stones. As she leant forward, staring, trying to make out if there were other children, maybe her own age, her mother pulled her back. ‘You must not be seen. Not even here.’
Mahtab’s head dropped onto her knees. Her shoulders slumped. ‘Are we ever going to get there?’
‘We’ll get there.’ Her mother reached into the cotton bag on her lap. She took out a small spice jar and tipped from it the last grains of chilli.
‘What are you doing?’ Mahtab watched as her mother cleaned the chilli dust from the jar and then pressed the tiny container into the dirt beside the road. She lifted it, filled with grey and brown grains flecked with shiny sparkles of quartz.
‘We’ll get there,’ said her mother again. ‘And we will remember.’
Two days later when they stopped for a break, Mahtab looked out over a wide valley. They were still up high and the road ahead of them hugged the mountains as far as the eye could see.
‘Jamal tells me Pakistan is beyond that,’ said her father, waving his hand at the rocky peaks ahead. ‘We will be there tomorrow.’
‘Good,’ said her mother, ‘we only have food for today.’
They made tea and dipped the stale bread in it and ate in silence. Just ahead of them, pushed off to the side of the road, was the remains of a tank, one side sunk in the dirt. The barrel of the gun was torn off and lying against a rock, and the hatch cover was gone. The gap left was burnt, black.
‘Can I go and look?’ Farhad finished eating, stood up and started to head towards it.
‘Come back. Stay here,’ his father said.
‘But what is it? Why is it here?’
‘It’s a Russian one. Defeated in the end,’ said Dad. ‘Many people try to take over our country, but they never stay. Eventually they go, we beat them or they grow weary and return to where they belong.’
Will we return to where we belong? Where do we belong, now? Mahtab stared at the tiny ants crawling on the stalks of dead yellow grass at her feet. ‘You are here for ever,’ she whispered, ‘but I am leaving.’
‘We’ll cross the border at around dawn,’ said her father. ‘Jamal has contacts who’ll meet us there, so we should be all right. You’ll have to stay quiet. You’ll probably all be asleep.’
But Mahtab was awake when the truck drew up at the small concrete building. Through the narrow gap in the side of the truck she could see groups of people, men, women and children, bags and suitcases beside them, sitting on the side of the road. For maybe half an hour she was still and silent. Farhad and Soraya slept. Then the truck inched forward. Stopped. A man’s voice. He was so close, she felt she could reach from her hiding place and touch him. She concentrated, willing herself to hear what was said.
The language was strange. The man was talking, then Jamal. They moved away.
Was this truly the last time someone, anyone, could stop them, haul them from their hiding place, send them back to what lay behind them? Was the cage door about to open and she, the frightened bird inside, about to be set free? She clamped her hands over her mouth and drew her knees up to her chest. Ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven. Please, please, please let us through. Her mother’s lips were moving in prayer. Ninety-six, ninety-five… The truck door opened. Boots walked away. Ninety-four, ninety-three, ninety-two…
What lay ahead? What sort of life was there beyond this point? Pakistan? Australia? Don’t think about that. Just get through this. More muffled voices. Long pause. Her mother’s hand in hers. Squeezing. More waiting. Counting. Finally, footsteps returning, doors slamming, engine starting, wheels turning, truck moving.
We’re through. We’re through. Mum’s hand squeezing harder. Crying. Crying. Happiness and joy. Happiness and joy.
Chapter Four
THEY RODE TOWARDS Quetta through fields of golden haystacks. Jamal had peeled back the tarpaulin and shifted the cabinets. Now Mahtab stood in the sunlight, the cool air on her face, her veil streaming behind her. The wind was cold but not the icy blasts of the mountains. This cold refreshed, and she felt a rosy glow to her cheeks. Two weeks of huddling, bent almost double and fearful, fell from her as dead leaves fall in winter. She was tall and strong and ready.
Her mother stood with her, smiling, her burqa thrown back to cover only her hair. Her eyes shone and the chain of gold coins around her neck sparkled in the sun. Seeing it, Mahtab pushed back the sleeve of her tunic and let the sun gleam on her grandmother’s bracelet.
They drew up, still some distance from the city. There was a farmhouse, enclosed by a high wall, and Jamal got out and banged loudly on the heavy wooden door. It opened and a man appeared and after a brief conversation came to the truck. Mahtab’s father climbed onto the back. Jamal and the other man got into the cabin and the journey to the city started again.
‘Who is he, Dad?’ Farhad tugged at his father’s shirt.
‘A friend. He has arranged a house where we can stay. He has to guide us. Everything is all right.’
‘Will there be a garden and a swing, like at home?’
‘Possibly.’
‘And will there be some boys to play with?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And something to eat? I’m hungry.’
‘Me too,’ said Soraya.
‘And me,’ said Mahtab. She was thinking of a bath, carpets and a bed; a soft, clean mattress, no dust, no dirt, no hard wooden planks to lie on, no bumping, grinding, bouncing over rough, half-made roads. Just a soft down mattress and she would lie on it and bury her face in it and sleep forever.
They stopped on a narrow street. Again Jamal beat on a heavy wooden door and this time he called the family to climb down and to bring all their belongings. They stood there in the dust until the door was opened by a huge, burly man with long hair and a thick beard who waved them in and then began a lengthy conversation with Mahtab’s father.
There was no swing, no garden at all. Across the patch of bare dirt were two buildings, one a rambling collection of rooms, the other a shed. It was to this second building that the family was led.
Inside were two rooms. One contained a bed, the other a mattress and two cushions as well as a sink, kerosene stove and small cupboard. A narrow door led to a toilet outside. The floor was packed earth.
Jamal and the man they had picked up earlier shook hands with Mahtab’s father and wished the family well.
The bearded man left too but he promised to return with food. The door closed.
Soraya began to cry.
‘Stop it,’ said her father. ‘We have escaped. We are still alive. It is not like home but what does a little discomfort matter?’
‘I’m going to call that man “Hairy Man,”’ whispered Farhad.
Mahtab’s mother filled the sink with water and they took turns to wash their face and hands. The water, clean before Mahtab plunged her hands into it, turned almost to mud. Time and again the filthy water was drained away.
‘I don’t recognise you.’ Dad cuffed Farhad behind the ear. ‘This is a new face. A clean face. I don’t know it at all.’
‘And you’re a stranger to me. Ah, Mum, there’s a strange man here, protect me,’ Farhad giggled.
Hairy Man returned with bread and yoghurt and fruit. He ate with them and spoke at length about the forward journey to Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia and of how in that country they would be free of the dangers they had known before. ‘It is not a Muslim country,’ he said, ‘but there are many like us who have made it their home.’
‘I know,’ said Mahtab’s father. ‘I have heard and read about it.’
Mahtab knew he was thinking of the young man he had met so many years ago. That young man had told of the rich farmland he had lived on, fields of wheat like those they had just
travelled through. The city where he had studied was new, newer than anything Mahtab could imagine, and it was built beside the sea. Where was he now?
‘But you must go first,’ the man said to Mahtab’s father. ‘It is better that way.’
Mahtab trembled. No. They had come so far together, because they were together.
‘We will talk in the morning. My family is exhausted.’ He poured more tea for them all. ‘We are very grateful, but now we must pray and we must sleep.’
Sleep didn’t come. Mahtab lay on the mattress and stared at Soraya and Farhad, curled up like puppies on the cushions. He must not leave them. What would happen to him? If they all stayed together, he was safe. She could hear her mother and father talking softly in the next room. If he went now, alone, journeying through strange countries, anything might…anyone might seize him again. The wind rattled the sheet of iron above her head. She heard strange insect sounds. And what would happen to them? How would Mum manage with no man to protect her? This was an unknown city. They had no friends, no family here. Mum had never been alone. Would Hairy Man look after them? Did he have a wife and children? Would he take all their money? Their gold jewellery? She ran her fingers over her bracelet, feeling the shallow indentations on the flat surfaces of the coins. Grandma had said the writing on them was in a language from India that she could not read or understand. All she knew was that it had been in the family, passed down for many, many years. What else had she said? So you will always remember.
Sleep must have come eventually because she woke to the sound of cups being put out and the smell of tea being poured. They sat on the floor and handed around the bread and talked of their plans.
‘When we get to the place where we’re going to live, Dad,’ said Soraya, ‘can I have a paddling pool like the one at home?’
‘You can have everything you want, everything I can get for you.’ Her father pulled her onto his lap. ‘I’ll talk to the men who arrange things this morning and we will set out as soon as we can.’
‘In a truck?’
Mahtab's Story Page 3