The dark sky was like a deep great river. Ahmad limped into an alley. The alley wall was crumbling, and dust and rubble from it had spread across the alley and all the way down to the stream. The water in the stream was muddier than ever, flowing slowly along its path until it reached the cemetery at the end of the village.
Ahmad took off his backpack and dragged it behind him. His shoulders hurt. His feet hurt too. He couldn’t take another step. He felt something strange and worrying inside. He couldn’t wait to see his mother. Over the past nine months, he could talk to her only once in a while. She was always worried.
One day she said, “I made lamb shorba at noon, but I couldn’t eat it.”
Another day she said, “I will die and will not see your face again.”
And once, “All day I cry to God. I say, ‘God, bring ruin to Iran so our children don’t go there.’”
As he remembered her words, a smile appeared on his gaunt, bearded face. His lips were dry and peeling. When he smiled, a cut opened at the corner of his mouth. Blood slowly came out, freezing just under his lip.
A wind rose from the cemetery. It circled around his feet and threw dust into his eyes, turning them red. He closed his eyes and rubbed them for a few seconds. Then he covered them with his hands and continued on with his eyes closed. He could walk down the whole alley without seeing.
He wished his phone battery was charged so he could call his mother and say, “When I got back from work, Iranian soldiers caught me because I had entered their territory illegally. They took me to a camp and held me for a long time. Being Afghan without papers comes with its problems.” He would laugh, and she would laugh too. He wanted to get home fast, wash his face and hands. After one week in the camp in Iran, he smelled of death. He hoped that when he got home his mother would cook him her lamb shorba, full of spices, chickpeas, potatoes, and a touch of fresh coriander, and he could finally eat a full bowl.
Lightning flashed, thunder roared, and big raindrops fell into the silent streets like pebbles. There wasn’t a single bird in the alley. He walked faster through the rain and wind. He turned into the alley where his house was. A few boys were leaning against the wall across from his home. He called out, “Hey, Mullah’s boy, what are you doing in this rain?” He smiled, showing his yellow teeth.
He hoped that the boy would run inside and tell his mother he had returned. And that she would come to the hallway—the same hallway he had walked out of nine months ago with a backpack, going to Iran without permission, trying to find work to help his family through the winter—and give the boy a bowl of chickpeas and raisins as a reward for bringing the good news.
But the boy didn’t move. His eyes kept looking between Ahmad and the hallway.
Ahmad got closer to the house. He was still looking at the boy. His heart beat faster. He stopped in front of the door. The hallway was crowded. A group of male relatives was there. He heard the cries of his sister and some other relatives. A sudden fear grabbed him. His backpack dropped onto the dusty ground. His eyes fell on a big sheet of paper stuck to the wooden door. He couldn’t read clearly, but at the bottom of the paper, in large letters, it said:
The late mother of Ahmad Jan Rahimi
