‘Well,’ says Mirdzjan. He sits cross-legged wearing the traditional tunic with balloon trousers, the dress forced on all men by the Taliban. Mirdzjan loves it. He is small and podgy and feels comfortable in the loose-fitting clothes. Now he has to wear an outfit he likes little, the old Afghan police uniform which the police used before the Taliban. After hanging in the wardrobe for years it is now somewhat tight. It is also warm, as only the winter uniform, made of heavy homespun, has survived the storage. The uniforms are made to a Russian pattern, and are more at home in Siberia than in Kabul. Mirdzjan sweats his way through the spring days when the temperature can reach thirty degrees.
Sultan quickly explains their business. Mirdzjan lets them talk in turn, as though they were being cross-examined. Sultan sits at his side, Jalaluddin across from him. He nods understandingly and keeps a light, easy manner. Sultan and Jalaluddin are offered tea and cream toffees and talk over each other.
‘For your own sake it is best that we sort it all out here, instead of going to the real police,’ says Mirdzjan.
Jalaluddin looks down, wrings his hands, and stutters out a confession, not to Sultan but to Mirdzjan. ‘I might have taken five hundred. But they’re all at home. I’ll give them all back. I haven’t touched them.’
‘Well I never,’ says the policeman.
But that is not enough for Sultan. ‘I’m sure you’ve taken many more. Come on! Who have you sold them to?’
‘It is to your advantage to admit everything now,’ says Mirdzjan. ‘If it comes to a police interrogation, it won’t be quite like this and there won’t be any tea and cream toffees, ’ he says enigmatically and looks at Jalaluddin.
‘But it is absolutely true. I have not sold them. In the name of Allah, I promise,’ he says and looks from one to the other. Sultan insists, the words are repeated; it is time to go home. Anyone around after curfew is arrested. People have even been killed because the soldiers felt threatened by the passing cars.
They get into the car in silence. Rasul asks the carpenter to tell the truth. ‘Otherwise this will go on and on, Jalaluddin,’ he says. When they reach the carpenter’s house he goes in to fetch the postcards. He returns quickly with a small bundle. The cards have been wrapped in an orange and green patterned scarf. Sultan unwraps them and looks admiringly at his pictures, which are now back with their rightful owner and will be returned to the shelves. But first they will be used as evidence. Rasul drives Sultan home. The carpenter is left standing shamefaced on the corner, where the path leads to his house.
480 postcards. Eqbal and Aimal sit on the mats counting. Sultan is trying to assess how many the carpenter might have taken. The postcards depict various subjects. In the back room there are hundreds upon hundreds. ‘If the whole package has gone it will be difficult to assess, but if only about a dozen are missing from several of the packages, it is possible he has just opened a few packages and taken a few cards from each one,’ Sultan reasons. ‘We’ll have to count tomorrow.’
The next morning, as they are counting, the carpenter suddenly appears at the door. He remains on the threshold and looks more stooped than ever. Suddenly he rushes over to Sultan and starts kissing his feet. Sultan drags him off the floor and hisses: ‘Pull yourself together, man. I don’t want your prayers.’
‘Forgive me, forgive me, I’ll pay you back, I’ll pay you back, I have hungry children at home,’ says the carpenter.
‘I’ll say the same as yesterday, I don’t need your money, but I want to know who you have sold them to. How many did you take?’
Jalaluddin’s old father Faiz is there too. He too tries to get down and kiss Sultan’s feet, but Sultan catches him before he gets down on the floor; he doesn’t like anyone kissing his shoes, especially not an elderly neighbour.
‘You must know I’ve beaten him all night. I am so ashamed. I’ve brought him up to be an honest worker, and now! My son’s a thief,’ Faiz says and scowls at his son who is cowering in the corner. The stooped carpenter looks like a little child who has stolen and lied and is about to be spanked.
Sultan calmly tells the father what has happened, that Jalaluddin took postcards home with him and now they want to know how many he took and who he sold them to.
‘Give me one day and I’ll make him admit to everything, if there is more to admit,’ begs Faiz. The seams in his shoes have come undone, he is not wearing socks and his trousers are held up with a piece of string. The jacket sleeves are shiny. He looks like his son, just a bit darker and smaller and caved in. They are both thin and frail. The father stands in front of Sultan, passive. Sultan does not know what to do either. He feels embarrassed by the old man’s presence, a man who could have been his own father.
At last Faiz moves. He walks resolutely over to the bookcase where the son is standing. Like a flash his arm whips out. And there, in the shop, he thrashes his son. ‘You scoundrel, you cad, you are a disgrace to your family, you should never have been born, you’re a loser, a crook,’ his father cries whilst kicking and hitting him. He rams his knee into his son’s stomach, his foot into his crotch, beats him over the back. Jalaluddin just stands there, stooped, protecting his chest with his arms, while the father lays into him. Then he suddenly breaks loose, and runs out of the shop. He’s out in three long strides, and disappears down the steps and out on to the street.
Faiz’s lambskin hat lies on the floor. It fell off in the heat of the battle. He picks it up, straightens it out and puts it back on his head. He stands up, bids Sultan farewell and walks out. Through the window Sultan sees how he totters on to his old bicycle, looks left and right and cycles stiffly and quietly back to his village.
When the dust has settled after the embarrassing scene, Sultan continues to count. He is unruffled. ‘He worked here for forty days. Let’s say he took two hundred cards every day; that makes eight thousand cards. I’m sure he’s stolen at least eight thousand cards,’ he says and looks at Mansur, who shrugs his shoulders. It had been agony to watch the poor carpenter being beaten by his father. Mansur couldn’t give a shit about the postcards. He thinks they should forget the whole damn thing, now that they have got them back. ‘He hasn’t got the nous to sell them on, forget it,’ he begs.
‘It might have been done to order. You know all those stallholders who have bought postcards from us. Some of them haven’t been for some time. I thought they might have bought enough, but look, they’ve bought cheap postcards from the carpenter. And he is stupid enough to have sold them for a song. What do you think?’
Mansur shrugs his shoulders again. He knows his father and knows that he wants to get to the bottom of it all. He also knows that he will be given the task. His father is off to Iran and will be away for a month.
‘What if you and Mirdzjan make some enquiries while I am away? Truth will out. No one steals from Sultan,’ he says, staring fixedly at Mansur. ‘He could have ruined my entire business,’ he says. ‘Just imagine, he steals thousands of postcards and sells them to kiosks and bookshops all over Kabul. They sell them a lot cheaper than me. People will start going to them instead of to me. I’ll lose all the soldiers who buy postcards – all those who buy books too. I’ll get the reputation of being more expensive than anyone else. In the end I might have gone bankrupt.’
Mansur listens with half an ear to his father’s predictions of doom. He is cross and irritated that he has been given yet another task to complete in his father’s absence. In addition to having to register all the books, to fetch new crates of books sent from the printers in Pakistan, to sort out the red tape which is the consequence of owning a bookshop in Kabul, and to act as chauffeur and run his own bookshop, he now also has to take on the role of police inspector.