When the Moon Is Low(9)
Simple math I’d learned from the marketplace. If the man on the corner quoted me a price for a single yard, I knew how much it would cost us for five. I could figure out the price of a quarter or a half kilogram of raisins given the price of a whole kilogram. Geometry and algebra were tougher but I managed.
I memorized by candlelight. I recited as I dusted the living room. My finger traced invisible words and paragraphs onto my leg as we ate dinner. I stole moments where I could to absorb all that I needed to learn.
I managed to catch up. I was sixteen years old in eleventh grade, with girls of the same age. I would be graduating in only one year. I was proud, as was my father. He read each of our school progress reports carefully. He leafed through the numbers and comments and looked up at me. I saw in his eyes what he couldn’t put into words. The corners of his mouth turned up in a sly smile, although he tried to sound nonchalant in his assessment.
“Well done.”
My grandfather listened in from the corner, with a pillow propped under his elbow and his back against the wall, nimbly moving the beads of his tasbeh, his rosary. The look on his face told me he wasn’t in the least bit surprised.
CHAPTER 4
Fereiba
DESPITE THE FASTING FROM SUNRISE TO SUNSET, RAMADAN WAS A joyous month. I was typically so consumed by schoolwork and chores that the hungry days passed quickly and painlessly. During the day, stomachs growled, but after sunset, we indulged in foods we’d spent all day preparing, special dishes to reward our stoicism.
My brother, Asad, often became grouchy and spiteful in Ramadan’s afternoon hours. One afternoon, Asad had come into the living room where I was propping a pillow behind Boba-jan’s back. Without a word, he had thrown one of his shirts at my back. I turned around, surprised.
“Asad! What are you doing?” I said. It was a long-sleeved shirt that I had recently laundered.
“Asad, bachem. Why would you do such a thing?” Boba-jan admonished.
“Boba-jan, I need this shirt cleaned, but it still has a stain on it. She was supposed to get the stain out!”
“What stain?” he asked.
“It was the juice of mulberries.”
“Ah. So it is understandable then. You should not expect to wash the mulberry juice from the shirt. And do you know why?”
“Why, Boba-jan?” I had no idea either.
“Sit down so I may tell you. It is a good way to pass the hours until iftar, when we can break our fast and the restlessness that comes with it. So there was and there wasn’t, under a battered sky . . .” And with the “once upon a time” line of Afghan storytelling, Boba-jan began his tale.
“There was a fair young maiden . . .”
He told us about the girl and archer who met by chance in the jungle. When the beautiful maiden heard the guttural growl of a tiger from the trees, she panicked and her nose began to bleed. She fled immediately, leaving her bloodied head scarf behind. Her beloved, finding her crimson-stained head scarf and spying a tiger crouching in the distance, assumed the very worst. Heartbroken and wanting to avenge his love’s murder, he charged after the tiger who killed him effortlessly. When the young maiden worked up the courage to return to the jungle, she cried at the sight of her mauled and lifeless hunter. She collapsed beside a bush of poisonous berries and, in her abysmal grief, reached over and brought a toxic handful to her mouth, willing her soul to reunite with her beloved’s in the next world.
“Since then that mulberry tree and every other mulberry tree has borne fruit that stains the color of the blood that united those two hearts, a stain that nothing can wash away.”
Asad had listened intently but, when Boba-jan finished his story, looked disappointed to have no one to blame for his permanently stained shirt. With a huff, he picked it up from the floor near me.
“It’s old anyway. I have better shirts.”
I WAS THINKING OF BOBA-JAN’S STORY AS I STROLLED THROUGH the bazaar a year later in search of plump dates for our iftar. There was a lightness to my step as I was eager to get home and share my good news. I’d been awarded the second-highest marks on a mathematics exam. Loud enough for all to hear, my teacher had announced, “Fereiba, nearly perfect score, second only to Latifa. Very good.”
I knew Boba-jan’s eyes would twinkle with pride in that way that spoke more than words. I wanted to get the dates and make it home early enough to see my grandfather.
Sheragha owned a store packed with barrels of spices and dried goods: whole walnuts, fragrant cardamom, rock salt, brilliant turmeric powder, and fiery peppers. Though I found his store to be the most colorful and pleasing to the senses, Sheragha seemed less taken by it. He walked with a slow and heavy step. The width of two men, his forehead glistened with sweat even in the frigid cold of winter. I was rarely successful haggling down this particular vendor, but today he seemed to be in a generous mood. I kept my head bowed and took the sack of dates from him, careful not to brush against Sheragha’s thick, hairy fingers.
Before I headed home, I adjusted the chador on my head and counted the coins I had in my pouch. KokoGul would be impressed. Content with my own triumph, I didn’t notice the shadow following me into the narrow side street. Two coins fell from my hands into the dusty road. I crouched to pick them up when I heard footsteps and words so filthy my face burned red. The coins slipped through my fingers as I leaped to my feet and turned. Just inches from me stood one of the leering boys from the marketplace. I took a step back and scowled. His long hair hung over his forehead. His eyes were dark and closely placed. He smirked, baring a yellow, gap-toothed sneer.