Sofia leaned back against the hut. ‘I guess it was an escape. My mum died when I was twelve.’ She bit her bottom lip. She had no idea why she had told him that.
Daniel opened his eyes then and turned to look at her. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay.’ It wasn’t okay really, but she’d been saying it was for so long it was starting to sound like the truth.
‘What do you remember about her?’
Sofia slowly began pulling up pictures. ‘I remember how she loved me. How our family used to be before she died, and how she read to me and laughed a lot. I also remember how she always said I’d stolen her hair.’ She had turned toward him then. ‘I hated that.’ Leaning back against the wall, she watched the purple and pink of dusk beginning to fade. ‘When Mum died, Dad tried to make it better by telling me my hair was a special gift from her. He used to say that someday some man would fall in love with me because of my hair just like he’d fallen in love with my mum. Seriously?’ Sofia shook her head, as if talking to herself. ‘How could anyone possibly think that would be a good thing? Who wants someone to fall in love with you because of your hair?’
‘Better than falling in love with you because of your bank balance.’
‘Well, that’s never going to happen,’ she had said, laughing as she threw her head back, only to crack it against the rock wall of the hut. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’ Bending forward, Sofia had rubbed the back of her head. ‘Damn that hurt.’
‘Are you alright?’
‘Yeah,’ she had said, sitting up straight to look at him as she continued rubbing her head.
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So why are you here, anyway?’
‘Are you my therapist, Daniel … Shit, I’ve forgotten your last name already,’ she said, still rubbing the bump.
‘Don’t worry, it’s a hard name to remember. You’ve obviously never been in therapy.’
‘And you have?’ she had fired back, regretting the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. ‘This ground’s a bit hard, isn’t it?’ she said, moving around to get more comfortable, hoping he’d forget what she had just said.
‘Trust me, this isn’t therapy. I’m just interested, that’s all.’
‘So are you asking what I’m doing here in the village specifically or in Afghanistan in general?’
‘Either. Both.’
‘I registered with an international medical agency doing overseas placements and a friend who worked for the agency told me about a job for a female doctor being advertised in Kabul and I applied.’
‘And here in this village specifically?’
‘Jabril – that’s the guy who hired me – thought it might be a good idea if I saw some of the country before I returned home, and I saw the article about your trip here in the paper so I contacted your office. You know the rest. How did you end up in this village?’ Sofia reached up, rubbing the bump on the back of her head again.
‘I’d passed through it years ago trekking in the mountains and always wanted to come back. Do you want me to have a look?’ he had asked, reaching out to feel the bump, their hands touching. ‘It’s a big one.’
‘I’ll be fine.’
He withdrew his hand. ‘How long have you been in Afghanistan?’
‘Nearly six months,’ she had said, changing position again, ‘and I’ve got no idea if I’m going to stay, if that’s your next question.’ It was a question Sofia had been asking herself since the day she arrived and she still didn’t have an answer. ‘This is definitely therapy.’
‘Come on,’ he had said, standing and holding out his hand to help her to her feet. ‘Therapy’s over. We’re having dinner with Mafuz tonight.’
* * *
ABOUT FIFTY METRES behind Sofia’s hut was Mafuz’s, which had the same mud and straw floor as Sofia’s only his was bigger – as would befit a headman – and lined with beautifully ancient and threadbare rugs. Along the walls woven cushions had been stacked atop neatly folded blankets, which were resting on the thin mats the family used for sleeping at night and sitting on during the day. With the only light entering the hut coming from two small windows high in the wall, Mafuz’s home was nearly as dark as Sofia’s storeroom.
As they were entering Daniel had touched her hand to pull her back. ‘We need to wait to be invited to take a seat. Oh, and I need to warn you that if you eat everything on your plate they’ll keep piling more on. They need to see that you can’t eat everything to know you’re full.’
After being invited to take the seats of honoured guests furthest from the door, Mafuz’s wife had lit a kerosene lamp and laid a brightly patterned piece of floral vinyl on the floor before presenting them with mounds of naan bread, a watery soup with rice and vegetables, and cups of salty tea. As they ate and drank, Sofia had answered the headman’s questions about her homeland, but it had been a long day and she could feel her eyes growing heavy. After Daniel had made their excuses and was walking her back to her hut, he pulled a battered old English–Dari dictionary out of his pocket. ‘Here,’ he said.
She looked at the dictionary and pulled a face. ‘Am I that bad?’
‘No,’ he laughed, ‘but you’re still learning and it might help while you’re here, although this dialect has its differences.’
When they stopped outside her hut Sofia realised she didn’t want him to leave but had no idea how to say that.
‘I think your dad was right,’ his voice soft as he reached out to thread her hair back behind her ears.
‘About what?’
‘Your hair.’
‘That a man will fall in love with me because of it?’
‘No, that it’s beautiful. That you’re beautiful.’
They had become lovers that night.
* * *
OUT IN THE
