Monday, August 28, 2006

Hafeek the ladder vendor

Hafeek helps people get closer to the sky. He sells the bamboo rods scaffolding is made of. He makes ladders from thick bamboo rods so that people can reach the top of the scaffolding they have built. Then they need to buy more bamboo poles so they can build higher scaffolding. Then they need a taller ladder. Every customer comes back. Business is good at the moment, but his best customers are not the builders. They are the local thieves.

After the bombs flattened the land people who had flooded back into the country though they had nowhere to live, took shelter in container boxes from exotic places around the world. They had writing on them that nobody understood, though in those jobless days, as the men circled the temporary shelters to the rhythm of the cycling sun, everybody pretended to be an expert. The red one where Jamshid's family lived had carried stockings which women in the west wore underneath their skirts. At least that's what Noorullah said, he spoke the loudest and during the Taliban had been the first person in the community to see Titanic. The Taliban smeared his face in oil and wrapped the magnetic tape around him, tying his hands behind his back and hanging the casing from his neck. Then they put him on a wheel barrow where as they paraded him around the district they beat his back forcing him to shout "My name is Noorullah, he who watches film or TV, he will be punished like me". He'd been unfazed. Three days later he was thrown in a container for 72 hours for having a Leonardo DiCaprio haircut. It had prepared him for living in a container in the days after the bombs flattened the land.

In the boredom of the stifling heat and dust, people liked to sleep on the roof of the containers where a breeze could touch them and the dust kicked up by cars and buses chuntering along the road was less likely to reach them. People helped eachother up, stepping on eachothers shoulders until they could pull themselves over. Noorullah was always the first up, Hafeek was short and stout and was often the last left on the floor. He had to rely on being lifted. Once he had managed to grab an outstretched hand, but his weight had been too much to bear and both he and his would-be helper fell back onto the ground. In apology, Hafeek offered his back as a step again. Hands were not often outstretched to him after that.

That was when he started experimenting with how to raise people to the skies. At first he stacked barrels or anything he could find to clamber up, but these were not always steady and always belonged to somebody. One day, watching thieves run away from a fruit vendor he noticed that they scaled a barbed wire fence, placing their feet carefull on each wire. In the process they lifted off the floor. That night, with a borrowed saw, he cut down two fence posts quickly and then spent the rest of the night until dawn bending and unbending the wires until they snapped.

The next night, as the others clambered up cilimbing over eachother, he casually rested the posts and wire against the container. He put his foot carefully on the first wire and reached his hand to the fourth. Then came the magical moment when neither of his feet was touching the ground. It lasted a second. The tiny staples holding the wire gave way and he slipped off, his hands torn by the barbs and his chin cut diagonally to the bone.

That was just the beginning. Hafeek used the basic design and through trial and error, rise and fall, learned how to make ladders.

One day, a truck carrying thick long beams of bamboo overturned as it breaked to avoid goats crossing the road. It's cargo spilt across the road, killing all the goats. Other people scavenged the goat meat, Hafeek ran back and forth between his container with one bamboo pole under each arm. He roused his children and between five of them they would carry one. By the morning the container was almost full and there was only enough space for a body lying down on top of the pile.

Things changed slowly. Containers were sold for scrap metal. People started using the rubble to build more permanent homes. They could build walls as high as they could reach, but laying down a roof required some help. Hafeek built short ladders in those days and cut the bamboo into roof beams.

With the money he hired people to build him a house, but he built it with two stories instead of just one, using the tallest ladder anyone had ever seen. After that, when other people found money, they also wanted a two story house, and to build it they had to buy a ladder.

Many people wanted to use houses, and on a horizon that had become flattened, scaffolding and ladders could now be seen. On a clear night you could make out 5 or six construction sites.

Where there is action and money, there are thieves. The sight of all those bamboo poles and ladders sticking out the top of Hafeeks roofless enclosure was too much to bear but
Hafeek's children had grown big and strong on the back of the ladder trade so thieves would never risk going in through the front entrance. Instead they decided to get in at night. To get into a roofless building, the easiest and quietest way is not through the door, but over the walls.

Khan, who had always called himself a friend of Hafeeks despite being the first to refuse him a helping hand onto the container, went to the ladder shop during the day. He feigned interest in the short ladders. Hafeek congratulated him on beginning construction of a new house, said he hadn't been aware of his friends good fortune. Khan squinted as he looked up at the long poles lightly varnished ochre their last five rungs poking over the top of the rubble built walls. Hafeek was surprised, but he sold the tall ladder at a discount.

As soon as Khan left, Hafeek ordered his sons to seek more rubble to erect a scaffolding and to raise the surrounding wall. At the same time, Hafeek started building a taller ladder. By night time, both jobs were done.

That night, Hafeek slept soundly and Khan reached the top of his ladder as two others held the legs. Khan stretched and stretched, but he couldn't reach the ledge. The top rungs of the ladder hung above, taunting him.
And this goes on day afte day night after night. Thieves tempted by the thought of selling ladders to the builders visit Hafeek during the day to buy his tallest ladder. He builds a taller fence and the next day they return. He greets them every day, invites them to tea, offers biscuits and sweets asks about their family and wishes them well. They are his most regular customers.


Friday, August 25, 2006

Speen Ghar Hotel

The mesh door groaned behind G as the rusty spring strained to return to its dormant position. The insect-hollowed frame cushioned the doors arrival to a dull thud and wood dust puffed softly out.

G's every footstep across the vast foyer crinkled as he stepped on a plastic sheet splattered in paint.

He caught sight of himself in one of the six square mirrored columns. In the silence, he took time to really look. Slowly his face changed from the image he expected and projected to an accurate portrayal of his current appearance. There was fine desert dust in his hair and his beard bringing them both to a light sandy colour. His skin, an angry red glowing through an earthy brown, was dry and when he changed expression it pulled taught leaving lines for fortune tellers to read.

In the reflection he saw the reception for the hotel over his shoulder and though there was no-one there, he turned towards it. Behind the desk, birds had nested in the recesses where keys were kept. All the keys were in. A grey bird with a bright orange beak squawked as it rearranged itself in its nest, rattling the keys to room 15. The sound echoed down the two corridors leading down the east and west wing, making dust jump, plaster crumble and window panes shake in their loose fittings. A few minutes later the squawk returned down the central corridor, though because the hall in the east wing was cluttered with mattresses and the bird call had lingered for a rest, the squawk that started life in the throat of a bird as one, came to die in the foyer as two.

Then another sound came swishing down the central corridor. It was a whispering sound G had originally thought was wind, but now heard to be rhythmic. He turned to look at the bird, it was disinterested. "Go look if you want, I'm not stopping you."

The central corridor was dark, instead of light switches, cables wrapped overzealously in black electrical tape twisted their way out of the wall. Even in the darkness G could make out patches of paint, some fresher than others. There was only consistency of hue in about a two meter radius, after that it was either faded and dusty or newer and slightly truer to white.

Unused to being stepped on, the fibres of Persian rugs along the corridor moved apart to let his battered leather boots touch the humid cement floor directly and then crawled back into place as he slowly lifted his foot for the next step.

Someone had written the room numbers in chalk on the wall by bare wooden doors. The draft his head stirred by turning pushed open doors on disintegrating hinges.

At the corner he could see a vague outline of a pile reaching the ceiling. Reaching it he noticed it was a pile of furniture and cushions stacked as if they had collided coming round a blind turn. The mountain forced him to shuffle along the wall mindful of the legs of upturned stools and regal chairs.

Once safely on the other side he stared down another long dusty hall, but here he noticed that the three doors closest to him had brass numbers.

Something fell on his head, sending tingles down his hairs before his scalp recognised it as a cold liquid. His hand returned from an exploratory journey with white gooey substance smelling somewhere between pine and gasoline. He looked up and felt the liquid seeping towards his neck. He gasped, and sent sonic waves racing each other to the foyer. High above him on a bamboo ladder resting on one wall with its feet at the base of the other, was what at the distance looked like a young boy stretching his arm as far as he could with a paintbrush. Another drop fell and the boy followed it down onto G's nose. The boy was shocked, the ladder rocked and as he fell he seemed to grow and age. By the time he landed in a puff of cobweb dust on the cushions of a discarded sofa G saw he was an old man. The old man jumped up with glee,
"Hello, peace be with you. How are you? Fine? Is your family well? Your mother, your wife your children? Is your business prosperous? What is your name? It’s a pleasure to meet you. I am Amadullah. You are fifty five years late for Osama. When he came, I took his bags. As you see we are redecorating. This is the third time I paint that spot. How are you?"

Two sandals landed on the floor and Amadullah stepped into them.
"Room?" Amadullah arched his eyebrows inquisitively and ducked his head.
"yes."

Amadullah held G's wrist and led him to the first door with brass letters on it.
"We only have one at the moment."
Inside Amadullah ran over to one end of the bed, held the frame and gestured with his head at the other end.
"Help."
G picked up his end and followed Amadullah out of the room to the empty one across the hall. They set it down and Amadullah said "you wait" and scuttled off.

G took a deep breath and disturbed the balance of the room. The hat stand balanced on a box of matches fell over. A column of ants marching up the wall scattered in all directions. A series of squawks chased each other through the halls.

Amadullah returned and set a lock down on the floor with a clunk. He then proceeded to drill a hole in the door. Termites set about the wood shavings and they disappeared as quickly as they fell. Once the lock was fitted, Amadullah searched around his deep pockets. He pulled out a number 2, then leant out the doorframe, then threw the number back. He took out a five and a one and nailed them to the door. Finally, he handed G the key, smiled, put his hand on his heart, and rushed off, the termites following him.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Blind Broommaker

And still he dreams in colour

He still sees green

When he smells the fields he lost his sight to free.

A soviet bullet through the windscreen

Burst this mujehadeen's left eyeball

He's not the kind to cry

The bridge between his furrowed forehead and his nose is down

call a contractor's tractor

He leads the blind

Who the seeing have forgotten.

Makes brooms from reeds

But would not sweep away the past

He'd drive again

Once more into the bullet that put his seeing to an end.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Her House of Bats

This house. He felt as if he knew it. The colours were the same as other houses he'd followed her through. The outdoor walls the same sunset yellow, the kitchen counters the same black and white marble. He didn't have to wonder which drawer held the cutlery. He'd never been here before but standing in the middle of the kitchen he could close his hands and reach out to find a spoon to stir heaped spoonfulls of sugar into his black coffee.

How strange to be here without her. How strange to be following her path across the world but not crossing paths, just inhabiting her discarded shells. She built homes to leave them.

He walked onto the balcony where she might have sipped orange juice in the mornings as she mumbled a list of things that needed to be done. The house behind him was pitch black. The power had gone for the night, perhaps the week

High pitched squeeks and occasional drafts alerted him to bats sweeping past in their hunt of mosquitos and moths. As expected, he found a candle on the corner where the balustrade turned back towards the body of the house. The first two flicks of the flint on the hotel bar lighter produced only sparks so he turned the gas release all the way. On the second attempt a thin flame flew out as the fire tried to catch up with the runaway gas.

The candle lit, he held it over his head. Powdery moths and insects with imprecise flight had been floating aimlessly through the night. The candle light focused their dithering as they redirected their path towards the achievable, consuming moon. Now the candle flickered in the bats black eyes. As the insects came at his candle, the bats swirled around him chirping.