Prayer

Ahmed put a sim­ple nar­row rug with embroi­dered green­ish leafs on the ground and turned west­ward. He kneeled, clasped his thin palms and started his usual rit­ual of pray­ing. The sun was set­ting down tak­ing away all the wor­ries of the busy work day with its loud bazaars, peo­ple in tur­bans in light muslin clothes rush­ing through the streets of an enor­mously hot city, women cov­ered with burqas pass­ing by with their small chil­dren, voices of thou­sands of peo­ple buzzing like a swarm of bees…

‘’Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar,’’ Ahmed whis­pered with his eyes closed.  ‘’Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar,’’ chanted thou­sands of voices in Kabul after mul­lah made his call from a mosque with dark blue stars and moons carved on its divine dome. It was still hot, and Ahmed could not con­cen­trate on prayer. The boil­ing heat was slowly leav­ing the city of Kabul, and although not sup­posed dur­ing the prayer, Ahmed could not help but to think what Najat has cooked for a din­ner. After the sacred time was over, he rolled his prayer rug, once again walked into the school build­ing, opened the door of the class­room, picked from his desk glasses, two books-one of Omar Khayyám and the other of Rumi, and quickly walked out into the cool­ing city toward his home.

Hold­ing to the warm cov­ers of the books, Ahmed whis­pered verses of his much-loved Khaaam : ‘’Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears today of past Regrets and future Fears…’’ He smiled. It was an opaque sum­mer evening that like a richly woven car­pet was entwined with the lus­cious smoke of freshly cooked kebab, green young cilantro, and ariog flow­ers grow­ing in the gar­dens sur­round­ing houses with flat roofs. Ahmed loved Kabul. It reminded him of a large fry­ing pen with the loud Gin sit­ting in the mid­dle of it in the sum­mer, the odd king­dom with white snowy mosques adorned with ten­der ici­cles reflect­ing crispy sil­ver moons in the win­ter, but mostly, when his city was like this, vibrant, with golden minarets reflect­ing the rays of the set­ting sun.

He turned into the nar­row street with cob­ble­stones cracked along the sunken pave­ment and his heart squeezed with unex­plain­able nos­tal­gic feel­ing of yearn­ing, sim­i­lar to what a child feels when he force­fully has to aban­don his home and fam­ily and live with the strangers. He stopped for a moment, try­ing to com­pre­hend this obnox­ious feel­ing of being for­lorn. Across the street he spot­ted his house-not big, with gray walls and flat roof where he and Najat would sleep dur­ing blis­ter­ing nights of Kabul’s sum­mer look­ing up the unbe­liev­ably close stars — one flick­er­ing, shak­ing web of bluish lights. The fence around the house was peel­ing with red paint and had to be fixed, and Ahmed promised to do it to him­self once again walk­ing through the front yard.  He stopped on the porch, his hand hold­ing to the door­knob, peek­ing into the dimly lit win­dow of his home. Najat was sit­ting in the mid­dle of the room fix­ing his old shirt,her thin pro­file framed in the yel­low square of the lighted room . Ahmed smiled.  He pulled the door but it would not open.

–Najat?, I can’t open the door,’’ Ahmed pulled harder. The door­knob made a squeaky sound.
–Najat jo , what is wrong with you, are you sleep­ing?’’ Ahmed pounded on the door.’’ Can you hear me?’’ the deep hoarse voice was too close. ‘’ What is wrong with you, are you sleep­ing?’’ The voice was roar­ing some­where above Ahmed’s head. He looked up, and down, at the sim­ple rug, ragged and nar­row, with the white pow­der of snow cov­er­ing green embroi­dered leafs. ‘’ Can you make it for me or not dammit?’’ The tall man wrapped in the gray coat scorn­fully looked around; at the rug where Ahmed was still kneel­ing not notic­ing the pierc­ingly cold wind of New York, at his light brown­ish jacket that was miss­ing a but­ton.
‘’ Yes, sir, two dol­lar sir,’’ Ahmed stepped to the cart and reached for the ketchup and slice open bread.