“Stay here. Watch your sisters and pray that this news is not true! I am going out to make sense of this. I’ve never heard such a story. . if this is a lie, I’ll curse that busybody. Dear God, this cannot be!”
She threw her chador over her head and whipped the end over her shoulder. The door slammed behind her before I could ask where she was going or what the terrible news was. I went about my chores with an uneasy feeling in my gut. My sisters were busy with their school lessons and would know nothing more than I’d already overheard. I would have to wait for KokoGul to return.
When two hours passed, I grew more apprehensive. I went through the courtyard and opened our front gate. Our quiet street offered no clues. A few children chased a feeble mutt, pelting it with scraps of trash. An older man walked by with a cane. Nothing looked out of the ordinary.
Padar-jan came home earlier than usual and found me beating the dust from the pillows in the living room. I couldn’t sit still.
“Where is your mother? Don’t tell me she’s gone out to the market again.”
“No, Padar-jan, she went to call upon a friend, I think. She didn’t say much — just that she’d heard some terrible news that she hoped wasn’t true.”
“Terrible news?” He looked alarmed, both by KokoGul’s sudden departure and by the anxiety in my voice. “Did she say what the news was?”
I shook my head.
“She was in a hurry. She flew out the door without explaining.”
My father sighed heavily and asked if I’d prepared dinner. He decided we would not get worked up before we knew what we were talking about. My father would swallow a spoon of salt smiling if it meant keeping the house in peace.
Padar-jan was hungry so I summoned my siblings and set the table, wondering if KokoGul would make it back before we started to eat. Cumin steam swirled from the platter of hot rice I was carrying when she swept into the room. KokoGul threw her chador onto the back of a chair with a huff. Her voice boomed in the small space.
“Ooohhh God, our merciful Allah! What horrible news!” Her head swayed from side to side as she sat next to my father. “What tragic and unexpected events have befallen us. . I still cannot believe such a thing would happen!”
Padar-jan furrowed his brow, impatient with her dramatic prelude.
“Just say what it is, KokoGul. What happened?”
KokoGul ignored his frustration and went on with her story at her own pace.
“I was home today making sure these girls were doing their homework and on top of that there was a lot of laundry and cooking to do and I had my hands full, as usual,” she added. Padar-jan sighed heavily and I wondered when KokoGul had last washed so much as a sock or stirred a pot.
“Habiba-jan came knocking on our door to borrow some flour — sometimes I think we could make a healthy living supplying her with all the ingredients she’s forgotten to pick up from the sundries store — anyway, I gave that foolish woman what she needed and she started to chatter about the unfortunate family arranging for a fateha in two days for their young son and what a sad story it was. I asked her who it was that had lost a son and she told me that it was that wealthy family from across town, Agha Firooz.”
My fingers gripped the edge of the table tightly. I could feel the blood drain from my face. I waited for her to continue.
“When she said that, my head spun and I just about fainted right there at her feet but I pulled myself together and asked her if she knew which of their boys it was and how it had happened. She was more interested in getting home with the flour and she didn’t know much else anyway so I told her to run along. I went to Fatana-jan’s house since her brother-in-law lives next door to Agha Firooz’s family.
“Fatana’s better informed than the KGB and she told me everything! My God, how this changes things for us! Just two days ago. .”
“Dear God, wife, please! Just say what happened!”
“Unbelievable, truly unbelievable! The whole story is just unimaginable! Agha Firooz’s boy was walking from the movie theater to home with his friends. You know, they said he was studying engineering, but Fatana tells me he hadn’t been to any classes since high school and he wouldn’t have even graduated from there had his father not breathed heavily over a few shoulders.”
Tragic or not, KokoGul would not leave out a single detail of this savory story. This was her first time telling it, a rehearsal of sorts as she would certainly be repeating it again and again.
“He was on his way home with his friends when they stopped to get some nakhod from one of the vendors in the bazaar. Boys like that cannot go five meters without a snack! They each got a pocketful of roasted chickpeas and went along their way when he started to scratch at some red bumps on his arms. By the time they’d turned the corner, he was in worse shape, coughing and straggling behind the others. The boys had no idea what had happened to him and decided to take him back to his house. He could barely walk by then and they put him on the living room sofa.
“His poor mother was home. She came into the room, took one look at her son, and realized what had happened. When he was young, he would get the same red bumps when he’d eaten walnuts. She yelled for his friends to help her get him to the doctor, but the boys had already taken off. Fatana thinks they were up to something and got scared that they’d be in trouble. By the time she called her servant to help and managed to get him to the doctor he’d stopped breathing. He was finished!”
KokoGul covered her face in her hands, took a deep breath, and put her palms flat against the table. Her voice was mournful.
“They are just beside themselves with grief and shock. As we speak, they’re making arrangements for the burial when they should have been making plans for his wedding.”
Padar-jan leaned back, his mouth slightly open. My sisters looked pointedly at me. I kept my face as still as I could, unsure what I was feeling and not wanting my expression to betray my thoughts.
“Allah forgive his sins! To lose a son, a young man. .” Padar-jan shook his head. He kept his eyes on KokoGul, glancing over just once to gauge my reaction.
“Such a shame. Such a shame. Just when we were getting to know their family better! They seemed like such nice people, with good business sense and obviously better off than most in Kabul. They have another son but he’s married already! Now we’ve lost our chance with them.” KokoGul could not conceal her true disappointment.
Padar-jan looked at her and sighed. He had long ago accepted KokoGul for what she was, but that didn’t stop him from hoping, day after day, that she wouldn’t make every little event revolve around her. He cleared his throat. “I will find out more tomorrow about the jenaaza and the fateha. We’ll pay our respects to the family. For now, let’s have the meal that Fereiba’s prepared for us. It shouldn’t go to waste.” He grew pensive. “We’ll send some food for them.”
“Send food? They already have a cook who prepares food for them. It’s hard enough for us to feed the mouths we have here!”
“We will send food and pay our respects. We’ve marked happy days with them and shouldn’t shy from their sorrow,” Padar-jan said slowly and deliberately, his eyes narrowed at KokoGul. She sulked at his admonishment.
As a family grieved its son, I was ashamed to admit that I felt relieved, as if a yoke had been removed from my neck. But the weight of the misery I’d escaped was replaced by heavy thoughts.