by Saima Mir
The cars stopped by the waiting Jirga. Their Khan would have to face his Lord alone but they would go as far as possible on the journey with him.
Michael helped Jia out of the car. She was the only woman in attendance. Muslim men buried their dead, because women were considered too emotional to witness the event. Coming from a race that was hot-headed, whose men were known for holding grudges, and being rash in their actions, the irony of this was not lost on Jia.
Still not strong enough to walk far unassisted, Benyamin was helped to his place by Bazigh Khan. He stood beside his sister as their cousins carried the coffin to its final resting place. Jia reached out to take his hand. Akbar Khan had been the shoulder that others looked to lean upon; today he was on the shoulders of others, and even his son could not help him.
The siblings watched silently as the coffin was lowered into the ground, each outwardly controlled, each aware that they would be leaving their father alone in that pit. Neither had feared for him until this moment. They hadn’t yet found an opportunity to speak properly about the events that had brought them to this point. Standing in a sea of men, still aching from his injuries, Benyamin felt awkward holding his sister’s hand, leaning on a woman for help. He let go of her, and she barely seemed to notice.
One by one, the members of the Jirga stepped forward, deepening Jia’s sense of loss with each handful of soil cast into the grave. Distanced from the hearts and hearths of Pukhtuns for years, the warmth of their love was evident to her now. It enveloped her. Unable to weep, she stared at the ground, and emotions she had long since buried began to rise. The umbrellas did little to stop the rain, and her white kurta and shawl soaked through, clinging to her body. Cold and shivering, she was acutely aware of her every move; every inch of her felt pain, from her skin through to her bone. Mourners filed past, paying their respects, their feet splashing mud from the water-soaked ground, leaving dark stains across her shawl and kameez and her soul, stains that would never be cleansed.
CHAPTER 28
The men stepped back and raised their hands in prayer one last time. The sounds of crying and muffled Arabic seemed to get louder before the imam finally called out: ‘Ameen!’
Jia passed her hands over her face and opened her eyes. The rain made it difficult to see clearly but she knew she was being watched. The boy’s features were familiar, and as he began walking towards her she knew the time for reckoning was here.
‘Ahad, my name is Ahad,’ he said, holding out his broad, olive-skinned hand.
‘I know,’ she whispered as she took it in hers. The last time she had held it, it had fitted snugly in her own palm; now it was large enough to envelope hers.
‘Why didn’t you come and see me?’ the boy asked. They had moved away from the graveside and were standing under a tree, waiting for Elyas. He had left them alone under the pretence of bringing the car closer. The burial was done and the mourners were returning to Pukhtun House.
It was Jia who had asked Elyas to bring Ahad to the funeral and now she wondered why she’d done it. The timing was not perfect, but then when would it ever be? At least the rain had stopped now.
‘I thought you were dead,’ she said. Her voice was empty, her glance anywhere but on her son, as though an anvil had fallen inside her, pushing all feeling deep into the ground.
She felt Ahad’s eyes examining her, hoping, no doubt, for some shred of understanding, remorse, something, anything. He must have wondered why she wouldn’t look at him. She couldn’t; he reminded her too much of her brother. His eyes, the shape of his brow, his expressions: it was a face that conjured up Zan Khan. Ahad had inherited none of his father except his name and his need to ask questions.
‘How could you not know I was alive?’ he said. ‘How does that even happen?’
‘I just didn’t,’ she said. The truth was that simple and that complicated. She wanted to hold him, to soak in his smell, the way one does with a baby, but he was no longer a baby. He was almost a man, with the beginnings of facial hair, and deep-set eyes filled with troubling questions.
Ahad fell silent. He had waited so long for this moment, and here she was, his mother, as cold as the body she had buried. ‘How does that even happen?’ he said again, more to himself than to her.
He hadn’t known his mother was missing from his life until he was four years old. It was only when he noticed his friends’ mums collecting them from school that he realised he should have had a mother too. Wide-eyed and ice-cream-covered, he’d asked his father, ‘Where’s my mummy?’ Elyas’s answer was to pack up their things and move closer to his parents, hoping that his own mother’s presence would make things easier. But the questions kept on coming and became more and more persistent. Elyas muddled through fatherhood, telling Ahad fantastical stories of his mother, in which she was a princess held captive by pirates or by a witch’s spell, but one day they would rescue her and bring her home.
The magic soon wore thin, partly because the lies began to grate on Elyas himself, and in the end he had to promise to explain Jia’s absence when the time was right. The letter from Akbar Khan had been that time. Elyas had told Ahad a little of the night Akbar Khan had arrived at his doorstep with a tiny bundle wrapped in a pale blue blanket. But not everything. So much of it was still a mystery to Elyas himself.
Akbar Khan had handed his grandson over to him. ‘Name him Ahad,’ he had said. ‘And do not let my family, especially my daughter, know he is alive. He is of your bloodline, and by bringing him to you I am absolved of responsibility.’
Akbar Khan’s face was lined; he had lost much sleep over his decision, but Elyas found it hard to have any sympathy for him. He was, after all, responsible for the demise of his marriage and the loss of so much more.
With Zan’s death, something inside Jia had died too. Without word or warning, she cut off all contact with Elyas. He had called her every day, written her lengthy emails, sent her letters and texts, but she had not replied. Left without explanations and only assumptions as to what he had done to deserve such treatment, Elyas arrived at Pukhtun House but was turned away by security. He waited at the gates until darkness fell. No one came to ask after him, not even Sanam Khan, who had always been kind to him. The police were called and he’d spent the night in a cell, accused of harassment. Nothing had come of it except an official letter requesting the dissolution of the marriage. Elyas had ignored it, putting it to one side, thinking that she would reconsider. And then one day his father-in-law had arrived with a child he said was his.
Still standing in the hallway, dressed in his pyjamas, Elyas had been bewildered by what was unfolding. He looked down at the swollen but tiny baby, sucking hard on its tiny fist. He’d read somewhere that newborns resembled their fathers to give them a greater chance of surviving. It was evolution’s way of confirming paternity. And sure enough, when the baby looked back at him, his warm brown eyes wide and accepting, Elyas saw his own features reflected back. He stared up at Akbar Khan for guidance, but the crime lord and kingpin, looking almost comical clutching a feeding bottle, with a baby bag swung over his shoulder and a burp cloth in his other hand, was in a hurry. The surreal situation in which he found himself meant questions were left unasked and unanswered.
Now, so many years later, waiting in a cemetery, having buried the man who created this situation, Jia was having to answer questions about her part in what played out that night. She thought back to the day her father had told her that Ahad was still alive.
He’d arrived one summer’s evening last year, almost unannounced. It was late on a Friday. The last appointment. Her PA had brought him to her office, grinning, thinking she’d pulled off a raise-worthy stunt. Jia had thanked her firmly and asked her to close the door behind her.
‘It’s not her fault,’ he’d said. ‘I told her it was a surprise family reunion. You don’t come to me, and I was here on business anyway, so I asked her to list the appointment under a pseudonym.’
Jia moved to take his cane, g
esturing for him to sit, his smell reawakening her childhood. He looked older, his brows slightly unruly and greyer than she remembered. In another life she would have leaned over and tidied them up, then given him a kiss on his head. His lion-headed walking stick, which had always been about style and not assistance, was now necessary. ‘It’s about your son,’ he’d said.
She’d sat back in her chair. ‘I don’t have a son.’
‘Jia jaan.’ His voice was gentle, reminding her of all the times throughout her girlhood when she’d played him for toys and books and money and he’d let her. She felt herself filling up with the sadness that she’d long tried to suppress.
The years had passed quickly but the days were often endless. Seeing families picnicking in Hyde Park, friends’ holiday snaps on Facebook and tourists wandering around London together, was beginning to leave her hungry for connection with her own. It would be good to find a way forward. She had resolved to tell him that, to lay her cards on the table. She was ready to make amends, but fate had other plans.
‘He is alive,’ said Akbar Khan. ‘He is with Elyas. I took him there.’ He paused and looked at his daughter, waiting for a reaction. None came. ‘You weren’t well. And I thought it would be best for you and for the family.’ He watched as she began rifling through papers. He’d anticipated annoyance, anger, a visceral reaction, but none came. Instead, she picked up the file she’d been searching for and walked across the room with it. Opening the door, she stepped into the walkway where her PA was working. Akbar Khan watched, knowing this to be the height of disrespect in his world, but equally aware that her anger was justified. He was afraid it was too late, that her pride would convince her to make the wrong decision. They had both lost sons, but hers, he could return. That’s why he was here.
He heard her now, a little louder than before. ‘Could you bring some tea?’ she said to the PA. ‘From across the road. That place that does chai, and something to go with it, please.’ She returned to her office and closed the door.
‘Forgive me,’ she said to her father. ‘I forgot my manners.’
The path between the said and unsaid had fallen away that day, leaving Jia unable to find her way back to her father. For her, it was the final disappointment. She would not allow it to happen again.
‘Didn’t you care about me at all?’ Ahad said, breaking into Jia’s thoughts.
‘I did care. I still do,’ she said.
‘You don’t seem to care,’ Ahad said, his frustration at her coldness growing.
‘I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m not devoid of feeling. Emotions run deep in my family, in many ways deeper than in others. We have learnt to control our emotions to stop them controlling us.’
Experience had taught Jia hard and long-lasting lessons, and she’d survived by cleaning the slate of whys and regrets and the left-behinds of life. But now they were reappearing, one by one, and demanding to be heard. ‘You’re taking my choice not to feel as a reflection of my not caring, when in fact the truth is precisely the opposite. Do you understand?’ she said.
He did understand; he understood better than most. She looked across at the mourners. ‘We’re not like them,’ she said. ‘My father used to say that every herd has a master. I never really knew what he meant until now.’ Jia had stopped explaining herself years ago, but something about him encouraged her to keep talking. ‘I wasn’t always like this. There’s a story about Hazrat Ali that my father used to tell us often when we were children. During the height of one of the battles Muslims fought for their freedom, the caliph found himself standing above an enemy soldier, ready to take his life. But the man spat in his face, and so he let him go. You know why he did that?’
Ahad shook his head.
‘He said that the anger that had risen up in him had clouded his judgement, and if he had killed the man he wouldn’t have known whether it was for revenge or for the universal rights of mankind. It takes great strength to control one’s emotions. Killing someone else is easy; killing your own ego, that’s hard.’
From a distance, Elyas sat in his car and watched the two of them talking.
He still didn’t know what had happened all those years ago to make her leave, and why she had decided to sever all ties with her son, or indeed if she had thought him dead for some of that time. In the days and weeks that followed Ahad’s arrival, Elyas had tried to contact her again, but to no avail. Not knowing the background to the situation, and understanding Akbar Khan’s manner that night to be a warning, he didn’t discuss Ahad in his letters. Not that it would have mattered if he had: they were all returned unopened and his calls were unanswered.
Years later, when Ahad was older and had begun asking questions, Elyas considered contacting Jia again, but he decided against it. Something told him it wouldn’t be in the boy’s best interest. Things had changed since then. Ahad had changed.
Elyas had hoped to introduce his son to his mother in better circumstances, but choice was something that life rarely offered him. He watched them walk towards him. Jia covered in the residue of the day, Ahad subdued, they wore each other’s faces. He wondered now if he’d done the right thing by bringing Ahad, and what was to come of it.
CHAPTER 29
It was relatively quiet when Jia arrived at Pukhtun House. Most of the mourners had left. Those who were still there were having dinner in the marquee. It would probably remain this way until the next morning, close family trickling in and out until Fajr prayer, when the floodgates would open once again and prayer books, hats and the soft hum of Arabic verse would return.
Sanam Khan’s warm embrace when Jia came in was just what she needed after the wet cemetery.
‘How’s Benyamin?’ asked Jia.
‘He went out to see some friends, although I don’t know what kind of friends don’t come to the funeral.’
Jia wondered when she would find time to sit down for a chat with her little brother. The chaos of circumstances, the responsibilities upon her, and Benyamin being triggered by almost everything she said, made even simple conversations difficult. She worried about him.
‘You must be hungry. Let me get you something to eat,’ Sanam Khan said, ushering her towards the kitchen.
‘Wait, Mama, I have some guests with me.’
Sanam Khan squinted past her daughter, her eyes falling on Elyas, standing in the doorway. His hair was grey, unlike the first time he’d crossed the threshold of Pukhtun House, and by his side stood a teenage boy.
‘Who is that with Elyas?’ she asked. Then she stopped, a quiet realisation spreading through her. ‘Ya Allah, forgive us,’ she murmured, clasping her hand over her mouth, as if trying to push the words back in. She squeezed her daughter’s hand and whispered, ‘He looks like Zan.’ Unready to meet her grandson, overcome by affection but overwhelmed by the things she knew and had seen, she moved at speed, reaching the kitchen door as he stepped into the house. It was trite, but true, that she loved him more than her own children; it was that way with grandchildren. It was why she had sent him away with Akbar Khan: she wanted him safe. She would live with the shame of that secret her entire life.
‘Where’s the bathroom?’ Ahad asked.
Jia gestured to a room across the hall. ‘We’ll be in the study. It’s the second door on the right,’ she said.
Elyas followed Jia through the hallway, past the odd mourner and into the study. The smell of furniture polish and oranges flooded his mind with memories of the night Zan had died. This was the room he’d argued with Akbar Khan in. The oxblood chair in the corner looked a little more worn, its leather now softer and more inviting. It crossed his mind how different things could have been if he’d held his tongue, if he had left it to Jia to fight his corner. They could have raised Ahad together, Zan may still have been alive, and maybe Jia would still be the woman he’d married. The silence felt heavy. Elyas didn’t know if it was the circumstances of today or the past that weighted them down, but he knew if he didn’t ask now, he never would.
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br /> ‘What happened to us, Jia?’ he said.
She looked up at him through her tired eyes and he wanted to hold her, to support her, the way he always had, smooth life over and make everything better.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I am sorry.’
He wasn’t ready for the apology, but he didn’t want to fight either. Time was a precious commodity, one he didn’t want to squander on bitter words and accusations; but still, answers were needed. And so he measured himself.
‘You didn’t answer my calls, or reply to the letters I sent. I thought you blamed me for Zan.’ He was afraid of what she might say but he also had to know. He tightened the lid on his need, knowing it to be futile. None of it would bring back what he really wanted, the life he had wanted with her.
‘Maybe I did,’ she said. The air in her lungs felt musty; it was time to speak. ‘I needed time to process everything. But by the time I was ready, too much of it had passed, and for that I will always be sorry.’
‘I waited for you. We waited for you…to hear from you.’
‘I know. Believe me, I know what I have lost.’ As if on cue, the door opened and Ahad came in. He looked oddly small, and Elyas was overcome with the desire to scoop him up and take him home, to avoid the questions and conflicts that were to come, to halt the heartbreak on this path. But they were here now, and there was no turning back.
Jia watched her son walk around his grandfather’s study, stopping at a collection of photographs. He picked up a faded picture of Akbar Khan, their resemblance undeniable. The answer to so many questions had been buried today, alongside him.
While it was true that some of what he had learnt about his mother’s family was difficult to accept, he respected his father’s decision to tell him. Better to know your grandfather is a criminal than hear it in whispers on the day of his funeral from news crews and reporters.
