Andrea Busfield - Born Under a Million Shadows

And I would have done it too if Dr. Hugo hadn’t beaten me to her.

After a delicious meal of Kabuli pilau , cooked by the expert fingers of my mother, I was heading to the garden, where I knew Georgie sat reading a book in the fading sun, when the doorbell rang and the gate opened to let in the doctor.

Even before I knew Haji Khan was making a proper fight for Georgie, I was having trouble being in Dr. Hugo’s company because he was so nice, and it was obvious that he liked Georgie a lot because his eyes hardly ever left her face when they were together. But “nice” and “like” weren’t that much competition for an Afghan man in love, and I guessed the only thing stopping Haji Khan and Georgie getting back together was Georgie. And even though Haji Khan’s ways had killed Georgie’s baby, we had just found out that he recently saved a whole family, which, if you looked at it like a game of buzkashi , gave him a few more goals than the other team.

So, unable to face Dr. Hugo without my eyes giving away the fact that I thought he had lost the war, I shrank into the shadow of the wall just as his messy head of hair appeared in the yard. Hugging its edges, I crept around the house to the “secret passageway” at the back that led to the garden. There I took up my position, as I’d done so many times before, sitting down on my heels to peep through the rosebushes that once again were bringing their brilliant colors to the world.

As Dr. Hugo walked over to Georgie, she put down her book and smiled, lifting her head to offer him her cheek rather than her lips. Dr. Hugo hesitated, but took it.

“Thanks for coming,” I heard Georgie say.

“Thanks for coming? That sounds very formal,” replied Dr. Hugo, trying to laugh.

“Yes, sorry, I… it’s just that…” She sighed. “I think we need to talk.”

“Okay, now this sounds not only formal but serious.”

“Yes, it is. At least I think it is; maybe you will think differently. I don’t know. I’m not sure how you might feel about it, to be honest with you.”

“Well, why don’t you try me?” Dr. Hugo replied, and I could hear a tightness stretching his voice.

The doctor took a seat and moved it so it was directly opposite Georgie, rather than at her side. It made them look as though they were at a job interview. As I sat there spying on Dr. Hugo’s embarrassment, I felt a bit sorry for him, although I was pleased he was moving things along because Georgie was starting to lose her thoughts in her apologies and I was dying to hear the good stuff.

“Okay, now, Hugo, please let me finish before you say anything.”

“Okay.”

“Good.” Georgie sighed again and sat forward in her chair, pulling the patu around her even though the weather was warm and she couldn’t have been in the slightest bit cold.

I noticed it was the gray patu Haji Khan had given her.

“Well,” she began, “when Fawad’s friend Spandi died we went to the funeral in Khair Khana, as you know, and I saw Khalid there. It was the first time since the miscarriage, and, as you might expect, coupled with the occasion, it was quite an emotional moment. We didn’t speak at the funeral, it wouldn’t have been right, but he turned up at the house a little later and I spoke to him outside in his car. He was distraught, Hugo. If you could have seen him, it would have broken your heart. It was as if—”

“Fawad!”

My mother’s voice rang out like the crack of a bullet in the graying sky, and I slammed myself flat against the ground.

“Fawad!” she shouted again. “Fawad!”

Cursing my bad luck, I crawled farther into the shadow until I was clear and could get to my feet and walk around to the yard without being seen coming from the garden.

“Oh, there you are,” she said when I emerged. “Come, I need to speak to you.”

I wasn’t very happy about it, but I followed my mother into her room. It was clean and tidy, and the television stood silent for a change. I also thought she looked unusually nervous, as if she had done something wrong, which was normally my job in our life together.

“What’s happened?” I asked.

“What do you mean ‘what’s happened?’ ” she asked back, seating herself on a cushion and holding out her arms for me to join her.

“You look… weird,” I said.

“Ho, that’s a nice thing to say to your mother, isn’t it?”

“It’s the truth,” I protested.

“Well, I suppose that’s okay then.”

She laughed, and I noticed how pretty her eyes were looking that night, like beautiful green lights.

“Okay, Fawad.” My mother leaned forward and took both my hands in her own. “I need to speak to you about something, and if you don’t like what you hear, then you just tell me and I promise I won’t mention it again. Not ever.”

“Okay,” I said, feeling a coldness creep into my insides—the same coldness that must have crept into Georgie when she was about to tell Dr. Hugo that Haji Khan wanted to make her his wife, causing her to hold on tighter to her patu .

“Wait a minute,” I added, an idea suddenly turning the shiver in my heart into something much nicer and warmer, “are you going to get married?”

“What? How…”

My mother pulled away, clearly shocked, and I felt immediately terrible for saying something she found so ugly to hear.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I was just thinking out loud.”

“No, don’t be sorry, Fawad. I’m… I’m just surprised you asked, that’s all, because it’s sort of what I want to talk to you about.”

She paused.

I paused.

In the silence, our eyes held, and I felt how strong our love for each other was.

“Shir Ahmad has asked me to marry him,” she finally said, “and I want to know what you think about the idea and about him becoming your father. If you say no, that’s it, son. We’ll never discuss it again, and I won’t think any less of you. But you have to know he is a good man, Fawad, and I think he can offer us a real future. It’s a chance for us to live some kind of normal life, as a family, as an Afghan family, not a crazy mix of Afghan and foreign. I want to be settled. More important, I want you to be settled. But you are my son, and this marriage can only ever go ahead with your permission.”

When my mother stopped talking, I felt the trembling in her fingers and I let go of them to get to my feet. Slowly, I walked over to the window, where I stood looking out for a time, shaking my head and rubbing at my eyes as if a great pain had suddenly invaded my body. I then sighed, loud and hard, and turned back to look at my mother.

Her face had turned downward, and she was staring at the floor.

“It’s okay, Fawad,” she whispered, “don’t worry. I’ll tell Shir Ahmad—”

“Yes, Mother! Tell him yes!” I shouted, jumping over to her and grabbing her around the neck to plant a thousand sweet kisses on her face. “It’s about time!” I added, laughing hard because my mother had grabbed me by the waist and was tickling my stomach in punishment.

I’D NEVER HAD many secrets in my life, mainly because people don’t trust children with things that are important, so most of the time I just made them up. But now that I actually had a head full of the damn things, they didn’t seem half as much fun as they should have been. After thinking about it in bed, right up to the point when my eyes gave up and closed for the night, I decided the main problem with having a secret is that you’re not allowed to tell anyone about it. And when you can’t tell anyone about it, well, what’s the point in even having it?