I'd been in solitary a week, kept awake by a persistent tapping noise. For days, I'd deliberated its source. I never imagined it was the old writer picking at a hole in the concrete wall hidden behind his cell's bed. Later, I'd learned he'd been chipping for six months. A week after my arrival, his diligence finally paid off.
I'd been staring at the ceiling, wondering if I'd languish all my years in that God-forsaken cell, when I heard a noise like a handful of pebbles falling on the floor under my bed. The dim light allowed me no view, so I shoved the bed aside. At that moment, a few fingers slipped through the small hole.
Astonished, I gawked as the fingers withdrew and the rhythmic tapping sound resumed. Fine dust and small chunks of concrete dropped in intermittent spells for a few minutes. Then silence. The hole was now wide enough to slip a hand through. But no hand appeared.
Unable to contain my curiosity, I whispered through the hole,"Who are you?"
No answer.
But then a hand appeared with a gesture like a hand shake. I grasped the wrinkled palm and felt a firm grip answer mine while a kind voice said, "I'm your friend."
From that moment on, our bond deepened daily.
The writer had been imprisoned for a decade and had been given no access to pen or paper, nor was he allowed visitors. He said he thought he'd go mad without human contact. In this maximum security prison, escape was not an option. But the wise old man invented a different method of escape--stories.
His only goal in forging the hole was to find a friend and share his stories.
He'd made up dozens and repeated them to himself until they became a memorized script. Every night, we'd meet through the hole. He'd recite tales, transporting me to different worlds and visions. Spaces awakened inside my heart and soul.
For months our secret friendship blossomed--the only thing that kept me sane. His brilliant stories were etched in my mind with the permanent ink of our shared exile.
One day, the old man fell ill. The guards sent no doctor, even though his voice became wheezy and breathing labored. In spite of his suffering, he insisted on telling more stories. Still, his voice and energy gradually weakened, and one day all that met me at our special meeting hole was silence and a cold draft.
***
When the Taliban fell and Zahir Shah returned to Afghanistan after thirty years in exile, they released me. Disoriented by my sudden freedom and also frail from long months in a cell, I stumbled and fell into the street while making my way to my ancestral home. Before getting back up, I caught a glimpse of the old bookstore, the one whose books the Taliban had burned the night before my arrest. From my ground-point angle of view through the shop window, I could see an old bookseller dusting shelves and carefully placing new books on them.
That's when I knew what I was meant to do.
| << Back to Library << Previous Section << Previous Next >> Next Section >> |
