Born Under a Million Shadows

by Andrea Busfield

  “But maybe I should have listened to that little noise in my head rather than the love in my heart, because nearly three years later he still doesn’t phone as often as I would like, as often as I need to hear him, and no matter how many times he tells me he’s sorry and how many promises he makes to try harder, within two weeks he does exactly the same again. And that’s why I’m not sure he was all that happy to see me last night because I told him that if he continued to treat me like this he would push me away forever. I would leave him.

  “I love Khalid, and when I’m with him and I look into his eyes I know he loves me too, but sometimes that love seems so far away and almost impossible to hold on to.”

  Georgie lit a cigarette and stared over at the goats filling their bellies with dry grass.

  “Why don’t you just get married?” I asked, thinking this might be the ideal solution for everyone because Haji Khan would have to come home at least once a week on “ladies’ night,” the Thursday before the Friday holiday when the men return from their compounds to spend time with their families.

  Georgie turned to me, tears burning her eyes red. “I’m a Godless kafir, Fawad. Khalid’s a Muslim. How is that even possible in today’s Afghanistan?”

  12

  LIKE THE RAINS of spring that come to wash away the gray of winter, once Georgie had cried her tears, the world around us brightened.

  Baba Gul, who was as thin as a stick and seemed to laugh a lot for a man on the fast track to Hell, eventually arrived before the sun dropped, and before the guard in charge of our lives grew fidgety to leave for Jalalabad. Disappearing into the hut that might or might not be his by the time Georgie visited again, Baba Gul was shown some paperwork, which he might or might not have been able to read, and my friend talked to him about his goats while I spent the last of the day in the fields with Mulallah, who seemed a lot happier once her father returned without having lost anything else they owned to a game of cards.

  As we chased the goats around the field, it soon became clear that Mulallah wasn’t like other girls I knew—not that I knew that many. She was strong in her eyes and hard in her talk, and, more amazingly for a girl, she was a very fast runner, which is a good talent to have in Afghanistan. As she raced through the fields with her red scarf floating from her neck, I thought she looked like a firework.

  I really hoped to see Mulallah again when Georgie returned to talk to her father once the winter had left us, and I don’t know why, but I decided under that hill as we tumbled in the grass and she helped me clean the goat shit off my knees that I wouldn’t tell Jamilla about her.

  “You and Mulallah looked like you were having fun,” Georgie remarked when we were back in the car.

  I saw the twinkle in her eyes and knew she was trying to tease me.

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “She’s actually quite good fun—for a girl.”

  “Oooh,” Georgie sang, “you lurve her. You want to kiss her, hold her, and marry her.”

  “Georgie,” I said, shaking my head, “sometimes for a woman as old as my mother you are very immature.”

  Once we got back to the big house, Haji Khan also seemed to be in a better mood than I was expecting, given Georgie’s talk of hot words the night before, and after kicking off our shoes and pulling off our boots we spent the evening filling our bellies with food so pretty it could have come from a painting. It was a massive feast of chopped green and red salad, bowls of creamy white yogurt, fried chicken coated with orange-colored spices, rice and meat, dark green spinach, and warm naan bread followed by fizzing Pepsi and plates piled high with yellow bananas, red apples, and pink pomegranate seeds.

  After the meal—when we were all able to sit straight again after all the food we had eaten—we took turns playing carambul, with Georgie coming out the clear winner after Haji Khan missed a couple of easy shots because she was a guest and he didn’t want “to give her another reason to complain.” We then slouched on the cushions wrapped in furry blankets to watch a comedy show on Tolo TV, and I drank so much green tea my stomach grew round as a ball.

  But though I laughed with everyone else at the jokes on the television, under my blanket with its red swirls and bright yellow flowers my heart was breaking because every time Georgie’s words came running back into my brain I felt them trickle down my throat to tear at my insides, as if I’d eaten broken glass for dinner.

  It was bad enough that she drank alcohol and smoked like a National Army soldier, and that she had come to my country in search of a moon that spent its days hiding in the sun, but it had never even crossed my mind that she had no God. I’d always thought she was a follower of the prophet Jesus. But to have nothing, nothing at all—not to believe in anything—well, this was the worst thing she could have possibly told me.

  Georgie was my friend and I loved her as much as I’d ever loved anyone, but she was going to Hell for all eternity, that was for sure. And in Hell a single day feels like a million years. My mother once described it as a place of terrible grief and sadness where the flames had been fanned for a thousand years until everything burned red. After that, Hell was fanned for another thousand years until it grew white-hot, and then it was fanned for a thousand years more until it became nothing but black. As Georgie’s words kept rushing back into my mind, I couldn’t stop the sight of her pretty face screaming in pain, the fire eating at her skin, and her mouth full of the fruit of the thorny tree that would boil like oil in her belly, bringing unimaginable agony.

  It’s true that pretty much all of us would be spending at least some time in Hell unless we were the best of all mullahs, because there are a lot of rules in Islam and not all of them are that easy to follow. But Allah is merciful, so even though Ismerai would go to Hell for his smoking, Baba Gul for his gambling, me for my drinking and thieving, and Haji Khan for falling in love with a woman who wasn’t his wife, as well as for his possible drug empire, all of us would get out eventually and find our way to Paradise because we were Muslims. But Georgie had no chance. She had no God, and therefore she had no one willing or able to save her. And she couldn’t even climb out to the light, because if you throw a rock into Hell it takes seventy years to hit the bottom. Hell is so big it will never become full with all the world’s sinners, and you can never escape from it. Even worse than that, Georgie would have to suffer alone because all her friends would eventually leave her. Even the warlord Zardad and his testicle-eating man-dog would get to Paradise in the end.

  And when you know all this, as I do, it’s hard to look into the eyes of the person you love and not see her death looking back at you.

  “I’m praying for you,” I whispered to Georgie the next morning over breakfast after a night of terrible worrying.

  She looked up from her eggs and smiled. “That’s nice, Fawad, thank you.”

  I shook my head. She so didn’t get it.

  Also joining us for breakfast that morning was Haji Khan, who walked down from his bedroom looking like he’d just got off a film set. His face was relaxed and handsome, and his light gray salwar kameez was covered by a darker gray sweater that looked as soft as clouds.

  I watched him carefully, looking for signs of more hot words during the night, but if he was worried about losing Georgie he appeared to be putting a brave face on it—although I did notice he was teasing her a little more than usual, as well as kissing her ass with compliments that made her cheeks red, and holding eyes with her more than was strictly allowed in our society.

  As I watched, I prayed inside my head that Haji Khan would try to change his ways, as he was always promising to do, because I was sure that if he really tried, and if he could charm the birds from the trees like my mother said, he could easily make Georgie take Islam to her heart. He just had to love her enough—and phone her more often.

  After breakfast, two cups of tea, and four cigarettes, Haji Khan disappeared from the house in a cloud of dust thrown up by his three Land Cruisers, and Georgie headed back upstairs to take a shower, so
I passed the rest of the morning in the garden with Ahmad, who had arrived shortly before his father left. Together we teased the fighting birds that sat in little wooden cages around the edges of the lawn as Ismerai watched us, smoking.

  I was itching to talk to Ahmad about Georgie and his father, but I couldn’t. Although we all knew what the two of them were up to, it couldn’t ever be a matter for discussion because that would be like accepting it, which we couldn’t really, because we were all trying to be good Muslims and, more than that, pretending our friends were good Muslims too. And I couldn’t talk about Georgie being a total unbeliever because it was too shameful for her and I had at least to try to protect her from the bad thoughts everyone would surely have of her if they knew the full horrible truth. So we basically talked about all the creatures we had burned using the force of the sun and broken glass.

  As Ahmad was telling me about the time he had seen a scorpion commit suicide—someone had placed it on a metal dish set on top of a fire, and realizing it had no chance of escape, it turned its tail on itself and stabbed poison into its body—a car horn beeped outside the tall gates, which were quickly opened to allow a black Land Cruiser with an eagle painted on the back window into the driveway.

  “Ah, my uncle returns,” Ahmad said by way of explanation, getting to his feet.

  As the car doors opened, a man much smaller than Haji Khan got out of the front seat and moved toward Ismerai, who was nearest to him. He took his hand, smiling wide and revealing a dark hole where one of his bottom teeth had once sat.

  “Welcome back, Haji Jawid,” Ismerai greeted him.

  “Thank you. Is my brother here?” Haji Jawid’s face was clean-shaven and pinched at the cheeks, as if he was sucking in.

  “No, he’s out,” Ismerai told him, “taking care of some business.”

  “I see.”

  Haji Jawid’s eyes, which were as hollow as his cheeks, moved to the steps at the front of the house where a smiling Georgie had appeared. He returned her smile, but because I was standing close to him when he turned I clearly heard him mutter to Ismerai, “I see my brother is still busy with his whore, then.” Ismerai quickly looked in my direction, his face closing in a frown, but he said nothing so I moved forward in anger.

  Ahmad caught me by the hand before my foot was even able to take one step. “Leave it,” he whispered as Haji Jawid moved across to the house, where Georgie held out her hands in welcome. And I did. But I heard polite laughter come from their direction as they touched, and it made me even angrier because Georgie would never have talked to him if she knew what he really thought of her.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Ahmad said, letting go of my arm. “He didn’t know you were a friend of Georgie’s. He probably thought you were a friend of mine.”

  “That’s hardly the point, is it?” I asked.

  “No,” Ahmad admitted. “What he said was unacceptable, but what can I do? He is my uncle.”

  “And does he talk of Georgie like that to Haji Khan?”

  “No, of course not,” Ahmad replied, shocked. “He wouldn’t dare.”

  After Haji Jawid arrived we all gathered to sit in the warmth of the house because the cold wind of Kabul had now drifted over to Jalalabad and it covered our bones with an unhappy feel that came with Haji Khan’s brother. As the adults talked in the raised room, I watched from the sides on one of the white sofas with Ahmad, who, I was happy to find out, didn’t seem to be a fan of his uncle.

  “He’s the reason my father was in a bad mood,” he explained. “The police had him for most of yesterday.”

  “Why? What had he done?”

  “Who knows? But whatever it was, I heard it cost my father a lot of money to get him out.”

  I nodded at the information and felt the warmth of new friendship rush in my blood because of it. It was unusual to hear someone speak of their relatives in such a way to a complete stranger and I guessed Ahmad must really hate his uncle—which was good, because I did too.

  “By rights, my uncle should be the head of the family,” Ahmad continued. “He’s older, you see. But he didn’t fight against the Russians or the Taliban, and he was in a Pakistani jail for years for killing a man. He brought a lot of bad things to our family’s door, so when my grandfather passed away it was my father who stepped into his shoes. Haji Jawid hates that, you can see it in his face, but there’s nothing he can do about it because it’s my father who has the support of the family and the respect of the community, it’s my father who is called on to fix disputes, and it’s him, not Haji Jawid, who keeps the family together and helps the poor. All Haji Jawid does is spend the money my father gives him.”

  As the adults sat chatting, a line of men with large stomachs ballooning under their clothes drifted in and out of the house to slap Haji Jawid on the back and laugh together in quiet corners of the room; but although the buzz of easy conversation filled the hall, it felt like we were all waiting for something. And when the metal gates screamed outside and the Land Cruisers roared into the drive to begin their dance on the grass, I realized what it was. Haji Khan.

  As he swept into his house, everything went still, as if the very room was holding its breath. I watched as his brother got to his feet. The laziness instantly slipped from his smile, and his eyes moved nervously around him as he watched Haji Khan greet the guests who had arrived at the house to swap talk with Haji Jawid. After greeting Georgie with a formal handshake because of the number of men now in the room, Haji Khan turned to his brother and nodded his head toward a room across the hallway. Haji Jawid dropped his eyes in respect and allowed his brother to lead him away from the group. We all watched as the door closed behind them.

  By the look on Haji Khan’s face, his brother wouldn’t be cracking any more jokes tonight.

  13

  THE DAY AFTER Haji Khan’s brother turned up, Georgie and I left for Kabul, where the snow had arrived in giant flakes. On the streets there were more men carrying shovels than guns as everyone spent the day clearing flat rooftops to stop them from collapsing. It was always amazing to me how something so light it tickles your nose as it falls can grow into something so heavy it can bring the whole world crashing down upon your head. But I loved the winter—especially as I now had socks to wear thanks to the wages my mother was earning at Georgie’s house—and because everything looked so different from when I’d left it, all white and clean and new, it seemed like a million years since cholera hit my mother in the stomach and moved her to Homeira’s house.

  And when I walked through the door of our home, I could have burst my insides open with happiness as I saw my mother run toward me to gather me into her arms and smother me in her huge love.

  “I told your mother I was taking you to Jalalabad for a little holiday,” Georgie had explained as we weaved our way through the mountains back to Kabul. “She probably doesn’t need to know the full details of why we went . . .”

  “Yes, quite right,” I’d agreed.

  But when my mother wrapped me in her arms and I felt her heartbeat next to mine and she asked what I had been up to, I plain forgot.

  “We went to Jalalabad because I needed a break after I stabbed a Frenchman in the ass,” I told her.

  I saw the look of shock appear on my mother’s face, and I quickly moved to calm her.

  “Oh it’s okay, don’t worry. I thought he was attacking May, but Georgie says they are really very good friends and it was only because he was really, really drunk that he was fighting on top of her, and although he needed stitches he didn’t call the police.”

  Behind me I heard a groan, and I turned to see James doubled up and holding the top of his head with both hands.

  After my outburst, my mother, Georgie, James, and May all disappeared into the main house to have what James later described as a “peace summit.” So, with nothing else to do, I walked to Pir Hederi’s, where I found him sitting in front of the cigarette counter by the bukhari with Jamilla snuggled up against the warm fur o
f Dog. She was holding a mobile phone.

  “Ah, good, you’re back!” Pir shouted as I struggled to greet them while trying to stop Dog from sniffing at my boy’s place. “What do you think?” he added, grabbing a long piece of paper from behind the desk and unrolling it. “It’s a sign for the window. I had it made in Shahr-e Naw to bring in the foreigners.”

  As Pir Hederi rolled out the plastic paper, big blue letters appeared in English. They read “Free Delivry Survice for foods stuffs. Call 0793 267 82224. We Also Sell Cak.”

  “What’s ‘cak’?” I asked.

  “Sweets, biscuits, you know. Eid is coming. I thought it might be a selling point.”

  “Oh, you mean ‘cake.’ ”

  “Cake, cak, what’s the difference?”

  “Nothing, I suppose.”

  “Good. Here, help me glue it to the window.”

  Despite our sign offering free delivery and cak to the nation, our new business plan got off to quite a slow start, and Jamilla and I spent most of the day looking at the mobile phone, which stubbornly refused to ring.

  I was now properly beginning to understand why Georgie got so annoyed.

  “We need to advertise,” Pir Hederi stated as we closed up early because the snow was trapping even our regular customers inside and we’d run out of wood for the bukhari. It seemed he was turning into quite the businessman now he had a phone in the shop.

  “Advertise? Like on the television?” I asked, excited by the thought of TV men coming to film us.

  “Not on the television. Who do you think I am? President Hamid Karzai? I’m not made of money, you know.”

  “Then how?”

  “Don’t worry, I have an idea,” he said with a wink, which looked pretty creepy coming from his milky eyes.