The Swallows of Kabul (6 page)

But everything comes to an end, including this day. Night has fallen. People are going back home; the homeless are returning to their burrows. And the Taliban thugs often shoot at suspicious shadows without warning. Atiq thinks that he, too, ought to go home, where he’ll find his wife in the same condition as when he left her, which is to say sick and distraught. He takes a street lined with piles of rubble, stops next to a ruin, puts an arm against the only wall left standing, plants himself fairly solidly on his haunches, rests his chin on one shoulder, and stays like that. Here and there in the darkness, where a few dim lights halfheartedly expose themselves, he hears infants crying. Their wails pierce his skull like a blade. A woman protests against the unruliness of her offspring, and a male voice quickly silences her.

Atiq straightens his neck, then his spine, and looks up at the thousands of constellations twinkling in the sky. Something like a sob constricts his throat. He has to squeeze his fists bloodless to keep from collapsing. He’s tired, tired of going in circles, running after wisps of smoke, tired of these dull days trampling him down from morning till night. He can’t figure out why he has survived two consecutive decades of ambushes, air raids, and explosive devices that turned the bodies of dozens of people around him into pulp, sparing neither women nor children, neither villages nor flocks, and all to wind up like this, vegetating in a dark, inhospitable world, in a completely disoriented city studded with scaffolds and haunted by doddering human wreckage—a city that mistreats him, damages him, day after day, night after night, whether he’s in the company of some wretch condemned to die and awaiting her fate in his stinking jail or watching over his tormented wife, doomed to an even crueler death.

“La hawla.”
He sighs. “Lord, if this is a test you’re giving me, give me also the strength to overcome it.”

Striking his hands together, he mumbles a few verses from the Qur’an and turns for home.

WHEN ATIQ OPENS the door of his house, the first thing that catches his attention is the lighted hurricane lamp. Usually at such an hour, Musarrat is in bed and all the rooms are plunged in darkness. He notices the empty pallet, the blankets neatly spread out over the mattress, the pillows propped against the wall, just as he likes them. He cocks an ear: no moaning, no sound whatsoever. He retraces his steps, observes the basins, upside down and drying on the floor, and the dishes, gleaming in their proper place. His curiosity is aroused; for months now, Musarrat has done little in the way of housework. Wasted by her illness, she spends most of her time whimpering, huddled around the pain tearing at her insides. To signal his return, Atiq coughs into his hand. A curtain is drawn aside, and Musarrat shows herself at last, haggard, crumpled, but on her feet. She can’t prevent her hand from clutching the doorway for support, however, and Atiq can sense that she’s battling with all her remaining strength to remain upright, as if her dignity depends on her success. He puts two fingers on his chin and raises an eyebrow, making no effort to conceal his surprise.

“I thought my sister had come back from Baluchistan,” he says.

Musarrat straightens up with a jerk. “I’m not helpless yet,” she points out.

“That’s not what I meant. You were in a really bad way when I left this morning. Now everything’s in its place and the floor’s been swept. When I saw that, right away I thought my sister had come back, because we don’t have anyone besides her. All the women in the neighborhood know how sick you are, but not one of them has ever dropped in to see if you could use some help.”

“I don’t need any of them.”

“Don’t be so touchy, Musarrat. Why must you turn over every word to see what’s lying underneath?”

Musarrat sees that she’s not improving matters between herself and her husband. She takes the hurricane lamp off the table and hangs it from a beam so it will shed more light; then she brings in a tray loaded with food. “I cut up the melon you sent me and put it on the windowsill to keep it cool,” she says in a conciliatory tone. “You certainly must be hungry. I’ve cooked some rice the way you like it.”

Atiq takes off his shabby shoes, hangs his turban and whip on a shutter knob, and sits down in front of the dented metal tray. Not knowing what to say and not daring to look at his wife, for fear of reinjuring her sensibilities, he grabs a carafe and brings it to his lips. The water runs out of his mouth and splashes his beard, which he wipes with the back of his hand before feigning interest in a barley cake.

“I made it myself,” says Musarrat, watching him closely. “For you.”

After a pause, he finally asks, “Why do you give yourself so much trouble?”

“I want to perform my wifely duties until the end.”

“I’ve never demanded anything from you.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Seated on the mat across from him, she sags a little, then fixes him with her eyes and adds, “I refuse to give up, Atiq.”

“It’s not a question of that, woman.”

“You know how much I detest humiliation.”

Atiq gives her a searching look. “Have I done something to offend you, Musarrat?”

“Humiliation isn’t necessarily caused by what others think about you. Sometimes it comes from not being responsible for yourself.”

“Where are you getting this nonsense, woman? You’re sick, that’s all. You need to rest and gather your strength. I’m not blind, and we’ve lived together for many years: You’ve never cheated anyone, not me or anybody else. You don’t have to aggravate your illness just to prove something—who knows what?—to me.”

“We’ve lived together for many years, Atiq, and for the first time I feel that I must be failing in my obligations as a wife. My husband doesn’t speak to me anymore.”

“I don’t speak to you, it’s true, but it’s not because I’m rejecting you. It’s just that I’m overwhelmed by this everlasting war and the squalor that spoils everything around us. I’m a part-time jailer who doesn’t understand why he’s agreed to stand guard over a few poor wretches instead of dealing with his own misfortune.”

“If you believe in God, you must consider the fact that I’ve become a misfortune for you as a test of your faith.”

“You’re not my misfortune, Musarrat. You get these ideas all by yourself. I do believe in God, and I accept whatever trials He sends me to test my patience.”

Musarrat cuts the barley cake and hands a piece to her husband. “Since we have a chance to talk for once,” she murmurs, “let’s try not to quarrel.”

“Fine with me,” Atiq says approvingly. “Since we have a chance to talk for once, let’s avoid all disagreeable remarks and insinuations. I’m your husband, Musarrat. I, too, try to perform my proper conjugal duties. The problem is that I feel a little out of my depth. I don’t harbor any resentment toward you; you have to know that. My silence isn’t rejection; it’s the expression of my impotence. Do you understand me, woman?”

Musarrat nods, but without conviction.

Atiq pokes a piece of bread into one of the dishes of food. His hand trembles; it’s so difficult for him to repress the anger welling up in him that he hisses as he breathes. He hunches his shoulders and tries to regulate his breathing; then, more and more exasperated by having to explain himself, he says, “I don’t like pleading my case. It makes me feel as though I’ve done something wrong, when I’ve done nothing of the kind. All I want is to find a little peace in my own home. Is that too much to ask? You’re the one who gets ideas, woman. You persecute yourself, and you persecute me. It’s as though you’re deliberately trying to provoke me.”

“I’m not trying to provoke you.”

“Maybe not, but that’s what it feels like. As soon as you get a little of your strength back, you stupidly wear yourself out to prove to me you’re still on your feet, your illness isn’t about to keep you down. Two days later, you fall to pieces, and I have to pick them up. How long do you expect this farce to last?”

“Pardon me.”

Atiq heaves a sigh, moves his little bit of bread around in the cold sauce, and brings it to his mouth without raising his head.

Musarrat gathers the folds of her skirt in her arms and looks at her husband, who makes moist, unpleasant sounds as he eats. Unable to catch his eye, she contents herself with staring at the bald spot that’s spreading out from the crown of his head and revealing his concave, ugly nape. She starts to talk in a despondent voice: “The other night, during the full moon, I opened the shutters so I could watch you sleep. You were slumbering peacefully, like someone with nothing on his conscience. A little smile was showing through your beard. Your face made me think of the sun coming through the clouds; it was as though all the suffering you’ve endured had evaporated, as though pain had never dared to touch the least wrinkle in your skin. It was a vision so beautiful, so calm, I wished the dawn would never come. Your sleep brings you to a safe place, where nothing can upset you. I sat down beside your bed. I was dying to take your hand, but I was afraid I might wake you up. So, to keep myself from temptation, I thought about the years we’ve shared, not often very good years, and I wondered whether, even in our best, most intense moments, we ever really loved each other. . . .”

Atiq suddenly stops eating. His fist shakes as he wipes his lips with it. He mutters a
“La hawla”
and looks his wife up and down, his nostrils twitching spasmodically. In a falsely calm voice, he asks, “What’s wrong, Musarrat? You’re quite talkative this evening.”

“Maybe it’s because we’ve hardly talked at all for some time.”

“And what makes you so loquacious today?”

“My illness. It’s a serious time, illness, a real moment of truth. You can’t hide anything from yourself anymore.”

“You’ve often been ill.”

“This time, I have a feeling the disease I’m carrying around isn’t going to go away without me.”

Atiq pushes away his plate and backs up to the wall. “On the one hand, you cook my dinner. On the other, you prevent me from touching it. Does that seem fair?”

“Pardon me.”

“You go too far, then you ask for pardon. Do you think I’ve got nothing else to do?”

She gets up and prepares to return behind her curtain.

“This is exactly why I tend to avoid talking to you, Musarrat. You’re constantly on the defensive, like a she-wolf in danger. And when I try to reason with you, you take it badly and withdraw to your room.”

“That’s true,” she admits. “But you’re all I have. When you’re annoyed at me, when you’re silent and scowling, I feel as though the whole world is turning its back on me. I’d give everything I have for you. I try to deserve you at all costs, and that’s why I make all these blunders. Today, I forbade myself to upset you or disappoint you, yet that’s exactly what I can’t stop doing.”

“If that’s the case, why do you keep on making the same mistake?”

“I’m afraid. . . .”

“Of what?”

“Of the coming days. They terrify me. If only you could make things easier for me.”

“How?”

“By repeating to me what the doctor told you about my illness.”

“Again!” Atiq exclaims in a fury.

He kicks the table over, leaps to his feet, swiftly collects his shoes, turban, and whip, and leaves the house.

Left alone, Musarrat puts her head in her hands. Slowly, her thin shoulders begin to shake.

A FEW BLOCKS away, Mohsen Ramat isn’t sleeping, either. Lying on his straw mattress with his hands folded behind his head, he stares at the candle as it drips wax into its earthenware bowl and throws shadows that dance in fits and starts upon the walls. Above his head, a sagging beam in the exposed ceiling threatens to give way. Last week, a section of the ceiling in the next room came down and nearly buried Zunaira. . . .

Zunaira, who’s holed up in the kitchen and taking her time about coming to bed.

Their late dinner, long since over, proceeded in silence: he was devastated; she was far away. They barely touched the food, distractedly nibbling at a bit of bread that took them an hour to get down. Mohsen felt deeply embarrassed. His account of the prostitute’s execution had brought discord into his home. He’d thought that confessing his guilt to Zunaira would salve his conscience and help him get a grip on himself. Never for a moment had he imagined that his words would shock his wife so thoroughly. He tried several times to extend his hand to her, to indicate to her how sorry he was. His arm refused to obey him; it remained clamped to his side as though paralyzed. Zunaira did nothing to encourage him. She kept her head bent and her eyes on the floor, while her fingers barely brushed the edge of the little table. It took her even longer to bring a mouthful of bread to her lips than it did to take a bite of it. Distant, mechanical in her movements, she refused to rise to the surface, refused to wake up. Since neither one of them was really eating, she picked up the tray and withdrew behind the curtain.

Mohsen waited for her for a long time, then went and lay down on the pallet, where he has continued to wait for her. Zunaira has not come. He’s been waiting for two hours, perhaps a little longer, and Zunaira still has not returned to his side. Not a sound comes from the kitchen to suggest that she’s in there. Washing two plates and emptying a little basket of bread couldn’t have taken any time at all. Mohsen sits up and lets a few moments pass before deciding he’s waited long enough, he’s going to see what’s going on.