Her mother and her khaha khanda, her group of close female friends, were sitting in a tight circle, talking while they crafted their patterned carpets. Some were intended for personal use, most were to be sold. Zabi was supposed to watch and learn. Making dye had been fun for a while, but her arms ached from crushing the husks and her mother was nowhere near finished. They would be working at the carpets for the entire day and perhaps tomorrow too and even the day after that. A square of sunlight appeared on the floor. The clouds had cleared. She wanted to go outside, aware that if she asked she’d be refused permission. Nervous of being told off, she edged along the floor, towards the door, collecting the steel urn that she’d been using to mix the paste.
— I need some more water.
Without waiting for a reply she ran out, full of mischievous energy, bare feet fast across the smooth mud path, running past the houses and out of the village.
Her village was set among orchards that fanned out in every direction – the entire valley was green and lush, filled with trees planted so that there was always a new crop coming into season – almonds, walnuts, apricots, apples and black plums. Each orchard was watered by an irrigation system. A deep channel lined with concrete brought water from the mountains, gushing at speed before dividing into a smaller network that spread out across the orchards. According to her father, as a consequence of their ingenuity the village of Sokh Rot was one of the richest in the region, famous for its crops and a grand procession of mulberry trees that welcomed visitors when they travelled up the main road into the village centre.
Despite the beauty of their surroundings, Zabi was the only girl who liked playing outside. Laila and Sahar were sometimes outside but they were only three years old and never ventured much beyond the perimeter of their houses, mostly feeding the goats. The other girls, the older girls, spent their time inside. When they did leave the house they were dressed formally and always on a specific errand, never to play. Zabi could sit with them inside, with her mother, enjoying their stories. And she admitted that sometimes it was fun to be inside, if it was cold or raining, and sometimes it was fun to bake, to cook, stitch and make dyes for carpets, but not all the time, not every day.
She stopped running, far enough away from the village not to be called back. She was still carrying the steel urn and she placed it down, at the foot of the largest apricot tree in the centre of the field third away from her village. She didn’t have any shoes on. It didn’t matter. She didn’t feel cold. Walking through the trees she thought upon something her mother had recently said:
You are almost a woman now.
Being called a woman sounded like a compliment. Even so, the remark had troubled her. The women in the village never played outside, never ran through the orchards and never climbed the trees. If being a woman meant doing none of those things, she’d prefer to remain girl.
Nearing the outskirts of the orchards, she stood by the main irrigation channel that carried water down from the mountains. The channel was wide and deep: the flow was rapid. She picked up a leaf and dropped it on the surface, watching it speed away. No excuse about fetching water was going to spare her a telling-off. She’d be smacked. That didn’t bother her. The punishment she feared more than anything else was to be told that she would never be allowed to go outside. She looked up, mournfully staring at the mountains and wishing that one day she could climb them right to the very top and look down on the valley.
Zabi was startled by a voice.
— You there!
She turned around, fearful that she was about to be scolded. An older boy was walking among the apricot trees. In the bright sunshine Zabi couldn’t make out his features. He asked:
— Why do you look so sad?
Zabi raised a hand, blocking the sun and focusing on the boy’s face. It was Sayed Mohammad. Sayed was a teenager, fourteen years old and not at all like his older brothers, who were rarely in the village. Shyly, Zabi stumbled a reply:
— I’m not sad.
— Liar! I can see you are.
Zabi didn’t answer, intimidated by this young man. He was known in their village for his singing and poetry. Despite his youth, he would often sit and talk with adult men, sipping their bitter tea as though he was one of them. She asked, changing the subject:
— What have you been doing?
— I’ve been composing a poem.
— You can do that while walking?
Sayed smiled.
— I compose them in my head.
— You must have a good memory.
He seemed to think about this assertion seriously. Sayed thought about most things seriously.
— I have a technique for remembering poems. I sing them to other people. The ones that aren’t very good I quickly forget. Don’t you forget the things you don’t do very well?
Trying to imitate his thoughtfulness, Zabi nodded, slowly. Before she could reply, he noticed her fingers.
— Why are your fingers red?
— I’ve been making dye.
Zabi wanted to impress Sayed and blurted out:
— Did you know that the colour red tastes bitter?
To her surprise, he was interested.
— Is that so?
— I spent all morning making the dye. I tasted it several times.
— What is it made from?
— Pomegranate rinds.
Zabi was pleased that she hadn’t said something stupid. Sayed scratched his facp>
— Red has a bitter taste . . . I could use that idea in a poem.
Zabi was amazed.
— You could?
— The Soviet Union’s flag is red, so saying red has a bitter taste is a political statement.
He glanced at Zabi’s expression:
— Do you know what the Soviet Union is?
— They’re the invaders.
He nodded, pleased.
— The invaders! That can be the name of my poem. The first line could say something along the lines of. . .
He trailed off again, closing his eyes, deep in concentration, trying various ideas.
— Red flag as bitter as?
Zabi suggested:
— Pomegranate rinds?
Sayed laughed.
— Doesn’t that sound kind to our enemy? To suggest their ideology tastes like our national fruit? We can’t compare a fruit that grows here, in the soil of Afghanistan, to the flag of the invaders.
With that proclamation, Sayed walked off, apparently forgetting about Zabi. Wanting to hear more, and not wanting the conversation to end on her stupid suggestion, she caught up with him.
— Can you sing me a poem?
— I don’t sing my poems to little girls. I have a reputation to think of. I sing only to warriors.
Hurt, Zabi stopped walking. Sayed noticed her reaction.
— Don’t take it so badly.
Zabi wanted to cry. She hated being a girl. He softened his tone, saying:
— Did you know that my father used to despise my poems? He would hit me and tell me to shut up. He said singing and poetry were for women, he told me to be more like my brothers. It is true, some poetry is for women, such as lullabies, or a nakhta, sung by women when they mourn the death of a hero. The nakhta made me think perhaps I should compose lyrics for heroes, not mournful, but triumphant, when they are victorious against the invaders. Poetry must be more than pretty and pleasant on the ear. It must have purpose. It must have anger.
Sayed picked at the leaves of the trees, continuing:
— I sang these new poems to my father. They changed his mind. He no longer hit me. He began to tell me more and more about events in our country so that my poems would be more accurate. Since that change I sing poems about the resistance, poems that are protests against the treatment of our Afghan brothers and sisters. My father is proud of me. He brings fighters in from the hills. They tell their stories, which I turn into poems. I am compiling a poetic history of our war, thousands of different poems.
My father is going to take me travelling, through the hills, performing at different camps. Did you know that my brothers are warriors?
— I didn’t know that.
— They’re fighting the Soviets. Samir told me he was going to blow up a dam and bring water crashing down, sweeping away the Soviet tanks. They’ll come back to the village soon and I’ll turn their victories into the best poems I’ve ever composed. The whole village will gather round and listen.
Sayed crouched down beside Zabi, whispering as though there were people in the orchard with them who might overhear:
— Do you want to hear a poem that would have you arrested and shot dead if you sang it in the streets of Kabul? If I sing it for you, you mustn’t tell anyone, and no one can ever know. Promise to keep it a secret?
Zabi was nervous and excited, and not wanting to seem afraid, she nodded.
— I promise.
Sayed began to sing:
— O Kamal!
He stopped.
— Do you know who Kamal is?
Zabi shook her head. She didn’t know anyone called Kamal.
— Kamal is the President. Do you know what a president is?
— An elder?
— In a way, yes, he’s a ruler, a leader, but he was not chosen by us, by the people who live in this country, he was put in power by the invaders to do their bidding. Imagine if our village elder was chosen by another village located thousands of miles away. Would that make any sense? And then imagine if that elder hadn’t even been born in our village, but came from outside, came here, to our land and told us what we could and couldn’t do.
Zabi understood: such a system didn’t make any sense.
Sayed picked up his song:
— O Kamal! Son of Lenin . . .
He paused again.
— Do you know who Lenin is?
Zabi shook her head. The name was odd to her ear.
— Lenin is the man who created Communism, which is the name of the religion that the invaders believe in. Lenin is a god to the invaders, or a prophet, a divine figure – they hang up photographs of him in their schools and buildings. They read his words and chant them.
Sayed began his song again.
O Kamal! Son of Lenin,
You do not care for the religion and the faith
You may face your doom and
May you receive a calamity, O son of a traitor,
O son of Lenin!
Zabi didn’t fully grasp the meaning of the lyrics despite the explanation. However, she loved the sound of Sayed’s voice and at the end she clapped.
Smiling, Sayed was about to take a small bow when, like a startled animal, he spun around, staring up into the sky. Zabi couldn’t hear anything except the rush of the water in the irrigation channel. Sayed didn’t move: eyes fixed on the empty blue sky. Belatedly Zabi heard the noise too, a noise unlike any other she’d heard before.
Sayed grabbed her by the waist, lifting her into the nearest tree. Zabi climbed up.
— What do you want me to do?
— Look into the sky! Tell me what you see!
Even though she was light, the tree wasn’t very old and the branches bent under her weight. The noise was growing louder. She could feel vibrations through the trunk. Unable to climb any further, she poked her head above the top of the tree.
— What do you see?
Coming directly towards her, flying low over the trees, were two war machines – giant steel insects with stub wings, each with spinning blades that cut through the air, blurring the blue sky above them. They had windows at the front, a bulb of glass – a terrifying huge monster eye. The flying machines were so low she could see the man seated inside, the pilot’s face hidden by a helmet. As they passed overhead, it felt possible to reach out and touch their steel bellies. Sayed was shouting to her but she couldn’t hear what he was saying, just the thump-thump of the spinning blades. A gust of air, a man-made storm passed through the trees. She gripped the branch tightly. The entire tree was shaking. Ignoring Sayed’s calls for her to come down, Zabi watched as the two giant steel insects circled her village.
The first explosion was so powerful Zabi was punched out of the tree, a force hitting her in the chest, knocking her backwards. She fell, branches breaking beneath her. She would’ve hit the ground but Sayed caught her. There was intense heat from a fire. A plume of smoke mushroomed above them, rising up into the sky, an angry spirit unleashed. The orchards nearest the village were ablaze, the tops of trees burning. A second explosion, a rush of air, its heat curling her eyelashes. Sayed reacted, he ran, carrying her under his arm like a rolled-up rug. Clods of earth thumped down around them.
Looking back, she saw black smoke ballooning through the trees, rolling towards them like the edge of an evil cloud. Suddenly the cloud broke apart – a flock of mountain ponies burst through the smoke. Their eyes were huge, their manes on fire, skin blackened and burnt. Some were blind, or blind with panic, crashing head-on with the narrow trunks of the apricot trees, the trees splintering, the ponies dropping to the ground. Their hooves ripped up the soil. One pony continued to run even with its stomach gashed open, charging past, while another collapsed to the ground beside them, legs buckling underneath it, tongue hanging out.
The mechanical thumping noise returned. One of the flying machines pushed through the black cloud, hovering directly overhead. Sayed ran faster, his eyes wild with same panic as the ponies crashing about them on either side. There was nowhere to hide.
Zabi saw the irrigation channel ahead. Before they could reach it, a third explosion – the ground collapsing and giving way, every clod of soil, every leaf vibrating. Sayed threw her forward. For a moment she was in the air, then crashing down, landing in the channel, smashing through the surface, submerged beneath the freezing current. She rolled over, looking up through the water. There was no sign of Sayed. A burning pony leaped overhead, hooves clipping the concrete walls. The blue sky disappeared, replaced by fire. The freezing water began to bubble and boil.
Greater Province of Kabul
City of Kabul
Jada-e-Maiwand District
Microrayon Apartment Complex
Three Days Later
The apartment was newly constructed, government-created accommodation. The interior smelled of fresh paint and glue. Leo tried to open the window but it had been bolted shut, perhaps for his security since the Soviet-made glass was shatterproof, each pane costing more to import than an Afghan glassblower earned in a year. He rested against the window, watching as the sunset refracted through dense city smog, transforming a layer of dirt and dust into patterns of red and orange light. He was on the fifth floor, the top floor of what would be, were it situated in the outskirts of Moscow, an anonymous concrete block of apartments unworthy of a second look. But in Kabul the building’s blandness was notable, a foreign anomaly based on Soviet designs entirely unlike the traditional stucco buildings. Built at breakneck speed, using none of the local trades or traditional craftsmanship, these apartment blocks had sprung up across the Jada-e-Maiwand district after the invasion as if from spores. This particular building, finished only last week, had a barbed-wire perimeter fence with security spotlights and was patrolled by Soviet soldiers, not Afghans, a measure of the mistrust between the two forces. Fearing further reprisals after the brutal public spectacle of Dost Mohammad’s death, Soviet personnel, including advisers, had been moved into secure compounds. Leo’s protests had been overruled. There were to be no exceptions. In a matter of hours they’d created an occupation-force ghetto, exactly the legacy of division and suspicion that Dost Mohammad wanted to leave behind.
Upon moving in Leo had immediately unscrewed the four doors between the rooms, stacking them on the floor. With the doors removed, there was an area in the living room where he could see the entire apartment, could confirm that the rooms were empty, preventing his imagination from tormenting him with the memories of his family. Even so, this layout was far too close to th
e home he’d shared with Raisa and the girls, a duplication of a typical Soviet apartment, ready furnished with plywood bookcases and wardrobes. Leo had nothing to unpack. All his possessions were on the coffee table, the bundle of unfinished letters to his daughters and his opium pipe. He’d decided not to collect the letters he’d received from Elena and Zoya for the sole reason that he couldn’t stop reading them – he’d comb through the contents repeatedly until the words and sentences broke down, no longer making sense. With each reading his uncertainty regarding their true meaning grew, forcing him to read them once more, creating an obsessive cycle. He’d cross-reference letters, wondering why Zoya had only written eight hundred words this time when normally she wrote over a thousand, or wondering if Elena’s style had become colder towards him, whether her final remark – With love – was written sincerely or out of a sense of reluctant duty. It was impossible to be sure of the tone. On one hot summer’s night he’d read a single, one-page letter from Elena, with her neat small handwriting, several hundred times, and would have read it several hundred more times if the opium hadn’t sent him to sleep. After that, he’d taken to reading a letter no more than three times before burning it, but he had not received a new letter for several months now. The absence of communication might be down to the unreliable nature of delivery – a stack of three or four could arrive together – but more likely it was because he hadn’t responded to the last one. He found it increasingly difficult to compose his thoughts, frustratedcross-refeis attempts, starting a hundred times and hating everything he said.
Pacing the coarse synthetic fitted carpet, an aberration in this country since carpets filled with dirt and dust in days, Leo needed to smoke as a matter of urgency. As he prepared his stash, faint music could be heard from the adjacent apartment, coming from his new neighbour: Nara Mir.