Words in the Dust (2 page)

Now I was shaking terribly, and my stomach felt twisted and tight.

“You like being a little Talib? Preaching Taliban punishment? I’ll give you what you like, Donkeyface. Stone you, Taliban style. Break those ugly teeth from your freak mouth.” Anwar bent down to pick up a rock that was only slightly smaller than his fist.

It was my chance. As soon as he looked down, I stepped around him and ran, holding the naan tightly and moving as fast as I could. If I kept running, maybe they’d get tired of chasing me and then leave me alone.

But I had only gone a few paces when the loud roar of an engine stopped me. The trees made it hard to see, but it looked like a man was coming around the curve ahead of me. He must have been a very tall man to be seen up over the wall.

Then an enormous tan car rounded the corner. It was so wide that there was less than a meter on either side between the car and the walls. On top was a big gun with a barrel like a cannon. What I had thought was a tall man was really only the top half of a soldier riding in the car, standing straight up through the roof of the vehicle behind the gun.

Soldiers!
The man at the gun wore a huge helmet with black goggles strapped to the top. His chest was big and boxy with some sort of armor. I let my chador fall away from my face and cowered close to the wall.

But instead of firing the gun, the man sticking out the top
of the big car smiled and waved. “
Salaam, rafiq
!” he shouted in a strange-sounding Dari as the car, or maybe it was really a truck, drove slowly by us. Another truck rounded the corner, but the man sticking out of the top of that one was facing backward, with a gun that had a much longer, narrower barrel. When that man passed, he tilted back his tan helmet and shouted something in a language I didn’t understand. His teeth flashed very white in the darkest face I’d ever seen.

“An African!” Omar pointed at the dark man.

All three boys were watching the soldiers go by, completely ignoring me. If the big trucks hadn’t been coming from the direction I had to go, I would have escaped the moment the boys turned away. My legs shook, almost twitching with my eagerness to run.

The dark-skinned man had been smiling, but when he saw me, he frowned. Of course, most people who saw me frowned, but when such a look came from an armed soldier, it was even worse. I covered up my face with my chador.

The soldier shouted something down into his truck as he ducked under a tree branch. The big vehicles continued on down the road.

“It’s the Americans!” Anwar clapped as he started to follow the gun trucks. “Give me radios! Soccer balls! Ball, ball, ball!” He turned to Salman and Omar. “Come on, they’ve got everything in those trucks!”

I pulled the naan up close to my chest and ran toward home, hardly even dodging the big sharp pebbles. Just before I reached the next bend in the road, I risked a look back.
Thank Allah, the boys were running off after the trucks, clapping their hands and calling out. The American African soldier threw out a handful of something sparkling, and Anwar and his cousins scrambled in the dirt to pick it up. I watched until the vehicles passed another bend. When I couldn’t see the soldiers riding above the tops of the walls, I ran.

Back in our compound, I closed the street door and leaned against the warm mud-brick wall. Home. Neither Anwar nor big scary soldiers would bother me here. Wiping the saliva that always came from my split upper lip whenever I ran, I tried to catch my breath enough to call for Zeynab. For Baba. Anyone. I had to tell everyone what I had just seen. They probably wouldn’t believe me. Everyone had been saying that An Daral wasn’t an important enough village. But they were wrong. The Americans had come to town!

“Baba-jan, Baba-jan!” I rushed into the house, barely closing the door behind me. Everyone was sitting on the floor ready to eat, the dishes laid out on the big cloth dastarkhan in the middle.

Malehkah had jumped at my shout as she poured my baba’s tea. “Be quiet! Look what you made me do!” She grabbed a small towel and mopped up the spill.

“But I have to tell you —”

“I said quiet. Your father has a headache. And what took you so long getting back?”

Baba rubbed the bridge of his nose. My older brother, Najib, sitting next to him, looked like he would fall asleep any moment. They were always tired after welding most of the night. Zeynab looked up from peeling an orange for Khalid and Habib and offered me a piece. I shook my head and set down the naan, keeping the torn piece on the bottom.

“The Americans. They’re here. In An Daral. They drove right past me on the river road. They have these big trucks with guns and —”

“This is true?” Baba looked at me, instantly awake, his cup held halfway to his mouth.

“Bale, Baba.”

Baba set his cup down and elbowed Najib. “What do you think, Najibullah?” My brother shrugged and looked like he was about to speak, but Baba continued. “It’s worth a look maybe.”

Malehkah sat down between her boys and put her arm around Habib. She smiled down at him when he leaned against her, chomping his piece of orange. Then she turned to me and all the joy fell from her face. “You stay away from those men, Zulaikha. I’ve heard terrible things about what those infidel soldiers do to Afghan girls, even to girls like you.”

“They just drove past. I didn’t —”

Baba held up his hand. “She’s right. You need to stay away from those men.” He tore off a piece of naan. “Hajji Abdullah was telling the truth. The Americans don’t waste any time. They’re here exactly when they told the hajji they’d be here.”

“You knew they were coming, Baba-jan?” Zeynab asked.

“Hajji Abdullah came by the shop a few days ago. He says the infidels have some crazy idea about building a new school. Want these buildings done in the modern style. He says those rich Americans will pay hundreds of thousands of Afghani for good welders.”

“We already have a school,” said Khalid.

Baba shrugged. “They say it’s not big enough. Doesn’t allow girls.”

Girls?
I stared at Baba. Zeynab spoke up. “But Baba-jan, girls don’t even go to school. What good are all those books to a woman with a good husband?”

Malehkah smiled, but shook her head and looked down.

Baba waved us all silent. “Well, I agreed to hear them out. Let’s just hope that everything the hajji says about American contracts is true. School for boys. School for girls. School for goats. Who cares as long as they pay?” Baba finished eating before he led Najib out of the house and the compound.

A school for girls? There’d never been such a thing in An Daral. What would it be like to go to school?

Malehkah discovered the piece of naan that Anwar had torn. She held it up. “Here.” She peered at me over the gaping hole. “Zulaikha couldn’t wait until she came home to start eating. You boys better get something while you still can.” She struggled to stand up. “Make sure the boys eat. When you’re done, Zulaikha, give them a bath. Then you have clothes to wash. Zeynab, the cow’s stall needs to be cleaned out and that crack in the back section of the wall should be patched.”

“Bale, Madar,” Zeynab and I said together as Malehkah went back to the kitchen to start washing dishes.

“Hold still, Habib.” Trying to wash my little brother was nearly as difficult for me as pronouncing his name. Sometimes I thought Malehkah gave him that name with all the tricky
b
sounds just to mock me. He wiggled around in our metal washtub out back by the well, always bending down to put his hands in the water or to play with soap bubbles. I twisted the rag to let the water pour onto the top of his head. How he made himself so dirty I didn’t know, but
the water ran off his head as if it hadn’t even touched his thick, black mop of hair.

“Cold.” Habib wiped his little hands over his face.

“I know, bacha. But can you be a big boy for your sister?”

Khalid went past us, dragging a piece of scrap metal toward the back wall.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“Madar won’t let me go outside.” Khalid propped the metal against the fuel barrel in the back corner of the compound. “She says the soldiers are dangerous.”

The fuel drum stood next to a crack in the wall. It would boost Khalid up to the crack, which he evidently meant to climb to get to the roof of the stable.

“Just stay down. Your mother is right. Those men are dangerous. And you’re going to get hurt trying to climb up there.”

“But I want to see!”

“Try the roof of the house,” I said.

“I did.” Khalid repositioned the metal.

Habib splashed his feet in the water, stepping up and down. He blew out a frustrated huff and shook his head.

“Okay, Habib. I’m sorry. Let’s get you washed up.” I dabbed the wet rag on his tiny button nose.

A shadow stretched across the concrete near the well. I straightened up and turned around to see Malehkah drop a bundle of clothes in a pile. Khalid conveniently turned into the perfect son for his mother, pulling a few weeds from the ground near the pomegranate bush.

“Hurry up with Habib. It shouldn’t take that long to wash a two-year-old. Then wash these,” she said. “And make sure you actually
clean
Khalid’s and Habib’s clothes this time.”

“But I always —”

“Last time you only scrubbed your father’s and Najibullah’s clothes. My boys need clean clothes too.”

“They’re my brothers, Madar. I would never —”

“Just do it!” Malehkah turned back toward the house. “You must learn to stop arguing if we’re ever going to find you a husband. And hurry! I want it done before your father gets home.” She looked over at Khalid. “Watch him too. Make sure he stays inside while those soldiers are on the loose.”

“Bale, Madar.” I looked at the dirty clothes next to our old washboard and stone. It would take forever to finish. After the long days in Baba’s small welding shop, my father’s and Najib’s clothes always ended up with yellowish white sweat stains and black marks from burns or ash.

Zeynab came out of the cramped room that served as a little stable. “At least you don’t have to milk and clean up after Torran. I swear that cow hates me. Or she’s just mad that Khalid gave her a boy’s name.” She slung a fresh load of dung from her red plastic bucket onto the wall to fill the crack. Seeing me struggling with Habib, she smiled. “Though I think now maybe you have the more difficult job.” She went back into the stable.

Habib bent down out of my reach. “Come on, Habib. I have too much work to do for you to be naughty.” He giggled when I straightened him upright and scrubbed his belly, so
of course I scrubbed more. “What’s so funny, Habib? Is that a camel licking your tummy?”

Habib laughed and blew out, buzzing his lips. Steel clattered behind me, and I turned to see Khalid on his bottom next to the piece of metal.

“See?” I shrugged. “I told you not to climb that thing.”

“I want to see the Americans!” Khalid got up and dusted himself off. “It’s not fair. You got to see them. I want to see them!”

“Khalid, they’re soldiers. You don’t want anything to do with them. You could get hurt.” I picked up Habib and dried him off.

“Then why did Baba and Najib go out to see them?”

“Because they are a lot bigger than you.”

“Zu-lay-kah …” Khalid drew out my name in a long whine.

“No, Khalid,” I said. When Habib was dry, I slipped a big clean shirt on him and let him pull up his pants, helping him tie the drawstring. “You’re next in the bath. And get out of those clothes. I need to wash them too.”

Khalid clenched his fists tightly at his sides, his lips pursed in a little
o
. “You always tell me what to do.”

“Khalid, you must understand —”

“You think you’re so special just because you’re older, but you’re not. You’re just a stupid donkey-faced
girl
.” He spun and darted off around the side of our house toward the front courtyard. I took a step back, gripping my mouth tight with my hand so that my teeth dug into my fingers.

“Khalid,” I whispered.

Habib turned toward me with a sad look on his face. I forced myself to smile at him. Then he was off to play, leaving me as quickly as Khalid had.

The sun hung straight above us now and the heat filled the air, blasting my wet face like a fire. Always before, the ugly words had been outside the walls. Now if they were inside too, inside my family’s private world …

Before, Khalid had always spoken with a small, sweet voice, but now he sounded as angry and hurtful as Anwar.