by Phil Halton
Copyright © Phil Halton, 2019
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All characters in this work are fictitious.
Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Halton, Phil, author
This shall be a house of peace / Phil Halton.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-4597-4223-9 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-4597-4224-6
(PDF).--ISBN 978-1-4597-4225-3 (EPUB)
I. Title.
PS8615.A396T55 2019 C813’.6 C2018-902664-2
C2018-902665-0
1 2 3 4 5 23 22 21 20 19
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
PART TWO
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
PART THREE
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
GLOSSARY
To Lily and Leif
If leadership rests inside the lion’s jaw,
so be it. Go snatch it from him.
Your lot shall be greatness, prestige, honour and glory.
And if all else fails, face death like a man.
— HANZALA OF BADGHIS, NINTH-CENTURY AFGHAN POET
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
The sun hung behind the distant mountains, seemingly suspended in place below the horizon. Only a thin line of light outlined the far-off peaks. Swirling unseen in the darkness were clouds of dust, rolling over the landscape. As the sky began to lighten, the wind died and the dust settled over the countryside like a shroud. The air became heavy and still.
The sun’s first harsh light fell upon a tiny village of a half-dozen abandoned mud-brick houses perched atop a rocky plateau. Their design was unchanged since ancient times; they squatted silently within the thick walls of the courtyard. Although the walls were solid, their surfaces were like lace, the plaster pockmarked with bullet holes and scarred by blasts, revealing the bricks underneath. The brown, terraced fields surrounding the village were untended and grew nothing but short clumps of grass. A disused track led up from a thin ribbon of asphalt that stretched across the valley below. A slight breeze blew ripples of dust between the houses, but all else was still in the heat of the new day.
In the centre of the abandoned village was the madrassa, its white paint barely visible under a thick coat of dust. In its courtyard, an old tarp was tied between the main building and one of the outer walls. A teenage boy with a wispy beard, perhaps fourteen years old, stood in the shade of the tarp, stirring a large pot of daal that bubbled over a small open fire. Set well into the ground near the pot was a large earthen jug that served as his tandoor.
A young boy no more than eleven years old played nearby, hitting a ball made from tightly tied plastic bags and scraps of cloth against the wall with an old cricket bat. “Tell me the story again,” said Amin.
His brother’s voice was wearier than it should have been for a boy his age. “But I have told you the story a thousand times.”
Amin stopped hitting the ball and turned to him. “Please, Wasif. The smell of the daal always reminds me of it.”
Wasif scowled, in the way that he had seen adults do. “I should be making you do your job and helping to prepare the meal.” Even as he scolded his brother, he did not stop the rhythmic motion of the thick-handled spoon that kept the daal from burning to the sides of the pot. Amin had turned away and was contemplating the ball in his hand in silence, and so after a moment, Wasif relented and began to tell the story. “There once was a rich and powerful man with seven sons. One day, he summoned them all together and told them to sit with him. Once they were seated, he asked each of them, ‘How much do you love me?’”
Amin continued to hit and chase the ball, but in his mind he saw himself seated with the other sons, preparing his reply to his father. His feet kicked up a roll of dust as he ran after the ball, quickly dissipating across the courtyard.
Wasif continued to tell the story, his mind drifting, stirring the daal rhythmically as he spoke. He had not yet reached the end when he decided that the meal was ready.
Amin implored his brother, “Aren’t you going to finish?”
“You know how it ends. You could tell the story yourself in your sleep.”
“That’s not the point,” said Amin.
Wasif gestured toward the pot and held out the spoon as he pulled a bag of yesterday’s bread out of the crate that held their food. Amin put down his bat and ball, and took the spoon from him, quickly tasting the daal before beginning to stir it vigorously as his brother had done.
Wasif quietly approached the doorway of the madrassa, sliding off his sandals and standing just inside the door, waiting patiently. Young boys ranging in age from five to fourteen years old sat in rows that filled the spartan room. Other than a few ragged pillows and threadbare carpets, the only furniture was a small wooden bookstand on a low table at the front of the room.
The Mullah stood in front of the class, the boys — each one an orphan — watching him in attentive silence. Everything about him was plain and unadorned, from his thick, black beard, to his black turban and the homespun shalwar kamiz he wore. He was stocky through the shoulders and chest, and in his powerful hands was a well-worn Quran. He glanced at Wasif and gave him a brief nod before surveying the boys again in si
lence. They waited expectantly for him to speak, hardly moving. After a long moment of waiting, the Mullah pointed to one boy, smaller than the rest, in the middle row.
“You are truly blessed,” said the Mullah. “Indeed, you are rich almost beyond belief. Do you know why?”
The small boy shuffled uncomfortably, thinking for a moment before answering earnestly in a thin voice. “Have you found my parents? Are they rich?”
An older student sitting at the front of the class shot a look of annoyance at the small boy. “Yes, we have! Your father is the Amir! You will be going now to the palace and we all hope to find positions there working as your servants.”
The class burst into laughter. The Mullah held up his hand for silence, and the boys froze. “Enough! I will accept no mockery here.” In an instant, he was standing over the boy who had teased the other, his hand raised as if to strike him, but then stopped himself. He took a breath, and reassured the small boy. “No, we have not found your parents, though we are your family now and are as good as any that can be had.”
The Mullah held up the Quran, its polished leather surface shining like nothing else in the dusty classroom. “All knowledge required by humankind is to be found in this book, praise God. It is the mother of all books, and it contains the solution to every human problem, no matter how complex. And here you will learn it by heart. This knowledge will be the source of your wealth, a pool of riches beyond belief.”
The boys sat in complete stillness, transfixed by their teacher’s voice as he spoke to them. He held their attention for a moment longer before releasing it with a wave of his hand. “But first, let us eat.”
The boys were on their feet in an instant and stormed out of the room, digging through the pile of sandals on the other side of the door to find their own. The Mullah carefully placed his Quran onto the small wooden stand, and took a well-worn string of blue prayer beads off the table. The Mullah clicked his prayer beads mindlessly, as if they were a loose extension of his own fingers. Glancing around the room and satisfied that all was correct, he followed the boys outside, Wasif trailing close behind.
Hearing the boys as they rushed out of the madrassa, Amin put down his bat and went back to stand beside the pot of daal. He stirred it in earnest, hoping that it had not burned while he had been playing. The boys chattered as they lined up, from youngest to oldest, and passed pieces of stale bread back along the line.
The Mullah’s voice filled the yard. “May you have your meal with gladness and health!”
The boys replied as one: “Allah yahaneek!”
They then shuffled forward to receive their food, Amin spooning daal into the middle of each boy’s bread. They then made their way to a dusty carpet laid out in the shade of the compound walls. When all the boys had sat down and begun to eat, Amin spoke to the Mullah in a quiet voice. “Ma’alim, we have used the last of the cooking oil to make this meal.”
The Mullah frowned. “Are you sure?”
Amin pointed to the old crate where they stored their food supplies. The contents were meagre. A sack of lentils, a smaller one of flour. A paper box of salt. A bag of tea. And two empty jugs of oil. The Mullah reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a few thin, sweaty bills, which he handed to Amin.
“Go down to the shop and buy some oil once you have eaten.”
“Yes, Ma’alim.”
Wasif looked down at his brother and plucked the bills out of Amin’s hand. “Ma’alim, I will go to the shop. Amin, you can come with me if you like.”
The Mullah pulled the money sharply out of Wasif’s grasp and handed it back to Amin. “I did not ask your opinion, Wasif. You have a more important task to attend to, with me. We will eat later.”
Amin tucked the money into his shirt pocket and spooned some daal onto a piece of bread for himself. Wasif’s shoulders sank. He gave a longing look at the little food left in the pot as he waited to follow his teacher. The Mullah picked up a battered teapot and a glass, and with a gesture of his head led Wasif back inside.
Wasif took a seat at the head of the classroom as the Mullah sat facing him, the familiar positions of teacher and student reversed. The Mullah poured a glass of tea for himself and set the pot down with a small air of ceremony. His hand reached up to adjust his turban over the zebiba that prominently marked his forehead. When he spoke, his voice was hard.
“Are you ready to practise?”
“Yes, Ma’alim.” Wasif hesitated. “But I have a question first.”
A flash of annoyance passed over the Mullah’s face and was gone. Wasif saw it and his voice faltered. “It is no matter, Ma’alim. I am ready.”
The Mullah’s face darkened further. “Out with it, boy. Don’t say one thing and then change it for another.”
Wasif looked crestfallen. “It is just that … I wanted to know if you thought I would ever truly become a hafiz?”
The Mullah sighed. His hand moved toward the boy’s shoulder, but he stopped himself, resting it on his own knee instead. His words were thick in his mouth for a moment, until he managed to ask, “Tell me, why do you want to do this?”
Wasif twisted the tails of his shirt in his hand. He was sure that his answer was wrong, and so he said nothing.
The Mullah spoke for the boy instead. “There are many reasons why one would want to memorize the entirety of the holy Quran. Some people do so to make money from public recitations. Others focus on the promise of acceptance into heaven for all who become hafiz. There are many reasons why one would want to do this. Which one is yours?”
When Wasif spoke, the words came out in a quick tumble. “To please God, and so that I will have something of great value that no man can ever take from me.”
A smile broke across the Mullah’s hard face. “All good things begin with sincerity in the heart of the doer, Wasif. These are good reasons to want to become a hafiz. I have no doubt that you will succeed. Now, let us begin.”
Wasif cleared his throat. “All praise belongs to God, Lord of the Universe, the Beneficent, the Merciful, and Master of the Day of Judgment, You alone we do worship …”
Wasif continued to recite the Quran by heart, pushing down the feelings of hunger that rose from inside his empty belly. The Mullah sat, eyes half-closed, clicking prayer beads through his fingers and reciting silently along with him.
Amin stepped out of the school compound, closing the thick wooden door behind him with a clang. It could only be barred from the inside, and so he left it unlocked. In any case, no visitors or even strangers ever came to the madrassa. Walking toward the track that led to the narrow highway at the bottom of the valley, he carried the cricket bat over one shoulder, from time to time swinging it at the countless rocks on the ground. In his mind, he was one of the Amir’s seven sons, leading a hunting party through the wastes.
It took Amin over half an hour to descend the heights where the abandoned village and madrassa sat and reach the larger village nestled alongside the road at the bottom of the valley. As he left the outskirts of the upper village, he walked through small terraced fields dotted with the charred stumps of olive trees. The Mullah had said that the trees, all gone now, had dated from the time of Timur-e Lang, which Amin knew to be before the Russians. As Amin descended farther, the fields were instead filled with the wreckage of wooden frames, now grey and brittle like old bones, that had once supported grapevines. The last terraced fields were filled with rutted, dusty earth that gave no clue as to what had once grown there.
Amin kept moving, past the fields, to where the path turned very narrow and began to zigzag though a series of switchbacks down to the highway. By the time he reached his destination, the small ramshackle chai khana, his eyes were red and blurry from the blowing dust. The building sat strategically at the point where the rocky valley narrowed, forcing travellers to pass nearby even before there was a road. Set back from the broken asphalt were two dozen houses in a cluster that formed the lower village. The houses roughly followed the line of the shallo
w river running parallel to the road, and they were surrounded by drab winter fields that would become productive again in the spring.
The chai khana itself was a simple, low structure made from rough-hewn wood, scrap metal, and plastic sheets. A blanket hung over the doorway in a futile attempt to keep the dust from overtaking the interior. Next door was a large, green metal box that was once the closed rear structure of a ZIL army truck, abandoned by the Russians years before. Nearby were a few parked vehicles belonging to travellers who had stopped for a rest. Amin watched as a battered old bus bounced along the asphalt toward the village, avoiding none of the potholes, trailing a cloud of black smoke from its engine.
The bus stopped near the ZIL, its progress halted by a chain that had been strung across the road. A young boy, wearing a sequined black vest and a matching prayer cap perched on the back of his head, emerged from the door of the ZIL and took up a position by the chain. The boy stared at the bus like a hawk who had found his prey. Amin was certain that none of this — not the chain nor the strange boy — had been here the last time he had visited the shop a few weeks ago. The Mullah’s oft-repeated words echoed in his mind: Be pious in all things and mind one’s own business. Sloping his cricket bat over his shoulder, he flitted past the checkpoint and did his best to ignore it and the boy. With his back to the stopped bus, Amin approached a market stall built against the side of the chai khana. The boy in the vest stared at him for a moment. Having sized up Amin, he returned his attention to the bus.
The stall had a wooden door, propped up high with a stick to form a sign reading Dry Goods. With this stick, the door could be pulled down to secure the stall at the first sign of danger. Amin caught sight of the shopkeeper sitting in his tiny space, hemmed in by all manner of packaged goods. The shopkeeper was focusing all his attention on the bus and had not noticed the boy approaching.
“Haji, I am here for a jug of cooking oil.”
Amin’s voice startled the shopkeeper. When Amin saw this, he lowered his voice mid-sentence.
The shopkeeper managed a tight smile. “What does a boy want with cooking oil, when he could be buying sweets?”