Uzma Khan - Thinner Than Skin

Outside the teahouse, in the distance, Ghafoor could now barely see the statue of Babar on his horse. What he would give to call the horse to himself at that moment. Or call his wife. He could ride away with her. They could play kyz kuu.

“You say nothing, my friend? You must know that wherever men like us go, we are treated the same. Uyghur businessmen, Kazakh cattle-breeders, Gujjar buffalo herders. The same. Your in-laws do not speak of it? All the men who have passed through their land, as though they had the right? Taking anything they please. Giving nothing in return. Taking, even, their women.”

The Uzbek was laughing. “Enough! The day is closing and the stars begin to call!” He picked up the rugs and tossed too few bills on the table. Then he left.

“You will help us,” the Uyghur patted Ghafoor on the back. It was not a question.

The next day, Ghafoor was sent a message. That something he was looking for, which must be rare, very rare, that surprise that no one had ever thought to give — how had he put it? Yes, the most beautiful and the most short-lived — it would be waiting for him next week, in Gilgit, in northern Pakistan.

Before leaving Andijan, he caught sight of something twinkling just behind the ghostly statue of Babar’s horse. It was even brighter than moonlight, and so he must follow it, a silvery cape of gauze draped around the shoulders of a woman in a gaily colored skirt. She had wide hips that pulled him to that portion of Babar Theater that still lay charred from the riots two months ago. Someone had started the fire before the army began firing on the protesters, but no one knew who, or why. The theater was black and crumbling and doves did not walk, nestle, or wait here, nor did hawks draw somersaults in the endless hemisphere of the sky. Here, there was no sky. Only broken walls and tattered curtains and cigarette stubs. She was older than he had thought and missing teeth. Why had he followed her at all? Perhaps to find himself getting better at getting naked faster than the ashes beneath them could turn to dust.

He held the box in his hands. Two flowers, still fresh. As fresh as the memory of those who had brought them. “They are what you wanted. Rare, radiant, sweet. And they will last only as long as you do.” This was said by the man without toes but with all his fingers. He was the brother of the man who had been executed four years ago because Pakistan had given him away. The man without toes and without a few fingers was the brother of the girl Ghafoor had dishonored.

The box fit exactly in Ghafoor’s hand, from wrist to middle finger. It was two-tiered, divided by a wooden plank. The flowers lay on top, on a white satin cushion. From beneath the plank escaped streams of packing material, but he was told not to look further. He was only to carry it. There would be other deliveries — the two men exchanged looks — after which, he must come back here, with news for them.

Ghafoor paused. They were not alone in the café. The Pakistanis milling around were mostly Shia, but even the Sunnis made him cringe. All of them spoke the word Gujjar with disdain. There were Kashmiris here, too, some with wretched stories of Indian prisons. The Kashmiris seldom insulted him. Outside, military convoys patrolled the muddy roads. He thought briefly that if the men with the box gave him trouble, perhaps in another country, the men in uniform might help. Then he remembered the military parade in Kashgar and the Uzbek army’s massacre of civilians in Andijan, and he decided he had nowhere to run.

He could hear a Turkic tongue being spoken several tables away. He caught the word cehennem . Hell. Jahannum in Urdu. And in Gujri? What did it matter, since it was barely his language anymore? No Soviet worth his salt would do business in Ghafoor’s native tongue. But then, who would?

The men had ordered food and the food now arrived, plates of mutton korma spiced the way he had been craving just a week ago, pilau piled high with peas — smaller peas than in the steppe but so much more flavorful — and kebabs skewered not on bicycle spokes but on skewers . The newspaper wrapped around the naan was in a script that was strangely familiar. Cyrillic. His wife could read it and had tried to teach him how, but he had failed as surely as at kyz kuu. He had not expected to see Cyrillic in Pakistan. But nothing surprised him now. What was it the Uyghur in Andijan had said?

Herders have a very different fate. We may wear better clothes than those who still spend their lives looking for a field that welcomes them, but we will never stop wandering .

Why was every mountain town the loneliest place in the world? Everyone here was scarred. Everyone here was in flight. Everyone was a passing flower in a dangerous box.

The men complimented the food, while insisting their kebabs tasted better. They attempted a joke. “What was the first thing Neil Armstrong saw when he landed on the moon?”

Not this again, thought Ghafoor.

“Two Uyghurs trying to sell him grilled kebabs!”

It was not even funny, this joke they repeated as often as their prayers.

In a moment of defiance he pushed the box toward them. “I must know what it is before I agree to carry it.”

The men refused.

“Then my answer is no.”

“We know you have done much worse. And that you have unfinished business.”

Was he about to trade his life for two flowers?

“And you must know we can also do worse,” they added.

What? Without hands and feet? Ghafoor was about to blurt, but then he paused.

The man without right finger or thumb was scooping food perfectly into his lips, without even trickling grease over those palms of soft brown leather. Watching those hands, Ghafoor was suddenly visited by a memory that had never visited him before. How could it have lived inside him all this time?

It was a memory of Maryam’s brother, Adil, whose true friend he had once been. The two boys were at the edge of Lake Saiful Maluk, talking about Maryam without really talking about her. Ghafoor was frightened of losing his friend by admitting he had been pursuing her with music and honey. So they talked about music without talking about honey. Her brother played his drum, Ghafoor played his flute, and while they paid attention only to each other, Maryam had arrived, cautiously, standing shyly behind a tree. A butterfly flit between all three of them, a yellow swallowtail with a shimmer of purple spots at the edge of two serrated wings. Maryam followed it with her eyes the entire time the boys played music. When it landed on her shoulder, she laughed, stroking it gently with her thumb. Her brother stopped playing and told her to leave. She did. The butterfly flew away. Ghafoor put away his flute and began to walk down the hill toward his cluster of tents. He did not want it to show, but he had not liked the way Adil had told her to leave. He was descending the hill when her brother caught up with him at a run, cupping something in his hands. The two boys faced each other. Adil opened his hands very slightly and Ghafoor leaned forward to find the butterfly pulsing inside. He reflexively extended his own hands. Then he began to feel the wings beat against his own flesh. For the longest time the two boys stood there, the hands of the brother in the hands of the friend, the hands of the friend in the hands of the brother, and there had been a silent agreement between them: her brother was passing her to him.

And what had he done instead?

The flowers in the box were the exact yellow shade of the butterfly, with the exact wingspan, and exact sheen. The man with the leather palms shut the lid of the box, and closed a half-fist around it. He extended both palms toward Ghafoor and Ghafoor cupped them in his.