Andrea Busfield - Born Under a Million Shadows

After a few seconds’ pause, during which a crease appeared in the middle of her eyebrows as if she was thinking hard, she added, “It’s like when a man, or a woman, says they love you. How can you be sure they aren’t just saying the words and they really mean it? Well, you look into their eyes. I mean really look, look hard, and you will feel it in your heart if they are telling you the truth. I love Khalid. He wouldn’t lie to me. Now”—Georgie breathed a small laugh that sounded empty, like the sound of trying—“he may not be the best boyfriend in the world—he disappears on a whim, and sometimes he doesn’t call me for weeks, and no matter how hard I try to find him I can’t—but even so, I still know he loves me, and in the same way that I know that, I know he isn’t involved in poppies. There, does that set your mind at rest?”

Not really, I thought, but I nodded my head anyway. And inside I felt my heart hurt. I hadn’t heard Georgie’s excited chatter for several days now. She looked tired, the light had dimmed in her eyes, and I guessed Haji Khan had disappeared on something called “a whim” again, without bothering to call.

It probably wasn’t the right time to ask if he’d left on account of his drug business.

Maybe Georgie was right and Haji Khan wasn’t smuggling drugs out of the country, but she was also a woman in love and she couldn’t be relied on to think straight. “Love makes fools of all of us,” Shir Ahmad once said as we watched my mother scamper across the street to visit Homeira. Considering love was also blind, I wondered why anyone would bother wasting so much energy chasing it. However, it was facts I needed right now, not poetry.

My first thought was to talk to James as he was a journalist and was bound to know who was doing what in the country, but my English, which was getting pretty good, wasn’t strong enough to deal with the subject, and James’s Dari had barely progressed beyond “salaam aleykum.” I didn’t feel I could talk to May, because we hadn’t really become friends and I got the impression that as well as not liking men she didn’t like boys much either—maybe because one day, if Allah willed it, we would grow up to become men. And Pir Hederi, although blind, was maybe not as wise as a blind man ought to be. I guessed that he colored his stories to make up for the darkness he lived in.

I decided to speak to Spandi. After all, he was the one who first suggested Haji Khan was a drug lord, and he must have got his information from somewhere. So, for the first time in over four months I left Wazir Akbar Khan and crossed the city to return to Chicken Street.

There is something quite wonderful about Chicken Street, but I’m not sure what it is. I’ve never been able to put my finger on it. Perhaps it’s the noise and confusion of the place that breathe life into me—the playful demands of shopkeepers battling for attention over the irritated beeps of drivers; the mass of people that clog the road along with the cars and pushcarts; the explosions of anger as vehicles ignore the one-way system; the chatter of kids terrorizing the tourists; the smell of kebabs wafting in from Cinema Park—or simply the great, glorious mess of it all that makes this small corner of Kabul come alive like a massive wriggling beast.

If Parliament is the brains of the capital—God help us—then Chicken Street is its heart.

However, there’s one thing that’s even better than Chicken Street, and that’s Chicken Street during the run-up to Christmas, the time when the foreigners celebrate the birthday of their prophet, Jesus. For three weeks something almost holy comes over the place. Money exchanges hands more freely; beggars get their share of crumpled afs before they even have time to mention their sick, dying baby; shops glow bright in the early darkness; bags of shopping hang in the arms of people thinking about their families; angry outbursts are quickly softened by happy smiles; and laughter bounces from pavements and doorways as the swarm hides from sudden snowstorms or tries to pick its way across the deep lines of rubbish on either side of the road. This is Chicken Street at its most heavenly, and it felt good to be back. It was like coming home.

“Fawad!”

Jamilla came running up to me, grabbing me in a huge embrace that in a few years’ time she would no longer be able to do without ending up in the prison for wayward girls. Her face was pinched red by the cold, and her eyes shone bright.

“Where have you been? We’ve missed you!”

“I’ve missed you too,” I shouted back over the clash of noises filling the air, a racket of shouting, beeping, and growling generators.

And it was true, I had missed her. Okay, my thoughts had been kept busy with the events of my new life and the unexpected problems that came with it, but a true Afghan never forgets his past. That’s what makes us so good at holding grudges.

“I’ve so much to tell you, Jamilla!”

“I know some of it.” She smiled. “Spandi has been keeping me informed. Apparently you work for a blind man now; that’s why you have deserted us!”

“I haven’t deserted you,” I protested, “I’ve just been busy!”

“I know, Fawad, relax, I’m just joking with you. I’m happy for you, really I am.”

Jamilla took my hand and weaved me through the legs of the adults, taking me to the archway leading to a small shopping court where we used to gather to swap stories, information, and scraps of food.

“Fawad, you dirty little bastard!”

As we ducked into the alcove, Jahid rose from a crouch and came over to embrace me.

“I’ve got a television!” I told him.

“Fuck off, you liar!”

“No, it’s true! And there’s a girl in my house with breasts as big as the dome on top of Abdul Rahman Mosque!”

“No way!” he screamed, slapping his forehead. “There’s no justice in this world. Here I am, fully equipped to show the ladies a good time, and Allah in all his wisdom brings the best tits in the city to a fucking homosexual like you!”

Jahid punched me in the arm, but it was a playful punch and so we wrestled for a bit, falling into the display of scarves coloring the walls around us as we did so and earning us a not-so-playful slap around the head from the seller.

It felt fantastic to be back, tasting the fun and the violence of the street. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it and everyone in it—even Jahid.

As we moved farther into the courtyard, away from the scarf seller, to sit on dirty steps leading to a closed trinket shop, Jahid told me that his mother seemed depressed now that we’d gone and she no longer had anyone to shout with. He also revealed he would be getting out of Chicken Street soon: his father had called in a favor from someone who owed him one, and they’d found Jahid a job in the municipality offices, on account of his reading and writing. They were going to train him to do something useful, they said—once he’d mastered the art of tea making.

“It’s a good job,” he declared, sitting up straighter than I remembered him doing before. “It’s a good opportunity for me.”

“I know,” I told him, genuinely pleased. “Congratulations, Jahid. I really mean it.”

“Yeah.” Jahid nodded. “Yeah, thanks.” And he punched me on the arm again.

Unfortunately, Jamilla hadn’t done so well since I’d been gone. I noticed an old bruise under her left eye, and she told me that one of the beggar women had elbowed her in the face during the usual crushes to get to a foreigner’s wallet.

“It’s starting to change here,” she said. “It’s like the mafia now. You have to be part of their family, or you’re done for. I’m only here today because it’s Christmastime and there’s enough for everyone—and because Jahid and Spandi are here.”