Andrea Busfield - Born Under a Million Shadows

As I groaned under the weight of kebab lying in my stomach, James leaned over and moved his hands toward my trousers.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked, not too full to be shocked.

“Loosening your belt to help you breathe better.”

I looked at James in disbelief. “I don’t think so, James,” I said as I tugged the top of my trousers out of his hands.

Honestly, foreigners had no sense of shame, not even at a wedding.

Of course, it was my own fault, because I hadn’t stopped eating from the moment I sat down at my mother’s table until the moment I left her to collapse next to James in the men’s room. As was only proper, the men and the women were separated at the party. Only my mother and Shir Ahmad got to sit together, in a little room set aside for them where they could greet the family guests who came in to see them.

Although the party wasn’t huge and there was no music or dancing because it was a second wedding for both my mother and Shir Ahmad, she still looked amazingly beautiful in her pretty pink dress with her hair fixed in curls under her matching scarf. Her eyes were huge, painted in pink and black with sparkles around the edges and giant-size eyelashes that a woman had glued to her face back at our house.

As I was her son, I could tell my mother was really happy, even though she didn’t smile much because that was only proper too. In Afghanistan, when a girl gets married she has to look unhappy at her wedding. Her sadness shows everyone how much she loves and respects the family she is leaving. Of course, in some cases it’s also real because the girl is terrified of the family she is about to join. But real or not, an unhappy bride is a good bride, and if on the wedding day she can squeeze the tears out from her eyes, that makes her even better. Of course, in my mother’s case the tradition seemed a little backward given that she had left my grandparents a long time ago, and they were both dead anyway. But the fact that she still followed the rules marked her out as a “good woman.” A “good woman” marrying a “good man”—that’s what everyone kept saying. And I think they were right, because Shir Ahmad had loved my mother for ages and he had changed his life so he could marry her, bettering himself at computer school and fixing up his home to make it ready for her even before he asked her to be his wife.

Yes, he was a good man, and I was pleased. He looked very handsome at the wedding banquet in his white suit and white shoes, and when he served my mother’s food to her, to show his respect, all the other women watched with smiles on their faces and nods of approval.

As well as me, my aunt, and Jamilla, Georgie and May sat in the marriage room, along with May’s woman-husband Geri. Out of all the Afghans at the wedding, only my mother and I knew of the baby hiding in May’s stomach, and before we left the house my mother begged the foreigners not to talk about it in public. If that news had got out, all of us might have been stoned to death, which wouldn’t have been a very good ending to my mother’s special day.

Despite having lived in the same compound as my mother for the best part of a year, James wasn’t allowed into the marriage room because he wasn’t a relative, and because he was a man. When I joined him he was sitting with Ismerai, Pir Hederi, and some friends of Shir Ahmad’s, looking lost because there was no one there to translate for him. Even though he had lived in Afghanistan for more than two years, James’s Dari hadn’t improved much from the few phrases he had learned when he first arrived, such as “Hello,” “How are you?” “Where’s the toilet?” and “Take me to your leader.” Mainly he got by with his hands flying wildly and the pocket dictionary he carried around with him.

I could only imagine how long it must have taken him to mess with Pir Hederi’s head over the business of the sandwiches.

When I began to feel a little better—without the need to run around the restaurant half naked—Ismerai asked me to go and fetch Shir Ahmad and bring him to the men’s room. He had a gift for him, apparently. I did as I was told because Ismerai was an elder. I was also excited to see what the present would be. Georgie had already given my mother a mobile telephone so she could call Mina whenever she wanted to, which I thought was pretty damn brilliant of her. But I could hardly imagine what Ismerai and Haji Khan were bringing to the table.

Shir Ahmad muttered his apologies to the women for having to leave them, but I could tell he was secretly pleased because I think they were starting to do his head in. Slowly, I led him to where Ismerai was waiting. It took quite a bit of time because of all the handshaking he had to do on the way.

Once in the men’s room, Ismerai asked Shir Ahmad to sit down and presented him with a white envelope. “From Haji Sahib Khan,” he said. “He apologizes for not being here in person to celebrate your wedding with you, but he had to return to Shinwar to attend to some urgent business.”

Shir Ahmad accepted Ismerai’s words with some kind ones of his own and opened the envelope. Inside were about four or five pieces of official-looking paper.

My new father looked at Ismerai, confused. I looked at Ismerai, disappointed. I was expecting to see money.

“It’s a contract,” Ismerai explained.

“Oh, a contract,” we all said, continuing to stare at Ismerai.

Laughing, the old man took the papers off Shir Ahmad and slowly explained what they all meant. It turned out that Shir Ahmad and Haji Khan were now in business together—the joint owners of Kabul’s latest Internet café.

AFTER THE WEDDING party, my mother left with her husband to get our new house ready for the start of our new life, and the rest of us returned to Wazir Akbar Khan.

Back at the house, Georgie, James, and May opened a bottle of wine because apparently they were all “in need of a drink,” and one by one they tried to convince me to move into James’s room for the week.

“It won’t be so lonely for you,” explained Georgie, coming in from the kitchen carrying my tea.

“Your mother would want you to sleep there,” May tried.

“It will be fun!” cried James.

But I was having none of it. I wasn’t a child anymore, and my mother had only gone to another house; it wasn’t as if she’d nearly died or anything—not like the last time she’d left me alone with the foreigners. And besides, my mother had a TV in her room, and I was moving in there.

After getting a little cross with my friends and all their nagging, I picked up my kettle of tea and left them to their wine so I could settle myself in my mother’s room and finally get some peace. And as I arranged the cushions for the best view of the television, I felt pretty grown up about it.

“This is the life,” I said to myself, sipping at my drink and stretching out on my mother’s bed.

I plumped up the pillow and relaxed for the film that was about to begin.

Eight hours later I was woken by the sound of Georgie calling me to breakfast. The television was silent because the electricity had gone off, and as my head caught up with my surroundings I realized I’d fallen asleep before I’d watched even five minutes of the movie, which annoyed me slightly because it seemed such a waste of my new freedom.

I climbed out of bed, washed myself, changed my clothes, and went into the big house for breakfast. Only Georgie was there, as May had already left for her office and James wouldn’t come out of his room for another three hours at least.