My house was still there.
How could that be, I wondered? I had seen the video. Then I looked across the street. Everything looked so different with all the destruction—perhaps my cousin had gotten confused. He had taken a video of the other side of the street, which had been destroyed.
The outside wall of my compound was peppered with bullet holes and pockmarked from rocket blasts. But it was still standing. Everyone protested when I told them I was going inside.
“Nay, Bar,” Haroun said. “It’s too dangerous. You don’t know who might be in there. They could have weapons. You would put us all in danger. First you must find out who is occupying your house.”
We drove back to the guesthouse at sunset, the sky streaked red, something that had not changed—the beauty of twilight in Kabul. Soon darkness descended. There was no electricity. The city was a black ocean. The few people out in the streets moved quickly, as if being chased by wild dogs. By daylight you could see the scar of war on their starving, miserable faces, in their eyes full of terror. Evenings in Kabul had once been a time for taking strolls to enjoy the cool evening air. I thought of what had been lost, at what my city had become.
The next morning I found a driver who would take me to my house. I went alone. Armed men occupied every street corner in Karta-i-Char. Cars and bicycles pulled up, exchanged money for packages, then left quickly. My neighborhood had become a drug bazaar.
We pulled up to my house to find the outside door standing open.
“There are many people inside the yard,” I said to the driver.
“There are many people in every house,” he replied. “There’s no place they won’t live. They have nowhere else to go. They will fight you for your house. They will kill you for it. Forget about your house. Be happy it’s still there. We must leave—it’s not safe to stay here.”
“Nay, wait for me. I won’t be long.” I leaped out as my driver howled in protest.
Just before I reached the door, it shut. I knocked loudly. I knocked again and again. Finally, it opened to reveal a small boy. He stepped aside as I entered my yard for the first time in over twenty years. I was home.
On the ground old men and dozens of young men holding AK-47s regarded me with curiosity. Baba and Babu, my uncles and cousins, were gone. The glass in the window frames was missing, the stucco riddled with craters and bullet holes.
I approached an elder. “I am the owner of this house. I need to talk to everyone who lives here.”
“Not everyone is here,” the elder replied. “Come back Friday.”
As we were leaving, I gave the driver directions to the house of Hadji, an old family friend who lived nearby. “No one in Kabul still lives in his own home anymore,” the driver said, disgusted at my ignorance. But he did as I asked.
Hadji’s house looked much like mine—like all houses in Kabul still standing—disfigured by the war. Many people, including Uncle Ali, had completely bricked up their windows for protection from bullets and shrapnel. Hadji’s windows had been bricked over, but a small opening had been left to let in light. I knocked on his door. No one answered. I turned to leave. The door opened a crack just enough for a pair of eyes to look out. “Baleh?” a voice said.
“Does Hadji still live here?” I asked.
The door opened wider, revealing an old woman, withered and bent. “What do you want?”
“I’m Baryalai Popal. I’ve come to see Hadji.”
“I’m afraid he’s not well.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. He was very kind to me when I was young.”
“Who is it?” a voice croaked from another room.
I recognized Hadji’s voice. “Hadji, it’s me, Bar Popal.”
“Bar? Bring him to me.”
Hadji lay in bed regarding me with rheumy eyes, his body sickly and thin. He looked ancient. “How you have changed!” he said. “But it’s so good to see you. I was sorry to hear about your father’s death. He was a great man.”
“Tashakor, Hadji. How are you getting along?”
He lay quiet for a bit, then with a great effort he sat up, his white gebi in great folds over his thin frame. “You don’t know the things I’ve witnessed while you were gone. The bombs and rockets fell like an unending rain, the explosions so loud I thought my head itself would explode. We hid in our houses day after day, waiting to die. When the fighting stopped, we went outside.” He looked down for a moment before continuing. “You could not go for a walk without stepping on something terrible: a body or part of a body—sometimes only a head. We couldn’t leave it like that . . . it was too awful . . . we had to clean it up. Then the fighting would begin again.”
“Why didn’t you leave?”
“There was no way to get out. The warlords divided the city into zones. You could not go from one zone to another without being stopped. They would kill you without a second thought. The Hazaras controlled Karta-i-Char. This was their chance to take revenge on the Pashtuns and Tajiks who had murdered them by the thousands. They were brutal. No one could stop them.”
Just then a young man in a blue gebi and white turban entered. “My son Ratep,” Hadji said. Ratep helped his father out of bed and led him to a seat at a small wooden table in another room beneath which Ratep had set a bucket of hot coals. As we sat there, Hadji and I wrapped ourselves in shawls against the cold. Ratep brought us bowls of tea. As he leaned over to set mine down, his turban unraveled. His ears were blackened holes. He blushed, quickly rewrapped his turban, and disappeared. I couldn’t hide my shock.
Hadji looked at me. “My two sons used to bicycle to work in downtown Kabul. The city was divided by gates, and there was a curfew from dusk to dawn. One day my sons worked late. By the time they reached Karta-i-Char, it was dark, and Ratep rode his bicycle into a gate—a thin iron cable the fighters had stretched across the roadway. The guard demanded to know why my son had ridden into the gate. Ratep apologized, saying he did not see it in the dark. The guard told Ratep he would teach him a lesson he would not forget so that next time he would be more careful. The guard grabbed Ratep and sliced off both his ears, then placed the severed ears in my son’s hands. He grabbed my other son and did the same. As they pedaled away as fast as they could, the guard yelled after them, ‘Now you will respect our gates.’
“When my sons arrived home, the sides of their heads were swollen and bleeding terribly. I blackened a rag in the fire, then held it against the wounds to stop the bleeding. The next day a doctor gave them opium—it was all he could do. From that day they have worn turbans to hide the shame of having no ears.”
We just sat for a few moments. “Your wife was always very kind to me,” I said, breaking the silence.
“She was a very kind person,” Hadji said. He fingered the edge of his shawl. “She died in the war.” Suddenly his face brightened. “To hear your voice again, Bar, is a balm to me. It’s so lonely here. So horrible. It’s good to see a familiar face after so many years. To hear a familiar voice. Thank you for remembering me.”
“It’s good to see you as well,” I replied. I waited a few moments before asking him who was living in my house.
“Many families live there. Sixty or seventy people. They are from the Panjshir Valley. Some fought with Massoud. They are very tough. Some are drug dealers.”
“What can I do?”
“Nothing, I’m afraid. They’ll never leave. How can they? They have no place to go. And Karta-i-Char is the best place in all of Kabul to sell drugs. Nay, Bar, you must forget this.”
“But I cannot forget it. Do you know what my father said? ‘A lie is the worst of crimes because it steals the truth.’ If I let them stay in my house, I would be admitting it is their house, and that would be a lie. That I cannot do.”
“What you say may be true, Bar, but fate is also the truth, and fate has taken your family’s houses from you.”
“Sometimes will is stronger than fate,” I said.
“Now you sound like your father. If that is how you feel, you should wait and see what happens. Zahir Shah may return, and things may change. You must be patient. Please stay and take some food with us.”
“Thank you, Hadji, but I must be going. It fills me with joy to have found you alive.”
“I am happy to find you alive as well. But I would like to see you stay alive. Listen to me, Bar. Forget about your house.”
I rushed outside, relieved to find my driver still there.
“I thought you might be dead,” he said as I climbed into the car. “Is your friend still alive?”
“Baleh. But he had many sad stories to tell.”
“Afghanistan is the land of sad stories.”