by Atia Abawi
“What you want to do to your cousin and that poor girl will not make you a hero,” the mullah says. “It will send you deeper into the darkness. It will make this another tragic story in our desolate country.”
“You’re wrong,” I correct the old man. “It will make our country stronger and our people wiser. I’m helping them learn what’s wrong and what’s right.” If my family doesn’t see it now, one day they will, and they’ll be proud of me again. “If you don’t tell us where they are, I can’t guarantee your safety or your family’s.” I feel powerful with my words, and a little dirty. At least it will make the old man respect me more. But his eyes don’t show fear; they show pity.
“It is getting late,” he responds. “Why don’t you and your men stay at the masjid tonight? We can talk more in the morning and see if anything has changed.” He looks away and lets out a breath.
“What? I said if you don’t tell us where he is, these men may . . . they will . . . kill you,” I say. This time it feels less powerful, more shameful. And I am scared that my words are not a threat but a reality.
“I heard what you said, my son.” Mullah Sarwar doesn’t even blink an eye. He seems as calm and gentle as before. And for once, he stops flicking his beads and looks at me. “I understand you are very angry. But you should know that your rage is not because of Sami or that poor girl. The anger is a part of the darkness you are holding inside yourself. It’s a darkness you must let go. No one can fix your heart but you. Not the men out there and not even your family. If you don’t fix it, your suffering will only increase as your sins grow in number.” I find myself staring at him, taking in all he has just said.
“I . . .” I try to speak, but I don’t know what to say. I continue to stare at him, but thoughts of the little girl dying this morning fill my head. Her family’s wails fill my ears again. My anger toward my cousin led to that. Even if it wasn’t these hands that twisted her neck, I am still responsible for her death. Her murder. It was me. I am the killer. I am the sinner.
“What’s going on?” Latif’s voice breaks through my thoughts. “We’ve been waiting so long the sky has turned black!” He walks in with his dusty boots, leaving prints on the lime-colored carpet. He points his finger at Mullah Sarwar. “Does he know where they are?”
“I . . . uh . . . no. He doesn’t know,” I finally say, trying to protect the mullah from any more trouble. I’ve done enough harm to him by bringing these men here.
“Then what has taken so long?” Latif sputters out with increased agitation. He turns to the mullah. “Old man, do you know where the two lovers are?”
“Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you,” Mullah Sarwar says. I turn my head and stare at him in shock. What is he doing? Latif is crazy. He doesn’t take well to being spoken to like that.
“Oh . . . really? Is that true?” Latif comes closer. “So you do know, or you don’t know? It’s better for you to tell me.” He pulls out his handgun and starts to wave it around near his waist.
“He doesn’t know.” I get up and turn to Latif. “Let’s just go. I have another idea of where they may be.” I attempt to walk out, in hopes that he will follow me.
“I want to talk to this old man a little bit longer,” Latif says and swings his gun, slapping me in the face. The pressure throws me to the ground again.
“What are you doing?” Mullah Sarwar yells at Latif as he rushes to me. “Are you okay, my son?” he asks. I nod.
“This is so cute! The old man cares about you,” Latif says mockingly. “But does he care about his own life?” The look of the devil is back on Latif’s face. The same demented eyes from this morning. He takes his gun and hits Mullah Sarwar in the face, making him fall to the ground. I can see blood dripping from the mullah’s mouth. In the gush of red, there is a white chip that looks like a tooth. Latif grabs Mullah Sarwar by his long white hair, exposing his blood-soaked beard. The crimson color looks almost electric against the white hairs. “Tell me where they are!” Latif spits those words in the mullah’s face, but he doesn’t answer. Instead, he starts reciting a prayer from the Quran-e-sharif:
In the name of God, the most Gracious and most Merciful.
Praise be to God, Lord of all the worlds.
The Compassionate, the Merciful. Ruler on the Day of Reckoning.
You alone do we worship, and You alone do we ask for help.
Guide us on the straight path, the path of those who have received your grace;
not the path of those who have brought down wrath, nor of those who wander astray.
Amen.
Latif stares at the mullah, who recites more prayers. “Answer me!” he yells over the mullah’s words. “I said answer me!” He looks more enraged as he pulls on the mullah’s hair. Mullah Sarwar does not flinch. He seems to be in a trance with his recitation.
There isn’t a trace of fear on his bloodied face. I swear I can see him smiling as he continues to recite and Latif continues to yell and pull on his hair. Latif looks confused and unsettled by the praying. Probably because he is seeing a real mullah pray, not a fake like himself. And then it happens. Latif points his gun at the mullah’s chest and fires. Blood and flesh splatter on my face, but I can’t close my eyes. Mullah Sarwar’s body falls onto the floor. I look up, and Latif is staring at the twitching body, his gun still pointing in the direction the shot was fired. Even he seems startled by what has just happened.
My ears are ringing, but I can still hear thumping noises rolling their way into the masjid. Latif’s men all make their way in. Many stop as soon as they see the body on the floor. Latif regains his composure in their presence.
“Hang his body outside.” I can barely make out the words coming from Latif’s mouth. “And place a paper in his pocket with the word traitor.”
But it feels like I have been the traitor, not Sarwar.
Twenty-five
SAMIULLAH
We’ve been sitting here in silence for hours, except for occasional questions: How are you? Are you cold? Are you hungry? Mullah Sarwar’s grandson Walid rushed us away from their home after the thugs approached the masjid. He brought us with supplies and dropped us off in a cave far from town.
“I’ll come for you when my grandfather thinks it is safe,” Walid said before leaving.
I wanted to be honest with Fatima, so I told her about the men on motorbikes that Walid saw. But my candor may have just frightened her into silence. I am sure she is regretting it all. Leaving with me. Marrying me. Risking her life with me. I can’t believe how stupid I was to put her in this position. She may die now, and it will all be my fault!
“I’m sorry.” I have finally mustered the courage to say it out loud instead of repeating it over and over inside my head.
“What?” She looks up from where she is crouched against the dingy stone wall.
“I said, I’m sorry . . .” I can’t even look her in the eyes. She’s my wife now, and I can’t even look at her. I’m afraid of seeing the trust in her eyes. I feel I have betrayed her already. “I shouldn’t have . . . I shouldn’t have asked you to meet me that day in the woods. Or to spend the afternoon with me at the river. I was wrong. And now we’re here, in a dark cold cave, away from your loved ones. I’m sorry.”
Fatima doesn’t answer me. But I can hear her whimpers. I finally look up again and see her in tears. I want to console her, but I hesitate. I am afraid to touch her. I know the wounds on her arms haven’t healed yet, and I don’t know if she would want my hands on her.
“Sami, you saved me,” she says through her tears. “My family wanted to give me away to get rid of their problem. They didn’t want me anymore.” She drops her head and starts her quiet sobs again.
“But I put you in that position.” I feel as defeated as ever. I hate that I’ve brought her to this. I’ve brought on this sorrow. “If I hadn’t asked your father in town . . . If I hadn’t
embarrassed him . . . If . . .”
“Why did you ask him?” Fatima looks up at me with her tear-streaked face. She looks curious, not angry. “What made you ask then and there?” Her voice trembles, and it breaks my heart over again.
“I didn’t want to do it like that. I wanted to wait and make it proper. I’m so sorry. But that’s when Rashid exposed our meetings and gave me no choice.”
She nods, and then looks as if she’s thinking about something. “Do you remember the day we ran from Latif’s men?” she asks as she rubs her forehead. I let her continue. “I thought one of the voices sounded familiar.” She stops. She looks up and then back at me. “You don’t think that . . . No, I must be wrong. Rashid wouldn’t associate himself with those thugs.” Fatima shakes her head, finding the idea unimaginable. But I know it’s possible.
Rashid changed so much because of that horrible madrassa. Could he have sent Latif’s men to Mullah Sarwar in order to find us? Could those be the men who approached the masjid, forcing Fatima and me to hide in a cave?
“Sami?” Fatima breaks my train of thought. “It wasn’t his voice that I heard, right?”
I pause before I answer. Even though he has betrayed us, he’s still my cousin, and I need Fatima to understand.
I can’t hide this from her. She needs to know. We are in this together.
“Fatima, a lot has changed because of that godforsaken madrassa. It wasn’t what we were expecting. It wasn’t the same type of school my father went to,” I say.
She stares at me, confused. “But what do you mean? I thought you were learning more about the Quran-e-sharif and Islam?”
“That’s what my father thought too, when he sent Rashid and me there,” I answer. “But what they tried to teach us is nothing like what we were taught growing up.” I pick up a rock, examining it before rolling it on the ground to the opening of the cave. I’ve known since our conversation in the woods that I would have to explain the darkness of that school to her eventually. “At first it was all so new and fascinating. Although I was sad and scared to be away from my family, I thought that it would be fun to live with Rashid and a bunch of other boys. We’d bathe in the nearby river, run around the fields and be like brothers. And most important, I’d learn more about Islam, and I’d come back home, and everyone would respect me. They would call me Qari Saib because I’d be one of the only people in the village who knew how to recite the holy book and knew the meaning behind the words. Even though Rashid was there too, I was arrogant enough to think that I would do better than he would because I was always the more obedient one.” I feel ashamed to admit this, but I continue. “People would come to me to help them solve their problems. They’d come to our home. I imagined how proud my parents would be. I know it was their dream too. And I thought I could impress people, including you.” I want to look up at her, but I am afraid to see her reaction. “To be honest, I’m embarrassed by the fact that I fell for it.”
“Fell for what?” she asks. The only other person I’ve shared the true story with is Mullah Sarwar. It’s hard for me to talk about. It makes me feel like a lesser person every time I think of those days.
“I thought they were right,” I finally say. “I thought what they were teaching me was real Islam. They made everything and everyone I ever knew seem so simple and stupid. ‘We are right—they are wrong.’ That’s what we were told, and that’s how I felt. When I was there, I was brainwashed. I was taught to hate more than I was taught to love. I had the fear of God flowing through my veins. But I also had the arrogance of the devil overtake my soul.”
I pick up a ball of dirt, breaking it into little pieces and turning it to dust before I speak again.
“I believed them. I would pray and I would recite the Holy Quran every day. We were forbidden to bathe in the river; we were forbidden to play in the fields. We were told not to communicate with any other children in town who weren’t students at the madrassa because they were going to tempt us with their devilish behavior and sinful ways. I obeyed all their rules, and I was still lashed if I mispronounced even one word in a recitation. So I tried even harder. But the lashes kept coming.”
“Lashes?” Fatima whispers.
I turn my back to her and pull up my payron, exposing my skin and scars.
“Sami . . . ,” she says, looking at the same scars I sometimes spend hours staring at with mirrors. Protruding flesh I can’t help but touch at night; they feel like swollen snakes curling up, down and around my back—some are still red, the freshest wounds. Others are white lines, older wounds that mark my first days at the school—scars that have healed but will never go away. If I am so disgusted by them, I can only imagine what Fatima is thinking right now.
I hear her sandals crunching on the ground, coming toward me, and I drop my payron back down. I turn around, and she is next to me with watery eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I say, averting my gaze, “I shouldn’t have pulled up my shirt. That was disrespectful, and I apologize.”
“Sami, I’m the one who’s sorry,” she says. “I had no idea. What they did to you is awful!”
“But I deserved it. And I deserved more,” I say, feeling angry again. I am not worthy of her sympathy, or anyone’s sympathy.
“Why would you say you deserve that?” She points at my now-covered body. “Nobody deserves that!”
“I can say that because I did worse,” I say, walking away from her. I can’t believe I’m telling her about the most despicable part of me but I can’t keep it a secret from her. Not anymore. I take a deep breath and continue. “A few of us would head to town in the morning to buy bread from the bakery. There was a boy from town named Sardar. He would always say hi to us and try to start a conversation. He had to have been my age, maybe a little younger. Sardar would follow us to town and ask us to play, and we would just ignore him. I still don’t know if we were all being obedient, or if we were afraid that someone else in the group would tell the headmaster on us. We all knew the consequences of playing with him, and it wasn’t worth it. But every morning he tried. He had bright red cheeks, covered with a layer of dirt and cracked by the sun. His smile was so kind.” I catch myself smiling and quickly wipe it away.
I notice Fatima try to take a step forward, but she stops herself. I wonder if she is regretting that she married me. But I continue. I must tell her everything.
“Sometimes he’d bring a toy and try to persuade us to play with him. I remember the temptation on the days he’d bring his soccer ball, kicking it in our direction. I eventually got fed up and yelled at him. I was full of rage, thinking he was one of the devil’s tempters, just like the teachers said, trying to distract us from the way of the righteous. I remember screaming at him, ‘Leave us alone! We will never play with you. We are students of God, and we don’t play with stupid village boys!’ I told him he wasn’t worthy of our time. The worst part is that I actually believed what I was saying. Those words made me feel such pride.”
I hang my head, hoping to hide my face from Fatima. I can’t bear to have her see the shame I know is there.
“The next day, we didn’t see Sardar on the way to get bread. I felt guilty, but ignored it. We bought the bread, brought it back, had breakfast and began our lessons—like any other day. Later that morning, as we were preparing for lunch, I noticed a group of boys huddled and spying on something. Some were giggling, and others were silent. My curiosity got the best of me, and I went over to join them. That’s when I saw him. Through the dried brush field, between the shrub the boys were hiding behind and the headmaster’s office window, I saw Sardar. He was bent over crying with his pants around his ankles and the headmaster behind him.”
“What do you mean?” Fatima asks. I look up and meet her eyes. She covers her mouth with her hands and takes a step back. And I know she knows.
“I found out later that Sardar came by the madrassa to ask the headmaster if he cou
ld join us,” I say, my vision blurring from the tears that have filled my eyes. “It’s because of me that he came, and because of me, he left no longer that boy with a kind smile.”
Fatima comes closer and sits next to me. She takes hold of my hand without saying a word. I squeeze it gently, grateful to have her here. It’s comforting to feel her so close to me. I touch her hand against my cheek. When I look at her, I find her staring back at me. My heart races, and my body stiffens. Her pink lips look so perfect, and her eyes are so comforting. I take a deep breath. I’ve never done this before, though I have dreamed of it many times. But now she’s my wife. Now it’s okay. I lean my face slowly toward hers. When I see she’s not pulling away, I get closer. Gently pressing my lips against hers, I taste her sweetness. The sensation sends ripples through my body. It is even more wonderful than I’d imagined it would be. I don’t want to stop kissing her, but I know I have to, or I might lose all control. As I slowly pull away, I notice Fatima’s deep breaths. I wonder if she’s feeling what I’m feeling.
“I really love you,” I say to her.
“I love you too,” she says her face flushing as she smiles that shy smile I can’t live without.
I wrap my arms around her and bring her toward me. She lies nestled against my chest, and we stay like that, silent, for some time.
Fatima finally looks up at me and breaks our silence. “Why didn’t Rashid leave when you did?”
“I asked him to, but he refused,” I answer. “He changed at that school. He let pride take over. He was no longer the Rashid we grew up with.”
I hesitate for a moment before telling Fatima that I think Rashid is after us with Latif’s men.
“You think he’s changed that much?” she asks. All I can do is stare into her frightened brown eyes. “If they find us, they’ll kill us! How can Rashid do this? We were all friends. Why is everyone changing! Why is everyone so horrible!” She starts sobbing again.
