The Watch Read Online Free PDF Page A

me without animosity. You’re so fierce, so determined, he says with admiration. I’ve never met a woman like you. I’m sorry I called you stupid earlier. I wonder if my sister would have grown up to be like you had she lived.
    What is your name? I ask abruptly.
    Masood, he says, and blushes.
    Then listen to me, Masood. You are a dog and the servant of your masters. I’ve seen how you behave around them, without any dignity or self-respect. I’ve no desire to speak to you. I find your presence distasteful.
    He raises his face and squints at the sun, which is directly overhead. He purses his lips and exhales forcefully. It didn’t have to be like this, he says, and motions to his armed companion that it’s time to go.
    There’s genuine regret in his voice and it’s because of this, perhaps, that I find myself asking, despite everything: Did my brother suffer … when he died, I mean …
    No. He didn’t suffer. He was shot through the heart. A clean shot. He died instantly.
    My voice breaks. I’m glad.
    You should be. He was lucky. But some of the others—they suffered terribly.
    Tell your masters I won’t leave until Yusuf is returned to me.
    He hesitates. His expression shades with regret.
    Then you’re going to be here for a very long time, he says quietly.
    What do you mean?
    Didn’t you hear what the lieutenant said? Your brother will be taken to Kabul. It was his fate to be transported through the air as a dead man. It was written.
    I watch him dully as he walks away with the soldier, scuffing the dust with his slippers.
    Then I sit back in the cart, my head pounding.
    They haven’t even reached the perimeter of barbed wire that surrounds the fort when I let out a sharp cry of grief. The Tajik freezes and glances back wide-eyed as my cry echoes across the plain and soars into the mountains. I follow it up with another cry, which seems to unnerve him completely. He picks up his slippers and sprints toward the fort, while the soldier glares at me with undisguised hostility. I beat my head with my fists and begin to laugh, but in reality I am crying.
    The day drags on. The sun beats down relentlessly; the light is blinding. I look around the field with a heavy heart. This is where I’m staying. This is now my final home. How strange life is. I used to have so many wishes, so many dreams.
    I steel myself. I raise my face to the sun and it burns into my skin.
    All through the afternoon I carry a feeling of extreme sadness. I listen to sounds from the fort. Someone laughs; someone else shouts. The laughter ceases abruptly, as if cut by a knife. There’s sporadic singing, whistling. The crackle of a radio swims in and out.
    As the sun goes down, a steady wind blows from dark clouds forming over the southern plains. The day’s heat had made the mountains hazy. Now they reemerge in the dying light, crowding in on the fort as the air turns cold. But the sunset inspires me with awe, the colors moving me simultaneously to laughter and tears. It lasts much longer than I’m used to in our high valley. There the transition from day to night is instantaneous: bright light one moment, coal-black darkness the next.
    The night arrives with a cavalcade of clouds. I’m grateful for the blessed silence and the absence of the searchlight, but when I strum on my lute, a shot rings out, and I stop playing.
    Soon the air turns glacial. I put on my bughra and drape my blanket over it. My hand slips inadvertently through the hole my baby brother Yunus had made in the blanket. Mother had given him a hiding for it. My eyes mist with tears as I remember my family. I still find it difficult to believe I’m the only one left.
    Without warning, the searchlight switches on. It skitters across the field and comes to rest on me. I shrink away from it and close my eyes. What I desperately need is sleep.
    At daybreak, I am awakened by the melodic sound of sheep bells. I sit up and look around. A flock of sheep has entered the field from