“You should beware of two things about a woman: her hair and her tears.”
God knows why my grandfather told my father that.
He muttered prayers to himself as he fingered three of his worry beads, then continued:
“Her hair will chain you and her tears will drown you!”
Another three beads, another three prayers, and then:
“That’s why it’s imperative they cover up their hair and their faces!”
He said this on the day my father decided to take a second wife. My mother wept — and then her face once again assumed its mask of fear.
My grandmother used to say that my mother was born with a terrified face, and it was the face I was used to. Whenever someone met her for the first time, they’d assume she was scared of them.
I couldn’t understand what it was exactly that made her appear so frightened. Was it because her face looked so drawn and thin? Or because of the dark circles under her eyes? Or because her mouth turned down at the corners? If my mother ever smiled, she would smile between the two deep lines cut into her face like the brackets around a sentence; if she ever cried, she would cry between brackets. In fact she lived her whole life between brackets …
But, one day, the brackets vanished. The terrified mask dropped from her face. And then, a few months later, my father took a second wife. No one asked why, because even if someone had dared to ask, my father would never have answered.
My father had no interest whatsoever in why my mother always looked so frightened. He couldn’t have, otherwise how could he have lived alongside a woman who always looked so terrified? Truth is, my father never loved my mother at all, he just fucked her. He’d get on top of her in the dark, close his eyes … and get on with it.
But what happened the day the fear vanished from my mother’s face to make my father think about taking another wife? Probably my father needed a woman to be scared of him in order to get turned on. And the day my mother stopped being terrified of having sex, my father’s desire vanished. So he had to get himself another wife. A younger wife who’d still be scared of sex.
And maybe the day my mother lost her fear of having sex was the first time she ever enjoyed it. The first and last time.
But it wasn’t long before she put her frightened mask back on. This time not because she was scared of having sex, but because she was terrified he’d leave her.
Tonight, lonelier than ever, my brave mother has placed her frightened face behind the street door while she waits for me to come home.
Her worn-out hands, free at night to be raised to beg God’s mercy, recite the prayer for safe return.
I must go.
“Where are you going?”
The woman’s voice hits me just as I reach the far side of the terrace. I can’t look at her face. I stare pathetically at the door in front of me, and weakly offer:
“I have to go home.”
Under her gaze, once again, I feel like a child — small and pitiful.
“You want to go — go then! But take great care the soldiers never find out that I took you in.”
I abandon my mother behind our door. I let her recite her prayers as many times as the stars she counts in the sky with her mouth enclosed in its brackets.
Like a naughty boy, my eyes fixed on the ground, I turn back to the terrace. I don’t dare look at the fingers that gather the hair from the side of the woman’s face to tuck it behind her ear.
I freeze at the door to the corridor.
“Sister …”
“Mahnaz. My name is Mahnaz. I hate being called ‘Sister.’ And you — what’s your name?”
“Farhad … I just wanted to say that I have no desire to put your life in danger …”
“At the moment it’s far more dangerous for me if you leave than if you stay. We will find a way tomorrow.”
I walk back down the corridor. I take my shoes off. I enter the room I just left.
Night deals with the candle.
If mine doesn’t stand up
If yours doesn’t stand up
If his doesn’t stand up
Then who will fuck the mothers of our nation?
Enayat condemned himself to exile with this variation on a favorite theme of the Communist Party. He’d written his little ditty on a scrap of paper that he folded in four and then tossed to me in class. Of course, it landed at the feet of a Communist-Party student who, of course, read it — and immediately recognized Enayat’s handwriting.
Before the lecture had finished, Enayat was gone from the campus.
That night I went around to his house. My best friend had decided to flee the country.
We spent the next two nights together, saying farewell to Kabul. It was to be a very poetic farewell. We got drunk on both nights. We slept not a wink.
Enayat had wanted me to be at his side for his last Kabul sunrise. At the moment when night finally dies under the boots of the night-watchman, and dreams are interrupted by the mullah’s call to prayer, Enayat and I were lost in the vineyards of Bagh-e-Bala. Waiting for sunup had made us thirsty, so Enayat drank dew from the leaves of each vine. Enayat was no poet, but he knew how to behave in true poetic fashion.
After the sun rose, we went back home and drank yet more wine. When our wine ran out, we returned to Moalem’s shop, in search of the Daughters of the Vine.
The night has consumed all but the stub of the candle. Mechanically I move my hand toward the flame. If it burns me, I’ll know I’m awake.
None of this really makes any sense. Maybe because I don’t want it to make any sense. Maybe because I’d rather I were having a nightmare than living my life.
My little finger hurts.
I wish that Mahnaz — for all her extraordinary kindness and generosity — were merely a dream. I wish that when I opened my eyes, I’d find myself in my room at home, watching dawn break on my mother’s lined face as she whispers a prayer above my head, while she wafts the fresh morning air over me … I wish she were holding me tight …
She holds us both in her arms, Farid and me. We’re both very small. Farid cries out:
“Father! Father!”
Who’s he calling “Father”? Me?
“No Farid, it’s me! I’m your brother!”
Farid won’t listen. He continues sobbing. My mother takes out her breasts and pushes a nipple into each of our mouths. Without saying a word. Farid begins to suck at my mother’s breast, but then he pulls back. His mouth is filled with blood. I stare at my mother’s breast. Instead of milk, blood spurts out. But I still suck her other breast. There is no smell of blood. Only the smell of milk. But it’s milk that’s gone off! I turn away from my mother’s breast. Sour milk surges up my throat into my mouth.
“Mother, Father is being sick again!” Farid shouts.
The smell of vomit overwhelms me. Then I see Yahya standing in front of me. He jumps up and heads down the corridor calling to his mother.
“Mother, Father is throwing up!”
Mahnaz appears at the door with a cloth in her hand. She sits down next to me and puts the damp cloth on my forehead. After a huge effort — using all the power I no longer possess — I manage to move myself. Mahnaz helps me sit up. The shirt that must have belonged either to Mahnaz’s mute, damaged brother or to her murdered husband is covered with vomit. She dabs my mouth and face clean. I avoid her eyes. I have the impression her breasts are uncovered. I fix my gaze on her hands, hands that with such tenderness gently wipe my face and neck.