Afra had been even more quiet than usual. I believed that she was listening to the sounds in the woods, that she could sense the danger there, but she didn’t ask any questions. Most of the time she sat wrapped in a thick blanket.
Nadim had been gone for a while and he returned some time later, taking his usual place beneath the statue. But he didn’t pick up his rebab, although I waited for the music; I needed it like water. My mind was so full of cracks.
The mother with the blue hijab was trying to breastfeed her baby; little Mahsa had her mouth around the nipple and she was sucking a bit but it seemed that there was no milk and the woman was pressing her breast with her hand, frustrated, with a flushed angry face. And then Mahsa gave up and went back to being listless. The woman began to cry and she wiped the tears away with the back of her hand.
Seeing the mother’s tears and the ease with which they fell, I realised that Afra had not cried about Sami. Apart from that day in Aleppo when we were hiding in the hole in the garden, she had not shed a tear. She did not cry when Sami died. Instead her face had turned to stone.
Nadim came and sat next to me on the blanket and stared for a while at Afra. I wondered if he realised that his eyes were fixed on her, or if he was just lost in his own thoughts. Either way, I broke his gaze.
‘So, where did you say you came from?’
Nadim’s face suddenly changed and came to life. ‘Kabul!’
‘You liked it there?’
‘Of course. Was my home. Kabul is very nice.’
‘Why did you leave?’
‘Because Taliban does not like us to play music there. They do not like music.’ But there was more, I could tell by the way he stopped abruptly and picked up a pine cone for no reason, examining it before throwing it into the woods.
‘That’s the reason you left?’ I said.
There was some hesitation as if he was contemplating whether to say more and at the same time inspecting me. After not too much time, and with a deliberately lower voice, he said, ‘I was in Ministry of Defence. Then Taliban threaten me. I told them I cannot kill people. I cannot even kill ant – how do you expect me to kill people?’
And then he stopped again, and that was all. He had thrown me tiny fragments of a much larger and longer story. And then Nadim was quiet, but there was something uncomfortable in this man’s silence, and so I was pleased when he spoke again, with that sing-song voice that seemed now to distract from something else.
‘Do you know the name of this park?’ he said.
‘Yes, Pedion tou Areos …’
‘Pedion means “square”。 Areos was god of war. He loved murder and blood. Did you know this? The old lady who bring food tell me.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘He loved murder and blood,’ Nadim repeated these words slowly, placing emphasis on each. ‘And look,’ he said, ‘they made a park for him!’ He spread his arm, palm open, in the way Neil had done when he had presented me and Afra with our temporary room in the school, and the raw bloody wounds on the fine skin of Nadim’s forearm glimmered like red ribbons in the firelight. A wind blew and clouds gathered and the darkness around us became more apparent, threatening to suffocate the light of the fire. I had a strange feeling that I needed to be nice to this man.
‘When did you learn to play the rebab?’ I said.
My question had the effect of producing a wide grin on Nadim’s face and he leant forward with sparkling eyes. I had the odd sensation of watching someone sharpen a knife.
‘Listen to story,’ he said. ‘My father, in Kabul, he was musician. Very good, famous. He play the tabla.’ Nadim tapped his hands on invisible drums. ‘So I sit and watch him. Every day I watch him play the tabla, I look and listen.’ He touched his ear purposefully, followed by the edge of his eye. ‘One day, when I was nine or eight, my uncle ask him for help outside and I sit at the tabla and begin to play. My father, he come inside with eyes and mouth open. He was so much shock! He say to me, “Nadim! How you learn to play, my son?” How learn to play?! Because I watch him. I watch him and I listen all these years. How I not learn to play? You tell me this!’
I found myself lost in the story, captivated by Nadim’s sing-song voice, engrossed in the images of the boy in a house in Kabul playing the tabla, and I forgot for a moment the question I had asked, which remained unanswered. But Nadim was tapping his foot to a silent rhythm, pleased with himself. He rolled a cigarette and lit it, and although he leant back, his body seemingly relaxed, his eyes stayed sharp. They scanned people, they penetrated the shadows, looking and waiting, just like the men in the woods.