Omar stroked his beard as he considered this, only to find spiky hairs stuck to the ends of his fingers. The loss of hair under his pakol had been expected but this unwelcome reminder of his illness on his face was not. He brushed them off on his tunban.
‘Anyway, if she was, why do you think I’d know?’ Iqbal asked, shading his eyes with his bony old hand.
Omar shrugged. ‘I thought you might have heard something, or Rashid might have told you something.’
Iqbal changed his position again. ‘The last time Rashid told me something it was that a black man had become president of the United States. How long ago was that?’
Omar considered the question. ‘Quite a long time ago, I think.’ As he considered what Iqbal had just said he realised that Rashid had only been in the square for three years and Obama became president a very long time ago. His heart felt heavy in his thin body. Why was Iqbal teasing him?
‘Tell me why you’re asking this thing, Omar.’
‘Well, I noticed that Tawfiq didn’t want Dr Sofia to go to Kandahar with the man from the UN, and Rashid’s been following her across the square, and Behnaz didn’t want Dr Sofia to go to Kandahar. It seems to me that something’s not right in the square.’
‘Why do you say the man was from the UN when he has an MSF car? I think you’re confused.’
Omar scratched the skin under his beard again. He couldn’t rightly remember why he thought the man was from the UN. ‘Yes, but Behnaz was being very strange also. Maybe the chief has told her something about Dr Sofia. He must know what everyone is doing.’
‘It’s been my opinion that Behnaz has been very strange for a very long time,’ Iqbal offered with a chuckle.
Omar shook his head. ‘That’s not the point.’ Why was Iqbal trying to confuse him?
‘Don’t you think, Omar, that if Dr Jabril was really worried about Dr Sofia, he would have hired someone better than Rashid?’
It is true, Omar thought.
‘Perhaps there is another possibility you’ve not considered yet.’
‘Yes?’ Omar asked, hoping this new possibility would clear everything up.
‘Tawfiq and Rashid are simply doing their jobs and Behnaz is always worried about Dr Sofia and Kandahar is not a safe place to be for someone like Dr Sofia anytime these days.
‘Well, yes, but there are these shabnamah …’
‘These shabnamah? Last time I heard you had only one shabnamah.’
‘Yes, you’re right, it was only one.’ Omar felt flustered. ‘But there might be more. There might be two.’
‘Two?’
‘Maybe … maybe not.’
‘Careful, Omar, the wound of the sword will heal, but not that of the tongue.’ Iqbal was watching him, waiting for his words to sink in. ‘I think you need to keep your story straight or people in the square might think you’re out to cause trouble.’
Omar felt deeply wounded. ‘No, I would never want to cause trouble.’
‘I know this, my friend, but you’ve been talking to people, and now half the square is afraid, so I’m thinking that it might be wise for you to go back to your chair in the middle of the square and catch all the gossip you’ve created as it comes flying past so everything in the square can go back to normal. Don’t dig wells for others because you might fall into one yourself, Omar.’ With that, Iqbal leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. ‘Now I need to rest.’
Omar wandered back to his chair. He knew Iqbal’s words had been harsh because of his pain and he must forgive him. As he sat, his heart made heavy by his friend’s words, Omar could feel himself beginning to drift off. When he woke that morning he had used the last of his pain draught. Perhaps he had taken a little too much, he thought, but sleep was a beautiful thing.
As he drifted off, he wondered whether falling asleep forever would not be such a bad thing after all.
31
ONCE THEY HIT the paved, and mostly monitored, ring road from Kabul to Ghazni and then on to Kandahar, Tawfiq reverted to Afghan rally car mode, which assigned the right of way to the fastest driver in the largest SUV. Such driving had more to do with security than machismo. A fast-moving target was harder for Taliban snipers to hit.
Within an hour they were moving through barren hills and flying past sparse villages of dull mudbrick partially hidden behind crumbling rock walls. Occasionally a child could be seen playing in the dirt next to a house, a goat herder grazing his flock among the rocks, black-clad women laying washing over dry stone walls and old men with heavy loads balanced on their heads navigating a path along the disappearing verge of the road. Forlorn little roadside chaikhanas and stalls were dotted along the highway selling the street food of chainaki, kebabs, bolani and chickpeas in a vinegar sauce, together with misshapen fruit, vegetables and dusty bottles of warm water.
When the large SUVs sped past, the owners no longer bothered looking up from the shade of their makeshift shelters, although it had not always been so. When Sofia had first arrived in Afghanistan the stallholders used to wave enthusiastically whenever they saw a large car approaching, but with the re-emergence of the Taliban, who liked to use their stalls’ patrons for target practice, the foreigners in their big cars no longer stopped and the stallholders no longer waved.
They passed a barren stretch of land where the remnants of what must have once been a family compound lay abandoned. Having long lost its battle with the elements, the stone walls of the house lay broken and scattered around the dusty, dry courtyard. What sort of tenacity or
