How many hours has passed since dawn? I slept unusually well last night, a deep and luxurious oblivion. Then the sound came again; that low, rolling thunder that tears through the city. Oh, God, let no harm come of it, I thought. I have grown almost accustomed to these blasts; the sharp edge of fear has dulled. Yet the sparrows and mynahs never seem to learn. Each time the explosion rips open the air and echoes through houses, shops, alleyways and treetops, they explode from their branches in a wild panic of wings. The sound that always follows is that frantic flutter. The windowpanes know their cue; they tremble in perfect time with the shockwave, alive to every ripple.
The first thing I heard upon waking was the cheerful chime of good-morning messages from my classmates. Once again Zakia had seized my phone, eager to use its camera, for I have never cared for such things — that endless click-click of photographs. What is the point of it all?
I could hear my mother murmuring in the next room, but I let it pass. I needed to ring my father, to know he was safe. Perhaps I should turn on the television first, discover where the blast had struck and how bad it had been, before deciding whether to call. In the end I rang him anyway. Thank God he was unharmed; the explosion had passed him by.
I dressed quickly and phoned Nazi. They would arrive in five minutes. As my hand touched the latch of the courtyard gate, my mother’s voice drifted out: ‘I wish you wouldn’t go today. The situation is dreadful.’
She must have seen the news. Every day the situation is dreadful. Was I supposed to lock myself away forever because of it, let my spirit wither in these rooms?
How refreshing it felt when the cool morning breeze brushed my face. I walked past the old Kakā Rostam trees and felt my spirits lift. There is something life-giving about being surrounded by green things; like me, they seem unable to bear the barren concrete sprawl of Kabul. Since the streets were paved, the neighbours wash the alleys every day with a water pump. That white Toyota approaching — I knew at once it was the girls, so bright and lively it seemed. I climbed in and pulled the door shut. Parwana was lost in her WhatsApp messages. Nazi wanted to know our plans: Park Mall and a little shop that sold beautiful hand-embroidered traditional clothes. Zakia laughed and snapped pictures without pause. Hers is the most tiresome habit imaginable. Worse still is when she turns her lens on me: ‘Mari, smile! Mari, come closer! Mari, Mari!’ The exasperation of it.
After shopping we settled in a restaurant. Beside her food Zakia ordered a water pipe, and they brought it promptly. Nazi chattered on about social etiquette and the damage such indulgences do to a young woman’s reputation, while Parwana ate her bread in quiet bites.
Nazi cut her mantu neatly with a spoon and asked, ‘Girls, have you heard where today’s explosion was?’
‘I had only just woken,’ I said, taking a sip of water. ‘I think it was near our house.’
Parwana stood beside Zakia, took another photograph, and said, ‘I didn’t catch the news, but it felt close. The windows shook.’
Zakia swallowed her mouthful and looked at us steadily. ‘Every day it’s the same story. One day our turn will come, and no one will hear of us either.’
Her words settled heavily on my heart. No one will hear? I could not eat another bite. The thought escaped me before I could stop it: ‘I don’t want my turn to come. Not any day.’
‘We don’t even have the means to leave the country,’ Parwana said quietly.
Zakia, head bent over her phone, murmured, ‘All the clever ones have already gone abroad.’
Nazi set down her spoon, elbows on the table, fingers tightly interlaced. ‘So we’re the fools for staying?’
Zakia gave a crooked smile. ‘Staying here doesn’t take much cleverness.’
‘If everyone thought like you,’ Nazi retorted, ‘our country wouldn’t be in this state!’
‘Ah, now the patriotism begins!’ Zakia replied.
A message appeared on my phone from her: ‘Whether you like it or not, send on my photos so you won’t regret it later.’ When I glanced up she winked and laughed.
Nazi shook her head. ‘I cannot believe how indifferent you’ve become to people dying.’
‘Indifferent or not,’ Zakia said, ‘I know that one day I too will be killed. What more is there?’
Nazi drew a sharp breath, brows drawn together. ‘You’re suffering from a fear of death. You should see a psychologist.’
‘If your movement has a decent one, I’ll come along,’ Zakia said dryly.
Nazi looked at Parwana and me. Zakia never missed an opportunity to mock her for joining a cause that had achieved little except more martyrs.
As we left the restaurant the city lay quiet beneath a fierce sun. Traffic was light — the usual lull of early afternoon in Kabul. I boarded a city bus and sat beside two women speaking softly to one another. One, in a triangular shawl and a coffee-coloured coat, showed a photograph to the other, who wore a simple white prayer veil. I caught a glimpse: a radiant young woman of about twenty, in a black hat and black coat, smiling brightly with a bouquet in her hand. The first woman was weeping quietly, dabbing her nose with a handkerchief in a manner both polite and resolute. How aged she looked. Had I seen her before? Why did all the women’s faces seem to blur into one another?
‘A week ago,’ she whispered.
‘Was your daughter a government employee?’ asked the other.
‘No. She was standing beside a car that carried a mine.’
‘And now?’
‘If she survives, the doctors say she will be paralysed for life.’
When I stepped off the bus I looked back at the weeping mother. If I were wounded or killed one day, which photograph of me would my own mother show to strangers? With which image would she sit crying beside another grieving woman? Was my picture even hanging in our hallway? How many decent photographs of myself did I possess? Did Zakia take hers with precisely such days in mind?
I almost ran the rest of the way home, passing beneath the shade of the trees. The courtyard gate stood open. In the hallway I paused before the family portraits: my grandfather, my father, my three brothers. I slipped into my mother’s room, pulled out the old albums from beneath the wardrobe, and turned the pages quickly. Childhood pictures, my parents when they were young, my brothers — but of myself as I am now, there was almost nothing. I put them away.
Taking up my bag again, I called to my mother, ‘I have an errand to run. I’ll be back soon.’ She grumbled, as always, about my strange, impulsive ways.
A little further along the main road stood the photographer’s shop, wedged between food stalls, a butcher, a tailor and a barber. Cars streamed past; the pavement was stone but offered no shade. I studied the portraits in the window — young men, children, girls and boys — and marvelled at our hunger to be fixed in time, to endure on paper. There were even photographs of Indian film stars.
The photographer emerged and asked what I wanted. I told him I wished to have my portrait taken and pointed to a suitable frame. He led me into a dim inner room. By drawing back a curtain he revealed another small working space. He asked whether I preferred to sit or stand. I had not thought about it. My eyes fell on a chair. ‘Sitting,’ I said.
I stared straight ahead while he worked. I told him I would collect the print the following day. But as soon as I stepped outside, a sudden dread seized me. What if tomorrow never came? What if I never even had this? I turned back and asked if he could print it immediately. He nodded. Soon the photograph emerged. He placed it carefully in a coffee-coloured frame, slipped it into an envelope, and handed it to me.
I glanced at it hastily. How lost and troubled I looked — as though silently pleading that I did not want to die. I wished I could take another, but it was growing late. I hurried home.
For a week now I have taken a photograph every day. In each I try to smile, yet my eyes refuse to match my mouth, just like the grieving mother on the bus. I can only force the corners of my lips upward; my eyes remain untouched. In another I stand beside a vase of artificial flowers, everything steeped in melancholy. Today, returning from university, two or three shopkeepers stepped out to stare at me. Others whispered behind their phones. Once again the image disappointed me. Why could I not appear as I wished to be remembered?
I long for a portrait that, should I vanish one day, would make others feel something vital had been lost from the world. I want to be the most beautiful girl ever killed. I want the world after me — oh, the world — to turn differently, whether slower or faster.
I returned home with yet another new photograph, closed the door of my room, and laid all the images out together. On the back of several envelopes the same telephone number was written in blue ink. I walked to the window that faced the sunset and drew back the curtain. The sky hung heavy with smoke and dust; a gentle wind stirred the young green trees of the courtyard. The sun hovered on the edge of red and orange. A wave of loneliness and terror rose within me. I clutched my left arm tightly with my right hand; the photograph slipped and fell. I wanted only to hold myself close.
I am afraid of the people riding in passing cars who hear of deaths and continue on their way. I am afraid of those who watch funerals yet still wash their vegetables and place them neatly in baskets. I am afraid that after so much killing the clock moves on almost unchanged. And what of me? Am I seeking a way to die, or a way to remain alive?
I looked again at my fallen photograph and at those envelopes bearing the blue-ink number. Do men never think of death, but only of love?
