Born Under a Million Shadows (27 page)

“Okay, I’ll tell my mother,” I replied.

In Afghanistan, when people die there are strict times for prayers. The first are said on the day of burial, of course, then three days after we say them again, then again after a week has passed, then forty days from the time they went into the
ground, and then finally a year later. This was the first time I had ever been properly involved in the business of saying good-bye to the dead, and I wondered how many more I would have to say good-bye to before my own life was over.

I wasn’t looking forward to returning to Khair Khana, but in the end I was glad I did because it was almost beautiful. At his brother’s house, Spandi’s father was surrounded by people who had come to repeat the words of Allah, and speak their own words of help and hope to him. As they fed their love into his bones through handshakes and whispers, I saw the difference it made to Spandi’s father, who looked bigger than the last time I’d seen him, not nearly so destroyed. And it helped me too because I could see that away from the politicians and their arguments, away from the suicide bombers and their murders, and away from the soldiers and their guns, people were good. Afghan people were good. And even though I was having trouble controlling my brain, I knew I had to try to hold on to at least that truth.

In the small front room of Spandi’s uncle’s house, dozens of people I didn’t know were taking time out from their own lives and their own problems to remember a little boy who had been my best friend. I saw the sadness in their eyes, and I saw it was real. I heard the soft hum of their words, and I heard they were true.

And so I took these pictures and sounds, and I stored them in my head so that I would always remember that there was more to Afghanistan and Afghans than war and killing.

“When
I was about your age one of my best friends died.”

Haji Khan was driving and smoking. Beside him was a man with a gun that looked as terrifying as he did. I was sittings in the back, feeling small.

I looked up at his words and caught him watching me in
the rearview mirror. His eyes were dark as night, and his forehead was broken by lines above heavy black eyebrows. He looked both fearsome and kind, which should be impossible, and I remembered Georgie’s story about the time he had traveled to see her in a Shinwar village so many years ago.

“How?” I asked. “How did your friend die?”

“We were playing by the river in Surkhrud, a village just outside Jalalabad where the water runs red from the mountains. He fell in and drowned.”

“It must have been a deep river.”

“No, not really. I think he hit his head on some rocks when he slipped because, when I realized he wasn’t fooling around and I tried to pull him out, there was a deep cut on his head.”

“You thought he was playing?”

“Yes, I’m afraid I did. Hey! Mother of a cow!”

Haji Khan suddenly swerved the car to avoid a one-legged man riding a bicycle almost into our path. After sounding his horn and frowning at the cripple, who would soon lose the other leg if he wasn’t more careful, Haji Khan looked at me apologetically.

“Sorry about that,” he muttered. “Best not tell Georgie I said that.”

“Said what?” I asked.

And he looked at me in the mirror again, smiling with his eyes.

“So, how did you feel when your friend died?” I asked.

“Not good.”

“I don’t feel very good either,” I admitted.

“You won’t right now,” Haji Khan replied with a shrug, “and maybe you never will. I still think of my friend even today.”

“Ho . . . that’s a long time.”

“Yes,” Haji Khan agreed. “Sometimes I think the dead have it easy. The difficult part is staying alive and, more than that, wanting to stay alive.”

When we arrived back at the house, Haji Khan reached into the space between the two front seats of his Land Cruiser where a little drawer was hidden. He pulled out a book and passed it back to me. It was covered with the softest leather, like a baby’s skin, and inside were about a hundred handwritten poems in Pashto. When I flicked through the pages I saw the verses were all about love, each and every one of them.

I looked at Haji Khan, not sure what to say.

“It’s not for you.” He laughed, obviously picking up on the worry that had crept into my head. “It’s for Georgie. But maybe you can read these poems to her now and again because she’s been very lazy and hasn’t learned Pashto.”

“Okay,” I agreed, relieved. “Did you write them?”

“Me?” He laughed again. “No. A man from my village wrote them. He’s blessed with the gift. I am only blessed with the money to get him to write his words down on paper.”

“But Georgie doesn’t understand one word of Pashto,” I reminded him.

“No, she doesn’t. But she knows the sound of love, and she knows the word for love.”

Mina
. Love. My sister.

“Also,” Haji Khan added, breaking into my thoughts, “will you tell her that I’ve prepared the house for her, ready for when she comes? Ismerai will be there.”

“Where will you be?” I asked.

“I’ll be . . . giving her time.”

Back
in the house, I couldn’t deliver Haji Khan’s message because Georgie was nowhere to be found. As it was still
early, I guessed she was probably still in her office sorting out goats to comb. It came as no surprise to me that James was at home, however. As I fetched myself a glass of water, he jumped on me.

“Psst! Fawad! Come here!”

I sighed, heavily and dramatically so he would understand the full force of my tiredness.

“I’m not playing any of your stupid games,” I told him. “And besides, I’m sure they’re against Islam.”

“What on earth do you mean?” James asked, looking slightly hurt. “Twister, my dear fellow, is not against Islam. It is a competition involving skill and agility—that’s sort of like being good at moving—and great courage.”

I looked at James and raised my eyebrows in the way May did when she knew he was talking rubbish.

“Okay, okay,” he admitted, “it also allows you to touch ladies’ bottoms.”

“See! I told you it was against Islam!”

“Details, Fawad, only details. Now come with me, I want to show you something.”

As ordered, I followed James into the living room and over to the table where May liked to do her work. On top of it sat a small box and some green and silver paper.

“Right,” he said, “take a look at this and tell me what you think.”

He passed me the box. I opened it and found a beautiful ring inside, a silver circle with a cover of gold on top that had been carefully marked with tiny scratched flowers.

I looked at James, not sure what to say.

“Don’t give me that look!” He laughed. “It’s for Rachel. I just wanted to see if you think she would like it before I wrapped it up.”

“I’m sure she will. Are you getting married?” I asked, surprise making my voice climb high.

“What? No! No, of course not,” James replied with even more surprise. “It’s for her birthday.”

“Oh.”

“Fuck! You don’t think that she’ll think that I’m proposing, do you?”

I shrugged.

“Oh, fuck!” whispered James, pulling at his hair, which could really have done with a wash. “Fuck! Fuck! Fucking fuck!”

A
little after the sound of evening prayers had floated across the sky and my mother had skipped across the road to see Homeira “about something,” Georgie came home with Dr. Hugo following behind her. This gave me something of a problem. I really liked the doctor—he was gentle and kind, and he closed the holes in children whose legs had been blown off by land mines—but I was a bit mixed-up as to who I liked best, him or Haji Khan. Dr. Hugo saved Afghans, but Haji Khan was Afghan. Either way, I didn’t think I should give Georgie the book filled with poems right there in front of him, and as I knew I couldn’t hide my heart from my eyes, or even keep my mouth shut, I stayed in my room.

Within ten minutes Georgie came to find me.

“Why are you hiding in here?” she asked after I shouted permission for her to come in when she knocked at my door.

“I’m getting some rest,” I lied.

“Really? Had a busy day, did we?”

And of course I couldn’t stop the truth from slipping out.

“Yes, it was quite busy actually. Haji Khan came for me, and we went in his car to Khair Khana with a man with a gun to pray for Spandi. Then he brought me home and told me about his best friend who died after hitting his head in the red river when he was a boy, and then he gave me a book
and he said I should read it to you sometimes because you’re lazy.”

“Oh, he did, did he?”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

I reached for the book hiding under my pillow and gave it to her. Georgie gently took it in her hands, stroking the skin of it with her long white fingers before opening it carefully.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, and I nodded.

“He also told me that the house was ready for you and that Ismerai would be there.”

Georgie nodded. “That’s kind,” she said.

“I didn’t know you were going to Jalalabad.”

“I’ve some work to do there. I’ll be leaving tomorrow because I need to speak to Baba Gul about his goats again.” Georgie looked a little sad. “Hey! Shall we ask your mother if you can come with me?”

I thought about it for a second and, because I didn’t really feel like traveling and I felt I should concentrate on Spandi a little more, I was going to say no, but then I remembered Salman Khan and I turned left instead of right.

“Okay,” I said.

“Great!” Georgie smiled and moved back toward the door, holding the book Haji Khan had made for her in one of her hands and hanging the other in the air for me to grab. “Now come with me,” she ordered. “I think something interesting is about to happen.”

In
the front room of the big house a mat had been set on the floor and food had been brought in from Taverne du Liban and placed on paper plates in front of May, her hairy friend Geraldine, Dr. Hugo, James, and Rachel, who must have sneaked
in when I wasn’t looking, which kind of proved that I wasn’t feeling myself yet.

James looked like death.

“Hello, Rachel, happy birthday!” I said.

“Hello, Fawad, thank you very much. How are you doing?”

“Oh, okay, not too bad,” I replied.

“Good,” she said in her special singsong voice. “Sometimes we all just need a little time.”

Because it was Rachel’s birthday I swallowed the “tut” rising in my throat and smiled. I then went to sit next to her as she had moved over to make room for me. It was quite lucky, really, because James was opposite us and it gave me a fantastic view of his face. His skin was whiter than paper.

As ever, the food from the Lebanese restaurant disappeared down our throats faster than a boy born before his father. However, James hardly touched a thing, and as we washed down our meal with fizzing Pepsi—laughing because it made Geraldine do the loudest burp I’d ever heard come out of a woman’s mouth—the journalist got quieter and quieter until his face nearly turned green and I thought he was going to vomit.

“Present time!” shouted Georgie, with a wink at James.

“Yes, yes,” agreed James, who didn’t sound like he wanted to agree at all.

When Rachel clapped her hands and squealed like a girl, he pulled back, as though he’d just been bitten.

I was finding it quite funny.

Georgie was the first to hand over her present, a beautiful green scarf that really looked pretty on Rachel. Next, Dr. Hugo gave her a little plastic case that held bandages, some needles, some ointment, and other things that might be useful in an emergency but were hardly the stuff of dreams. After Dr. Hugo, May presented Rachel with a framed photo of some
buzkashi
players from Mazar-e Sharif, saying it was from her “and Geri.”

“And, erm, here’s a little something from me,” said James finally. “Many happy returns.”

He didn’t sound too convincing, and his arm looked weak as jelly as he held out the little box covered with sparkling green and silver. Not that Rachel seemed to notice.

“Oooh,” she said, tearing open the package and carefully opening the box.

As the silver and gold shone in her eyes, everyone stopped talking and held their breath. Rachel slowly picked up the ring and turned it in her fingers.

“It’s beautiful, James,” she said quietly. “And I’m so honored, really I am. It’s such a wonderful thing to do. But . . . really . . . I’m sorry . . . there’s absolutely no way I can marry you.”

James groaned. “I was afraid this might happen,” he said. “It’s just a ring, Rachel, I didn’t mean—”

He stopped midsentence because everyone was laughing at him, Rachel the hardest of all.

“I know, James!” she said. “I’m joking! Georgie told me about your little panic attack!”

James groaned again and slapped his forehead, which brought some of the color running back to his face.

“But the ring really is beautiful,” Rachel told him. “Thank you. I’ll treasure it always.”

“My pleasure—I think.”

James grinned as he leaned across the floor mat to give her a kiss.

“Hey,” he said as he moved back to his place, “what do you mean you wouldn’t marry me?”

Rachel giggled. “Look at you! You’re a mess, darling, a big scruffy—and most of the time drunken—mess. How could I ever take you home to meet my parents?”

“Now hang on—”

“And besides, your surname is Allcock!”

“That’s a very noble old English name, I think you’ll find.”

“That may be so, James, but I can’t go through the rest of my life being known as Mrs. Allcock!”

And everyone burst out laughing, apart from James, who looked disappointed, and me, because I thought Rachel would make a lovely Mrs. Allcock. Judging by the small shadows now crossing James’s face, I think he did too.

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