Into the Sun. Deni Ellis Bechard
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house. Sometimes in the street. I fix them. I replace everything that breaks. The boys used to live in the basement and the girls had their own dormitory down the street, but when Frank could no longer pay its rent, he kicked the boys out. Only rich boys come here now, and me. Frank does not bother the rich ones.
So, where do you live?
Sometimes here. There is a closet next to the kitchen. Frank calls it the pantry.
Justin remembered the locked door. A dog barked in a nearby compound, the noise amplified within concrete walls like a shout through cupped hands. The silence of the neighborhood reinstated itself, not calming as in some natural setting, but full of apprehension.
Other times, Idris went on, I stay at my uncle’s house. But the girls have never had to do an exchange for their education. Mr. Frank told me I have more opportunity because I am a boy. I do not see this opportunity. I think he wants a girls’ school. They are very popular for foreigners.
Then why didn’t he make one?
Because if Afghans learn that an American man sleeps alone in a house with Afghan girls, they will be angry. And he cannot run the school by himself. He does not have much money left. So he gives me promises. I am sure he will send Shafiq away, and I will be the guard.
I’ll talk to him.
Thank you, Mr. Justin.
You don’t need to say Mister before my name. Justin is fine.
Are you sure? I am not so comfortable with that.
We do not say Mister before a first name in America. We rarely ever say Mister.
I see. Thank you, Justin. Thank you for your honesty.
Climbing the stairs, Justin paused. The school’s quiet was monastic, his shalwar kameez like the robes of a monk. With his fingertips on the chilly wall for balance, he envisioned himself as an ancient devotee habituated to deprivation. But his mission, his calling, was worldly. He’d read online that Americans sometimes abused their power overseas. He would need to curb Frank. Only prayer purified the mind so that one’s actions didn’t serve the self.
In his unlit room, he knelt. For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God. And, yes, of Muslims too.
Faith had brought him here. After he’d lost his eye, he’d lived in a barrage of anxiety, a smudge of lost time, daylight barely reaching him. Fear stalked him for years, receding only as his faith grew. In his devotion to God, Justin had found his mission. As for the chance encounter with Clay’s mother on the street? It must be connected somehow, also divine. Clay had set him on this path unknowingly, his violence as random as a lightning strike.
Traces of the city’s ambient glow sketched the room’s contours. Justin plugged the heater in and its elements lit up, the warmth as palpable as a hand on his cheek. Beyond his window came a cracking, like a stick breaking, and the heater shut off.
He knelt a moment longer, contemplating the space between faith and life, the discipline required to diminish it, and whether the cold could be endured in the spirit of abnegation. He stood to call Idris, but outside, the metal compound door was already clanging.
ALL THAT WEEK, Justin taught, struggling not to blow his nose and wondering if Afghans viewed this privation as a small cost for dignity. He read an article suggesting that such offences might be behind some green-on-blue attacks, Afghan soldiers simply unable to bear the endless insults from the crass Americans they worked with. Though he asked Idris to buy him heavier blankets and a better jacket, his infection worsened, inflaming his throat and vocal cords.
Despite being ill, he got to know the girls. They were a varied group from across the country, all from poor families, some with excellent English, like Zahra and Sediqa, and others shy, struggling to patch sentences together. A few were beauties and knew it. Sediqa was one, and she pried his gaze away from others with her own, asking about his life or for help with grammar.
There were only four young men on the attendance sheets, compared to nearly forty girls. Justin was curious to see if Frank treated the boys differently, as Idris had told him. But Frank spent his days in his office, writing emails to potential donors while the girls who lived in the basement sat around him with their laptops, chatting on Facebook.
When Justin finished teaching for the day, he retreated to his room, intent on adapting his curriculum to address the various levels of the students. But before he could begin, the door pushed open, and Frank’s cadaverous hand gripped its frame. He invited Justin to come out to L’Atmos — L’Atmosphère, he explained — his favorite bar. Friday was the Muslim holy day, he explained, so expats partied on Thursdays. Justin insisted he had too much work, but Frank asked if he was afraid and expounded on the safety of Kabul — that one should never do the same thing at the same time every day, but other than that, everyone was free.
Throw your shoes on. Spending time around people your own age will pick you up.
Idris already had the Corolla running, the inside so warm that Justin became sleepy almost immediately.
As Idris drove, Frank talked about how Afghanistan was changing, how seeds planted now would shape generations. Oncoming headlights flashed through the windshield like a series of snapshots: Idris rigid, clutching the wheel; Frank’s glasses glowing, his hand lifted in a gesture that appeared historic. Justin dozed, opening his eyes only once, when the car braked sharply. A dog was lit up, its rangy form clipped from the night: long back legs, a narrow waist, a bulging rib cage.
When Justin woke, the car was next to a concrete building, where a man with a Kalashnikov was talking to the driver of a green police truck. Frank and Justin got out, and the guard pounded on a metal door. A peephole opened. They were let into a room with only a metal-frame cot. Another guard had been sitting on it in a rumpled gray uniform, his rifle next to him on the mattress. He frisked them and banged on a second door. They were let into a courtyard and followed the path to a bar with misted windows.
Frank plunged into the crowd. Justin went to stand by the bukhari. He overheard a man say, The Americans keep making Karzai dance like a puppet. He was bound to turn on us.
The crowd was mostly young: men in their twenties and thirties with spruced-up hair, fashionably short beards, or none at all — and others, grittier, in drab pea coats or khaki jackets, standing hunched, holding whiskeys or beers. The young women had more presence, points of stillness among gesticulating hands, bobbing heads. They’d hung their headscarves with their jackets or wore them around their necks. The pulsing music was loud and impersonal.
Frank was in the corner, holding a beer, his listeners offering up resigned nods. To live here for so long, Justin thought, with so few means, maybe Frank needed an audience to convince himself daily of his purpose.
Justin moved closer to the bukhari. He had the cell Idris had bought him and was debating whether to call and ask him for a ride home. He rubbed his hands in the heat and scanned the room perfunctorily. In the uneven radiance of dim lights — the lamps at tables and the bulbs near the bar — the fine bones of Alexandra’s face gained definition. She interrupted her conversation, placing her hand on the arm of a sturdy redhead, and walked toward Justin.
I didn’t expect to see you here, she said.
I didn’t expect to be here.
You didn’t cross the planet to join a club of people who’ve spent their lives searching for a club that’s worthy of them?
She smiled so faintly her skin hardly creased. She was different than at the airport, but then again, he’d met her only briefly, in a stressful moment.
I was about to leave, she said. Be a gentleman and walk me. I’ll call you a taxi from my place.
People in the bar watched them go. Justin followed her through the courtyard, grateful to be out of the bar even if he regretted being back in the cold and was wary of the pleasure he felt in her company.