the next two weeks we train double-time, and it feels even more difficult to study. Our teacher paces the aisles during arithmetic. She paces during religious studies. She seems only to stand still for geography quizzes, using a long stick to point at countries with tricky names. Each time she turns her back, we raise our leopard fists—all of us now—saluting Nikpai who came from nothing and turned it into pure bronze around his neck. Recess, Hadir teaches the other boys—young or spoiled, smart or slow—about defense and offense, hand-balls and throw-ins. He shares his soccer ball and has more friends than ever. “We’re practicing for the Great Game,” he tells them, and we scheme and plan, deciding on a date. By nighttime, we two hustle to Kabul Stadium, the city blocks our warm-up drill. The second our heels sink into that soft, radiant field, we’re hearts-pounding, muscles-working ready to play. We walk home so tired, even the strays trot past, tails between their mangy legs. Hadir and I are always equals until we get to my block. Then I disappear into my family’s apartment, and he turns down the alley, shadow moving like a ghost along the sidewalls. He says he lives close, but that’s all. I never ask further.
The afternoon before the Great Game, our geography lesson is interrupted by an air raid. Sirens wail across the city like crying mothers. There’s no basement, no bunker. Our teacher lines us against the wall. “Sit,” she says. “Stay quiet.” I stare at the maps and imagine myself further and further away: Tajikstan, Uzbekistan, Turkemenistan. Between sirens, I brace for a bone-shattering blast that never comes. Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia. More sirens, my muscles woven as tightly as a rug. Turkey, Romania, Austria. I go so far I can’t even see war—Germany, Scotland—all the way to the North Atlantic Ocean. Then silence. Next, two footsteps. Three. Four. We are twenty-two boys in a room, forty-four feet that can run, one gigantic breath being held. I study our teacher’s face, but she seems lost, prayers spilling from her mouth like broken teeth.
The schoolmaster appears, face dotted with sweat. “There’s one hour before the next raid,” he says. “We move now, or we’re stranded overnight.” Our teacher nods, and we follow her quickly through the hallways. She helps the smallest children first, lifting them into the schoolmaster’s truck parked alongside our schoolhouse. “You and Hadir are oldest,” she says to me. “Take the rest to their houses. Don’t stop along the way.” She slides into the passenger seat and they disappear down the dusty road.
Hadir carries Waafiq on his back, taking alley shortcuts to our neighborhood. I shove and shuffle the others behind him. A few start to cry. “Where do you live?” I demand. I have to slap some to help them speak. Most are siblings and live together. When I get to my own home, I pound and pound until my mother unhooks the latch. Already, she’s gathered my sisters, a satchel of food, and two jugs of water, sheltering them in our back room with a pile of mattresses. Together, we wait for sundown, knowing things could very suddenly grow worse.
No school for three days. Everything quiets. My city must look like a sleeping giant, all its window-eyes sealed shut. Families on my block know exactly what to do, sharing supplies and whispering favorite Afghan folktales to soothe the children at night. They tell the story of Buzaak Chinie, the Porcelain Goat. Or my old favorite, The Silver on the Hearth, where the poor farmer is rewarded with snakes that turn into coins. But I’m older this time and see the adults gossip. Something happened in Pakistan, they say, and now angry defectors from the Afghan National Army want to organize in Kabul. Or five Marines were shot south of the city and we hide in fear of retaliation. But another man says it wasn’t Marines, it was an Afghan family, a mistake—a Red Cross station blown into a crater three meters deep. “But no bombs were dropped,” I hear his brother argue. “It’s all pretend to distract from the truth up north,” another says. The radio confirms nothing, only repeats its static messages about precautionary measures. There are no errands. No boys playing santoors in the alley. No street vendors. No hot chai or kites. And of course, no Great Game.
When school reopens, this time everyone returns, no missing students. But our teacher wears her burqa again, a stone-blue curtain of fabric separating her from us. It’s only her hands we can see now, and they appear more delicate than before.
“Hadir,” I whisper. “What does it mean? Why does she hide?”
“Didn’t you hear?” he says. “A doctor and three women were killed in Kunduz. He’d been helping female patients hide from their husbands.”
“Who did the killing?” I ask.
“Who do you think?”
Our teacher is too hesitant to be outdoors, so the schoolmaster stays with us for recess that day.
“I still think she’s foolish,” Hadir says. “She shouldn’t even be teaching. She should be at home. There’s a reason women are safest at home.”
“But aren’t you grateful?” I ask. “At least we have someone to teach us.”
Hadir glares at me. “Grateful? Easy for you to say.” He dashes across the school grounds to teach the others more of his soccer smarts. I watch for a few moments as they dart back and forth, the smallest boys tripping over the ball, tumbling in the dust. I should help, but something in me turns sour and I tell the schoolmaster I’m ill, air settling in my throat like paste. He lets me go indoors to rest out of the sun.
Without any students inside, the classroom feels suspicious, as though this is how it will look if a giant bomb ever takes our city. The teacher sits at her desk, shoulders curled inward, hands trembling like they’re holding a secret. I can hear the way she breathes, as quick and shallow as a shrew. Maybe Hadir was right. Why do we bother with her arithmetic? Her silly lists of famous men? At the end of the day, the smartest boy in school can’t undo his bloodlines, and no matter who our teacher is, Hadir will always be an orphan.
Our teacher shifts in her seat then lifts her head as if to look at me, eyes barely visible through the thick fabric. For a moment, I see how I easily could hurt her, how I could tear the burqa from her face as though every person in every country on that map could see her lies, those lips that promised us so much. But she is merely a grain of sand. She can never give her best like Nikpai. Not here, not now. My country won’t let her.
Hadir doesn’t come for me that night, so I find my way to Kabul Stadium without him. It’s a full moon and the grass looks a pulsing, bright gray, as though the entire city has turned two colors—the color of night, and the color of moonlight reflecting off whatever it touches. I see Hadir sprinting downfield, cutting through the lighted grass and hear the gentle thwap of his bare foot against real leather. When he turns to run back downfield, he notices me and stops near the side goal posts, leaning forward to rest his hands on his knees and catch his breath.
After a minute, he shouts my direction: “We can’t play on the same team.”
“What do you mean?”
“Everyone from school got scared to play in the Great Game. You have to be the captain of one side and I’ll be the captain of the other. That’s all we’ve got. One-on-one.”
“Okay,” I say. “But no keeping score.”
Hadir walks a few paces until he’s standing in the exact center of the goal. He squats slowly, gaze upturned, then leaps to catch the cross post with both hands. He dangles easily, feet swaying, one side of his body outlined by the angling moonlight.
“This is what they looked like,” he says
