20
MIRWAIS HAD BEEN sitting cross-legged on the ground outside his house playing with his youngest son, who was snuggled in his lap, as they waited for the important visitors Taban had told him about. When he saw them coming his smile disappeared and the child, sensing the change in his father, huddled further down. Five kids constantly sick and a wife who had just come through a difficult pregnancy meant that Sofia knew the family well. Unlike his brothers and sisters, though, she had never been able to draw this child out. He clearly had developmental problems, but without tests she had no idea what could be done for the boy. Realising Mirwais was nervous, Sofia tried to reassure him with a smile, but he had eyes only for the tall man walking beside her.
Lifting the child off his lap, Mirwais stood to greet his visitors, but with the boy clinging tightly to his trouser leg he was forced to bend down and pick him up again. After the introductions, Taban nodded for Mirwais to invite them inside.
The house, built by Mirwais when he’d had permanent employment, was one of the sturdier constructions in Jamal Mina. Made with mudbricks, it had a well-fitted front door and two matching windows facing out to the magnificent view and the open sewer that ran close by. On the hard-packed dirt floor inside was a mattress, a pile of old blankets and two cardboard boxes storing cooking utensils and the family’s clothes. While Daniel, Sofia and Tawfiq found places on the floor to sit, Taban spoke quietly with Mirwais before she joined them. Putting the child down, Mirwais took the package she had handed him and began walking toward the box of utensils, but the child scooted across the floor on his backside until he had caught up with his father and grabbed hold of his leg again. Mirwais bent down and picked his son up.
Sofia took the opportunity to study the boy. He was five years old, quite small for his age, and still not walking or talking. About eighteen months previously Sofia had asked if she might run some tests, but Mirwais and his wife had refused, which had been confusing for her considering Afghans would normally jump at any opportunity of free health care. Perhaps they didn’t trust the hospital, or were frightened of what the results might say? In time she hoped they might change their minds.
With one hand free, Mirwais opened Taban’s package. Pulling out a small cellophane packet of pistachios and emptying them into a bowl, he returned to sit cross-legged with his son in his lap again before placing the nuts on the floor between them.
‘Mirwais,’ Taban began, ‘can you please tell Dr Daniel what life’s like for you and your family in Jamal Mina?’
As Mirwais began speaking, Taban translated until Daniel interrupted her in Dari to say he understood the language. Sofia could see that Daniel’s value had just gone up another notch in Taban’s eyes.
Like many of the men who lived here, Mirwais had become a day labourer on construction sites in Kabul until the Western dollars, and the work, started drying up. For over a year now he’d had no work.
‘Every morning I look for work but no one’s hiring because the Americans are leaving, and now we have no money to buy food. Sometimes my wife and children beg,’ he said, the shame thickening his voice. Sofia’s heart ached for the father. He was a good man. ‘It’s better that my children and my wife beg because they get more money. I don’t get so much.’
As tears began to well in his eyes Mirwais looked down, pretending to examine the back of his son’s shaven head. Sensing his father’s distress, the boy curled up into a tighter ball in his lap, burying his face in the rough cotton of the man’s perahan tunban.
Daniel turned to Taban. ‘How many children from Jamal Mina do you think beg on the streets?’ Sofia was aware Daniel probably knew the answer to that question but he’d asked it to give Mirwais privacy and time to collect himself.
‘There are many. Mothers and children also wash windscreens during traffic jams and unfortunately now some are stealing.’
Mirwais started talking again. ‘In our village people helped us, but there’s nothing left in our village to go back to.’ Mirwais looked down and began picking at the plastic strap of his torn sandal. ‘If there’s money I buy food. If we have food at night there’ll be no food for the morning. In winter I might buy firewood if I have money, but if I do there’ll be no food that day. My children are always sick and hungry.’ Mirwais looked away from Daniel to Sofia. ‘Dr Sofia and Dr Jabril give me medicines for my children. I cannot pay them. It shames me.’ Again he looked down at his son’s head.
‘Mirwais,’ Sofia said softly, ‘we’ve spoken of this many times.’ She turned to Daniel to explain. ‘Dr Jabril and I get the medicines free so there’s no need for Mirwais to pay.’
This was not strictly true. Jabril and Sofia had become good at getting money out of Jabril’s rich friends to support their work in the slum, using the drug samples they got from their suppliers and reaching into their own pockets. Like Mirwais, Sofia knew she would have been embarrassed to ask for handouts for herself, but she would have got down on her hands and knees – and sometimes nearly did – to get the drugs needed for families like Mirwais’s. Sofia had no idea where Taban got her supply from and never asked, but she had noticed that a lot of the medicines were either out of date or close to it. She suspected her source was the black market in Pakistan.
Mirwais looked directly at Daniel. ‘This is how it is for us.’
‘I see.’
Mirwais looked over
