The Taliban Cricket Club by Timeri N. Murari Read Free Book Online

“Come back here, you’re hiding something!” The slap marks hadn’t faded yet and caught the morning light as I turned to her. “Who did that to you?” she asked fiercely.
    â€œThe Talib.”
    â€œ . . . and we’re now the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” my grandfather announced, walking out of his office. He had a baritone voice that intimidated witnesses, and judges, in the courtroom. “Only three countries recognize our new government—Pakistan, naturally, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. We’re shunned by the rest of the world. I warned them a hundred times this would happen. Would they listen?”
    My grandfather had been in Prime Minister Mohammed Hasan Sharq’s cabinet back before the war. He was the most elegant man I knew. He dressed in gray suits and pale blue shirts and matching ties, and smelled of musky cologne. He was shorter than my father but made up for his lack of height with authority. Despite his busy practice, his transport company, and his political commitments, he always had time to help me with my schoolwork in the evenings. When I had announced that I wanted to become a journalist, he encouraged me and declared to my parents that I had inherited his independent spirit. Naturally, I was insufferable for a week after that.
    â€œI saw the president and his brother, hanging from the traffic-signal posts,” I told them.
    â€œYou’re a brave woman but even you should not have gone out.” He pulled me closer to him, and I winced when he squeezed my arm.
    â€œWhat is it?” he asked.
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œTake off your coat.”
    They grimaced when they saw the angry welt. My grandmother bathed the wound with warm salt water and Dettol soap and then applied cold cream to the welt, cooling the sting.
    Grandfather moved back into his office. We trailed him like a couple of stray dogs following a scent. His office was cluttered with files piled on every flat surface, including the marble floor. The bookshelves were crammed with legal tomes. The room was already suffocating with the fug of cigarettes. He turned off the radio. “They’ve taken the radio station,” he reported, “and the second edict they announced was that every woman must wear a burka in public and her mahram must accompany her at all times. Otherwise, she will be beaten, and so will the mahram for not controlling her.” He looked to my grandmother and attempted a grim smile. “I don’t think I want that responsibility with you.”
    â€œBurka!” My grandmother was almost speechless. “I’ve never worn a burka and I never will.”
    â€œYou had better get used to it,” my grandfather said gently, an arm around her. “You can’t leave the house without one. Those Talib are sadistic men and will take great pleasure in whipping women who break their laws.”
    â€œBut my clothes . . .” She had a generous wardrobe of shalwars, skirts, and blouses, and many pairs of high-heeled shoes. “I don’t even own a burka.”
    â€œWell, someone’s going to get very rich selling burkas to our fashionable Kabuli ladies.”
    â€œWe’ll have to get them made,” I said, starting to feel a depression setting in. “I was told today that the home and the grave are the only places where we can be seen from now on.”
    â€œThe Talib said such a dreadful thing?”
    â€œYes.”
    My grandfather lit a cigarette. “I think it’s best for you both to leave the country as soon as possible,” he said quickly. “We still have friends in Delhi.”
    â€œI’m not leaving you,” my grandmother said.
    â€œNeither am I,” I echoed.
    â€œYou should never have returned here,” my grandmother said to me, as she had done many times. “You should’ve stayed in Delhi.”
    â€œI didn’t want to stay in Delhi. What would I do