The Swallows of Kabul Read Online Free PDF Page A

deserted by its patron saints, and given over to the executioners and the crows, in a world the most fervent prayers cannot bring to its senses?
    In the room, apart from a large woven mat doing service as a rug, two ample, aging, burst ottomans, and a worm-eaten lectern that holds the book of Readings, nothing remains. Mohsen has sold all his furniture, piece by piece, to survive the various shortages. The windows in his darkened house are blocked up. Every time a Taliban passed in the street, he would order Mohsen to repair the broken panes without delay, along with the rickety shutters, lest the glimpse of a woman’s unveiled face offend some unsuspecting passerby. Since Mohsen couldn’t afford these improvements, he covered the windows with canvas curtains, and now the sun no longer visits him at home.
    He leaves his shoes on the little flight of steps and collapses on one of the ottomans. A woman’s voice from behind a curtain at the end of the hall asks, “Can I bring you something to eat?”
    “I’m not hungry.”
    “Perhaps a little water?”
    “If it’s cold, I won’t say no.”
    Tinkling sounds come from the next room; then the curtain is drawn aside, revealing a woman beautiful as the dawn. She places a small carafe in front of Mohsen and sits down on the other ottoman, facing him. Mohsen smiles. He always smiles when his wife shows herself to him. She is sublime, her freshness never fades. Despite the rigors of her daily life, despite her mourning for her city, which has been turned over to the obsessions and follies of men, not a single wrinkle marks Zunaira’s face. It’s true that her cheeks have lost their former translucence and the sound of her laughter is seldom heard, but her enormous eyes, as brilliant as emeralds, have kept their magic intact.
    Mohsen brings the little carafe to his lips.
    His wife waits until he finishes drinking, then clears the carafe away. “You seem exhausted,” she says.
    “I walked a lot today. My feet are on fire.”
    Zunaira brushes her husband’s toes with her fingertips, then begins gently massaging his feet. Mohsen leans back on his elbows, abandoning himself to his wife’s delicate touch.
    “I waited for you at lunch,” she says.
    “I forgot.”
    “You forgot?”
    “I don’t know what came over me today. I’ve never had this feeling before, not even when we lost our house. It was as though I’d passed out, yet I was still wandering around, groping my way along. I couldn’t recognize any of the streets I was on. I walked up and down them, but it seemed that I wasn’t able to cross them. It was truly strange. I was in a kind of fog. I couldn’t remember the way to where I was going, and I didn’t know where I wanted to go.”
    “You must have been in the sun too long.”
    “No, it wasn’t sunstroke.”
    Suddenly, he reaches for his wife’s hand, compelling her to stop the massage. Bemused by the desperate force of the grip on her wrist, Zunaira lifts her bright eyes and looks him in the face.
    Mohsen hesitates a moment, then asks in a toneless voice, “Have I changed?”
    “Why are you asking me that?”
    “I’m asking you if I’ve changed.”
    Zunaira furrows her splendid brow and reflects. “I don’t understand what it is you want me to talk about.”
    “About me—what else? Am I still the same man, the one you preferred over all others? Have I kept the same habits, the same ways? Do you think my reactions are normal? Do I treat you with the same affection?”
    “It’s certainly true that many things around us have changed. Our house was bombed. Our relatives and friends aren’t here anymore—some of them have even left this world. You’ve lost your business. My career has been taken away from me. We don’t have enough to eat anymore, and we’ve stopped making plans for the future. But we’re together, Mohsen. For us, that’s what has to count. We’re together so that we can support each other. It’s up to us, to us alone,