The Khan Saima Mir (best short novels TXT) 📖

five daughters myself. If I could have waited I would have, but my sons… They will be released from jail tomorrow and I have been trying to find the most respectful way of making my request. I want them to be with me. I am an old man and my life is almost done. I wish to ask, to request most humbly, that my sons take my place on the Jirga.’

A murmur ran through the men. Akbar Khan held up his hand and silence fell once again. ‘The law of this country saves a man after he has done wrong,’ he said. ‘Our customs stop him from doing that wrong. Are our customs as good as their laws? Some would say not, we would say yes. But your boys have tasted of their laws, and now they want to live by ours. I do not know if they will be able to administer justice when they carry the desire for vengeance, but…this is how our life is. It is up and down. As for taking your place in the Jirga, you are not the first to ask this, and you will not be the last… Come enjoy the wedding. Today, eat and spend time with your wife and daughters. You and I will speak more about this tomorrow night, inshallah.’

Hearing these words, Sher Khan began calling down blessings upon Akbar Khan and his family. He moved forward to embrace him but Bazigh Khan stepped in, quickly ushering him and the other men out of the room. When he returned he found Akbar Khan standing by the window, watching the guests, his face pensive.

‘There is that one final matter of business, Lala,’ he said.

Akbar Khan turned to face his brother. ‘The chief of police wants me to help him with something?’ he said. ‘It was so much easier when they were the enemy.’ He shook his head slowly at the changing times and blurring boundaries. ‘This matter, what is it?’ he asked.

Bazigh Khan relayed the news of the nightclub shooting to his brother, who listened silently, his face dark, his brow furled. ‘If the young are not initiated into the tribe, what else will they do but burn the village down?’ Akbar Khan said. ‘Still, we do not need another race war. Our people do not know fear. They will destroy everything that we have spent years building. Tell him, the policeman, to come to the house tomorrow… Let us listen to what he has to say, and hope he listens to us before our boys find a way to get heard.’ Bazigh Khan nodded at his brother’s wisdom, understanding the implied and the unsaid.

Theirs was the camaraderie of soldiers and of family, of shared secrets and of blood. As brothers, they had stood apart from other men and back to back with each other. The things they had done and the things they had seen were never spoken of, but, like white-hot irons on flesh, they had left their mark.

Akbar Khan turned back to the window and watched his family enjoying the evening. Standing in the middle of the garden was Maria, as radiant and blushing as a bride should be. And there, too, was Jia, so much like him, and so unlike her sister – one golden and the other pale, one gentle and the other sharp. ‘I see both my daughters are here today,’ Akbar Khan said to his brother. He regarded them from afar as the sisters hugged one another.

‘You look beautiful,’ Jia said.

‘I’m in good company, aren’t I?’ laughed Maria, and Jia noted the ease with which her little sister opened herself up to life, her soft brown curls falling around her face, her shoulders loose, her touch light. Maybe this is what she herself would have become if things had been different.

Maria taught at a primary school nearby. That’s where she had met the man she was marrying today. Loved and beloved, Maria changed lives in ways that Jia once hoped she would too. Out of everyone in the family, Maria alone had managed to maintain some kind of relationship with Jia despite the circumstances. It was what sisters did with ease. It was what brothers let slip. It was what made men and women need each other.

Jia adjusted her sister’s jewellery. The string of pearls that ran along her centre parting had twisted, turning the gold pendant that hung from it over. ‘Benyamin is angry with me,’ she said.

‘He’s angry with everyone. Except his girlfriend, Mina,’ said Maria. Several questions sprang to mind but Jia put them aside. She made a mental note to talk to Maria about it after the wedding.

‘You really do look lovely,’ she said, admiring her sister’s outfit. ‘I’m glad you made me come.’ A rogue silk thread was coming away from the pinks and the plums of the brocade of Maria’s wedding dress. It occurred to Jia that family was a little like jamavar: countless delicate threads woven together to make an intricate and somehow robust fabric, but one that frayed quickly if not looked after. She looked around for a pair of scissors, but finding none, she leaned forward and broke the thread with her teeth the way she had seen seamstresses do in Zainab Market.

‘Ben can be an idiot,’ said Maria.

‘I think it might be my fault,’ answered Jia, her voice distant.

Maria waved at her groom. He was watching her from the other side of the garden. He looked in need of rescuing. ‘He can’t quite handle the outfit,’ said Maria.

‘Are you sure you want to marry this man?’ asked Jia.

Maria laughed again, and it filled Jia with a lightness, like hope.

‘I should go help him before Baba sees. By the way, you know Elyas is here?’

The lightness evaporated instantly. Jia nodded. She knew he was here. She just didn’t know if she was ready to see him.

She watched her little sister traverse the space, feeling both pride and envy at her youth. She handled the silk