Words in the Dust

by Trent Reedy

  Letting go of my chador, I took a sip of my tea, using the cup to cover my mouth. Somehow she’d steeped the tea at just the right temperature, so I could throw back my head to keep the tea in my mouth without burning myself. It tasted wonderful, spicy and sweet. She didn’t seem to even notice the strange way I had to drink.

  “So your sister is engaged.” The teacher sat on her bed again, one hand to her back and the other carefully steadying her cup. “And the Americans want to operate on your mouth.”

  I looked up from my tea. How could she have known all that? She shook with a soft laugh. “You don’t need to look so mystified, child. Gossip travels fast, especially among the women for whom I sew. You must be excited.”

  I wasn’t quite used to open talk with anyone but my sister. “I am excited. It’s all so wonderful.” I took another sip. “I never knew that anyone could do anything for my mouth. Now the Americans come and tell me they will fix it. It is … I …”

  I didn’t know what else to say. We both drank in silence.

  Finally, Meena spoke. “Tell me, child, why do you want this surgery?”

  “Why?” I nearly choked on my tea. I checked to make sure she wasn’t teasing me. “I want to be normal. I don’t want to look like a baby bird when I eat. I want —”

  “To be like everyone else?”

  “Yes! If I didn’t have this …” I motioned to my mouth with my free hand. “… then I wouldn’t talk wrong like I do. Then maybe Malehkah wouldn’t be so mean to me, and she and Baba wouldn’t have as much trouble finding me a husband one day. Maybe I wouldn’t be so much of a burden.” I thought of the way I’d felt last night when Gulzoma and everyone had paid so much attention to my split lip and crooked teeth. If I had looked normal, the party might have been more fun. I wiped my eyes with my chador, surprised that I’d said so much. Surprised that I was crying.

  Meena stood up and crossed the room. She took a cloth bundle down from a shelf on the wall. When she returned, she held the bundle in her lap like a baby. “Your mother never thought you were a burden.” Meena pulled back the old cloth. Inside was an ancient-looking book with a leather cover. She carefully opened the book, sliding her hands down the delicate pages. I watched the graceful swirls of letters between her fingers. “Your mother loved literature. But she loved you more. She wanted you to know both of her loves.”

  “I remember,” I whispered.

  She handed me a pencil and a small sheet of paper on a board. “Show me.” She spoke gently.

  “I only know a few words,” I said. “But I’ve been practicing my letters.”

  “Good!” She smiled. “That’s a start.”

  “Bale, Muallem-sahib.” It felt right, somehow, to call her my teacher. She closed her eyes with a contented look on her face, gently placing her hand on my arm to encourage me.

  I wrote my letters and the few small words I could remember. Cow. Wall. Moon. Love. Zulaikha. I tried to think of more.

  “Good,” she said in a low, quiet voice. “That’s very good after so long. Your memory is excellent.” She showed me a page of the book. “Now, child, copy these words. Do not worry if you cannot understand it all. By copying the page again and again, you’ll make the link between the sounds of the letters and the words they form. You’ll understand in time.”

  She read the lines out loud, tracing her finger from right to left along the words as she read them, first slowly as I copied, then once more, faster, so that it all began to make sense. On her third reading, she asked me to say the words with her, keeping time with her finger. Then we read it together again, and I could tell we were both losing ourselves in the language:

  All you who dwell in gardens of the young,

  Don’t waste your life in merriment and song.

  Instead let sadness fill your tender soul

  As you reflect on all you can’t control:

  How many joyous springs just come and go

  And falling flower petals turn to snow,

  And all humans understand they must

  One day lie down forever in the dust.

  Still people fight, and even clash with friends.

  Fathers and sons both come to saddest ends,

  And blood that family shares is too soon spilled.

  Death brings no peace — just vengeance for the killed.

  The gold in nature gets lost in the Fall;

  The winter raids the fruit, devouring all.

  “It’s sad,” I said, when we finished our last reading. “It’s about sadness and sorrow.”

  Muallem nodded. “It is about endings and death. And yet, Firdawsi’s epic Shahnameh has lived for over a thousand years.”

  I wanted to explain the way I felt when I heard her read the old poem, but I was not good with words the way Muallem was. “It’s sad,” I repeated. “But … the words have a pretty sadness.”

  “Indeed, they do, child.”

  “When I hear them … I feel an ache …” I put my hand over my heart. “… right here. But at the same time, I want to hear more.”

  I looked down at the words I’d written on the paper. Words that were at once a thousand years old and yet completely new. I held them to my chest, but did not feel foolish for doing so. Somehow I felt Muallem would understand. My mother could write and read, this poem and more. I wanted to learn to do that too.

  A car honked from a few streets away and I jumped. When I looked at my muallem, she looked startled as well. We both laughed.

  “I need to go,” I said.

  “You’ll be missed at home,” said Meena. “Practice copying the words. Think of the sounds of the letters and the words as you copy. Start on the back of the paper, then find a way to practice over and over. Use a rock on cement. Trace the words in the dust.”

  I stuffed the paper and little pencil into the pocket of my dress. “Tashakor.”

  Meena smiled, clapping her hands together once. “You were born to be a great student. It is your destiny.”

  I rushed to buy the soap as quickly as I could, then I took the back roads home to avoid Anwar. When I scrambled, out of breath, into the central room of our house, my legs shook and my hands trembled. Malehkah was stroking Habib’s hair, trying to get the little one to lie down for a nap.

  She looked up at me and scowled. “That took you a long time. Go help your sister. She’s in back, beating the dust from the toshaks.”

  “Bale, Madar!” I hurried for the door.

  In the back courtyard, Khalid was doing his best to help Zeynab in one of the only chores he would agree to do. She had hung the floppy red sitting-room cushions over the clothesline and was using the stick of our only broom to beat the dust out of them. Khalid made fighting noises as he tried to kick and punch the dirt from a toshak on the end.

  “Let me help you,” I greeted my sister.

  She took a few steps toward me. “What took you so long? Where did you go?”

  “I just … the crowd. There were a lot of people there. And the bargaining took forever.” The words came out of my twisted mouth almost before I had decided to lie. It was the very first time I had ever truly lied to my sister.

  I told myself that I couldn’t let her know the truth. She thought it was a waste of time for girls to go to school. Of course she would disapprove. She probably wouldn’t tell Baba. She certainly wouldn’t involve Malehkah. But I still worried that if anyone else knew about my visits with Meena and about my lessons, I might lose my chance to learn. I didn’t want all of that taken away from me before I’d even really explored it. Meena and her lessons and the poetry were all mine.

  Zeynab narrowed her eyes and frowned, handing me the broom and pulling a toshak off the rope. She didn’t say anything for a moment. She just looked at me. Then suddenly she laughed, whipped the toshak through the air, and beat me with it.

  “Hey!” I waved the dust from my face. “You’re dewana.”

  We worked the rest of the morning like nothing had changed for either of us, talk
ing and laughing and doing our best to make our chores into games.

  I was patching part of the front compound wall with Torran’s dung when Baba and Najib came home later that afternoon. They looked sweaty and tired, with black smears and dirt on their clothes, but Baba had a sparkle of happiness in his eyes. He and Najib stopped near me.

  “Zulaikha,” said Baba. “I spoke with Hajji Abdullah this morning at the construction site. He says his brother Tahir talked to the Americans. They were so excited that they had Tahir call the hajji on his satellite telephone with the news. The Americans have arranged for a helicopter to fly you to Kandahar for your surgery in one week.”

  Kandahar? In all this talk of my surgery, nobody had mentioned having to travel all the way to Kandahar. Certainly there had been no talk of flying there!

  Baba must have seen the worry in my expression. He gently tilted my face up to look at him as he smiled big. “Hajji Abdullah himself has offered to oversee the job site here in An Daral while I am away. I will drive you to Farah and then go all the way to Kandahar with you! It will be a great adventure!”

  “Bale, Baba.” I put one hand over my mouth and the other over my pounding chest. Did I hear him correctly? Just one week? That would mean I could have a normal mouth in time for Zeynab’s wedding. I could be done with my donkey face next week! Allahu Akbar! What could I say to my wonderful father for this miracle? I threw myself at him and wrapped my arms around him. “Tashakor.”

  My tired father put his arms around me. His head rolled back as he almost shouted with laughter. He laughed so hard, he had to dab at tears in the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. “Wah wah, Zulaikha.” He patted my back. “Didn’t I tell you your baba would take care of everything?” He tilted my chin up again and looked at me. Then he spoke to me very quietly, just to me. “You’ll be so pretty.”

  I didn’t want the moment to end.

  Though of course she never showed it, Malehkah must have been happy with me through the whole next week. I rushed to milk Torran, to wash the clothes, to water the garden, to do any work that possibly needed doing. I had most of the chores completed before she even asked. I didn’t want to upset anyone or do anything that might risk my chance at getting my mouth fixed.

  Finally, the longest week of my life was over, and after a sleepless night, I was up first the next morning. After good-byes and good wishes from everyone, even from Malehkah, Baba and I were on our way to Farah in the white Toyota.

  This was my first trip out of An Daral, and my first ride in a car. I sat in a cushioned seat in what seemed like a little moving room and felt the vibrations from the motor shake through me. As we bounced down the road, I steadied in my lap the cloth-wrapped bundle of naan that Malehkah had given me before we left. I held on even tighter to the plastic handle in the door, trying to brace myself against every bump.

  Baba saw me and smiled. “Don’t worry. The road will smooth out when we get to the open desert. I’ll show you how fast your father’s Toyota can go!” He slapped a button in the middle of the steering wheel and the car beeped. “Now give your Baba a piece of naan. This adventure is making me hungry already.”

  I tore off a strip of bread and handed it to my father. He shook his head, leaned over, and growled playfully as he bit into the bigger piece of naan instead. I had to pull the loaf away to tear off the piece he had his mouth on. He laughed and then spoke while chewing. “Tashakor.”

  “You’re welcome.” I giggled.

  Soon enough, we came to open land, and the road leveled out as promised. I’d never seen the world beyond the mountains that surrounded An Daral before. Barren grayness stretched out as far as I could see. Baba-jan sped up, humming an old tune. Once he looked at me quickly, then turned forward again. Then he looked back at me. He took a deep breath, but then pressed his lips together and breathed out through his nose. Finally, he spoke. “I’m glad you have the chance to have this operation, Zulaikha, even if we have to endure that American woman. You …” He trailed off and busied himself scraping a speck of dirt off the steering wheel. “You remind me very much of your mother. With your mouth all better, you’ll look like her. More than Zeynab even. You’re a good daughter. I’ll always take care of you. So don’t be frightened today.”

  All morning, I’d tried not to appear scared, but Baba-jan knew me too well. I hoped he also knew how happy his kind words made me feel.

  I watched the rocky flats of the empty desert and wondered at the changing view of the mountains for a long time. After the car settled into a rhythm of rises and dips on the smooth ground, my eyelids felt droopy. The quiet rumbling of the car, the soft seat, and my father’s reassuring presence made me feel safe. Safe and sleepy.

  Baba-jan woke me up as we pulled into Farah. I looked in amazement at an endless row of shops that lined both sides of a long, paved road and sold everything, including lots of items that were unavailable in An Daral. We even passed a bookstore! Meena would have loved that. Following Hajji Abdullah’s directions, we went through a police checkpoint and turned down the dirt track that was supposed to lead to the American base.

  “We’re almost there, Zulaikha!” Baba slapped the steering wheel with a grin. “Ha! And as soon as I’ve finished my work on the school, I’ll be coming this way all the time to work on the American base.”

  Baba’s excitement mirrored my own. It wouldn’t be long before my smile was just as good as anyone else’s. He saw me grin, and laughed, giving my shoulder a squeeze.

  But as he drove on for a while, he grew more and more tense. “Now where is that base?” he said, leaning down and looking intently out the windshield. “Hajji Abdullah said to turn left at the police checkpoint after the bazaar. He said it was impossible to miss.”

  We passed a cemetery, a rocky field with hundreds of stone mounds, each about the size of a person. There were many short mounds for children and babies. Then came a big field where the ground was slick with what must have been spilled gasoline or oil as men filled huge drums from trucks. Hundreds, maybe thousands of these fuel and oil drums were stacked up all over. One man puffed on a cigarette while he worked a hand crank to pump fuel from one big metal drum to another.

  “Look at that ignorant slob.” Baba shook his head. “Smoking away and everywhere gas and oil. Someday he will blow up the whole place!”

  I folded my hands tightly in my lap at the irritation in my father’s voice. Baba was a wonderful man, but when he became upset, he could explode too. In my heart, I asked Allah to let the rest of our trip go smoothly and well, to let nothing go wrong on this day of my dreams. Baba gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his hands shook.

  We followed the road out into the flats, where the people of Farah must have dumped everything they could not use or at least burn. Flies buzzed everywhere, and despite the heat, Baba closed the vents against the dusty rotting smell.

  “If the base is out here, the Americans need to rethink where they build,” said Baba.

  We passed fields of brick fragments, piles of scrap metal, and bits of broken glass shining in the sun. I felt a twinge of unwanted, out-of-place sadness, being in this depressing, forgotten area on such a wonderful day.

  The Toyota whined as it struggled up a hill. And there it was. In the distance, rising up from the garbage, was an enormous compound.

  “Finally,” said Baba.

  The white, windowless walls of the American base rose into a square, standing just a little higher than our compound walls at home. A big red gate was in the middle of one of the walls. Four square white towers with windows formed each corner. As we approached, I could see a coiled wire fence looped around the entire fortress, set far away from its walls. Just inside the fence, the Americans had dug a deep ditch.

  “Baba, look!” I pointed. “The Afghan and American flags together.” The two flags flapping in the wind on tall poles above the middle of the base had to be a good sign. I felt my heart lift a bit.

  “Quiet, Zulaikha! We have to be se
rious now.” Baba squinted his eyes as he turned the car onto the track that led to the gate. “From now on, you will be quiet and do exactly as I say.”

  “Bale, Baba.”

  We drove alongside the razor-wire fence until we came to a gate, where Afghan police guards in gray uniforms stopped us. One of these men walked up to Baba’s window with his gun slung easily at his side.

  “Salaam. May I help you?” The guard spoke with a heavy Pashto accent. He couldn’t have been much older than Najib.

  “We …” Baba’s voice almost squeaked. He licked his dry lips and started again. “We’ve come to see the female doctor. She came to An Daral and told us that the Americans could help my daughter.” I turned away while the guard leaned in to look at me. “Tahir Abdullah spoke to the Americans about this last week,” Baba added in a rush.

  The guard smiled, nodded, and stood upright. He pulled a small radio from his pocket. “Interpreter, interpreter, this is front gate.”

  After a short burst of static a man answered, “Go ahead.”

  The guard told our story to the man on the radio.

  “One minute. I’ll ask the soldiers.”

  The guard with the radio beckoned for another soldier to join him. Then he bent down to speak to my father again. “They will probably let you in, but you’ll have to leave your car out here.”

  Baba’s eyes widened and he looked ahead at the base in the distance.

  Radio Guard laughed. “I know it’s a long walk. Sorry. I have my orders.”

  Baba parked the Toyota and we both climbed out. We waited in the hot sun for a few minutes. Baba looked at Radio Guard, who shrugged. Finally, his radio squawked.

  “Let them come up. Tell them the captain is on her way out,” said the man on the other end of the radio. “Tell them the Americans are very happy they have come.”

  “Bale,” said Radio Guard.

  “I heard him,” said Baba.