The Taliban Cricket Club (10 page)

“Give it to me,” Qubad said. He did a fair imitation of me but swung too wildly, like a golfer driving a ball.

Parwaaze grabbed the bat from him. “Let me try.” He then crouched over the bat, but his feet were too close together.

Qubad took the ball first, examined it as if it were a hand grenade, and then pronounced, “This is as hard as a stone and will break my head.”

“There's not much lost if that happens, and we'll stick the pieces back together,” Parwaaze said, studying the leather and the parallel white stitches of the ball.

“Kn-knowing you, I'll have a nose at the back of my head,” Qubad replied.

“That would improve your looks.”

“Throw it at me,” Parwaaze said, taking it from Qubad and tossing it to me.

“It's bowl,” I reminded him. “You just need to keep your feet about a foot apart to maintain your balance.” I moved about fifteen feet away from him. “It isn't that easy. And don't forget you're aiming at a ball that will bounce and could spin away.”

I repeated the bowling actions of my past. I ran a few steps and turned sideways to deliver the ball. But when I tried to bowl, my right hand became entangled in the flapping garment, I lost sight of Parwaaze, and the ball flew over his head.

“You trying to kill me?”

“I can't do it properly in this,” I said and removed the burka.

From their faces, I knew what they were thinking:
How is she going to teach us?

I ignored their looks. “Ready,” I said to Parwaaze. He crouched, feet slightly apart, and I bowled a gentle ball so it bounced in front of him. He pushed forward with his bat to hit it, but the ball turned and he missed.

I threw the ball to Jahan. “Now you bowl. Take a few steps, turn your body, and your right arm starts high up, then forms an arc coming down.”

He concentrated hard on his bowling action, but the ball landed down near his feet and trickled over to Parwaaze, who hit it back. They took turns bowling and batting with me correcting their actions—“Raise your right hand as high as you can before letting the ball go . . . get your feet as close to the bounce of the ball as possible . . .”—and soon a sublime afternoon passed. There was still the purity and innocence of the game, which had given me such pleasure. We were back to our childhood days, playing together, laughing. I saw that they were enjoying their lesson. I imagined that Nargis and Veer would laugh and clap me on, and my old college coach, Sharma, would chuckle because his Afghan girl was teaching men to play this game.

We stopped when it was time for me to make dinner.

“Have you spoken to any of the others?” I asked Parwaaze.

“I've told Nazir and Omaid and they said they're in. I'll meet the others. We must keep the team in the family, and not let in any outsiders. We'll start learning properly tomorrow but not here.”

“The university. They have a lot of space,” I suggested.

I scooped up the burka and went into the house, taking the bat and ball, leaving three disappointed men who would have played all night to master this game.

The Letter

T
HE NEXT DAY
, I
DELETED MY FIRST LETTER AND
began another to Shaheen.

My dear Shaheen,

I think of you often, daily, I would say. When I wake I think of you waking too, brushing your teeth, shaving, combing your hair, dressing, leaving your apartment and walking out into the street. I can see you catching the bus, sitting back and watching the scenery, thinking about your day ahead. It must be a wonderful feeling to be so free to do what you want. Do you still play cricket? I remember how well you taught me.

I am slightly concerned because I've not heard from you. I do hope all is well with your family. I am so looking forward to seeing you again soon. If you can get through, call me so I will be ready to leave. I'm sad to say Mother is not well.

No doubt, you'll understand that the cost of living has risen since you left.

I stopped. I hoped he understood what I meant. The cost of getting out was in the hundreds, I knew, but the airfare was at least a thousand dollars, and it depended on who sold you your ticket.

Do you still have a friend who will guide me to you? As I need to meet him soon, it would be great if you sent me a present, around 2K for him, so that when the time comes, I will be ready to leave in an instant.

Now, I wrote quickly.

We will marry as soon as I reach your side. I miss you so much.

There, I'd finally set the wedding date, my day of arrival. The pain was still suffocating. I fought back my tears for Veer, knowing we would never see each other again, and signed the letter.

With much affection,

Rukhsana

Mother and Jahan send their love.

What else could I say without telling even more lies? I reread the letter. I printed it out, folded it, and slid it into an envelope. I did not add my home address on the back, nor had I written it in the letter. If it was opened at the post office, no one could trace it back to me. I stuck a stamp on it and prayed it would reach him.

I covered the printer with a cloth and took my laptop to the basement, where Grandfather stored his old files and papers. The shelves sagged under their weight. I pressed a latch at the back of the middle shelf and a part of the bookshelf opened. It hid a dark, musty room, four feet wide and twelve long. When Grandfather built this house nearly fifty years ago, and with our long history of invasions, he had the architect design a secret room that could not be seen from the outside. Nor could it be found inside this house, unless one used a measuring tape between rooms. Not every house had one, although village homes had cellars to store grain after a harvest and hide in during an attack by a neighboring tribe. Grandfather had copied the design of his family home in Mazar. The room was our place to store the family's wealth (none left now) and conceal the women. Apart from an old divan and bolster, there was nothing in it. Only a tiny barred window, a few inches square, flush with the ceiling, leaked in light, and some air, from behind the flower bed. I returned the laptop to its concealed place under the divan and closed the secret door. In a corner of the corridor was a well-fitted slab of granite. It was no different from the rest of the flooring, except for a paper-thin gap in its four sides. Under it, three steps down, was a cellar, about five feet square, six feet high, the sides lined with brick. It was cool and dry, and we had stored dried fruits and nuts, rice and wheat down there at one time. Now, there were only empty sacks cluttering the floor. There was enough space for a few people to squeeze in there too. Should anyone search this building, they would discover the cellar and, hopefully, believe that to be our secret room. Grandfather would have created a labyrinth of escape tunnels, like the ones he saw in the old fortresses that dotted our landscape, if he could have.

Once again, I found Mother in the kitchen, this time asleep in a chair, her head down on her chest and the vegetable knife still in her hand. I touched her gently, and she came awake slowly, as if traveling a great distance through her dreams. “Come on, I'll take you to bed, you need to rest.”

She stood wearily. “One moment I feel as if I can climb a mountain, the next I can't even crawl.” She hooked her arm around my waist, and we shuffled slowly upstairs to her bedroom. I laid her down carefully on the bed, and drew the sheets up to her chin. Gratefully, she closed her eyes and went back to sleep. She was breathing quietly, evenly. What would it be like when the rise and fall of her chest stopped? The dread, barely kept at bay by our hopes of escape, weighed down on my shoulders again.

I returned to the kitchen and prepared
quorma
quietly, with the plums and dal on the side. I missed Mother's company in the kitchen. We had always talked when we worked together. She had inspired my intellectual curiosity and my love of freedom, with Father's approval naturally. She had introduced me to V. S. Naipaul, Norman Mailer, Joseph Heller, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Alexander Dumas, Flaubert, James Joyce, Alison Lurie, Joan Didion, Gloria Steinem. She read me Gul Mohamad Zhowandai's short story collection
Ferroz,
and when I had enjoyed them, we read his novel
Kachkol
and spent hours discussing it. He was our most celebrated poet and writer and died in 1988. In that select company of authors and thinkers, I could imagine different worlds in which other women, and men, lived, loved, and died.

I
FINISHED PREPARING DINNER
and went to get Jahan from his room. He was at his desk in a halo of lamplight, wearing headphones, listening to his CD player. I could faintly hear Ahmad Zakir singing a Hindi song. On the wall opposite him was a large poster of Shaquille O'Neal performing a slam dunk. If the religious police raided us, they would tear it down and cane him for such a sacrilege. An orange basketball was on Jahan's bed. Some nights, I would wake to hear the ball bouncing, and the steady rhythm would lull me back to sleep.

On his bookshelf were X-Men comics and a few novels of Philip K. Dick's. I had tried to read one or two but couldn't connect with such an unemotional world. Maybe I simply lacked faith. Jahan had an unshakable faith in the future and believed, like Dick, that there was an alternate universe. Jahan's ambition was to become an astronaut, the first to slip through matter and black holes to reach this parallel universe, and never return. In that universe, I knew he hoped there would be no wars, no illness, no starvation, and no poverty. To my mind, it was the Taliban who were creating an alternate world, a violent, backward parallel universe. One of little joy, intense prayers, women kept under lock and key, the future banished, and the borders sealed from contaminating influences. They did not hate the present, they hated their inability to exist in it. Though they wanted to dismantle televisions, telephones and electricity, automobiles and planes, and all the other harbingers of corruption that they believed eroded their Islam, they knew, deep down, that time would crush them eventually.

“Have you done your homework?” I asked. Mother and I taught him at home, as the only schools open were the madrassas and we didn't want him to study there. All they taught was the Qur'an, which he would have to learn by heart. There was no math, history, geography, or science in that curriculum. So I used Mother's books to teach him and assigned his homework. Our relationship grew in such complexity—sister, surrogate mother, friend, and teacher, all rolled into one, and I had problems at times keeping them in their separate compartments.

He removed his earphones. “Almost. I just have to read the physics lesson and do the rest of these calculations. Have you written the letter?”

“Finally,” I said with a sigh. “It's not my best work. I gave him a little news and warned him that it would cost more for a smuggler today.”

“How much do you think?”

I shrugged. “Probably two hundred, but then he has to send air tickets also. I asked for two thousand.”

He whistled. “I'm sure he'll be happy to spend that money on you.” He laughed. “We must start practice early tomorrow.”

“You better finish your lessons first. You have to study, whatever happens; it's very important for you.”

We went to the kitchen to lay out dinner. I heated up the rice and the meat and prepared the salad. We were whittled down to such simplicity in our eating habits. I carried a tray into Mother's bedroom. Jahan helped her sit up and I placed it in front of her. Then I returned with the dishes and plates. Jahan prepared the ritual
dasaekhan
. He laid out our precious, antique Mazar-e-Sharif carpet on the floor, and then covered it with a large embroidered cloth. Jahan carried in the
aftabah wa lagan,
a copper kettle and bowl, and poured water from the kettle so that we could wash our hands over the bowl and then dry them on the small towel he handed us. He performed the ritual for Mother first, then me, and I did it for him. I served and, as usual, Mother ate a sparrow's helping. Jahan and I sat on the carpet beside her bed.

“I'm not hungry,” she said.

“You don't like my cooking? You're saying I'm a bad cook?” I pretended to look hurt.

“Don't be silly, I like your cooking but . . .”

“Then show me you like it. Eat a little more. It will help you regain your strength.”

“To do what? Just lie around?”

“To be with us, that's all,” Jahan said. “The more you eat the more joy we have.”

“You're both blackmailers.” She ate a few more mouthfuls of the naan I had cut into pieces.

As we finished our meal, we heard Dr. Hanifa coming up the stairs, grumbling to herself. She was nearing seventy-three now and had retired when it became too difficult for her to visit her patients, but she lived next door and made an exception for Mother. Kindness and compassion filled her eyes, though sadness lined her face. She always removed and left her burka on a chair by the door and donned it again when she left. Her husband, also a doctor, had died many years ago from pneumonia one severe winter. Her children had escaped to Pakistan. One was a doctor in Lahore, the other an engineer in Islamabad. They were planning to emigrate to the States. They would not sit beside her as she died, as I would by my mother.

“So how's my favorite patient?”

Dr. Hanifa took Mother's pulse and her temperature. “You young ones go and do what the young do. We'll talk awhile. Even when your mother sleeps, she's better company than my lonely house. I'll give her the medications later.”

I kissed Mother good night and went to my room and lay down on my bed.

The Five Hundred Meters

H
OW COULD
I
TEACH MY COUSINS CRICKET WHILE
I wore a burka? How could I show them how to bowl or bat when I could barely move? I couldn't even see a ball coming my way through the mesh.

I wasn't sure where to begin, yet currents of excitement shivered through my body. I thought about how Shaheen and my college coach had instructed me. I rolled over in bed and reached for some paper and a pencil on my desk—and I saw my letter to Shaheen. I had forgotten to ask Jahan to post it. It had to be posted tonight for the next morning's pickup, otherwise it would have to wait another twenty-four hours. I would have to disturb Jahan at his homework. It wouldn't take long. The postbox was on Karte Seh Wat. No more than five hundred meters, possibly less. It would take no more than five minutes for him to stroll there and back.

Five minutes, just five hundred meters.

It was such a short distance.

Like a sleepwalker, I went down to the basement, opened the trunk of my memories, removed the plastic bag Jahan had discovered yesterday, and hurried back to my room.

The beard was soft and seductive in my hands. I placed it on my face and firmly secured it. It was made of human hair, not animal hair. It had come from a Hindu woman's head, shorn at the temple, an act of sacrifice and humility. I'd bought it at the Broadway Theater company in Connaught Place in Delhi.

I pinned the old turban in place too, fitting it firmly on my head. I picked up the little hand mirror, and when I looked into it I saw the old moneylender looking back at me. He studied me solemnly, his gaze inching over my face as if looking for imperfections. His eyes met mine. They should have been wary, weary, cynical, and old; instead they were feminine, young, clear, and confused. I removed the turban first, then the beard, and dropped them on the floor. Shylock vanished, consigned to the stage, consigned to memories.

M
RS
. L
AKSHMI, MY ENGLISH
literature professor in Delhi, was a slight, small woman with a narrow face, in her midfifties. In the center of her forehead was a red, round
tilak,
the size of a coin. What she lacked in height and weight she made up for with her eyes, alight with energy and enthusiasm as she looked at her small class of a dozen students.

“You're going to do a lot of reading, and we will discuss in depth what you have read. I want your independent thoughts and not my regurgitated lectures on the writers.” She spoke quickly, as if there were too many words on her tongue and she had to get them out, fast, before they choked her.

“Nargis Dhawan? Are you here?” When Nargis raised her hand, Mrs. Lakshmi dumped a sheaf of papers on her. “Hand those out. That's the required reading.” And as Nargis went around distributing the papers, she continued. “Nargis, you volunteered for our theater group?”

“Yes, Mrs. Lakshmi.”

“Would anyone else here like to join our theater group? We stage three or four plays a year. Some serious, some comedies, as people like comedies for no reason I can discern.”

“Rukhsana,” Nargis said wickedly, and pointed at me.

“Good, that's two.”

“But I can't act,” I said, startled to find myself volunteered.

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Lakshmi said, brusquely dismissing my denial. “All women know how to act from the moment we are born. It's the gift God gave us to survive in this man's world. We have to act out our orgasms, our humility, our love when none exists, and suppress our ambitions.” She looked me over from head to toe. “With a little help from me you're going to play Shylock.”

“I know nothing about men!” I wailed.

“My dear girl, there is nothing to know, they are all sound and fury signifying nothing,” Mrs. Lakshmi said. She waited for the burst of laughter to end. “When you leave here, observe them, watch them on the streets and in the buses and playing sports. Copy them, but don't become them, as they'll infect you with the delicate egos they suffer from. You have to believe in becoming the man, Shylock, immerse yourself in his language, his words, his arrogance at the start and humility at the end.”

I
WENT TO
J
AHAN'S
room clutching my letter to Shaheen. He was crouched over his books, music from the headphones pounding his ears, his unruly hair falling over his eyes. He had dozed off. I couldn't bear to wake him. Quietly, I took a
shalwar,
trousers, and his coat from a pile of clothes in a corner and left. In my room, I stripped and dressed in his clothes. The
shalwar
was loose and hung down to my knees; the jacket over it hid my feminine form. I put my hand in the pocket and found a fistful of banknotes.

I looked in my mirror: the clothes concealed my silhouette. I stood still, waiting for sanity to reclaim me. Instead, I picked up Shylock's beard and fastened the mask firmly on my face. I gathered up my hair, knotted it, and held it on the top of my head as I slipped on the turban. I pulled it down tight so that my hair wouldn't escape. I shook my head violently, from side to side and up and down. Neither beard nor turban became unfastened. Finally, I wrapped a
hijab
around my shoulders and across the bottom half of my face. I picked up the letter. I had to send it tonight, it was my lifeline.

It wasn't late, just eight o'clock. The hall was dark as I stepped through it into the kitchen. My hand shook as I reached for the keys and they eluded me, they danced out of reach, making such a loud sound that I thought my mother and Jahan would come running. I steadied one hand with the other, and took them down.

I held the key for the back door with both hands, inserted it in the lock, and twisted. The door opened. I stepped out into the cool, evening air. It seemed to take ages for me to tiptoe across the courtyard. I could hear Abdul snoring in his room. At the side gate, I held the key with both hands again, more determined now, committed to this madness, and opened that door. The street was deserted and full of shadows. The threshold seemed unnaturally high. I stepped over it, and stood in the lane. I closed the gate behind me.

W
HEN
I
REACHED THE
corner, I looked past the high wall of our courtyard and saw the solitary light in Jahan's room. I could still scuttle back home to safety. Instead, I kept going toward Karte Seh Wat. My breath came in short bursts and I felt as if I'd just sprinted a hundred meters.

Calm down, calm down. Remember Shylock and pace the stage. Remember cricket: the long, solitary walk to the pitch through the minefield of eleven hostile opponents watching and praying for you to fail.

I kept moving down the street.

Don't reveal any fear. Avoid all eye contact. Just take one step and then another. I am a young man out on an evening stroll. I will not be intimidated.

I walked as if I still wore the burka, and I was afraid that I might trip, but the streetlamps were all broken, which I had counted on to keep me hidden. I had heard of men who donned the burka to pass through dangerous war zones undetected—I had removed mine to see if I could pass undetected into danger. I had freedom even if I was also filled with dread.

Beyond the relative safety of my dark road lay the two hundred meters of better-lit streets filled with men strolling freely, laughing, gossiping, dreaming of things that men dream of. I heard distant voices and footsteps as I stood on the corner. A donkey cart passed within a few feet of me, but neither the beast nor the old man sitting on it glanced in my direction. I turned left and began walking toward Karte Seh Wat.

I smelled the dust, the kebabs, and the naan saturating the air. Men stood at stalls, drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. Their smoke drifted to me on the soft breeze. Not all the men were whole. Some were on crutches, others with an arm missing. I tried not to glance at them even though I had that freedom now. I stared straight ahead, not wanting to meet a stranger's eyes.

I recognized a few of the local shopkeepers—Kabir the baker, Akhmed the grocer, Ehsan the chemist. They were fixtures, unmoved by the wars that raged around the city. They knew how to survive and they paid no attention to the slight stranger.

Deeper in the shadows were women in their burkas, some holding out their hands for alms, others offering me their bodies. Before the Talib, our beggars were a few old men, and now they were women who did not have husbands or sons to support them. I had heard many had to turn to prostitution to survive, and the religious police would beat them and drive them away. As often as not they would first pleasure themselves for free. The women waited for them to leave the area, and then returned. “Come, young man, enjoy me. Very cheap. Thirty thousand Afghanis,” they called. Some hands were gnarled, others younger and still delicate.

Another woman called softly, “Brother, please help me, give me some money. I am hungry.”

I took a hurried step past her. Then stopped. I knew the voice, and it sickened me to hear her.

“Sister, what did you say?” I whispered, standing close to her.

She drew away, turning her head, ashamed. “Please help me. I'm hungry.”

“Mother Nadia?”

“You know me, brother? Help me then. I am alone and can't work.”

I couldn't help my tears as I took out the handful of banknotes and gave them to my old teacher.

“How did you know me, brother?”

“My . . . my . . . sister, Rukhsana, went to your school and I recognized your voice.”

“Rukhsana? Rukhsana! Yes, I remember her. She was a cheerful girl, always the leader in the class, always asking questions.” Her sigh penetrated my heart. “How is she? Is she safe?”

“She's well,” I whispered. I remembered her voice in school, bright as a gold coin. Now, it was dull and tarnished with sadness.

“I hope she is married to a good man who cares for her. Please don't tell her about me.”

She clutched the notes tightly, bowed her head, and hurried away. I watched her with blurred eyes until she reached the corner.

The square green postbox on its stand was another fifty meters and I hurried to it, said a small prayer, and pushed the letter through the slot. I lifted my face and felt a slight breeze caress it. For the first time in three and a half years, I breathed in the cool evening air without the impediment of cloth against my nose. Just such a simple pleasure reminded me of past days.

I tried not to hurry as I returned home. I paced myself, head still averted from any lights. As I turned off to my road, a man stepped out from the darkness and fell in beside me. He walked a few steps in silence, and I did not dare turn to look at him.

“Are you mad?” Jahan whispered. “Are you stupid? They will shoot you dead and then shoot me for being your
mahram
.”

“My heart nearly stopped!” I almost screamed.

“What about mine!” he continued in his furious whisper. “I've been following you this whole time. I was so scared when you spoke to that woman.”

“She was my geography teacher. I recognized her voice and gave her the money in your coat pocket.”

“Did she recognize your voice?”

“I whispered,” I managed to stutter. I'd never seen Jahan so angry. “When you whisper . . . it's hard to tell whether you're male or female.”

“You must never do this again. I forbid it, do you understand? As your brother and your
mahram,
I'm telling you this.”

“What would you do if I did? Report me to the religious police and have me beaten?”

“No, I'll lock you in your room. Lock you in the house.”

“I'm already locked in the house,” I reminded him gently. I saw the tension in his young face as he wrestled with asserting his male authority over his sister.

“Why did you do this?”

“I had to post the letter. I forgot to give it to you and you were asleep.” I took a breath. “Did I look like a man?”

“No. Like my sister in a beard,” he said sourly as we walked home.

“That's because you know it's me. When we get home, tell me.”

In the pale moonlight, I modeled and walked around for him.

“Well, it's night, so it's hard to say . . . but what about in the day? You walk like a woman, and look at your hands.” I looked down. They were soft and pale compared to a man's hands. “And your eyes too. They are a woman's. And your feet.”

“I'll wear glasses and sneakers. And I'll keep my hands in my sleeves. I'll have to study how men walk.” I had to convince him. “You saw that I can't bowl or bat in a burka. I need a way to teach you how to play. This is just for cricket.” I smiled at my cleverness and Jahan smiled back.

We turned the corner onto our street and stopped when we saw an unfamiliar car and a Land Cruiser parked outside our front gate. We hesitated, but two policemen saw us at the corner and motioned us over. I remained beside my brother.

As Jahan reached the car, the near passenger door opened and a thickset man with a silky black beard climbed out. He wore a black
shalwar
and a flat black
pakol
cap on his head. The driver remained at the wheel. For a few seconds the interior car light illuminated a woman sitting in the far passenger seat, clothed in her burka. She turned her head toward Jahan but vanished into the darkness as soon as the door slammed shut. A faint breeze touched the man and carried his scent to me. It was the same sickly sweet perfume of the man who had circled me in the room at the ministry, and I took a step farther back into the shadows.

The man greeted Jahan, “
Salaam aleikum.
” He held out his hand and placed his left palm against his chest.

Jahan took his hand. “
Aleikum salaam.
” And he performed the same gesture.

“You are?”

“I am Jahan, son of Gulab.”

“We have come to meet you,” the man said to us, and gestured to the hidden woman to include her. “I am Droon, the deputy minister to my brother, Zorak Wahidi, and we wish to speak to you about an alliance between your sister, Rukhsana, and my brother.”