fanny pack. “I got something y'all might like."
He hooked a speaker to his belt. A male voice crooned in Pashtun, “Close to heaven, West Virginia. Blue-mist mountains, broad and placid river..."
The MP sang along with Denver's original English, his tenor well suited to the poignant tune. Oscar joined in with a hard-edged baritone. I sipped the watery tea and worked at hiding my blush. I knew the academic argument, that nothing in the Quran forbade music—much less lifting the human voice in song—but I also knew the arguments against it. Especially for men. And my great-grandfather forbade it, which outweighed any argument.
The MP elbowed me, and I mumbled along with the English. I didn't actually sing, though. Bad enough to be associated with a stranger who had the gall to play music in a man's home.
A glance under my eyebrows shocked me. The proprietor was openly weeping, but not from mortification or helpless anger. He simply wept, unashamed of his tears. “Beautiful, beautiful."
Perhaps he meant the words, apart from the blasphemous melody? As verse only, a poem to recite in the long evenings, I tried to memorize the Pashtun version. “Shadows of the mountains, dark against the sky. I drink the taste of moonlight, and tears fall from my eyes..."
Long conditioning held my tears inside, but they scalded my eyes. The song suited the Pakhtun mood. And my mood. I should have been home yesterday.
When it ended, we all sat together quietly in the afterglow.
In my khel, the women played hand-drums and sang, so long as their voices didn't travel outside where a male might be enticed or distracted. Men couldn't sing, though. Nor could we listen to musical instruments. Such music was not only frivolous, but likely to entrance the unwary—as I was now entranced—and create a vulnerability the deceiver could then exploit.
Singing while listening to music was doubly haraam , like fornicating under the influence of alcohol, which I'd also done my share of. But the recitation says, “God wishes to lighten your burdens, for man was created weak. Do not destroy yourselves. God is merciful to you...” What could he have been talking about, if not good music and a good fuck? I just had to make sure not to die at some time when I had more dirt than light in my soul.
The girl lifted the man's cup again, and when he refused it, she pouted just the slightest bit. He winked, and she smiled. In that instant, she was the perfect image of my cousin Nerie.
In spring, we'd walked the fields before the plow, collecting the larger stones that floated up through the earth every winter, carrying them to the wall edging the field. My brother Hamid and our cousin Nerie and I usually worked together. Nerie was a year older than me, my grandfather's youngest brother's youngest child. She took my side when Hamid bullied me. When he missed some foolishness, like when Kam Ali and I threw dirt clods at one another and risked spooking the plow horse, she scolded me in his stead.
Sometimes she called me her younger brother and finger-combed twigs or bits of dead leaf from my hair. I never corrected her, content in knowing that when she and Hamid married, her words would be true.
She liked to remind me that since she and Grandmother together would someday choose my wife, I truly must be nice to her. So—to the extent Hamid allowed—she got all the sweets from our communal lunch, and I ate the most burned piece of bread.
Whatever happened to Nerie?
I probably didn't want to know. As in really, really didn't.
The shopkeeper lifted his voice, high-pitched and ululating like a prayer. His song was so Pakhtun in sentiment I needed three lines to realize the lyrics were English. “Fighting soldiers from the sky! Fearless men who jump and die! Men who mean just what they say..."
Some moments brand themselves on a man's soul. I knew I would always remember this dank, lamplit room and this thin, tepid tea, and an armless mujahid singing the
He hooked a speaker to his belt. A male voice crooned in Pashtun, “Close to heaven, West Virginia. Blue-mist mountains, broad and placid river..."
The MP sang along with Denver's original English, his tenor well suited to the poignant tune. Oscar joined in with a hard-edged baritone. I sipped the watery tea and worked at hiding my blush. I knew the academic argument, that nothing in the Quran forbade music—much less lifting the human voice in song—but I also knew the arguments against it. Especially for men. And my great-grandfather forbade it, which outweighed any argument.
The MP elbowed me, and I mumbled along with the English. I didn't actually sing, though. Bad enough to be associated with a stranger who had the gall to play music in a man's home.
A glance under my eyebrows shocked me. The proprietor was openly weeping, but not from mortification or helpless anger. He simply wept, unashamed of his tears. “Beautiful, beautiful."
Perhaps he meant the words, apart from the blasphemous melody? As verse only, a poem to recite in the long evenings, I tried to memorize the Pashtun version. “Shadows of the mountains, dark against the sky. I drink the taste of moonlight, and tears fall from my eyes..."
Long conditioning held my tears inside, but they scalded my eyes. The song suited the Pakhtun mood. And my mood. I should have been home yesterday.
When it ended, we all sat together quietly in the afterglow.
In my khel, the women played hand-drums and sang, so long as their voices didn't travel outside where a male might be enticed or distracted. Men couldn't sing, though. Nor could we listen to musical instruments. Such music was not only frivolous, but likely to entrance the unwary—as I was now entranced—and create a vulnerability the deceiver could then exploit.
Singing while listening to music was doubly haraam , like fornicating under the influence of alcohol, which I'd also done my share of. But the recitation says, “God wishes to lighten your burdens, for man was created weak. Do not destroy yourselves. God is merciful to you...” What could he have been talking about, if not good music and a good fuck? I just had to make sure not to die at some time when I had more dirt than light in my soul.
The girl lifted the man's cup again, and when he refused it, she pouted just the slightest bit. He winked, and she smiled. In that instant, she was the perfect image of my cousin Nerie.
In spring, we'd walked the fields before the plow, collecting the larger stones that floated up through the earth every winter, carrying them to the wall edging the field. My brother Hamid and our cousin Nerie and I usually worked together. Nerie was a year older than me, my grandfather's youngest brother's youngest child. She took my side when Hamid bullied me. When he missed some foolishness, like when Kam Ali and I threw dirt clods at one another and risked spooking the plow horse, she scolded me in his stead.
Sometimes she called me her younger brother and finger-combed twigs or bits of dead leaf from my hair. I never corrected her, content in knowing that when she and Hamid married, her words would be true.
She liked to remind me that since she and Grandmother together would someday choose my wife, I truly must be nice to her. So—to the extent Hamid allowed—she got all the sweets from our communal lunch, and I ate the most burned piece of bread.
Whatever happened to Nerie?
I probably didn't want to know. As in really, really didn't.
The shopkeeper lifted his voice, high-pitched and ululating like a prayer. His song was so Pakhtun in sentiment I needed three lines to realize the lyrics were English. “Fighting soldiers from the sky! Fearless men who jump and die! Men who mean just what they say..."
Some moments brand themselves on a man's soul. I knew I would always remember this dank, lamplit room and this thin, tepid tea, and an armless mujahid singing the
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