A Fort of Nine Towers by Qais Akbar Omar Read Free Book Online Page B

hardly four miles from the war zone we had just left.
    In front of us rose a massive wall more than two stories high. It had one small opening in its dun-colored expanse, and that was filled with a thick, unpainted wooden door studded with the flattened heads of thick spikes. At the far end of the wall was a tower with eight sides that loomed above the high walls and the tops of some very big trees. We had seen another tower like it just outside the gate, but it was damaged, and half of it was missing.
    A few moments later, the thick wooden door opened with the clank of a thick chain that must have been attached to it. A man whom I recognized as my father’s business partner came through it, with two house servants close behind. I had seen the man many times in his carpet shop. He had always been impeccably dressed in a silk necktie and tailored jacket, with bright eyes that poured a good feeling into his customers. But this morning, he was wearing only his pajamas and holding a cup of tea in his hand. His eyes were sleepy. He greeted my father, gave
salaams
to the other adults, and welcomed all of us.
    His name was Haji Noor Sher. Whenever my father took Wakeel, my older sister, and me to the shop, Haji Noor Sher gave us candy and put some small money in crumpled bills in our pockets. He always had foreign customers in his shop looking at carpets, but he would put his business affairs aside when we came in and give all his attention to us. He never used our real names; instead, he called us “nephew” and “niece,” and he told us to call him “uncle.”
    If he was surprised to see us all at that early hour that morning, he did not show it. We had had no way to get a message to him to tellhim that we were coming. But he and my father were close friends, and close friends help each other in times such as those.
    My father took him to one side, and they talked quietly for a moment. Haji Noor Sher spoke to one of the house servants, who always stood behind him like bodyguards. The servant ran back into the house to get us some tea and something to eat. Haji Noor Sher acted as if he were accustomed to having visitors every day at this time, and to keeping those words for his servants ready in his mouth.
    “Hey, everybody, welcome to my house. Do you like it?”
    We really had not seen anything yet except big walls and the towers, but we nodded because we were relieved to be away from the fighting.
    “This place is called the Qala-e-Noborja. Did you know that?” He held himself like a famous actor whom everybody knows, but none of my aunts and uncles had ever seen him before. “The reason we call it the ‘Fort of Nine Towers’ is because when it was built more than a hundred years ago, it had nine towers. It’s antique, like me.” He had a big smile that was contagious, so we all smiled at him.
    I interrupted him: “Uncle Noor Sher, but I only see one tower.” I pointed to the one full tower, ignoring the stub of the other one outside the gate.
    He looked at my father, winked, and said, “Oh, he is smart.” I liked hearing him say that, especially in front of all my cousins. “The other towers,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “are invisible. Just because we cannot see something does not mean that it is not there.”
    Even though the Qala-e-Noborja had only one tower still standing, it made me feel safe, especially since it had been there for more than a hundred years. Maybe the rockets could not hurt us here.
    He handed his teacup to the other house servant and led us away from the door and down a steep, rose-lined path between the old fort and the one-story house to a terrace on the slope below the house. He and my father walked in front, and my cousins and I followed behind them, my mother and my aunts after us. The terrace was covered by a canopy of grapes. The bees were humming around them.
    The sky was completely clear, and the sun was floating in alapis-blue space shining down at everything through