“Times have changed.”
“We haven’t.”
“And who are we?”
Mohsen leans back against the wall and crosses his arms over his chest. He tries to ponder his wife’s question, but he finds it unreasonable. “Why are you talking nonsense?”
“Because it’s the truth. We’re not anything anymore. We had some privileges that we didn’t know how to defend, and so we forfeited them to the apprentice mullahs. I’d love to go out with you every day, every evening; I’d love to slip my hand under your arm and let you sweep me along. It would be marvelous to stand in front of a shop window, leaning against you, or to sit at a table, just the two of us, chatting away or making fantastic plans. But that’s no longer possible. There will always be some foul-smelling ogre, armed to the teeth, who’ll reprimand us and forbid us to speak outdoors. Rather than be subjected to such insults, I prefer to stay inside my own four walls. Here at home, at least, when I see my reflection in the mirror, I don’t have to hide my face.”
Mohsen doesn’t agree. He pouts harder, evokes the shabbiness of the room they’re sitting in, points to the worn curtains, the rotting shutters, the crumbling walls, the sagging beams above their heads. “This isn’t our home, Zunaira. Our house, the place where we created our own world, is gone. A shell blew it away. What we have is just a refuge. I don’t want it to become our tomb. We’ve lost our fortunes; let’s not lose our way of life altogether. The only means of resistance we have left, the only chance we have to reject tyranny and barbarism, comes from our upbringing and our education. We were taught to be complete human beings, with one eye on the Lord and the other on our own mortal nature. We’ve been too close to the bright lights to believe that candles are enough. We’ve known the joys life has to offer, and we thought them as good as the joys of eternity. We can’t accept being treated like cattle.”
“Isn’t that what we’ve become?”
“I’m not sure. The Taliban have taken advantage of a period of uncertainty. They’ve dealt a terrible blow to people who were already defeated. But they haven’t finished us off, not yet. Our duty is to convince ourselves of that fact.”
“How?”
“By thumbing our noses at their decrees. We’re going out. You and me. Sure, we’re not going to hold hands, but there’s nothing to prevent us from walking side by side.”
Zunaira shakes her head. “I don’t feel like coming home heartsick, Mohsen. The things that go on in the streets will just ruin my day, to no purpose. I can’t come face-to-face with horrors and just keep on walking as if nothing’s happened. Furthermore, I refuse to wear a burqa. Of all the burdens they’ve put on us, that’s the most degrading. The Shirt of Nessus wouldn’t do as much damage to my dignity as that wretched getup. It cancels my face and takes away my identity and turns me into an object. Here, at least, I’m me, Zunaira, Mohsen Ramat’s wife, age thirty-two, former magistrate, dismissed by obscurantists without a hearing and without compensation, but with enough self-respect left to brush my hair every day and pay attention to my clothes. If I put that damned veil on, I’m neither a human being nor an animal, I’m just an affront, a disgrace, a blemish that has to be hidden. That’s too hard to deal with. Especially for someone who was a lawyer, who worked for women’s rights. Please, I don’t want you to think for a minute that I’m putting on some sort of act. I’d like to, you know, but unfortunately my heart’s not in it anymore. Don’t ask me to give up my name, my features, the color of my eyes, and the shape of my lips so I can take a walk through squalor and desolation. Don’t ask me to become something less than a shadow, an anonymous thing rustling around in a hostile place. You know how thin-skinned I am, Mohsen. I’d be angry at myself for being angry at you when you were only trying to please me.”
Mohsen lifts up his hands. Zunaira feels a sudden pang for him, a man who can no longer find his place in a society turned upside down. Even in the old days, before the Taliban came, he didn’t have very much drive. He was always more content to dip into his fortune than to embark on demanding, time-consuming projects. He wasn’t lazy, but he detested difficulties and rarely did anything that might complicate his life. He was a man of independent means but with no tendency to excess, and he was an excellent, affectionate, considerate husband. He deprived her of nothing, refused her nothing, and yielded so easily to her requests that she often felt as if she were taking advantage of his kindness. But he was like that: openhanded, easygoing, readier to say yes than to ask himself questions. The thoroughgoing upheaval provoked by the Taliban has completely unsettled him. Mohsen’s former points of reference have all disappeared, and he hasn’t got the strength to invent any new ones. He’s lost his possessions, his privileges, his relatives, and his friends. Reduced to the ranks of the untouchables, he spends his days stagnating, always deferring until later the promise to pull himself together.
“Well, all right,” Zunaira concedes. “Let’s go out. I’d rather run a thousand risks than to see you so demoralized.”
“I’m not demoralized, Zunaira. If you want to stay home, that’s fine with me. I promise I won’t hold it against you. You’re right — the streets of Kabul are hateful. You never know what’s waiting for you out there.”
Zunaira smiles at her husband’s declarations, which are flatly belied by the miserable look on his face. “I’ll go put on my burqa,” she says.
Seven
ATIQ SHAUKAT shades his eyes with his hand. The fierce summer heat still has many bright days to last. Although it’s not yet nine o’clock in the morning, the implacable sun beats down like a blacksmith on anything that moves. Carts and vans converge on the big bazaar in the center of town. The former are loaded with half-empty crates or shriveled produce from local truck farms; the latter carry passengers piled on top of one another like anchovies. People hobble along the narrow streets; their sandals scrape the dusty ground. Behind opaque veils, stepping like sleepwalkers, sparse flocks of women hug the walls, closely guarded by a few embarrassed males. And everywhere — in the squares, on the streets, among the vehicles, or around the coffee shops — there are kids, hundreds of little kids with snot-green nostrils and piercing eyes, disturbing, sickly, on their own, many barely old enough to walk, and all silently braiding the stout rope they’ll use, someday soon, to lynch their country’s last hope of salvation.
Whenever Atiq sees these children, he feels a deep uneasiness. They’re invading the city inexorably, like the packs of dogs that turn up out of nowhere, feed in rubbish dumps and garbage cans, eventually colonize whole neighborhoods, and keep the citizenry at bay. The innumerable madrassas , the religious schools that spring up like mushrooms on every street corner, no longer suffice to hold all the children. Every day, their numbers increase and their threat grows, and no one in Kabul cares. All his adult life, Atiq has regretted that God never gave him any children; but now that the streets teem with them, he considers himself lucky. What good does it do to burden your life with a pack of brats, just so you can watch them croak little by little or wind up as cannon fodder in a war so endemic, so endless, that it has become part of the national identity?
Persuaded that his sterility is a blessing, Atiq slaps his thigh with his whip and walks toward the center of the city.
Nazeesh is dozing in the shade of his umbrella, his neck strangely twisted to one side. He’s probably spent the night there, in front of his door, sitting on the ground like a fakir. When he sees Atiq coming, he pretends to be asleep. Atiq passes in front of him without saying a word. He strides on for about thirty paces, then stops, weighs the pros and cons, and retraces his steps. Watching him out of the corner of his eye, Nazeesh clenches his fists and scoots a little deeper into his corner. Atiq plants himself in front of him and crosses his arms high against his chest; then he squats down and begins drawing geometric shapes in the dirt with his fingertip. “I was rude to you last night,” he acknowledges.