The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra Read Free Book Online Page B

spreading out from the crown of his head and revealing his concave, ugly nape. She starts to talk in a despondent voice: “The other night, during the full moon, I opened the shutters so I could watch you sleep. You were slumbering peacefully, like someone with nothing on his conscience. A little smile was showing through your beard. Your face made me think of the sun coming through the clouds; it was as though all the suffering you’ve endured had evaporated, as though pain had never dared to touch the least wrinkle in your skin. It was a vision so beautiful, so calm, I wished the dawn would never come. Your sleep brings you to a safe place, where nothing can upset you. I sat down beside your bed. I was dying to take your hand, but I was afraid I might wake you up. So, to keep myself from temptation, I thought about the years we’ve shared, not often very good years, and I wondered whether, even in our best, most intense moments, we ever really loved each other. . . .”
    Atiq suddenly stops eating. His fist shakes as he wipes his lips with it. He mutters a “La hawla” and looks his wife up and down, his nostrils twitching spasmodically. In a falsely calm voice, he asks, “What’s wrong, Musarrat? You’re quite talkative this evening.”
    “Maybe it’s because we’ve hardly talked at all for some time.”
    “And what makes you so loquacious today?”
    “My illness. It’s a serious time, illness, a real moment of truth. You can’t hide anything from yourself anymore.”
    “You’ve often been ill.”
    “This time, I have a feeling the disease I’m carrying around isn’t going to go away without me.”
    Atiq pushes away his plate and backs up to the wall. “On the one hand, you cook my dinner. On the other, you prevent me from touching it. Does that seem fair?”
    “Pardon me.”
    “You go too far, then you ask for pardon. Do you think I’ve got nothing else to do?”
    She gets up and prepares to return behind her curtain.
    “This is exactly why I tend to avoid talking to you, Musarrat. You’re constantly on the defensive, like a she-wolf in danger. And when I try to reason with you, you take it badly and withdraw to your room.”
    “That’s true,” she admits. “But you’re all I have. When you’re annoyed at me, when you’re silent and scowling, I feel as though the whole world is turning its back on me. I’d give everything I have for you. I try to deserve you at all costs, and that’s why I make all these blunders. Today, I forbade myself to upset you or disappoint you, yet that’s exactly what I can’t stop doing.”
    “If that’s the case, why do you keep on making the same mistake?”
    “I’m afraid. . . .”
    “Of what?”
    “Of the coming days. They terrify me. If only you could make things easier for me.”
    “How?”
    “By repeating to me what the doctor told you about my illness.”
    “Again!” Atiq exclaims in a fury.
    He kicks the table over, leaps to his feet, swiftly collects his shoes, turban, and whip, and leaves the house.
    Left alone, Musarrat puts her head in her hands. Slowly, her thin shoulders begin to shake.
    A FEW BLOCKS away, Mohsen Ramat isn’t sleeping, either. Lying on his straw mattress with his hands folded behind his head, he stares at the candle as it drips wax into its earthenware bowl and throws shadows that dance in fits and starts upon the walls. Above his head, a sagging beam in the exposed ceiling threatens to give way. Last week, a section of the ceiling in the next room came down and nearly buried Zunaira. . . .
    Zunaira, who’s holed up in the kitchen and taking her time about coming to bed.
    Their late dinner, long since over, proceeded in silence: he was devastated; she was far away. They barely touched the food, distractedly nibbling at a bit of bread that took them an hour to get down. Mohsen felt deeply embarrassed. His account of the prostitute’s execution had brought discord into his home. He’d thought that confessing his