Born Under a Million Shadows Read online

  As Ismerai ended, we all applauded the joke; however, it was Spandi who laughed the longest and loudest. He was practically doubled up, and I wondered whether this was from sitting so close to Ismerai’s burning cigarette. As my friend tried to take back control of his body, tears sprang from his eyes, forcing him to wipe them away with the back of his hand, which left black smudges on his face.

  Suddenly, Haji Khalid Khan stopped to look at him, dark and serious.

  “You sell spand, I take it?” he asked flatly.

  “Yes, Haji, I do,” Spandi replied, his shoulders relaxing from the fit that had just passed over him.

  “That’s hard work, boy,” Ismerai admitted, sucking again on his sweet-smelling cigarette before handing it over to Haji Khalid Khan, who took it and nodded.

  The big man then leaned over to his uncle and whispered something in his ear. Ismerai smiled, got to his feet, and walked out of the garden and through the gate without another word. None of us asked where he was going because in Afghanistan you don’t ask. In the company of men, a boy is merely expected to sit, watch, and learn. There are many rules in our country, but the rule of not asking is learned pretty quickly.

  About thirty minutes later, after James and even May had shared their own jokes with us—some of which I found hard to find funny because they didn’t mention mentals or donkeys—Ismerai came back with a long chain of cards. They were held together by plastic wrapping and advertised companies like Roshan, AWCC, and Areeba. Haji Khalid Khan handed over the chain and a small bag to Spandi. Inside were dozens of the cards that people bought in order to make calls on their mobile phones. They each had a special number that you had to scratch from the back and then dial into your phone. This was big business in Afghanistan because even if you didn’t own the clothes on your back you sure as hell owned a phone.

  “These are for you,” Haji Khalid Khan informed my friend. “From now on, you sell these cards, and for every card you sell you get to keep one dollar. The rest belongs to me. Okay?”

  Spandi looked at the cards lying in the bag beside him, his red eyes wide and amazed, and nodded his head.

  “Thank you,” he said quietly.

  “My pleasure, son,” replied Haji Khalid Khan, and Georgie placed her hand gently on his knee and smiled. In fact all of us smiled, and I saw in that one act something of the man she had fallen in love with, because giving Spandi the means to work away from his can was probably the greatest kindness I’d ever witnessed, but never thought of. If I had, maybe I could have convinced Georgie to find Spandi a different job, something away from the poison smoke that clogged his lungs and stung his eyes. But it was Haji Khalid Khan who looked through the black and saw the boy. He had thrown him a second chance, and I felt ashamed of myself for having ignored what was so obvious. Even so, I also felt some small pride in having been the one to introduce Spandi to his new boss.

  And that’s when I felt my anger start to slip away from me.

  A little after eight, when all the adults had gone their separate ways—James and May to one of Kabul’s many bars, my mother to her room to watch the latest episode of a hysterical Indian soap opera on Tolo TV, and Georgie to Haji Khalid Khan’s house with Ismerai—Spandi and I walked to the dump that wafted bad smells and disease across Massoud Circle. Without a word, I watched him unhook the can from the waist of his trousers, give it one last look, then throw it as far into the heap as his thin arms could manage. As we stood side by side, our eyes followed the can as it bounced off the top of an old gas bottle before disappearing into the fleshy mess of rotten food and waste.

  I glanced over at Spandi and saw his lips move with no sound. Suddenly, he turned to me and asked, “You know who your girlfriend’s boyfriend is, don’t you?”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.” I laughed, pushing him hard in the stomach, the spell of the ceremony now broken.

  “Whatever you say,” Spandi said, pushing me back. “Your friend’s boyfriend, then.”

  “If you are referring to Haji Khalid Khan, then yes, I do know who he is.”

  “Who?” Spandi challenged.

  “He’s a businessman from Jalalabad. He imports diesel and ghee oil from Pakistan and Toyota car parts from Japan.”

  “Of course he does.” Spandi laughed, slapping me on the back. “For God’s sake, Fawad! It’s Haji Khan! The Haji Khan—the scourge of the Taliban, the son of one of Afghanistan’s most famous mujahideen, and now one of the country’s biggest drug dealers. He’s Haji Khan, Fawad! I recognized him the moment I saw him. And he’s drinking tea at your house and sleeping with your girlfriend!”

  5

  AFGHANISTAN IS FAMOUS for two things: fighting and growing poppies. And despite the best efforts of the international community to put a stop to both, we seem to be better than ever at these two occupations.

  After the Taliban fled in 2001, the air was filled with talk about “democracy,” and within a couple of years everyone had the right to vote; women were allowed in Parliament; laws were written to protect the innocent; girls were allowed back in school; and all the wrongs done by our past leaders were apparently put right. But in the middle of all the excitement, everyone seemed to forget that Afghanistan already had a set of rules, a justice system going back thousands of years that was as much a part of our lives as the Hindu Kush mountains, and even though it was generally agreed that “democracy” was a good thing, the fact remained that if a man committed murder, then he was going to get it. Some blood feuds have gone on for generations in Afghanistan, with families carrying out so many killings nobody knows who started them anymore.

  And even though the government has ordered everyone to give up their weapons for the greater good of the country, no one seems to be in a hurry to do so because things change so fast here. Therefore, the big men in the north and the west still fight over territory and power; army commanders in the east continue to shoot at Pakistanis who creep onto our soil uninvited; the Taliban fight goes on in the south against Afghans and foreigners; and in the streets the adults beat boys, the boys beat smaller boys, and everyone beats donkeys and dogs.

  Meanwhile, the opium crops continue to grow, and grow, and grow, and the newspapers say that this year there was a record harvest, making Afghanistan the biggest opium producer in the world. Although my mother says everyone should work to be the best at something, I don’t think she has this in mind when she says it. I think she means math or religious studies.

  And though I don’t know much, I do know that fighting is bad because people die, they lose body parts, and it makes the women cry; and I know it’s wrong to grow poppies because the West says it is and therefore so does President Karzai. So I don’t think I’m being childish or selfish when I say that Haji Khalid Khan, or Haji Khan as I now know him to be, is probably not the right man for an Englishwoman in Kabul who combs goats for a living, having, as he does, a history of violence and opium money in his pocket.

  Although how I should convince Georgie of this is anyone’s guess. As my mother once said, and as Pir Hederi found to his cost, love is blind.

  “Doesn’t Haji Khan come from Shinwar, not Jalalabad?” I asked Georgie as she drank her coffee on the steps of the house. It was cold now, and she was wrapped in a soft gray patu, a parting gift from her lover before he left for the east.

  “Yes, he does,” she admitted. “But he has a house in Jalalabad and tends to spend most of his time there. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, nothing,” I mumbled, wrapping my arms around my body and coming to sit by her side.

  “Here, get under this.” Georgie shuffled closer, placing the patu around my back and over my shoulder. It carried the heat of her body and the smell of her perfume. “Better?”

  “Yes, thanks. It’s cold, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is,” she agreed, and I bit at my bottom lip, not sure where to begin, and even less sure about whether Georgie would take the patu away once I did begin.

  “What’s the matter?” she fi
nally asked after we’d sat there in silence for the best part of a minute. “You look serious.”

  “Do I? Well, yes, maybe I am,” I admitted. “It’s just that, well, I heard that there are a lot of poppy crops in Shinwar.”

  “Not at the moment there aren’t; it’s winter.” She laughed.

  “I know that,” I joined in, happy to have got the subject going at last. “But usually there are. Shinwar is famous for poppy.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” Georgie agreed. “And your point is?”

  “Nothing.” I shrugged. “I just thought I’d mention it.”

  “Why? Because you think Khalid is involved in poppy?”

  Georgie turned her head to look at me. To my gigantic relief she didn’t seem angry, but I still thought it best to ignore the question.

  “Look,” she continued. “I know a lot of people think Khalid is involved in drugs because he’s a rich man, but he isn’t—isn’t involved in drugs, that is; of course he’s a rich man. Khalid hates drugs. He says they trap people in poverty, they damage the reputation of the country, and they pay for the insurgency that is threatening to wreck Afghanistan once again. He hates them, Fawad, absolutely hates them.”

  “But how can you be sure he’s telling the truth?” I asked.

  Georgie reached for the packet of cigarettes lying by her feet, removed one from the box, and lit it.

  “Well, there are a number of reasons,” she explained, releasing a line of smoke through her lips. “I know he has several projects running in the east helping farmers find work away from poppy growing, like providing them with fruit and olive trees and seeds for wheat and perfume flowers. But mainly I know he’s telling the truth because I trust him.”

  Georgie looked away, sipped her coffee, and sucked heavily on her cigarette. I turned my face to my feet and watched from the corner of my eye as she slowly dragged a pale hand through her hair, stroking it away from her face. Against the near-black of her hair and the gray of the patu, her skin looked frosty white, and dark circles hung beneath her eyes.

  “Are you tired?” I asked.

  “A little, yes,” she replied, a small smile thinning her lips.

  I nodded. “I am too,” I said, which wasn’t true, but I didn’t want her to feel alone. Haji Khan had been gone a week, disappearing from our lives as suddenly as he had appeared, and I guessed she was missing him.

  “I’ve known Khalid for three years,” Georgie stated, almost as if she had read my thoughts. “I would know if he was lying to me.”

  “I didn’t say he was lying.”

  “No. Well, not in so many words you didn’t, so, thank you.”

  I shuffled my feet and let the softness of the patu cover them.

  “But . . . how can you really be sure that he’s not?”

  “How?” she asked, shrugging her shoulders in a very Afghan way that marked her out as nearly one of us. “Because I am.”

  After a few seconds’ pause, during which a crease appeared in the middle of her eyebrows as if she was thinking hard, she added, “It’s like when a man, or a woman, says they love you. How can you be sure they aren’t just saying the words and they really mean it? Well, you look into their eyes. I mean really look, look hard, and you will feel it in your heart if they are telling you the truth. I love Khalid. He wouldn’t lie to me. Now”—Georgie breathed a small laugh that sounded empty, like the sound of trying—“he may not be the best boyfriend in the world—he disappears on a whim, and sometimes he doesn’t call me for weeks, and no matter how hard I try to find him I can’t—but even so, I still know he loves me, and in the same way that I know that, I know he isn’t involved in poppies. There, does that set your mind at rest?”

  Not really, I thought, but I nodded my head anyway. And inside I felt my heart hurt. I hadn’t heard Georgie’s excited chatter for several days now. She looked tired, the light had dimmed in her eyes, and I guessed Haji Khan had disappeared on something called “a whim” again, without bothering to call.

  It probably wasn’t the right time to ask if he’d left on account of his drug business.

  Maybe Georgie was right and Haji Khan wasn’t smuggling drugs out of the country, but she was also a woman in love and she couldn’t be relied on to think straight. “Love makes fools of all of us,” Shir Ahmad once said as we watched my mother scamper across the street to visit Homeira. Considering love was also blind, I wondered why anyone would bother wasting so much energy chasing it. However, it was facts I needed right now, not poetry.

  My first thought was to talk to James as he was a journalist and was bound to know who was doing what in the country, but my English, which was getting pretty good, wasn’t strong enough to deal with the subject, and James’s Dari had barely progressed beyond “salaam aleykum.” I didn’t feel I could talk to May, because we hadn’t really become friends and I got the impression that as well as not liking men she didn’t like boys much either—maybe because one day, if Allah willed it, we would grow up to become men. And Pir Hederi, although blind, was maybe not as wise as a blind man ought to be. I guessed that he colored his stories to make up for the darkness he lived in.

  I decided to speak to Spandi. After all, he was the one who first suggested Haji Khan was a drug lord, and he must have got his information from somewhere. So, for the first time in over four months I left Wazir Akbar Khan and crossed the city to return to Chicken Street.

  There is something quite wonderful about Chicken Street, but I’m not sure what it is. I’ve never been able to put my finger on it. Perhaps it’s the noise and confusion of the place that breathe life into me—the playful demands of shopkeepers battling for attention over the irritated beeps of drivers; the mass of people that clog the road along with the cars and pushcarts; the explosions of anger as vehicles ignore the one-way system; the chatter of kids terrorizing the tourists; the smell of kebabs wafting in from Cinema Park—or simply the great, glorious mess of it all that makes this small corner of Kabul come alive like a massive wriggling beast.

  If Parliament is the brains of the capital—God help us—then Chicken Street is its heart.

  However, there’s one thing that’s even better than Chicken Street, and that’s Chicken Street during the run-up to Christmas, the time when the foreigners celebrate the birthday of their prophet, Jesus. For three weeks something almost holy comes over the place. Money exchanges hands more freely; beggars get their share of crumpled afs before they even have time to mention their sick, dying baby; shops glow bright in the early darkness; bags of shopping hang in the arms of people thinking about their families; angry outbursts are quickly softened by happy smiles; and laughter bounces from pavements and doorways as the swarm hides from sudden snowstorms or tries to pick its way across the deep lines of rubbish on either side of the road. This is Chicken Street at its most heavenly, and it felt good to be back. It was like coming home.

  “Fawad!”

  Jamilla came running up to me, grabbing me in a huge embrace that in a few years’ time she would no longer be able to do without ending up in the prison for wayward girls. Her face was pinched red by the cold, and her eyes shone bright.

  “Where have you been? We’ve missed you!”

  “I’ve missed you too,” I shouted back over the clash of noises filling the air, a racket of shouting, beeping, and growling generators.

  And it was true, I had missed her. Okay, my thoughts had been kept busy with the events of my new life and the unexpected problems that came with it, but a true Afghan never forgets his past. That’s what makes us so good at holding grudges.

  “I’ve so much to tell you, Jamilla!”

  “I know some of it.” She smiled. “Spandi has been keeping me informed. Apparently you work for a blind man now; that’s why you have deserted us!”

  “I haven’t deserted you,” I protested, “I’ve just been busy!”

  “I know, Fawad, relax, I’m just joking with you. I’m happy for you, really I am.”

  Jami
lla took my hand and weaved me through the legs of the adults, taking me to the archway leading to a small shopping court where we used to gather to swap stories, information, and scraps of food.

  “Fawad, you dirty little bastard!”

  As we ducked into the alcove, Jahid rose from a crouch and came over to embrace me.

  “I’ve got a television!” I told him.

  “Fuck off, you liar!”

  “No, it’s true! And there’s a girl in my house with breasts as big as the dome on top of Abdul Rahman Mosque!”

  “No way!” he screamed, slapping his forehead. “There’s no justice in this world. Here I am, fully equipped to show the ladies a good time, and Allah in all his wisdom brings the best tits in the city to a fucking homosexual like you!”

  Jahid punched me in the arm, but it was a playful punch and so we wrestled for a bit, falling into the display of scarves coloring the walls around us as we did so and earning us a not-so-playful slap around the head from the seller.

  It felt fantastic to be back, tasting the fun and the violence of the street. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it and everyone in it—even Jahid.

  As we moved farther into the courtyard, away from the scarf seller, to sit on dirty steps leading to a closed trinket shop, Jahid told me that his mother seemed depressed now that we’d gone and she no longer had anyone to shout with. He also revealed he would be getting out of Chicken Street soon: his father had called in a favor from someone who owed him one, and they’d found Jahid a job in the municipality offices, on account of his reading and writing. They were going to train him to do something useful, they said—once he’d mastered the art of tea making.