Translated from the Dari by Parwana Fayyaz and Dr. Zubair Popalzai
If he says this out loud, everyone immediately around him will complain. Or they will mock him, given how cold the weather is at this time of year, happy that space is tight in the car and they have to sit close to one another. As the number of vehicles grows and the traffic gets worse, his sweat increases, and a warmth spreads from behind his neck over his whole body. When a bigger truck, full of bricks, stops beside their car, his body clenches. If that truck is full of gas and petrol… he grips the handle on the roof more tightly and turns his face to the person sitting next to him, but without any smile to offset his fear, his anger, and his distress. So that no one will fight or make a scene, so they will not ask what they have done wrong to deserve such a look, he pretends that he wants to look at the shops or vehicles on their side. As he warms up, his cologne permeates the packed space inside the car and mixes with the smell of smoke and petrol and dust.
There is no escaping. When he looks beyond the window to his left, there is a loaded trailer. To his right sits a person and another person after that. When he looks past them, through the window, the vehicles are also full of people and they are moving slowly, slowly, one after another. Beyond them, there are grocery stores whose interiors are full of rice and oil, and whose exteriors are piled with crates of yellow and red apples, pomegranates and oranges. Their colors spread warmth. The smoke of kebabs slowly wafts upwards from a restaurant and disperses. On the floor above it is a café, its sign darkened by the smoke.
Slowly the Silo comes into view. The Silo building is so tall that it blocks out the silhouette of the mountains. There are two things no one has seen: no one has seen the Silo painted any colors other than yellow and white, nor has anyone seen the daily arrival and departure of its bread-makers. Although Hamed has been taking this route for the past eighteen years, he has never met or seen a single person who works at the Silo. Upset by this, he breathes deeply. The pavement is full of people. People with flesh and skin and veins and blood. People full of joy and sadness and wishes and God.
Oof, people—bags full of blood with green veins and black hair; with eyes that are black and white, green and white, and, occasionally, blue and white. People full of sorrow and depression, with hearts that are blackened by the world. People full of hope and joy from a few pieces of numbered paper, thanking God that life is still good.
Outside the vehicle, steam comes out of the mouths of the men and young children selling souvenirs in the streets. Thanks to the cold weather, it is as if everyone in the city is smoking a cigarette. This is the crowd who might at this moment, or a few moments later, explode with Hamed. With their veins full of blood and their skulls full of brains and nerves, they might disappear. Then he remembers the piece of cheese he left in the fridge for the following morning.
Will it stay there until tomorrow morning and forever more? Tomorrow morning will not come. Tomorrow morning—when I would have eaten that piece of cheese with sweet tea—will never come.
For these twenty-eight days he has gone to the office and come back. In two days, he will get his pay. Two days from today. Hamed speculates. For no reason at all, except for utter stupidity and ignorance, on this road, inside this vehicle, his veins full of blood may be torn apart. In two days’ time, his pay will be transferred to the bank.
He checks one pocket, then the other, but there is no handkerchief. He puts his hand inside the pocket of his jacket and pulls out a light-turquoise handkerchief—on one corner of which is a pear embroidered in pink—and cleans the sweat from his forehead and neck. The handkerchief smells of cologne, the one he bought for three thousand afghanis from the Gulbahar Center. The bottle is small but still full of cologne, like the people who are full of blood and wishes. It is too much… It isn’t only the thought of death and being unexpectedly broken into pieces. What if, after this, his son becomes a gum seller or an addict, or if his daughter has to beg…
Oh God, I seek refuge in you, but all these orphans and beggars haven’t fallen from the sky. They have been left behind. Left behind by people—half of whose blood seeped into the ground in the street while water washed the other half away; people buried, unwashed, as martyrs in the most crowded graveyard.
The sky is blue and clear and there is a gentle breeze. It is one of those days when the winter sun is gorgeous and you don’t want even to think of death. The alley near the school is crowded for a cold day. Little girls and big girls, with their white chadors and colored jackets that cover half the blackness of their shirts, crowd around the man selling candyfloss. Those who had eaten it first have pink-colored lips and tongues. The memory of childhood turns to water in people’s hearts, just like that sweet pink cotton wool in their mouths. Mothers take the hands of their small boys and pull them into the school. The car now stops at the school lane. As the north wind blows onto Hamed’s body and dries his sweat, his phone rings.
“Hello, Hamed, are you OK?”
“Hello, yes, I got here fine!”
“There’s been an explosion on Pul-e Charkhi Road. I called to check on you. Thankfully, you have got there.”
“Pul-e Charkhi was not on my way, but thanks.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
He goes into the school. His secretary, Kaka Kheir Mamad, runs towards him.
“Good morning, Mr Headmaster. Come, someone has been bothering me. He has been waiting for you since early morning. Mr. Headmaster, these girls want to transfer to another school. Their father has brought the papers.”
Hamed doesn’t think it necessary to ask, “Are they not content here?”
Hamed knows that in government schools one doesn’t ask those kinds of questions. It is completely against the pride and honor of these hallowed places. It is only the private schools that put themselves at the feet of their students. He himself understands that no one makes their journey to school longer because of the quality of their studies. It’s possible that their father, like others from this area, has migrated to another place.
He looks at the document. Yes! Rabia Balkhi—so they have moved to Kart-e-Say or Kart-e-Char. He is now curious whether they got the house with a mortgage or if they rented. He can’t imagine that the girls’ father, with his shabby appearance, bought a house.
Kaka Kheir Mamad brings tea and chocolate that one of the students had brought in the day before as his graduation sweet. Hamed recalls that its wrapper was red and inside was chocolate mixed with nuts. It is now lunchtime. The smell of fried onions rushes in with every opening and closing of his office door. Hunger makes Hamed’s mouth water and he asks his secretary, “Kaka Kheir Mamad, what are we having for lunch?” And Kaka Kheir Mamad answers, “What do the poor have for lunch, Mr. Headmaster? Potato curry.” Headmaster Hamed approves the transfer documents and hands them back.
When Kaka Kheir Mamad goes away, he is alone. During his tea break he suddenly feels crowded and restless again. Today his heart and mind won’t rest on anything. The tea doesn’t taste the same as usual. Why? It is as if demons are chasing him, and even though they are hidden from him now, Hamed can sense them. As he remembers his sister’s call, fear runs through his heart and body. Why did his sister call him so randomly and ask how he was when she knew that the explosion wasn’t on his route? Her asking gives him a bad feeling. What if today, on his way home, he gets caught up in a suicide attack and that becomes the last time that his sister will have heard his voice? Don’t let it be that his sister has sensed that his death will come soon. He feels intensely low, his whole being tangled like a knot. He swallows, takes a deep breath. If he were a smoker, he would definitely smoke a cigarette.
He prays to God for strength as he gets up from behind the table and walks to the yard. The sun is high in the sky, warm and gentle. Hamed sits on a bench. The air is fresh and worth breathing. He moves bits of gravel around with his feet and doesn’t realize at all that he is playing with the little stones. Yes, his heart and his attention are on the other side of the city, with the people who died today. Who are they to him and had they known that they would die today?
Had someone told them:
Hello, this morning at 8:23 a.m. you will die. Next to you is a vehicle full of explosives. We still don’t know what kind of explosives but we know it will explode. It will suddenly burst into flames and you will be consumed by the flames.
If so, the people would have replied:
If it catches fire, let it catch fire, we will die anyway; your information is not that useful. It would have been better if you had said that today the weather will be cloudy, or that it will rain at 8:23 a.m. Death is certain and we are not afraid of it, but we do fear that our children will be orphans.
Hamed raises his head and looks around him at the dry, leafless trees and the empty courtyard of the school. It is a space he has seen again and again over many years, but it has never seen him so remorseful. He gets up and looks at his watch: it shows it is ten past two in the afternoon. Every day, he goes home from school at two-thirty, so why does he want to go now? What game is he caught in? Who wants to ensnare him? Or is it a mysterious positive force prompting him to leave at this hour? Should he go or not? Afterwards, they will say:
Hamed left school at two-thirty every day, but on the day he died he left at ten past two, dammit!