Free Born Under a Million Shadows by Andrea Busfield Page B

from sudden snowstorms or tries to pick its way across the deep lines ofrubbish on either side of the road. This is Chicken Street at its most heavenly, and it felt good to be back. It was like coming home.
    “Fawad!”
    Jamilla came running up to me, grabbing me in a huge embrace that in a few years’ time she would no longer be able to do without ending up in the prison for wayward girls. Her face was pinched red by the cold, and her eyes shone bright.
    “Where have you been? We’ve missed you!”
    “I’ve missed you too,” I shouted back over the clash of noises filling the air, a racket of shouting, beeping, and growling generators.
    And it was true, I had missed her. Okay, my thoughts had been kept busy with the events of my new life and the unexpected problems that came with it, but a true Afghan never forgets his past. That’s what makes us so good at holding grudges.
    “I’ve so much to tell you, Jamilla!”
    “I know some of it.” She smiled. “Spandi has been keeping me informed. Apparently you work for a blind man now; that’s why you have deserted us!”
    “I haven’t deserted you,” I protested, “I’ve just been busy!”
    “I know, Fawad, relax, I’m just joking with you. I’m happy for you, really I am.”
    Jamilla took my hand and weaved me through the legs of the adults, taking me to the archway leading to a small shopping court where we used to gather to swap stories, information, and scraps of food.
    “Fawad, you dirty little bastard!”
    As we ducked into the alcove, Jahid rose from a crouch and came over to embrace me.
    “I’ve got a television!” I told him.
    “Fuck off, you liar!”
    “No, it’s true! And there’s a girl in my house with breasts as big as the dome on top of Abdul Rahman Mosque!”
    “No way!” he screamed, slapping his forehead. “There’s no justice in this world. Here I am, fully equipped to show the ladies a good time, and Allah in all his wisdom brings the best tits in the city to a fucking homosexual like you!”
    Jahid punched me in the arm, but it was a playful punch and so we wrestled for a bit, falling into the display of scarves coloring the walls around us as we did so and earning us a not-so-playful slap around the head from the seller.
    It felt fantastic to be back, tasting the fun and the violence of the street. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it and everyone in it—even Jahid.
    As we moved farther into the courtyard, away from the scarf seller, to sit on dirty steps leading to a closed trinket shop, Jahid told me that his mother seemed depressed now that we’d gone and she no longer had anyone to shout with. He also revealed he would be getting out of Chicken Street soon: his father had called in a favor from someone who owed him one, and they’d found Jahid a job in the municipality offices, on account of his reading and writing. They were going to train him to do something useful, they said—once he’d mastered the art of tea making.
    “It’s a good job,” he declared, sitting up straighter than I remembered him doing before. “It’s a good opportunity for me.”
    “I know,” I told him, genuinely pleased. “Congratulations, Jahid. I really mean it.”
    “Yeah.” Jahid nodded. “Yeah, thanks.” And he punched me on the arm again.
    Unfortunately, Jamilla hadn’t done so well since I’d been gone. I noticed an old bruise under her left eye, and she told me that one of the beggar women had elbowed her in the face during the usual crushes to get to a foreigner’s wallet.
    “It’s starting to change here,” she said. “It’s like the mafia now. You have to be part of their family, or you’re done for. I’m only here today because it’s Christmastime and there’s enough for everyone—and because Jahid and Spandi are here.”
    I looked carefully at Jamilla and saw for the first time the color of fun washed from her cheeks, like she was suddenly older and more tired. I decided to ask Pir Hederi to find a