Chapter VIII
Eid Ka Chaand
According to Jalaluddin Rumi, Fanaa is to die before dying. The giving up of ego, attachment to life and love.
But I have no attachment to life. I only hold on to death.
This is what Conor wrote on the napkin he gave me the day Kara left me:
Siddhartha has to let go of his desire for his child to be a child.
I have to let go of my desire for dad to be a dad. That is what makes me angry.
When I walk in for the lunch shift on Wednesday, Cal, Ron, Flora and the two drivers in the office all turn to look at me. No one says a word. Then Flora gets off the phone. Hi Ali, she says very loudly. How’s it going, she turns to say. So happy and chipper. She gets up and gives me a hug. Her shoulders, breasts and tummy, all hold me. I am straight because I can’t read the mood around me.
All the offices are closed. Business is dead. Every driver is sitting in his or her car, listening to the radio. I listen to WAMU. At 12, they send most of us home, keep Kate, Leo, a couple others.
When I show up on Thursday the office is empty except Cal, Ron, and Flora. Take two weeks, Ron says. It’s slow. I just look back uncomprehending. Then I look around. Flora is frustrated with her printer, hitting it so hard with her flat palm. Why so hard. What’s it gonna fix? Ron repeats himself over that sound, very loudly. Just take a little break, Ali. Kind Cal is there too. He nods, then looks away. Take a month, he says firmly. Kind Cal. And shave your beard, Ali. You look like a terrorist. Ron looks up from his pretend work. Nods. I look around to Flora. She looks at me with frantic pain in her eyes. Like she’s about to cry. I smile at her. Don’t worry, I mouth. I reach out to touch her shoulder but she doesn’t move toward me, so I put my hand back in my jacket.
You want my radio back?
Cal looks at me confused. Yes, he says. No, Ron says. At the same time.
Okay keep it, Cal says quickly. Just clean up your face, please.
For the first time since I’ve moved to the US in 1994, I am not at school or at work. The old brown fabric couch in the living room is so comfortable. Thanks to Conor for helping it up the steps. Lovely thin head cushions with thick brown and black threads unraveling from the cover and tickling inside my nostrils when I am trying to sleep. Thin cushions I flip when they get wet with drool. Ammi comes home from work at 4, and I’m sleeping in front of the TV in the living room. She pulls open the long long white shades and the late afternoon sun streams in from the right and wakes me. My bare cheek sticky on the cushion. Did you get outside today? Come let’s go for a walk. The leaves are finally changing. It’s beautiful.
I shake my head and burrow deeper into the couch. Towel, ammi. Please. So she brings a soft worn hand towel and tucks it under my face where the pillow is wet and drapes me with a thin cotton blanket, turns the TV off.
Leave it on, ammi.
No, Ali. It’s too much. I can’t take it.
But I want it.
How long?
Forever, ammi. I want to watch TV and sleep forever. Jus leave it on, please. Please.
So she does.
And close the blinds please. It’s too bright.
After 12 years the dreams are back. When I wake up sweating I turn to CNN, again. Christine Amanpour. I watch it until I am shaking, and I bury my head in the cushion and cry until I fall asleep.
Ammi sees the pile of books on the floor by the couch. Books Kara got for me from the Mount Saint Mary's library.
She walks over.
Rumi.
Amir Khusro.
Hazrat Inayat Rehmat Khan.
Are you reading these, she says, excited.
Uh. I grunt. Yesterday I read the back jackets and then gave up. Rumi, a Persian Peer whose preacher father was forced to immigrate northwest to Anatolia. So he grew up Turkish, became an immigrant preacher in a foreign country.
And Nizammudin Auliya, one of the first Peers of the Chishti-Nizami tradition, an Ottoman whose family emigrated the other way, who founded his own thread of Sufism in Hindustan. He defied emperors, shunned wealth, preached reaching oneness with God through unceasing devotion.
And his disciple lover Amir Khusro.
The court poet for six emperors of the Delhi Sultanate.
One of the greatest Persian poets who ever lived.
The man who invented the sitar.
Who was fluent in Persian and Arabic but also Hindustani and Sanskrit. Who wrote ghazals that people still sing on the streets of Delhi.
Who died six months after his Peer. Of sadness.
Of loss.
How does one die of loss?
Did my dog Sheru die of loss when we moved to Lahore?
Did Mehrban chacha die of loss? Where is Mehrban chacha?
I realize Ammi is talking to me. She is holding the book about achieving proximity to god through music. By Hazrat Inayat Rehmat Khan. She’s holding it open in the middle and her eyes are filled with such reverence.
What?
You should read this, beta. It will give you peace.
Chapter X, she reads.
The Sufi especially loves music, calling it ghiza-e-ruh — food of the soul.
The yogis and the Sufis, in their meditation, have always had music. Music is the greatest mystery in the world. The whole manifestation is made of vibrations, and vibrations contain all its secret. The vibrations of music free the soul and take from a person all the heaviness which keeps him bound.
She flips to another page:
Chapter XIV
IN THE fikr -
In what rhythm you began, you should continue to breathe. By losing the rhythm much is lost. Music is the miniature of life’s harmony in sound in a concentrated sense. The person who has no rhythm physically cannot walk well; he often stumbles. The breath, the speech, the step, all have rhythm. The person who has no rhythm in his emotions falls easily into a spell, such as laughter, or crying, or anger, or fear. We should practice rhythm in our lives, so that we may not be so patient and yielding that everybody takes the best of us, not so carried away by our enthusiasm and frankness that we say things that are undesirable in the world, nor so meek and mild that we fall into flattery, timidity and cowardice. Then by and by, we may understand the rhythm of emotions, the rhythm of thoughts, then the rhythm of feeling. Then a person comes into relation with the inner rhythm, which is the true meaning of the world.
I am marking these pages for you, Ali. Remember how you were asking for a Peer? This man is your Peer.
Then she flips to another page, reads something on the beauty of five note raags.
Five note raag! I have some. She goes into her room, and she puts on a raag. This will help you. It’s Bairaagi.
She comes in sits by me on the edge of the couch, hand on my head.
I just want to sleep, ammi. I take her hand off, curl deep into my cushion but it is wet. So I turn. Leave me, please, ammi.
She gets up, walks up to the to the coffee table and with the remote turns the TV off.
Leave it on, ammi.
Just enjoy the music, beta. And focus on your breath, like Hazrat Inayat Khan said.
No. Please! It helps me sleep. And I get up and find the remote. Turn it back on.
It’s just pictures of destruction and death. All those poor people in New York. My heart breaks. I can’t take it any more.
I need it, ammi.
She shakes her head, turns to go into the bedroom. It’s sick, I hear her say. Then her footsteps stop.
I look up.
By the door between the two rooms, she’s stopped. Staring at the TV. Eyes wide.
It’s Christiane Amanpour talking, describing him, split screen with a picture of him. A news ticker running across the bottom of the screen. Then it’s him. A grainy video. 1998 INTERVIEW WITH OSAMA BIN LADEN, the CNN ticker says. A clean-shaven white man interviewing him. Nodding patiently. Bearded Talibs surround them.
Oh my god, she says in English. Against the wall, she slides to the ground, her salwar following slower, until she slides all the way down and the salwar is bunched up behind her shoulders and back.
On the carpeted floor, she is shaking.
Eyes wide.
Qatil! She screams at the TV.
Qatil! She screams again.
She has never ever been like this.
Even when it happened. That day when I escaped the Lashkar. My face covered with blood from that first fall.
We were just five kilometers south from my home in Hamaran village, at the mor between Jalalabad and Oshikhandass, where our little road meets the Gilgit-Jalalabad road. Where the convoy would take a sharp almost u-turn to go into Gilgit city. Their ultimate target. For three hours I sat on a rock by the side of the road on the east face of the Bagrote, maybe 75 meters above the river. The third day of our battle against the Lashkar. The battle to save Jalalabad. Facing the water, away from the screams, the gunshots, the smoke of burning homes, the smell of roasted cattle, my hands on my ears. Women and children and goats going west. Men with hunting rifles and sticks going east, into Jalalabad. The gunshots. The smell of gunpowder. How I hate it.
I didn’t see, because Mehrban chacha made me face away from Jalalabad, turned to the rocks and the river, and with my palms, he told me to cover my eyes. So I smelled.
And I heard.
So many screams that day. Of the people that stayed. And I stay, and sway in the wind above the rushing water, because abbu was gone and we wait, and chachajaan, with his back to mine so he faced Jalalabad, repeats the Shahada. As loudly as he can. In desperation he repeats the Shahada.
But over his shouted prayer I hear. Gunfire. Women’s screams. Children’s screams. Then I feel chachajan move, my support off, and I turn and open my eyes to the light and the treeless spring sun so bright. And finally I see my abbu. Alive. His face black, his black kameez even blacker with soot except where there was thick blood. Human remains. Not his. His eyes red. His eyes dead. They’re coming, he says. They have burned Batkor.
Where were you all this time? The first time I’ve seen Mehrban chachajan angry.
He shakes his head. We have to save Gilgit city.
But what took you so long!
I was helping them leave Jalalabad.
They have given up?
They fought all they could. Rolled rocks down the mountain. An army man showed us how to make bombs. With fertilizer. For two days we threw bombs down at the convoy. We stopped them on the highway. But they came over the hills.
He looks away from Mehrban chacha, then looks back.
There are thousands of them. There's nothing we can do. I've never seen such a big Lashkar.
How far are they?
Maybe one hour. They have burned Batkor. They are coming over the mountains. Next they will turn to Jalalabad.
What happened to Haramosh Valley?
Burned. One man, Fida Hassan, escaped from Shuto village. They are shouting Kafir kafir, Shia kafir. Jo na maane woh bhi kafir.
They burned Shuto village?
Yes.
And Bunji?
In Bunji they say they made the Shia into Sunni. Forced them to accept.
So Jalalabad is lost?
For two days we blocked them, held the heights. For two days, with hunting rifles and homemade bombs. We held off ten thousand. Maybe more.
What should we do?
Nothing. There's nothing. The army is with them.
There must be something.
We need to evacuate Gilgit.
We have been so scared for you.
Abbu’s face is black with soot, and only the whites of his eyes show. You take the car and go up to Hamaran. Take the women and children into the mountains. I will go into Oshikhandass and Gilgit, get whoever is left to leave the city, to hide in the mountains.
What?
We must save Gilgit. There will be a massacre.
No, Rehmat Ali. You take Ali up the mountain. I will go into Oshikhandass and Gilgit. You have a family. I don't.
No. I know how to handle this. Please understand. If I do it right there is a chance to save more lives. They will listen to me.
Mehrban chacha stops.
Go, please. Take Ali to safety. There is no time. You know they will listen to me.
Okay, but wipe your face, Mehrban chacha says. You look like a car mechanic. Turns to me. Let’s go, he says. We’ll take the Datsun. And abbu runs to the car to get a rag for his face, and Mehrban chacha and I walk behind.
But then they’re here.
A black Toyota Land Cruiser coming around a bend in the highway. A row of black Toyota pickups behind.
Already.
Stuck.
On the west side of the road, a 100 meters east and a 100 meters above the full, melting snow and rain-filled river.
The black Land Cruiser rolls slowly to a stop in front of Mehrban chacha and me. Abbu is by our tiny yellow Datsun 50 yards away. Six men in the Land Cruiser. Two in front, two in each seat behind. Every man has a long beard, an AK 47 rifle in his lap. The man in the passenger seat is tall, so tall he has to bend his head.
He is speaking softly to the shorter heavier driver. I don't understand their language. The tall man looks at me. His eyes are calm, almost gentle. But distant. Then he looks away outside his window, at the rocks on the mountain wall across from us. In Urdu, the driver says to Mehrban Chacha: Urdu bolte ho?
Ji.
Gilgit ka rasta kidhar hai?
Then I’m pushed. The side of my head hits a rock. Abbu. He ran me straight off the mountain, off an almost vertical slope. It is so sheer I am flying for the first 20 feet. My outstretched hands break the fall, but my left temple hits a rock anyway, and rolling down I hear the gunfire. Is my abbu hurt? Maybe 50 feet down a steep 10-foot rock stops my roll. I look up and see the Land Rover men looking down at me. Then one of them puts his rifle against his shoulder, aims. I try to lift my legs but nothing happens. I’m stuck in a crevice under the rock. With my arms I shield my face and crouch into the rock base, and from between my fingers I peek up. Behind the shooter something, somebody, crashes into him. The back of his knees buckle. And he and my abbu, they fly down the mountain. Faster than me they fly by my rock, and I don’t even lift a hand to stop them. And finally my legs work, and push me up and I fall and crawl behind the rock. Watch them roll down 50 feet, my abbu, his kameez black with blood, hugging him tight until they are past a large rock that juts almost straight up over the cliff over the river. And I can’t see them any more.
Behind my rock I wait until the I hear the trucks start again. So many trucks. One after the other the engines start up. After twenty trucks have gone I slither 60, maybe 70 feet down to the full, rushing rain and snow-fed river. No sign of anyone. The current so fast if I fall in I’ll be down 50 feet in seconds. The river so full the little rocks that form the river beach all submerged. I want to fall in and let the water take me to my father. My shoes are gone. In my bare feet I search the large sharp rocks on the riverside. Nothing. Then, finally, I see it. On a large sitting rock, with a four foot flat in the middle, I see something dark. Blood. A shallow six-inch pool. My father’s? Or the man who was going to kill me? I dip my fingers into the blood. A pebble.
I put the blood-soaked pebble into my salwar pocket.
After an hour I start my climb up the side of the mountain. Quiet. Slow. Up by my Bagrote Gah, not on the road. For two hours, for seven kilometers I climb the river. When they find me outside the village I am crawling, open skin on face and elbows and knees, and the skin on my knees bright pink. My left wrist swollen so big. Two men carry me me in. I try to tell them about the burning homes, the smoke, but my throat is so dry. Climbing by the water, but I didn't drink.
They hush me. They know, they tell me. They have seen the smoke, the trucks. The rest of the men are gone, to Gilgit, to fight.
Leave Gilgit, I say. My father’s message. But she wraps herself around me. Jao, she screams at them.
And when they are gone she rocks me. Meri jaan. Ali, meri jaan. Tu meri jaan hai. Meri jaan. Rocking me as she weeps. But in a minute she is calm. Strong. Holding me so tight, her back strong. My left elbow touches the wall behind her, and I scream. Over dramatic. She almost drops me. It’s okay, ammi, I say, ashamed. But she sees my swollen wrist.
Muhammad is here now. His eyes are dead. Just pure rage. Who did this?
Leave him, ammi says.
Muhammad shakes his head. Who did this?
I finally look at him. Long beard, I say. Tall man with a long beard. And he goes.
The men are telling their families to go up and into the mountains in the east, and they are going to Gilgit. Go through the pass into Nagar Valley, they say. But they can't take me. Ammi would have to carry me, and I'm too big. And Muhammad is gone. They have two locally made pistols. And Muhammad has nothing. Just a stick. Something in my head says no. He should not go fight with a stick. But ammi is holding me, just me, rocking. She doesn’t even see him go.
Band karo isko, she screams now, shaking my reverie.
Siitting on her bum, back against the wall. Her kameez bunched up behind her where it dragged down against the wall.
Band karo isko, she screams again.
I’m on the couch. The remote is on the floor where she threw it. She stretches full length on the floor to her right to reach for where we take our shoes off, grabs one of her sandals and throws it at the TV.
Turn it off, she screams in English.
So I get up and turn the TV off and go sit beside her on the floor.
Her right hand holds her choga wrapped tight around her lips and nose. Like she’s going to block the stench of burning flesh. Left palm on her forehead, shutting her eyes.
It’s the black embroidered choga that abbu got from Gilgit city. For Eid. The week before.
Eyes scrunched tight under her palm.
Fingers open a chink to see the TV. It’s off.
He is here, she says. I can feel him, she says. He’s here.
Who?
That man with the beard.
Osama? Osama bin Laden is not here, ammi. He is in Afghanistan.
He’s here now. I can feel him.
Ammi. It says that interview was from 1998. And even then he was in Afghanistan.
Promise me you won’t fight him, she says. Just leave him.
I won’t, ammi. I can't.
My Gullu, she shouts. O mera beta!
Roughly, she grabs my forearm, pulls me to her. Kasam do, Ali!
Aap ki kasam, ammi. I hug her tight. I want to lay my head in her lap, be with her like she has been for me, but her knees are up.
I’m here, ammi. I won’t go anywhere.
Why! She shouts it. We were so happy.
We were.
We were so happy!
I nod.
I think back to the last few days before it happened.
My birthday. May 14, 1988.
We are up most of the night before. The night of Laylatul Qadr.
Only three hours of sleep, but at seven in the morning on my birthday I am up. And excited.
It is still cold. The sun is up over the smaller peaks of Bilchar Dobani. We pray with ammi, and then, with my fingers I am feeding Sheru bread. He is very careful. Teeth gentle when they touch my fingers.
Last September, some young Punjabi tourist brought his dog to go hiking. The dog had three puppies. He couldn’t take the puppies back, so Abbu brought one home.
Angrez kutta, the villagers call him.
He’s not Angrez, abbu says. He’s Belgian. But the neighbors don’t understand. They don’t understand why he brought a dog home. It is not customary to have a dog at your home.
He will help Ali with the goats, abbu says. He’s a Belgian sheep dog.
But they just scratch their beards and laugh. Like they do at my abbu’s ideas.
He will sleep outside, is all ammi says.
Abbu nods. He knows she will agree to bring him inside in the winter.
The masjid maulvi would not like it, she says.
Good. Abbu smiles.
What if he grows up and gets hungry? Will he eat the baby goats? That’s my daadujan, to my abbu.
He won’t. Ali will train him, he says. And smiles at me.
Sheru is only one year old but very smart and very big now. Almost 40 kgs. But he still lays in my lap after we walk the goats. All over my lap, in daadu’s old charpai, in the sun.
When he started laying on it, daadu got a new charpai.
Stop singing, Muhammad says behind me now. You sound like a crow.
I turn, and they are standing by the entrance to our home, shielding their eyes from the sun coming over Dubani, holding their empty water buckets, one in each hand. Watching me feed Sheru. Ammi has a sweet sweet smile. She laughs. She is so beautiful I don’t even know what she is saying. Then she comes up to me, puts down her bucket and kisses my head. Keep singing, meri jaan. Your voice is beautiful. Come, Gullu. She is the only one who calls him that. Let’s go. You’ll be late for school.
Abbu comes out to go to work.
You are going to work today? She looks exasperated.
Why not? He looks at her with a smile.
It is almost Eid. And you have not bought new clothes for the children. Look at Gullu’s shoes.
Muhammad and I look at each other, and I smile a quick smile. Finally. We had been asking her, and she came through for us.
He has to go to the fields, ammi. Muhammad is sensible and stern. Abbu is the only person who knows about the herbs, the trees. If he doesn’t go the rest will not work.
Abbu laughs. He knows the game Muhammad is playing. Today evening, he says. Today after work I will take you to buy clothes.
And shoes. Ammi is firm.
Of course, abbu says. And laughs.
And then even Muhammad smiles. He loves new shoes. Two years ago, for Eid, he got new shoes, and with a wet rag, he cleans them every day. Even though they are sneakers.
I ask ammi. Will you make Chapshuro today?
Of course, Sonu. I will make Chapshuro for iftar.
Ammi. Muhammad’s eyes narrow. You told me you would make Doudou.
I will make both.
Come, ammi. I’ll be late for school. Muhammad is already running down to the path to the river, empty buckets swinging.
Will you take the goats, Ali?
Yes, ammi.
Ammi follows him down the short path to the river. Sheru puts his nose into the inside of my knee.
I haven’t forgotten, I say to him softly, and he looks at me with so much attention. He understands perfectly.
It’s my favorite time of the year. Ammi cooks so much for Iftar. Different meals every day. The nights are cool but we are snug in our room with the Bukhari. And when it is not raining the sun is warm on the charpai in the courtyard. And soon the cold nights and rain will be gone. And now the sun is warm on my face and the charpai is so comfortable.
And then they’re back. Ammi and Muhammad. Two full buckets each.
See, he says to ammi, grinning. I told you he would be sleeping.
Ammi laughs. It’s okay. It’s his birthday.
I stand up. I am not sleeping, I tell him firmly.
Muhammad shakes his head and goes in to get his backpack. Okay bye, he says to me as he gets on his bicycle. In English.
Bye, I say, and watch him walk his bicycle down the steep hill from our house, until he gets to the plateau.
He will bicycle 7 km downhill to school in Oshikhandass. At 3:30 or 4 he ride back, up the hill.
I want to hug his side like I used to when I was little. But he doesn’t like it.
He is so good on the bicycle. There will be fallen rocks on the road down. There are always landslides during the rains. He will step off and walk carefully around.
I hear her pouring oil into the big pot. Smell the onions being chopped. The tomatoes.
Ammi smiles as I walk in.
Eat, she says. Then walk the goats, she says.
No. I shake my head.
You’re too young to fast, silly.
We have had this argument every day. Every day I give in. It is too much to smell the foods. Today I am determined to fast.
Bring small wood, she says.
In the spring during the day, the Bukhari stove makes our home too hot, so we put only a little wood and let the food cook for longer.
Ammi kneads dough, then threads the doudoo noodles. Here, she says, and hands me a ball of wet dough. You string them.
Mine are lumpy. Fat in places and thin. When I try to make them even they break. I make them all into a ball again and then try again. She laughs. Your snake ate a mouse, she says, pointing to the middle of the noodle. But she puts them in the hot oil anyway.
My cheeks feel the heat of the oil, the stove. The Bukhari has made the room very warm, even though she only fed a little wood.
At night it is still cold, and we all sleep in the room with the Bukhari. Ammi and abbu sleep on one side, and Muhammad and I on the other. In the summer, sometimes ammi and abbu sleep outside on a charpai.
Now, we only feed the Bukhari stove when we are cooking. And in the summer we bring the Bukhari outside.
The first room is the living room and for guests. Cushions on the floor and carpet. The second room is our sleeping and living and eating room.
Spring is the rainy season. For two nights it has rained a lot. Today we found a puddle of water in the corner of the living room. Over the weekend, Abbu and Muhammad will fix the roof.
Even though it rains a lot, Spring is my favorite time of the year. Every morning when we wake up we hear the full and rushing river behind us. The trees are my favorite shade of spring green, and on Dumani on our left, and Bilchar Dobani in front, every day the snow line climbs a little higher up the mountain.
Almost every week we hear about a landslide. On the Karakoram Highway, about six kilometers east of us, close to Pari Bangla, a truck falls off the Karakoram Highway once every two or three weeks. In some places the bottom is a thousand meters below. A few kilometers east and south is the road that goes south off the highway to to Fairy Meadows and K2. Just above the turnoff a steep cliff rises 500 meters, and in the spring, rocks fall on the highway, sometimes on a car. The highway gets narrow and trucks try to avoid the fallen rocks. Sometimes they fall off.
But after May the highway is safer.
In Gilgit city, in our big mosque, there is a water faucet where people wash their hands and feet.
Muhammad’s school in Oshikhandass also has a faucet. They study Math, English, Urdu, Pakistan History, Science, and Islamiyat. When I am twelve I will go there. But for now I study in ammi’s school, in our home.
We are a class of eight children. When it is warm, ammi teaches us outside, in the courtyard. When it rains or is cold, we meet inside, in the guest room.
In Gilgit city there are homes where water flows from faucets.
When I was 11, in 1989, we moved to Lahore to my nana’s home. They had a geyser in the bathroom. When you turn it on, after 20 or 30 minutes there is hot water in the faucet.
Ammi fishes the hot shirke from the oil pot, and it smells so good. But everyone is fasting, even my irreligious abbu. He does it because ammi makes him doudou when he fasts.
Ammi puts the shirke on a newspaper, lays it in front of me. I shake my head.
Muhammad is fasting. So I am determined. But it is so hard. Because all day ammi is cooking. And even though he goes to school I am home with the smells.
Then I can’t be in the home any more. So I run out and to the river with Sheru. Gather small wood. And in one hour I have gathered so much wood. I make three trips back to the home with the wood. Then I’m so tired. And hungry and angry. Ammi looks at me and smiles. Come here, she says, and gives me a Shirke. Eat!
I shake my head.
Listen. What would your abbu say?
I look into her gray green eyes. Hungry. Not processing. Then I remember.
Mizaan.
Ji haan. And what does that mean?
Allah ka taraazu.
And what else?
Balance. I use the English word she has taught me.
To khao. Yehi hai mizaan.
So I do.
Abbu comes in while I am eating. Y’allah, he says to her. How can you smell all these smells and not eat? I can’t stay around this home. I’m going into the forest. There are some Punjabis who are trophy hunting Markhor. Come, Ali. Did you already walk the goats?
Yes, abbu. In the morning.
So we go walk 2 kilometers up the river toward Mehrban chacha’s isolated home.
The home he and abbu built into the mountain. Stone and brick and mortar. No electricity, so he comes to stay with us in winter. Or he goes to his brother’s home in Hunza.
We go up the foothills of Dobani, where the goats like to eat the bristly shrubs with thick dark leaves. After the first hill, we walk into the meadows where fennel flowers roll wild and thick and then intersperse with flax and marigold. Look! Abbu says, and points. I see two things: A new sign on the edge of the road. And Mehrban chacha with flowers in his hand, a spring bouquet of wildflowers. For bhabhi, he says and hands it to abbu. They embrace then walk to the sign. Bilchar Meadows, it says. They laugh.
Abbu says. Look Sonu, can you read the sign?
Of course, I say. And I read it loudly.
Abbu pats my head with pride. We have been coming here all our lives, and we didn’t know it was called Bilchar Meadows. They laugh.
Look Mehrban chacha, I shout! The chukar is back.
He turns to where I am pointing, and without moving watches closely the large fat bird with black and white stripes walking away from us through the thick grass, to the edge of the mountain.
It never left, Sonu. Chukar’s don’t migrate. The ones up high just come down here in the winter.
But this one has a limp. It’s the one we saw last year, but it went away. And he’s back, but his wife is not here.
Maybe he went away to build a nest.
Then why is he back here? And where is his wife?
Hmm… You have observant eyes, Sonu. Yes, he does have the same limp. And chukar’s mate for life, so his wife should be around.
Where?
We look all around, walk all through meadow. A few hundred yards in each direction. When we walk away from the chukar, he follows us, 50 feet away. When we walk toward him he walks away. He doesn’t fly.
Finally, abbu says: Maybe his wife is dead.
I gasp. Now what will happen?
Abbu shrugs.
Will he take another wife?
No, Sonu, Mehrban chacha says. Male chukar’s mate only once.
But he’s alone.
You know, Sonu, our ancients said that every man has an animal in him. Maybe you are a chukar.
Are you a chukar, abbu?
Abbu laughs. When you weren’t born, when I first brought your ammi back here, I took her to these meadows. When I told her about chukars, she said that the chukar was her favorite birds.
Abbu, do you think ammi is a chukar?
Ha ha ha. Yes, definitely. That’s why she is so fond of the moon.
Very slowly I walk closer to the bird. Then, 20 feet away, I sit on the ground to be small.
He is watching me.
I lay down on my stomach.
Abbu and Mehrban chacha laugh. Get up, Sonu, abbu says mildly. Ammi will be upset when she sees your salwar.
At his voice, the chukar walks away into the brush.
I just stay on my belly and wait.
Come, Sonu.
I want to stay. If he has to be alone, maybe I can be his companion.
Sure, Sonu. Abbu laughs. But just make sure you dust off your salwar before your ammi sees it.
If ever a Chukar is alone I want to be with him.
They both laugh, and chukar scurries away.
Then, thankfully, they walk away. And I wait.
*
In the evening after dark we eat Iftar with Mehrban chacha, outside, in the charpoys.
The meat is so tender when ammi makes it. So soft, so soft inside. …. describe.
How do you make it soft, bhabhi?
Ammi smiles because when he says some urdu words he has an accent. But she covers her smile and goes inside.
Abbu loves shirke, and now she makes it just as good as someone from Nagar Valley. She has learned how to cook all his favorite foods.
Come and sit with us, abbu says.
I ate already. I have to clean up and prepare for school tomorrow.
First and foremost, ammi is the teacher. She teaches us stories from the Quran. And from the life of the Prophet, Peace be upon him. The parents are happy for their children to learn Urdu. She is happy because she learns Shina from the children. And because she loves children.
School is 9 to 12, and then the kids run home.
*
May 17, 1988
Eid should be coming soon. It has been 28 or 29 days of Ramadan.
The sun has set, and in between play, all the village children are searching west. But it is raining lightly. And when it is not raining the sky and the mountain are covered by mist.
Eventually everyone goes in for dinner, and I’m sitting outside our home in the charpoy with Anjum. We ate earlier.
Anjum is three months younger than I. And Sheru, who is always with me, is eight years younger than I.
10 feet from us there is a puddle from the rain. Anjum is throwing rocks into the water, and Sheru is jumping inside to get them. And Anjum is laughing.
Then I see it. South of Dumani, a long cloud parts, and now it’s actually two clouds and the first moves faster and in the middle there is a space of empty sky.
Eid ka chand.
I don’t say a word. In the black mist, the mountain north, and a small hole in the sky, and the crescent bathes a small swatch of mountain translucent white.
I can’t not look.
Chand ka diwaana, abbu calls me.
I can’t get away from it.
And I tell no one.
Then it’s covered by cloud again.
But I’m still looking at where it was. Anjum looks at me.
What are you looking at, Khuno.
I almost don’t hear it. Ammi told me to ignore him when he calls me lame. Oy Ali. What are you looking at?
But I can’t find it any more, and he won’t believe me any way.
Everyone has been trying to see the moon. But so many clouds.
Then Muhammad comes to get me for dinner. Ali, he says. And shakes me. But I’m still looking into the same place in the sky. And then we all see it. Anjum and I. And Muhammad.
Chaand raat mubarak, Anjum cries!
Muhammad runs straight back homer. Ammi, abbu are with the neighbors, eating, talking. They are all gathered outside our home.
Where? They all are looking.
But it’s gone behind a cloud again.
But Muhammad saw it, and they believe him. Anjum and I also.
We go to the neighbors.
Muhammad tells them calmly that he saw the moon, and they all believe.
Someone goes to Eidgah outside Oshkhandass. Our mosque. To tell the masjid maulvi.
All at once everyone is embracing. The whole village.
It seems all are in love.
Anjum’s mother comes and embraces ammi like she has never been upset with her. She seems to be pure love.
Then she comes to me. Eid Mubarak, Ali!
I smile as she hugs me and tousles my head. She smells of food, and suddenly I am hungry again. Will you make halwa, I ask her. And she laughs.
Someone is told to go to the city to tell them. They may not have seen it.
Muhammad is the quiet boss, walking around calmly, ordering the other kids around.
Come in 10 minutes, she says to Muhammad. Doudou will be ready.
He is quiet and doesn’t say anything. But from his small smile and his eyes I know he is excited.
With a flashlight I go for a walk through our village. Sheru comes with me. Don’t go too far, Muhammad yells. Then he gets up and follows. I think he is just following because he thinks I can find the moon.
But it is cloudy over again.
He is walking so carefully in his new shoes.
By the puddles when Sheru splashes him he is upset, walks off to sit on a rock to clean his shoes.
Then he comes to me. Ali, he says smiling.
I look at him.
Eid Mubarak. I know you saw it first.
His last words to me.
*
Ammi is holding my neck so tight I can’t breathe, and I wake up.
Her arm is like a noose around my neck, my nose is squeezed into her belly, and I can’t breathe. Ya Allah, she says, and sobs loudly. Where is my Gullu! Why hasn’t he written, she says. It’s the first time she’s said it. Every day she checks the mail and there is nothing, and she just looks away. Now she’s just letting go. And rocking on the floor. I burrow my nose out the side and take a deep breath. She sees me struggle and lets go, and my head falls like a stone into her soft lap. And still she rocks, hands soft around my face, and her tears flow onto my cheeks.
I’m here, ammi. I won’t go anywhere.
But he hasn’t written in a six months! He used to write every Saturday to bhaijaan in Lahore. One page letters in beautiful cursive English, on post cards from Gilgit. Such a good writer. Best handwriting in his class.
I know. I smile. From General Post Office Jutial. Shahr-e-Quaid-e-Azam. Chachi would read the letters on the phone to you.
Now nothing. Nothing!
I’m sure he’s okay, ammi.
Why did your abbu have to go to Jalalabad? Why did he have to bring this upon us? Everyone is suffering for that.
Ammi. He was just trying to protect us.
But I understand her question.
What was he thinking? Why did my intelligent, rational, educated father, the only man in the-village to get a college degree, go to fight the Lashkar? He was documenting the herbs of the valleys. All the herbs, in all the valleys. He was the one who would sit with the Tabibs, learn about their work. His work was so important to the people.
Why, she yells.
She has never asked me before.
I shake my head. To save Gilgit.
A vain sacrifice. The Shia way. Why do you people always have to sacrifice?
Was it vain sacrifice? Or did he truly believe that he could do something?
He was trying to get people safe.
Why? She’s screaming.
Too many people in town. They had burned Jalalabad. They were going into Oshikhandass. He had to do something.
So sacrifice himself?
Save them. And Mehrban chacha would go first, get our village people into the mountains. Away from the village.
It was a stupid plan, she says. We would have been fine in our village. They wanted nothing with us. They didn’t even come up this way. No one comes this way. Everyone just goes around the bend, into Gilgit.
She’s right.
But he had to try, ammi.
Why? Why try when there is no hope?
I try to think back. To his black eyes. Black. With no hope for himself. He just wanted to get me and Mehrban chacha away. And try to save Gilgit city. He had to try.
May 18, 1988. Eid.
Morning prayers at Gilgit city mosque.
Morning prayers at our Imambargah by the graveyard between Oshikhandass and Gilgit Where our masjid maulvi sings. Where he becomes shrill when he sings.
The morning is foggy. You can’t even see the sun, let alone the moon. Can’t see Rakaposhi above a hundred meters. I wonder if it is snowing on top of the mountains. I wonder at the mountaineers who climb to the top.
After prayers Anjum’s father comes from Gilgit city on his motorcycle. There has been an attack by Sunnis in our Gilgit city mosque. The Sunnis did not see the moon. Too cloudy in the city. They have not announced Eid. They think we are celebrating too soon. Or maybe they are just jealous. Some Sunni boys threw rocks at the mosque. People are collecting guns. Anjum’s father takes his Turkish pistol and puts it into a backpack, and rides his motorcycle back down Bagrote Road.
The parents ask us again. And yes, we saw it. Muhammad saw it. Anjum and I saw it. Ali also. Abbu and ammi believe us.
The big people are worried. But we kids don’t care. It is Eid. We saw the moon. All the children in the village are happy.
Muhammad’s school is closed in Jalalabad. Ammi’s school is closed at home.
Ammi is still cooking.
And who cares if they want to fight in Gilgit.
In the afternoon Anjum’s father comes back from the city on his motorcycle after being gone all day. When he gets off his motorcycle, we all come outside. Anjum’s mother stifles a scream when she sees him. He has a cut on his left cheek. But he waves her off and walks over to our home and my father comes out, and they go off outside to daadu's new charpai in the courtyard. Two other men come from the city on motorcycles, and I recognize them. We see them in Gilgit city Shia mosque when we go twice a year. They are quiet while Anjum’s mother cleans the wound. When she goes inside the home they speak in low voices.
Go take the goats for a walk, Ali.
I already did, abbu.
I’ve eaten so much. I’m too tired to walk the goats now. I just want to sleep in the sun with Sheru on the old charpai. But they want me to go away.
Then please take Sheru to the river, Ali.
So I go to the river with Sheru. It is so full and violent from the rains last week. My sitting rocks are all submerged. I am far above the roaring water, so strong it would thresh anything in its way.
The next day is quiet.
Everything will be okay, abbu says to Anjum’s father. Just live your lives. Stay here. Don’t go to the city for a few days. It will die down.
Go to school, abbu says to Muhammad.
Not today, ammi says. There is trouble.
The trouble is in Gilgit, abbu says. Nothing in Oshikhandass.
No, says ammi. Not today. I have a bad feeling.
All is quiet in the village. The next morning and the one after we are all stuck at home. So Muhammad and I walk the goats together. Sometimes Abbu and Mehrban chacha and I walk the goats. Sometimes we walk them three times a day.
Ammi won’t let Abbu go into the city.
But Anjum’s father has been gone for two days.
Anjum and his mother come to our home for lunch and dinner.
On the morning of May 21 Abbu goes with me to walk the goats. We take the path east, away from the river, up the side of Bilchar Dobani, the mountain on our east, where there is a trail that the goats like. We climb two kilometers, almost straight up Bilchar Dobani.
And we arrive at our plateau with wild flowers. Bilchar Dobani straight in front and Dumani on our left and behind us. The village quiet behind us. And on right, beyond the outcrop and 500 meters below lies the road. The Karakoram Highway. On clear days if I walk to the end of the meadow I can see all. In the summer, after the rains are gone I can see all the way to Pari Bangla.
It is cloudy today, but then sunny. Cloudy then sunny.
Hey!
It’s Peer sahab. Mehrban Chacha.
Asalamalekum, he yelled.
Walekum asalam, yells abbu.
I was just coming to see you. You are walking the goats yourself?
No. With Ali.
Of course. With my Ali. He laughs.
Sit, he says, after he gives my father a hug. I have cherries.
They settle on the grass.
Wow. Where did you get these?
Mehrban chachajan laughs.
My bhabhi. In Hunza. I went to see them for Eid.
Did you know there’s trouble in Gilgit?
No. You know I don’t talk to anyone here. Just you.
There was a fight in the city. Some people through rocks at the Shia masjid. About the moon sighting. We were celebrating before the Sunnis.
So they attacked?
People fight over silly things.
The goats wander off to the far end of the meadow. They like the shrub that grows on the rocks beyond the meadows. Sheru runs after them, and I follow.
Abbu, I yell.
Ali, come and try these! They are delicious!
Abbu, look!
Down the mountain, on the Karakoram highway, a trail of trucks. I count 10 black pickups coming around the mountain.
Packed with men in the back.
Then a black SUV.
Abbu come!
Abbu and Mehrban chacha walk over. When they see the convoy, they gasp.
They scramble to the very end and then carefully they lower themselves to an outcrop that overlooks the highway.
Abbu, look! There are more!
Three minutes behind the first 10. Many more. Colorful goods transport trucks. Buses too. I have never seen so many trucks together. I start to count.
I get to 50 vehicles, and then I lose count. Men with guns packed in the back of each truck.
They look at each other. Scared.
Maybe 15 kilometers away, abbu says.
Close to Pari Bangla, says Mehrban chachajan.
Come, abbu tells his friend. We will take the Datsun. You drop us at the Gilgit Scouts and go to Gilgit city. Tell everyone to hide in the mountains. Maybe the Scouts, they will save us.
They run.
Then he looks back. You stay here, he says. Take the goats home.
No, abbu. I am stumbling behind, determined to keep up. Sheru will take them home. I’ll come with you. But he is running, so far ahead.
By the time I get down to the dirt road that goes from our village to Oshikhandass he is probably already at home. So I walk up into the middle of the road, wait for him to come down. Eight in the morning. On my right the sun is climbing over Bilchar Dobani, but in front of me only the snow-covered top of Dumani is lit. I hear it before I see the yellow, and I run into the middle of the road, so he stops. Okay come in, he says.
First we go south toward Jalalabad, turn west at the Bagrot Mor, and go over the small bridge over Bagrot river that divides Jalalabad and Oshikhandass. Then directly west to Danyor village and turn left into the bridge over the mighty Gilgit River and then onto Gilgit Road and to the Gilgit Scouts. Abbu gets out, and I follow him. Mehrban chacha climbs into the driver’s seat, backs up into the gate, and goes off to Gilgit city in the west.
Northern Light Infantry, the sign says. But we still call them the Scouts, no matter the sign. We love our Scouts who fought so bravely for our independence from the Kashmiri Dogras. There is no one outside. The gate is metal bars. Shut. Padlock on the inside. Abbu bangs against the metal gate with a rock. Nothing. Keeps clanging the rock. Nothing. He yells at the hut. A stone and sandbagged hut with a sliding corrugated metal roof. Nothing. So he throws a rock on the roof. Another one. Finally a very tall solder with a mustache but no beard comes out. Shin, like us. He holds his rifle loosely pointed at the ground. Aan wa, said abbu, his knuckles sharp, fists tight around the iron bars. Speaking Shina, not Urdu. The man raises his head in acknowledgement. My father gesticulates down the hill, toward the Karakoram highway going west, talks rapidly in Shina. And the man listens. Then he shakes his head. And says something I can’t hear. Abbu says something. An entreaty. Then I hear the guard. Loud. Be ga mar raino aan! My father is so loud that I hear him from 10 feet away. But the army man shakes his head and points away. Kye? It’s a shout, abbu’s voice cracking into shrillness and I am ashamed. Hands on the metal gate, and he is shaking the gate. Then the soldier walks up to my father, puts a hand in the middle of his chest, pushes him hard. But abbu just goes back five paces, then walks back up to the guard. Kye, he asks again, in a normal voice. And the Shina man from the Gilgit Scouts puts the rifle over his shoulder and pushes him so hard with both hands. Abbu falls. Goes inside his little citadel. My father comes back, and there are tears in his eyes.
Looks into my eyes.
Abbu, I say, are they going into the city?
He nods and looks west, in the direction of the convoy. They will be in Jalalabad in two hours. Then Oshikhandass.
Then he reaches to me. Come, he said. We will try again. He pulls me out by the arm.
I stumble behind him.
Baaro kako. He folds his hands and yells.
I have never heard him be so respectful. Like he is nothing.
A guri cheyek hin aan. He pointed down to the road west, past the bend.
I look at him sharply. There was no pregnant woman.
She fell down, he says. We need to help her.
I understand. He is just trying to get the soldier out. To see the convoy coming up the mountain. He is sure that if the soldier sees the convoy coming to attack the city of his people, he will get the Scouts out.
Gamun jakote haajik thum.
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
Letting go of abbu was so hard. The shock of sudden death. The shock of not being able to say goodbye, not being able to hear his laughter, feel his hand on my shoulder when we walked up the mountain, hear his happy voice when he made a little joke. We refused to let go. He is still here, ammi would say. I know, I would say. Even though I heard the shot. I heard his cry.
Gullu would get angry. So angry. He’s dead, he yells, throws a metal glass by the wall by the bed. Shhh …. He is here, ammi says. I can feel him. He’s in heaven, Gullu yells. Now we have to avenge him. Goes outside and sees Usman Khan, a six year old whose father is Sunni. His eyes in fear when he sees Gul Muhammad. Gullu picks up a rock and the kid runs. Gullu laughs. No, ammi says, and runs outside. Drop the rock, she says to Gullu, grabs him by the ear and pulls him inside. A fourteen-year old. And she's pulling him by the ear! Closes the door.
My children will not fight any more, she says. No more! You hear?
The next day Gul Muhammad is gone.
He’s gone to Chilas, a neighbor tells ammi. To find the men who killed your husband.
A week later we hear the story. He steals Anjum's father's revolver. Sleeps in the fields at night. And in the morning he shoots a bearded man dead when he goes to clear his bowels. The man who shot my father? Or some jahil jihadi from Chilas? Who knows? He just knows that he has to go and kill someone. He knows anger. And he knows the way men work.
Ammi, he says. There is no respect if you don’t fight.
But I don’t want to fight. And whom would I fight? My ammi’s people?
*
So we walk east toward the hospital and the bridge across Sakwar Gah that leads to Gilgit, where we are to meet Mehrban chacha. And soon we see the yellow Sunny.
Did you tell them in Gilgit?
Yes, but most are not escaping. They are collecting guns.
What? They cannot fight this force!
They won’t listen to me.
Okay, abbu says. Drop me at the Mor. I’ll go into Jalalabad and tell them. Then I'll go back into Oshikhandass to find my brother and his family. You go back with Ali. Tell them there is no army. No Scouts to help us. Escape to the mountains or they will kill everyone.
So we do. We go home to home.
And when I hear the Datsun start up again ammi sends me out with food to give Mehrban chacha. For abbu and him. And I run out as fast as I can and sit in the car.
Go inside, Ali, Mehrban chacha says.
I shake my head. If you don't take me, I'll walk. But I won't leave abbu.
So we return to the mor. Mehrban chacha parks the car on the side. And waits. For hours we wait by the Mor between Jalalabad and Oshikhandass . Watch the women and children leave. And the men headed in. With hunting rifles. And sticks. And abbu does not return.
So we do. The next day. We watch them gather. Our army of farmers, store keepers, high school students, grandfathers.
Once or twice each day abbu comes to the Mor, and we give him food. And then he goes back into Jalalabad. We are holding them off, he says. I've never seen such a big Lashkar. But we have some men who know how to make bombs. Inshallah we will win.
On the second day we see Gul Muhammad. He sees the Datsun and us, and he is trying to hide in a group of boys going in. But Mehrban chachajan runs up to him and holds his arm.
I'm going in to find abbu, he says.
And Mehrban chacha just nods, lets go.
N35, the Karakoram Highway, follows the Indus around the highest mountains in the world, from Nanga Parbat in the South to Rakaposhi in the north. Between the mountains and the highway, and sometimes behind a small peak, runs the mighty river that mothered our civilization. Along the Indus they came, to destroy us.
From the towns of Chilas and Kohistan.
From the madrassas of Tangir and Darel Valleys.
From the training camps of Khyber Pakhtunwala.
Came the Lashkar.
Kaafir, kaafir.
Shia kaafir.
Jo na maane woh bhi kaafir.
That’s the route I draw on my maps.
Our mountain rivers, our Bagrote Gah and our Hunza River rush down from Hunza and Nagar in the north, feed our Gilgit river and then the Indus. And then the Indus fills the farms and dams and aquifers of the plains.
We are Ismaili and Imami, Sunni and Naqshbandhi. And before that we were Buddhist. And, some say, before that we were Greek.
For many years we have lived along our rivers. In peace.
My father’s father told my father that the guards of our rulers in Gilgit were hired from Chilas and Tangeer.
Sunni protected Shia.
But after 1988, all the villages became Sunni and Shia.
All the children became Sunni and Shia.
Ammi’s father was Sunni.
I was both.
And Gul Muhammad decided to be Shia.
All over our countryside and on giant rocks that shield our highway, giant Buddhas watch over us. Buddhas carved into our rocks, Buddha drawings etched into our mountains.
Eight kilometers west of where we sat, my Mehrban chachajan and I, you pass the Kargah Buddha. North of that are the ruins of 7th century Buddhist monasteries. A religion of peace. Replaced by another religion of peace.
But no matter. For now we wait. As they burn Jalalabad.
Abbu took me to Oshikhandass often. We would drop Gullu at school and drink tea at the small shop close to the Mor. Abbu and the shop owner would speak in Shina. He would give me a small sweet to suck on. I would bite into it immediately, and abbu would laugh. You only get one, Sonu. Next time, make it last.
We live in the shadow of Bilchar Dobbani on our southeast. In the morning the sun must climb it before it can shine into our village. Sometimes even until 10 a.m. it is dark in my village.
Behind us is the even taller Dumani, the second highest peak in the Karakoram Range. 8300 meters.
When the sun comes over Bilchar Dobani, it lights up all of Dumani on our north. It is the most beautiful thing I will ever see.
Every morning I would see it.
In the Burushaski language, they call Dumani mountain Rakaposhi, the wall that shines. That shining wall goes straight up faster than any mountain in the world.
That wall towers over Jalalabad.
All Jalalabad burned.
Every home was burned.
To our east is Baltistan, Uighur China and Tibet. To our north is Tajikistan, to our west is Afghanistan and to our south is Kargil and Srinagar. Behind our mountain to the north, lies the village of Hunza. They say it is a town now. We are Shin caste of the Shin people. We are muslim.
But there are no castes in Islam.
There are no castes in Buddhism either.
My ancestors loved Gautam Buddha.
Or what he represented to them.
My father’s ancestors.
And now we kill each other.
Ammi, I say now.
Her head is curled into my lap. Eyes closed tight. No response.
There were three schools in Jalalabad. Two for boys and one for girls.
She looks up. In my lap she shakes her head and closes her eyes.
What happened to them?
The girls school was burned.
Not the boys?
She shakes her head.
Why?
She shakes her head and picks herself up. Beside me, her shoulder against mine. I sit up straighter.
I don't know. They burned the Imambargah too.
Our Imambargah.
I loved my Imambargah.
Praying brother to brother, shoulder to shoulder, in the open, with the mountains around us. The river beside us.
Abbu never went. Except on Eid.
The opiate of the masses, he would say.
But I just wanted him to pray. Like my friends’ fathers did.
In the spring, when the ice melts, the full river runs over the tall, sharp rocks.
Limping, and sometimes, because my balance was bad when the ground became uneven, crawling, I would climb Dumani. With Sheru. As high as I could. From a ledge I looked over our land. The farms and the homes by the rivers. I could see all the way to Jalalabad.
Other villages burned too?
She nods.
Many. Jalalabad. Batkor. Oshikhandass. Danyor. Sultanabad. Jutial. Jehglot. Chilmish Das.
My village spared. My ammi spared. But not other ammis.
They went up past us, down to the highway, she says. Into Gilgit. Didn’t go up our road.
How did you feel, ammi?
We went into the mountain. I took you away. We were safe.
Were you scared?
She nods.
So many women attacked. I knew some of them.
How did you feel?
Like I was those women who were being attacked.
But …
No. No one touched me. But I felt what they felt. Inside. She points to her stomach, and I look away.
On the floor, against the wall of our one-room apartment refuge in Gaithersburg, she is leaning into me. I have my arm wrapped around her. She is so small next to me.
* * *
Next —> Part Three