She sighed deeply. ‘You’re a troublemaker, Omar.’
‘Yes, you’ve said that before too.’ Maybe he was a troublemaker. No, he wasn’t a troublemaker. He’d only been trying to help.
‘Did it say anything about Dr Sofia?’
‘Did yours say anything about Dr Sofia?’
‘No.’
‘Then neither did mine. Do you think it’s about Dr Sofia?’ he asked.
He watched as Behnaz drew in a deep breath. ‘Stop causing trouble, Omar.’
‘What does Chief Wasim say?’ he called after her as she strode back to her gate to disappear behind it.
It was not him who was causing trouble, Omar thought, locking the shop door again. It was the night letters that Behnaz wasn’t getting and all the secrets their friends were keeping and something mysterious that Dr Sofia was doing that was causing trouble.
As he made his way upstairs to his bedroom, it worried him that he couldn’t remember the missing day.
39
NO MATTER HOW much Zahra threatened, cajoled or pleaded with Jabril he would not tell her what he was planning to do about Massoud and the visa, which meant they had gone to bed on bad terms. The following morning his wife remained icy, which had him hurrying out the door early to buy his morning copy of the Afghanistan Times. Flicking through the pages he was relieved to see there was nothing about Massoud. He rang his friend Ishmael, who was the senior editor of the newspaper, who informed Jabril that the story they had been working on might not appear in the newspaper for a few more days. Jabril’s heart sank. Every time he thought about the chain of events he had set in motion he felt ill. The story needed to be published before he lost his nerve and changed his mind. When he asked Ishmael why the delay he was told the newspaper needed to check facts, including whether Massoud was in Kandahar on the night in question.
‘You don’t believe a special representative of the United Nations?’ he asked, affronted on both his and Daniel’s behalf.
‘I would if I could interview or quote him, but you told me I can’t talk with him. You don’t want to withdraw the story, do you, Jabril?’
‘No, no, no, of course not! What sort of man would I be if I reneged?’ The sort of man he despised is what he would be. ‘What happens now?’
‘As far as I can see, either one of two things will happen when the story breaks about Massoud and his boy. Nobody will touch it because they’ll all be too frightened, or it’ll be picked up by everyone, maybe even the international press if it’s a slow news day.’
Jabril wished he’d told Zahra what he was planning to do, but the right opportunity had not presented itself. Jabril checked the thought right there. There was never going to be a right opportunity, and even if there was, he probably wouldn’t have recognised it if it had smacked him in the face. The truth was, he hadn’t told Zahra because he was frightened of what she would say.
‘There is another possibility, not mutually exclusive of the first two,’ Ishmael was saying.
‘What’s that?’ Jabril asked, patting down the hair he swept across the top of his baldness.
‘We’re both going to get killed.’
Jabril’s hand froze and his heart jumped. ‘Don’t say that!’
‘I was joking.’
‘It’s not funny. You’re not the one getting the threats from Massoud.’ He was now sure that Massoud was the author of the three supposed night letters left on his door.
By mid-morning Jabril had become so agitated that he did the unthinkable and cancelled lunch with Mustafa so he could join Zahra and Sofia, who were having lunch together at his home. He would tell them together. With any luck, Sofia’s presence would curb some of Zahra’s fury.
* * *
‘TRY THIS NEW yoghurt from the French Bakery,’ Zahra said as the last dish was placed on the table. ‘They make it themselves.’
Jabril could stand it no longer. ‘Well, I’ve done it,’ he said. It hadn’t been quite how he had planned to begin but at least he had begun. There was no going back now.
‘Finally, the great mystery is about to be revealed. Well?’ asked Zahra, turning to her husband.
Jabril patted down his hair and cleared his throat. ‘I’ve given the story about Massoud and his boy to Ishmael at the Afghanistan Times and very soon it’ll be front-page news all over Afghanistan.’ Just saying it out loud made Jabril feel ill.
He saw Sofia’s face. It had gone white, while Zahra’s hands froze in midair, causing salad to drop from the servers she was holding. At that moment he would have given a great deal to be having lunch with Mustafa in Babur’s chaikhana like any other day of the week.
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘No, no, no, no, no, no! Tell me you’re joking. Tell me you didn’t really expose a man like Massoud.’
‘I did, but we’re not using his name. We’re saying “a former warlord turned politician”.’
‘Oh, that’s alright then.’ Zahra threw the salad servers into the bowl, causing more lettuce to jump out onto the table. ‘Have you gone completely mad? Have you lost your mind? You’ve just signed your death warrant!’
‘Nonsense, my love.’ Jabril could feel the sweat breaking out on his forehead, prickling under his arms. It was not going as well as he had hoped but probably as he had expected. He looked to Sofia for help but she was looking just as upset as Zahra.
‘Massoud is going to kill you!’
‘I think not, Zahra, but I’ve made arrangements that if something does happen to me his name will be made known and then everyone will know who did it.’ This was the only comforting thought Jabril could muster out of the entire affair, other than the fact that a paedophile would be exposed and the government would be forced to do something about the abominable practice.
‘Oh, so that’s your logic, is it? I’ll no longer have a
