The Honey Thief by Najaf Mazari, Robert Hillman Page B

I should teach you? Teach you to destroy my peace?’
    Abdullah climbed to his feet. He looked the madman in the eye without fear. Then he put two fingers to his lips. He made a sign with his hands, spreading them out from each other like a bird unfolding its wings. It was a sign that meant, ‘I can say no more.’ A man might make such a sign at a certain point in an argument when words have failed to settle an issue. But Abdullah wished Karim Zand to understand that he had no power to speak. Karim Zand frowned and put his hand to his chin, as if in doubt about the boy’s meaning. Then he said suddenly, ‘Will I kill you now? Will I strike you dead where you stand?’ and he again lifted his fist. Abdullah didn’t make a sound, nor could he. He stood his ground. Karim Zand said, ‘God’s grey hair!’ – a strange expression, and not the sort of thing that a pious man would utter. ‘You are one of the silent ones?’ Karim Zand motioned for the boy to follow him into the house.
    The house indoors was as poor as we might imagine. An oil lamp of the sort you might purchase in a bazaar for five hundred afghanis threw a feeble light across the floor, which was no more than the soil on which the foundations stood. In one corner of the room folded blankets formed a bed simpler than a toichek . Two pots and two pewter plates stood on the hearth of the fireplace in which a few embers blinked in the gloom, showing that those who said no smoke ever rose from the madman’s chimney were not paying attention. On the earthen floor two rugs were spread, one of high quality, the other not so special. Four cushions rested on the rugs. On the bare mud-brick of the walls such garments as the madman possessed hung from hooks. One of two smaller rooms served as a cupboard where a number of small ornaments sat on shelves – a tortoise made of stone, coffee cups, drinking glasses with gold rims. The other room was Karim Zand’s washroom.
    The rubab that had been the cause of Abdullah’s bold plan to meet the madman and make his request rested on the largest of the cushions. Beside it lay another instrument, a tula , a pipe made of wood with stops and a mouthpiece. Its coating of varnish shone in the light of the cheap lantern.
    Karim Zand said to the boy, ‘Make yourself seated.’ Once Abdullah had lowered himself onto a cushion, he looked up at the towering figure of the madman. In the light of the lantern, his red beard and hooked nose and fierce gaze gave him the appearance of one who intended harm to the world. Abdullah wished to say, but could not, ‘I honour you and your music.’ Instead he pointed at the rubab , then at the place in his chest where his own heart beat.
    Karim Zand spoke. ‘Would that the whole world had ceased to speak! If you had uttered a word to me, I would have kicked your arse!’
    Abdullah nodded. Then he pointed again at the rubab , and again at his heart.
    The madman sat on a cushion facing the boy, and put his two hands into his beard, pulling at it in a way that seemed to help his thinking.
    ‘“Teach me”!’ he said at last. He threw back his head and let out a great roar. ‘Teach me! Ha!’ Then his mood appeared to change and he said, ‘Perhaps I will teach you. Or perhaps I will cut your throat and cook you. But if in my generosity I agree to teach you, how would you pay me? Now, go home.’
    Abdullah went home, of course – what else could he do? But he came back the next night with a new note, and this time he was brave enough to knock on the door of the madman’s house. Karim Zand came out wearing a more fierce expression than ever. Abdullah thrust the note at him. The note read, in the beautiful handwriting that Abdullah had taught himself, ‘I will work for you at the end of the day when I have finished my tasks for my uncle.’
    Karim Zand read the new note and his anger died away. Once again, he took the boy into his house. This time, however, he made him tea. He sat before the