By, Ahmad Takal
Translation: Sharifa Sharif
The summer days of August were changing colors with every new breath. Fresh breezes were blowing from paradise, you would think. But, may be it were only the trees and plants that felt the beauty, as they danced with every wave. People were caught in deep fear. The war had already started, and it felt like the whole world has gone crazy pouring bullets and machinegun fire on each indiscriminately.
That day, the Sun pulled its skirt from the west of Kabul hastily and buried it behind Paghman’s mountains and lit the moonshine in the darkest tent of the sky.
Sabara too went and lit the lamp. Darkness had reached Faqir’s house sooner. Faqir was at home leaning on the pillow. He was in a bad mood. Two days ago, there was a war that no one could imagine.
‘ God helped us out of the woods. It was good we were out, otherwise God knows…. and we came back to this home of sorrows. . What would happen to the house and our property if tomorrow someone.”?
Faqir was having these thoughts when his voice rose like a thunder:
“ Sabara!”
Sabera answered softly from the corridor:
“Don’t shout! What is it?”
Faqir swallowed his anger, didn’t answer, but a moment later asked:
“Where is the water?”
“ You want to pray? Come!”
Faqir sunk in thoughts again. Abo walked with a stooped back. Faqir moved a bit but remained lying. He was trying to hide his worries:
“What’s up Abo?”
Abo uncovered her right ear from under her scarf, pulling it with her hand said:
“ Ah, What are you saying?”
Faqir repeated his question and Abo started talking:
“Oh, son. God helps. Last night I dreamed about gold. God willing, I will be blessed with seeing your child. But I don’t know why am I worried. I had confusing dreams at dawn. I hope God brings what is good for all Muslims. These people don’t care about anything. And look at me, poor old lady with a young daughter-in- law at home. God! Please don’t let it happen to me. I will have a heart attack.”
Faqir said,
“Abo. Last two days have been peaceful. God is great. Hopefully these wild animals won’t fight anymore.”
He became quiet again. Abo didn’t say anything, either. God knows, if she heard Faqir correctly. Faqir started talking again:” Well, I will go to Osmani’ s tomorrow once more. It is peaceful in their neighborhood. I will talk to him and see if he could give us room for one month.”
Abo looked at him curiously, as if she was waiting to hear something else too. Then she lowered her head and murmured something. But Faqir didn’t pay attention.
Later, Sabera spread the dinner cloth and food came. Abo was just touching the food. Sabera too was fingering the food unwillingly, but Faqir was digging into the dishes quite well. After tea, first Sabera and then Faqir excused themselves and went to their rooms.
“Go son, sleep, you will get up early tomorrow.”
Sabera was sleeping in her summer clothes looking like a trimmed plane tree among green leaves, half covered, half naked. She was not sweating, but it seemed like she had just come out of water. Her body was glittering. The thin light of the lamp had drawn a vague smile on her lips. She was awake, but had kept her eyes closed. After a week of severe fighting and running around, it was the first night of peace and calm. Faqir’s big body had filled half of the bed. The strong muscles of his arms were showing and a black birthmark on his right wrist was shinning. Sabera slightly moved towards him and pressed herself against him like leaning on a big trunk of a think willow in a hot summer day. This was the last night Sabera and Faqir slept on the same bed.
The next day, by the time the bloody day began, Faqir had already left home. The sun was still shining and it wasn’t quite noon yet. The ducks from the swamp had not returned home yet. The kids on the streets were still playing and there were a lot of work to be done when the sound of the first fire made Abo think of Sabera. Abo was not home. She was visiting a relative few blocks away from home, and Sabera was alone at home. As Abo was getting ready to leave, it seemed like the fighting had spread house to house. It was a living hell on earth. There was not even a chance to come out to the yard. Fires and bullets were roaring and the rattle of bullets was ringing in ears. The news about fighting spread, as fast as the fighting itself saying that they take young girls and women away with them. Abo was not a weak woman. She tried more than twenty times amidst that fighting hell to leave her relatives house, going home and taking her young daughter-in-law with her. But every time, the fighters situating themselves right in front of house yelled at her:
“Get in! old woman…, get in, bitch! You daughter of Russian, f…. your husband.”
But Abo was restless. After a couple of hours, when some of the fighting men were lying in their blood in front of the house, Abo got the company of two ladies and headed home. She could not get Sabera out of her mind. Some shrieking sound came out of her mouth, but it wasn’t clear what was she saying. Abo was hurrying to get home. Two other women folks with burqas were also accompanying her. The way home and to escape was the same. Abo was walking amazingly faster for her age. By the time Abo and the other two ladies reached home, the fight was still going on with the same force that had started.
The door was open, and there was a big hole in the wall. Abo went inside murmuring with crazy movements:
“God! Let her be dead! Oh God! Let her be dead. Oh saints. Let her be dead!”
A moment later, a soft sound came out of her mouth. During the last ten years that Sabera was married to her son, Abo had never called her with such soft voice;
“ Sabera!”
No answer, she called again. And again and every time her voice became louder and louder. The other two women were standing hopelessly in the yard. Abo’s voice became louder. Sabera was not home. The doors were open and every thing was looted
Abo sat down and burst into loud cry mourning Faqir. Sabera was then forgotten. The bullets were pouring like hails from a mad sky.
The two women took Abo by hands and dragged her out of the house:
“ Abo. Submit her in God’s hands!”
Abo stood and started mourning again. The other woman pulled her in their run, but Abo didn’t have the strength with which she came looking for Sabera. As the three women were becoming farther and farther from the house, the doors seemed helplessly open.
Before it was evening, the sound of fires became remote. People in groups were running to safety carrying their belongings, their saved honors- their daughters and wives. Some children would run behind. The older children would then drag the slow kids to the group, just like a shepherd who chases slow sheep through the herd. The faces were calm. All were walking with the same rhythm. The sounds of their footsteps had the same echo.
Abo thought of Sabera and her hearth ached.
After two days, Sabera came back. She looked the same, as glowing and an autumn apple and as smiling as an early spring rose. But soon, after two days she withered like autumn leaves. No body was answering her greetings; no body was talking to her, or looked at her. She wasn’t even allowed to do the chores, anymore. Two- three months passed and she couldn’t dare ask anyone why? She was still greeting them without having answers; still asking questions without getting response and was still talking meaninglessly. She was three months pregnant, and one day gave herself the courage to talk. She was looking at Faqir, her husband, but addressed Abo:
“Abo! Tell me what is my fault, then slaughter me. What have I done?”
Her last words were chocking. Faqir was still looking outside, as if he hadn’t heard anything. Nothing changed in his features, except a vein on the right corner of his forehead started jumping and he stared at a vague direction. Abo moved her lips and her teeth less mouth but did n’t say a word. After a moment of silence, Sabera started talking again. She was saying one word and shedding two tears.
“ Abo! What was my fault in that. The neighbors came and told me to go with them. They said, if those unfaithful fighters came, they would take the young people with them. But I still didn’t go with them. I was waiting for you, but you didn’t come. Then I was scared for myself, too. I swear to the blue sky that I wasn’t scared for my life, I was afraid of the worst. Yet, I wasn’t alone. A group of women was with me. There were twenty of us women when we left. She said few more things too, but by then neither Faqir was listening to her, nor she wanted to finish her words. She was silent. Abo moved her lips again, but this time she talked:
“You are impure, impure, impure. Shame on this faithless who has still let you alive. I don’t know what is he keeping you for? Go! take a gulp of poison and kill yourself. They have left a life long torture in your tummy too. God knows, how many of them were there. Who should I mourn first: you, the bastard, or my son. “
She went to the porch and left Sabera and Faqir alone. Her cry could still be heard in the room. Sabera begged her questions again. Faqir was quite for a moment, but suddenly he got up. His eyes were red with a wild envy. It was the first time in ten years that this masculine strong man was showing his real face. At that moment, Faqir was like a stranger. His hands beating her body were not like Faqir’s hands, they were a stranger’s hands. At that time, there was an unusual hatred and strength in those hands. Sabara was screaming and Faqir’s harsh taunts were piercing her heart:
“ You bitch! How many were they? Tell me, how many f……you? I couldn’t make you pregnant in ten years. These mother f…..
did it in two nights….and yet you are happy for this bastard….”
Then his voice became shallow, his hands weak and his shoulders started shaking. As he took a breath, a sob came out with it. Sabera was also chocking.
“ You believe in God! Swear to God if any one has touched me. I’ve reached home as pure as a holly verse.”
Faqir murmured:
“For God’s sake! “
*********************
It was early spring. The smell of new blossoms and wet soil was getting into Faqir and making him depressed. A burden of sorrow was on his shoulders that wasn’t leaving him anywhere, not even in dreams.
The war was still going on, but not so severe. Warriors were tired of fighting and people of burying their dead. The city was divided in many parts and people lived only in sections where they felt safe. Now the war had changed its face and was taking place only along the fighting polls.
Faqir had also rented a house in a certain part of the city. He had provided all the necessities of a home for his wife, except the old love. Sabera was walking up and down the house like a cat. No body was hearing her footsteps. She was minding no body’s business. Abo was moving like a full tank of complains and resentments, but wasn’t saying anything.
For a month, she was not talking at all, and if someone talked to her too, she would answer with only yes, and no. Every evening, after saying her prayers, before Sabera prepared the dinner, Abo was sitting on her prayers mat pretending to be praying, but was really taking it out of her chest.
Sabera was nervous about the day, which was approaching soon. The same anxiety was storming in Abo and Faqir minds too.
It was one late evening. Sabera went inside her room.. like a swan isolating herself at time of death not saying anything to anyone. Abo realized the situation and went after her. While Abo came out of the room, her eyes were as red as pomegranate. With her throat stuck, she said:
“ It’s God’s curse. Now, the curse is upon us. Go, get some medicine, some stuff. Inform her mother.”
Faqir could not take his eyes away from the ground. But a vague anxiety made him take care of all the work. An hour later, everything was ready, the medicine, and Sabera’s mother. The three women were inside the room and the man was sitting outside on his feet. He was thinking about his decision.
“ Syrup, water1”
He was caught in the storm of doubt and dilemma, but finally decided ” let her expire. “
The flow of Faqir’s thoughts was broken by the sound of door opening. It sounded so different today. Abo was asking;
“What is this syrup for?”
Faqir said:
“ When she is done ( delivered the baby), give her this syrup. Two table spoons.”
Abo asked:
“ One or two? What if it harms her?”
Faqir insisted:
“No no, two table spoons. “
Faqir had made his decision. Time was blunt, as if one moment was longer than a year. The sky seemed even farther to Faqir. The walls were ruined, everything in the surroundings seemed unconscious of its existence. Faqir was neither on earth, nor in the sky, neither dead, nor alive, neither an animal, nor a human being. He came to his senses, when a soft cry of a baby was heard and soon Abo’s voice joined the cry:
“ Sweat heart Faqir, love your son. Look! Just like the stone of a ring. Exactly like his father.”
Faqir’s heart sunk and he heard his own heart beep. He was hearing Abo’s voice in a dream from far away.
“ Look at his birth mark on his wrist, on the same spot as his father’s .”
He didn’t hear the rest of the words and rushed inside the room. Abo and Sabera’s mother were watching the baby. Faqir saw the baby’s birthmark clearly, but he didn’t stop and rushed towards Sabera.
Sabera looked pale, like autumn struck plane tree. The black of her eyes were lost and on the corner of her mouth there was thick black blood
