The Khan

by Saima Mir

  Sher Khan fell to apologising. ‘Khan Baba. I have five daughters myself. If I could have waited I would have, but my sons… They will be released from jail tomorrow and I have been trying to find the most respectful way of making my request. I want them to be with me. I am an old man and my life is almost done. I wish to ask, to request most humbly, that my sons take my place on the Jirga.’

  A murmur ran through the men. Akbar Khan held up his hand and silence fell once again. ‘The law of this country saves a man after he has done wrong,’ he said. ‘Our customs stop him from doing that wrong. Are our customs as good as their laws? Some would say not, we would say yes. But your boys have tasted of their laws, and now they want to live by ours. I do not know if they will be able to administer justice when they carry the desire for vengeance, but…this is how our life is. It is up and down. As for taking your place in the Jirga, you are not the first to ask this, and you will not be the last… Come enjoy the wedding. Today, eat and spend time with your wife and daughters. You and I will speak more about this tomorrow night, inshallah.’

  Hearing these words, Sher Khan began calling down blessings upon Akbar Khan and his family. He moved forward to embrace him but Bazigh Khan stepped in, quickly ushering him and the other men out of the room. When he returned he found Akbar Khan standing by the window, watching the guests, his face pensive.

  ‘There is that one final matter of business, Lala,’ he said.

  Akbar Khan turned to face his brother. ‘The chief of police wants me to help him with something?’ he said. ‘It was so much easier when they were the enemy.’ He shook his head slowly at the changing times and blurring boundaries. ‘This matter, what is it?’ he asked.

  Bazigh Khan relayed the news of the nightclub shooting to his brother, who listened silently, his face dark, his brow furled. ‘If the young are not initiated into the tribe, what else will they do but burn the village down?’ Akbar Khan said. ‘Still, we do not need another race war. Our people do not know fear. They will destroy everything that we have spent years building. Tell him, the policeman, to come to the house tomorrow… Let us listen to what he has to say, and hope he listens to us before our boys find a way to get heard.’ Bazigh Khan nodded at his brother’s wisdom, understanding the implied and the unsaid.

  Theirs was the camaraderie of soldiers and of family, of shared secrets and of blood. As brothers, they had stood apart from other men and back to back with each other. The things they had done and the things they had seen were never spoken of, but, like white-hot irons on flesh, they had left their mark.

  Akbar Khan turned back to the window and watched his family enjoying the evening. Standing in the middle of the garden was Maria, as radiant and blushing as a bride should be. And there, too, was Jia, so much like him, and so unlike her sister – one golden and the other pale, one gentle and the other sharp. ‘I see both my daughters are here today,’ Akbar Khan said to his brother. He regarded them from afar as the sisters hugged one another.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ Jia said.

  ‘I’m in good company, aren’t I?’ laughed Maria, and Jia noted the ease with which her little sister opened herself up to life, her soft brown curls falling around her face, her shoulders loose, her touch light. Maybe this is what she herself would have become if things had been different.

  Maria taught at a primary school nearby. That’s where she had met the man she was marrying today. Loved and beloved, Maria changed lives in ways that Jia once hoped she would too. Out of everyone in the family, Maria alone had managed to maintain some kind of relationship with Jia despite the circumstances. It was what sisters did with ease. It was what brothers let slip. It was what made men and women need each other.

  Jia adjusted her sister’s jewellery. The string of pearls that ran along her centre parting had twisted, turning the gold pendant that hung from it over. ‘Benyamin is angry with me,’ she said.

  ‘He’s angry with everyone. Except his girlfriend, Mina,’ said Maria. Several questions sprang to mind but Jia put them aside. She made a mental note to talk to Maria about it after the wedding.

  ‘You really do look lovely,’ she said, admiring her sister’s outfit. ‘I’m glad you made me come.’ A rogue silk thread was coming away from the pinks and the plums of the brocade of Maria’s wedding dress. It occurred to Jia that family was a little like jamavar: countless delicate threads woven together to make an intricate and somehow robust fabric, but one that frayed quickly if not looked after. She looked around for a pair of scissors, but finding none, she leaned forward and broke the thread with her teeth the way she had seen seamstresses do in Zainab Market.

  ‘Ben can be an idiot,’ said Maria.

  ‘I think it might be my fault,’ answered Jia, her voice distant.

  Maria waved at her groom. He was watching her from the other side of the garden. He looked in need of rescuing. ‘He can’t quite handle the outfit,’ said Maria.

  ‘Are you sure you want to marry this man?’ asked Jia.

  Maria laughed again, and it filled Jia with a lightness, like hope.

  ‘I should go help him before Baba sees. By the way, you know Elyas is here?’

  The lightness evaporated instantly. Jia nodded. She knew he was here. She just didn’t know if she was ready to see him.

  She watched her little sister traverse the space, feeling both pride and envy at her youth. She handled the silk gharara with the same ease as she handled everything else in life. Sanam Khan had succeeded in protecting at least one of her daughters.

  Back in his study, her father was thinking the same thing as he watched them.

  ‘You seem troubled, Brother?’ Bazigh Khan said.

  ‘A little. I want you to take these papers. There is a letter in it addressed to you. Open it tomorrow before you come to see me, and then burn it.’ Akbar Khan placed his right hand on his brother’s shoulder, as if to stress the importance of what he was about to say. ‘I know it is a strange request, but everything will become clear. Tomorrow evening, we’ll talk like we used to before things changed, yes?’ His voice was weary. Bazigh Khan had not heard him speak this way since Jia left. ‘I trust you above all others. And I know that you trust me. I know that you will stand by the family no matter what,’ he said. He locked eyes with his brother, unwilling to look away until understanding passed over Bazigh Khan’s face. The matter was too important to be avoided, yet too delicate to be ridden over roughshod with empty words. ‘No matter what happens,’ he said.

  Bazigh Khan nodded. ‘Yes, Brother,’ he said. ‘You have my word.’

  CHAPTER 11

  He scanned the other guests with a mix of nerves and excitement. The thought of seeing her had kept him up all night. He wondered if this was what a mid-life crisis felt like. He wondered why he was here. He wondered if this was a mistake.

  Across from him, surrounded by his closest friends and his children, Akbar Khan danced with his wife. The man who’d damaged Elyas’s life was still happily continuing his. The last time he had been in this place, words had been said and tragedy had followed. The last time he’d seen Akbar Khan was when he had left Ahad in Elyas’s care.

  Watching the crowd encircle his father-in-law, clapping and singing and making merry, he felt time fold back on itself. It brought with it pieces of his past…the scent of his new bride’s skin, the henna on her hands, the light as it poured in through the blinds the morning after their wedding night, and the sound of her singing in the bathroom. He was hit by an ocean of longing for old times, followed by a wave of hatred for the man who had taken it from him. Akbar Khan hadn’t aged a day and watching him now, acting as if his life had lost none of its vigour, anger began to rise inside Elyas. He wanted to march over and wrap his hands around the old man’s neck and squeeze and squeeze until the life ran out of him.

  ‘Drink, sir?’ a voice said, snapping Elyas out of his thoughts. He knew now he should not have come. He turned to leave, but stopped. A woman was waving at him from the other side
of the marquee. She began walking towards him, pulling the edge of her pink sari tight around her shoulders, the lace of her blouse delicately framing her slender neck, and he felt that old pull in his stomach return. He watched as she effortlessly crossed the crowded marquee and the years of missed opportunities and unsaid words. She stopped before him, and he realised he was holding his breath. He realised, again, that this was a mistake. He realised he hadn’t really got over her.

  ‘Elyas,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d come.’

  ‘Jia Khan,’ he said, and then nothing. They stood in awkward silence, watching as others who hadn’t met since the last family event embraced, laughed and posed for photographs. The oft-imagined overcooked words saved up for meeting one’s past love fell away as Elyas shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, his new shoes cutting into him. He was grateful when she finally broke the silence. ‘You’ve started wearing glasses,’ she said.

  The ordinariness of the conversation managed both to annoy him and put him at ease. ‘I’m getting old,’ he said, as he touched the bridge of the solid black spectacles, pushing them into place.

  ‘They suit you. You look clever.’

  Where the hell were you? Why am I here? And what the fuck is going on? – all words he wanted to say, but didn’t. Experience had taught him the consequences of rash actions, and he understood better than most the power of words. Maybe being tongue-tied in front of an old flame was where small talk originated, he thought wryly.

  ‘You didn’t think I looked clever before?’ he batted back.

  ‘You look good. And you still haven’t learnt to take a compliment.’

  ‘No, you’re right, I haven’t. You would know that if you’d answered any of my letters.’

  His words surprised her, and as she fell silent he noticed all the ways in which she’d changed. Her eyes, once shy and unsure, now pooled with self-assurance. Her words were measured, and despite what had transpired between them, her smile was warm and forth-coming. She ignored his dig. ‘I catch you on-screen occasionally,’ she said, and now it was his turn to be surprised. Their parting had been so sudden and her reaction so severe that he had assumed she had cut him out of all existence, like taking scissors to old photographs. That she hadn’t, pissed him off.

  ‘Where are you staying?’ she said.

  ‘The cottage.’

  ‘You still have that?’

  ‘Never got around to selling. Not much changes here, does it? Same place, same city, same people, same bed… Everything’s the same… Well, almost everything…’ Nothing was the same. Not since she’d left. They were skirting around an elephant and he wanted to name it and shame her, along with all the other pent-up accusations, but the words wouldn’t come. He searched her face for something, anything, anything that would betray her feelings. And then he saw it, that look in her eyes, the way she gently reached up and touched her neck, her fingers spread wide, and he knew that she too was caught up in the folding back of time.

  She changed the subject quickly, and he accepted that small talk was all there was for now. From trivial things, to work – his and hers – to politics, science, old friends; they spoke, and all the while he stole snatches of her, each blink of the eye a mental snapshot, greedily stashing them in his mind for days when things were dark and his memory unforgiving. The bright young thing he’d fallen in love with all those years ago had become a woman. And while he saw that she was now cleverer and more accomplished, he felt sadness for the innocence they had both lost. Standing before her he understood exactly why no one had yet managed to replace her in his affections. She was simply the most extraordinary person he had ever met. His greatest misfortune was that he had met her too young.

  Their conversation had reached a natural pause when Bazigh Khan walked by, carrying a plate of precariously balanced meats, his hair the colour of the flames on which the barbecue was to be cooked.

  ‘Would you like some?’ asked Elyas.

  ‘Actually, don’t say anything but…I’m vegan,’ said Jia, letting Elyas in on her secret.

  ‘Bloody hell! Is there anything you can eat here? They’ve carved up an entire abattoir!’ said Elyas. His eyes met hers and they laughed as they used to, years ago.

  ‘I had this moment where I suddenly became aware that I was eating flesh. Obviously, I can’t tell my father. He’d bring me chicken and say, “This is not meat!”’ Their laughter airbrushed the edges of the past, and everything softened, the way the borders of old friends melt into each other.

  ‘Is he a relative?’ asked Elyas, pointing at Bazigh Khan. ‘He looks too hard a man to henna his hair.’

  Jia laughed again. ‘He is. You don’t remember him?’ Elyas shook his head. ‘I don’t think you would like him,’ she whispered, leaning forward.

  ‘Why? Who is he?’

  ‘I never told you the story about my uncle?’

  ‘No, tell me now.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ she said. ‘Sometimes you ask for the truth when you don’t really want it.’

  Elyas raised his eyebrows, and mouthed: ‘Me?’

  ‘OK, listen up…’ she said.

  Elyas nodded, moving closer in anticipation, his eyes down ready for the story that was about to unfold. But she didn’t speak, and when he looked up at her face, he could tell she was lost deep in thought. He followed her gaze and realised she was staring at three men who were making their way towards them across the marquee, their strong strides swallowing up the ground beneath them.

  CHAPTER 12

  Elyas held out his hand to each of them in turn.

  ‘You remember my cousins?’ said Jia. ‘Brothers Idris and Nadeem, and Malik.’ The men were immaculately dressed, their suits perfectly cut and stitched to accommodate their broad shoulders. They had the kind of golden skin tone that comes with money and Mediterranean holidays. One of them had a Turkish beard, of the type favoured by jihadis and hipsters. Nowadays who can tell the difference? thought Elyas, feeling a little shabby in his off-the-peg attire.

  ‘So, what’s the deal with you two? Aren’t you divorced?’ one of them asked.

  ‘They’re still direct,’ Elyas said to Jia.

  She smiled at her cousins in that way women do when men step out of line. ‘Elyas was just asking about Bazigh Khan,’ she said to the eldest of the three, Idris.

  ‘Stories made up to scare children,’ said Malik. He was the youngest of the men, and the one with the beard.

  ‘If you’re looking for a news story, you won’t find it here,’ said Idris, his tone cold. He was the kind of man who favoured silence over small talk. Although his jawline was square, his cheeks rounded when he smiled, which wasn’t often. His eyes had the potential to tear strips off men. Elyas remembered Jia referring to him as a ‘hellhound’. Seeing him now, he understood why. ‘If I’m ever in trouble, call Idris,’ Jia had said. ‘He’ll drag me back from hell if he has to.’ It had been a strange conversation, as were most conversations that featured his wife’s family.

  Nadeem put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. ‘Steady on, Idris. It’s just a question.’

  Elyas liked Nadeem. Of all Jia’s cousins he was the one he had warmed to most. He was an actor, a rare one, of the kind that made a lucrative living from his talent.

  ‘I’ll tell you about Bazigh Khan,’ Nadeem went on. ‘It happened a long time ago,’ he began, ‘when Bazigh Khan and Akbar Khan decided to go into business together. Pathans like snuff.’ He splayed his hand and tensed it to show Elyas the groove that appears on the back, near where the thumb meets the wrist. He raised it to his nose and inhaled. ‘But you couldn’t buy it here and so, seeing a gap in the market, the two men, they started selling it. Soon, they were doing well, really well, and that’s when things changed –’ Nadeem stopped abruptly, as if choking on the words. Jia gently laid her hand on his arm as if to steady him.

  ‘Then what happened?’ Elyas said softly.

  ‘Then what happened,’ said Jia, ‘is that th
e gang who controlled the estate where they lived came to see Bazigh Khan.’ As she spoke, her demeanour changed and her tone lowered, and something in her voice made him wish he hadn’t asked about Bazigh Khan. ‘Mica, the man who ran all the drugs in town, offered him a deal: Bazigh and my baba smuggle heroin into the country from the borders of Pakistan and in exchange their families get to live. Bazigh Khan refused.’ And then, suddenly, it was as if her voice drained of all emotion and she was reading from a book she’d read too many times. ‘So the men went to Bazigh Khan’s house. By the time he arrived home all that was left were the three tiny bodies of his children, and the remains of his wife, Liza. My father said his howls were heard across the valleys and hills that night. I still remember the fire engines and the faces of the two little boys, one three and one five, who survived. They were huddled in a corner together, their faces grubby with smoke. My father and his brother went to the police. Bazigh Khan begged them for help. They said the officer in charge whispered “Paki” to his colleague and told them to go home. It was the last time either man would ask anyone for anything again, and then they turned to the old ways for justice. The police had no trouble figuring out the fires in the white parts of town were arson. The men who had threatened Bazigh Khan died. Their families died. Their wives died. And their parents died. The places where the men had worked were destroyed. The places where the men drank were destroyed. The fires raged for three days.’

  Elyas wondered if her detachment was due to countless retellings of the story, so that the events had lost their power over her, or whether the pain was still so fresh that she could not allow herself to feel it. Either way, as she spoke, Elyas was reminded of the boy soldiers he’d met in Afghanistan, the ones who knew no other life than death and despair.

  ‘Are you saying he killed all those people?’ he asked slowly.