Shooting Kabul

by N. H. Senzai

  “That looks painful,” said Fadi. “Does it hurt?”

  “Nah, it just itches,” said Jon, giving his arm another good scratch.

  Anh frowned as another thought distilled in her mind. “How about the sky?”

  Jon looked unconvinced.

  “How about something from the movies? Or books?” she said, hoping inspiration would strike.

  Jon perked up. “Movies, huh?”

  “Well yeah,” said Anh. “Classics like Gone with the Wind or Casablanca.”

  Jon wrinkled his nose. “Aren’t those in black and white? I don’t watch those.”

  Fadi hadn’t heard of either one, but kept his mouth shut.

  “What do you watch?” asked Anh.

  “Well, I like scary movies, like Friday the 13th, or anything with Arnold Schwarzenegger in it, like The Terminator or Predator.”

  Anh rolled her eyes and wrote “scary movies” on her pad of paper.

  “The sea,” said Fadi under his breath.

  “The what?” said Jon.

  “The sea. Like in the book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Jon. “I’ve seen that movie.”

  “It’s also a book,” said Anh with a grin. “And that’s a totally cool idea! We could do the colors of the ocean and all the different creatures that live there!”

  Fadi smiled as Anh’s pen flew across the lined page.

  As the class wrapped up, Ms. Bethune held up her hand for people to quiet down. “Class, just one announcement before the bell. The photo club will be holding its first official meeting next week on Tuesday, here in the art studio. You need to have access to a 35 millimeter SLR film camera. If you’re interested, the sign-up sheet is on my desk. I’m holding an informal meeting to discuss plans for this year’s club after school today.”

  Fadi’s heart raced. A photo club! But Ms. Bethune’s next sentence hit him like a bucket of cold water.

  “The fee for supplies and use of the darkroom is fifty dollars, which can be paid in cash or your parents can write me a check.”

  There was no way he could come up with that much money.

  “Are you going to join?” asked Anh.

  Jon shook his head while Fadi shrugged without commitment.

  “You should. I was in it last year, and it’s a lot of fun. We have a few great photographers come in for special lessons, and we go all over the city for photo shoots,” said Anh.

  At the end of class Fadi passed by Ms. Bethune’s desk. “Great theme, Fadi,” she said. “The sea is going to give a lot of scope to be very creative.”

  “Thanks,” said Fadi, eyeing the photo club sign-up sheet.

  “Do you want to join?”

  Fadi paused, conflicting desires racing through him.

  “You seem to know what to do with a camera,” she said, causing Fadi to look at her in surprise.

  “It was you at Lake Elizabeth, right?” asked Ms. Bethune, giving him a closer look.

  Then Fadi remembered the woman in cool red tennis shoes. It had been Ms. Bethune.

  “I like taking pictures,” he said lamely.

  “Well, sign up, then,” she urged with a smile.

  Fadi grabbed the pen and wrote down his name. With a heavy heart he exited the studio.

  Walking home from school, Fadi passed the McDonald’s where Noor worked. He’d never had the nerve to go see her, but today, for some reason, maybe because he didn’t want to go back to an empty apartment, he went inside. The pungent scent of hot oil hit him as he stopped near the counter. She wasn’t at the register. He peered behind the milk shake machine, down the narrow galley. She wasn’t at her post at the french-fryer either. She probably left. He exited the store and circled around back, taking a shortcut to get back to the apartment complex.

  As he rounded the corner, the sound of muffled laughter filtered out from near the Dumpsters. Standing in the shadows were two McDonald’s employees. Fadi froze in surprise. Through the gloom he could see that one of them was Noor. She leaned next to a tall, gangly boy with tattoos, drinking a soda while he showed her something in a magazine.

  “See, told you I was right,” he said with a wink.

  “Man, I can’t believe I lost our bet,” grumbled Noor with a giggle.

  The boy raised his hand, and Noor’s palm smacked against his in a high five. The sharp sound rang through the back alley, and Fadi inched back. Noor grabbed the magazine and turned. Her eyes widened as she caught Fadi standing at the corner, and she started to cough.

  “What’s wrong?” asked the boy, pounding her back.

  Fadi hitched up his backpack and ran. The honey tin thudded against his back, but he didn’t stop till he opened the door to his apartment. He staggered inside and collapsed on the fraying couch. Noor’s going to think I’m spying on her. She’s going to pound me for sure.

  That night Fadi and Noor avoided making eye contact as the family sat down for dinner.

  “Here, Fadi, take the yogurt,” said his mother, passing him the bowl.

  “Thanks,” murmured Fadi. Zafoona’s eyes were dull, and deep shadows lay along her cheekbones. He knew she wasn’t sleeping well ever since they’d heard from Professor Sahib, but at least she was coughing less. The doctors had diagnosed her with a serious chest infection, but the good news had been that it could be cleared up with a series of powerful medications. Unfortunately, the pills left her sleepy and groggy most of the time. Fadi took a spoonful of tangy homemade yogurt and plopped it onto his plate, next to a pile of stewed cauliflower. He hated cauliflower. But he knew they’d be eating a lot of it this week; it had been on sale at Save Mart, and his father had bought three heads.

  “So, Fadi,” asked Habib, “anything interesting happen at school today?”

  Fadi shook his head. An image flickered in his brain, like a hazy still from a reel of film. It was Noor laughing intimately with the tattooed boy in the narrow alley behind the McDonald’s.

  “Come on,” wheedled his father with a smile, “there must be something.”

  “Well,” said Fadi, trying to erase the image and come up with something interesting to report. “There is a photo club starting next week,” he mumbled in a rush.

  “A photo club! That sounds wonderful,” said Habib with a twinkle in his eye.

  That’s a good one, he thought with relief.

  “Boy, we used to have fun with that old camera in Kabul,” added Habib.

  Fadi nodded. “The fee is fifty dollars to join.”

  Habib’s smile faltered.

  “Fifty dollars?” interrupted Zafoona with a frown. “That’s too much.”

  “Well, maybe—,” said Habib, but Fadi interrupted him.

  “No, no, it’s okay,” said Fadi in a rush, wishing he’d never brought the subject up. “I’m really not that interested. It’s just that … well, there’s just a club for photography, that’s all.”

  Zafoona’s mouth tightened and she glanced at Noor. “Why did you waste money getting another pair of earrings?”

  Fadi glanced at his sister’s earlobes. She was wearing shiny new hoop earrings.

  “They weren’t very expensive,” said Noor, her voice low. She brushed her hair forward, hiding her ears. Her fingernails were painted black.

  “Jaan,” said Habib, “Noor works very hard. What’s a little jewelry for our pretty daughter?”

  Zafoona’s lips quivered and she remained silent.

  Fadi looked around the table at his family, and guilt spread like acid through his gut. They all blamed themselves for Mariam’s loss. They would hate him if they learned the truth.

  Later that night, as the rest of the family retreated to their rooms, Fadi sat in the darkened living room staring at the square of light glowing from the tiny television. His father had bought it at a garage sale, and the remote control was missing, so he had to lean over to change the channel. None of the shows looked interest-ing, and he was about to switch it off when a story on the ten o’c
lock news caught his eye. A little girl traveling to New York from Chicago had gotten on the wrong flight and had ended up in Miami. As Fadi watched her happy reunion back with her parents in Chicago, he wished Mariam were on a plane coming home right then.

  “YOU DIDN’T SHOW UP at photo club yesterday,” a familiar voice whispered next to Fadi.

  Startled, Fadi looked up to see Anh standing next to his chair. “Uh, no,” he said, minimizing the window on the computer monitor. “I couldn’t go.” He sat in the library, surfing the Internet, trying to find more news stories about the girl who’d accidentally gotten on the wrong plane.

  “Well, you should have,” she said, her almond-shaped eyes earnest. “Ms. Bethune asked me about you—said she’d seen you at the park with a camera and that you really liked photography.”

  “Well, yes,” said Fadi, rifling his brain for a good excuse. “But I have too much homework to do … and I have to help my father after school,” he added lamely.

  “That’s too bad,” said Anh.

  “Well, thanks for telling me,” said Fadi, trying to turn back to the computer.

  “If you change your mind, you can still join. The real meetings don’t start until next week anyway. Ms. Bethune has a lot of cool stuff planned for this year,” said Anh. “There’s a contest we’re entering, cosponsored by the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco and the Société Géographique. It’s open to students in the San Francisco Bay Area.”

  Fadi sighed. I’d love to, but I don’t have the money.

  “The first-place winner gets one of those new digital cameras and the opportunity to go on a photo shoot with a Société Géographique team.”

  “Wow,” said Fadi, intrigued despite himself. What an amazing opportunity.

  “Yup. You have the choice of going to the Great Wall in China, the Taj Mahal in India or on a safari in Kenya. You and a companion get to travel for free with room and board provided for a week.”

  Fadi froze. A trip to India? India is right next door to Pakistan! I could fly into India and just hop over to Peshawar. Hope flared through him. “Really?” he tried to sound casual, but his voice squeaked. “A trip to India?”

  “Personally, I’d do the safari, but yeah, you can choose. But you need to come to the next meeting and join the club,” pushed Anh.

  Fadi nodded. “I’ll try.”

  “Okay, then. See you in art class,” said Anh. “I’m checking these out for ideas.” She showed him two glossy books. One was titled Oceans of the World, and the other had brightly colored fish on the cover.

  “Great idea,” said Fadi, happy to change the topic. Too bad, he thought. He knew if he entered the contest he had a good chance of winning. But there’s no way I can get fifty dollars by next week. Or ever.

  He turned back to the computer and typed in the URL for Virgin Atlantic. The plan he’d cooked up earlier that morning was going to have to come into play.

  Fadi lay in the cramped, dark space trying not to make a sound. It smelled of old feet and moldy onions, so he breathed through his mouth. Try to think of the wide-open skies. And fresh air, he thought. He adjusted his legs so that his backpack lay snug between his knees. This is it. This is my chance to go and find Mariam, and I’m not going to screw it up.

  Once again Fadi was in a car, and like Claudia he was running away, again. But unlike Claudia, who had taken weeks to carefully plan out every aspect of her escape, Fadi was flying by the seat of his pants, coupled with a whole lot of praying. If he succeeded, he would bring Mariam back and reclaim his honor.

  Fadi waited with his ear pressed against the floor of the trunk, trying to pick up sounds from outside. Right before he’d snuck out of the apartment, he’d spotted his father performing his evening prayers. After Habib finished, Fadi knew his father would grab his wallet, the car keys, and a warm coat like he usually did. Then he’d head out for a twelve-hour night shift at San Francisco airport. Fadi’s mind wandered for a moment, mentally going over the items in his backpack.

  The day before, Fadi had waited till his father and Noor were out of the house and at work. Then he’d gone down the hall to his parents’ room and gently pushed open the door. He’d inched around the door frame and seen his mother taking her afternoon nap, hidden under a pile of blankets. Getting down on his hands and knees, he’d inched across the matted carpet and found the small black bag his father kept in the closet.

  Holding his breath, he’d gone through folders of important documents and taken his passport and the airline tickets, saved from their trip from Peshawar. He planned to hold the tickets in his hand so that no one would question whether he was a real passenger or not. He was just hoping no one would actually look at the fact that they were used. He’d added a change of clothes, his toothbrush, and twenty-five dollars borrowed from Zalmay, all his cousin had had in the coffee jar hidden under his bed. He’d gotten Zalmay to swear he wouldn’t tell anyone where he was until the adults figured out he was missing. The honey tin lay at the bottom of the backpack, a permanent fixture. By then it’ll be too late to stop me, he thought.

  As Fadi nervously ran his fingers along the inside edge of the trunk roof, he heard footsteps approach the car. Fadi held his breath as the echoing sounds stopped a few feet away from his head. A key jangled as it entered the lock. The driver’s door opened with a quiet swoosh, then slammed shut. Fadi could feel the vibration of the engine as it rumbled to life. The radio blared, filling the back of the car with the sound of soft jazz. Within minutes the car pulled out of the apartment complex and headed toward the airport for a long night of shuttling passengers around.

  Good! thought Fadi with relief. Things are going according to plan. Earlier that evening he had stuffed pillows into his bedroll and molded it to look like a human body. He wanted his parents to think he’d gone to sleep early. He’d turned off all the lights in the living room and hidden behind the couch. When the coast had been clear, he’d snuck out of the apartment and hidden in the trunk of the taxi, which he’d unlocked earlier.

  Now all he had to do was wait for his father to drive to the airport and line his car behind the rest of the taxis waiting to pick up passengers. Then he’d use the safety toggle switch in the trunk to pop the lid. Yesterday, when his father had been taking his afternoon nap, Fadi had double-checked the trunk from the inside, making sure the safety release worked properly.

  The tricky part was to make his way through the airport, pretending to be a passenger. He’d checked the Virgin Atlantic flight schedule and knew a plane was leaving for London at midnight. More than enough time to find a family and tag along, like an innocent kid flying alone for the first time. He’d gotten the idea watching the news story about the girl who’d gotten on the wrong plane. If she could get on the wrong flight, he was sure he could get on one going in the direction he needed. Once inside the airport all he had to do was make his way to the departure gate and sneak on board the plane. His plan wasn’t fully fleshed out on what he’d do when he got to London, but he was sure he’d find a flight going to Peshawar from there. Now all he had to do was wait. So he made himself comfortable and tried to roll with the bumps as his father drove over the San Mateo bridge and up Highway 101.

  Sweat ran down Fadi’s back as he gazed down at Noor’s glow-in-the-dark Mickey Mouse watch. He was sure she wouldn’t mind that he’d borrowed it—when he called them from Peshawar with news that he’d found Mariam. It was 9:47 p.m. The car had been traveling for more than half an hour, so they would be reaching the airport any minute. He felt the elevation change and the car slow down, indicating that his father had exited the freeway. Fadi’s body rattled around the trunk as Habib drove over a series of speed bumps. The brakes squeaked a little and the car came to a halt.

  Fadi stretched his cramped muscles and tensed. It was almost time to make his move. He pulled the straps of his backpack over his arms and slid it on. He waited five minutes to see if the car doors opened. But it looked like his father wasn’t getting out. Good.
He flipped on the flashlight and groped along the side of the car, looking for the toggle switch that released the trunk. The light illuminated the gray interior, revealing a flap of fabric near the left taillight. The toggle switch was concealed beneath.

  Fadi held the flashlight steady with his teeth and moved the flap with his left hand. Breathing heavily, he gripped the switch with his thumb and forefinger. With a quick prayer he pulled. His eyes glanced up at the lid of the trunk, waiting for it to pop open so that he could scramble out. But he didn’t hear the familiar click of the mechanism releasing. It remained dark and the door stayed shut. I’m doing it wrong. Fadi got on his hands and knees and pulled the switch again. Nothing. He tugged it from side to side, then up and down. Nothing. Calm down, you dork, he berated himself. He took shallow panicked breaths. What did I do differently yesterday? He was trying to replay how he’d opened the trunk the day before, when the taxi bolted forward, tossing him against the back metal edge of the trunk.

  “Ouch,” he yelped. What the …? Fear raced through him as he scrambled after the flashlight, which had rolled to the inner edge of the trunk. The car slowed again as Fadi aimed the light back at the switch. The car stopped. Perspiration collected along Fadi’s forehead as he yanked on the switch. His fingers fumbled with desperation as he heard the driver’s door swing open. Muffled voices discussed the weather, and footsteps approached the back of the car.

  Oh, no! Fadi curled up in a ball and pressed his back against the inner edge of the trunk just as light spilled inside and two faces peered down at him.

  FADI COULD SEE HIS FATHER’S EYEBROWS arch in shock as he stared down at him. The passenger he’d just picked up, an elderly Chinese man, looked down in surprise as well.

  “Get out,” said Habib under his breath.

  Fadi quavered as the confusion on his father’s face turned to anger. Fadi crawled out, grabbing his backpack, which had fallen off.

  “I’m so sorry, sir,” said Habib, turning to his passenger. “This is my son. If you don’t mind, he will be riding in the front with me.”