Translated from the Dari by Dr. Zubair Popalzai
We were all sitting inside the translation bureau. It was a cold day and the doors had been left open to attract customers. It was so cold that our fingertips had turned red. Every time a customer came in with something to translate, we would curse them because it was so hard to type on a computer with frozen fingers.
We were already working when our boss arrived. Mr. Soroush was a middle-aged man—forty-eight or forty-nine—who had diabetes and was injected with insulin every day. He was tall and had graying hair. He asked if we had eaten. It was one o’clock and we had not. My friend Ava, a quiet girl who only spoke when she absolutely had to, said in a trembling and frozen voice, “No, the beans are not cooked yet.” Mr. Soroush shouted at Javed, the handyman, and left.
Javed’s job was to clean the tables and prepare lunch for us. He was about twenty years old, had thick curly hair and couldn’t read or write. Javed was always late and worked slowly. Perhaps the cold weather had affected him too, making him weak and frozen like us.
Finally, the food was ready. Ava, Naghmah, and I grabbed small bowls of beans and a loaf of bread and went to the tiny, windowless room in the middle of the shop where we would eat and pray. The boss also used this room to meet his guests and friends. Naghmah seemed very happy that day, so much so that even Ava was surprised. She asked Naghmah how she came to be so happy despite all the work, the cold, and the hunger.
“Remember I told you I spoke with Mr. Soroush about my brother? To get some financial support to treat his addiction?”
Ava looked interested. “Yes, I remember.”
“The boss wants to talk to me today. I think he’s going to help me take my brother to the rehabilitation center,” Naghmah continued.
I found it hard to imagine that a man like Soroush would help, but I always hoped that even the worst human beings could show a little kindness.
I was thinking about this when Naghmah asked, “Did you girls hear that the Taliban are going to make peace with the government?”
I had heard these words too many times. “You believe it? I think you have forgotten that our neighbor’s son was martyred in the war last year.”
“I now believe everything. I’m sure that everything will be fine,” Naghmah said, still happy that her brother might be rescued from his addiction.
I looked to Ava for her opinion, but she was quiet again. She wasn’t eating, just using her spoon to play with the badly cooked beans. I think, in her happiness, Naghmah couldn’t smell the burnt beans or feel the broken legs of the chairs we were sitting on. Our meal over, we went back to the outer room and started translating the documents again.
Soroush returned and sat next to me. He held out his hands, saying, “The weather is cold—let me warm your hands for you.”
I knew he was not a god-fearing man, so I said, “Thank you. My hands are warm. If it’s possible, bring a heater to the shop. That would be enough for us three girls and our colleague Mr. Reyhani to warm our hands.”
The other girls and Mr. Reyhani agreed.
Mr. Soroush was rich but illiterate. He didn’t know how to use a computer or speak English—he knew nothing of the work we did. He laughed and complained that he didn’t make enough money off us to justify buying a heater.
Then he went towards the other room, where we had just eaten, and called Naghmah. She jumped up like a rabbit, pulled her scarf over her head, and followed him. As she passed my desk she whispered, “See, I told you everything would be fine.” She followed Mr. Soroush into the room and closed the door.
A few minutes later, we heard Naghmah scream. We were horrified. We didn’t know what had happened or what to do. Should we go into the room or wait? Our hands lay motionless on our keyboards, our eyes fixed on the door.
Naghmah came out of the room looking pale and panicked. Mr. Soroush called after her, “You can take your money and not come here anymore.”
As she was collecting her belongings, I asked Naghmah: “Why did you scream?” She looked very sad. “He wanted to touch me. I screamed and stopped him, so he is firing me,” she said.
It was so upsetting—completely the opposite of what we’d hoped for when Naghmah went to meet Soroush. I signaled to Ava that we should support Naghmah so that she would not be fired. Ava hesitated. She looked at me and asked in a low, terrified voice, “So what should we do? What can we do? What if he fires us? How will we pay our university expenses?”
I told her that we would end up in a worse situation tomorrow if we let it go today. In the end she agreed. I could understand her reluctance: she was in a bad way financially. It was hard for students like us to find employment. But she agreed that Soroush had crossed a line this time.
We went to the boss and told him that if Naghmah went, we would all go with her. Soroush knew we were all poor and that this work meant a lot to us. He laughed. “You are welcome to go.”
We went to his other office, across the road, planning to collect our money and leave. We were owed half a month’s earnings.
But Soroush had told his accountant not to pay us, and he told us to come back the next day. We didn’t know what to do except go home.
My mother was surprised when she opened the door and saw me standing there, earlier than expected. “What happened? You are early today.”
I did not know what to say and stood there debating with myself. I told her we had had no customers, so the boss had let us go home early.
My mother read my face and didn’t ask any more questions. “I see. Welcome home,” she said.
That night, I tried to think about what would happen. Where will I get the money for my travel and books? I asked myself. What will Naghmah do? What is she doing now?
Finally, the long night of thinking passed and it was morning. It was very early when Ava called me, asking me to join her and Naghmah and try again to collect our wages. I said goodbye as usual and left the house as if I were going to work.
It was a long journey, and the auto-rickshaw kept hitting the potholes in the road. The road was especially bad in the Monara area, where the vehicle jumped and jolted. My bones felt like they were fracturing from the shocks. Ava and Naghmah spoke of their worries on the way.
When we reached the accountant, he was again reluctant to pay us. He said he didn’t have the money and that we should go to the boss. We thought they were kicking us back and forth to try to wear us down. But we went to Soroush again. When he saw us, he started threatening us. He said that if he didn’t pay us there would be nothing we could do about it, since we were nothing but mere siah sar, helpless women. He was right: everyone saw us as prey.
The usually quiet and shy Ava said we must stand up for our rights. She told Soroush that, if necessary, we would scream and shout and show the world what kind of a man he was. I was angry and my hands were trembling like leaves. It was the first time I had fought a man on an issue, but Ava’s courage inspired me. We stood firm so that Soroush wouldn’t realize how scared we were.
Some customers came in and saw us making a commotion inside the bureau. They looked worried and hurried out again without submitting their documents, heading to another bureau instead. Soroush realized that if he continued this way, he would lose customers. So he paid us. But as we left, he laughed with the shopkeepers next door. “Harlots, eh! What are you going to do with them?”
My hands were still shaking with anger. When we got outside, Naghmah said, “You lost your jobs because of me.”
To make her feel better, Ava said, “It could have been worse. We should thank God. Mr. Saroush could have molested us and not paid us either.”
The three of us walked towards the bus stop. I wondered what to tell my family. How would poor Naghmah afford to take her brother to the rehabilitation center? But Ava’s words had calmed me. I said to the girls: “God is great! We will find jobs again.”