TWO

“Fourteen times five is seventy. Fourteen times six is eighty-four. Fourteen times seven is ninety-eight.” Parvana recited the multiplication tables to herself as she walked over the barren hills. Her father had got her into the habit.

“The world is our classroom,” he always said, before giving Parvana a science or a geography lesson. He had been a history teacher, but he knew a lot about other subjects, too.

Sometimes they were able to ride in the back of a cart or a truck from village to village or from camp to camp as they searched for the rest of the family. Often, though, they had to walk, and the lessons made the journey go by more quickly.

If they were alone, he taught her to speak and read English, scratching letters into the dirt when they stopped for a rest. He told her stories from Shakespeare’s plays and talked about England, where he had gone to university.

On clear nights, if he wasn’t too tired, he taught her about the stars and the planets. During the long, cold winter months, he told her about the great Afghan and Persian poets. He would recite their poems, and she would repeat them over and over until she knew them by heart.

“Your brain needs exercise, just like your body,” he said. “A lazy brain does no one any good.”

Sometimes they talked about the family as they walked along. “How big is Ali now?” her father would ask. He had been in jail for many months, and by the time he was released, the little boy had left Kabul with the rest of the family. Parvana would try to remember how big her brother was the last time she’d held him, and then they would imagine how much he might have grown since then.

“Maryam is very smart,” Parvana would remember.

“All my girls are smart,” her father would say. “You will all grow into strong, brave women and you will rebuild our poor Afghanistan.”

Whenever Parvana and her father talked about the family, it was as though Mother and the children were just off on a holiday, safe and happy. They never spoke about their worries.

Sometimes they walked in silence. Those were the times when her father was in too much pain to talk. The injuries he had suffered when his school was bombed had never completely healed. The beatings in prison and the bad food and poor medical care in the camps meant that he was often in pain.

Parvana hated those times, when there was nothing she could do to make anything better.

“We can stop for a while, Father,” she would say.

“If we stop, we die,” her father always replied. “We will go on.”

Parvana’s belly had a familiar ache today. The small bit of cooked rice, nan and dried mulberries given to her by the village girl had lasted three days. She would eat only small portions at each meal, then tie up the food again quickly in its cloth bundle so she wouldn’t gulp it all at once. But it had been four days since she left the village, and now everything was gone.

“Fourteen times eight is one hundred and twelve. Fourteen times nine is one hundred and twenty-two…no, that’s not right.” She tried to figure out her mistake, but she was too hungry to think properly.

A sound reached Parvana’s ears across the empty stretch of land — a sound not human, not animal, and not machine. It rose and fell, and for a while Parvana thought it was the wind whining around the hills. But the day was still. Not even a breeze played around her neck.

Parvana walked through a small valley with not-too-tall hills all around her. The strange sound bounced from hill to hill. She couldn’t be sure where it was coming from. She thought about hiding, but there were no trees or boulders to crouch behind.

“I’ll just keep going,” she said out loud, and the sound of her own voice gave her some small comfort.

She turned down a bend in the valley trail, and the sound came at her in a rush.

It was coming from right above her.

Parvana looked up and saw the crouched figure of a woman sitting on the top of the little hill. Her burqa had been flung back, and her face was showing. The unearthly noise was coming from her.

Parvana trudged up the hill. The climb was hard with the load on her back, and she was sweating and breathing hard by the time she got to the top.

Catching her breath before she spoke, Parvana stood in front of the woman and gave her a little wave.

The wailing did not stop.

“Are you all right?” Parvana asked. There was no response. “Do you have anything to eat or drink?” Still nothing but wailing.

Where could the woman have come from? Parvana could see no village or settlement nearby. The woman had no bags or bundles with her — nothing to show she was on any sort of journey.

“What’s your name?” Parvana asked. “Where do you come from? Where are you going?” The woman didn’t look at her or show any sign at all that she knew Parvana was standing in front of her.

Parvana dropped her bundles and waved her arms in front of the woman’s face. She jumped up and down and clapped her hands right beside the woman’s ear. Still nothing but wailing.

“Stop that noise!” Parvana shouted. “Stop it! Pay attention to me!” She bent down and grabbed the woman by the shoulders and shook her roughly. “You’re a grownup! You have to take care of me!”

Still the woman kept wailing.

Parvana wanted to strike her. She wanted to kick her and shove her until the woman shut up and fed her. She was shaking with fury and actually raised a hand to slap her when she took a closer look at the woman’s eyes.

The eyes were dead. There was no life left in them. Parvana had seen that look before, in the camp for internal refugees. She had seen people who had lost everything and had given up hope that they would ever have love or tenderness or laughter again.

“Some people are dead before they die,” her father once told her. “They need quiet, rest, a special doctor who knows of such things, and a glimpse of something better down the road. But where will they find these things in this camp? It is hard enough to find a blanket. Avoid these people, Parvana. You cannot help them, and they will take away your hope.”

Parvana remembered her father’s words. She no longer felt like hitting the woman. Since the woman could not help her, and she could not help the woman, Parvana picked up her bundles and went back down the hill. Then she walked quickly away until she had left the sound of the woman’s grief far, far behind.