“Where are you going?”
She hurriedly shuts the door behind her. The smell of fresh bread fills the courtyard.
“I have to go.”
“Off you go then — go!”
She opens the door a little, just enough for me to see two soldiers lounging in the street. The sight of their jackboots makes my desire to leave vanish instantly. I jerk back. Mahnaz shuts the door. We walk back across the courtyard.
“I was under the impression that I’ve been sheltering an ordinary young man who’s simply dodging the draft. But tell me, who are you?”
“Trust me, Mahnaz, I’m no one at all.”
“So why are they still looking for you?”
“I have no idea! I keep asking myself that, too. All night I’ve been thinking about everything I’ve done in the past couple of days — and nothing can explain it. I’m no rebel; I’ve got no connection to the resistance, to jihad, or to revolution … I was hanging out with a friend who was having to get out of Kabul. After we parted I was simply walking back home. Sure, it was late, well after curfew, and the night patrol caught me. But it was nothing, nothing serious … The only thing I can think of is that I made the mistake of calling an ordinary officer ‘Commander’—and that he thought maybe I was making a fool of him …”
I walk close to Mahnaz. I want to look at her discreetly.
Whether or not she believes my story is hidden under her hair. I keep quiet.
We reach the corridor. Mahnaz and Yahya go to the kitchen. I return to the room I was in. I take off my damp shoes and sit down once more on the cushion under the windowsill.
What am I frightened of? Why do I always give in to this woman? Is her disapproval more important than my mother’s anxiety? No! Then what? What’s stopping me from leaving? I’m out of here.
I get up from the cushion. My heart is pounding.
I am nobody. All I have to do is go to the Party’s district office and give them an explanation of what happened last night. I’ll tell them it’s all a mistake. I had no intention whatsoever of insulting an officer. I’d had a bit too much to drink and I was out of control. If I’ve caused any offense, I’m ready to offer a full apology.
I put my damp shoes on again in the corridor. My heart thumps more than ever.
She steps out of the kitchen into the corridor carrying a plate on a tray that gives off the aroma of breakfast.
“Why don’t you sit down in there?”
With one look into her eyes I am powerless. The decision to leave deflates into my sodden shoes. Why can’t I just tell her I want to go? Why doesn’t she understand that if anyone finds me here I am done for! And what about you? You’re a widowed woman. Your husband was a political prisoner! Are we related? No. So what kind of relationship could I possibly be having with a woman who’s not only a complete stranger but who’s also a widow? If your family finds out I’ve been here, then how on earth will you explain why you’ve given shelter to a young man you know nothing about?
Mahnaz leaves me with a head full of questions and a paralyzed tongue. She has placed the tray beside the cushion under the window and has gone back to the corridor where she disappears into her brother’s room. I return to this room and sit on the cushion. On the tray next to the cup of tea, Mahnaz has left some pills to calm nausea.
Yes, I do feel nauseous.
But not because of what I have eaten. I am sick with fear.
I’d gone to the university library to take out the Book of Shams, but the librarian told me someone else was reading it. So I borrowed another book and, having given it a quick glance, sat down. At the far end of the table was a young man wearing a pair of dark glasses. His head was buried in a book and he looked as though he wanted to devour every word. Since it happened to be the one I was after, I sidled up to him and coughed, so politely that even I could barely hear myself.
“Excuse me, but would you mind letting me know when you’ve finished with that book …” I whispered.
Lifting his intense gaze from the page he was scrutinizing, he shot me a look, loaded with the passion of the words he was consuming. He gave me a quick nod and once more buried his small head in the big book.
After a while he looked up again and wrote something in the margins of his book. Then he indicated to me with a gesture that he’d finished reading. We went up to the desk together so I could take the book out, and then I returned to the table. The first thing I did was look for the page that he’d written on. He’d underlined the words, “We cannot speak. But if only we could hear! Speech has no meaning without a listener. But ears are sealed, hearts are stopped, tongues are fettered …” And at the margin of the page, in pencil, he had written: “= annihilation.”
The same day, in the university café, I found the scribe of the Book of Shams. We chatted together over a cup of tea. His name was Enayat.
What else can you call those moments of nameless terror other than “annihilation?” Those moments when you begin to doubt your very existence. When you’re so paralyzed with fear that you turn to fantasies for reassurance, to imaginary women, to djinn, to angels, to life after death …
I’d managed to empty my head of those phantoms a very long time ago. The djinn were nothing more than children’s games in a play directed by my grandfather, and the afterlife was a cover-story dreamt up by the human terror of nonexistence …
But the butts of those Kalashnikovs summoned up my slumbering grandfather and the long-forgotten djinn and set them center-stage once more. I’d much rather believe in the reality of their performance than in the utter abeyance of annihilation!
Yes, I do believe in the journey of my soul, in the existence of the djinn, in the finality of death — but I cannot believe what I’m going through right now …
“Farhad, have you got a phone at home?”
With the aid of a swig of tea, I manage to swallow the dry bread in my mouth, and without looking at Mahnaz’s face framed by the doorway, I answer, “No! But …”
“Then give me your address!”
I get up and move toward the door.
“Please, my dear Mahnaz, really, you’ve done more than enough …”
“I want to know your address.”
Reluctantly, I tell her.
“I won’t be long.”
She leaves. I remain fixed to the spot. Before opening the door out of the corridor, Mahnaz pauses to call Yahya. He comes running from his mother’s bedroom.
“Yahya, don’t open the door to anyone!”
She leaves the corridor. Takes a few steps on the terrace. And returns to the house. I move closer to the doorway.
“Is there anything you want me to tell your mother?”
“No … but …”
I cannot go on. I want to insist that I will go myself, that …
“You’ll have to go before midday. Please don’t leave the house until I get back. I don’t want anyone to know you’re here.”
She turns to go on her way. I stand by the window. Mahnaz opens the street door and disappears. Yahya waits for me in the doorway to the room.
Perhaps I have landed in a city that spins forever around a giant bridge.
Mahnaz should have reached our street by now. She must have asked directions at the bakery:
“Can you tell me where Farhad’s house is? His mother is a teacher, Humaira.”