No one really remembers any longer what happened between Sultan and Farid, just that Farid left his big brother in a rage while Sultan shouted after him that the bond between them was broken for ever. Bib Gul asks them both to be reconciled, but the two brothers just shrug their shoulders. Sultan, because it is the duty of the younger to ask for forgiveness, Farid because he feels it is Sultan’s fault.
Bibi Gul has given birth to thirteen children. When she was fourteen she had her first daughter, Feroza. At last life was worth living. She had cried throughout the first years as a child bride; now life was better. As the oldest Feroza never got any education. The family was poor and Feroza carried water, swept and looked after her younger siblings. When she was fifteen she was married to a man of forty. He was rich and Bibi Gul thought the wealth would bring happiness. Feroza was pretty and they got 20,000 Afghani for her.
The two following children died in infancy. A quarter of Afghanistan’s children die before they reach five. The country has the world’s highest infant mortality rate. Children die of measles, mumps, colds, but first and foremost of diarrhoea. Many parents mistakenly think they must not give the children anything when they suffer from diarrhoea, it will all come out anyway. They think they can dry up the illness, a misunderstanding that has cost thousands of young lives. Bibi Gul can no longer remember what her two died of. ‘They just died,’ says Bibi Gul.
Then Sultan arrived, beloved Sultan, revered Sultan. When Bibi Gul’s son reached maturity, her position amongst her in-laws strengthened considerably. The value of a bride is her maidenhead, the value of a wife the number of sons she bears.
As the oldest son he was always given the best, in spite of the family’s poverty. The money they received for Feroza was used to pay for Sultan’s education. From the time he was small he was given a position of authority and was the one his father trusted with responsible assignments. When he was seven he was already in full-time work, besides his schooling.
A few years after Sultan, Farid arrived. He was a madcap who always got caught up in fights and came home with torn clothes and a bloody nose. He drank and smoked, of course without his parents’ knowledge, but was good as gold when he was not angry. Bibi Gul found him a wife and now he is married with two daughters and a son. But he has been excommunicated from the apartment in block no. 37 in Mikrorayon. Bibi Gul sighs. Her heart is torn apart by the enmity between the two oldest sons. Why can they not behave reasonably?
After Farid came Shakila. Cheerful, tough, strong Shakila. Bibi Gul sheds a tear. She visualises her daughter, dragging heavy water buckets.
Next was Nesar Ahmad. When Bibi Gul thinks of him the tears start to flow. Nesar Ahmad was quiet, kind and scholarly. He attended high school in Kabul and wanted to be an engineer like Sultan. But one day he never returned. His classmates said that the military police had grabbed the strongest boys in the class and forced them to enlist in the army. This was during the Soviet occupation and Afghan Government forces functioned as Soviet ground troops. They were put in the front line against the Mujahedeen. The Mujahedeen had better troops, knew the terrain and entrenched themselves in the mountains. There they waited for the Russians and their allied Afghans to roll into the mountain passes. Nesar Ahmad disappeared in such a mountain pass. Bibi Gul thinks he is still alive. Maybe he was taken captive. Maybe he lost his memory and lives happily somewhere. She prays to Allah every day that he will return.
After Nesar Ahmad came Bulbula who sickened with sorrow when her father was imprisoned, and who generally sits at home all day, staring into space.
There was more life in Mariam, who was born a few years later. She was clever, keen and a wizard at school. She grew up to be beautiful and had lots of suitors. When she was eighteen she was married to a boy from the same village. He owned a shop and Bibi Gul thought he was a good match. Mariam moved into his home, where his brother and mother also lived. There was a lot to do; his mother’s hands were useless, she had burnt them badly in a baking oven. Some fingers are lost, some melted together. Both thumbs are stumps, but she can feed herself, look after little children and carry certain things if she holds them against her body.
Mariam was happy in her new home. Then the civil war came. When one of Mariam’s cousins got married in Jalalabad the family took the chance, in spite of the uncertain roads, to travel there. Her husband, Karimullah, stayed behind to look after the shop in Kabul. One morning, when he arrived to open it, he was caught in crossfire. A bullet pierced his heart and he died on the spot.
Mariam cried for three years. In the end Bibi Gul and Karimullah’s mother decided that she must marry the deceased husband’s brother, Hazim. She had a new family and pulled herself together for the sake of the two children. Now she is pregnant with her fifth child. Her oldest son, from her marriage to Karimullah - Fazil - is ten and already in full-time employment. He carries cases and sells books in one of Sultan’s shops and lives with Sultan, to relieve Mariam.
Then Yunus arrived, Bibi Gul’s favourite. He is the one who mollycoddles her, buys her little presents, asks what she needs and ends up with his head in her lap in the evening, after supper, when the family sits or lies around on the mats dozing. Yunus’s date of birth is the only one the mother knows with certainty. He was born the day Zahir Shah lost power in a coup, 17 July 1973.
The other children have neither birthday nor birth date. Sultan’s year of birth ranges from 1947 to 1955, depending on which document you are reading. When Sultan adds up years as a child, years in school, years at university, the first war, the second war and the third war, he arrives at fifty-something. This is the way everyone works out their age. And because no one knows, you can be the age you want to be. In this way Shakila can be thirty, but she could easily be five or six years older.
After Yunus came Basir. He lives in Canada after his mother arranged a marriage for him there with a relative. She has never seen him or spoken to him since he moved away two years ago. Bibi Gul sheds another tear. She hates being far away from her children. They are all she has in life, apart from the glazed almonds at the bottom of the chest.
The last-born son was the cause of Bibi Gul’s eating habits. A few days after the birth she had to give him away to a childless relative. The milk kept seeping out and Bibi Gul cried. A woman gains stature by being a mother, especially of sons. A sterile woman is not appreciated. Bibi Gul’s relative had been childless for fifteen years, had prayed to God, despaired, tried every conceivable medicine and remedy, and when Bibi Gul was expecting her twelfth child, she asked to have it.
Bibi Gul refused. ‘I cannot give my child away.’
The relative continued to beg, whimper, threaten. ‘Have mercy on me, you already have a large family, I have none. Just give me this one,’ she cried. ‘I cannot live without children,’ she sniffled.
In the end Bibi Gul gave in and promised her the child. When her son was born she kept him for twenty days. She nursed him, cuddled him and cried over having to give him away. Bibi Gul was an important woman by virtue of her children. She wanted as many as possible. But she kept her promise and after the agreed twenty days she gave him to the relative, and though the milk flowed she could not nurse him again. All ties to the mother had to be severed and from then on he was only a relative. Bibi Gul knows that he is well cared for, but still mourns the loss of her son. When she meets him she feigns indifference, as she promised when she gave him away.
Bibi Gul’s youngest daughter is Leila. Clever, industrious Leila who does most of the family housework. She is the afterthought at nineteen and at the bottom of the pecking order: youngest, unmarried and a girl.
When Bibi Gul was her age she had already given birth to four children, two who died and two who lived. But she doesn’t think of that now. Her tea is cold and she is cold. She hides the almonds under the mattress and wants someone to fetch her woollen shawl.
‘Leila,’ she calls. Leila gets up from the pots.
Temptations
She
arrives with the sunshine. A billowing bundle of charm steps into the darkened room. Mansur wakes up from his doze with a start and adjusts his sleepy gaze as he beholds the apparition stealing along the shelves.
‘Can I help you?’
He knows immediately that here is a beautiful, young woman. He sees it in her bearing, her hands, her feet, how she carries her handbag. She has long, white fingers.
‘Have you got Advanced Chemistry?’
Mansur puts on his most professional bookseller’s look. He knows he does not have the book but he asks her to accompany him to the back of the premises to look for it. He stands close to her and looks through the shelves while her perfume tickles his nose. He stretches and bends, pretending to hunt for the book. In between he turns to her and searches the shadows of her eyes. He has never heard of the book.
‘Unfortunately we are sold out, but I have a few copies at home. Could you come back tomorrow and I will bring one in for you?’
He waits for the goddess all the next day, armed not with a chemistry book, but a plan. While he waits he spins ever more fantasies. Then night closes in and he shuts up shop. The shop has metal gratings, which protect the cracked windows at night. Frustrated, he slams them closed.
The next day he is in a bad mood and sits sulking behind the counter. The room is in semi-darkness, there is no electricity. Where the sun’s rays enter the dust dances and makes the room appear even drearier. When customers arrive and ask for books Mansur answers surlily that he has not got them, despite the fact that the book is sitting on the shelf right opposite him. He curses the fact that he is tied to his father’s bookshop, that not even Fridays are free, and that his father will not allow him to study, won’t allow him to buy a bicycle, won’t allow him to see friends. He hates the dusty tomes on the shelves. He really hates books, and has always hated them and hasn’t finished a single one since he was taken out of school.
The sound of light footsteps and the rustling of heavy material wake him out of his sombre mood. She stands, like the first time, in the middle of a ray of sun that makes the dust from the books frolic around her. Mansur takes care not to leap up with joy and puts on his bookseller’s look.
‘I was expecting you yesterday,’ he says, professionally friendly. ‘I have the book at home, but did not know which edition, binding or what price you wanted to pay. The book has been published in so many editions that I could not bring them all. So if you would like to come with me and choose the one you want?’
The burka looks surprised. She twiddles her bag with an air of uncertainty.
‘Home with you?’
They are quiet for a moment. Silence is the best persuasion, Mansur thinks, quivering with nerves. He has issued a daring invitation.
‘You need the book, don’t you?’ he asks in the end.
Wonder of wonders, she agrees. The girl settles in the back seat, positioned so she can look at him in the mirror. Mansur tries to hold what he thinks is her gaze while they talk.
‘Nice car,’ she says. ‘Is it yours?’
‘Yes, but it’s not much,’ Mansur answers casually. This makes the car even more wonderful and him even richer.
He drives aimlessly round the streets of Kabul with a burka in the back seat. He has no book, and anyhow at home are his grandmother and all his aunts. It makes him nervous and excited to be so close to someone unknown. In a moment of boldness he asks to see her face. She sits for a few seconds, absolutely stiff, then lifts up the front piece of the burka and holds his gaze in the mirror. He knew it; she is very beautiful, with beautiful, big, dark, made-up eyes, a few years older than him. With the aid of the most exceptional capers, insistent charm and the art of persuasion he makes her forget the chemistry book and invites her to lunch in a restaurant. He stops the car, she creeps out and up the steps to Marco Polo restaurant, where Mansur orders the entire menu: grilled chicken, kebab, mantu - Afghan noodles filled with meat and pilau - rice with large pieces of mutton and, for dessert, pistachio pudding.
During lunch he tries to make her laugh, to feel special, to eat more. She sits with the burka over her head, with her back to the other tables, in a corner of the restaurant. Like most Afghans she ignores the knife and fork and eats with her fingers. She talks about her life, her family, her studies, but Mansur can hardly follow, he is too worked up. His first date. His absolutely illegal date. He tips the waiters exorbitantly when they leave, the student makes big eyes. He sees by her dress that she is not rich, but not poor either. Mansur must hurry back to the shop, the burka jumps into a taxi. During the Taliban that could have led to a whipping and imprisonment for both her and the driver. The meeting at the restaurant would have been an impossibility; unrelated men and women could not walk on the streets together, and far less could she have taken off the burka in public. Things have changed, luckily for Mansur. He promises to bring the book next day.
All the next day he tries to think of what to say when she turns up. Tactics will have to be changed from bookseller to seducer. Mansur’s only experience of the language of love is from Indian and Pakistani films, where each dramatic statement exceeds the one before. The films start off with an encounter, flirt with hatred, betrayal and disappointment, and finish off with rose-red words of everlasting love - useful preparation for a young lover. Behind the counter, by a stack of books and papers, Mansur dreams of how the conversation with the student will unfold.
‘I have thought of you every moment since you left me yesterday. I knew there was something special about you; you are made for me. You are my destiny!’ She would no doubt love to hear that, and then he would stare into her eyes, maybe grab her wrists. ‘I must be alone with you. I want to feast my eyes on all of you, I want to drown in your eyes,’ he will say. Or he might be slightly less presuming: ‘I don’t ask for much, if only you might drop by when you have nothing else to do, I would understand if you don’t want to, but maybe just once a week?’
Maybe he could make a few promises: ‘When I’m eighteen we’ll get married.’
He must be Mansur with the expensive car, Mansur with the posh shop, Mansur with the tips, Mansur with the western clothes. He must entice her with the life she would lead together with him. ‘You’ll have a big house with a garden and masses of servants, and we will go on holidays abroad.’ And he must make her feel special, handpicked, and aware of how much she means to him. ‘I love only you. I suffer every second I do not see you.’
If she does not agree to his wishes, he must become more dramatic. ‘If you leave me, kill me first! Or I will set fire to the whole world!’
But the student does not return the day after the visit to the restaurant, nor the next day, or the next. Mansur continues to practise his speech, but is becoming increasingly more dispirited. Did she not like him? Did her parents discover what she had done? Is she grounded? Did someone see them and spill the beans? A neighbour, a relative? Did he say something stupid?
An elderly man with a walking stick and a large turban interrupts his churning thoughts. He greets Mansur with a growl and asks for a religious work. Mansur finds the book and throws it angrily on the counter. He is no longer Mansur the seducer. Just Mansur, the bookseller’s son with the rose-red dreams.
He waits for her every day. Every day he locks the grating over the door without her having visited. The hours in the shop are increasingly dreary.
In the street where Sultan has his bookshop there are several other bookshops and shops that sell writing materials, bind books or copy documents for people. Rahimullah works in one of these stalls. He sometimes drops in on Mansur to drink tea and gossip. This time Mansur slips over to him to pour out his troubles. Rahimullah just laughs.
‘You mustn’t try it on with a student. They are too virtuous. Try someone who needs money. Beggars are the easiest. Some of them are not too bad. Or go to where the UN doles out flour and oil. There are lots of young widows there.’
Mansur gapes. He knows the corner where they distribute food to the
most needy, primarily war widows and little children. They get a ration every month and some of them stay standing on the corner trying to exchange part of the ration for money.
‘Go there and find someone who looks young. Buy a bottle of oil and ask her to come here. “If you come to my shop I will help you in the future,” I usually say. When they come I offer them some money and take them into the back room. They arrive in a burka, they leave in a burka - no one is suspicious. I get what I want and they get money for the children.’
Mansur looks at Rahimullah with disbelief. Rahimullah opens the door to the back room, barely a metre square. On the floor lie several cardboard boxes, dirty and trodden down. Dark blotches stain the cardboard.
‘I take off the veil, the dress, the sandals, trousers. Having got there it is too late for regret. It would be useless to scream, because if anyone came to the rescue, the fault would lie with her, no matter what. The scandal would ruin her for life. It’s easy with the widows. But if they are young girls, virgins, I do it between their legs. I just ask them to press their legs together. Or I do it from, well, you know, from behind,’ says the merchant.
Mansur looks at the salesman in disbelief. How could he talk about things like that in such an easy and casual way?
When he stops by the mass of blue burkas that same afternoon, he realises it is not as easy as all that. He buys a bottle of oil. But the hands selling it are rough and worn. He looks around and sees only poverty. He throws the bottle on to the back seat and drives off.
He has given up swotting words from Bollywood. But one day he thinks he might need them after all. A young girl enters the shop and asks for an English dictionary. Mansur puts on his most charming manner. He finds out that she has enrolled in English classes for beginners. The gallant bookseller’s son offers his help.