‘But it would have been nice to start in the fourth class,’ she whispers. ‘It is so embarrassing to be with the little ones in the first class.’
The inspector says that if she wants to learn anything she will have to start from the beginning, in the first class, a class consisting of five-year-olds up to teenagers. The woman would have been the oldest. She thanks the inspector and leaves.
Then it’s Leila’s turn. The inspector remembers her from before the Taliban. Leila had been a pupil at this school and the inspector would welcome her as a teacher.
‘First you have to register,’ she says. ‘You must go to the Ministry of Education with your papers and apply for a job here.’
‘But you don’t have an English teacher, can’t you apply for me? Or I can start now and register later,’ asks Leila.
‘Impossible. You must get personal clearance from the authorities, those are the rules.’
The yells from noisy girls penetrate the open office. A teacher swipes them with a branch to quieten them as they tumble into the classrooms.
Leila walks out of the gate feeling depressed. The sound of excited children fades. She plods home, forgetting that she is stumping along alone on high-heeled shoes. How will she get to the Ministry of Education without anyone noticing? The plan was to get a job and then tell Sultan. If he knew about it beforehand he would put his foot down, but if she already had a job he might let her continue. The teaching was in any case only a few hours each day; she would just have to get up even earlier and work even harder.
Her school certificate is in Pakistan. She feels like giving up. But then she remembers the dark flat and the dusty floors in Mikrorayon and she goes to the nearby telegraph office. She phones some relatives in Peshawar and asks them to retrieve her papers. They promise to help and will send them with anyone who is coming to Kabul. The Afghan postal service is not operating and most things are sent with people travelling.
The papers arrive in a few weeks. Next step is to go to the Ministry of Education. But how will she get there? She cannot go alone. She asks Yunus but he doesn’t think she should work. ‘You never know what kind of job they might give you,’ he says. ‘Stay at home and look after your old mother.’
Her favourite brother is of no help. Her nephew Mansur only snorts when she asks him. She is getting nowhere. The school year started ages ago. ‘It is too late,’ says her mother. ‘Wait until next year.’
Leila despairs. ‘Maybe I don’t want to teach,’ she thinks, to make it easier to bury the plans.
Leila is at a standstill; a standstill in the mud of society and the dust of tradition. She has reached the deadlock in a system which is rooted in centuries-old traditions and which paralyses half the population. The Ministry of Education is a half-hour bus ride away; an impossible half-hour. Leila is not used to fighting for something – on the contrary, she is used to giving up. But there must be a way out. She just has to find it.
Can God Die?
The everlasting boredom of the detention homework is threatening to overwhelm Fazil. He wants to leap up and howl, but restrains himself, as an eleven-year-old should who has been punished for not knowing his homework. His hand moves haltingly across the page. He writes in small letters so as not to take up too much room; exercise books are expensive. The light from the gas lamp throws a reddish glow over the paper, like writing on flames, he thinks.
In the corner his grandmother sits glaring at him with one eye. The other one was lost when she fell into an oven which was cemented into the floor. His mother Mariam is breast-feeding two-year-old Osip. He is exhausted and his writing frenzied. He must finish, even if it takes him all night. He can’t bear the blow over the knuckles from the teacher’s ruler. He can’t bear the shame.
He must write ten times what God is: God is the creator, God is eternal, God is almighty, God is good, God is truth, God is life, God sees all, God hears all, God is omniscient, God is omnipotent, God rules all, God…
The reason for the detention work was his inability to answer correctly during the lesson on Islam. ‘I never answer properly,’ he moans to his mother. ‘Because when I see the teacher I get so nervous I forget. He’s always angry, and even if you only make a tiny mistake he hates you.’
From start to finish, everything had gone wrong when Fazil was asked to come up to the blackboard and answer questions about God. He had done his lessons, but when he got up to the blackboard he remembered nothing. He must have thought of something else while he was reading. The Islam teacher, the man with the long beard, turban, tunic and loose trousers, had turned on him with his black piercing eyes and asked: ‘Can God die?’
‘No.’ Fazil trembled beneath his gaze. Whatever he said, it was bound to be wrong.
‘Why not?’
Fazil is tongue-tied. Why can’t God die? Can no knives pierce him? Can no bullets injure him? Thoughts rush through his head.
‘Well?’ the teacher says. Fazil blushes and stutters, but utters not a word. Another boy is allowed to answer. ‘Because he is eternal,’ he says promptly.
‘Right. Can God talk?’ the teacher continues.
‘No,’ says Fazil. ‘Or rather, yes.’
‘If you think he can talk, how does he talk?’ the teacher asks.
Fazil is speechless yet again. How does he talk? With a thunderous voice, low, whispering?
‘Well, you say he can talk, does he have a tongue?’ the teacher asks.
Does God have a tongue?
Fazil tries hard to imagine what the correct answer might be. He does not think God has a tongue, but dares say nothing. It is better to say nothing, than to give a wrong answer and be laughed at by the whole class. Again another boy is allowed to answer.
‘He talks through the Koran,’ he says. ‘The Koran is his tongue.’
‘Correct. Can God see?’
Fazil realises the teacher is fiddling with the ruler and hitting the palm of his hand gently, as if practising the blows that will any moment rain over Fazil’s knuckles.
‘Yes,’ says Fazil.
‘How does he see? Does he have eyes?’
Fazil hesitates before saying: ‘I’ve never seen God. How do I know?’
The blows rained down over Fazil until the tears flowed. He must surely be the stupidest boy in the class. The pain was nothing compared to the shame of standing there. Then he was given detention homework.
‘If you cannot learn this, you cannot continue in the class,’ he concluded.
Having written what God is ten times, he must learn it off by heart. He mumbles under his breath and repeats it aloud to his mother. Finally it sticks. The grandmother pities her grandchild. She has no education and thinks the homework is too difficult for the little boy. She holds a glass of tea in the stumps that remain of her hands and slurps.
‘When the Prophet Muhammad drank, he never made a sound,’ Fazil says sternly. ‘Every time he took a sip he removed the glass from his lips three times and thanked God,’ he relates.
The one-eyed grandmother steals a glance at him and says: ‘Really, you don’t say.’
The next part of the homework is about the life of the Prophet. He has reached the chapter which deals with his habits, and he reads aloud, his finger tracing the letters, from right to left.
‘“The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, always squatted on the ground. There was no furniture in his house. A man’s life ought to be like that of a traveller, resting in the shade, then continuing on his way. A house must be nothing more than a place to rest, a protection against cold and heat, against wild animals and a place where privacy is preserved.
‘“Muhammad, peace be upon him, was in the habit of resting on his left arm. When he meditated, he liked to dig in the earth with a shovel or a stick, or he sat on the ground with his arms around his legs. When he slept he slept on his right side, and the palm of his right hand lay under his face. Sometimes he slept lying on his back; sometimes he crossed one leg over the other, always making sure that each part of the body was covered up. He hated lying face down and forbade others to do so. He did not like sleeping in a dark room or on a rooftop. He always washed before going to bed and recited prayers until he fell asleep. When he slept he snored quietly. If he woke at night to urinate, he washed his hands and his face when he had finished. He wore a loincloth in bed but usually took off his shirt. As houses were without latrines in those days the Prophet might walk several miles out of town in order to be out of sight and he chose soft ground to avoid being sprayed. He made sure he was out of sight behind a stone or a rise. He bathed behind a blanket or in a loincloth when bathing in the rain. When he blew his nose he always used a rag.”’