The cleaning boy was a poor Hazara, from the lowest ethnic group on the Kabul social ladder. He rarely spoke. ‘Show Mansur your pockets,’ he called after the carpenter. Only then had Mansur reacted and pulled the postcards out of Jalaluddin’s pocket. Now he is yearning for his father’s approval.
But Sultan continues to leaf slowly through the bunch of papers and says: ‘Hm, where is he now?’
‘I sent him home but told him he would not get off lightly.’
Sultan is silent. He remembers when the carpenter approached him in the shop. They were from the same village and had been practically neighbours. Jalaluddin had not changed since those days; he was still thin as a rake, with large, frightened, protruding eyes. He was possibly even thinner than before. And although he was only forty, he was already stooped. His family was poor, but well regarded. His father had also been a carpenter, but his sight failed a few years ago and he could no longer work.
Sultan was happy to give him work; Jalaluddin was clever and Sultan needed new shelves. Up until now the bookshelves in his shop had been of the normal variety, where the books stand straight up and down with the title legible on the spine. The shelves covered the walls and in addition there were freestanding bookcases on the floor. But he needed shelves where he could display the books properly. He wanted sloping shelves, with a thin bar across, in order that the whole front cover of the book could be seen. His shop would be like a western shop. They agreed on a fee of £3 per day and Jalaluddin returned the next day with hammer, saw, ruler, nails and some planks. The storage room at the back of the shop was turned into a carpenter’s workshop. Jalaluddin had hammered and nailed all day, surrounded by shelves and postcards. The cards were an important source of income to Sultan. He printed them in Pakistan for next to nothing and sold them at a large profit. Usually Sultan chose images he fancied, without ever thinking of crediting the photographer or painter. He found a picture, took it to Pakistan, and had it reproduced. Some photographers had given him pictures without asking for money. They sold well. The best customers were soldiers from the international peacekeeping force. When they were on patrol in Kabul they dropped in on Sultan’s shop and bought postcards: postcards of women in burkas, children playing on tanks, queens from bygone days in daring dresses, the Bamiyan Buddhas before and after they were blown up by the Taliban, buzkashi horses, children in national costume, wild scenery, Kabul then and now. Sultan was good at choosing images and the soldiers often left the shop with a dozen postcards each.
Jalaluddin’s daily wage was worth exactly nine postcards. In the back room they were stacked up, hundreds of each image, inside bags and out of bags, with rubber bands The Carpenter 211
and without rubber bands, in boxes and cartons and on shelves.
‘Two hundred, you say,’ Sultan said thoughtfully. ‘Do you think this is the first time?’
‘I don’t know. He said he was going to pay for them but that he had forgotten.’
‘Yes, he can try and make us believe that.’
‘Someone must have asked him to steal them,’ Mansur stated. ‘He’s not smart enough to sell the cards on. And he certainly hasn’t stolen them to hang them up on the wall,’ he said.
Sultan swore. He had no time for this. In two days he was off to Iran, for the first time in several years. There were many things to do, but he would have to handle this one first. No one, but no one, was going to steal from him and get away with it.
‘Keep the shop and I’ll go to his house. We must get to the bottom of this,’ said Sultan. He took Rasul with him, he knew the carpenter well. They drove out to the village Deh Khudaidad.
A dust cloud followed the car through the village. Then they came to the path leading up to Jalaluddin’s house. ‘Remember, no one needs to know about this, it is not necessary for the whole family to have the shame hanging over them,’ Sultan said to Rasul.
At the village store on the corner, where the path led to Jalaluddin’s house, stood a group of men, amongst them Jalaluddin’s father Faiz. He smiled at them, squeezed Sultan’s hand and embraced him. ‘Come in and have a cup of tea,’ he said cordially. He obviously knew nothing about the postcards. The other men also wanted a few words with Sultan – after all he had pulled himself up and achieved something in life.
‘We only wanted to see your son,’ said Sultan. ‘Can you fetch him?’
The old man went off. He returned with his son following two steps behind. Jalaluddin looked at Sultan. He was shaking.
‘We need you in the shop, could you come back with us for a moment,’ Sultan said. Jalaluddin nodded.
‘You’ll have to come for tea another day,’ the father called after them.
‘You know what this is all about,’ Sultan observes drily when they are sitting in the back seat of the car being driven by Rasul. They are on their way to Wakil’s brother Mirdzjan, who is a policeman.
‘I only wanted to look at them. I was going to give them back. I only wanted to show my children. They are so beautiful.’
The carpenter cowers in the corner, shoulders sagging, trying to make himself as small as possible. His fists are clenched together between his legs. Now and again he sinks his nails into his knuckles. When he talks he looks quickly and nervously at Sultan and resembles nothing but a frightened and dishevelled chicken. Sultan leans back in the seat and questions him quietly.
‘I need to know how many postcards you took.’
‘I only took the ones you saw.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘It’s true.’
‘If you won’t admit that you took more I’ll report you to the police.’
The carpenter snatches Sultan’s hand and showers it with kisses. Sultan snatches it back.
‘Stop that nonsense; don’t behave like an idiot.’
‘In the name of Allah, upon my honour, I didn’t take any more. Don’t throw me into jail, please, I’ll pay you back, I’m an honourable man, forgive me, I was stupid, forgive me. I have seven little children; two of my girls have polio. My wife is pregnant again and we have nothing to eat. My children are fading away, my wife cries every day because I don’t make enough to feed us all. We eat potatoes and boiled vegetables, we can’t even afford rice. My mother begs leftovers from hospitals and restaurants. Sometimes there is some boiled rice to spare. Sometimes they sell the leftovers in the market. These last days we haven’t even had bread. And I also feed my sister’s five children, her husband is out of work, and I also live with my old mother and father and grandmother.’
‘The choice is yours. Admit that you have taken more and you’ll be spared jail,’ says Sultan.
The conversation goes round in circles. The carpenter bemoans his poverty and Sultan wants him to admit to a larger theft. He also wants to know to whom he has sold the cards.
They have travelled through Kabul and are out in the country again. Rasul drives them through muddy roads and past people hurrying to reach home before nightfall. Some stray dogs fight over a bone. Children run around barefoot. A burka-clad woman balances on the crossbar of her husband’s bicycle. An old man is fighting a cart full of oranges; his feet sink into the deep ruts caused by the recent days’ downpour. The hard mud road has been turned into an artery of shit, garbage and animal waste, forced into the road from alleyways and verges by torrential rain.
Rasul halts in front of a gate. Sultan asks him to go and knock on the door. Mirdzjan comes out, greets them all and invites them in.
When the men stomp up the stairs they hear the quiet hiss of skirts. The women of the house hide. Some stand behind half-open doors, others behind curtains. A young girl peeps through a crack in the door to see who might be visiting them so late in the day. Outside the family no men must see them. The older boys serve the tea the sisters and mother have prepared in the kitchen.