Shooting Kabul

by N. H. Senzai

  Now we’re moving out, thought Fadi, remembering the argument his parents had had with Uncle Amin and Khala Nilufer that morning.

  “We can’t keep living off of your hospitality,” said Habib. He sat next to Zafoona at the kitchen table.

  Fadi stood next to Zalmay in the hallway, listen-ing in.

  “Hospitality!” grumbled Uncle Amin. He looked a bit insulted. “What are you talking about? My house is your house; my food is your food.”

  “Thank you for your kind words, Brother Amin,” said Habib with a smile in his voice, “but we must move on.”

  “As a Pukhtun, I am insulted you are leaving my house,” grumbled Uncle Amin.

  “Habib, Brother Amin, stop arguing,” said Zafoona. “This house is small as it is for your family. We have inconvenienced you enough.”

  “We’re not inconvenienced,” said Khala Nilufer. She placed her hands on her sister’s shoulders, as if trying to keep her from leaving.

  Fadi knew otherwise. After immigrating to the United States three years ago, Uncle Amin hadn’t passed the medical board exams needed to practice as a doctor. So he worked two jobs as a lab technician at the morgue to support the family, while still studying when he had time. Then, two weeks ago, Uncle Amin’s brother had lost his job and had moved into the house with his wife and three children. During the day the line for the bathroom sometimes stretched down the hall. Now the adults seemed to talk a lot about some kind of recession thing that was going on.

  “You are family,” stressed Uncle Amin. “You need to get back on your feet, and then you can leave.”

  “I’m earning a decent living driving a taxi,” said Habib.

  Fadi winced. His father had hoped to teach at the local community college, but there just wasn’t an opening in the agriculture department.

  “But what about Zafoona?” pushed Khala Nilufer. “The doctors still don’t know what’s wrong with her. She needs to be taken care of.”

  “It’s all right, Nilufer jaan,” interrupted Zafoona. “I’m feeling much better. Noor and Fadi can help me. We’re only moving a few blocks away, so you can visit me anytime you want.”

  “I’m coming to pick you up for your doctor’s appointment next week,” insisted Khala Nilufer. “You’re not getting out of that.”

  “Of course,” said Zafoona.

  After some more grumbling it was decided. They were moving out on their own.

  There was nothing heavenly about the place Fadi’s father had rented at the Paradise Apartment Complex. They could only afford a cramped two-bedroom unit with faded linoleum, brown shag carpet, and a cracked kitchen sink. Fadi stood at the entrance and sighed. It was a stiflingly hot August day, and the apartment, a tenth the size of their house on Shogund Street, was sweltering. As Fadi explored the cramped space, he felt a sense of claustrophobia. There was no beauty here, just the faded ghosts of past tenants who’d moved on to better things. Noor had grumbled at the idea of sharing a bedroom with him, so he’d happily given it up, deciding it was better to sleep on the floor in the living room.

  That first night in the apartment, Fadi lay on the living room floor, cocooned in a bedroll made up of old blankets from the Salvation Army. His mother had gone to bed early, and both Habib and Noor were at work. Fadi lay wide awake, a faded Batman comforter pulled up to his chin. He didn’t want to look up at the ugly web of cracks across the ceiling. It made him think of a large, poisonous spider that was out to catch him. He punched the lumpy pillow and flipped to his other side, but sleep continued to evade him. He sat up and pulled the copy of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler from his backpack. Fadi crept over to the open window and settled under a cool incoming breeze. In the soft light of the full moon, he cracked open the dog-eared book to one of his favorite parts.

  He had to admit that Claudia was one smart girl. She’d really planned out her escape to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with great precision. She’d even talked her brother into coming along; he was a miser and had a lot of money. Fadi was wondering what she would have done if she had gotten caught, when he heard a key rattle in the front door. Fadi slipped the book under the sofa and dove under the covers, pretending to be asleep.

  “Thanks for picking me up, Father,” came Noor’s tired voice.

  “I insist on it, jaan,” came Habib’s answer. “This late at night I don’t want you walking home alone.”

  “All right.”

  There was the sound of a zipper sliding open.

  “Father, I want to give you this,” whispered Noor.

  There was a silence as Fadi strained his ears. What is Noor giving Father?

  “Father, are you all right?”

  After a brief silence Habib responded. “This is your money, Noor jaan. You’ve earned it, and I’m very proud of you.”

  “Father, I’d like to give you part of it to … to help out. I know money is tight,” she added.

  “You’re the most excellent of daughters,” whispered Habib, his voice tight with emotion. “And your money will be of great help to the family.”

  Fadi couldn’t believe it. Noor was giving Father money she’d earned at McDonald’s?

  “Now come, let’s eat some of that beef stew your khala Nilufer dropped off earlier. I’m famished from all that driving. Some crazy woman had me go around the city for hours looking for a hat shop that didn’t exist. At least I earned quite a bit on that ride.”

  “Father,” said Noor, her voice dropping an octave, “I have to tell you something. Something I’ve been meaning to tell you … but not in front of Mother.”

  Fadi stiffened. His mind raced with terrible thoughts. She knows!

  “What is it?”

  “That day in Jalalabad … the day we left Afghanistan …” Noor’s voice tightened.

  “Yes, what about that day?”

  Fadi lay in his bedroll. Sweat began to accumulate under his armpits. She’s going to tell him … tell him I lost Mariam …

  “I let you down,” whispered Noor.

  “Let me down? What are you talking about?”

  “I was supposed to take care of Fadi and Mariam. But in all the confusion … I left them behind.”

  “No, jaan, you did nothing wrong,” soothed Habib.

  “No, I’m the oldest. I should have taken care of them.… It’s my fault Mariam is lost!”

  Fadi went rigid with shock. He couldn’t believe Noor thought it was her fault that Mariam had been lost.

  Everyone thinks it’s their fault she’s gone. But it’s my fault, not anyone else’s. I’m the one who doesn’t deserve to belong to this family. I’m the one who’s torn it apart.

  FADI WATCHED NOOR CLOSELY THE ENTIRE weekend before school started. He observed her fingers, tipped with black nail polish, turn the pages of the book she was reading as she lounged on the fraying orange sofa. He stood at the sink washing dishes as she spread peanut butter on saltine crackers. He spied around the corner while she carried a bowl of steaming soup for their mother. The more he watched, the more he realized that Noor no longer seemed angry or aloof. She appeared preoccupied … and sad. He realized that he’d been so caught up with his own worries that he hadn’t thought about what she had been going through the past few months.

  Noor had recently cut off her long dark hair, revealing delicate features and making her dark brooding eyes more pronounced. Their mother had been disappointed when she’d seen it and had told her so, but Noor had told her that it was hot standing next to the McDonald’s French-fryer all day long, and short hair was much cooler. Fadi thought the new style looked nice on her but hadn’t had the nerve to tell her.

  He wished he could talk to Noor. More than half a dozen times he’d resolved to tell her that it wasn’t her fault Mariam had been left behind. It was his fault. Finally, on Sunday evening he took a pile of laundry to her room and stood at the door, tongue-tied. She pointed to her bed and ignored him as she ironed her shirts. He looked at her profile, his tongue clamped between
his teeth. As she opened her mouth to say something, he dumped the clothes onto the bedspread and ran out. He couldn’t do it. If he told her it wasn’t her fault, he’d have to admit that it was his, and he didn’t have the guts to say it out loud.

  On Tuesday morning Habib drove the short distance from their apartment to Brookhaven Middle School. Zafoona had surprised them by getting up early that morning and making them breakfast—Fadi’s favorite of a fried egg and peanut butter on toasted Afghan bread. Fadi sat in the front seat, envying Noor, who didn’t start high school till later that week. As his father filled out the registration paperwork in the school office, Fadi gazed out the window at the students filing into the adjacent elementary school. A girl with a long plait down her back caught his eye. Her bouncy walk reminded him of Mariam.

  Mariam should have been starting the first grade, he thought, and his spirits sank lower. He wished his mother were well enough to homeschool him, like she used to—but that was not a possibility.

  The school secretary’s sharp voice snapped him out of his morose thoughts.

  “Welcome to Brookhaven, young man,” she said. She peered down at him through bifocal glasses and handed him a hard plastic debit card. “This card gets you a free lunch, so present it to the cashier in the cafeteria after you get your food.”

  “Thank you,” said Fadi. As he slipped the card into his backpack, he saw the tight expression on his father’s face.

  “Thank you,” said Habib with a nod to the secretary. “I forgot to pack him a lunch today, so this is great.”

  It’s because we’re poor, realized Fadi as a sense of unease settled over him. That’s why I get a free lunch.

  “Have a great day, Fadi,” said Habib. “I want to hear all about it when you get home.” After a quick hug Habib hurried back out to his taxi. He had to report to the airport for work, and he didn’t want to be late. His dispatcher was already upset with him since he didn’t know his way around the Bay Area that well yet. A taxi driver who couldn’t take his passenger to the right address didn’t make a lot of money.

  With his class schedule clenched in his hand, Fadi stood in the doorway leading out of the office. He stared down the long hallway packed with kids and tried to get his bearings. A stream of students walked by, greeting old friends, high-fiving one another. There’s so many of them. He was used to being in a room with just his sisters while Zafoona homeschooled them individually. The egg and peanut butter in his stomach gurgled unpleasantly, making him queasy.

  “Anything wrong, honey?” the secretary asked from her desk.

  “Uh, no,” said Fadi in a hoarse whisper. Bracing himself, he followed the directions on the map to his homeroom, weaving through a sea of students. He walked through the unfamiliar halls, passing groups of girls and boys clustered together, joking, laughing—looking like they belonged. Fadi felt like an unnoticed shadow no one cared about. The only person he knew wasn’t even in the same building. Just a year behind Fadi, Zalmay attended the elementary school next door. They’d spoken the night before and had agreed to meet after school, but it wasn’t the same.

  Fadi paused at the intersection of two halls and waited for a group of guys in sport jerseys to walk by. A girl sat at a small desk at the junction, handing out flyers. The sign she’d taped to the front read ANH FOR CLASS PRESIDENT! Most people ignored her, while some took the flyers only to dump them into the trash farther down the hall. Still the girl persisted, her face set with determination.

  Fadi walked past the bathrooms, and finally he reached room 145. With a deep breath he turned the knob and entered. Loud laughter and shouts greeted him. Kids were hanging out talking, throwing wads of paper at one another. With a sinking feeling he noted that most of the desks were taken, except for the ones in front. I definitely don’t want to sit there.

  As curious glances fell his way, he spotted an empty spot on the other side of the room, in the middle of the row. His head ducked down, Fadi hurried across the room and slid into the seat with a feeling of some relief. He put his backpack under his desk and smoothed out his schedule on the scarred desktop. Ignoring the surrounding cacophony, he noted that math was next. Okay. Math is good and pretty easy. It was followed by science, then lunch. Language arts and physical education rounded out the rest of the day. His heart quickened when he saw he had art later on that week, on Thursday.

  As he folded his page and slipped it into his bag, two boys in the back launched paper airplanes at the girls in the second row. It hit the head of a girl with sparkling pink barrettes in her pale yellow hair. With flushed plump cheeks she twisted around in her seat.

  “Stop that, Ike!” she yelled. She crumpled up the plane and threw it back at a wiry red-haired boy, who Fadi guessed was Ike.

  “What you going to do about it, Fatty Patty?” mocked Ike.

  “Yeah, Fatty,” echoed Ike’s dark-featured friend, his lips curved with laughter. “What you gonna do? Eat us?”

  “Good one, Felix,” said Ike, giving him a high five.

  Felix pretended to run his hands through his black spiky gelled hair and leaned back in his seat.

  Patty turned red, sniffed, and turned around.

  “Ignore them, Patty,” consoled her friend, shooting the boys a peeved look. “They’re such morons. Have been since kindergarten.”

  Wow. These kids have known each other forever, thought Fadi in wonder.

  Ike was about to say something in response when the door flew open. A man in a bright yellow-and-purple striped shirt hurried in and closed the door behind him. His hair, slightly past his shoulders, looked like it hadn’t been combed in a very long time. “Sorry I’m late, class,” he said. “Traffic got the best of me today. I promise it’ll be the last time—so don’t tell the principal.”

  Giggles followed his last remark as he picked up a piece of chalk. His arm, along with the rest of his body, flew across the board as he wrote his name.

  “I’m Mr. Torres, your homeroom teacher for 6B. I’ll also be teaching World History and Civilizations. So if you’re not supposed to be in 6B, you’re in the wrong room.”

  Kids looked around the room, to see if anyone got up to leave.

  Fadi peeked at his schedule to double-check. Yup, this is where I’m supposed to be. There was no need for an embarrassing walk to the correct classroom.

  “Well, looks like I’ve got a smart bunch this year,” said Mr. Torres with a grin. He reached into his bag and removed a sheaf of papers. “Here are the announcements for this week and the lunch menu.”

  Fadi’s mind drifted off as Mr. Torres’s words floated over him. He gazed out the window, watching squirrels scamper down the trees, hiding nuts in the lawn. He closed his left eye and fit the bushy-tailed creature into a frame. That would make a great picture, he thought, wishing he was outside with them.

  Fadi added a few finishing touches to his drawings of amoebas and other single-celled micro-organisms, which the class had been reviewing. He slowly slipped the pages into his science notebook and waited for the rest of the kids to rush out to lunch. He hadn’t said a single word to anyone since homeroom that morning, and no one had made the effort to talk to him, either. He’d spotted two Afghan kids whispering to each other in Farsi in math class, but he couldn’t get himself to walk up to them. It’s as if I don’t exist. At least the classwork didn’t look too hard. They were doing fractions in math, which he’d covered with his mother last year.

  Fadi put on his backpack, glanced at the school map on the back of his schedule, and headed toward the cafeteria. With only one wrong turn that had him double back, he found the beige double doors to the lunchroom. He paused for a moment and dug into the side pocket of his backpack for his lunch card. With the hard plastic rectangle hidden in his palm, he walked into the noisy sprawling space. He spotted the two Afghan kids from his math class and followed them from a distance. He grabbed a tray and got in line. The kids around him were telling one another about all the fun stuff they’d done that summer�
�trips to Disneyland, camping in Yosemite National Park, or swimming at the beach.

  Fadi looked at them in growing annoyance. I bet none of them ran away and lost their kid sister in the process.

  “What would you like?” asked the tired-looking woman behind the counter.

  Fadi looked at his budgeted options—cheeseburger minis with French fries or something called a “bean and cheese burrito.” The cheeseburgers he recognized. The burrito thing looked funny to him. He was still getting used to American food, and he wasn’t sure he liked a lot of it yet. Peanut butter he liked. He could eat it every day, spread over Afghan bread, with plum jam.

  “Hurry up,” grumbled a voice behind him.

  Fadi glanced back and froze. It was the kid from homeroom. The tall one with narrow almond-shaped eyes. Ike’s friend. What was his name? Felix.

  Felix’s eyes narrowed. “What are you staring at?”

  “Nothing,” whispered Fadi. He averted his gaze down to Felix’s flashy high-top sneakers and looked away.

  “I haven’t got all day,” said the woman. She adjusted her hairnet and tapped her spoon against the glass case, pointing down.

  “Those, please,” said Fadi, pointing to the steaming tray of burgers. In a rush he added a carton of apple juice and hurried toward the cash register.

  Before the cashier could say anything, Fadi quickly handed him the plastic card. He looked back at Felix, who, thankfully, was still deciding what he wanted. The cashier slid the card through the register and got a loud beep.

  “When did you get this?” he asked. He pulled out the card and inspected it over the rim of his glasses.

  “Uh, this morning.”

  The man rang up the purchase again and got another loud beep. “Hold on. I need to call the office.”

  “Try it again, please,” pleaded Fadi. Come on, come on, work, he prayed, glancing back at Felix, who was getting a giant Coke to go with his slice of pizza from the concession stand.