The Eleventh Trade

by Alyssa Hollingsworth

  Another firework whistles into the air.

  I close my eyes, but the sound hits me like a force. It crackles in my chest. Lodges there. Rattles my ribs. I can’t breathe. I can’t.

  They don’t know. They don’t know we’re under attack. I’m the only one. I have to warn them. I can’t open my mouth. I can’t breathe. It’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s wrong.

  My eyes shut tight, I fight to unlock my jaw. The crowd rises in a cheer, and the music lifts with the orchestra in full force. This isn’t Afghanistan. This is America. I’m fine. I’m safe.

  Safe, safe, safe. Over and over. Keep thinking it. Safe, safe, safe.

  Air trickles into my lungs. I try to make them expand. Gunpowder—I taste it on my tongue, lightly, only a hint. Metallic. Burning.

  If I make myself watch the fireworks, from launch to explosion, my body will understand. They’re only shooting into the sky. Not hurting anything. I shouldn’t be like this. No one else is like this.

  I peel my eyes open. One and then the other.

  Two points of light shoot off the barges, sputtering into the gray-smoke remains of the others. They blip out for a second. The music changes key.

  The fireworks burst into color—both red and blooming. Their combined roar hits my heart like a punch. I breathe in puffed chokes.

  This is the last feeling my mor had as all the blood left her body. This is the last thing my plar heard.

  The wedding—

  Baba reaching for me—

  “Come down—”

  Shattered windows—

  “Come down—”

  Five bright lights streak into the sky with a shrill scream. Layla covers her ears. Dan laughs at her. I push myself back. Rock to the balls of my feet. Crouch.

  They explode—each of them spinning into five different, smaller explosions. My stomach heaves. All I have eaten rises in my throat.

  “Sami?” Mrs. Michele asks.

  Dan and Layla turn toward me.

  But I run.

  My shoe slides on someone’s picnic blanket. Rasps over the pavement.

  Boom rips through the air and hits my back. I stumble, scrape my palm. Run harder.

  The policemen notice me. One opens his mouth. My head is full of the pounding music and shouting crowd. Each step lands heavy, jolts up my ankles and legs. Cold sweat drips off my nose.

  “Come down—” Baba reaches for me. “Come down—”

  Glass shattered across the courtyard.

  “Come down—

  “We have to run—”

  The memory twists me, tunes me, plays me. I shove past people on the street corner. My gasped breaths burn. No matter how far I run, I can’t stop seeing the wedding.

  26

  We are at the wedding. Baba is finishing a solo on his rebab. I lean against my plar, and he puts an arm around my shoulders while he laughs at a comment his friend made. His chest bounces against my back. Across the the melman khana, the guest room, my mor jani has her chin in her hands, eyes closed as she listens. Today she only wears the large porlaney scarf, wrapped over her hair and draped across her chest.

  Other women move between the low tables, serving tea and treats. My many cousins are scattered around, entertaining themselves or watching Baba. One of my aunts, the mother of the newly married husband, flits between the kitchen and this room, taking obvious pride in how many family members she is able to host in her home. Out of the dozens here, there are only a few I do not recognize.

  I am eight years old. It has been a long wedding ceremony, and I am bored.

  As Baba finishes his solo, I nudge my plar’s arm. “Plar,” I say when he looks down, “did you see the grapes in the courtyard?”

  “The trellis?” he asks, the laugh lingering in his voice. “I do not know if the grapes are ripe yet, Sami jan.”

  “I’ll find out! Can I go outside?” I try to make my eyes bigger, pleading. “Only for a few minutes!”

  “What’s this?” Baba comes toward us, the rebab still in his arms. “Have I bored my poor grandson beyond bearing?”

  “No, I believe it’s only love that has bored him.” Plar smiles and shifts to his feet. “Come, I’ll go with you.”

  “I can go myself,” I object, annoyed.

  Plar shakes his head. “Perhaps if you can interest your cousins, you could go together. But I don’t want you to be alone. Come, don’t you want to see how many grapes you can find?”

  “Not with his father, perhaps,” Baba says. He shifts the rebab and offers me his right hand. “We will bring our treasures back from the hunt.”

  “Yes!” I take Baba’s hand. “Plar, you can come when I gather enough for you and Mor.”

  “Very well.” Plar pats my head. “Your mor and I will come when you are ready.”

  “Let’s go!” Now that I’ve decided, I’m impatient to leave. I all but drag Baba toward the door, even though he tries to give the rebab to my plar. “Come, come! You can play, and maybe then my boring cousins will join us!”

  “Very well, O Determined One.” Baba laughs and doesn’t bother to put the rebab down.

  I wave toward Mor jani, and she lifts her chin off her hands to grin.

  Baba and I leave together.

  I do not look back.

  I do not look back.

  I run ahead into the warm sunlight, pausing by the door to slip on my sandals. There are so many pairs, it takes me some searching to find them. But finally I am free, dashing out the door and around the outside kitchen.

  The day is late, and the wedding will go for many more hours. Between me and the high wall of the compound is a tall trellis of woven wood. Grape vines are twined through the gaps, their green leaves almost covering the skeleton structure. I spot a bunch of green grapes farther up. Looping my arm around one of the poles, I start to climb. The trellis stays sturdy under my weight.

  Baba, meanwhile, has set his rebab against the wooden frame. He holds his hands near my back. “I’ll catch you if you fall. Go on.”

  I reach for the top beam. Dust falls from the leaves onto my head. With my feet, I nudge the vines aside until I’m sure I can swing up and stand without crushing them.

  The first bunch of grapes are not ripe, but I find better ones hidden under the leaves. I pass them down to Baba until we have gathered two handfuls.

  “Come, Sami. We should return. This is plenty of harvest.”

  “But I’ve just found more,” I say, stretching my tired hands and crawling farther along the length of the vines. The far side of the trellis has grapes tinted purple. I don’t want to go inside again. “Get Plar and Mor! We can eat out here, and you can play. And tell Amina and Isa and Rashid and Navid and—”

  Baba laughs. “Very well, just give me a moment to gather all your favorite cousins,” he says. “I’ll—”

  The crack of tearing stone slices the air. The window glass shatters across the courtyard. Baba falls against the trellis, and it shudders. I freeze, pressed into the vines by the force. The roar keeps going in my head. My aunt’s house is full of holes.

  Baba looks from me to the building. He’s covered in dust. He seems to move slowly. His face—mouth open, eyes wide—his face—

  The screams begin.

  The air smells like fire.

  Baba lifts his arms to me. “Sami—”

  The windows are empty.

  Inside: Patter, patter, patter.

  “Come down—”

  Gunshots.

  “Come down—”

  My parents.

  “We have to run—”

  Glass covers the growing black-blue of the courtyard like shattered bits of night.

  Baba grabs my ankle and tugs it free of the vines. I can’t move myself. I let him pull me through the gaps in the structure. I slide into his arms.

  When my feet touch earth, the numbness thaws. A strangled sound—more cry than language—rips in my throat, and I launch myself toward the house. Baba catches me by the shirt.


  Patter, patter, patter.

  “Sami,” he says, gripping my shoulders and trying to hold me still. “Sami, no.”

  I shake my head. I have to go to them. There are still screams. They could be alive. They could—

  “The blast came from the melman khana.” Baba’s eyes are red from smoke or tears, but he doesn’t blink, doesn’t look away from me. “You have to hide.”

  He wraps his arms around me and lifts. The rebab is still sitting against the trellis. I grab it as we pass. Baba covers my head and folds me to his chest as he runs.

  The house is between us and the gate to the street. Patter, patter, patter, go the guns in loud, sharp, short shots. Baba takes the four stairs two at a time and pushes open the door to the outhouse. There isn’t much space, but he sets me on the dry mud ground away from the bare hole in the middle of the floor.

  “Hide here,” he says. He is Pashtun, and Pashtuns do not cower at a fight.

  A woman’s scream lifts above the noise. I grab Baba around the waist, bury my face against his fine wedding shirt, and hold on. I will not let him go. I cannot.

  “Sami, I must—”

  I grip the shirt in my fists. Hold.

  “The others—”

  I hold.

  “My family—”

  “I am your family,” I gasp into his chest. “Stay. Please.”

  His whole body shakes.

  I hold.

  We stay.

  We stay in the dank, foul outhouse as the gunshots slowly stop.

  Then the screams stop.

  The entire complex is full of silence.

  We stay.

  Eventually vehicles drive up outside the wall. Their tires bang over the unpaved, uneven road. The gate groans open.

  More explosions—smaller, but loud enough to shake the outhouse. I whimper, tightening my arms around Baba. There are five, and then the sound of boots.

  “It’s the police, Sami,” Baba whispers, more exhausted than relieved. “It’s the police.”

  Soon, they escort us out.

  Smoke pours through the holes of the house like blood.

  My mouth tastes like dust and gunpowder.

  They take us to a safe place. They ask for our story. Baba talks. They tell us a suicide bomber detonated. Two others with AK-47s broke in during the confusion. They targeted the survivors. The bomber was a distant cousin, one I did not recognize. The Taliban have claimed the attack. They say there were Western supporters in the room.

  A few people survived, we are told. An uncle, a cousin, two wives. Navid and three of my young cousins are rushed to the hospital. We do not know it then, but they will not live long.

  My mor and plar—

  They were gone hours before the police came.

  The man who tells me this does it softly. Baba presses his face against my head.

  “The blast shadow from the outdoor kitchen saved you both,” the man says. “You are lucky you survived.”

  I sit, consumed by silence. After the blast, all noise has been slowly drained from my mind.

  Lucky you survived.

  * * *

  The T train slows to a stop. The doors slide open, and the conductor mumbles, “Roxbury.”

  I lurch to my feet and stagger off. Drunk teenagers leer at me in passing, push me aside as they go to board. I drag myself up the stairs.

  The memory runs through my mind again, like a film I can’t turn off. I feel nothing now. I can only let it play as I walk down the streets, arms crossed tight over my middle. My phone is dinging. It has been for a while. I dig it out, shaking so hard I drop it once. Thankfully, the screen doesn’t crack. Baba wouldn’t like that. The thought is wrong, tiny, strange.

  The memory plays while I check the missed texts and calls from Dan and Layla and Layla’s parents. I open one text from Dan. My fingers jitter so much as I type my reply that it’s only because of autocorrect that the message is legible.

  Got sick. Am home. Fine.

  Send. Then I turn off my phone.

  Somehow I arrive at the apartment. I unlock the door. Baba is sitting on one of the toshaks, thumbing through his prayer beads. He lifts his head when I come in.

  “Sami?”

  I stagger to the wall and sink down on the toshak beside him. My whole body is shaking. “I’m sorry,” I gasp. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sami?” he asks, touching my forehead. “Is it the memories?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for leaving.” I try to gulp air. Even while I talk, the memories repeat and repeat. They run and run and run. My plar laughs and my mor smiles and the windows crack, burst. “I’m sorry for leaving.”

  Baba reaches for me. “Sami.”

  “I hate this!” I shout, pressing the palms of my hands against my closed eyes. “I hate being lucky. I hate surviving! I hate it!”

  Baba brushes a hand through my hair. “I know,” he whispers. “I know.”

  “I’m not strong!” My voice squeaks into tonelessness. “I’m not brave! Everyone says survivors are, but I’m not. This doesn’t feel like surviving—it feels like torture.”

  I try to breathe, and still the memories run. Somewhere in the distance, fireworks explode. I can’t help flinching, hating a world where explosions are entertainment.

  “I would not wish this on my enemy, let alone you, the son of my son,” Baba says softly. “Do you know how many times I have longed to return to the hours before—the minutes before?”

  I look at him. The memories keep playing.

  Baba’s face is lined, but he meets my gaze directly. “It is a torture to go on,” he says. “It is, Sami.”

  “Then why do it?”

  He is quiet a long time. My head hurts, but I keep watching him. Right now, I’m not sure anything is worth this.

  Finally, he whispers, “Because we survived. I must live for you, and you must live for me. Our loss brings us urgency, compassion. We live for each other and the others who are hurting. This may yet bring us healing. And even if it doesn’t”—he presses a kiss to my forehead—“I will be with you, and you with me.”

  “But you won’t,” I blurt, eyes stinging. “You won’t always be with me.”

  In movies or stories, this is the part where he would tap my heart and say, I will always be here. He doesn’t, though. Memory is never the same as living. I know this well. My parents will never be alive again, no matter how hard I try to remember, no matter how much I hold them in my heart. They loved me, and I love them still, but they are gone.

  I left them. They left me.

  “I may not always be with you,” Baba says, “but God will give you others. Sergeant Pyciors to help you on your journey. Dans to welcome you. Laylas to encourage you. And many more we don’t know yet.”

  “It isn’t the same.” I lower my gaze to the carpet.

  “No,” he agrees. “There are no replacements for the ones we lose. But there are abundant additions.”

  I think of Peter and the team. Of how he felt replaced, even when I tried to include him. Of how he attacked instead of accepting the change.

  “If we allow it, God will gather others around us, and we will not be left alone.” Baba shifts, exhaling. “I must be honest with you—I do not know if it ever will truly stop hurting. But it will not always be this way, Sami jan.”

  He draws me to lean on him, his arm around me. He smells like chai and soap. I breathe it in, my lungs hiccupping, and my bones still shuddering.

  “Now rest here and close your eyes.” He rubs my shoulder. “Try to be comfortable. And I will be right here, with you, should you need anything.”

  My eyes close. The images continue—Plar’s laughter and the force of the blast and the pattern of gunshots.

  Baba murmurs, “I will do my very best to not leave you.”

  “I know,” I whisper.

  “Khuday Pak mehriban dey.” He says the familiar phrase, the one we Afghans exchange whenever something terrible happens. “God is kind. We are like mount
ain soil after a fire. Hope is born in that soil.”

  My head burns with the memories. I long for a time of hope.

  With the smell of spices in the room, and the carpet fibers scratching against my feet, and the gentle rhythm of Baba’s heartbeat under my head, somehow—despite everything—I fall asleep.

  27

  I wake with a throbbing headache. Stiff and tired, I turn on my phone to check the time. It’s already noon.

  For a moment, I stare at the screen, unable to understand it. I’ve never slept in this late. I feel heavy, like my brain is full of scratchy wool.

  Two voice mails and fourteen missed texts flash on the screen. Most are from Dan. I scroll through them, too groggy to really care. The first couple are from last night:

  Hope you got home okay. The finale was cool!

  I think I had too much sugar, LOL. Still awake!!! Are you?

  You going to go to the rec center tomorrow? Lots of us are!

  You should COMMMME!

  The next are from this morning:

  RISE AND SHINE! I’m going to the rec center. You should come!

  I’m here!!! Are you coming?

  Coach and Juniper are dating! SO WEIRD!

  I just totally kicked Benj’s butt! You need to be here!

  We’re going to get lunch at McDonald’s and play some more games. COME!!!

  ?????

  Are you alive????

  I click through Layla’s three messages—two asking if I’m all right and one inviting me to the lunch with the others. Then I toss my phone aside. I don’t feel like answering.

  Today is the deadline. I only have $360 saved. It’s not enough. I can’t believe I was so stupid about the laptop.

  Maybe the rebab won’t sell the instant it’s put on sale. That’s likely. But how am I going to come up with $340 when I’m competing against all of Cambridge? All of the internet, for that matter, if he puts the ad up on eBay. The more I try to think of options and possibilities, the more my head hurts. I find myself just staring at the ceiling.

  My stomach cramps, like it wants to remind me it’s still Ramadan. I’m hungry enough to eat a whole lamb.