The Ink Bridge (31 page)

Her son climbs into her lap. She strokes his hair and sings to him. The house is dark inside. It will be cold in winter. In the dusty courtyard, the old man's first wife eyes us suspiciously, her veil clenched in her teeth.

I ask Leyli through Arezu, ‘Where are your father's books?'

She replies, ‘My mother burnt them for warmth. I can no longer read. My children will never learn, my husband forbids it.'

‘How did it come to this?' I say. ‘You were supposed to marry Zakir.'

‘I am not translating that,' says Arezu.

‘Why not?'

‘That is your story. It's not the truth. Zakir died, remember, you read what Omed wrote. You cannot change history, Hec.'

‘Ask her where her mother is.'

I pat my knee for Leyli's son to come and sit, but he just looks at me with wary eyes.

‘She says her mother died the year after Omed left. Of a broken heart, she says. Wasim went to war aged twelve. A month before the Taliban were driven from the valley. She hopes he is living in Iran. The youngest, Liaquat, is being raised in a madrassa in Peshawar.'

‘And what about Omed?'

Leyli looks at me when I mention his name. She asks through Arezu, ‘Do you have a brother?'

‘I am an only child,' I answer.

‘My brother was not the bravest, or the strongest. He was not thought to be the cleverest or the fairest. But after my father died, he was our backbone. We loved him, all of us. He was gentle and kind. He would help anyone. When he left, it was as though someone had poisoned the well.'

Arezu has taken her time with the translation, picking through her words to get the right ones. I feel the need to pull out my journal and write down that last phrase, but I know how that would seem. Maybe it is the journalist in me, or is it the writer that makes me like this? That gives me this overwhelming need to gather and hoard words, to hang them round my neck like an amulet.

‘Where is Omed?' I ask.

‘The last I saw him was four years gone. My husband would not allow me to speak with him, but I overheard him say he was going to Band-e Amir.'

The first wife appears at the door. She barks something at Leyli.

‘We should go,' says Arezu.

‘Why?'

‘It will go badly for Leyli if we stay.'

‘But she must know more.'

‘She doesn't, Hec. She has given us everything. Now it is time to leave.'

Arezu kisses Leyli on each cheek. They are scarred and her eyes have dark rings beneath them. Omed once wrote of her beauty. I offer her my hand to shake, but she shrinks behind her veil. I place a fifty dollar bill in her son's lap. Leyli passes it back to Arezu.

‘Her husband will question her about this money.'

‘How will he know?'

‘She says he knows everything.'

We leave the hut and fall back into the glaring sunshine. The Valley of the Dragon is a barren place. Even the goats and children seem lifeless. As we pass, they barely lift their heads.

‘Let's go to the Dragon,' I say.

The Dragon's tears fizz on my tongue. As they move to my throat I feel their sadness. The deep melancholy begins its slow descent.

I press my ear to the long cut made by Ali's sword. The dragon moans, cries, deep within its calcified head. Death is not a full stop; here the dead are mourning themselves.

I look over the pools of dragon tears to the Koh-e Baba – the Grandfather of Mountains. The sky is a fierce blue. ‘It isn't fair,' I say.

Arezu pulls her sunglasses from her eyes. ‘No, it's not, Hec.'

‘We should be able to do something for her. She's Omed's sister.'

‘We can't, Hec. It's just the way it is.'

‘Why does it have to be this way?'

‘It doesn't always, but for now it is. Change can't happen overnight. This country has been under the cloud of war for thirty years.'

‘That doesn't excuse what is happening to Leyli down there in that village.'

‘It's not an excuse. It's just an explanation. And it's not my fault either, Hec.' Arezu touches my hand. ‘Let's go down.'

She leads me down the rubbly slope to Hazrat Ali's shrine. There is an old shepherd inside, boiling water for
chay
. He asks us to join him and we sit on the dirt, cross-legged, looking out its arched doorway. Twigs crackle on the fire. The shrine fills with smoke. He only has one cup and he serves us first.

‘Ask him why he comes here,' I say.

Arezu puts the question to him and he sits quietly for a moment before answering.

‘He says they come here every year when they move the flock. From when he was a young child. He remembers his grandfather making
chay
in this shrine. Once they were caught for three days by early snow.' Arezu paused while the old man spoke again.

‘He says, Hazrat Ali brought peace to this valley. It has come again.' She hands me the cup. ‘Here, have some tea and stop moping.'

The tea is scalding hot. It feels good. ‘So do we go to Band-e Amir?' I ask.

‘No.'

‘Why no? Leyli said Omed went to Band-e Amir.'

‘That was four years ago. He could be anywhere now.'

‘We need to look.'

‘
I
need to do some work, Hec. I'm not on holiday.'

‘Neither am I.'

‘I know, sorry.' She takes the cup from me and hands it to the shepherd. ‘
Tashakor, Baba-jan
.' The shepherd pours himself a cup and waits. He knows something is going on, a deal is being struck.

‘Okay, I'll arrange a car for tomorrow and then that's it. You're on your own.'

Kissing her would outrage the shepherd. I smile instead.

We go to the bazaar for water and fruit for the trip. Arezu haggles with the hawkers, winning extra apples and dried apricots.

‘Come here, I want to show you something,' she says, loading me with bags of fruit. We take a turn in the bazaar towards the river. Here is a lesser bazaar – a place for shoes and stringy meat and cheap plastic tubs.

‘In here,' she says and we duck into a tiny shop. Along one wall there are pills stacked in bottles and behind a low table sits a Sikh with a neat turban. His finger marks a spot in a worn book, its torn pages filled with scratchy writing.

‘Sanskrit,' he says. ‘The original.' He offers us some cushions. ‘Come and sit. My name is Baba Singh and I am an astrologer.' We take our seats and he sends a boy for cans of warm Mirinda and when we offer to pay he insists, ‘You are my guests.'

‘So, you're a fortune teller?' I ask.

‘I am most certainly not a fortune teller, I am an astrologer. A fortune teller pretends to know the future by lines on a hand or the pattern of tea. Astrology is a science, an ancient science.'

‘How much do you charge?'

‘It is up to you.'

‘Really?'

Arezu elbows my ribs.

‘Yes. But I can get up to five thousand afghani for one reading.'

‘I don't have five thousand afs.'

The Sikh smiles, showing bare gums. ‘Then pay what you feel.'

I pay him a thousand and it seems like a lot of money for something that I am going to get sooner or later anyway. I give Baba Singh my birthdate.

‘And your time of birth, please?' he asks.

Arezu snickers, but I look at the astrologer and say, ‘10.21 a.m.'

It seems impossible that I would remember this, but Mum would talk about my birth like it was some miracle she had witnessed.

My life changed forever at
10
.
21
a.m. on
14
July
1988
.
Midwinter with the swans honking down on the river and me
rushed from the boathouse to the Mercy. You came with that
swan-honk inside you, bright red like someone had rubbed
you with towels.
The story always began that way. From there it branched to one of the thousand stories she saved for those silent times when there was just her and me.

Baba Singh scrawls the details into a filthy notebook with the nub of a pencil.

‘Okay,' he says, shutting the book and looking at me with his watery eyes.

‘What about my fortune?'

‘It will be ready tomorrow.'

‘But we leave for Band-e Amir tomorrow,' says Arezu.

‘Then come along by this way and I will have it ready.'

Arezu brings out her camera. ‘You need a photo with Baba Singh,' she says.

Baba Singh rummages about under his books and draws out a pair of false teeth. He pops them in and we get the photo.

‘What happened to your teeth, Baba Singh?' I ask.

‘The Russians threw me in prison in Moscow. I was drunk. Russian vodka is cheap and very good. They kept me there for five weeks, thinking I was a spy. This was in 1976. They knocked out my teeth.' He shrugs.

Arezu walks me to Shahr-e Gholghola for the sunset.

We cross the bazaar, through the timber yards where families skin green poles with old sickles. Through the wheat and vetch, the odd tall hemp plant tossing its shaggy head in the breeze. We cross the bridge at an old fort and pick up the road to the City of Screams. There is little more than donkey traffic on the road, and the occasional cyclist or motorbike. The sun is at our backs as we start to climb the hill. It is steep and the mine clearance team's white rocks wind past turrets and caves.

‘Look at this,' says Arezu, touching her toe to a tin can full of empty anti-aircraft shells as thick as thumbs. ‘The mine clearers turn up all this stuff. Sometimes they find an old spearhead or coin. They don't leave those behind.' There are small piles of pottery here too, green and brown glazes, the handle of a terracotta water pot, blown from their hiding places by mortars and mines. And there is a shoe, its sole torn from the upper, nails exposed like kitten's teeth.

We climb higher and at the top there is a police checkpoint and a very sad donkey. We sit for a while on the policeman's
toshak
where it is obvious that he passes his day sleeping. He wants to see our ticket, but Arezu sweet-talks him from doing his duty. She takes me to the northern edge of the ruined city and we dangle our legs over an old wall overlooking Bamiyan. The hills are like a camel-hair blanket on an unmade bed.

‘And now it is time for another story, Hec.'

‘I like stories.' I try to appear cute, like an irresistible toddler in an oversized dressing gown.

‘You sitting comfortably?'

‘Yup.'

‘Once upon a time, this citadel was ruled by a king called Jalaluddin who had a beautiful daughter. Unfortunately, the king also had a taste for younger women and his daughter didn't approve. So Daddy built her a palace all her own.' She points over her shoulder. ‘To the south near Kakrak. She had it decked out with nice carpets, shiny things, slaves. They still call it the Qala-e Dokhtar – the daughter's palace.

‘Around that time Chingis, the “Universal”, Khan was through destroying Shahr-e Zohak and so he made his way here and laid siege to the city. But the city held strong.' Arezu launches a stone into the valley.