On his bookshelf were X-Men comics and a few novels of Philip K. Dick’s. I had tried to read one or two but couldn’t connect with such an unemotional world. Maybe I simply lacked faith. Jahan had an unshakable faith in the future and believed, like Dick, that there was an alternate universe. Jahan’s ambition was to become an astronaut, the first to slip through matter and black holes to reach this parallel universe, and never return. In that universe, I knew he hoped there would be no wars, no illness, no starvation, and no poverty. To my mind, it was the Taliban who were creating an alternate world, a violent, backward parallel universe. One of little joy, intense prayers, women kept under lock and key, the future banished, and the borders sealed from contaminating influences. They did not hate the present, they hated their inability to exist in it. Though they wanted to dismantle televisions, telephones and electricity, automobiles and planes, and all the other harbingers of corruption that they believed eroded their Islam, they knew, deep down, that time would crush them eventually.
“Have you done your homework?” I asked. Mother and I taught him at home, as the only schools open were the madrassas and we didn’t want him to study there. All they taught was the Qur’an, which he would have to learn by heart. There was no math, history, geography, or science in that curriculum. So I used Mother’s books to teach him and assigned his homework. Our relationship grew in such complexity—sister, surrogate mother, friend, and teacher, all rolled into one, and I had problems at times keeping them in their separate compartments.
He removed his earphones. “Almost. I just have to read the physics lesson and do the rest of these calculations. Have you written the letter?”
“Finally,” I said with a sigh. “It’s not my best work. I gave him a little news and warned him that it would cost more for a smuggler today.”
“How much do you think?”
I shrugged. “Probably two hundred, but then he has to send air tickets also. I asked for two thousand.”
He whistled. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to spend that money on you.” He laughed. “We must start practice early tomorrow.”
“You better finish your lessons first. You have to study, whatever happens; it’s very important for you.”
We went to the kitchen to lay out dinner. I heated up the rice and the meat and prepared the salad. We were whittled down to such simplicity in our eating habits. I carried a tray into Mother’s bedroom. Jahan helped her sit up and I placed it in front of her. Then I returned with the dishes and plates. Jahan prepared the ritual dasaekhan. He laid out our precious, antique Mazar-e-Sharif carpet on the floor, and then covered it with a large embroidered cloth. Jahan carried in the aftabah wa lagan, a copper kettle and bowl, and poured water from the kettle so that we could wash our hands over the bowl and then dry them on the small towel he handed us. He performed the ritual for Mother first, then me, and I did it for him. I served and, as usual, Mother ate a sparrow’s helping. Jahan and I sat on the carpet beside her bed.
“I’m not hungry,” she said.
“You don’t like my cooking? You’re saying I’m a bad cook?” I pretended to look hurt.
“Don’t be silly, I like your cooking but . . .”
“Then show me you like it. Eat a little more. It will help you regain your strength.”
“To do what? Just lie around?”
“To be with us, that’s all,” Jahan said. “The more you eat the more joy we have.”
“You’re both blackmailers.” She ate a few more mouthfuls of the naan I had cut into pieces.
As we finished our meal, we heard Dr. Hanifa coming up the stairs, grumbling to herself. She was nearing seventy-three now and had retired when it became too difficult for her to visit her patients, but she lived next door and made an exception for Mother. Kindness and compassion filled her eyes, though sadness lined her face. She always removed and left her burka on a chair by the door and donned it again when she left. Her husband, also a doctor, had died many years ago from pneumonia one severe winter. Her children had escaped to Pakistan. One was a doctor in Lahore, the other an engineer in Islamabad. They were planning to emigrate to the States. They would not sit beside her as she died, as I would by my mother.
“So how’s my favorite patient?”
Dr. Hanifa took Mother’s pulse and her temperature. “You young ones go and do what the young do. We’ll talk awhile. Even when your mother sleeps, she’s better company than my lonely house. I’ll give her the medications later.”
I kissed Mother good night and went to my room and lay down on my bed.
The Five Hundred Meters
HOW COULD I TEACH MY COUSINS CRICKET WHILE I wore a burka? How could I show them how to bowl or bat when I could barely move? I couldn’t even see a ball coming my way through the mesh.
I wasn’t sure where to begin, yet currents of excitement shivered through my body. I thought about how Shaheen and my college coach had instructed me. I rolled over in bed and reached for some paper and a pencil on my desk—and I saw my letter to Shaheen. I had forgotten to ask Jahan to post it. It had to be posted tonight for the next morning’s pickup, otherwise it would have to wait another twenty-four hours. I would have to disturb Jahan at his homework. It wouldn’t take long. The postbox was on Karte Seh Wat. No more than five hundred meters, possibly less. It would take no more than five minutes for him to stroll there and back.
Five minutes, just five hundred meters.
It was such a short distance.
Like a sleepwalker, I went down to the basement, opened the trunk of my memories, removed the plastic bag Jahan had discovered yesterday, and hurried back to my room.
The beard was soft and seductive in my hands. I placed it on my face and firmly secured it. It was made of human hair, not animal hair. It had come from a Hindu woman’s head, shorn at the temple, an act of sacrifice and humility. I’d bought it at the Broadway Theater company in Connaught Place in Delhi.
I pinned the old turban in place too, fitting it firmly on my head. I picked up the little hand mirror, and when I looked into it I saw the old moneylender looking back at me. He studied me solemnly, his gaze inching over my face as if looking for imperfections. His eyes met mine. They should have been wary, weary, cynical, and old; instead they were feminine, young, clear, and confused. I removed the turban first, then the beard, and dropped them on the floor. Shylock vanished, consigned to the stage, consigned to memories.
MRS. LAKSHMI, MY ENGLISH literature professor in Delhi, was a slight, small woman with a narrow face, in her midfifties. In the center of her forehead was a red, round tilak, the size of a coin. What she lacked in height and weight she made up for with her eyes, alight with energy and enthusiasm as she looked at her small class of a dozen students.
“You’re going to do a lot of reading, and we will discuss in depth what you have read. I want your independent thoughts and not my regurgitated lectures on the writers.” She spoke quickly, as if there were too many words on her tongue and she had to get them out, fast, before they choked her.
“Nargis Dhawan? Are you here?” When Nargis raised her hand, Mrs. Lakshmi dumped a sheaf of papers on her. “Hand those out. That’s the required reading.” And as Nargis went around distributing the papers, she continued. “Nargis, you volunteered for our theater group?”
“Yes, Mrs. Lakshmi.”
“Would anyone else here like to join our theater group? We stage three or four plays a year. Some serious, some comedies, as people like comedies for no reason I can discern.”
“Rukhsana,” Nargis said wickedly, and pointed at me.
“Good, that’s two.”
“But I can’t act,” I said, startled to find myself volunteered.
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Lakshmi said, brusquely dismissing my denial. “All women know how to act from the moment we are born. It’s the gift God gave us to survive in this man’s world. We have to act out our orgasms, our humility, our love when none exists, and suppress our ambitions.” She looked me over fro
m head to toe. “With a little help from me you’re going to play Shylock.”
“I know nothing about men!” I wailed.
“My dear girl, there is nothing to know, they are all sound and fury signifying nothing,” Mrs. Lakshmi said. She waited for the burst of laughter to end. “When you leave here, observe them, watch them on the streets and in the buses and playing sports. Copy them, but don’t become them, as they’ll infect you with the delicate egos they suffer from. You have to believe in becoming the man, Shylock, immerse yourself in his language, his words, his arrogance at the start and humility at the end.”
I WENT TO JAHAN’S room clutching my letter to Shaheen. He was crouched over his books, music from the headphones pounding his ears, his unruly hair falling over his eyes. He had dozed off. I couldn’t bear to wake him. Quietly, I took a shalwar, trousers, and his coat from a pile of clothes in a corner and left. In my room, I stripped and dressed in his clothes. The shalwar was loose and hung down to my knees; the jacket over it hid my feminine form. I put my hand in the pocket and found a fistful of banknotes.
I looked in my mirror: the clothes concealed my silhouette. I stood still, waiting for sanity to reclaim me. Instead, I picked up Shylock’s beard and fastened the mask firmly on my face. I gathered up my hair, knotted it, and held it on the top of my head as I slipped on the turban. I pulled it down tight so that my hair wouldn’t escape. I shook my head violently, from side to side and up and down. Neither beard nor turban became unfastened. Finally, I wrapped a hijab around my shoulders and across the bottom half of my face. I picked up the letter. I had to send it tonight, it was my lifeline.
It wasn’t late, just eight o’clock. The hall was dark as I stepped through it into the kitchen. My hand shook as I reached for the keys and they eluded me, they danced out of reach, making such a loud sound that I thought my mother and Jahan would come running. I steadied one hand with the other, and took them down.
I held the key for the back door with both hands, inserted it in the lock, and twisted. The door opened. I stepped out into the cool, evening air. It seemed to take ages for me to tiptoe across the courtyard. I could hear Abdul snoring in his room. At the side gate, I held the key with both hands again, more determined now, committed to this madness, and opened that door. The street was deserted and full of shadows. The threshold seemed unnaturally high. I stepped over it, and stood in the lane. I closed the gate behind me.
WHEN I REACHED THE corner, I looked past the high wall of our courtyard and saw the solitary light in Jahan’s room. I could still scuttle back home to safety. Instead, I kept going toward Karte Seh Wat. My breath came in short bursts and I felt as if I’d just sprinted a hundred meters.
Calm down, calm down. Remember Shylock and pace the stage. Remember cricket: the long, solitary walk to the pitch through the minefield of eleven hostile opponents watching and praying for you to fail.
I kept moving down the street.
Don’t reveal any fear. Avoid all eye contact. Just take one step and then another. I am a young man out on an evening stroll. I will not be intimidated.
I walked as if I still wore the burka, and I was afraid that I might trip, but the streetlamps were all broken, which I had counted on to keep me hidden. I had heard of men who donned the burka to pass through dangerous war zones undetected—I had removed mine to see if I could pass undetected into danger. I had freedom even if I was also filled with dread.
Beyond the relative safety of my dark road lay the two hundred meters of better-lit streets filled with men strolling freely, laughing, gossiping, dreaming of things that men dream of. I heard distant voices and footsteps as I stood on the corner. A donkey cart passed within a few feet of me, but neither the beast nor the old man sitting on it glanced in my direction. I turned left and began walking toward Karte Seh Wat.
I smelled the dust, the kebabs, and the naan saturating the air. Men stood at stalls, drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. Their smoke drifted to me on the soft breeze. Not all the men were whole. Some were on crutches, others with an arm missing. I tried not to glance at them even though I had that freedom now. I stared straight ahead, not wanting to meet a stranger’s eyes.
I recognized a few of the local shopkeepers—Kabir the baker, Akhmed the grocer, Ehsan the chemist. They were fixtures, unmoved by the wars that raged around the city. They knew how to survive and they paid no attention to the slight stranger.
Deeper in the shadows were women in their burkas, some holding out their hands for alms, others offering me their bodies. Before the Talib, our beggars were a few old men, and now they were women who did not have husbands or sons to support them. I had heard many had to turn to prostitution to survive, and the religious police would beat them and drive them away. As often as not they would first pleasure themselves for free. The women waited for them to leave the area, and then returned. “Come, young man, enjoy me. Very cheap. Thirty thousand Afghanis,” they called. Some hands were gnarled, others younger and still delicate.
Another woman called softly, “Brother, please help me, give me some money. I am hungry.”
I took a hurried step past her. Then stopped. I knew the voice, and it sickened me to hear her.
“Sister, what did you say?” I whispered, standing close to her.
She drew away, turning her head, ashamed. “Please help me. I’m hungry.”
“Mother Nadia?”
“You know me, brother? Help me then. I am alone and can’t work.”
I couldn’t help my tears as I took out the handful of banknotes and gave them to my old teacher.
“How did you know me, brother?”
“My . . . my . . . sister, Rukhsana, went to your school and I recognized your voice.”
“Rukhsana? Rukhsana! Yes, I remember her. She was a cheerful girl, always the leader in the class, always asking questions.” Her sigh penetrated my heart. “How is she? Is she safe?”
“She’s well,” I whispered. I remembered her voice in school, bright as a gold coin. Now, it was dull and tarnished with sadness.
“I hope she is married to a good man who cares for her. Please don’t tell her about me.”
She clutched the notes tightly, bowed her head, and hurried away. I watched her with blurred eyes until she reached the corner.
The square green postbox on its stand was another fifty meters and I hurried to it, said a small prayer, and pushed the letter through the slot. I lifted my face and felt a slight breeze caress it. For the first time in three and a half years, I breathed in the cool evening air without the impediment of cloth against my nose. Just such a simple pleasure reminded me of past days.
I tried not to hurry as I returned home. I paced myself, head still averted from any lights. As I turned off to my road, a man stepped out from the darkness and fell in beside me. He walked a few steps in silence, and I did not dare turn to look at him.
“Are you mad?” Jahan whispered. “Are you stupid? They will shoot you dead and then shoot me for being your mahram.”
“My heart nearly stopped!” I almost screamed.
“What about mine!” he continued in his furious whisper. “I’ve been following you this whole time. I was so scared when you spoke to that woman.”
“She was my geography teacher. I recognized her voice and gave her the money in your coat pocket.”
“Did she recognize your voice?”
“I whispered,” I managed to stutter. I’d never seen Jahan so angry. “When you whisper . . . it’s hard to tell whether you’re male or female.”
“You must never do this again. I forbid it, do you understand? As your brother and your mahram, I’m telling you this.”
“What would you do if I did? Report me to the religious police and have me beaten?”
“No, I’ll lock you in your room. Lock you in the house.”
“I’m already locked in the house,” I reminded him gently. I saw the tension in his young face as he wrestled with asserting his male authority over his sister.
“Why did you do this?”
“I had to post the letter. I forgot to give it to you and you were asleep.” I took a breath. “Did I look like a man?”
“No. Like my sister in a beard,” he said sourly as we walked home.
“That’s because you know it’s me. When we get home, tell me.”
In the pale moonlight, I modeled and walked around for him.
“Well, it’s night, so it’s hard to say . . . but what about in the day? You walk like a woman, and look at your hands.” I looked down. They were soft and pale compared to a man’s hands. “And your eyes too. They are a woman’s. And your feet.”
“I’ll wear glasses and sneakers. And I’ll keep my hands in my sleeves. I’ll have to study how men walk.” I had to convince him. “You saw that I can’t bowl or bat in a burka. I need a way to teach you how to play. This is just for cricket.” I smiled at my cleverness and Jahan smiled back.
We turned the corner onto our street and stopped when we saw an unfamiliar car and a Land Cruiser parked outside our front gate. We hesitated, but two policemen saw us at the corner and motioned us over. I remained beside my brother.
As Jahan reached the car, the near passenger door opened and a thickset man with a silky black beard climbed out. He wore a black shalwar and a flat black pakol cap on his head. The driver remained at the wheel. For a few seconds the interior car light illuminated a woman sitting in the far passenger seat, clothed in her burka. She turned her head toward Jahan but vanished into the darkness as soon as the door slammed shut. A faint breeze touched the man and carried his scent to me. It was the same sickly sweet perfume of the man who had circled me in the room at the ministry, and I took a step farther back into the shadows.
The man greeted Jahan, “Salaam aleikum.” He held out his hand and placed his left palm against his chest.
Jahan took his hand. “Aleikum salaam.” And he performed the same gesture.
“You are?”
The Taliban Cricket Club Page 10