Safdar, known as “Long Fingers,” has pulled his head out of the clay oven, wiped the sweat from his brow, and said, “First street on the left, second house, the wooden door with no paint.”
At the mention of my name, as always, Safdar’s brother stops kneading the dough, and his sweet voice calls from the far end of the bakery, “Last night the sound of Farhad’s chisel never reached us from Mount Beysitoun … It’s into the dreams of Sheerin that Farhad now has gone …”
Mahnaz is standing outside our door. Without a moment’s delay she presses the bell, but she can’t hear it ring. She’s forgotten that there’s been no electricity in Kabul for some time now. After a minute, she rattles the chain on the door. And then she hears the voice of Parwaneh or Farid ask from behind the door, “Who is it?”
What should she say?
“I’ve got news from Farhad.”
There’s a brief silence and then Parwaneh or Farid opens the door halfway, and gives Mahnaz a curious look.
My mother’s exhausted, hopeless voice calls from the courtyard, “Who is it?”
Parwaneh — or Farid — pushes the door nearly shut. No, why would they close the door? Their eyes fixed on Mahnaz, brimming with curiosity, they call back to my mother, “It’s someone with news of Farhad.”
My mother runs to the door. If she trips on the loose tile, for the first time ever she will forget to curse me for not having mended it. Her frightened face appears at the door. She doesn’t open it completely. Peering around the half-opened door, she examines Mahnaz from top to toe. She doesn’t dare ask, “What has happened to him?”
“My name is Mahnaz. I’ve come on behalf of Farhad.”
Who on earth is Mahnaz? Why have I never said anything about this girl? She sizes up Mahnaz. She is not short. So she’s not a liar. She has a steady gaze. My mother opens the door to Mahnaz. She asks her in. Before shutting the door, she scans the street in both directions with an anxious look. She closes the door. She fixes her dark-ringed, sleepless eyes on those of Mahnaz. Mahnaz understands my mother’s terrified, questioning look and immediately reassures her. She says that I’m fine, safe and sound, but I’ve had to hide in her house. What am I doing hiding in this woman’s house? Is there anything going on between us? Mahnaz lifts her hair back from her face and tucks it behind her ear, and begins to recount the events of last night.
My mother hides her mouth behind her bony hands. What can she do? How can she help me? Which door should she knock upon? Should she go to her cousin who’s become a high-ranking official?
No, never! How can she beg for help from someone she was once in love with when she was young — but whom she left for another man? Her cousin has never forgotten my father’s jealousy. Every time my father set eyes on my mother’s cousin, in his flashy military clothes, his blood would rise. He would say, “Fuck the mother and sister of Taraki and Hafizullah Amin!” He would pick petty political arguments, and my mother’s old flame would get upset and walk out. Then my father would crow with joy in my mother’s face. The very day my father took another wife and fled to Pakistan, my mother’s cousin came to our house with a sheepish look on his face. My mother spat at him and threw him out.
What will my mother do?
She will ask Mahnaz to wait in the front room while she goes to put on her veil.
She will come to see me with Mahnaz.
“Look, Father, I’m drawing this for you.”
Yahya’s little hand moves a crayon across a black sheet of paper.
“What is it?”
“A moth.”
“But where is it?”
“You can’t see it because it’s too dark.”
Someone is banging on the door. It must be Mahnaz with my mother. Mahnaz? No, why would she be knocking on her own front door?
Yahya lifts his head out of the night and its creatures. The banging gets louder. Who on earth can it be? Another search party? Yahya’s uncle’s moaning can be heard along the corridor. Yahya leaves his invisible moth in its eternal night and heads for the corridor. I run after him. The banging gets even louder.
Yahya’s uncle stands in the middle of his room, his strangely arched arms wrapped around his scrawny skeleton, his wails increasing in their intensity. Will we have to go back into that hole again? I take his hand. It’s shaking. I’m shaking too. The banging still echoes around the courtyard. We reach the end of the corridor. Yahya’s uncle continues to moan.
“Don’t be scared, Uncle Moheb, it’s all right.”
But Uncle Moheb will not be reassured.
“Uncle Moheb, look, my father is here,” says Yahya, taking his other hand. “There’s no need to be frightened!”
Moheb wails even more bitterly. I drop his hand. The banging continues relentlessly.
“Uncle Moheb, it’s only my mother. She’s forgotten the key. I’ll go and let her in.”
Moheb calms down. His gaze, as always, set in the middle distance. Holding him by the hand, Yahya leads his distorted frame back into his room and sits him down on a cushion. And there we abandon him.
Once we’re back in the corridor, the banging stops. Whoever it was has gone.
“I think it was my grandma …”
Yahya is tempted to go outside.
“No, Yahya! Your mother told you not to open the door to anyone.”
“Not even to my granny?”
“But it might not have been your grandma.”
Looking puzzled, Yahya goes back to his uncle, and I return to my place in the room.
Yahya’s moth is completely invisible against paper that’s the color of the night. I find a piece of white chalk in his pencil case and draw a moth for him.
But why should this moth be visible?
I scribble over the moth with a pencil the exact shade of the paper: night.
I got off the bus outside the university to find Enayat waiting for me in the entrance. He asked me if I’d like to go for a drink. We went off to the tomb of Sayed Jamaluddin. A few couples were declaring their love in the hidden depths of the shrubbery. Propped up against the marble tomb, we drank some wine and talked about our lives.
We’d only been there a while when Enayat’s sister turned up — sobbing, utterly distraught — bearing the terrible news that their brother had committed suicide in prison. Enayat smashed the bottle of wine against Sayed Jamal-Udin’s sepulchre and immediately ran off home. I made my way back to my class.
A few days before the Revolution Day celebrations, a decree was issued ordering everyone in Kabul to either paint their front door red or hang a red flag from the window. Enayat’s brother and his friends went to the abattoir, anointed some sheets with sheep’s blood, and then sold them to their neighbors. By Revolution Day, the blood had turned black. Enayat’s brother and his friends were slung in jail.
I walk into the lecture theater. Above the huge blackboard they’ve rigged up a red banner on which a famous slogan has been written in white:
If I do not stand up,
If you do not stand up,
If he does not stand up,
Then who will light a torch in the midst of this darkness?
If Enayat’s brother hadn’t killed himself, maybe he’d have turned out like Yahya’s uncle. A young man with no youth. With no soul. A body suspended between two arches. I do not want to see what Enayat’s brother and Yahya’s uncle have seen. No! I do not want my mother to put her breast in my dry mouth for me to suck her blood; or like Enayat’s mother, to cry over her own son’s empty grave … I want to stay alive.