The Swallows of Kabul (17 page)

Atiq shivers. His eyes are dull with unbearable misery. “I’ve already told you: I held the door wide open for her.”

“I heard you. But would you have let her go?”

“Of course.”

“You would have watched her go away into the night without running after her? You would have let her disappear when you knew it would be forever and you’d never see her again?”

Atiq sags; his beard is heavy in his wife’s unsteady hand. Musarrat keeps stroking his cheek. “I don’t think so,” she says to him.

“Then explain it to me,” he moans. “For the love of the Prophet, tell me what’s happening to me.”

“The best thing that can happen to anyone on earth.”

Atiq jerks his head up so hard that the movement ripples his shoulders. “What exactly do you mean, Musarrat? I have to understand.”

She takes his face in her hands, and what she reads in his eyes is the final blow. A shudder courses throughout her body. She tries to struggle against her emotions, but in vain; two large tears form on her eyelids, then roll down her face and reach her chin before she has time to stop them.

“I think you’ve finally found your way, Atiq, my husband. A new day is dawning for you. Something is taking place inside you that would make you the envy of saints and kings. Your heart is being reborn. I can’t really explain it to you, and besides, it’s better that I don’t. But I can tell you it’s nothing for you to be afraid of.”

“So what should I do?”

“Go back to her. Before you open the door for her, open your heart and let it speak. She’ll listen, and she’ll follow you. Take her by the hand and leave, both of you. Go as far as you can, and don’t look back.”

“You’re asking me to go away, Musarrat?”

“I’d throw myself at your feet if I thought that would persuade you.”

“I will not abandon you.”

“I don’t doubt it, but that’s not the question. That woman needs you. Her life depends on your choice. Ever since you saw her, there’s been a gleam in your eye. She lights you up inside. Another man in your position might go up on the roof and start singing at the top of his voice. If you’re not singing, Atiq, it’s because no one ever taught you how. You’re happy, but you don’t know it. You’re even overflowing with happiness, and you don’t know how to rejoice in it. All your life, you’ve only listened to other people— your teachers and your holy men, your leaders and your demons—and they’ve spoken to you of nothing but wrongs and bitterness and war. That’s what your ears are filled with; that’s why your hands shake. And that’s why you’re afraid to listen to your heart right now and seize the opportunity that’s come to you at last. If we were in some other place, your distress might arouse the sympathy of everyone in the whole city. But Kabul doesn’t know much about this kind of distress. Our city has renounced it, in fact, and that’s the reason why nothing turns out right here, neither joys nor sorrows. . . . Atiq, my man, my husband, you’ve been blessed. Listen to your heart. It’s the only voice that’s talking to you about yourself, the only counselor that knows the real truth. Its reasons are stronger than all the reasons in the world. Trust your heart and let it guide your steps. And above all, don’t be afraid. Because this evening, you of all men are the one who
loves
. . . .”

Atiq begins to tremble.

Taking his face in her hands again, Musarrat implores him: “Go back to her. There’s still time. With a little bit of luck, you’ll be on the other side of the mountain before the sun comes up.”

“I’ve been thinking about doing just that for two days and two nights. I’m not sure it would be a good idea. They’d catch us and stone us to death. I don’t have the right to offer her any false hopes. She’s so unhappy, and so fragile. I go around and around, walking the streets, brooding over my escape schemes. But as soon as I see her calmly sitting in her corner, all my certainties fall to pieces. Then I go back out into the streets and wander some more, I come back here with my head full of plans, and as my strength comes back, I lose whatever certainty I’ve managed to recover. I’m completely lost, Musarrat. I don’t want them
to take her away from me
, you understand? I’ve given them the best years of my life, my wildest dreams, my body and my soul. . . .”

And, to his wife’s utter amazement, Atiq hides his head behind his knees as his shoulders shake with sobs.

ATIQ MUST GET READY. Tomorrow, Qassim Abdul Jabbar will come to fetch the prisoner and take her where gods and angels fear to tread. He changes his clothes and winds his turban tightly. His precise gestures contrast with his fixed stare. From the other side of the room, her face half hidden in darkness, Musarrat observes him. She says nothing when he passes near her and doesn’t move when she hears him pull the latch open and walk out the door.

There’s a full moon; things can be seen clearly, and from far away. Groups of insomniacs obstruct the doorways of various hovels; their gabbling stirs up the stridulations of the night. Behind some walls, a baby wails; its little voice slowly ascends into the sky, where millions of stars are signaling to one another.

The jailhouse is lying low, shrouded in its proper atmosphere of dread. Atiq cocks an ear, but he hears nothing except the beams cracking from the heat. He lights the hurricane lamp; his distorted shadow leaps upon the ceiling. He sits down on the camp bed, facing the corridor of death, and takes his face in his hands. For a fraction of a second, the urge to go and see how the prisoner is doing torments him, but he bears it and remains seated where he is. His heart is beating hard enough to break. Sweat covers his face, runs down his back; he doesn’t move. In his mind, he hears Musarrat’s voice.
You’re living through the only
moments that make life worthwhile. . . . In love, even
beasts become divine. . . .
Atiq curls himself around his sorrow, trying to contain it. The tremor in his shoulders quickly starts again, and a long groan forces him to his knees. He prostrates himself, with his forehead in the dust, and begins reciting every prayer he can think of. . . .

“Atiq.”

He starts awake, facedown on the floor. He has fallen asleep while praying. Behind him, the window reveals the first glimmers of the dawn.

A woman in a burqa is standing before him.

“What is it? Are the militiawomen here already?”

The woman looking at him through the latticed eyeholes in her hood pulls it back.

It’s Musarrat.

Atiq leaps to his feet and looks around. “How did you get in?”

“I found the door open.”

“My God, what was I thinking?” he says. Then, after a brief pause to recover his wits, he asks, “What are you doing here? What do you want?”

“A miracle happened tonight,” she says. “My prayers and your prayers joined together, and the Lord heard them. I think your wishes are going to be granted.”

“What are you talking about? What miracle?”

“I saw tears fall from your eyes. I thought, If what I see is true, then nothing is completely lost. You, crying? Even when I was pulling the shrapnel out of your flesh, I never managed to get a single whimper out of you. Eventually, I got used to the idea that your heart was fossilized. For a long time, I’ve believed that nothing could ever really touch you to your soul or fill you with dreams. I’ve watched you becoming the shadow of yourself day after day, as insensible to your disappointments as rocks are to erosion, even though it’s destroying them. War is a monstrosity, and its children take after it. Because that’s the way things are, I agreed to share my life with someone whose only ambition was to court death. At least that gave me a reason to believe that I wasn’t responsible for my failure with you. And then last night, I saw with my own eyes the man I thought was beyond redemption put his head in his hands and weep. I said, This proves that there’s still some light of humanity burning in him; it hasn’t gone out altogether. I’ve come here to fan that flame until it becomes brighter than the day.”

“But what are you talking about?”

“I’m saying that my failure was indeed my own fault. You were unhappy because I wasn’t able to give your life a meaning. If your eyes could never make your smiles seem sincere, that was because of me. I never gave you any children, or anything to console you for not having them. Whenever you took me, your arms were reaching for someone they never found. Whenever you looked at me, sad memories came back to you. It was clear to me that I was only a shadow taking your shadow’s place, and I was ashamed of myself every time you turned away. I wasn’t the woman you had fallen in love with; I was the nurse who took care of you and gave you shelter, the one you married to show your gratitude.”

“Your illness has affected your reason, Musarrat. Go back home now.”

“I tried to be beautiful and desirable for you. When I saw that I couldn’t, I suffered. I’m made of flesh and blood, Atiq; every one of your discontented sighs strikes me like a whip. I’m like a ewe, sniffing around for her lamb when it’s wandered a little too far from the flock and the hour is getting late. How many times have I caught myself nuzzling your clothes like that! How many times have I sinned by not recognizing that our lot is God’s will! I wondered why this was happening to you, why this was happening to me, but never why it was happening to us.”

“What exactly do you want?”

“I want another miracle. When I saw the tears in your eyes, I thought I saw heaven opening up and revealing its most beautiful gift. And I told myself that the woman who could move you so deeply must not die.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Why try to understand something whose very nature is perplexity? Whatever arrives hastens something else’s departure—that’s the way of the world. There’s nothing wrong with resigning yourself to what you can’t prevent; whether we’re healthy or sickly isn’t up to us. What I’m here to say is simple and terrible, but it’s also necessary, and we both have to accept it. What’s life, and what’s death? They have the same value; they cancel each other out.”

When Musarrat approaches him, Atiq retreats. She tries to take his hands; he clasps them behind his back. The dawning sun lights up his wife’s face. Musarrat is at peace, and she has never been so beautiful.

“In this country, there are many mistakes but never any regrets. The question of execution or mercy, of death or life, isn’t resolved by deliberation. No, such decisions are made according to the whim of the moment. Tell her you pleaded her cause with an influential mullah. Say you were successful— there’s no need to go into details. She doesn’t ever have to know what happened. In a little while, before they come to get her, lock her in your office. I’ll slip into her cell. It won’t be anything but one burqa taking another’s place. Nobody will bother to check the identity of the person underneath. It’ll all go very smoothly; you’ll see.”

“You’re absolutely crazy.”

“I’m condemned to death anyway. In a few days, or at the latest in a few weeks, the disease eating away at me will finish me off. I’d rather not prolong my suffering needlessly.”

Atiq is horrified. He pushes his wife away, then holds his hands out in front of him and implores her to remain where she is. “What you’re saying makes no sense,” he declares.

“You know very well that I’m right. I’ve been inspired by the Lord: That woman is not going to die. She’ll be everything I couldn’t be for you. You have no idea how happy I am this morning. I’ll be more useful dead than alive. And at long last, you’re being offered a chance. I beg you not to ruin it. Listen to me, just this once. . . .”

Fifteen

WITH A GREAT SCREECHING of brakes, Qassim Abdul Jabbar brings his 4 × 4 to a halt in front of the jailhouse. Right behind him comes a little bus filled with women and children. Preferring to keep his distance from the malignant atmosphere surrounding the baleful little prison, the driver of the bus parks it on the other side of the street. Atiq Shaukat slips into the corridor and stands with his back against the wall. He pins his trembling hands behind his buttocks and keeps his eyes on the floor so as not to betray the intensity of his emotions. He’s frightened and cold. His tangled guts rumble and squeal as though they’re about to burst; shooting pains cramp his legs and threaten to cripple him. The beating of his blood resounds dully in his temples, like the blows of a club reverberating through subterranean galleries. To stave off an attack of panic, he clenches his teeth and holds his increasingly agitated breath.

Outside in the street, Qassim announces his arrival in his usual way, loudly clearing his throat. This morning, there’s something particularly hideous about his phlegmy hawking. Atiq can hear metallic sounds, then the thud of several pairs of feet hitting the ground. Shadows move through the violent light of early morning. Two militiawomen enter the unhealthy darkness of the jailhouse. Despite the steadily rising temperature outside, the interior of the building is cold and damp. Stepping with military precision, the women pass in front of the jailer without a word and move toward the cell at the end of the corridor. Qassim appears in his turn. His massive shoulders fill the doorway, accentuating the semidarkness. Hands on his hips, he shakes his head left and right, performs a few exaggerated contortions, and approaches the jailer while feigning interest in a crack in the ceiling.