Free Under an Afghan Sky by Mellissa Fung

juice.
    “You must eat,” he told me.
    “Not hungry,” I answered.
    He took a juice box, stuck a straw in it, and handed it to me. “You must,” he said.
    I took it from his hand and took a sip. It was syrupy thick and sweet. Still, it was probably better than the water I’d been drinking from the red plastic can. I noticed there was also a full green plastic can of water, no cleaner than the water in the red can.
    “It is good?” he asked. I nodded.
    “I come tomorrow,” Khalid said, moving toward the opening of the hole.
    “Wait,” I said. “Where are you going?”
    “I go home. I come tomorrow. My uncle stay here tonight,” he said.
    “When can I go home?” I asked.
    “Inshallah, soon,” he said. “I go now. I see you tomorrow.” He crawled up the tunnel and back out, leaving me with fat Abdulrahman. I heard something that sounded like a heavy wooden board being dragged over the hole and then the sound of shovels. I covered my face with my scarf as dust swept in. Abdulrahman did the same. The whole process took about five minutes and at the end ofit, after the dust had settled, Abdulrahman looked up and stared at me with his beady little eyes.
    “You no like your house,” he laughed at me.
    “No, I hate it here. I want to go home,” I said to him.
    “What? It is a very good house,” he smiled. “I help make this house.”
    “I thought Khalid said he made this place.”
    “Yes, Khalid and me. We build. Very nice, you no like?”
    “No, it’s dark and not very comfortable. It’s hard to sleep.”
    “You no like your clothes I bring for you?”
    I didn’t say anything. I was perfectly happy in my bloodstained clothes.
    “You wear.” It sounded like an order.
    I took the top and put it over my head, over my ruined flowered kameez.
    “No, you take off,” the fat Afghan said.
    “It’s okay. I’ll keep it on. It doesn’t matter, it’s just a little blood.”
    “No. Off.”
    Reluctantly, I pulled my bloodied kameez over my head, leaving my once-white undershirt on. I noticed that it, too, was now brown with dried blood. I felt self-conscious with Abdulrahman staring at me, so I quickly slipped the clean rust-coloured kameez on and adjusted the sleeves. It was too big, but at least it was clean.
    “Pants,” he said. I stood up, my head almost touching the ceiling, and pulled the baggy pants over my hiking pants. They immediately fell off. Abdulrahman laughed and shook his head.
    “You too thin,” he said, pointing at my waist.
    “It’s not me; the pants are too big,” I said, sitting down. “Where did you get these? Who do they belong to?”
    “A friend of Khalid,” he replied. “A girl.”
    “Khalid’s girlfriend?” I asked.
    “No, friend.”
    I sat back on my blanket, leaning my back against my knapsack and camera bag, and stared at him for a while. Abdulrahman was short, with a round stomach that stuck out, frizzy dark hair under his skullcap, and small dark eyes. He pointed to my knapsack and said, “Give to me.” I did as instructed and watched as he, like Zahir, and Khalid, and Shafirgullah before him, went through all my belongings, pulling out one credit card at a time from my wallet, one item after another from my makeup bag.
    “What is this?” he asked, producing a compact.
    “Makeup,” I answered.
    “I take for my wife.” He put the black compact in his pocket.
    “Where is your wife?” I asked.
    “She is in Kabul. With my son.”
    “How old is your son?”
    “He is two year old. He look like my wife. She very pretty.”
    “How old are you?”
    “You ask many questions, Mellissa. Why?”
    “I am a journalist. I always ask questions. How old are you?” I repeated, knowing I would probably get only an approximate answer from him.
    “Maybe I am twenty-seven or twenty-eight.”
    “You only have the one son?”
    “Yes. My wife, she want more. We have a few more. There is time.” He paused for a second. “I call her.” He took his cell phone out