Andrea Busfield - Born Under a Million Shadows

Spandi was sitting on the steps of his block, fiddling with a mobile phone he had recently bought. It played a Bollywood love song when it rang, it had a camera fixed into it, and it was pretty impressive, but he put it down when I burst into his sight gulping for breath with tears covering my face.

“You beat up Haji Khan, and you’ve still got your legs?”

“Looks like it…”

Spandi let out a soft whistle between his teeth.

“Ho, that’s crazy. Why did you do it?”

“Because he…” As I began to explain, the picture of what I was about to say came running into my head: Georgie on her bed, the baby dead on her skirt, the promises that lay broken all around her, and I knew I couldn’t betray her, not even to Spandi, who knew at least half the story. “Because he was joking with someone,” I stated finally, knowing how stupid it sounded even as I said it.

“Shit,” replied my friend. “It must have been a hell of a bad joke.”

“Yeah, it was,” I admitted.

For the next three hours Spandi and I talked about the possibility of me being a dead man walking and whether my attack on his boss would be bad for Spandi’s business. We both agreed, with black hearts, that I should look for somewhere new to live and Spandi should find another job.

“There are some empty flats around here that we could hide you in, and I can bring you food once or twice a day while I look for something more permanent,” Spandi suggested, warming to the idea after his initial shock and despair at the thought of having to find a new can of herbs. “You’ll need a gun as well.”

“I don’t know how to use a gun,” I said, frightened but excited by the thought.

“How hard can it be? We’re Afghans; it probably comes more naturally than riding a bike.”

“My bike!” I shouted, suddenly remembering I’d left it with its wheels spinning somewhere in Wazir as I launched my attack. “I forgot it when I ran off.”

“Damn shame,” Spandi sympathized, patting me on the shoulder. “That was a fine bike.”

“Maybe I should go back and look for it.”

Spandi shrugged. “You’ll need wheels,” he admitted. “I should also say good-bye to my mother,” I added, thinking of her for the first time since I’d punched Haji Khan in public and imagining her sadness as the last of her children left her.

“Haji Khan might be watching the house,” Spandi warned. “Maybe you should wait until it is dark… and we’ve got you a gun.”

“And how long will that take?”

“I don’t know,” Spandi admitted. “I’ve never tried to get a gun before.”

“No, I’ll have to risk it,” I decided, getting to my feet, my mother’s face now the only picture in my mind.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Spandi asked, which I thought was kind of him.

“No,” I told him after thinking about it a short while. “I’ll move faster alone. Besides, Haji Khan might be looking for you too because you’re a friend of mine.”

“Shit! I never thought of that.” Spandi got to his feet. “Do you think I should hide too?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “It might be a good idea.”

It was practically dark when I made my way back to Wazir Akbar Khan. Now that I was alone, my bravery had disappeared, so I walked home frightened to the point of one hundred percent scared—ducking into the shadows every time a Land Cruiser came into view, thinking one of them might belong to Haji Khan and imagining it pulling up close to me with its window rolled down so that someone could shoot me in the head.

As I turned the corner into our street, the fear that had been itching at the surface of my skin took on the life of a giant when I saw his three Land Cruisers parked outside the house.

I immediately spun on my feet to run away from the ambush and certain death—and straight into the legs of Ismerai.

“Whay!” he grunted, grabbing me by the shoulders.

“Get off me! Get off me!” I shouted, fighting at the massive hands now trying to hold me. “Help! He’s going to murder me!” I screamed, and a handful of people stopped what they were doing to watch Ismerai carry out his crime.

“Don’t be stupid!” Ismerai barked in my ear. “Nobody’s trying to murder you!”

“Yeah, not while everyone’s looking you’re not! Help! Murderer!”

Ismerai shook my body roughly, making my eyes bounce sorely in my head and bringing me to a stop.

“Listen to me! Listen to me, now!” he ordered. “We were worried about you, Fawad. All of us were, and that includes Haji Khan. He sent me to Pir Hederi’s shop to look for you.”

“Yeah, to find me and kill me!” I interrupted, though with less strength than before as Ismerai’s words began to walk around my brain, looking for a place to stay.

“Not to kill you, to bring you home. That’s all, Fawad. We just want you home.”

I stopped struggling and looked hard into Ismerai’s eyes. They didn’t look like the eyes of a killer. They looked like the eyes of a man who liked to tell jokes and smoke hashish.

“Honestly, son. Nobody is angry with you. We’re worried, that’s all. It’s been a shock for all of us.”

I looked at him again, searching his face for any signs of a trap. “Okay,” I said finally, deciding he was probably telling the truth. Still, a boy can’t be too careful, and as he took me by the hand I turned to the people still hanging around us and shouted, “If I’m dead tomorrow, he did it!”

“For the love of God,” Ismerai hissed, pulling me away.

And I let him drag me home.

As we walked past the guards, one of whom saluted as I approached, and through the gate of the house, the first thing I saw was my bike leaning against the wall. Haji Khan must have brought it with him after I ran away from Wazir.

The second thing I saw was the worried face of my mother.

Ismerai let her hug me and whisper a few words that melted together in a dozen ways to say “Don’t worry, son.” He then asked her to bring us some tea and led me away into the garden.

There was no sign of Haji Khan, but as his uncle was here as well as his army of guards, I guessed he must be upstairs with Georgie, no doubt planting more false promises into her already broken head.

Inviting me to sit first, Ismerai settled into the seat opposite me and lit up one of his cigarettes. His face looked sadder and older than I remembered, his eyes becoming slowly pinched by time and heavy lines.

“He does love her, Fawad.”

Ismerai looked at me as he spoke, but I said nothing because I didn’t believe him.

“I know you probably don’t believe me right now,” he continued, “but it’s true. I’ve known Haji Khan for most of my life. We played as children, we fought as men, and we’ve both known and understood love.”

“Then why does he never phone her, Ismerai?” I could hear the sound of tears breaking in my voice as worry, and relief at not being killed, tugged at the bottom of my throat. “Why does he make her so unhappy that her baby died and she can’t eat anymore? Why?”

Ismerai sighed, releasing the smoke from between his lips, as my mother arrived with the tea. After saying his thanks, he waited for her to walk away before answering. “You know our culture, son. This is not the West, where men and women live their lives as one person. We live in a society of men, where the women wait indoors and look after the family. The men aren’t used to answering to women, and they’re certainly not used to checking in with them either. And though Haji is a freethinker and he knows the ways of the West, he is still an Afghan man. And he is too old to change that part of him now, even if he wanted to, even for a woman like Georgie. And even though Georgie is like a member of our family and she knows our ways as good as anyone, she is still a foreigner and her heart and her expectations remain from her own country.”