Words in the Dust

by Trent Reedy

  I watched Zeynab beside me. She rolled the rice into a ball in her slender, graceful fingers and popped it into her perfect mouth without dropping a single grain. She must have noticed me watching her, because she smiled sadly.

  My cheeks were hot with embarrassment. How could I allow myself to feel jealousy toward my sister, who had never been anything but completely kind to me? Envy was a sin and I prayed for forgiveness. I knew she had been excited, thinking about how wonderful everything leading up to her wedding would be. Our remaining time together was so short, and now I felt bad for ruining it. It was because of my stupid mouth that Baba had to waste a trip all the way to Farah. It was because of me that he was in such a terrible mood. If only that woman hadn’t been so insulting. If only Baba could have been more patient and willing to work out some way I could still have the surgery.

  I put my head back for another bite. After I had wiped my fingers on the cloth I always kept for meals, I saw Baba watching me. I thought he was going to say something to me, but instead he turned to Malehkah. “My brother and his family will be here next week. They’re used to their fancy city apartment, so we’ll let them have the storage room all to themselves. I want everything spotless. They think they’re so much better than us. I don’t want to let them think we live like slobs.”

  “I still think we’re rushing. What will people think?” Malehkah said. “We already agreed to the marriage in only one meeting, and then the shirnee-khoree so soon after that, and now a wedding only two weeks after that? People will talk. They’ll say we were too eager to get rid of Zeynab.”

  “Let them talk!” Baba spoke loudly. “What will they say? Hmm? Our darling girl will be marrying a sharp businessman. We’ll be united by marriage and business to one of the richest, most honorable, most important families in An Daral.”

  Najib spoke quietly. “The Americans want the Nimruz Province clinic completed even earlier than we thought. The Abdullahs are going to help Baba-jan win the construction contract.”

  Baba grinned. “Tahir is a great man. He’s making a lot of money in the trucking business, shipping food and supplies around Afghanistan for the Americans. Now he’s expanding into making cement blocks. Since peace has come, everybody’s building. He’s going to cut us in on a percentage of his construction profits after we make him a couple of cement block handpress machines. All this would be a very generous bride-price, but he’s also raised the amount of money to one hundred thousand Afghanis.”

  Malehkah nodded.

  “Who needs all that old-fashioned stuff? Times are changing fast. If we want to keep up, we need to change too.”

  “It’s tradition,” said Malehkah.

  Baba shook his head. “Old customs for an old Afghanistan. Still, I want the shahba-henna the night before the wedding to be just right. All the best food. Everything will be perfect for my sweet girl.”

  “If we could just hold off until —”

  “Just do it!” Baba cut her off. “I get enough disrespect from that American woman. I won’t have it in my own house.” He groaned and braced himself on Najib’s shoulder as he stood up.

  “Bale,” said Malehkah. She sighed quietly and looked across the table at Zeynab and me. “We’ll be ready.”

  Khalid and Habib followed Baba and Najib outside to watch them load tools into the Toyota. Malehkah, Zeynab, and I sat around the little remaining food, staring at the mess that none of us wanted to clean.

  After the evening prayer, everyone slept but me. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but behind my eyelids I kept seeing flashes of color that reminded me of the glints of sunlight on the steel teeth of the razor wire at the American base.

  How could everything have gone so wrong? Worse, how could Baba act so casual about it all? It was as though he had almost completely forgotten about my surgery hopes already, and he barely seemed to notice that Zeynab was right in the room as he discussed her wedding. He just went on with his business, all grumpy, making Malehkah, of all people, seem like the nice one.

  It would have been better if the Americans had never even come to An Daral. I remembered them at the construction site with all their big guns. Their stupid guns and their stupid wars. All the dumb soldiers always ruining everything. Afghanistan had had too much of all of it.

  My mother certainly had.

  The beginning of my last memory of my mother was faded and vague now, but the end was always sharp and painful. Usually, I blocked it out and thought about something else, but sometimes I couldn’t help but think of that night.

  It was during the Taliban time. I had been sitting on Madar-jan’s lap in the center room of our house. She closed her big brown book, but I wanted her to read more. She laughed and recited some of the words from memory.

  “Love fills the soul with sweetest tears,

  The saddest songs one ever hears.

  Flee deserts of heartless pain

  With love that nourishes like rain.”

  Madar-jan wrapped her arms around me. “Your big sister always falls asleep, but you, little one, you love the poetry so much.” I felt proud at that moment, like I was better than my pretty sister in at least one thing.

  Zeynab was asleep next to Malehkah. I wouldn’t have wanted Baba’s new wife to sleep on my toshak, but since Malehkah hardly ever talked, she didn’t say Zeynab couldn’t sleep on hers.

  “I love you. Promise me, my sweet princess. Promise me you’ll read and learn all you can.” Madar kissed the top of my head. “Even if the Taliban or somebody else tells you it’s bad.”

  “Bale, Madar-jan,” I said. “I promise.”

  “But for now you must go to sleep.”

  “It’s too early to sleep. Too hot,” I said. “Can’t I wait for Baba and Najib?”

  Madar shook her head. “They may be welding very late. Even I won’t stay up for them. It’s time for you and Zeynab to go up and go to sleep like baby Khalid.”

  Suddenly, there was an urgent knock on the door. Madar jumped, her eyes wide. Malehkah sat up and frowned at her.

  “Malehkah, check the door.” Madar dumped me from her lap and made for the storage room with her book. “I have to hide this.”

  Then a screeching metal crash came from outside. Madar froze. She turned and pulled Zeynab to her feet. “Take the kids to the roof. Try to keep them all quiet.” Madar pushed Zeynab to Malehkah. Then she handed over the book. “And take this too.”

  “Saima, what —”

  “Now, Malehkah!” my mother shouted.

  Malehkah gripped Zeynab’s wrist and hurried toward the stairs, pushing me the best she could while holding the book under her other arm. But I twisted around and got away. She carried my screaming sister up to the roof without me.

  The front door of our house burst open, tearing off its hinges. Baba was thrown into the room. He rolled across the floor and hit the wall with a groan. His eyes were swollen, and blood streamed down his beard from his mouth and nose. I screamed.

  “Zulaikha, get upstairs!” Madar shrieked.

  Three men in black turbans and very long beards stepped into the main room of our house. They were all holding guns. One of them took three quick steps toward my father and kicked him in the stomach.

  “Please,” Baba said. “Please, no more. In the trunk.” He pointed toward the storage room. “They’re in the trunk. I promise, that’s all that’s here. The only books she has.”

  “Sadiq, no!” Madar shouted. Her back was against the wall near the door to our small kitchen.

  The man who must have been their leader nodded to his men. They went to our side storage room. I heard crashes, dishes breaking and trunks being thrown around. They came back, one of them holding two of my mother’s books in his shaking hands.

  “Oh, Sadiq.” Tears rolled down my mother’s face.

  The leader strode up to my mother and swung his rifle like a club. I heard it crack against her jaw. Her blood splattered the wall.

  “No, no, no, no, no!” Baba shouted.
“You said you’d just take the —” The third man’s boot crashed into my father’s stomach once more.

  Madar-jan spit white bits of teeth in a stream of red blood. The leader swung the rifle again. She raised her hands to protect her face, and her arm snapped like a dry stick as the rifle crashed into it. She screamed and dropped to her knees.

  The leader pointed to the man with the books and then to the floor. The Talib dropped the books, pages flapping open. The leader took a bottle from his pocket and squirted something smelly onto the paper. He didn’t take his eyes off my mother as he struck a match, holding the flame up before his face. He smiled. Then he dropped the match. The books puffed into flames, the pages curling back into black char. He spun around and kicked at my mother. His boot crunched into her chest and knocked her back against the wall.

  “No! Please!” Baba cried.

  The leader snapped at his men, who stomped on my bloodied father to hold him down.

  “Go away!” I shouted, my fists clenched tight.

  The big man turned to face me. His eyes were squinted and lined in black. But when he took a step toward me, my mother was on her feet, pushing out her good arm to stop him.

  He grabbed her by the hair. Madar screamed as he pulled her out the door to the front courtyard. The other two held my struggling father to the floor.

  There was screaming. Shouting. Screaming.

  A shot like thunder.

  After the men had left, there was only crying. I went to the door. My father knelt in the dust, wailing over my mother in the courtyard.

  “Saima, my Saima, I’m so sorry. Saima.”

  Years later, lying on my toshak, surrounded by my sleeping family, I thought of my lost madar-jan and my lost opportunity for the surgery that would make me look pretty. All my chances for happiness had been stolen away. I buried my face in my chador and cried.

  A week later, the sun burned hotter than it had all summer. The Winds of 120 Days gusted full upon us, but did nothing to cool us down. Sweat ran down my face. It tasted like tears when it ran into my mouth through the gap in my upper lip. After a day of cooking and cleaning to make sure all was prepared for the shahba-henna tonight, Malehkah had decided it was time for Zeynab to rest while she sent me to the construction site with food for Baba, Najib, and Uncle Ghobad, who had arrived that morning with his wife and Malehkah’s mother. The men had met at Hajji Abdullah’s house the night before to officially settle the bride-price, so they planned to just keep on working until well after dark.

  I walked down the street in the blazing heat with the bundle of naan held awkwardly under my arm. The wire handle from the heavy pot of rice dug into my hand. The road in this section of town was even more rough and uneven than other roads, and so I had to watch the ground to avoid tripping. I should have been paying more attention to my surroundings. A shadow approached, and I looked up to see Anwar blocking my path. He stood with his arms folded over his chest and smiled in a cruel way. He leaned in and squinted his eyes to take a good look at my mouth.

  “Hmm. Nope,” he said. “Still ugly old Donkeyface. Not even the rich Americans with their fancy machines and doctors could fix that mangled mouth and nose of yours.” I tried to step around him, but he moved to keep standing in my way. “Whoa there, Donkeyface! What’s your hurry?”

  “Can you please just let me pass, Anwar? I need to get this food to my father.”

  Anwar pretended like he was about to vomit. “Ugh, don’t say my name. You sound as ugly as you look when you talk.”

  “I’ll just yell for help. We’re close enough. My baba will hear.”

  Anwar laughed. “I don’t think your father would want you shouting all over town like some whore. Besides, he’d be angry if he knew you were causing me trouble. Without my father’s help and the bride-price my uncle paid to marry your sister, your father would be as pathetic and poor as he ever was!”

  I couldn’t stand listening to him for another moment. I swung the pot of rice at his knees. When he jumped back out of the way, I ran past him. He did not follow, but I could hear him laughing behind me.

  “Khuda hafiz, Donkeyface! I’ll see you at the wedding!”

  I slowed down as I approached the school site, marveling at how quickly the building had grown. Baba had said the welding was almost complete. On top of a big cement platform was a giant cage of steel beams and poles. Baba was welding at the base of one of them.

  “Don’t look at the light, Zulaikha,” said Najib, walking toward me. I turned away from the shower of sparks that fell from where Baba worked. Najib took the covered pot of rice and the wrapped naan out of my hands, setting them on a low mudstone wall. He patted his skinny stomach over his sweat-soaked perahan-tunban. “I’m hungry.”

  Baba finished making his white sparks on the steel pipes he was joining. He took off his heavy mask, turned down dials on two different tanks, and then flipped a switch on a machine. After that, he walked over to take a seat on the wall. “Tashakor, Zulaikha.” His hair was wet and his shirt was so soaked with sweat that it looked like he’d taken a dip in an irrigation canal. He wiped at his forehead, letting his hands run slowly down his face. When his fingertips sunk below his eyes, he looked at me. “My brother get here yet?”

  I shook my head. Uncle Ramin’s family was supposed to be on a bus from Kabul to Farah. We were expecting their taxi from Farah at any time. Malehkah and her mother and sister had been grumbling all morning, accusing them of being late on purpose to get out of helping with the shahba-henna.

  “Are you staying to eat with us?” Uncle Ghobad asked. He had said he was going to the construction site to help Baba and Najib, but he was a carpenter, and by the look of how clean he was, it didn’t seem like he had worked very much.

  I shrugged. “Madar wants me to buy some things for tonight at the bazaar.”

  Baba dropped one hand to his lap and rubbed the back of his neck with the other. “She sends you out a lot, doesn’t she?” Somehow I didn’t think he wanted an answer. He continued. “More than she used to anyway. After she has the baby, she should start going herself. It’s not good for a young unmarried girl to be running all over town.”

  Why was it not good? Baba couldn’t seriously be worried about some boy trying to touch or kiss me. The only boys who chased me called me mean names or threw rocks.

  “Bale, Baba,” I said.

  “Okay,” he said. “Hurry home. Your madar and sister will need your help to get ready for tonight.” He turned his attention to a piece of naan.

  With a nod to my brother, I turned and walked off to the bazaar, where I bought Malehkah the peppers she claimed she needed, though I was sure I saw some in the kitchen just last night.

  “I don’t suppose I could solicit your help in carrying these bolts of fabric?” The voice came from a pile of cloth, tottering at the side of the road as I went through the butcher district. Meena. I sighed and took off the top three rolls of cloth, uncovering a smiling face that looked the opposite of what I felt. “Salaam alaikum!”

  “Walaikum salaam,” I greeted the old teacher, and we walked out of the bazaar together. Today I’d really make Malehkah wait. Why not? She always said I took too long at the bazaar even when I hurried.

  “How has the writing practice gone?” Meena asked, once we were back at her apartment and had stowed away the fabric. She had poured me a cup of tea. “Have you been copying the words?”

  I nodded, but said nothing. How could she be asking about her dreamy poetry when it was obvious that my dream of finally looking normal was a failure? Why did she not ask why I was still so ugly? My big, split-open mouth was right in front of her.

  The silence was uncomfortable. I thought about leaving, but Meena always trapped me with tea. I would have to stay at least as long as it took to finish my cup.

  “Zulaikha?” Meena asked. I couldn’t answer her. “What is the matter? Is it the surgery?” Of course it was the surgery! How could she be so blind and still be able to read? “The A
mericans were not able to help you. I’m sorry, child.”

  I sipped my tea, hating myself for having to tilt my head back so that I could drink. More quiet.

  “Do you want to show me how you’ve improved your writing?”

  “No,” I said. And right then I knew what I wanted to say to her. “I won’t be studying anymore.” I pointed to my mouth. “What difference does it make to a girl like me? Reading won’t fix my mouth. Poetry won’t find me a husband. It’s all just a bunch of useless old words in dusty old books.” I stood up. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  Meena put her cup down on the table, and lowered her hands and her gaze to her lap. “It’s a pity.”

  I nodded. “I just should never have even thought it was possible for my mouth to be fixed.”

  “No, child. The pity is that you’re placing so much importance on the temporary. On physical appearance. Beauty. These things fade in time, but the literature that your mother loved — that you love — is timeless.” Meena watched me with deep, dark eyes.

  I wished she could somehow understand. “I’m not as smart as my madar. Not as pretty.” There was a stinging in my eyes. I wanted to leave before the tears began to fall. “Your books. They aren’t my life.” I wiped my eyes. “I need to get home.” I started for the front door.

  “Why did you want the surgery?”

  I stopped and took a deep breath. “I already told you. I want to look normal.”

  “And if you looked, as you say, ‘normal,’ what would you do then?”

  I turned around and faced her. “What?”

  Meena slid back across her bed so she could lean against the wall. “If you had your surgery and looked normal, what would you do?” I was about to answer but she interrupted. “Would you get married like your sister? Then what?”

  “What do you mean, then what?” I folded my arms across my chest. What kind of stupid questions were these? “People wouldn’t be disgusted at the sight of me!”