Yasmina Khadra: The Swallows of Kabul

At first, the notion that a man might speak of his wife in the street baffles Mirza; then, stroking his henna-colored beard and nodding, he says, “Is this not the Lord’s will?”

“Who would dare stand against it, Mirza? Not me, in any case. I accept it completely, with boundless devotion, except that I’m distraught and all alone. I haven’t got anyone to help me.”

“But it’s simple: Divorce her.”

“She has no family left,” Atiq naively replies, quite failing to notice the contempt darkening his friend’s features. Mirza is visibly exasperated at being obliged to dwell upon so degrading a subject. “Her parents are dead; her brothers have gone their separate ways. And besides, I couldn’t do that to her.”

“Why not?”

“She saved my life, remember?”

Mirza throws his shoulders back, as though the jailer’s reasoning has taken him by surprise. He thrusts out his lips and tucks his chin into one shoulder so that he’s eyeing Atiq sideways. “Rubbish!” he exclaims. “God alone has power over life and death. You were wounded while fighting for His glory. Since He couldn’t send Gabriel, He put this woman in your way. She took care of you by the will of God. She did nothing but submit to His will. What you did for her was a hundred times more valuable: You married her. What more could she hope for? She was three years older than you, already an old maid, with no vitality and no appeal. Can there be any greater generosity to a woman than to offer her a roof, protection, honor, and a name? You don’t owe her anything. She’s the one who should bow down before you, Atiq, and kiss the toes of your feet, one by one, every time you take off your shoes. She has little significance outside of what you represent for her. She’s only a subordinate. Furthermore, it’s an error to believe that any man owes anything at all to a woman. The misfortune of the world comes from precisely that misconception.”

Mirza suddenly frowns. “You don’t mean to tell me you’re crazy enough to love her?”

“We’ve lived together for more than twenty years. That’s not something one can just ignore.”

Though scandalized, Mirza restrains himself and tries to go easy on this misguided friend of his childhood. “My poor Atiq, I live with four women. I married the first one twenty-five years ago, and the last one nine months ago. I feel nothing but suspicion for the lot of them, because I have never for a single moment had the impression that I understood anything at all about the way things work in their heads. I’m convinced that I’ll never fully grasp how women think. It’s as though their thought processes move counterclockwise. Whether you live one year or a century with a concubine, a mother, or your own daughter, you’ll always feel that there’s a gap somewhere, like an insidious ditch gradually cutting you off in order to expose you better to the hazards of your inattention. These creatures are intrinsically hypocritical and fundamentally unpredictable, and the more you think you’re going to tame them, the less chance you have of breaking their evil spell. You can warm a viper in your bosom, but that won’t make you immune to its poison. As to the number of years, however high, it can bring no peace to a household where the love of woman betrays the weakness of man.”

“It’s not a question of love.”

“In that case, what are you waiting for? Kick her out. Divorce her and get yourself a strong, healthy virgin who knows how to shut up and serve her master without making any noise. I don’t want to see you talking to yourself like a mental patient again, not in the street, and especially not on account of a woman. That would be an offense against God and His prophet.”

Mirza abruptly falls silent. A young man with a faraway look and bloodless lips has just stopped beside the door of the little shop. He’s tall, and thin patches of boyishly wispy beard adorn his handsome, youthful face. His hair, long and straight, falls to his shoulders, which are as narrow and fine-boned as a young girl’s.

Mirza reaches over and shakes him. “What do you want?”

Attempting to concentrate, the young man brings his fingers to his temples in a gesture that further irritates Mirza. “Make up your mind. Step inside or go away. Can’t you see we’re talking here?”

Mohsen Ramat notices that the two individuals have whips in their hands and are preparing to lash him across the face. Walking backward and apologizing effusively, he moves away toward the tent encampment.

“Can you believe it?” Mirza asks indignantly. “Some people have no manners whatsoever.”

Atiq shakes his head and mutters something. The intrusion has just brought some clarity to his thoughts. Now he’s aware of how indecent such confidences as this are, and he’s cross with himself for having been unable to resist the morbid compulsion to display his dirty linen on the sidewalk in front of a café. An embarrassed silence descends upon him and his childhood friend. They dare not even look at each other. One of them falls to contemplating the lines in his hands; the other pretends to be looking for the owner of the shop.

MOHSEN RAMAT pushes open the door of his house with an uncertain hand. He hasn’t eaten anything since this morning, and his ramblings have worn him out. In the shops, in the market, in the square, wherever he ventured, the immense weariness that he drags around like a convict’s ball and chain caught up with him immediately. His only friend and confidant died of dysentery last year, and Mohsen’s had a hard time finding anyone to take his place. It’s difficult for a person to live with his own shadow. Fear has become the most effective form of vigilance. These days, everyone’s touchier than ever before, a remark made in confidence can easily be misinterpreted, and the Taliban are indisposed to pardon careless tongues. Since people have nothing but misfortunes to share, everyone prefers to nibble at his disappointments in his own corner and thus avoid burdening himself with other people’s problems. In Kabul, where pleasure has been ranked among the deadly sins, seeking any sort of solace from anyone not closely connected to you has become an exercise in futility. What lasting solace could one hope to obtain in a chaotic world bled white by a series of uncommonly violent wars, deserted by its patron saints, and given over to the executioners and the crows, in a world the most fervent prayers cannot bring to its senses?

In the room, apart from a large woven mat doing service as a rug, two ample, aging, burst ottomans, and a worm-eaten lectern that holds the book of Readings, nothing remains. Mohsen has sold all his furniture, piece by piece, to survive the various shortages. The windows in his darkened house are blocked up. Every time a Taliban passed in the street, he would order Mohsen to repair the broken panes without delay, along with the rickety shutters, lest the glimpse of a woman’s unveiled face offend some unsuspecting passerby. Since Mohsen couldn’t afford these improvements, he covered the windows with canvas curtains, and now the sun no longer visits him at home.

He leaves his shoes on the little flight of steps and collapses on one of the ottomans. A woman’s voice from behind a curtain at the end of the hall asks, “Can I bring you something to eat?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Perhaps a little water?”

“If it’s cold, I won’t say no.”

Tinkling sounds come from the next room; then the curtain is drawn aside, revealing a woman beautiful as the dawn. She places a small carafe in front of Mohsen and sits down on the other ottoman, facing him. Mohsen smiles. He always smiles when his wife shows herself to him. She is sublime, her freshness never fades. Despite the rigors of her daily life, despite her mourning for her city, which has been turned over to the obsessions and follies of men, not a single wrinkle marks Zunaira’s face. It’s true that her cheeks have lost their former translucence and the sound of her laughter is seldom heard, but her enormous eyes, as brilliant as emeralds, have kept their magic intact.