Read Online The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra - Free Book Online Page B

mosquitoes have been particularly disagreeable for the last few days. Mohsen adds that most of their neighbors also resorted to the street last night, escaping their baking hovels, and that some of them didn’t return home until dawn. The conversation revolves around the pitiless season, the drought that has ravaged Afghanistan for years, and the diseases that are swooping down like maddened hawks on entire families. They talk about everything and nothing, without ever alluding to last night’s misunderstanding or to the public executions, which are becoming more and more common.
    Then Mohsen suggests, “How about taking a walk to the market?”
    “We’re completely broke.”
    “We don’t have to buy anything. We can admire the heaps of old rubbish the merchants are trying to pass off as antiques.”
    “What will we get out of that?”
    “Not much, but it’s an excuse for walking.”
    Zunaira laughs softly, amused by her husband’s pathetic sense of humor. “You don’t like it here?”
    Mohsen suspects a trap. With a gesture of embarrassment, he scratches the wispy hairs on his cheeks and pouts a little. “That’s hardly the point. I feel like going out with you. They way we used to in the good old days.”
    “Times have changed.”
    “We haven’t.”
    “And who are we?”
    Mohsen leans back against the wall and crosses his arms over his chest. He tries to ponder his wife’s question, but he finds it unreasonable. “Why are you talking nonsense?”
    “Because it’s the truth. We’re not anything anymore. We had some privileges that we didn’t know how to defend, and so we forfeited them to the apprentice mullahs. I’d love to go out with you every day, every evening; I’d love to slip my hand under your arm and let you sweep me along. It would be marvelous to stand in front of a shop window, leaning against you, or to sit at a table, just the two of us, chatting away or making fantastic plans. But that’s no longer possible. There will always be some foul-smelling ogre, armed to the teeth, who’ll reprimand us and forbid us to speak outdoors. Rather than be subjected to such insults, I prefer to stay inside my own four walls. Here at home, at least, when I see my reflection in the mirror, I don’t have to hide my face.”
    Mohsen doesn’t agree. He pouts harder, evokes the shabbiness of the room they’re sitting in, points to the worn curtains, the rotting shutters, the crumbling walls, the sagging beams above their heads. “This isn’t our home, Zunaira. Our house, the place where we created our own world, is gone. A shell blew it away. What we have is just a refuge. I don’t want it to become our tomb. We’ve lost our fortunes; let’s not lose our way of life altogether. The only means of resistance we have left, the only chance we have to reject tyranny and barbarism, comes from our upbringing and our education. We were taught to be complete human beings, with one eye on the Lord and the other on our own mortal nature. We’ve been too close to the bright lights to believe that candles are enough. We’ve known the joys life has to offer, and we thought them as good as the joys of eternity. We can’t accept being treated like cattle.”
    “Isn’t that what we’ve become?”
    “I’m not sure. The Taliban have taken advantage of a period of uncertainty. They’ve dealt a terrible blow to people who were already defeated. But they haven’t finished us off, not yet. Our duty is to convince ourselves of that fact.”
    “How?”
    “By thumbing our noses at their decrees. We’re going out. You and me. Sure, we’re not going to hold hands, but there’s nothing to prevent us from walking side by side.”
    Zunaira shakes her head. “I don’t feel like coming home heartsick, Mohsen. The things that go on in the streets will just ruin my day, to no purpose. I can’t come face-to-face with horrors and just keep on walking as if nothing’s happened. Furthermore, I refuse to wear a