Ashes and Light Read online

  “They don’t smell as sweet as I recall. Perhaps vision influences the other senses.” He held the blossom up. “What do you think?”

  “I think—I’d be no judge, Papa,” she said with the saddest of tones.

  Her swift step left him for the house and he heard angry clatter in the kitchen. He stood.

  What was the matter on such a pleasant day? It had been wonderful to sit in the peaceful garden as Khadija tidied their house and then went out to shop. It gave him time to contemplate the possible husbands he had identified for her. Not that he was certain any of the young men would be a match for his Pishogay.

  She was so full of strength and life and not afraid to speak her mind—something he had fostered in her, though he demanded obedience. And then had come the visit of Michael. The young man had been much in his mind.

  He’d rarely visited since Yaqub’s death.

  The choking feeling filled his chest again and Mohammed ducked his head to inhale the scent of the flower.

  Yaqub, dead. Why, Allah, when he only did your bidding? He raised his face towards the sun’s fading warmth. Faint light was all that remained of his sight.

  Praise Allah, that had been left to him. And he was alive. He reminded himself of that every day, though some days it was a curse.

  He should have died and Yaqub lived. A father should not see his children die. Now there was only Khadija and his work to live for.

  The sun was setting: he could tell by the brighter haze when he looked westward. The wind cooled and dust from the hillside peppered his skin.

  It had been good to hear Michael’s voice again. Their debates of faith and the things they fought for kept Mohammed’s mind sharp, though he had the sense that Michael had something more to say. Something important Khadija’s return had interrupted.

  Touching the rough bark of the pomegranate tree, he began the slow walk towards the pots clanking in the kitchen, careful of where he placed his feet.

  His Pishogay—always he remembered her laughter from her childhood. But she did not laugh so much these days. She worked hard, marketing, cooking, helping at the clinic. Usually she kept the garden clear of debris, but she had been so busy lately that stones and broken concrete from the hillside caught his feet.

  From the kitchen came the scent of kerosene and onions cooking and the sharp clack, clack, clack of her knife through vegetables.

  He brushed through the thick curtain.

  “Pishogay? Is something wrong?”

  She was silent a moment, then: “I have aubergine and lentils for dinner, Papa. It won’t take long to prepare.”

  He frowned even though he heard her attempt to smile. He tried to respect his daughter’s feelings, to understand and give her the privacy each person deserved, but now the air seemed to vibrate around her.

  “You’re angry. Why?”

  A movement of air that said she tried to push past him to go about her business. The slosh of water as she filled a pot for rice, told him where she was. He caught her arm.

  “You will tell me. I’m your father.”

  She would obey him. She would until such time as she left his home for the home of her husband and then he would be alone. A small grief caught in his chest.

  “I just—how can you bring that man into our home?”

  Her voice was sharper than he had heard it before. He frowned.

  “He’s an old friend—family. I told you.”

  “He’s a foreigner. They bring nothing but trouble.”

  “He helped us during the hard times. He made sure we had medical supplies to treat our people.”

  “Because he wanted something.”

  “Nothing. He asks nothing. He’s a good man.”

  “I—I don’t like him. He frightens me.” The way her voice broke said it was true.

  “Pishogay—daughter,” he said softly, reaching to comfort her and was surprised. She was shaking. “There’s nothing to fear. He takes my friendship and my guidance, only.”

  “Guidance,” she sniffed. “Papa, it isn’t safe to have a Westerner here.” She pulled away.

  Her response made his shoulders stiffen. This he would not stand for!

  “You doubt my judgment? In my own house?”

  The air shifted at her sigh and suddenly she was his daughter again. Her fingers clasped his.

  “Never, Papa. Never at all. It’s just—I’ve been in the West and here. I’ve seen. I’ve felt. I’ve learned in the markets, while you’ve been hidden away here. The Kaabulay are no longer so happy about Westerners. His presence makes me fear for you.”

  Mohammed embraced her, feeling helpless at the strange tone in her voice. If he could see her face, it would tell him so much. His sweet little Pishogay, who had played hide-and-seek with him among the swaying blooms in the garden, her face so open and easy to read. Now her voice held an edge he could not understand.

  What had his little girl learned in the West? It could not be worse than what he had learned of Afghanistan over the years. The test was what you did with that learning.

  “He doesn’t deserve your anger or your fear.”

  Her fingers tightened as if she would say something more, but instead she pulled away to stir her onions.

  “I have the meal to prepare. Let me take you to the other room, Papa.”

  Before he could stop her, she caught his arm and led him to the sitting room where he knelt on the worn kilim carpet. Around him, he knew, hung the treasured faces of his family—photos of Shafiqa, Khadija’s mother, and of the family on holiday in the cool heights of Charikar, which Khadija had taken from hiding upon her return. During the Taliban’s reign they destroyed all representations of living things.

  His fingers traced the rough pattern in the kilim.

  “Sit with me, Pishogay. We need to talk.”

  “I’ve cooking to do. It won’t take long.”

  And she was gone back to the kitchen and her coriander and lentils leaving him to his darkness and the textured carpet. How small his world had become.

  Michael had been a pleasant diversion. A quick mind, but a man whose voice betrayed a need he would never admit.

  Over the years of their friendship Mohammed had taught Michael the words of the Quran, and of the Prophet. The way Michael had embraced the words of the Sufis, he had seemed like a lost mystic, hungry for understanding. A strange quality in a man of action.

  Khadija returned from the kitchen, bringing with her the scents of curried lentils and rice and tomatoes.

  “The sun sets.”

  “Do I smell aubergine?” he asked.

  “I told you. I found some in the market. They were small, but firm. I’ve made them with chilies, the way Mama used to.”

  “Aacha. Good.”

  With her help, he regained his feet and turned to face Mecca. It was like the magnetic pole to the compass in his soul.

  Khadija brought him water for cleansing, the gentle motion of washing a balm that readied him. When they were finished, he bowed in the direction of the holy city, and knelt to intone the holiest of words.

  Praise be to Allah, Lord of Worlds,

  The Infinitely Good, the All-Merciful,

  Thee we worship, and in Thee we seek help.

  Owner of the Day of Judgment

  Show us your straight path,

  not the path of those who earn your wrath

  nor those who go astray.

  A sweet light filled him; pain faded as he surrendered.

  He repeated the prayer four times, and then settled on the carpet to meditate on faith. Khadija returned to the kitchen.

  Beauty was the meaning of the words. Compassionate beauty and love and giving. That was what his faith taught. It was what he held to. The beauty of his wife’s face, and his love for her, as symbols of the grace of Allah. All the little things in life as symbols of the greater things above. As above, so below.

  He picked up the marigold blossom he’d brought into the house and held its sweetnes
s to his nose. His simple garden, his paradise.

  Khadija brought the platter of food and set it before him, placing his hand in the rice so he could form a ball, helping him with the bread so he could use it to scoop the lentil and aubergine.

  The rich blend of spices had him smacking his lips. “You cook as well as your mother. Michael should have stayed to taste your food.”

  There was a hesitation and then: “He likely would not like Afghani food. Too spicy, the Inglisi say.”

  He put down his bread.

  “Michael is one of us. He has lived in Afghanistan many years. He works for it.”

  “He works for the Amrikaayi, Papa. It’s in his face. He’s probably a spy. How else would he be able to bring in medical supplies? I’ll bet he brought in weapons, too—that were used to kill our people.”

  “You judge harshly when you do not know the man.”

  “I…I don’t like the way he looked at me. If you had seen—no proper man would look at me that way. Besides, if he’s an agent, he’s too dangerous to have here.”

  Her words—there was something in her voice that tightened his chest. Not the voice of his daughter, his Pishogay.

  “Khadija? Has something happened…? What haven’t you told me?”

  Silence. Not even the sound of movement or breath, as if she’d disappeared from the room, just as Yaqub had. Fear formed in his belly.

  “Khadija?”

  “Nothing has happened, Papa. It just wasn’t easy among the Inglisi.”

  Her voice was so soft he had to lean forward to hear her. So soft he wanted to hold her, help her, but she sat on the far side of the carpet. Too far for him to reach. He heard her inhale.

  “Everywhere there were pictures of half-clad women. The men had no respect, just as the old Colonial powers had no respect for our ways. It was worse after the towers fell. They hate us.”

  Her voice spoke of pain and confusion—the kind that could turn into hate. The thought churned the food in his belly. He’d lived through too much hate under the Taliban. If Khadija had been the brunt of it, it would take a long healing. Longer even than Michael’s…. If ever.

  “Michael is different. He seeks learning. I teach him. He understands Afghani ways.”

  “His actions towards me say he does not understand Afghani honor!” The words hung like a bright flame in the room. He had to calm her, but when he reached for her hand, it eluded him.

  “Remember the lessons, Pishogay. Honor and family and hospitality are the heart of Afghanis, and compassion is the heart of Islam.” He said it softly. “It shows our love of Allah and his Messenger.”

  He heard her scramble as she stood. Her voice seemed to come from very far away, carried on a wind of anger.

  “I already lost my brother. I won’t place at risk the only other person I love.”

  Chapter 5

  The morning dawned cool. Khadija woke under a blanket on the hard floor and resented once more the comforts of London that had made sleep in Kaabul more difficult.

  She’d laid awake a long time regretting the pain she had caused her papa.

  He had just been trying to help. She should never have said what she did, but placing them both at risk for the Amrikaayi—she wouldn’t do it.

  Besides, her father’s lessons were not the true word of Allah—they were Sufi—Shi’ite. And the West sought to undermine her faith. She needed to reject Western ways.

  And that was a problem, because the Western ways seemed to be inside her and everyone but her father seemed to know it. Omar on the road. The Amrikaayi’s knowing gaze. She wanted to tell her father of the incident on the road, but had been afraid that if she did, all her sordid past would come out.

  In the next room Papa stirred. He had given her so much. He had even given up his dream of the pilgrimage Hajj to Holy Mecca in order to finance her escape and schooling in London. She would not shame him with the story. She would find a way to redeem herself in Allah’s eyes.

  Pulling on her shawl against the cold air, she went to her father.

  “I’m sorry, Papa—for what I said last night. It’s just—I was tired. And it was a shock to see an Amrikaayi in our home.”

  She opened the window onto the garden and inhaled the fresh air from the mountains. Sunrise made the bulk of Kohi Asamayi glow gold around the edges. She helped Papa to his feet and he touched her face with the gentleness she had craved so badly all those years in London.

  “You worry me, Pishogay. Sometimes I think I was wrong to send you so far from me, but to stay here you would have had nothing.” He motioned around him and sighed. “Sometimes I wonder at all my choices.”

  “Don’t. You’re everything important. I’m here. I’m well. The day looks fine in the garden. I see four fruit budding on the pomegranate.”

  She kissed his cheek, feeling the bristle of his old man’s growth of beard.

  “Michael counted five yesterday.”

  She stiffened in spite of herself. It made no sense that her father’s friendship should make her jealous, that the mention of Michael’s name should bring that warmth to her skin. She did not have to be friends. She could tolerate him to please her papa. She looked back at the tree.

  “Perhaps he was right. I think I see five.” She hoped she kept the tightness she felt out of her voice.

  The morning prayer was a comfort, but failed to stop the way her mind whirled with condemnation and confusion.

  Show me the path again, she prayed. Let me not go astray.

  It caught like a sob in her throat and vibrated through her. Please, Allah. Let me be cleansed deeper than skin.

  In the peace of prayer, it might be possible. But life was another matter.

  After a breakfast of cardamom tea and bread, they left the house for Papa’s small clinic in the bazaar.

  Three days a week, all through the Russian occupation, the wars among the Mujehaddin, and then the Taliban, Mohammed Siddiqui had kept his medical clinic open.

  At first he had done it alone, but then Yaqub had returned from his training in London and joined his father while their mother worked in the Ministry of Health. Even when Shafiqa had been killed in a guerrilla attack against the Russians, Mohammad would not close the clinic. He hid his mourning in making sure others lived.

  Those years had been hard and Khadija had worked hard to try to make her father smile.

  “Papa?”

  He had sat on his favorite Persian carpet, a cup of tea she had made him near his hand, but his gaze was lost in the shadows of the room—as if he looked beyond into the Hades of the ancient myths, seeking his beloved.

  “Papa?” She held out her report card—all A’s again. She had worked so hard to do it for him, to make him proud so perhaps it would be like it had been before, when they had fun together and his eyes would dance with pleasure.

  “Papa, look! All A’s! I did it!”

  He waved her away with a flick of his fingers and Yaqub caught her hand. Yaqub, so tall and brilliant and handsome as an Afghani prince. All her friends said so.

  “Come, little sister. Papa needs peace right now. Show me your A’s.”

  She looked up at him as he led her into the little kitchen, as tears filled her eyes.

  “Aah, Khadija,” he said wiping her tears away with the pads of his thumbs. “I know you got the A’s for him, but Papa hurts right now. Hurts so very badly. He forgets us now, but he’ll remember and he’ll love you more than ever for being strong. Can you be strong?”

  She nodded. She could always be strong. For Papa. For Yaqub, she had been.

  After her father finally recovered, it had been the Taliban’s turn to wreak havoc, and to make her father proud, she had studied with forbidden books at home.

  He had rewarded her by sending her away—to London. Still, she’d been strong—until word came of Yaqub’s death. Then she’d fallen.

  Asamayi Road rumbled like the bowels of hell from foreign military convoys and stank from the diesel of the lumbe
ring cargo trucks. Khadija and her father waded through the stench and debris until they crossed the river to the decrepit main square of the meager bazaar in the old city. As a child she’d thought it was wonderful here. Now she saw it as it really was.

  By one wall, a small pipe filled an ancient fountain with grimy water. Brick-colored sparrows drank from puddles on the pavement. The fountain water joined effluent flowing to the river.

  The bazaar was filled with a cacophony of sound—the frantic voices of people trying to prove they were alive and everything was normal. Vendors ratcheted up awnings, or clattered back metal shutters. They displayed burlap bags of purple-tinged salt from Badakhshan, saffron from Pakistan, cardamom from India, chilies and coriander and cumin and the other heating spices. Ropes of cheap necklaces and nets full of soccer balls bounced in the breeze. Tawdry carts of women’s underwear and bras pushed through the crowd. The kite makers—closed down under the Taliban—again sat amid their paper and string and glue. That was the only thing familiar from her childhood.

  Certainly a group of foreign aid workers laughing and sharing candy with children was new.

  Khadija shouldered past them, resenting their presence, resenting the pretense of normal. Just get to the clinic. Papa liked to be there early, to have a cup of tea and check—once more—that he knew how to find everything in his space. He used his other senses as his medical tools now, just as he used Khadija.

  A gloved hand stopped her.

  “Khadija?”

  She jerked to a stop, apologized to her father, and turned. Another faceless blue burka, but the voice was familiar.

  “Mirri? How did you know?”

  “Simple. I saw your father—and your shoes. It could only be Khadija.”

  Khadija turned to her father.

  “You remember Mirri from when we lived in Mikrorayon? She was my dear friend. I told you we found each other a month ago. I took tea at her house.”

  “You should come for tea again, Khadija-khor.” She named Khadija sister, and it warmed her heart.

  Once they had always called each other sisters, but the years and a continent had intervened. Perhaps they could be sisters again. Certainly their meetings in the market had been the one small pleasure in Khadija’s life since her return to Kaabul.