by Saima Mir
Up until that moment, Jia had assumed that the Establishment regarded the Jirga as a myth; that it was known about and actually worked in conjunction with Yorkshire’s police forces took her by surprise. She hadn’t realised how far her father’s network had spread. She decided it would be unwise to let Briscoe know this. ‘Allow people to underestimate you,’ Akbar Khan had advised her. ‘Sabar and salaat. Sabar and salaat – see how “patience” is mentioned before “prayer”?’
‘My father is dead,’ she said to the police chief. ‘And here you are, asking my family to do the job you are paid for? We are an ordinary family, sir. I’m not sure what influence you think we have –’
‘Ordinary, my arse!’ he snapped. ‘Just because I can’t do anything about the Jirga doesn’t mean I’m blind to its existence!’ His anger was obvious now, but he hadn’t risen to his position without the necessary skills, and he quickly pulled his temper back. ‘Look,’ he began, ‘I know you’re a good woman. You’re a smart, sensible, successful woman…’
‘Patronising me won’t help any,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said quickly. ‘This thing is out of control, though. And there are enough brown kids in jail from the last time the situation boiled over. They’re only just picking up the pieces of their lives.’ He paused, thinking he was fighting a losing battle, and slumped back in his seat. ‘My son-in-law, he’s one of you. I have no issue with your people. Hell, my grandkids aren’t two shades from you!’
His words had little effect on her. ‘Mr Briscoe…Chief Constable, I’m afraid I have another meeting to attend, so if you’ll excuse me.’ She stood up to show him to the door. He sighed, almost relieved that it was over. He could tell his daughter that he had done his best.
Bazigh Khan escorted Briscoe out. As he opened the front door, the police chief turned to him. ‘We’ve known each other a long time, you and I,’ he said. ‘Your brother’s death… It’s obviously very early on in our investigations, but our forensics experts have pointed to the possibility that Akbar Khan knew his killer. I know that’s not rare in your business. But the way he was found, and the lack of bruising or signs of physical restraint, suggest he had no warning of the threat, and that could be because he trusted whoever killed him.’
The butcher didn’t flinch. He put his hand on the policeman’s shoulder. ‘Come, let me walk you to your car,’ he said.
But as Briscoe went to get in car, Bazigh Khan stepped forward, holding the door firmly shut. ‘I’d like you to keep that information between the two of us. Do you understand?’ he said, fixing the police chief with his gaze. Briscoe nodded. ‘I need you to say the words,’ said Bazigh Khan. ‘The way you did when I helped out your son.’
The mention of Timothy and a long-forgotten deal with the Khan family left Briscoe cold. ‘Mr Khan, I promise to do what I can for as long as I can,’ he stammered. ‘But I can’t guarantee anything. It will come out sooner or later.’ Bazigh Khan nodded and stepped back, allowing him to open the car door.
CHAPTER 26
Jia pressed the small key into the large iron padlock. It jarred slightly and then clinked open. She unhooked it and put it to one side before lifting the lid of the wooden trunk. Everything inside was still neatly wrapped and labelled, just as she’d left it. She picked up the package marked ‘Ahad’ and unwrapped the tissue, pulling out a small blue blanket. It was brighter than she remembered, a midnight blue with pale stars all across it. It had been a gift from her father to Ahad on the day he was born. She couldn’t help but bring it to her cheek, the scent and softness of it evoking long-forgotten feelings. She hadn’t been in the attic of her dead father’s house for years, and the sight and smell of it brought on a wave of emotion that hit her hard and fast, bringing with it memories she’d rather not recall. Immense and intense feelings towards her son overwhelmed her and the tears came. Slow at first and then faster, they streamed down her face, over her cheeks, her lips, and she let them fall to the ground. For the first time since his birth, she mourned the little boy she had lost. She wept for the childhood years she had missed, and the teenage angst she was part of. This outpouring of grief was precisely what she’d been desperate to avoid all those years ago when she’d attempted the unspeakable.
She heard footsteps coming up the stairs and quickly wiped her face as her mother entered the room.
‘My child,’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Nothing, Mama,’ replied Jia, turning away. ‘I was just looking for something. I’ll be down in a moment.’
Sanam Khan took her daughter by the shoulders and turned her towards herself. ‘You can’t hide your pain from me,’ she said.
Jia smiled wearily. ‘I’m tired of fighting,’ she said. ‘I don’t sleep any more, not since I left this house. They make you weak…children, don’t they?’
‘Is that why you did what you did?’ said Sanam Khan. Jia flinched. The question had taken fifteen years to reach Sanam Khan’s lips. ‘You were wrong then and you are wrong now, my child.’ She paused. ‘You gave me reasons to be strong. Reasons to fight for a better life, to fight my fears, to fight your father.’ She smiled at the memories of her husband, Akbar Khan, gentle at the birth of his daughters, proud at the birth of his sons, watching with concern the day Jia learnt to walk, quietly bereft at Zan’s funeral. Then the smile left her. ‘It is fear of our children suffering that makes us weak, but the desire to protect them that makes us strong.’
‘I don’t know how to be his mother,’ said Jia.
Sanam Khan brushed the words away as if they were flecks of dust on her shirt. ‘Of course you do. You are my daughter. I know what you are capable of.’
‘But this pain inside me,’ Jia said. ‘I am ashamed.’
Sanam Khan took her daughter by the shoulders again. ‘You should be ashamed, but only because you are stronger than this. Listen to me. Tears are considered a sign of weakness in the world of men but they are not. They are the water that feeds our soul and keeps our roots strong.’ She wiped her daughter’s eyes with her chador. ‘This fear and these tears,’ she said, ‘will keep you human, keep you close to Allah, His people and His mercy. Shed them, wipe them and begin again. But remember this: show them to no one but your mother, because no one will understand, and people will try and use them against you. “Inna lillaahi wa inna ilayhi raaji’oon,”’ she said, and with that declaration of submission to the will of the Lord, she closed the matter, taking her daughter by the hand and leading her out of the room of memories and regret.
At the bottom of the stairs, though, she stopped. ‘Trust your blood, Jia. Tell him the truth,’ she said. ‘And make peace with your husband. You will need him.’ And with that, she left to prepare to bury her husband.
CHAPTER 27
A low, respectful hum surrounded Pukhtun House. The sky was cloudless, the day cold and crisp. The third day of mourning had begun. Yesterday’s trickle had turned into a torrent as people began to pour in to pay their respects. The news had travelled fast and the Pukhtun tabar had descended swiftly to help with the practicalities of an Islamic funeral.
The tabar was extended family – the tribe. It was allied and divided into groups called ‘zai’ along lines of blood, cooperation, business and conflict. The complicated nature of these lines meant members often belonged to more than one zai. But the only man who belonged to all was their Khan: he was the one man for whom they dissolved old feuds and put aside bad blood and stood united. The death of the Khan required that they come together to mourn him. It was tradition, and it was in tradition that their power lay.
Bazigh Khan’s sons were in charge of overseeing the funeral. The younger members of the tabar had arrived at the first sign of light, and were going about their business like worker bees.
Dressed in white, Idris Khan moved from room to room, organising the house and household. Furniture had been removed and the floors were cleaned, ready to be covered in white cotton sheets. Wasim, the fabric merchant, was resp
onsible for them. His mother and wife cried silent tears as they embraced the Khan’s widow, handing her the neatly pressed sheets they had spent all night hemming. Sanam Khan took them with gratitude before ushering them into the room where women were sitting in remembrance of their God and His servant.
She was reading verses of the Quran and wiping her tears from its pages, when Benyamin came to collect her. They were to see Akbar Khan for the last time.
Across the city, the Jirga were arriving at the morgue to participate in the most important ritual in a Muslim’s life: that of his burial. Formally dressed, some in shalwar kameez and others in Western suits, each man’s head was covered by a small white cap or Afghan topi, of the kind worn during prayer.
They shook hands and embraced, their emotions deep and bubbling over, the elders wiping away tears of regret and fear, as much as of sorrow. The ghusl, the ritual bathing of the body, was a reminder of the transient nature of life. Intimate and poignant, only the trusted were asked to take part. It was, therefore, a great honour and a reinforcement of each man’s place in the family to be here.
The smell of camphor and disinfectant filled the air. Akbar Khan’s cold corpse lay on a steel table in the centre of the white wet room, ready to be cleansed and then placed in the ground. The imam waited by the door. He knew the Pukhtun tabar was an emotional tribe and he warned them that the soul of Akbar Khan was still present. ‘It will remain connected to the earth for forty days. So, please, keep your anguish under control.’
The men nodded respectfully. Though young, the imam had proved himself to be worthy. By day he was a lawyer, working at the world’s largest legal firm and navigating the laws of the land. By night he helped believers understand and follow the laws of Allah. The two sides of his life stood him in good stead with all generations of the family. He was an honourable man.
When Sanam Khan arrived, she stood at her husband’s side, one hand on Benyamin’s shoulder, the other on the back of the chair that had been brought for him to sit on. As the wife of the deceased, she was the only woman allowed to participate in the final rites.
A shroud lay loosely over Akbar Khan’s body. He would never pray again; his spiritual accounts were complete and ready to be submitted. But his men could ask on his behalf, and they called upon their Maker to forgive their old friend and leader. Seeing him lying there, empty of his soul, brought a strange calm upon them, and as the solemnity of the ritual came to a close their eyes dried with the drying of his body. Camphor was sprinkled on three large pieces of white cotton, once, twice, thrice. The men stepped back and professed their faith: ‘La illah illallah, Muhammadur rasool Allah.’ As the cloth was brought forward and the kafan wrapped around the man who had terrified generations, he looked like any other corpse about to be lowered into a grave.
By noon the steady stream of visitors to the house had become a river. What had begun as hundreds grew to thousands. The streets around the family home and the mosque filled with parked and queuing cars.
The women wiped their tears with their chadors as they prayed, their heads covered and bowed. Young and old sat side by side, some veiled, others not, safe in the knowledge that the house of Khan held no judgement in matters of faith.
Jia stood by the front door, greeting the visitors as they arrived, Maria leaning on her, her hennaed hands clutching her chador as she tried to muffle her cries.
The Jirga had left the morgue and would be arriving shortly. Afraid that the sight of the casket would overwhelm her, Jia asked her sister to see to the mourners inside.
Sher Khan was the first of Akbar Khan’s business associates to arrive. Two tall men stood either side of him. They had been working closely with Idris all morning. ‘Jia Khan, our prayers are with you,’ he said, and then, introducing the two men, ‘My sons, Razi and Raza. My daughters and wife have been here since Fajr.’
‘Yes, Khan Baba. My family is grateful to your family,’ Jia said. It had been a long time since she’d been thankful for the support of her own people.
Sher Khan and his sons took their place with the mourners, waiting where the casket was to be brought. They were followed by an elderly man slowly navigating the stone steps of the house. When the man stumbled, a young woman with him reached out a hand to assist, but he knocked it back. Seeing Jia in the doorway seemed to give him the momentum he needed. His pace quickened and he eagerly placed his palm on her head upon greeting her, speaking in a dialect of Pashto she could not understand. Taking his hand in hers, she tried to thank him in a mix of English and the dialect of her family. The old man replied, tears in his eyes, and Jia looked to the young woman beside him for an explanation.
‘He is saying he owes a great debt to your family,’ said the young woman. ‘We are from your grandfather’s village in Afghanistan. Your father’s people, they helped us when we were in troubled times. We were one of many families who were captured by warlords. Your father helped us escape and brought us here. He looked after us. There were twenty families that he saved, good families, educated families, who had lost everything. But thanks to him we have rebuilt our lives. Thanks to your father, may God rest his soul, I am now able to support us, and my cousins, too, are educated professionals.’
In all the years that Jia had spent at her father’s house, he had remained tight-lipped about those he helped. The stories of the families, and the work that he had done to give them a life, were secrets he had taken to his grave.
The young woman’s words left Jia reconsidering her own experience of her father – of the small ways in which he had showered her friends with kindness, of the gifts he had bought them, knowing what each of them liked and disliked, winking at her as he handed them out – and she melted a little.
‘I work at the Akbar Khan refugee centre on weekends,’ the young woman said. ‘I would love you to visit and see how we plan to continue your father’s work.’
Jia smiled at the old man, still holding his hands in hers.
‘We will never forget this debt. Our lives are your lives,’ he said, this time in a language she understood. He stopped, and kissed the palms of her hands, his display of gratitude embarrassing her. She would need to learn to handle such things better if she was to stay.
By afternoon the city had come to a standstill. Mourners lined the streets around Pukhtun House and police officers were out in force.
The coffin was placed in the living room, ready for each visitor to pay their respects. When it was time for the Janaza prayer, the men lined up facing the casket, the imam beside it. He placed his iPad on the pulpit, open at the final draft of his sermon.
‘When God commanded the angels to bow before Adam, Satan in his arrogance refused, and with that refusal he declared war upon mankind. Our souls are both the prize and the battleground. The complexities of life, the choices we make daily, are part of this fight. As warriors, we are grateful that only God knows the intention of man, and that only He will judge us.’ He paused and looked at the faces of the mourners, knowing that he could never gauge their hearts.
He cleared his throat and spoke again. ‘Many will ask what this city finds to honour in this man. Many will turn away, because to them he is not a man but a monster, and an enemy of the law. They will say that he brought evil and hate to our daily struggle. But we will answer them: did you ever talk to Akbar Khan? For if you did, you would know why we must honour him. Akbar Khan restored our self-respect and gave us dignity. This was his meaning to his people. And in honouring him, we honour the best in ourselves. Come, let us stand for prayer.’
Some shaken, some silenced, the men took their places, each one facing the direction of the qiblah, the imam leading them, Akbar Khan before him. The rows of men had been painstakingly counted: odd numbers were considered pleasing to Allah and blessed for the deceased. The women stood behind the menfolk, their chadors pulled over their bosoms. They shuffled closer together.
A hush fell across the building and its grounds at the first takbir: ‘Allahu Akbar
!’ The Janaza prayer had begun. The congregants spilled out into the garden, across the lawn and into the streets surrounding the house, standing shoulder to shoulder. At the fourth cry of the takbir they turned their faces right and then left, re-entering the world of material things. It was time to bury the dead.
‘Stay with me, child, I need you here,’ Sanam Khan said to Maria, holding her back from the funeral car as Jia took her seat. She knew she could not stop Jia accompanying her father’s body to the cemetery, and so she pressed her lips tight on that matter, but she did not want both her daughters breaking tradition and the rules that Muslims had followed for centuries. ‘Let the men bear this burden,’ she said. ‘They do what they want their whole lives. They must face the consequences of their actions alone.’ Jia was still within earshot, and couldn’t help but wonder if the words were directed at her.
The funeral procession made its way slowly through the streets that Akbar Khan had been the talk of for so many years. Her father’s men walked the distance from the house to the cemetery, as a mark of respect, the casket on their shoulders. Jia was in the first car behind them. The drive felt longer than any she had ever taken and her heart was a storm of emotions. As she tried to brush aside her thoughts and consider what her father would have done in her place, the heavens opened. Akbar Khan had loved the rain, often standing by the window, watching it soak the ground, listening to its rhythm. Jia wondered if this was a sign. Rain was a mercy but also a punishment. Armies of angels descended to take the souls of the good, but who would be coming for the Khan?
As the car turned into the cemetery, Jia spotted the elderly man she had met at the house among the crowd. The pull of his Khan had been too strong. Row upon row of black umbrellas, suits and shalwars spilled through the cemetery gate and ended at the plot where Akbar Khan was to be buried.