A Fort of Nine Towers by Qais Akbar Omar Page A

he asked.
    Grandfather pointed with his right hand.
    “You must be a rich old man to have such a big house!” one of the guys said. He was tall and thin. His voice was harsh. “Let’s talk for a minute,” he said, and then pointed his gun toward our neighbor’s house.
    The gunmen were Hazaras; they were in their late twenties and part of one of the factions who were trying to control that area of Kabul. They wore black
shalwar kamiz
. Each had grenades in his belt, and a knife strapped tightly to his right leg.
    “I will come talk to you later, after I see my house,” Grandfather said.
    “Do what I said,” the tall one shouted. He shoved his gun at Grandfather’s chest. I heard evil in his voice.
    We had no choice but to go with them to our neighbor’s house. He had been a successful importer, and had built one of the most beautiful houses in our street. When one of our captors opened the door of the courtyard, I smelled blood like a butcher’s shop. There was also a stink of something that had been rotting for days.
    The first gate opened onto a twenty-foot corridor that led to a door into the courtyard. I remembered having been there two years earlier with my father for an engagement party. That night the grass in the courtyard had been neatly trimmed, making a green carpet. Roses were in bloom all around. A few McIntosh apple trees in the center, a gift from Grandfather, had big apples hanging from their slender branches. There were some pear, apricot, and pine trees, too. Every path around the courtyard was lined with flowerpots. The rooms around the courtyard had beautiful lamps in them that sent a glow over their fine furniture. The owner often went to London and other places, and brought back fancy things that no one else had.
    Musicians had played from a low platform covered with deep red Afghan carpets. Men and women sat together around the courtyard, chatting. Some were on chairs around small tables, others on cushionsspread on the grass. They all had a drink in their hands as they talked and laughed. The man’s son had just come home from Harvard to meet the bride his parents had selected for him.
    My father and I stayed until one in the morning. When we left, some of the guests were still listening to the soft music and talking to one another about their lives, their businesses, their families, their futures.
    In those days, grown-ups were always talking about these things. The Afghan Communists were still in control even though the Russian soldiers had left, but they were being challenged fiercely by the Mujahedin in many places. I listened to them out of curiosity, but never understood why they sounded so worried. The only thing that they knew for sure was that no one could know for sure what would happen.
    Now here I was standing in that place again, and finally understanding exactly what they had been talking about. These beautiful rooms had no glass in their windows, and it looked as if it had been centuries since anybody had been living in them. There was no sign of any tree in the courtyard. They had all been cut down for firewood.
    In the center of the courtyard where the platform for the musicians had been, there was now a ditch filled with the heads of men and women. Dozens of them. I looked at them with their eyes open, staring at me with their shabby hair matted with blood. I started to vomit, but controlled myself.
    I did not know who they were. I did not know how they had ended their days on this earth in this place. But I have never been able to forget them, though I have tried many times.
    The two men pushed Grandfather and me along a pathway that ran between rosebushes that needed to be pruned. Thorns grabbed my sleeve as I brushed past. I remembered the time I had cut a rose from one of these bushes. The owner told me, “A flower looks happiest on its bush. That is where it belongs.” Since then, I have never cut a flower, because he was right. But I could not imagine how anyone