Earth and Ashes (4 page)

Yassin doesn’t cry. As usual, he’s bewildered.

“Have tanks come here, too?” he asks.

“How should I know? Be quiet!”

You both fall silent. You both know that questions and answers are in vain. But then Yassin continues:

“They must’ve come and taken the voice of the shopkeeper and the voice of the guard … Grandfather, have the Russians come and taken away everyone’s voice? What do they do with all the voices? Why did you let them take away your voice? If you hadn’t, would they’ve killed you? Grandma didn’t give them her voice and she’s dead. If she were here, she’d tell me the story of Baba Kharkash … No, if she were here, she’d have no voice …”

He falls silent for a few moments, then he asks again, “Grandfather, do I have a voice?”

You answer involuntarily, “Yes.”

He repeats the question. You look at him and nod “yes,” making him understand. The child falls silent again. Then he asks, “So why am I alive?”

He buries his face under your clothes. As if he wants to put an ear to your chest to listen for some sound from within. He hears nothing and shuts his eyes. Inside himself everything must make a sound. If only you could enter inside him and tell him the story of Baba Kharkash …

Your wife’s unsteady voice reaches your ears:

“Once upon a time there was a man named Baba Kharkash …”

You find yourself standing on the large branch of a jujube tree, stark naked. You’ve climbed up it to shake down jujubes for Yassin. At the base of the tree, Yassin is gathering the fruit. Without being able to help it, you start to urinate. Crying, Yassin moves away from the bottom of the tree and sits at the base of another. He empties the apples out of your scarf and replaces them with his jujubes, then ties up the bundle again. Digging into the ground with his small hands, he finds a door near the surface, secured with a big padlock. He opens the lock with a jujube stone and crawls underground.

“Yassin, where are you going? Wait! I’m coming down!”

Yassin doesn’t hear your shouts and the door shuts behind him. You try to climb down from the tree, but the tree grows bigger and taller. You fall from the tree, but you don’t hit the ground …

Your eyes are half-open. Your heart pounds in your rib cage. Yassin’s head is still calmly buried under your clothes. Mirza Qadir is having a conversation with the guard beside the wooden hut. You try to open your eyes as wide as possible. You don’t want to doze off again. You don’t want to dream. But the heaviness of your eyes has crushed your will …

A woman’s voice rings in your ears.

“Yassin! Yassin! Yassin!”

It’s the voice of Zaynab, Yassin’s mother. Her laughter echoes around your head. Her voice comes from somewhere far below. You step to the door that leads underground. It is closed. You call out for Zaynab, but your voice reverberates on the other side of the door. Then the door opens and you see Fateh, the guard. He laughs and says, “Welcome. Come in. I was waiting for you.”

You walk down into the ground. Fateh closes the door on you from the outside. From the other side of the door, the sound of his laughter rings in your ears.

“You’ve been wanting desperately to leave,” he says to you. “Since the morning you’ve been driving me mad. So, go on!”

Underground it’s cold and damp. You take in the smell of clay. There’s a large garden, an empty garden, without flowers or vegetation, a garden with narrow paths covered in mud and lined with bare oak trees.

Zaynab sits naked under a tree, next to a little girl. You call out to her. Your voice doesn’t seem to reach her. She lifts the little girl from the ground, wraps her in the apple-blossom scarf, kisses her on the cheek, then carries her away. Yassin is naked in a jujube tree. He says that the little girl is his sister, that he gave his mother his grandmother’s apple-blossom scarf, the one you knotted into a bundle, so that she could put it around his sister because it’s cold. But Yassin doesn’t have a sister! A few days ago, Zaynab was only four months pregnant. How quickly she’s given birth! How quickly her daughter has grown!

Yassin is shivering with cold. He wants to climb down from the tree, but he can’t. The tree keeps growing bigger and taller. Yassin weeps.

You feel snowflakes land on your skin. The garden paths fill with snow.

Zaynab runs from one tree to the next. You call out to her again. She doesn’t hear. She runs across the snow naked, the little girl in her arms. She laughs. Her feet leave no prints in the snow, but the sound of her steps echoes through the garden.

Yassin calls for his mother. His voice has become high-pitched like hers … You look at his body. It’s the body of a young girl. In place of his small penis, there is a girl’s vulva. You are overcome with panic. Without thinking, you call for Murad. Your voice is stuck in your throat. It reverberates in your chest. Your voice has become Yassin’s—weak, confused, questioning:

“Murad. Murad! Murad?”

Someone grips your shoulders from behind. You turn around in horror. Mirza Qadir, smiling his habitual smile, says, “Instead of the brains of our kids, Zohak’s snakes are eating their pricks.”

Terror seizes you. You want to free your shoulders from Mirza Qadir’s grip. But you don’t have the strength.

You open your eyes. Your body is covered in sweat. Your hands tremble.

In front of you are two kind eyes:

“Father, get up. Your lift is here.”

Lift? For what? Where do you want to go? Where are you?

“Father, a vehicle headed to the mine.”

You recognize Mirza Qadir’s voice and come back to your senses. Yassin sleeps quietly in your arms. You want to wake him.

Mirza Qadir says, “Father, leave your grandson here. First, go there on your own, speak to your son in private. Then come back here. There’s no room for both of you to spend the night at the mine. If your son sees his own child in this state, it’ll be even worse …”

It’s a good suggestion. Imagine what will happen when Yassin sees his father. He’ll throw himself into his arms and, before you are able to say anything, he’ll start shouting, “Uncle’s dead, Mummy’s gone … Qader’s dead, Grandma’s dead! Grandfather cries …”

Murad’s heart will stop when he hears Yassin. How could you make Yassin understand that he shouldn’t say anything?

You accept Mirza Qadir’s offer, but a sense of foreboding settles within you. How can you abandon your grandson, the only son of your only son, to someone you don’t know? You’ve known Mirza Qadir for no more than two hours. What will Murad say?

“Old man, are you coming or not?”

It’s the guard’s voice. You remain silently where you are with Mirza Qadir, your eyes full of questions. What should you do? Yassin or Murad? Dastaguir, this is not the time for questions. Surrender Yassin to God and go to Murad.

“Old man, your lift’s leaving.”

“I leave Yassin to you and God.”

Mirza Qadir’s look and smile quell all your doubts and fears.

You take your bundle and head for the hut. A big truck awaits you. You greet the driver and climb in. The guard, who’s standing in front of the hut—slouched, dusty,
drowsy, dressed in a makeshift uniform, with the same half-smoked cigarette between his lips—lifts the wooden beam blocking the road and waves the driver through.

The driver exchanges a few words with you. The guard yells angrily, “Shahmard! Are you going or not?”

Shahmard raises his hand in a gesture of apology and drives off.

The truck speeds onto the property of the mine. Through the rearview mirror, you watch the guard beside his hut disappear in a cloud of dust. You don’t know why but his disappearance pleases you. Come on, the guard isn’t a bad man. He’s grief-stricken, that’s all. You bless his father’s soul. May he excuse you if you’ve thought ill of his son.

Your heart pounds in anticipation of visiting Murad. Your reunion is close now. This very road will take you to your son. Blessed be this road, a road that Murad has traveled many times. Would Shahmard stop the truck, so you could step down and prostrate yourself on this earth, before these stones, before these brambles that have kissed your son’s feet? Blessed be the prints left by your feet, Murad!

“Did you wait long?”

Shahmard’s question prevents you from kissing Murad’s footprints.

“Since nine this morning.”

You both fall silent again.

Shahmard is a young man—about thirty years old, maybe even younger. But the blackened, smoked skin covering his bones and the lines and wrinkles on his face make him look older. An old astrakhan cap sits on his dirty hair. A black moustache covers his upper lip and yellow teeth. His head is pushed forward. His eyes, circled by black rings, dart about.

A partially smoked cigarette rests behind his right ear. Its scent fills your nostrils. You imagine it is the smell of coal, the smell of the mine, the smell of Murad—the sight of whom at any moment now will light up your eyes. You’ll kiss his forehead. No, you’ll kiss his feet. You’ll kiss his eyes and his hands like a child reunited with his father. Yes, you will be Murad’s son. He’ll take you into his arms and console you. With his manly hands he’ll hold your trembling ones and say, “Dastaguir, my child!”

If only you were his son—his Yassin. Deaf like Yassin. You’d see Murad but you wouldn’t hear him. You wouldn’t hear him say, “Why have you come?”

“Have you come to work in the mine?” Shahmard asks.

“No, I have come to see my son.”

Your eyes drift over the rolling hills of the valley. You take a deep breath and continue.

“I come to drive a dagger into my son’s heart.”

Shahmard gives you a confused look, laughs, and says, “Dear God, I’m giving a ride to a swordsman.”

With your gaze still lost in the valley, in its black stones, its dust and its scrub, you say, “No, brother, it’s that I bear great sorrow and sorrow sometimes turns into a sword.”

“You sound like Mirza Qadir.”

“You know Mirza Qadir?”

“Who doesn’t know him? In a way, he’s a guide for us all.”

“He’s a man with a great heart. I didn’t know him, but I just spent two hours in his company. I was won over. What he says is right. He understands sorrow. From his first glance, he instills trust. You can tell him
whatever lies in your heart … In our day, men like Mirza Qadir are rare. Where is he from? Why is he here?”

Shahmard takes the half-smoked cigarette from behind his ear, puts it between his dry lips and lights it. He inhales deeply and says, “Mirza Qadir is from the Shorbazar district of Kabul. He has only had a shop here for a short time. He doesn’t like to talk about himself. He says little to those he doesn’t trust. It took me a year to find out where he came from and what brought him here.”

Shahmard falls silent again. But you want to know more about Mirza Qadir, the man to whom you’ve entrusted your grandson. Finally he continues:

“He had a shop in Shorbazar. In the daytime he’d work as a merchant and, in the evenings, as a storyteller. Each night a crowd would gather at the shop. He was a popular man who commanded great respect. One day his young son was called up to serve in the army. A year later he returned. He’d been made an officer and trained in Russia. This didn’t please Mirza Qadir. He didn’t want his son to have a military career.
But the son liked the uniform, the money, and the guns. He ran away. Mirza disowned him. The sorrow killed his wife. Mirza left Kabul. His home and shop remained behind. He came to the coal mine, where he worked for two years. With his first savings he set up that shop. From morning to evening he sits there, writing or reading. He’s beholden to no one. If he likes you, he’ll respect you, but if he doesn’t like you, best not to let even your dog pass his shop … Some nights I stay with him till dawn. The whole night he reads stories and poems. He knows the
Book of Kings
by heart …”