The Bookseller of Kabul

Can God Die?

The everlasting boredom of the detention homework is threatening to overwhelm Fazil. He wants to leap up and howl, but restrains himself, as an eleven-year-old should who has been punished for not knowing his homework. His hand moves haltingly across the page. He writes in small letters so as not to take up too much room; exercise books are expensive. The light from the gas lamp throws a reddish glow over the paper, like writing on flames, he thinks.

In the corner his grandmother sits glaring at him with one eye. The other one was lost when she fell into an oven which was cemented into the floor. His mother Mariam is breast-feeding two-year-old Osip. He is exhausted and his writing frenzied. He must finish, even if it takes him all night. He can’t bear the blow over the knuckles from the teacher’s ruler. He can’t bear the shame.

He must write ten times what God is: God is the creator, God is eternal, God is almighty, God is good, God is truth, God is life, God sees all, God hears all, God is omniscient, God is omnipotent, God rules all, God…

The reason for the detention work was his inability to answer correctly during the lesson on Islam. ‘I never answer properly,’ he moans to his mother. ‘Because when I see the teacher I get so nervous I forget. He’s always angry, and even if you only make a tiny mistake he hates you.’

From start to finish, everything had gone wrong when Fazil was asked to come up to the blackboard and answer questions about God. He had done his lessons, but when he got up to the blackboard he remembered nothing. He must have thought of something else while he was reading. The Islam teacher, the man with the long beard, turban, tunic and loose trousers, had turned on him with his black piercing eyes and asked: ‘Can God die?’

‘No.’ Fazil trembled beneath his gaze. Whatever he said, it was bound to be wrong.

‘Why not?’

Fazil is tongue-tied. Why can’t God die? Can no knives pierce him? Can no bullets injure him? Thoughts rush through his head.

‘Well?’ the teacher says. Fazil blushes and stutters, but utters not a word. Another boy is allowed to answer. ‘Because he is eternal,’ he says promptly.

‘Right. Can God talk?’ the teacher continues.

‘No,’ says Fazil. ‘Or rather, yes.’

‘If you think he can talk, how does he talk?’ the teacher asks.

Fazil is speechless yet again. How does he talk? With a thunderous voice, low, whispering?

‘Well, you say he can talk, does he have a tongue?’ the teacher asks.

Does God have a tongue?

Fazil tries hard to imagine what the correct answer might be. He does not think God has a tongue, but dares say nothing. It is better to say nothing, than to give a wrong answer and be laughed at by the whole class. Again another boy is allowed to answer.

‘He talks through the Koran,’ he says. ‘The Koran is his tongue.’

‘Correct. Can God see?’

Fazil realises the teacher is fiddling with the ruler and hitting the palm of his hand gently, as if practising the blows that will any moment rain over Fazil’s knuckles.

‘Yes,’ says Fazil.

‘How does he see? Does he have eyes?’

Fazil hesitates before saying: ‘I’ve never seen God. How do I know?’

The blows rained down over Fazil until the tears flowed. He must surely be the stupidest boy in the class. The pain was nothing compared to the shame of standing there. Then he was given detention homework.

‘If you cannot learn this, you cannot continue in the class,’ he concluded.

Having written what God is ten times, he must learn it off by heart. He mumbles under his breath and repeats it aloud to his mother. Finally it sticks. The grandmother pities her grandchild. She has no education and thinks the homework is too difficult for the little boy. She holds a glass of tea in the stumps that remain of her hands and slurps.

‘When the Prophet Muhammad drank, he never made a sound,’ Fazil says sternly. ‘Every time he took a sip he removed the glass from his lips three times and thanked God,’ he relates.

The one-eyed grandmother steals a glance at him and says: ‘Really, you don’t say.’

The next part of the homework is about the life of the Prophet. He has reached the chapter which deals with his habits, and he reads aloud, his finger tracing the letters, from right to left.

‘“The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, always squatted on the ground. There was no furniture in his house. A man’s life ought to be like that of a traveller, resting in the shade, then continuing on his way. A house must be nothing more than a place to rest, a protection against cold and heat, against wild animals and a place where privacy is preserved.

‘“Muhammad, peace be upon him, was in the habit of resting on his left arm. When he meditated, he liked to dig in the earth with a shovel or a stick, or he sat on the ground with his arms around his legs. When he slept he slept on his right side, and the palm of his right hand lay under his face. Sometimes he slept lying on his back; sometimes he crossed one leg over the other, always making sure that each part of the body was covered up. He hated lying face down and forbade others to do so. He did not like sleeping in a dark room or on a rooftop. He always washed before going to bed and recited prayers until he fell asleep. When he slept he snored quietly. If he woke at night to urinate, he washed his hands and his face when he had finished. He wore a loincloth in bed but usually took off his shirt. As houses were without latrines in those days the Prophet might walk several miles out of town in order to be out of sight and he chose soft ground to avoid being sprayed. He made sure he was out of sight behind a stone or a rise. He bathed behind a blanket or in a loincloth when bathing in the rain. When he blew his nose he always used a rag.”’

Fazil continues to read aloud about the Prophet’s feeding habits. He liked dates, preferably mixed with milk or butter; he preferred the neck and side of an animal, but never ate onions or garlic because he disliked bad breath; before sitting down to a meal he took his shoes off and washed his hands; he used his right hand when he ate, and ate only from his side of the bowl, never reaching his hand into the middle of the bowl. He never used cutlery, and used but three fingers when he ate. Every time a morsel entered his mouth he thanked God.

And: he drank without making a sound.

He closes the book.

‘Go to bed, Fazil.’

Mariam has made his bed up in the room where they were eating. Three siblings are already snoring away. But Fazil still has to mug up prayers in Arabic. He swots up on the incomprehensible words from the Koran and then collapses on to his mat, fully clothed. He must be at school at seven next morning. He shudders. First lesson is Islam. He falls asleep exhausted, sleeps restlessly and dreams that he is being examined and answers everything incorrectly. He knows the answers, but can’t get them out.

High above his head heavy clouds gather over the village. After he has fallen asleep rain pours down. It falls on the mud roof and drums on the flagstones. Drops fasten themselves to the plastic sheeting covering the windows. A cool air current enters the room; grandmother wakes and turns over. ‘God be praised,’ she says when she sees the rain. She touches her face with the stumps, as in a prayer, turns over again and falls asleep. Around her four children breathe quietly.

When Fazil is woken at half-past five the next morning the rain has died down and the sun sends its first rays over the heights surrounding Kabul. When he has washed in the water his mother has put out, dressed and packed his rucksack, the sun is busy drying the rain puddles. Fazil drinks tea and eats breakfast before running off. He is cross and crabby and thinks his mother is not quick enough when he asks for something. His only thought is the Islam lesson.

Mariam spoils her oldest son. He gets the best food and the most care. She worries about not giving him food adequate for his brain. When, on rare occasions, she has money to spare it is he who gets a new piece of clothing. She has great hopes for him. She remembers how content she was eleven years ago. Her marriage to Karimullah was happy. She remembers the birth and the joy of having a boy. A big feast was held and she and her son received wonderful gifts. There were visits and much rejoicing. Two years later she gave birth to a girl; no more feasting or presents.

Her marriage to Karimullah lasted only a few years. When Fazil was three his father was killed in an exchange of fire. Mariam was a widow and thought life had come to an end. The one-eyed mother-in-law and her own mother, Bibi Gul, decided that she must marry Karimullah’s younger brother Hazim. But he was not like his big brother, not as clever, not as strong. The civil war destroyed Karimullah’s shop and they had to make do with Hazim’s salary as a customs officer.

But Fazil, he is going to study and become famous, she hopes. Initially she thought he might work in her brother Sultan’s shop. She thought a bookshop might be an enterprising environment. Sultan had taken on the responsibility of feeding him and Fazil had eaten better there than at home. She cried the entire day Sultan sent Fazil home. She worried he had misbehaved, but she knew Sultan’s moods and realised that he no longer needed a crate-carrier.

Then her younger brother Yunus said he would try and get Fazil into Esteqlal, one of Kabul ’s best schools. Fazil was lucky and started in the fourth class. Everything had worked out for the best, Mariam realised. She thought about Aimal, Sultan’s son, who hardly ever saw the sun, but worked from early morning till late at night in one of Sultan’s shops, and was horrified.

She strokes Fazil’s hair as he runs out of the house and down the mud path. He tries to avoid the puddles and jumps from tuft to tuft. Fazil must cross the village to get to the bus stop. He gets on at the front of the bus, where the men sit, and bumps along into Kabul.

He is one of the first into the classroom and sits down on his seat in row three. One by one the boys enter. Most of them are thin and shabbily dressed. Some wear clothes that are far too big, probably passed down from older brothers. There is a blissful mixture of style. Some still wear the Taliban-stipulated dress for men and boys. The trouser-bottoms have been added to with pieces of cloth sewn on as the boys grow. Others have produced seventies trousers and jerseys from basements and lofts, clothes used by their big brothers before the Taliban came to power. One boy has a pair of jeans. They look like a balloon, tied tightly round the waist. Others wear bell-bottoms. One boy’s outer clothes are too tight and he has pulled his underpants up over the short jersey. A few boys have forgotten to zip up their flies. Having worn long tunics since childhood it is easy for them to forget this new unfamiliar mechanism. Some wear the same tatty cotton shirts as worn in Russian orphanages, and they have the same hungry, slightly untamed look. One boy wears a large, threadbare dress jacket, which he has folded up over the elbows.

The boys play and shout and throw things around the room; there is the sound of scraping as they drag the desks around. When the bell goes and the teacher enters all fifty are at their desks. They sit on high wooden benches fastened to the tables. The benches are designed for two, but in order to accommodate them all sometimes three have to share a bench.

When the teacher enters the pupils rise quick as a flash and greet him.

‘Salaam alaikum.’ – ‘The peace of God be with you.’

The teacher walks slowly down the row of seats, making sure the boys all have the correct books and have done their homework. He inspects nails, clothes, shoes. If they are not completely clean at least they are not dirty. That would mean dismissal.

Then the teacher tests them, and this morning they all know their homework.

‘Then we’ll continue,’ he says. ‘Haram,’ he says in a loud voice and writes the unfamiliar word on the blackboard. ‘Does anyone know what that means?’

A boy puts his hand up. ‘Bad behaviour is haram.’

He’s right. ‘Bad behaviour, which is un-Muslim-like, is haram,’ the teacher says. ‘For example, killing someone without a reason. Or punishing someone without a reason. To drink alcohol is haram, to take drugs, to sin. To eat pork is haram. The infidel, the unbeliever, couldn’t care less about haram. Much which is haram to the Muslim they look upon as good. That is bad.’

The teacher looks out over the class. He draws a diagram with the three ideas, haram, halal, mubah. Haram is whatever is bad and forbidden, halal is whatever is good and permitted, mubah is whatever is doubtful.

‘Mubah is whatever is not good, but is not sinful either. For example, to eat pork rather than starve to death. Or to hunt; to kill in order to survive.’

The boys write and write. At the end the teacher asks his customary questions to see whether they have understood.

‘If a man considers haram a good thing, what is he then?’ No one answers.

‘An infidel.’ The Islam teacher answers his own question.

‘And is haram good or bad?’

Nearly all the hands fly in the air. Fazil is too frightened; he is terrified of giving the wrong answer. He makes himself as small as possible on the third row. The teacher points to one of the boys, who stands up straight by his desk and answers: ‘Bad!’

That was what Fazil had wanted to answer. An infidel is bad.