On the day before the fight, as the shadows were lengthening, Yousseff went to the Four Cedars. He walked around the area once, slowly. He kicked the turf and mentally measured distances. He knew that he needed an edge, any possible advantage. He measured the area again and again, looking for an equalizer. He climbed up one of the trees and looked down on the arena, then went down and looked skyward at the tree branches. At midnight he was still there, walking, measuring, and thinking. He was going to have only one chance. One shot. One move. He would have to focus all his power and concentration on that one move, and make it count. It would be a gamble, but there was only one way forward. If he miscalculated, it would be over, and he would find himself paying a severe price. Once he had his plan, he practiced it over and over again. One shot. He made a few minor alterations to the scene, and went through it again. More alterations, more practice. Eventually he walked home, head down, deep in thought. It was well past 2am.
It was still morning when the first spectators started showing up for the battle. Word had spread through the entire school community — this was going to be a “biggie.” Yousseff was going to be utterly destroyed by Marak. It was going to be great sport, royal entertainment. Secretly, everyone wanted Marak to be soundly thrashed. Realistically, they knew that it was simply not going to happen. No one wanted Yousseff to be seriously hurt, either, as he was well liked. But, at the end of the day, they all believed that Yousseff would take some shots to the head, cry “uncle,” and that Marak would continue to make lewd remarks about and to his sisters. After a week or two, he would get bored with the sport and switch to terrorizing someone else. Life for children in a small town on the border of Afghanistan was not that different from life in any country’s small town.
The gathering crowd was met by an odd sight. A large, round stone, some four feet in height, had been rolled into the arena, and Yousseff was perched upon it, silent and unmoving. A number of the children laughed and poked fun at him. “Praying to the gods before your demise?” they asked. There were questions about where the stone had come from, and what on earth he thought he was doing, but Yousseff sat, unmoving and unresponsive.
Eventually even Izzy prompted him, trying to get some reaction from the silent boy. “Youss, he’s coming. Do something,” he whispered. But still Yousseff did not move.
Izzy turned to Rika, whose eyes were red from crying. “He’s gone crazy, Rik. He is so fearful that he is now mad.”
Rika called to Yousseff. “Youssi. Youss. Do something! This is crazy.” She came to the base of the rock. “Youssi, he will kill you.” But Yousseff remained impassive. Or did he? Rika stared closely at her friend. She could have sworn that he’d winked at her.
At length, amidst a crowd of friends, well-wishers, and a few of the older girls from the community school, Marak arrived. He snorted with laughter when he saw the immobile Yousseff, sitting quietly on a large rock in the center of the arena. The crowd moved back to the perimeter of the circle, and the noise diminished until there was a tense silence. The only sound was the wind in the trees, and the distant waters of the Kabul River. After a minute of uncomfortable silence, Marak spoke.
“Hey, look. A little Buddha, sitting on a rock. Does little Buddha want to play?” He gave Yousseff a rough shove, but Yousseff said and did nothing. A harder shove almost knocked Yousseff off the rock. Still Yousseff neither moved nor spoke.
“Okay then, soft little boy with no penis, I must go and give that little dock whore sister of yours some pleasure. Then maybe satisfy your ugly mother, too, since your father can’t.”
Yousseff remained mute and motionless.
“Fine then, soft little girl. I am going.” Marak turned to leave.
As Marak began to walk away, Yousseff finally stood up. The rock itself was very large, and it had taken Yousseff several hours of hard work to roll it into the center of the arena. But now he had the advantage of looking down on his opponent.
“Ahh,” said Marak. “The little boy wants to play after all. Well, we’ll play. Then I shall go please your sister.”
Yousseff looked directly at Marak, but still said nothing. Marak took a fighter’s stance, curled his hands into fists, and shifted his weight rapidly from foot to foot.
“Let’s go, little lamb. Time to play,” he mocked.
Yousseff continued to look at him, but remained in the same position, relaxed and with his hands at his sides. Marak feigned one or two imaginary punches in Yousseff ’s direction, then a few more.
“Come on, little boy,” he said more aggressively. Still Yousseff remained unmoving, his feet resting on the rock, four feet above the ground upon which the ever more agitated Marak danced. The punches hit the air in flurries, with no reaction from Yousseff. Eventually a few punches landed on Yousseff’s shins, first lightly, then with increasing intensity. Still there was no reaction from Yousseff. Finally Marak turned and walked away from the stone, his hands in the air.
“I guess the little piece of worm vomit wants me to pleasure his sister and mother after all,” he said. There was general laughter and some booing from the crowd. Then, as Marak was about to leave the perimeter of the Four Cedars, Yousseff spoke.
“Marak, we are having a fight. It is not over. Are you walking away from me? Are you unwilling to fight me? Are you acknowledging defeat?”
Marak stopped in his tracks, the blood rushing to his face. “What?” he thundered.
“We’re having a fight. Are you walking off the battlefield? Only a sick little coward with a dog for a mother and a pig for a father does that.”
“That’s it. Now you die.” Marak came rushing at Yousseff, and launched himself directly at the smaller boy, aiming for his knees, to bring him off his perch American-football style. Marak felt a glorious surge of power and adrenalin as he rocketed toward Yousseff. But when he got there, Yousseff had disappeared. As he sailed forward over the rock, Marak felt blinding pain in his lower back, in both kidneys. There was a shattering blow on the back of his head, then a second, and a third. He quickly started to pray for unconsciousness.
The battle was recalled by many people over many years, and was embellished some in each retelling. Yousseff himself recalled the truth of it for the rest of his life. When Marak came charging, Yousseff had emptied his mind. His field of vision had narrowed, and his focus came to include only the image of Marak hurtling toward him. “One shot, one shot,” was his mantra.
At the last possible instant before contact, Yousseff jumped straight up and threw his arms skyward, with open hands. Maybe it was luck, or maybe it was the practicing that he had done. His outstretched hands grabbed a lower bough of one of the large cedars, a branch whose position he had memorized, and in one move he pulled himself another foot upwards. As he had anticipated, Marak’s momentum caused him to fall on the large rock. Looking down, Yousseff let his body drop downward, using the large branch as leverage. He rammed the heels of his boots into Marak’s kidneys as hard as he could. Yousseff was a voracious reader; he’d read every book in the small school library, and in the small public library in Jalalabad. He knew some anatomy, and knew what a hard blow to the kidneys could do, especially if it was unexpected. In the moment of pain and disorientation that followed, Yousseff dropped out of the tree to the ground, where he had left a few strategically placed rocks around the base of the larger stone. He grabbed one and smashed it with all his might across the back of Marak’s head, once, twice, three times. Then, for good measure, he gave the larger boy a tremendous whack across the forehead. As Marak fell off the large central rock, screaming and clutching his head, Yousseff kicked him as hard as he could in his exposed groin, and then delivered a final vicious kick to Marak’s head.