The Khan Saima Mir (best short novels TXT) 📖

helped us when we were in troubled times. We were one of many families who were captured by warlords. Your father helped us escape and brought us here. He looked after us. There were twenty families that he saved, good families, educated families, who had lost everything. But thanks to him we have rebuilt our lives. Thanks to your father, may God rest his soul, I am now able to support us, and my cousins, too, are educated professionals.’

In all the years that Jia had spent at her father’s house, he had remained tight-lipped about those he helped. The stories of the families, and the work that he had done to give them a life, were secrets he had taken to his grave.

The young woman’s words left Jia reconsidering her own experience of her father – of the small ways in which he had showered her friends with kindness, of the gifts he had bought them, knowing what each of them liked and disliked, winking at her as he handed them out – and she melted a little.

‘I work at the Akbar Khan refugee centre on weekends,’ the young woman said. ‘I would love you to visit and see how we plan to continue your father’s work.’

Jia smiled at the old man, still holding his hands in hers.

‘We will never forget this debt. Our lives are your lives,’ he said, this time in a language she understood. He stopped, and kissed the palms of her hands, his display of gratitude embarrassing her. She would need to learn to handle such things better if she was to stay.

By afternoon the city had come to a standstill. Mourners lined the streets around Pukhtun House and police officers were out in force.

The coffin was placed in the living room, ready for each visitor to pay their respects. When it was time for the Janaza prayer, the men lined up facing the casket, the imam beside it. He placed his iPad on the pulpit, open at the final draft of his sermon.

‘When God commanded the angels to bow before Adam, Satan in his arrogance refused, and with that refusal he declared war upon mankind. Our souls are both the prize and the battleground. The complexities of life, the choices we make daily, are part of this fight. As warriors, we are grateful that only God knows the intention of man, and that only He will judge us.’ He paused and looked at the faces of the mourners, knowing that he could never gauge their hearts.

He cleared his throat and spoke again. ‘Many will ask what this city finds to honour in this man. Many will turn away, because to them he is not a man but a monster, and an enemy of the law. They will say that he brought evil and hate to our daily struggle. But we will answer them: did you ever talk to Akbar Khan? For if you did, you would know why we must honour him. Akbar Khan restored our self-respect and gave us dignity. This was his meaning to his people. And in honouring him, we honour the best in ourselves. Come, let us stand for prayer.’

Some shaken, some silenced, the men took their places, each one facing the direction of the qiblah, the imam leading them, Akbar Khan before him. The rows of men had been painstakingly counted: odd numbers were considered pleasing to Allah and blessed for the deceased. The women stood behind the menfolk, their chadors pulled over their bosoms. They shuffled closer together.

A hush fell across the building and its grounds at the first takbir: ‘Allahu Akbar!’ The Janaza prayer had begun. The congregants spilled out into the garden, across the lawn and into the streets surrounding the house, standing shoulder to shoulder. At the fourth cry of the takbir they turned their faces right and then left, re-entering the world of material things. It was time to bury the dead.

‘Stay with me, child, I need you here,’ Sanam Khan said to Maria, holding her back from the funeral car as Jia took her seat. She knew she could not stop Jia accompanying her father’s body to the cemetery, and so she pressed her lips tight on that matter, but she did not want both her daughters breaking tradition and the rules that Muslims had followed for centuries. ‘Let the men bear this burden,’ she said. ‘They do what they want their whole lives. They must face the consequences of their actions alone.’ Jia was still within earshot, and couldn’t help but wonder if the words were directed at her.

The funeral procession made its way slowly through the streets that Akbar Khan had been the talk of for so many years. Her father’s men walked the distance from the house to the cemetery, as a mark of respect, the casket on their shoulders. Jia was in the first car behind them. The drive felt longer than any she had ever taken and her heart was a storm of emotions. As she tried to brush aside her thoughts and consider what her father would have done in her place, the heavens opened. Akbar Khan had loved the rain, often standing by the window, watching it soak the ground, listening to its rhythm. Jia wondered if this was a sign. Rain was a mercy but also a punishment. Armies of angels descended to take the souls of the good, but who would be coming for the Khan?

As the car turned into the cemetery, Jia spotted the elderly man she had met at the house among the crowd. The pull of his Khan had been too strong. Row upon row of black umbrellas, suits and shalwars spilled through the cemetery gate and ended at the plot where Akbar Khan was to be buried.

The cars stopped by the waiting Jirga. Their Khan would have to face his Lord alone but they would go as far as possible on the journey with him.

Michael helped Jia out of the car.