Shooting Kabul (8 page)

“Oh, my goodness,” murmured
Khala
Nilufer.

“It's my fault she's lost, you know,” whispered Zafoona.

Fadi stiffened.
Her fault?
He peered through the crack at his mother's hunched shoulders.

“Don't blame yourself, Zafoona
jaan
!” cried
Khala
Nilufer.

“She's
my
baby. I'm her mother. It's all
my
fault,” cried Zafoona, and, she burst into ragged sobs.

Fadi could see her shoulders shaking as
Khala
Nilufer grabbed tissues. He closed his eyes, blocking out her tears, but he couldn't extinguish the anguished sounds.

“Zafoona,” comforted
Khala
Nilufer, “you're making yourself sick. You can't think like this.”

“No, you don't understand,” said Zafoona. “If I wasn't so sick, I could have looked after her. But instead everyone was looking after
me
. Noor and Habib were so worried about getting me on board the truck that they lost track of Fadi and Mariam. It's my fault.”

Fadi sank his fingernails into the bag of rice.
It wasn't her fault. She wasn't the one responsible for losing Mariam.

“No, no, you can't think this way, Zafoona
jaan
,” soothed Nilufer. “You were sick. You can't help that.”

“I don't know …” Zafoona paused a few seconds. “I've always tried to be a good mother. But I've had to be the disciplinarian. Habib has always been the soft one, the one who the kids turn to when they skin their knees or want to share a secret. I hate to think that Mariam doesn't think I love or care for her.”

“Of course Mariam knows you love her,” said
Khala
Nilufer forcefully. “You can tell her yourself when she comes home. There are so many people looking for her, she'll be found soon.”

“
Insha'
Allah,” said Zafoona softly.

“Now come and sit in the backyard,” said
Khala
Nilufer. “The fresh air will do you good. I'll make a fresh pot of green tea.”

As the women headed to the backyard with their tea, Fadi sat alone, in the dark.
It's where I deserve to be.

F
ADI TEETERED ON THE EDGE OF THE BED,
inspecting the cramped room he and his family shared at the back of Uncle Amin's house. He glanced with unease at the calendar with the dancing cats. It was the last day of August 2001, and they'd been living there for more than six weeks. He twisted the silky bedspread in his fist as a sense of weary hopelessness settled over him.

Over the preceding weeks he'd sat, tucked away, next to the couch in the living room, listening while Habib and Uncle Amin called their relatives and friends in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Dozens of people were
searching on both sides of the border, but without much success. Not even
Khala
Nargis's contacts had found any trace of a little girl named Mariam.

But would Mariam have told anyone her name?
Fadi's chest tightened. He remembered his father ordering her never to reveal who she was.
Maybe they can't find her because they don't know who she is. How would she ever be found, then?

At nine p.m. on Friday, as he did every week, Habib dialed the number given to him by the U.S. consulate in Peshawar, where it was nine in the morning, exactly twelve hours ahead. The week before, the scratchy voice of the assistant on the speakerphone had told them that she was still sending out inquiries, but the situation in Afghanistan was getting worse. The United Nations Security Council had passed a new resolution to tighten the monitoring and enforcement of sanctions against the Taliban. Because of this, things on the border had become very tense. Hopelessness threatened to turn to despair as Fadi remembered Mariam's tiny fingers slipping through his.
Father was so sure Mariam would be found in a few weeks.

But week after week of no news, or bad news, had set
Fadi's nerves on edge. He withdrew and kept to himself. Zalmay tried his best to pull Fadi out of his funk. He introduced him to his friends, dragged him to Lake Elizabeth park to feed the ducks, and let him play his best video games. After learning that Fadi liked taking photos, Zalmay even offered to pose for him, dressed as Superman, but Fadi's heart wasn't in it.

One day the entire family piled into two cars and headed to the Great Mall. It was the largest shopping complex in the Bay Area, built in an old Ford assembly plant. It was so different from the simple markets in Kabul that Fadi couldn't help but become distracted by the amazing array of stores, in particular the shop selling electronic gadgets. But when he later ran into Zafoona, wandering in a daze among rows of little girls' pink party dresses, he wanted to go home and hide in the kitchen pantry. After that the only thing he sort of wanted to do was sit with Abay, parked in front of the television. Her wrinkled face mirrored the emotions on the screen as he translated
ER,
The Price Is Right
, and
Oprah
for her, which helped improve his English.

During the day when his mother was taking a nap and the other adults were at work, even Noor, who'd found a job at a nearby McDonald's, Fadi went online. He surfed the Web, looking for articles on Afghanistan and
the flood of refugees pouring across the border. He kept typing in “Mariam Nurzai,” hoping for a random hit. But there was nothing.

Fadi sighed, spotting the two suitcases standing at the foot of the bed. Everything was packed and ready to go, even the copy of
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
. He'd finally finished reading it but couldn't get himself to give the book away. It reminded him of Kabul, and for some odd reason, Claudia felt like a friend. She and her brother, while hiding at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, had managed to solve an amazing mystery concerning a Renaissance statue, and Fadi admired her guts. So he'd stuck the book into his backpack, and it had come to rest against the old honey tin. He couldn't get himself to take it out of the bag, so it just sat there.

Now we're moving out,
thought Fadi, remembering the argument his parents had had with Uncle Amin and
Khala
Nilufer that morning.

“We can't keep living off of your hospitality,” said Habib. He sat next to Zafoona at the kitchen table.

Fadi stood next to Zalmay in the hallway, listen-ing in.

“Hospitality!” grumbled Uncle Amin. He looked a bit insulted. “What are you talking about? My house is your house; my food is your food.”

“Thank you for your kind words, Brother Amin,” said Habib with a smile in his voice, “but we must move on.”

“As a Pukhtun, I am insulted you are leaving my house,” grumbled Uncle Amin.

“Habib, Brother Amin, stop arguing,” said Zafoona. “This house is small as it is for your family. We have inconvenienced you enough.”

“We're not inconvenienced,” said
Khala
Nilufer. She placed her hands on her sister's shoulders, as if trying to keep her from leaving.

Fadi knew otherwise. After immigrating to the United States three years ago, Uncle Amin hadn't passed the medical board exams needed to practice as a doctor. So he worked two jobs as a lab technician at the morgue to support the family, while still studying when he had time. Then, two weeks ago, Uncle Amin's brother had lost his job and had moved into the house with his wife and three children. During the day the line for the bathroom sometimes stretched down the hall. Now the adults seemed to talk a lot about some kind of recession thing that was going on.

“You are family,” stressed Uncle Amin. “You need to
get back on your feet, and then you can leave.”

“I'm earning a decent living driving a taxi,” said Habib.

Fadi winced. His father had hoped to teach at the local community college, but there just wasn't an opening in the agriculture department.

“But what about Zafoona?” pushed
Khala
Nilufer. “The doctors still don't know what's wrong with her. She needs to be taken care of.”

“It's all right, Nilufer
jaan
,” interrupted Zafoona. “I'm feeling much better. Noor and Fadi can help me. We're only moving a few blocks away, so you can visit me anytime you want.”

“I'm coming to pick you up for your doctor's appointment next week,” insisted
Khala
Nilufer. “You're not getting out of that.”

“Of course,” said Zafoona.

After some more grumbling it was decided. They were moving out on their own.

There was nothing heavenly about the place Fadi's father had rented at the Paradise Apartment Complex. They could only afford a cramped two-bedroom unit with faded linoleum, brown shag carpet, and a cracked
kitchen sink. Fadi stood at the entrance and sighed. It was a stiflingly hot August day, and the apartment, a tenth the size of their house on Shogund Street, was sweltering. As Fadi explored the cramped space, he felt a sense of claustrophobia. There was no beauty here, just the faded ghosts of past tenants who'd moved on to better things. Noor had grumbled at the idea of sharing a bedroom with him, so he'd happily given it up, deciding it was better to sleep on the floor in the living room.

That first night in the apartment, Fadi lay on the living room floor, cocooned in a bedroll made up of old blankets from the Salvation Army. His mother had gone to bed early, and both Habib and Noor were at work. Fadi lay wide awake, a faded Batman comforter pulled up to his chin. He didn't want to look up at the ugly web of cracks across the ceiling. It made him think of a large, poisonous spider that was out to catch him. He punched the lumpy pillow and flipped to his other side, but sleep continued to evade him. He sat up and pulled the copy of
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
from his backpack. Fadi crept over to the open window and settled under a cool incoming breeze. In the soft light of the full moon, he cracked open the dog-eared book to one of his favorite parts.

He had to admit that Claudia was one smart girl.
She'd really planned out her escape to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with great precision. She'd even talked her brother into coming along; he was a miser and had a lot of money. Fadi was wondering what she would have done if she had gotten caught, when he heard a key rattle in the front door. Fadi slipped the book under the sofa and dove under the covers, pretending to be asleep.

“Thanks for picking me up, Father,” came Noor's tired voice.

“I insist on it,
jaan
,” came Habib's answer. “This late at night I don't want you walking home alone.”

“All right.”

There was the sound of a zipper sliding open.

“Father, I want to give you this,” whispered Noor.

There was a silence as Fadi strained his ears.
What is Noor giving Father?

“Father, are you all right?”

After a brief silence Habib responded. “This is your money, Noor
jaan
. You've earned it, and I'm very proud of you.”

“Father, I'd like to give you part of it to … to help out. I know money is tight,” she added.

“You're the most excellent of daughters,” whispered Habib, his voice tight with emotion. “And your money
will be of great help to the family.”

Fadi couldn't believe it. Noor was giving Father money she'd earned at McDonald's?

“Now come, let's eat some of that beef stew your
khala
Nilufer dropped off earlier. I'm famished from all that driving. Some crazy woman had me go around the city for hours looking for a hat shop that didn't exist. At least I earned quite a bit on that ride.”

“Father,” said Noor, her voice dropping an octave, “I have to tell you something. Something I've been meaning to tell you … but not in front of Mother.”

Fadi stiffened. His mind raced with terrible thoughts.
She knows!

“What is it?”

“That day in Jalalabad … the day we left Afghanistan …” Noor's voice tightened.

“Yes, what about that day?”

Fadi lay in his bedroll. Sweat began to accumulate under his armpits.
She's
going to tell him … tell him I lost Mariam
…

“I let you down,” whispered Noor.

“Let me down? What are you talking about?”

“I was supposed to take care of Fadi and Mariam. But in all the confusion … I left them behind.”

“No,
jaan
, you did nothing wrong,” soothed Habib.

“No, I'm the oldest. I should have taken care of them.… It's my fault Mariam is lost!”

Fadi went rigid with shock. He couldn't believe Noor thought it was her fault that Mariam had been lost.

Everyone thinks it's their fault she's gone. But it's my fault, not anyone else's. I'm the one who doesn't deserve to belong to this family. I'm the one who's torn it apart.