by Trent Reedy
“Come with me, child.” It was an old woman. She pulled me back away from the street into a narrow walkway between two walls. Then she dragged a rusted piece of sheet metal over the entry, tying it in place with several old ropes fixed to rusted steel bolts in the mudstone.
“Who —”
She turned and faced me, holding a finger to her lips. I opened my mouth wide so that my heavy breathing didn’t whistle through my teeth. From the other side of the makeshift scrap-metal door came the sound of heavy boots. They stopped right outside. I was trapped! I spun around, looking for another way out, but the woman put a hand on my shoulder and gently turned me back toward her. I jerked my shoulder to get away. She held her hands back from me and smiled, nodding as if to tell me that I was safe with her. We both stood very still.
It seemed like we waited for a very long time.
From out in the street came a quiet pop and a hissing sound. A moment later, I could smell cigarette smoke. There was a cough and then the sound of footsteps moving away.
When a minute or two had passed, the woman said, “There. He’s gone.” She looked me over and then reached out to pat my shoulder. “You’re still shaking. You’ve had quite a scare, rushing down the Citadel wall like that. Come with me. We’ll have a cup of tea and you can take some time to relax and collect yourself.” She squeezed by me in the narrow passage. When I didn’t follow her, she smiled. “Really, child. Come along. You can’t go out there right now anyway. He may still be looking for you.”
There was something strangely comforting in her smile and in the sound of her voice. Maybe I could trust her, at least enough to have a simple cup of tea.
I sat on a plastic chair and looked around the tiny apartment. The walls were decorated with a few small postcards, pictures of mosques and of the old statues at Bamiyan. The woman turned from her cook plate and handed me a cup of tea. She sat down on the bed. That and the small bedside table were the only other pieces of furniture in the room.
She did not speak for a while, cradling her teacup and taking time to let the tea cool. On the small table next to her was a faded photograph in a cracked frame. It was of an older man with flecks of gray in his hair, but in his eyes was a look of confidence and kindness. She followed my gaze. “My husband.” She gently ran her fingers over the picture. “Masoud was a great man. I miss him very much.” I didn’t know what to say. Maybe she didn’t either, because it was quiet for a moment. “What do you think? My little sewing shop is on the other side of the curtain. More and more business lately. Some of the chadris are finally coming off and lots of women need old dresses fixed up. It seems that I spend most of my time over there.” She shrugged. “I suppose that’s progress.”
I took a sip of my tea, putting my head back so I wouldn’t dribble, and I felt the warmth calm through my body. “Tashakor,” I said, “for helping me get away.”
“It was the least I could do for a girl brave enough to go all the way up there to rescue her little brother.” She must have noticed my scowl at the mention of Khalid. “Getting to that age, is he? Wants to be the big man who doesn’t have to listen to anyone?”
How did she know? “It seems that in one day he has decided to hate me. He called me … bad names.”
The woman took another sip of tea. “Give the boy time, child. He’ll need help with something one day, or he’ll want some sweet cake you’ve made, and he’ll be nicer.” She laughed. “Who knows, but one day, Zulaikha, he may even thank you for saving his life on the Citadel wall.” She nodded at my wide eyes. “Oh, yes, child. Doubtless you do not remember me, but I certainly remember you. And your mother.”
“My mother —”
“Was a great woman. Such a love for books. And for poetry.”
What was she talking about? Did this old lady have me confused with someone else? But she knew my name. “I don’t … I mean … Who are you?”
“My name is Meena. Years ago, before the wars, before the Russians came, I was a professor of literature at the university in Herat.”
I had to put the cup down before I dropped it. “My mother went to Herat?”
“No, child.” She spoke so softly that I had to lean forward to hear. “When the Russians leveled Herat, I fled to An Daral with my husband.” She took a deep breath. “And we were so happy for a while. Masoud was wonderful. He loved me. He loved my work. But the wars took him too.” She did not speak for a moment, and the silence in the room felt heavy. “But even then, I was not alone. I found a group of men and women who loved literature and the ancient Afghan poets as much as I did. In the dark days when the Taliban ruled everything, we met in secret. Without my fellow book lovers, I would have lost the last threads of my hope.”
“I remember,” I said slowly. “Strangers in the house, all drinking tea and reading passages from books. Talking about things and laughing.” I shook my head. “I never understood who they were. I thought they were visiting relatives from Kabul.”
“In many ways we were like a family. We were very close until the Taliban found out about our meetings.”
I was grateful when she didn’t go on. I didn’t like to think about the Taliban.
She sighed. “Ah, Zulaikha, the beautiful princess. How you’ve grown.”
“I’m only a girl.” I covered my mouth with my filthy chador. “I’m not beautiful.”
“Only a girl?” She reached toward me and gently pulled the shawl away from my face. “Nonsense. There’s nothing ‘only’ about being a girl. You must give yourself time. ‘Every triumph from patience springs, the happy herald of better things.’”
I had always thought those words were something my mother shared only with me. How could Meena know them? “That’s what my mother used to say.”
“Yes.” She smiled. “I know. It comes from Yusuf and Zulaikha. Your mother adored the poet Jami. And you. So you will forgive me, Zulaikha-jan, if I cannot accept that you are, as you say, ‘only a girl.’”
“She tried to teach me to read, but I can only remember a few words. Letters,” I said. I stared down into my cup. When I could have asked so many important questions about my mother, all I could do was say something dumb.
Meena leaned forward so the light from the one tiny window showed her face. Though she looked old, her eyes glimmered with excitement. “Ah, Zulaikha. Long ago, in Herat …” She stopped for so long that I thought she’d finished. But finally she went on. “Long ago in Herat, I taught literature and poetry. The best our ancient culture had to offer. My students would greet me as they came into class, boys and girls both. ‘Salaam alaikum, Muallem-sahib.’” Her breath sounded shaky, like the plastic sheet that fluttered in one of our windows. “You’ve never heard about poets like Firdawsi, Jami, Hafez, or Abdullah Ansari, whose tomb in Herat rivals even its Great Mosque in beauty. You’ve never heard of Yusuf and Zulaikha, even though it was your mother’s favorite poem. No. No, of course you haven’t. You know only war.” Her voice trailed off to a whisper. “In all of Afghanistan … only war.”
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. Somehow, even though she was still right in front of me, she looked as if she had traveled far away.
“You see, Zulaikha-jan, we’ve lost so much. But if we lose our literature, our poetry,” she said, “not only Afghanistan, but the whole world will suffer.”
I was going to say something but she was already speaking.
“His daughter Zulaikha’s loveliness
Made her look like a true princess.
The brightest star set in his night,
The richest jewel held by his sight.
What poem could capture her beauty? None …”
She rocked back and forth as she spoke, her last words trailing off in whispers as a wind moaned through the room. The sound, the rhythm, the tone of her voice wrapped around me. Even when her words had faded away, she kept rocking silently.
I wanted her to continue. There was something about the words that drew me in. As she recited, I re
membered the brilliant silver arc of the crescent moon. The whisper of wind in the leaves of our date tree. The warm, safe walls of home. Most of all, her words reminded me of my mother.
“How can you remember all of that?” I whispered.
“Tsh, tsh, tsh.” She waved a crooked finger. “Your mother could recite far more. She wanted to memorize the entire book so that the Taliban could never steal the poetry from her.”
A low ache started in my stomach and spread to my chest. I wiped my eyes as I fought those bad memories. “But they did —”
“They did nothing!” She straightened up so fast that a splash of tea spilled over the side of her cup, splattering on the floor. “They tried to ban everything besides the Holy Quran, anything that didn’t fit with their twisted idea of Islam. But Afghanistan’s literature has survived thousands of years and a half dozen armies far more powerful than the Taliban’s wretched rabble.”
I looked at Meena, this old woman with kind eyes, nearly white hair, and skin as wrinkled as a ripe pomegranate. “Madar-jan tried to teach me. I promised her I would learn all I could. I try to remember but …” I had so little to remember my mother by. And suddenly, as if by Allah’s miracle, I knew what I needed to do. “I want to learn to read and to write. I want to know about the poems my mother loved,” I said. “Will you teach me?”
“Child,” said Meena with a smile. “It would be my honor.”
“Where have you been?” Malehkah’s voice was low as I stepped into the compound.
“Madar.” I made an attempt to brush some of the sand and dirt from my dress and chador. “I was looking for Khalid.”
She stepped very close, pinning me against the wall. “Khalid is here!” I could feel her breath on my face as she spoke. “He told me where you were.”
Oh, no. What would Baba do if Malehkah told him I’d had tea with Meena? But how could Khalid have known where I was? He’d been far ahead of me when we ran.
“The Citadel!” she spat through clenched teeth.
I never thought I would be almost relieved to be scolded about the fortress. “He was stuck.”
“You blame this on Khalid?” She stood up straight and snatched the bag of food that I’d recovered from the dry irrigation ditch after leaving Meena’s house.
“I tried to help him, Malehkah. I ran after —”
She grabbed my shoulders and pushed me up against the wall. “While you live in this house, you will show me proper respect and call me ‘Mother.’” She gave me another shove and stepped away from me. “Khalid told me how you chased after him. How you chased him up to the top of the wall where he almost fell.”
“I didn’t —”
“Running all over town and climbing like a man. Keep acting like this and no man will ever want you, even if we could find someone willing to overlook your mouth. We’ll never marry you off. You disgust me.” She turned away and marched back toward the house.
“But he …” I stammered. “I saved —”
“Help your sister sort rice. She’s on the back porch.” Malehkah vanished into the house.
I could have died trying to save that little jackal, and now I was in trouble for what he had done. I held my fist to my mouth until my teeth dug into my hand.
“Zulaikha!” Malehkah leaned out the window. “Go help your sister. Stop standing around sniveling.”
“Bale … Madar.” I stepped into the house.
On the back porch, I helped Zeynab pick the bad bits and the bugs out of the rice. We worked in silence for a few minutes.
“I’ve already spoken to her about it,” Zeynab whispered. She squeezed my hand. “Don’t worry. She said she’s not going to tell Baba about the Citadel. She doesn’t want to risk her precious Khalid getting a beating.”
For a moment I thought about telling my sister about my new muallem. Zeynab and I told each other everything. But there was something about the mystery of the woman and the excitement of beginning my studies…. It was my discovery, and I wasn’t willing to share it yet.
“What is it?” Zeynab was watching me.
“Nothing,” I said. But she kept looking at me. “Really,” I said.
I went back to picking the ugly bits out of the rice.
That night after the evening prayer, I watched from the roof as Baba and Najib prepared themselves for a long night of welding.
“I think there is space in the back corner of the compound, Najibullah, for a little storage room to keep all the new equipment we’re going to need. Maybe we could build it with cement blocks instead of mud brick.” Baba-jan smiled and held up his hands as though he could touch the cement. His words and laughter echoed off the walls in the front courtyard, cutting through the stillness of the blue time at the day’s end. “Huh, Najibullah? Just like the Americans use for the walls of their base. Nothing is too good for us.”
They left the compound, and Malehkah closed and locked the door behind them. But even with the door closed, I could still hear Baba’s voice as he and my older brother walked away. Poor Najib. He was Baba’s oldest son, my father’s favorite by far, and yet he hardly had the chance to speak around my energetic baba.
Over the mountain to the east shone the bright edge of the rising crescent moon. With a sigh, I lay back against the dome of our house, watching the moonrise. Today had been the most unusual day I could remember. It started with Malehkah angry with me. It ended with Malehkah furious with me. And in between I had experienced almost every emotion I could think of. I clenched my fists with the memory of Anwar’s cruel words and of Khalid repeating them.
Though I’d seen the moon countless times before, somehow tonight it smiled on something new. It wasn’t just my father’s hopes for a great fortune from working with the Americans. As my eyelids became heavy and my breathing steadied and deepened, I remembered the feeling of ancient power and wisdom in Meena’s words. I thought about her promise to teach me, and about the slow, rhythmic sounds of the old muallem’s poetry.
All of my efforts to get back to Meena throughout the next week failed. The best I could do was work on my letters. Before I left her apartment, Meena had written the Dari alphabet on a little scrap of paper I carried in my pocket. When I could find time by myself, I practiced writing the letters in the dust, connecting each one with the sound it made. Madar-jan had taught me most of this years ago, and so I was happy to find that I quickly improved. Still, I needed more time for writing. If only I didn’t have so many chores.
Water sloshed from my heavy bucket as I sidestepped my younger brothers in the garden. “Boys,” I said. “Can you get out of the way?” Habib picked up his little plastic soldiers and moved aside. Khalid didn’t. Even though I’d saved him at the Citadel only a week ago, he still seemed to take new pleasure in being a “growing boy.”
“Khalid, won’t you step aside a little and let your sisters water the plants?” Zeynab smiled at him as she carried the second bucket.
He picked up his toys and went to the other end of the garden. Of course. I should have known. Khalid still listened to girls. He just didn’t listen to me. I refused to show how much it bothered me. “Tashakor, Zeynab,” I said. I poured water into a shallow irrigation trench for the thirsty eggplants, onions, and carrots.
Zeynab shrugged. “You see? It’s all in the way you talk to the little bacha.”
We went back to the well. I pulled the rope to bring up the pail. In summer, the garden had to be watered heavily once in the morning and again at night. It was a long process each time.
“Habib, bring your men up on this hill. That can be your base.” Khalid pointed to a small depression in the dirt, around which he’d piled up a wall a few centimeters high. His own plastic soldiers were exactly like Habib’s green ones, except Khalid’s were tan. Tan — just like the uniforms of the American soldiers, he said.
Habib looked at me for a moment as if to check if it was okay, then tottered around the pomegranate bush to join Khalid. I poured water into Zeynab’s bucket and
then dropped the empty pail back down the deep well.
Zeynab smiled and motioned for me to be quiet. She watched the boys. Maybe she was dreaming again of her own future sons. She was always talking about how cute they would be. I hoped that any children she might someday have would be cuter than Khalid. For days now, ever since Najib and Baba had returned from Herat with a handful of toy soldiers and the new white Toyota, the armies of Khalid and Habib had been having endless battles.
“Shrooooom!” Khalid spat as he made one of his men shoot, tracing a line with his finger toward Habib’s base. “Rocket launcher. Quick, Habib, get your men out of the way.” As Habib watched, Khalid stepped over and knocked down three of his little brother’s soldiers. “Too late. Heat-seeking rockets. Can’t dodge them.”
Khalid let Habib shoot down one of his men. Habib wanted two, but Khalid claimed the second was not hurt thanks to special armor. Then, as always, the more powerful weapons of the great American army killed all of Habib’s green Pakistani men. Habib frowned and started to walk away, leaving his men lying dead in the dirt.
“Where are you going? Let’s play again!” Khalid tugged gently on the sleeve of Habib’s perahan-tunban to keep him from getting away. Habib twisted out of his grip and went for the house.
“Maybe you should have had your Americans build him a school,” I said.
Khalid scowled at me and went after his brother. I hated that mean look of his. Meena had said this angry phase would pass. I hoped she was right.
“Zulaikha?”
I turned away from my brothers.
“Are you okay?” Zeynab said.
“Sure,” I said. “I’m fine. Just thinking.”
“About what?”
I could not tell her about Meena. If I told her now, she would be hurt that I’d kept a secret from her, never mind the fact that it was my first one. “Oh, about Herat, and Baba’s new car, I guess.”