Translated from Dari by Dr Zubair Popalzai
Three bells ring in quick succession. Dang, dang, dang. In the blink of an eye, all of the students are standing silently in lines like tamed lambs. I run to make it to the first line, beside Ahmad. Unlike other days, the headteacher goes straight to the platform and quickly reaches for the microphone. Instead of telling us to sing the national anthem, he makes an announcement.
‘Alright, dear students, today we have a guest from the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. No one may talk or ask questions. Until the Mawlawi arrives, recite salawat loudly.’
The sound of salawat swallows the entire school.
The Mawlawi appears on the platform. His shirt is wrinkled, and his trousers are a hand’s breadth above his ankles. The grime on his black turban glistens in the sunlight.
He tucks a black whip under his arm, reaches up to his beard, and scratches it. From a distance, his beard looks like the burnt wicks of our old oil lamp that Mother threw away. His hawking and spitting crackle through the microphone, and a second later, a glob of his saliva hits the ground. I feel something rise up from my stomach. Quickly, I cover my mouth with my handkerchief. Ahmad, who’s standing one step away, gives me a curious sideways glance, but he soon realises this isn’t a signal to attack.
‘Alright, children—’
The Mawlawi hasn’t finished his sentence when a faint beep comes from Ahmad’s watch.
I turn my head slightly towards him, trying not to be noticed, and whisper, ‘Did you bring yours, too?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about the stones?’
‘One.’
‘Why didn’t you bring more?’
‘Couldn’t. They searched my bag at the gate.’
‘Alright, we’ll attack after the third beep.’
We are both standing in the front line, directly facing the platform, slightly uneasy. I’m nervous because, compared to Ahmad, my throwing and aiming skills are weaker. Even though for the past two months I’ve secretly practiced at home, in the garden, in the toilet, on the way to school, night and day, anywhere out of Mother’s sight, I’m still not confident about my aim.
This operation is important to us. Very important. Even more important than lessons, homework, or solving riddles. We can’t mess this up, because Ziwar’s fate is at stake.
Ziwar’s story began this spring.
*
On the first morning of spring, as I was getting ready for school, I saw Ziwar sitting quietly, sipping her tea, in no rush to leave. She hadn’t even put on her uniform. Mother told me to hurry up and finish my tea, because Timur would take me to school on his bicycle.
‘But Timur goes to Allamah School,’ I said in surprise. ‘It’s not the same direction as mine!’
Without looking at me, Mother’s forehead folded into a hundred creases—just like Ziwar says it does when she’s angry.
‘Timur will drop you off first, then go to his school.’
I stamped my foot and said, ‘I’m not going anywhere with Timur! He yells at me the whole way. Last year I went with Ziwar. I want to go with her again this year.’
I hated Timur with every fibre of my being. In year one, we used to walk to school together. He was so mischievous with the other boys along the way that we always arrived late. To punish me, the teacher would make me stand on one leg in front of the class. When I complained to Mother, she gave him a good beating so he’d stop fooling around on the way to school. That was the start of the enmity between Timur and me.
After that, every day he threatened that if I tattled on him again, he’d tell Hamid, the boy from our neighbourhood, not to let me play marbles with them anymore. And that’s exactly what he did. In the end, our fights grew so bad that Mother transferred me to Ziwar’s school.
Year two was wonderful. On the way to school, Ziwar and I solved “name the family” riddles and counted backwards from 100. Sometimes she even bought me shir-yakh ice cream, corn, or bolani flatbread. She helped me with my homework and knew the answer to everything.
And besides all that, Ziwar knew karate—like Kung Fu Panda. Ever since she’d knocked Hamid down with a karate move, no one on the street or at school dared look at me sideways.
‘Ziwar isn’t going to school any more,’ Mother said.
Ziwar not going to school? How strange! Mother was always telling Timur and me that Ziwar had never missed a single day of school in six whole years. Whenever she mentioned this, her face turned beet red, her eyebrows arched high, and her eyes grew so wide I thought they were frog eyes, not Mother’s. She’d glance towards Timur and continue, her face flushed, ‘Do you know how many awards Ziwar has received? She’s the top student of the school!’ Then she’d say mashallah and start blowing puffs of air left and right to protect her daughter.
I looked at Ziwar in surprise.
‘Why?’ I asked.
No answer. Her head was lowered, and she was spreading jam on her bread.
‘There’s no time to talk,’ Mother replied. ‘Hurry, or you’ll be late for school.’
Timur took me to school on the bicycle Father had bought him last autumn. Now it was spring, the first day of the new school year and, surprisingly, we arrived on time. I was shocked that Timur didn’t say a single word the entire way. He didn’t even go after Hamid.
As always, all students had to line up in rows early in the morning. We’d sing the national anthem and then recite the Qur’an. That day, there were hardly any rows at school. Very few. While the headteacher was speaking, I quietly counted the rows: six. Last year, there had been twenty. How strange. Hadn’t spring come already? I looked towards the school trees—they were blossoming.
Spring, to me, was defined by three things: the plum blossoms by the pool, where we would swim when summer came; the reopening of schools; and collecting worms to bribe Grandfather’s chickens so they wouldn’t peck at me anymore.
This spring was nothing like the ones before. The plum tree had blossomed, but so sparsely that I could count each flower. Grandfather wasn’t happy either.
When I was digging in the dirt to collect worms, he said to Mother, ‘Ever since these infidels set foot here, blessings have vanished from both the earth and the sky.’
Then he shook his head.
Infidels? Who were the infidels?
I remembered something Ziwar had said: “Code red!”
Ziwar loved to turn everything into a game. She came up with secret codes and new names for everything and made riddles out of them. When Grandfather shook his head, that meant “code red”: we had to stay out of his sight for a while.
When we walked to school together, she’d make up riddles for me to solve. If I gave the right answer, she’d announce in a loud, triumphant voice, ‘Officer Nick Wilde, your answer is correct!’
Then she’d turn towards Laila and Nargis, who walked with us, and say, ‘Ladies, please give a round of applause for our young officer!’
And I, as per our agreement, would place my hand over my chest, bow my head, and say, ‘Thank you, Detective Judy Hopps.’
We’d borrowed the names from Zootopia. We proudly used them whenever our detective instincts kicked in to solve a mystery.
Then came the headteacher’s voice, loud enough to make everyone’s ears ring: ‘Dear students, Qaari Aziz has been appointed as the new deputy headteacher, as Miss Zohra will no longer be working with us. From now on, if you have any issues, report to Qaari Aziz.’
I nudged Ahmad with my elbow and whispered, ‘What do you think happened?’
‘Why?’
‘Look—only six rows today. Miss Zohra isn’t here. And neither is Miss Gulalai!’
‘Maybe they’re sick and didn’t come in.’
‘But the headteacher didn’t say they’re sick—he said they no longer work with us.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I think there’s something going on that they’re not telling us.’
‘Oh yeah! Ziwar didn’t come in either, and neither did Laila or Nargis. Maybe they’ve done something!’
‘Like what?’
‘Maybe they told everyone not to come to school.’
‘But Ziwar isn’t the headteacher. Only the headteacher can say not to come to school.’ ‘Yeah, you’re right.’
‘Do you think this is another riddle?’
Ahmad shrugged his shoulders and tilted his head. The corners of his mouth dropped—his way of saying I don’t know.
‘It’s a riddle, idiot,’ I said. ‘Because neither of us knows.’ Ahmad was silent.
‘Let’s look for clues,’ I suggested.
‘What’s a clue?’
‘Oh, my God! It’s something—a sign—that helps you solve a riddle. Ziwar always says that to solve a riddle, you have to start by looking for clues.’
‘Where do we find a clue?’
‘Everywhere! School, street, home. How about this time you be Officer Hopps, instead of Ziwar? I’ll look for the clues.’
He turned fully towards me, his eyes wide, and said, ‘You mean that rabbit police officer?’
‘Yeah!’
‘But she’s a girl. I’m a boy. Boys can’t be girls!’
‘Ziwar says you can be anything you want in your imagination.’
‘No. I want to be Kung Fu Panda.’
‘Panda can’t solve riddles, idiot. He only does karate.’ ‘Well, I like karate, not riddles.’
‘Right now, we have to solve Ziwar’s riddle first. Then we can be Kung Fu Pandas later.’
We agreed that to solve the riddle and find clues, I would keep Ziwar under observation.
For weeks, I watched her every movement and reported back to Ahmad, hoping we might discover the answer. I noticed that in the mornings when I went to school, she was still asleep. In the afternoons when I came back, she was in her room and didn’t come out for the rest of the day. If she did, she only went to the kitchen, ate something, and returned to her room.
I tried going to her room a few times, pretending I needed help with lessons, but she wouldn’t open the door. When I complained to Mother, she didn’t get angry at Ziwar.
She just said, ‘Ask Timur to help you instead.’
Even Ziwar’s appearance had changed somehow. Sometimes she looked like that chubby blue girl from Inside Out, the one with big glasses and her head always down, and sometimes like the red character, when smoke comes out of his head and he starts screaming.
She fought with Mother too. Once I heard her shout, ‘Online classes cost money! The registration alone is five hundred afghanis. And then where am I supposed to get money for the internet?’
Mother replied, ‘Just register for now. Your father and I will find the money.’
That day, the key to the riddle was revealed: money!
Ziwar wasn’t going to school because she didn’t have the registration fee. I had to find money so she could enroll again.
Mother always said Father didn’t have much money, not enough to buy us new notebooks every day. So I shouldn’t tear pages out or lose my pencils. Father had a small stall where he sold fruit and vegetables, and sometimes in the afternoons, Mother went out, too.
One day, Hamid said his mother had given mine some money. Later, I found out Mother had earned that money by doing their laundry.
I discussed the money problem with Ahmad, and we agreed to save one afghani each day. When we reached five hundred, we would give the money to Ziwar so she could register herself. A week passed, then two. We counted the money every day, but it never reached five hundred. It was partly Ahmad’s fault: whenever he saw Ben 10 stickers in the shop, he would spend all his money on them. In the end, he said he wouldn’t be contributing anymore and took the money we had saved. I had to find another way.
I began selling my drawings to the other students. A Barcelona logo drawing, or Real Madrid, or Manchester United, for two afghanis each. In the end, I made twenty afghanis. After a week, no one bought any more. The only option left was the chickens. When I came home from school, my first task was to check the chicken coop. But it seemed the hens had realised I was selling the eggs, because they stopped laying them.
When I asked Mother why the hens weren’t laying eggs in the afternoon, she said, ‘They can’t lay twice a day on an empty stomach.’
Worms were a good solution. I gathered worms every day and fed so many to the hens that one of them started laying eggs again in the afternoons.
After school, when I returned home, I would slip over to the chicken coop and secretly put an egg between my schoolbooks so I could sell it to Karbalai’s shop the next day. Keeping the eggs hidden was the hardest part. I had to be careful the whole way so my box didn’t bump into anything—even so, sometimes eggs broke and ruined all my books and pens. I lost track of the exact amount of money and just started throwing the coins into my money box. I couldn’t say for sure whether I’d reached five hundred, but from the weight of the box, I guessed a good amount had been collected. I decided that after the end-of-term exams, I would give the money box to Ziwar so she could register for school.
On the day of the last exam, the weather was very hot. The headteacher announced over the loudspeaker that we would be dismissed an hour earlier than usual so we wouldn’t suffer in
the heat. All day, my eyes flicked between the wall clock and the teacher’s mouth. At last, the moment came, and I rushed home. As soon as I entered the garden, I heard Mother and Ziwar arguing in the kitchen. I ran to grab my money box.
‘I’m not wearing that sack, and I’m not going outside!’ I heard Ziwar scream.
‘So what, you’re going to waste away staying at home all day? Put it on and go out. Nobody will be able to tell who is under the chaadari,’ Mother shouted back.
‘I don’t care about anyone else. I’d rather die at home than wear that sack.’
Why did Mother tell Ziwar to wear the chaadari? I was frightened of it. It looked like a blue ghost moving about. Worse, there might be a kidnapper underneath it. Mother had said herself that children who play outside after lunch instead of going to sleep are stolen by kidnappers who hide under chaadaris and run away.
I went into the kitchen and greeted them loudly. Mother and Ziwar looked first at me, then at my hand.
‘Why aren’t you at school?’ Mother asked.
‘The headteacher said it’s too hot.’ Then, hurriedly, I thrust my money box towards Ziwar and said, ‘Here—this is the answer to the riddle.’
‘The riddle?’ Ziwar looked at me, confused.
‘Yes. I’ve solved the riddle. You’re not going to school because you don’t have money.’
Ziwar stared at Mother in astonishment, then came close to me and asked, ‘Who told you I have no money?’
‘I heard you tell Mother the other day.’
‘I’m not going to school because the Taliban banned girls from going this year.’
‘Who are the Taliban?’
‘The ones who come to your school every month and have long beards.’
‘Mawlawi! The one that looks like the magician from Ben 10?’
‘Yes, the one that looks like that bad magician.’
‘Well then, why don’t you use karate on the bad man like Kung Fu Panda does?’
‘Bad people have whips and guns, you can’t fight them with karate.’
*
At the first beep, our hands slide into our pockets. The slingshot bands, like freshly hatched snakes, coil between Ahmad’s and my fingers.
For a month, we have been planning to attack Mawlawi the magician, just like Ben 10, on this very day. Every afternoon when Mother was out, Ahmad and I would go into the garden and make slingshots under the shade of the tree. The hardest part for me was leaving the house.
Ever since the egg-selling scheme was discovered, Mother’s control tightened. Sometimes, just as I was about to go through the main gate, Mother would appear out of nowhere and shout, ‘Boy, I can see you trying to go outside!’ Ahmad was luckier because his mother didn’t usually ask where he was going or what he was doing.
At the second beep, stones secretly take cover in our slingshot bowls, like missiles hidden under the earth, ready to be launched. The target is clear: Mawlawi’s eyes. Mawlawi looks just like the magician who enchanted Ben’s town and turned people into spirits controlled by his eyes. The magician attacked people with his staff; Mawlawi attacks with his whip. There is only one way to destroy the magician: attack his eyes. So to get rid of Mawlawi, we have to blind him.
‘We should hit his legs so he won’t come back,’ Ahmad suggests.
‘No. If we hit his legs, he’ll still be able to see that Ziwar is coming to school.’
‘Then we’ll hit his eyes, so he’ll be blind and won’t see Ziwar.’
At the third beep, and right after the bell sounds, Mawlawi’s scream fills the whole school. Blood streams from between his fingers pressed over his eyes.
‘The magician is blind! The magician is blind!’ shouts Ahmad.
Three bells ring in quick succession. Dang, dang, dang.
All the children, like mischievous rabbits, surge towards the school gate and shout, ‘The magician is blind! The magician is blind!’
The next day, flyers are distributed throughout the town. Any child found holding a slingshot will receive one hundred lashes. Any child who attacks with a slingshot will be executed.
This story was produced as part of Paranda, a writer development program and global network for women writers in Afghanistan and the diaspora, facilitated by Untold Narratives, a development program for writers structurally marginalized by community or conflict, and supported by KFW Stiftung.
