Chapter 24 Chapter Twenty-Three
In a daze, I saw some faces, stayed, and retreated.They bent over me and asked me questions.They are all asking.Do I know who I am?Is there any pain in my body?I know who I am and I ache all over.I wanted to tell them this, but the pain was too great to speak.I've known this before, maybe a year ago, maybe two years ago, maybe ten years ago.I want to talk to a boy with rouge on his face and black shadows on his eyes.that child.Yes, I see him now.We seemed to be in the car, the kid and me, and I knew it wasn't Soraya who was driving because she never went that fast.I wanted to talk to that boy--talking to him seemed the most important thing.But I forgot what I wanted to say, or why it was so important to talk to him.Maybe I want to tell him to stop crying and everything will be fine now.Maybe not.For some reason I can't name, I want to thank that kid.
face.They all wear green hats.They come and go.They spoke very quickly in a language I did not understand.I heard other voices, other noises and beeps and sirens.There are always more faces, looking down.I can't remember anyone but a face with jelly in the hair and a Clark Gable mustache and a smear like a map of Africa on the hat.The star of the soap opera.That's funny.I just want to laugh right now.But laughing can also hurt.
I pass out.
She said her name was Aisha, "like the Prophet's wife".Her hair was gray, parted in the middle, and tied in a ponytail; her nose wore a sun-shaped button.She wears glasses and her eyes look prominent.She also wears green and her hands are soft.She looked at me staring at her smiling.Speak in English.Something went into the side of my chest.
I pass out.
There is a man standing by my bed.I know him.He was dark, tall and thin, with a long beard.He wore hats—what were those hats called?Felt hat?The hat was slanted on one side, like some famous person I can't recall now.I know this man, years ago, he drove me somewhere, I know him.Something is wrong with my mouth.I heard a bubbling sound.
I pass out.
I have a burning pain in my right arm.The woman with glasses and a sun-shaped button on her nose bent over my arm and inserted a clear plastic tube.She said it was "potassium". "Like a bee sting, right?" she said.Indeed.what is her name?Seems to be related to Prophet.I have also known her for several years.She used to wear it in a ponytail, now it's pulled back and tied into a bun.Soraya had the same hairstyle when I first talked to her.when was thatlast week?
Aisha!I remembered.
Something is wrong with my mouth.The thing went into my chest.
I pass out.
We were at Mount Suleiman in Balochistan and Baba was fighting a black bear.He was my father when I was a child, Mr. Hurricane, tall as a steel tower, powerful, a typical Pashtun; not the sluggish one under the blanket, not the one with sunken cheeks and hollow eyes.They, Papa and Black Bear, rolled back and forth in a green field, Papa's brown curls flying.The black bear roared, maybe it was Dad's cry.Spit and blood flew up, bear paws and hands clashed.They fell to the ground with a loud bang and Dad sat on the bear's chest with his fingers in its nostrils.He looked up at me.he is me.I'm wrestling with a black bear.
I woke up.The lanky dark man was at my bedside again.His name was Farid, I remember now.I was in the car with him and a boy.His face reminded me of Jingle Bells.IM thirsty.
I pass out.
I kept waking up and passing out.
It turned out that the man with the Clark Gable mustache was Dr. Farooqi.He's not a soap opera star at all, but a craniocervical surgeon.But I always thought of him as Armand, the protagonist of some soap opera set on a tropical island.
where am iI wanted to ask, but couldn't open my mouth.I frowned and moaned.Armand smiled, his teeth really white.
"Not yet, Amir," he said, "but soon, just untie the thread." His English had a thick Urdu accent.
Wire?
Armand folded his arms, his forearms were hairy and he wore a gold wedding chain. "You're definitely wondering where you are and what's going on. That's normal. There's always this dazed state after surgery. So I'll let you know what I know."
I want to ask him about the thread.after surgery?Where is Aisha?I want to see her smile and hold her soft hand.
Armand frowned, raising an eyebrow, looking a little smug. "You're in the hospital in Peshawar. You've been here for two days. You're badly hurt, Amir, and I have to tell you. If I ask you, you're lucky to be alive, my friend." said, while extending the index finger, swinging back and forth like a pendulum. "Your spleen ruptured, luckily probably later, because you had early signs of bleeding in your abdominal cavity. My general surgery colleagues have already performed a splenectomy on you. If it had ruptured earlier , you might bleed to death." He patted my arm, where the IV tube was inserted, smiling. "You also had seven broken ribs, one of which caused a pneumothorax."
I frowned, trying to open my mouth, but remembered the cable.
"In other words, your lung was punctured." Armand explained, he pulled a transparent plastic tube on my left side, and there was another throbbing pain in my chest. "We're using this chest tube to close the gap." I followed the tube and saw that it was inserted under the bandage on my chest at one end, and at the other end in a container half filled with a column of water.That's where the sound of the bubbles comes from.
"There are many different wounds on your body. The 'wounds'."
I wanted to tell him that I knew what that word meant, that I was a writer.I wanted to open my mouth, but forgot to sew it up again.
"The worst cut is on the upper lip," Armand said. "The impact splits your upper lip in half, splitting it from the person. But don't worry, the plastic surgeons have stitched it up for you, and they think you'll recover very well." All right, but there's going to be a scar there. It can't be avoided."
"You had a ruptured orbital bone on your left side, which is the bone in your left eye socket, and we repaired it for you. Your jaw line will take six weeks to remove," Armand said. "Until then, you can only eat liquid food and milk. You'll lose some weight, and for a short while, you'll talk like Al Pacino in the first movie." He laughed, "But you have a job to do today, you know What is it?"
I shake my head.
"Your job today is to defecate. We can start feeding you liquid food only after you finish. No feces, no food." He laughed again.
Later, Aisha helped me change the infusion tube, and shook the head of the bed understandingly.Then, I remembered what happened to me.A ruptured spleen.Teeth fall out.The lung was punctured.Eye sockets cracked.When I saw a pigeon pecking at the broken bread on the windowsill, I couldn't help but think of what Armand or Dr. Farooqi had just said.The force of the impact splits your upper lip in two, he said, splitting it out of the person.Cleft from the man like a harelip.
The next day, Farid and Sohrab came to visit. "Do you know who we are today? Do you remember?" Farid said half-jokingly.I nod.
"Praise be to Allah!" he said, beaming, "no more nonsense."
"Thank you, Farid," I said through my stitched jaw.Armand was right—I do sound like Al Pacino in there.And my tongue surprised me: it stuck out where my feeding teeth used to be, and it was empty. "Seriously, thank you for everything you've done for me."
He shook his hands, his face a little embarrassed: "Don't say that, there is nothing to thank." I turned to Sohrab.He was wearing new clothes, a pale blue cotton robe that looked a little too big, and a black skullcap.He looked down at his feet, fiddling with the bent IV tube beside the bed.
"We haven't had a good introduction yet," I said, reaching out to him. "I'm Amir."
He looked at my hands, then at me. "Are you Lord Amir that Baba told me about?" he said.
"Yes." I thought of those words in Hassan's letter.I told Farzana dear and Sohrab so many times, how we used to grow up together, and play games, and run kites in the streets.They'll laugh out loud hearing about our past pranks! "I have to thank you too, Sohrab dear," I said. "You saved my life."
He was silent and did not shake my hand.I put my hand down, "I like your new clothes." I whispered.
"That's my son's," Farid said. "He can't fit these clothes. I think they look good on Sohrab." He said Sohrab could stay with him until we found a place for him. "We don't have enough rooms, but what can I do? I can't let him sleep on the street. Besides, my kids love Sohrab. Don't you, Sohrab?" Wrapped around fingers.
"I've always wanted to ask," Farid said hesitantly, "what happened in that house? What happened between you and the Taliban?"
"Let's just say we all deserve what we deserve," I said.
Farid nodded and stopped asking.I suddenly realized that we have become friends since we left Peshawar and went to Afghanistan. "I also have something I've always wanted to ask."
"what?"
I suddenly didn't want to ask, I was afraid to hear the answer. "Rahim Khan," I said.
"he's gone."
My heart sank: "He..."
"No, just...going." He handed me a folded letter and a small key. "I went to look for him, and the landlord gave me this. He said that the day after we left, Rahim Khan also left."
"Where is he going?"
Farid shrugged. "The landlord didn't know either. He said Rahim Khan left you the letter and the key and left." He checked his watch. "I have to go. Let's go, Sohrab."
"Can you let him stay here for a while?" I said. "Get him later?" I turned to Sohrab. "Would you like to stay with me for a while?"
He shrugged and said nothing.
"Of course," Farid said, "I'll pick him up before evening prayers."
There are three other patients in my room.Two were older, one had a cast on his foot, the other had asthma, and a boy of fifteen or sixteen had just had his appendicitis cut.The old guy who poured the cast was watching us intently, his eyes going back and forth between me and the Hazara boy sitting on a little stool.My roommate's family—old women in bright smocks, children, men in skullcaps—was noisily in and out of the ward.They brought veggie roti, naan, hash browns and roti.Occasionally someone just walked into the house, like a tall bearded man wrapped in a brown blanket who came in just before Farid and Sohrab came.Aisha asked him something in Urdu, but he ignored him and just scanned the room with his eyes.I think he's looking at me for an inappropriate amount of time.The nurse spoke to him again, and he just turned away.
"How are you?" I asked Sohrab.He shrugged and looked at his hands.
"Are you hungry? The lady over there gave me a plate of rice, but I can't eat it." I said.I don't know what to say to him, "Do you want to eat?"
He shook his head.
"Do you want to talk?"
He shook his head again.
We sat like that for a while, in silence, I leaning on the bed with two pillows behind me, and Sohrab sitting on the three-legged stool beside the bed.I fell asleep unknowingly, and when I woke up, the sky was a little dark, the shadows grew longer, and Sohrab was still sitting beside me.He is still looking at his hands.
That night, after Farid picked up Sohrab, I opened Rahim Khan's letter.I read it as slowly as I could, and it read:
Dear Amir:
Allah, may you see this letter unscathed.I pray I didn't hurt you and I pray the Afghans don't treat you too hard.I have been praying for you since the day you left.
All those years you've wondered if I knew.I do know.Hassan told me not long after it happened.You did wrong, Amir dear, but don't forget that when it happened, you were just a child, a restless little boy.You were so hard on yourself then and you still are - I could see it in your eyes in Peshawar.But I hope you will realize this: a man without conscience, without virtue, cannot suffer.I hope this time you go to Afghanistan, it will end your suffering.
Dear Amir, I am ashamed that we kept it from you all those years.You were right to lose your temper in Peshawar.You have a right to know, and so does Hassan.I know it doesn't help, but in those days we lived in a strange world in Kabul, where some things were more important than the truth.
Dear Amir, I know how hard your father was on you when you were growing up.I know how much you suffer, how much you long to be loved by him, and my heart aches for you.But your father was a man pulled in two, Amir dear: by you and Hassan.He loves you both, but he can't openly show his love for Hassan in order to fulfill his fatherly duties.So he vented his grievances on you—you are just the opposite, Amir, you are half recognized by society, and the wealth he inherited, and the privilege of impunity for crimes that come with it, will all be given back to you.When he sees you, he sees himself, and his guilt.You are still angry, and I understand that it is too early for you to accept this.But maybe one day, you will understand that your father was tough on you, and he was tough on yourself.Your father was a miserable man just like you, Amir dear.
I cannot describe to you the depth of my grief upon hearing of your father's death.I love him because he's my friend, but also because he's a good guy, maybe even an amazing guy.And what I want you to understand is that your father's deep self-condemnation led to good deeds, real good deeds.I thought of everything he did, giving to the poor on the street, building that orphanage, giving money to friends in need, all of these were his ways of redemption.And I think, dear Amir, when crime leads to good, that's true salvation.
I know that in the end, Allah will forgive.He will forgive your father, forgive me, and you.I hope you do too.Forgive your father if you can.Forgive me if you will.But, most importantly, forgive yourself.
I leave you some money, and indeed, that's all I can leave.I think if you come back here, you may have some expenses, and the money will be enough for you.There was a bank in Peshawar, and Farid knew where it was.The money is in the safe, and I left you the key.
As for me, it's time to go.My days are numbered, and I wish to spend them alone.Please don't look for me.This is my last request.
I deliver you into the hands of Allah.
your forever friend
Racine
I pulled up the sleeves of my hospital gown, wiped my eyes, folded the letter, and put it under my mattress.
Amir, you are half recognized by society, and the wealth he inherited, as well as the ensuing privilege of immunity from punishment for crimes, will all be given back to you.Maybe that's why my dad and I got along so well in America, I thought.Selling junk for petty bucks, our menial jobs, our dingy apartment—the American hovel; maybe in America, when Dad saw me, he saw a part of Hassan.
Your father was a miserable man just like you.Rahim Khan wrote.Maybe, we've all committed crimes and betrayed others.But Dad found a way to turn guilt into good deeds.And what did I do, other than take out my crimes on the person I betrayed and try to forget about it?What did I do other than keep myself up at night?
How have I ever done anything right?
When the nurse—not Aisha, but a red-haired woman whose name I can't remember—walked in with a syringe and asked if I wanted a shot of morphine, I said yes.
Early the next morning, they removed my chest tube and Armand had the staff ready to give me some apple juice.Elsa put down a glass of juice on my bedside table and I asked her for a mirror.She held her glasses up to her forehead and drew back the curtains to let the morning light shine into the room.She turned her head and said, "It will look better in a few days. Last year my son-in-law got into a car accident while riding a motorcycle, and his handsome face fell on the asphalt road and was bruised like an eggplant. Now he is so handsome again, like an eggplant. Lollywood movie stars."
Despite her reassurance, I almost suffocated when I looked into the mirror and saw what it insisted was my face.It looked as though someone had inserted a windpipe under the skin of my face and pumped air into it.My eyes are bruised.The worst part was my mouth, a big bruised and swollen thing full of bruises and stitches.I tried to smile, and pain flitted across my lips.Looks like I won't be able to do this for a long time.I also have seams on my left cheek, just below the cheekbone, and a seam on my forehead below the hairline.
The old guy with the cast on his foot said something in Urdu.I shrugged at him and shook my head.He pointed to his face and patted it lightly, his mouth wide in a toothless grin. "Very well," he said in English, "Allah bless you."
"Thank you." I whispered.
I had just put the mirror down when Farid and Sohrab entered.Sohrab sat on a stool with his head leaning against the railing of the bed.
"You know what, the sooner we can get you out of here the better."
"Dr. Farooqi said..."
"I don't mean discharge, I mean leave Peshawar."
"why?"
"I don't think it's safe for you to stay here for too long," Farid said, lowering his voice. "The Taliban have friends here, and they'll start hunting you."
"I think they may have been here already," I murmured.I suddenly remembered the man with the beard who came into the room and just stood there staring at me.
Farid whispered, "Once you can move around, I'll take you there. It's not safe there, there is no safe place in Pakistan, but it's better than here. At least it will buy you some time."
"Dear Farid, this will drag you down too. Maybe you shouldn't be seen by them with me, you have a family to take care of."
Farid waved his hand: "My sons are still young, but they are very smart. They know how to protect their mother and sisters." He smiled and said, "Besides, I didn't say that I will do it for you."
"Even if you are willing, I will not agree." I said.I forgot I couldn't smile, and trying to force a smile, a trail of blood trickled down my chin. "Can you do me one more favor?"
"For you, thousands of times," Farid said.
Just like that, I burst into tears.I was short of breath, and tears rushed down my face, stinging the parted flesh of my lips.
"What's wrong with you?" Farid said nervously.
I covered my face with one hand and blocked the front with the other.I know the whole room is watching me.Afterwards, I felt tired and empty. "Sorry." I said.Sohrab looked at me with a worried expression.
When I can talk again, tell Farid what I want: "Rahim Khan says they live in Peshawar."
"Maybe you should write their names down," Farid said, looking at me thoughtfully, as if wondering why I'd break down next.I wrote their names on a tissue: "John and Betty Caldway."
Farid folded the tissues and put them in his pocket. "I'll find them as soon as possible," he said.He turned to Sohrab: "As for you, I'll pick you up again tonight. Don't tire Lord Amir."
But Sohrab went to the window, and several pigeons were walking back and forth on the window sill, pecking at the wood and pieces of bread.
In the middle drawer of my bedside table, I found an old National Geographic, a used pencil, a comb with some teeth missing, and what I was sweating and trying to reach for: a Deck of playing cards.I counted it earlier, and to my surprise, the deck turned out to be complete.I asked Sohrab if he wanted to play.I didn't expect him to answer, let alone play cards.He has been quiet since we left Kabul.But he turned from the window and said, "I only play 'Panjipa'."
"I'm sorry for you, because I'm a good fanjipa and the whole world knows it."
He sat down on the stool next to me and I dealt him five cards. "When your dad and I were your age, we used to play it together. Especially in the winter, when it snowed and we couldn't go outside, we used to play until the sun went down."
He played a card and drew one from the deck.While he was looking at the cards and thinking, I secretly watched him.He resembled his father in many ways: the way he fanned the cards in his hand, the way he squinted at the cards, and the way he rarely looked into other people's eyes.
We played in silence.I won the first set, let him win the second, and lost the next five games without cheating. "You're as good as your father, maybe better," I said after losing the last round. "I used to beat him a lot, but I think he made me do it." I paused, then said : "Your father and I grew up on the same woman's milk."
"I know."
"He...how did he tell you about us?"
"He said you were his best friend for life," he said.
I held the cube jack and shook it up and down. "I'm afraid I'm not as good as he thinks," I said, "but I want to be your friend. I think I can be your good friend. Okay? Would you like to?" I put my hand lightly on his arm up, but he flinched.He put down the cards, got up from the stool, and walked back to the window.The sun was setting in Peshawar and the sky was covered with red and purple clouds.From the street below came the sound of horns, donkeys braying, police whistles.Sohrab stood in the red slanting light, his forehead against the glass, his hands buried under his armpits.
That night, with the help of Aisha and a male nurse, I took my first steps.Grabbing the IV pole on pulleys with one hand and resting on the assistant's forearm with the other, I walked around the room.Ten minutes later, I returned to the bedside, my heart was throbbing and I was sweating profusely.I lay on the bed, gasping for breath, hearing my heart pounding in my ears, and missing my wife so much.
The next day, Sohrab and I remained silent and played "Panjipa" almost all day long.Another day like that.We just played panjipa and barely talked, me reclining on the bed and him on the three-legged stool.We played cards all the time except when I was walking around the room, or going to the bathroom down the hall.I had a dream late that night.I dreamed that Assef was standing in the doorway of the ward, with the copper balls still embedded in his eye sockets. "We are of the same kind, you and I," said he. "You are his nurse, but you are my twin brother."
The next morning, I told Armand I wanted to leave.
"It's too early to leave the hospital now," Armand protested.He was not wearing a surgical gown that day, but a navy blue suit, yellow tie, and gel-sprayed hair. "You're still on IV antibiotics, and..."
"I have to go," I said. "Thank you, thank you for everything. Really. But I have to go."
"Where are you going?" Armand said.
"I can't tell."
"You can barely move."
"I can walk down the corridor and back," I said, "and I'll be fine." The plan was this: Leave the hospital, get the money out of the safe, pay the bills, drive to the pharmacy. Orphanage, give Sohrab to John and Betty Caldway.Then headed to Islamabad, adjusted my travel plans, gave myself a few days, and flew home when I felt better.
In any case, that was the plan, until the arrival of Farid and Sohrab that morning. "Your friends, John and Betty Caldway, are not in Peshawar," Farid said.
It took me ten minutes to put on the cotton robe.They put a hole in my chest for a chest tube, and it hurts badly when I lift my hand; and every time I lean over, my guts churn.I packed some of my belongings into a brown paper bag, panting from exhaustion.But before Farid arrived with that news, I managed to get ready and sit on the edge of the bed.Sohrab sat next to me on the bed.
"Where did they go?" I asked.
Farid shook his head: "You still don't understand..."
"Because Rahim Khan said..."
"I've been to the American Consulate," Farid said, lifting my bag, "and there's never been a John and Betty Caldway in Peshawar. The people at the consulate say there's no such thing. Anyway, there's no one here in Peshawar .”
Sohrab was flipping through the old National Geographic next to me.
We go to the bank to withdraw money.The manager was a potbellied man with sweat stains under his armpits; he kept smiling and told me that no one at the bank had ever touched the money. "Absolutely not." He said solemnly, wagging his index finger.Armand did that too.
Driving through Peshawar with such a big bag of money was a little daunting.Plus, I suspect every bearded man looking at me is a Taliban hit man sent by Assef.And what scares me is: there are many bearded people in Peshawar, and they all stare at me.
"How do we house him?" Farid said, walking with me slowly from the hospital's billing office back to the car.Sohrab was in the back seat of the Land Cruiser, with the window rolled down, his chin resting on his palm, watching the passing cars on the street.
"He can't stay in Peshawar," I gasped.
"Yes, Master Amir, he can't," Farid said, and he heard me. "I'm sorry, I wish I..."
"It's okay, Farid," I said, trying to force a weary smile. "You've got a family to support." There was a dog standing by the car now, propping itself up on its hind legs, its front paws resting on the door. , wagging its tail. "I think he should go to Islamabad now," I said.
It was four hours to Islamabad, and I almost fell asleep all the way.I dreamed a lot, and all I remembered was a hodgepodge of visions, vivid fragments of memory flashing through my mind like business cards on a carousel.Dad marinated lamb for my thirteenth birthday.Soraya and I had our first taste of cloud and rain, the sun was rising in the east, we still had wedding music in our ears, her henna-painted hands intertwined with mine.Baba took Hassan and me to a strawberry field in Jalalabat—the owner told us we could eat as much as we wanted if we bought four kilos, and we both ended up with stomachaches.Hassan's blood dripped from the hip of his trousers onto the snow, looking so dark it was almost black.Blood is the most important thing, my child.Aunt Jamila patted Soraya's knee and said, only Allah knows best, maybe things are not like this.Sleep on the roof of Dad's house.Dad said the only crime was theft.When you lie, you steal people's right to know the truth.Rahim Khan was on the phone, telling me there was a way to be good again.A road to being good again...
Notes:
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