On Top of the World

10

That man who I have never seen or known is going to put an end on madar's and mine happiness.

"Your pidar commited a crime,a terrible crime",he started explaining.

I...I could not believe his words. My pidar. The pidar I knew was kind,warm and smiling. He could not hurt a fly and took such good care of madar and me. He cannot be a criminal,they must have mistaken him for someone else.

"He...",he was looking for how to say it,"he killed someone."

I could not believe my ears. My pidar killed someone? This must be a dream.

No,this was not a dream. This was a freaking nightmare come true.

"What,how,when?",I asked still tryig to put the missing puzzle pieces together.

"Well,he was put on a watch and tried to escape for a few times. When someone caught him,he attacked him and your pidar pulled the trigger accidentally. He did not do it knowingly,it was all a mistake. But by the time the rest of the army and police came he was was already gone. He fled and is now one of the most wanted men in Afghanistan",his voice was dead serious.

Most wanted convict in Afghanistan. Weel,the day could not have been any better. This was something I never saw coming. I tried to mouth something but my mind wandered to him,to the old happy memories with him-to the man I once knew,admired and looked up to. The man who was back then my role model has become someone I am afraid of. Disgusted. Disappointed.

As if this was not enough bad news,uncle continued.

"I know that this was already too much fot the two of you but there is something else we need you to know. You know that in Afghanistan the man who commits of such a crime is sentenced to death,do not you?"

"Yes",madar said with a sigh.

"Well,there is something else accompanying that law. Something rarely spoken of." He paused,took a deep breath and continued. "The family of the conman is also sentenced to death."

His words were floating in the air in front of us. We tried to grasp them but the thought of accepting them was unbearable.  We have never thought of anything like this,this was our worst case scenario. Our wrost nightmare had become reality.

I looked at madar the moment I heard those words escape his mouth. Her eyes were wide open,she barely breathed in and out. She leaned onto the couch and grabbed it with both of her hands. One hand landed on her heart as she tried to breath. Her heart was racing,pounding,aching for oxygen. 

"No,no,no. This cannot be true",she refused to believe. "I knew about the crime. I got a letter two years ago from him. He confessed to me and that is when I stopped wanting to hear anything from him. He was the love of my life but clearly we were not his. If he only thought a little bit about us he would have been more careful. He was done for me from that day of",she stopped grasping for breath,calming herself down.

After a pause she continued:"We have been through hell from that day on. There is not a corner of East Europe where we had not been. A bench where we had not slept,frozen to our fingertips. Most nights we went sleeping hungry with our stomachs growling. There were days where I wanted to die but had to stay strong for Aarash. He was the only thing that kept me going. So picked up the broken pieces and started fixing up myself by myself. We lost so much and gained so much at that time. There were so many kind people that helped us endlessly and without whom we still would be on the street begging and waiting for mercy. He had the audacity of thinking only about himself as if he had not had a family to think of."

I was too young to understand what kind of pain she felt. Now that I am grown up I understand every single word she said that day. From that day on we were doomed and all because of him.

There is not a day where I do not think of him. I wonder how sorry he is for everything he did to himself and ourselves,is he still alive or on the edge of dying? Did he find shelter,a new family? He never wrote to us after that day. Did he ever ask himself about me? Wondered how grown up I have become,how he missed our endless laughter and games,goodnight stories and cuddles on the couch? Does he miss those gold old times like I do?

Uncle and aunt stayed for a little while until they made sure that we were fie enough to be alone by ourselves. They wanted to give us time and space to process things. I came to madar's place,pulled her closer and rested my head on her shoulder. 

She was breaking to pieces and I could not pick them up. She did not need tape,she needed glue.

The days passed and she was like in a delirium. Not eating,barely sleeping and walking with her head dow. Everyday after work she layed on the bed and looked on the ceiling. The empty,white ceiling. The did not talk or walk in the apartment and when she was taking a bath she would sit in the shower and let the hot water run over her body. She was empty,drained of everything.

Sabine was worried about how she was handling this so she came everday after school to make lunch and check up on her. Madar was pale and looked really sick. Sabine wanted her to see a psychiatrist,to let the shock and fear go. She wanted her to heal. 

Healing is a long process and never linear.

But madar knew that she needed fixing and not only because of herself but because me,too. She knew that there was still something she could hold on to,something for what she could fight and wake up smiling everyday.

That is life. There are ups and downs. There are days where you feel like nothing and the next day you feel like the whole world is yours. The most important thing is that you tried your best to be a little better everday and that is enough.