Sometimes Aimal stole away up to the roof where reporters were talking into large microphones in front of cameras. They no longer looked like guerrilla soldiers but had washed and combed their hair. The hall was full of funny types who joked and chatted with him. Aimal had learnt some English in Pakistan where he had lived as a refugee most of his life.
No one had asked him why he was not at school. None of the schools were operating anyhow. He counted dollars, used the calculator and dreamt of becoming a big businessman. Fazil was with him then and the two boys watched intently, wide-eyed, the extraordinary world that had invaded the hotel, while they raked in the money. But after a few weeks the journalists left the hotel, where many of them had slept in rooms without water, electricity or windows. The war was over, a leader had been installed and Afghanistan was no longer interesting.
When the journalists left, the newly elected Afghan ministers, their secretaries and aides moved in: dark Pashtoon from Kandahar, returned expatriates in tailor-made suits, and freshly shaven warlords from the steppes filled the sofas in the lobby. The hotel had become home to those who now ruled the country but who had no place to live in Kabul. None of them took any notice of Aimal or bought anything from his shop. They had never tasted a Bounty and they drank water from the tap. They would not dream of throwing away their money on Aimal’s imported goods. Italian olives, Weetabix and a French soft cheese called Kiri, past their sell-by date, were not tempting.
Once in a while some journalist or other would find himself in Afghanistan, in the hotel and the shop.
‘Are you still here? Why aren’t you at school?’ they would ask.
‘I go in the afternoon,’ Aimal would say if they came in the morning.
‘I go in the morning,’ he would say if they came in the afternoon.
He did not dare admit that he, like any other street urchin, did not go to school. Because Aimal is a rich little boy. His father is a rich bookseller, a father who is passionate about words and history, a father who has big dreams and big plans for his book emporium. But he is a father who trusts no one but his own sons to run the shops; a father who did not bother to register his sons when the schools in Kabul opened again after the New Year’s celebrations at the spring equinox. Aimal begged and pleaded but Sultan impressed on him: ‘You are going to be a businessman. The best place to learn that is in the shop.’
Aimal became increasingly unwell and unhappy. His face turned pale and his skin sallow. His young body stooped and lost its resilience. They called him ‘the sad boy’. When he returned home he fought and bickered with his brothers, the only way to use pent-up energy. He regarded his cousin Fazil with envy. He had got in to Esteqlal, a school supported by the French government. Fazil came home with exercise books, pencils, ruler, compass, pencil sharpener, mud all up his trousers and masses of funny stories.
‘The fatherless, poor Fazil can go to school,’ Aimal complained to Mansur, his older brother. ‘But I, I who have a father who has read all the books in the world, I have to work twelve hours a day. I should be playing football, have friends round,’ he complained.
Mansur agreed. He did not like Aimal standing in the dark shop all day. He too begged Sultan to send his youngest to school. ‘Later,’ said the father. ‘Later; now we must pull together. This is when we lay the foundations of our emporium.’
What can Aimal do? Run away? Refuse to get up in the morning?
When his father is away, Aimal ventures out of the lobby; he closes the shop and goes for a stroll round the car park. He’ll maybe find someone to talk to or someone with whom he can kick a stone around. One day a British aid worker turned up. He had suddenly spotted his car, which had been stolen by the Taliban. He walked into the hotel to check it out. A minister, who alleged he had bought it legally, now owned the car. The aid worker had sometimes dropped by Aimal’s shop since. Aimal always asked him how he was getting on with the car.
‘Well, can you believe it. It’s gone for good,’ said the man. ‘New crooks replacing the old ones.’
Very rarely something would break the monotony and the lobby would fill with people so the echo of his footsteps disappeared when he crept to the lavatory. Like the time the Minister for Aviation was killed. Like other out-of-town ministers, Abdur Rahman lived in the hotel. During the UN conference in Bonn, after the fall of the Taliban when Afghanistan ’s new government was being hurriedly assembled, Rahman commanded enough supporters to be named as the new minister. ‘A playboy and a charlatan,’ his opponents said of him.
The drama took place when thousands of hadji – pilgrims on their way to Mecca – were left standing at Kabul airport having been cheated by a tour operator. It had sold tickets for a non-existent plane. Ariana had chartered a shuttle plane to Mecca but there was not nearly room enough for everyone.
The pilgrims suddenly spotted an Ariana plane taxiing along the runway and they stormed it. But the plane was not going to Mecca; it was carrying the Minister of Aviation to New Delhi. The hadji in their white gowns were refused entry. In a raging mood, they knocked the pilot down and rushed into the plane, where they found the minister, who had made himself comfortable with some of his aides. The pilgrims pulled him into the aisle and beat him to death.
Aimal was one of the first to hear about the matter. The hotel lobby was teeming, people wanted details. ‘A minister who was beaten to death by pilgrims? Who was behind it?’
One conspiracy theory after another reached Aimal’s ears. ‘Is this the start of an armed rebellion? Is it an ethnic rebellion? Do the Tajiks want to kill the Pashtoon? Is it personal revenge? Or just desperate pilgrims?’
Suddenly the lobby was even more hideous than normal. Buzzing voices, serious faces, excited people. Aimal wanted to cry.
He returned to the dreary room, sat down behind the table, ate a Snickers. Over four hours to go.
The cleaning man swept the floor and emptied the waste-paper basket.
‘You look so sad, Aimal.’
‘Jigar khoon,’ said Aimal. ‘My heart bleeds.’
‘Did you know him?’ asked the cleaning man.
‘Who?’
‘The minister.’
‘No,’ said Aimal. ‘Or, yes. A little.’
It felt better that his heart bled for the dead minister than for his own lost childhood.
The Carpenter
Mansur runs panting into his father’s shop. He is carrying a little parcel.
‘Two hundred postcards,’ he puffs. ‘He tried to steal two hundred postcards.’
Drops of perspiration pour off his face. He has run the last stretch.
‘Who?’ asks his father. He places his calculator on the counter, enters a figure in the accounts book and looks at his son.
‘The carpenter.’
‘The carpenter?’ Sultan asks, astounded. ‘Are you sure?’
Haughtily, as though he has saved his father from a dangerous mafia gang, the son hands the brown envelope to the father. ‘Two hundred postcards,’ he repeats. ‘When he was about to leave he looked rather embarrassed. But as it was his last day I thought nothing more of it. He asked if there was anything else he could do. He said he needed the work. I said I’d ask you. After all, the shelves are finished. Then I spotted something in his waistcoat pocket. “What’s that?” I said. “What?” he said and looked confused. “In your pocket,” I said. “That’s something I brought with me,” he said. “Show me,” I said. He refused. In the end I pulled the packet out of his pocket myself. And here it is! He tried to steal postcards from us. But that one won’t work, I was keeping an eye on him.’
Mansur has embroidered the story considerably. He was sitting dozing as usual when Jalaluddin was about to leave. It was the cleaning boy, Abdur, who caught the carpenter. Abdur saw him take the cards. ‘Aren’t you going to show Mansur what you have in your pocket?’ he said. Jalaluddin just kept on going.