The Eleventh Trade

by Alyssa Hollingsworth

  When we arrive at our stop, we wiggle around the other passengers and get dumped on the sidewalk. Dan turns to his map again and leads the way.

  We end up going down a quiet street shadowed by trees on both sides. In the early evening, the light turns everything soft and gold tinted. It looks completely different from my part of town, where there’s trash everywhere and grit coats the buildings. Here, the redbrick townhouses are placed back from the street, behind bushes and sprouting trees.

  “Here’s the place—201,” Dan says, turning in to a walkway and stepping through a short iron gate.

  My pulse beats in my head. I step in front of Dan and press the buzzer. While I wait, I stare at the green-painted door.

  It swings open after a few seconds. A young woman wearing a colorful porlaney is in front of me, her scarf covering her hair and lifted to hide her nose and mouth. Her eyes are gray-brown, like my mor’s, and I make a connection I should have made in the shop.

  Maliha. It’s an Afghan name. She’s from Afghanistan.

  “Assalamu alaikum, khor,” I greet her, using the Pashto word for sister. I continue in Pashto, “Tsenga yeh?”

  Her eyes widen. In halting English, she asks, “You—Afghan?”

  I nod.

  She drops her porlaney and grins widely. But I don’t notice the grin right away.

  Because the skin on her face is melted.

  Where it should be normal, it slopes in waxy smears. Like it burned and then froze. Seeing it makes me feel like I have no skin at all, and my first instinct is to back away.

  Dan gulps audibly.

  I half expect her to lift the porlaney again, but she does not. She does not apologize, either. Her eyes flick to Dan and then to me, the smile still on her misshapen lips.

  “It appears I have scared your friend,” she says in Pashto. “What is your name?”

  “Sami. This is Dan.”

  “I’m Maliha. Would you both like to come inside?”

  I try not to stare directly at her. The rebab is in there. And if her face is scarred, it doesn’t matter. Maliha is of my same-language people.

  I lift my chin. “Yes, thank you.”

  30

  Dan and I leave our shoes at the door, and Maliha takes us into a living room. It’s decorated like an Afghan house—with real toshaks and a beautiful red Afghan carpet spread across the floor. An older, gray-haired American woman is reading on one of the cushions. She glances up when we enter.

  “Ginny, guests,” Maliha announces. I hear pride in her voice, though she stumbles through the English. “This—Sami. He is Afghan. And Dan. He is…”

  “Irish, technically.” Dan forces a stiff grin, his face still a bit green. “But American. Bostonian. Yeah.”

  “Hello! Please make yourselves at home,” the woman, Miss Ginny, says, rising. She turns to Dan. “Are you fasting?”

  “Um, nope.”

  Her mouth twitches into a smile. “Well, would you like to come have a cup of tea with me in the other room? Then these two can talk freely in Pashto.”

  “Oh, yes! That sounds great!” Dan says in a rush. Then he glances at me guiltily. “I mean…”

  I can’t help smiling. “It’s fine. Have an extra cup for me.”

  As they leave, Maliha ushers me to the place of honor at the back of the room. “Ginny is my sponsor,” she explains in Pashto. “She hosts a few refugees at a time in her townhouse. She’s very kind, and not so bad at brewing chai.”

  I sit down, but suddenly I can’t concentrate on anything Maliha says. Because I see it.

  The rebab is resting against the wall.

  My baba’s rebab, with the beaded tassel from my grandmother, and the mother-of-pearl down its neck.

  Maliha notices my gaze. “I found that rebab in Cambridge last week—I could hardly believe my eyes. So rare to come across anything from home!”

  The wanting is so strong, I almost can’t speak. I have to clear my throat. “I-It is my baba’s, actually.”

  “What?” Maliha asks.

  So I recount how the rebab was stolen, and the eleven trades that brought me here. Though it only happened a month ago, it feels as if years have passed, the journey to this apartment has been so difficult. But while I tell Maliha everything that has happened, I find myself smiling at the good times, too.

  At the beginning of the month, Baba and I were entirely alone. The loss of the rebab connected me to Dan—first when he found it on eBay, and then when he offered to help after the disastrous trade with Peter. The whole reason I went to the rec center for the first time was because I wanted to see if the iPod could be fixed. And at the rec center I found Layla and Hamida and my team—and Coach, who led me to Mr. Lincoln and Miss Cheryl.

  The loss of the rebab also drew me to Mr. Farid and the rest of the community at the mosque. It gathered strangers and mere acquaintances and turned them into friends, brothers, and sisters.

  I think of the wad of money in my pocket—scraped and saved and traded and given. It is a strange thing, how the pain has turned to hope. How last night was filled with regret, and today I’m shining with wholeness.

  The only piece left is the rebab itself.

  After I finish, Maliha exclaims, “What a strange and marvelous story! There must be some magic in the rebab’s wood yet.”

  I nod. I desperately want to offer her the money and take the rebab back. But that is the Western way—over the past month I must have developed an American side, a desire to get what I want as quickly as I can—and instead I sit quietly as she folds her hands on her knees. In Afghanistan, Baba and I couldn’t so much as buy a rug without spending hours chatting with the owner. I take a deep breath and feel some of the tension seep away.

  “May I tell you how the rebab found me?” Maliha asks, smiling though her eyes look sad. She taps her cheek, where the skin puckers. “It is connected to this.”

  “How?” I ask, bewildered.

  “It begins many years ago. I had an education in Kabul, but when I was fourteen, I had to marry my family’s landlord to cover my father’s debts. My husband—he was not kind.” She rubs her arm, where small circles of shiny scars mark her skin. She lifts her chin. “But I have never been meek. He would not let me attend school, and when he caught me sneaking out, I would be punished. Eventually he kept me locked inside. But when his terrible mother left the home for chai with her friends, I would take his dambora and pluck its strings.”

  My stomach churns. From her account, I can tell her husband was old-fashioned. In traditional Afghan culture, women are not supposed to play instruments.

  She traces her finger along the stretched skin of her jaw. “His mother found me one day and accused me of doing it to attract men.” She shakes her head. “I think it was what she and my husband saw as the last of many insults.”

  “Why did you do it?” I ask, unable to hide a shudder. “Why risk so much?”

  “I had no friends, no family, nothing left to me anymore.” She shrugs. “I told you I am not meek. The dambora became my voice. Once I had taught myself to play it, I could not stop. It took me to another world—a better one.”

  I nod. This I understand.

  Maliha tilts her head and goes on. “He burned me with acid, and he left. But I am too stubborn to die. I crawled outside the house—he left it unlocked, assuming I was dead—and found my way to a safe place for women. They took me to the hospital. Someone snapped a picture of me before they bandaged the wounds and posted it online. Soon my face was everywhere! Meanwhile, my husband’s family was outraged that I had lived and was bringing shame to him. They threatened the shelter. So it was arranged for me to be evacuated, and I came to New York. That was three years past now.”

  I pause to take all this in. Acid burns are not an unusual form of punishment, but I cannot imagine the sort of person who would do that to someone else. My mor was fortunate—educated, loved by her family, adored by Plar, and doted on by Baba. Was she the exception in our country, or is
Maliha? I don’t know.

  Swallowing, I ask, “What happened then?”

  “Well, I lived in another safe home for a long while. I saw many doctors for my body and my mind. I went to English classes, though I am still not good.” She laughs a little. “Ginny says I am just impatient. I talk too fast in Pashto for her to understand, but when I speak English, it has more holes than a teapot mender’s wares. I do not like to wait for the words to come.”

  “It isn’t an easy language.”

  “I will conquer it someday.” She smiles. “I like to conquer things.”

  I glance at the rebab. “How did you come to Boston, then?”

  “My sponsors think I am ready for the surgery I need, so I have been sent here to have it done at Boston Medical. There are so many refugee centers in Boston—so much help—I may stay instead of returning to New York. I like it here, anyway—I like how green it is on this street.” She shifts her legs so that she is kneeling on them. “But most of all I like that you have come today. Ginny is wonderful, and the other Dari and Tajik girls are friendly—they have helped me practice my Farsi—but I had not yet met any Pashtuns in this city. And there is nothing so sad as being homesick right before Eid al-Fitr!”

  I nod.

  “I thought that God had gifted me with this for Eid,” she says, touching the rebab. “I had bought a guitar, but I could not get used to the sound. When I went to sell it, I saw this sitting against the wall behind the counter. You must know, Sami, how it is to feel so alone in such a place. It almost seemed to me that my sweet dambora had been returned, though the two instruments are not very similar.”

  I nod, a twinge of guilt starting in my stomach. Because I do know. And though I want the rebab no less, and though it has to go back to Baba, regret still taints my happiness. If I take it, she won’t have this piece of her voice.

  But Baba isn’t old-fashioned. Not terribly. He would have taught my mor how to play the rebab if she had wanted to learn. He could teach Maliha—I will ask him. I won’t take music from her entirely. No one should endure that.

  Maliha brushes her fingers across the strings, and they give a soft thrum. Then she lifts the instrument.

  “Now I see that God wished this instrument to be a vessel of his true gift,” she says, turning to me and grinning. “For I have met with my brother in a foreign land, and what could bless Eid better than to bless my brother?”

  She offers the rebab to me. I stare at it, and then at her.

  “No, no,” I say, reaching into my pocket. “I have money. I can pay you.”

  “It is a gift, Sami,” she says.

  “No, you don’t need to, really.” I pull out my plastic-bag wallet.

  “It is a gift,” she insists.

  “No, it’s too much.” I’m shaking my head, and my eyes start to sting again.

  Maliha leans over and sets the rebab in my lap. “Now you have refused three times, and I have given three times. You know that I mean it. Do not insult me by protesting more.”

  I run my hand under the neck of the rebab and wrap my arm around the body, and I know I couldn’t argue if I wanted to.

  Something for nothing. It isn’t a trade, but a gift.

  When I glance up at her, she beams. And despite the tears in my eyes, I find myself grinning back.

  31

  “Come with me to celebrate iftar with my baba,” I blurt suddenly, unsure why I hadn’t thought of it before. “He can play this for you—it’ll be just like a celebration at home.”

  “Will there be other women?” she asks, momentarily uncertain.

  “Yes—I will invite some!”

  “Oh good!” Maliha claps. “Just let me tell Ginny.”

  She scrambles to her feet and goes into the hall. I take my phone and send texts to everyone I can think of—Layla and her parents, Mr. Lincoln and Miss Cheryl, Hamida, and Coach and Miss Juniper. I don’t know how we’ll fit them all into our tiny apartment, but I don’t care right now. My whole body is light with joy. I can’t keep the rebab a secret another day.

  I also send a text to Baba. Coming home soon. Can some friends join us for iftar?

  He answers almost immediately, Certainly! You know I always make extra in case God brings us guests.

  Maliha pokes her head into the room. “Okay, I’m ready!”

  I get up and cradle the rebab in my arms while I follow her out. Dan joins us in the hallway.

  He grins when he sees the rebab. “You got it back!”

  “Maliha gave it to me.” I pull on my sandals by the front door while Dan and Maliha get their shoes. A new thought occurs to me, and I turn to her, bewildered. In Pashto, I ask, “What am I going to do with all the money? I still have eight hundred and ten dollars.”

  She lifts her eyebrows, pulling on her second sandal. “What do you want to do?”

  “Everyone has given so much—I want to give something, too.”

  “The choice is yours,” she says cheerfully, straightening. “There are many refugees like you in this city, and God does love a generous giver.”

  I nod, decided. I’ll have to research programs—perhaps I can talk to Mr. Farid or the imam about places they would recommend. Maybe I could even help Maliha find a dambora! I could get something for Baba, too. Perhaps I could find him some nice lotion to soothe his hands.

  There will be time for all that later. Tonight, we celebrate.

  And tomorrow, Eid al-Fitr, will be even more joyful.

  As we’re going out, I say in English to Dan, “We’re going to celebrate fast-breaking—iftar—with Baba. I’ve invited a bunch of the others. Think your mom would be able to join us?”

  “I’ll ask!” Dan gets out his phone.

  “We need to grab some extra snacks on the way there.” I pause to grin at Maliha. I’m jittery with happiness. Not only do I have the rebab—I have money to truly host guests. “I think this may be the best Eid ever.”

  “Alhamdulillah!” Praise be to God. Maliha lifts her porlaney over her nose, but her eyes are squinty with her smile.

  * * *

  Minutes before sunset, I try to shush everyone in the hallway outside my apartment. Mr. Lincoln elbows Coach, and Miss Juniper giggles. Mrs. Michele leans over to play with Jared to calm him down while Mr. Ty shifts his baby carrier. Dan’s mom—looking less tired now, with a tilt to her mouth and a mischievous gleam to her eyes—pauses her conversation with Miss Cheryl. Layla, Hamida, and Dan stop poking each other and turn to me. They’re holding the grocery bags of snacks we bought on the way.

  “I’ll go first,” I whisper. “Then I’ll let you guys in. Okay?”

  They nod. Mr. Farid translates into Farsi for Maliha. While he does, I stuff my money back into my pocket. We only spent a little on the food—barely a dent in my earnings. There will be plenty to give.

  I take a deep breath and slide my key into the lock. There is no way to hide the rebab—it isn’t much smaller than me—so I don’t bother putting it behind my back. I tap the door open with my foot and step inside. An Islamic channel crackles over the radio, ready to announce the azaan and fast-breaking. The apartment smells of food and chai and spices.

  “Sami jan? Is that you?” Baba calls from the living space. “I’ll be just a minute.”

  “It’s me,” I say, though my voice trembles slightly. I slip off my shoes and shut the door quietly behind me. “My friends are coming.”

  “Very good.”

  My heart has never been so full. I walk to the doorway and pause. Baba is sitting on one of toshaks, straightening the tablecloth on the floor, but he looks up. Sees me.

  Sees the rebab.

  For the rest of my life I will remember what this moment feels like.

  “Khuday Pak mehriban dey,” I whisper. “God is kind.”

  Confusion and bewilderment flit across his face. I start to laugh, my happiness overflowing. I can’t contain it. I offer the rebab to him.

  Baba’s cracked and worn hands close around the mulberry
wood, and he draws the rebab to his lap. He plucks at the strings. A few notes soar into the stillness of our tiny apartment, and I see joy—deep and real—settle in his soul. He looks up at me then, as I open the front door to let in our friends.

  Slow and true and wide, he smiles.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  When my sister invited me to visit her in Afghanistan, I said yes.

  It was 2011, and I was twenty years old. I spent the months leading up to this trip learning everything I could about a remarkable group of people called the Pashtun, from the way they sit to the way they don’t throw away crumbs (they leave them outside for the birds). I focused on the Pashtun because my sister’s work was largely conducted in Pashtun regions of the country, and Pashto was her language of study. But Afghanistan is filled with languages and cultures and minority groups, each vibrant with unique forms of hospitality, family life, love, and friendship.

  Back then, The Eleventh Trade wasn’t even a speck in my mind. As I look over this novel, I can see my Afghan friends’ fingerprints everywhere. One young man, detained in Greece—long before the migrant crisis appeared in the news—talked about watching from his cell as the Parthenon lit up each night. Another friend, who came to work one day after having been beaten by her own family members, cried with me until I could not tell whose tears were on our hands. During a talk about writing through trauma, another Afghan friend met my eyes and asked, “But how can we look back at trauma without our hearts being broken beyond repair?”

  Since 1818, the longest period of peace in Afghanistan has been just forty years, between 1933 and 1973. The unending wars fought on Afghanistan’s soil have left wounds that can be seen in the drastic gaps in education between generations and genders, the abject poverty, the bullet holes in mosques, and the scars on survivors. Though foreign peoples such as the Macedonians, Ancient Persians, Mongols, British, Soviets, Pakistanis, and Americans have fought on Afghan soil, journalist Ahmed Rashid said it right when he noted that “no outsider has ever conquered [the Afghans] or claimed their soul.”