 |
| Paul Gauguin - Bowl of fruit and tankard before a window, 1890 |
‘That was a good night. Heavy. Came home late with this
girl, but she had something to do in the morning – don’t remember exactly. So
she left kind of early. Don’t know actually, I didn’t wake up nor feel her
leaving. Kudos to her for not stealing anything though. Miriam I think her name
was… not sure. Anyway… So I woke up
early afternoon, 1 or 2 must’ve been, and the sun was up and I could see the
city from the window, such a sunny day… ah, beautiful! I sat on the window sill
for some 10-15 minutes til I was like ‘Ok, time to face the day’. But God, I
was feeling so …lascivious of sorts, and found the tankard half full of Jack. I
must’ve filled it the night before. We probably intended to eat some of the
fruits the night before, hence the mess, though I don’t think we ever got round
to it in the end. So I drank some of the stale whisky, the tankard holds just
under a full bottle. And the canvas was just to the left; all laid out, with
the brushes at the side, I must’ve wanted to draw something the day before.
Grabbed a brush and went for it. I didn’t really plan it, I started out without
knowing what’s gonna come out on paper and I didn’t imagine anything useful
will anyway. I put the mill in the corner first, cause that shiny yellow wall
was just jaw-dropping, but then I realized I drew the line too high up, so I
was like ‘Hell, I’ll draw the apples’. Didn’t bother arranging them or
anything. And I was drinking all the while, I think I got through the half
tankard of whisky pretty quick, so just put it back on the table. Only realized
it’s there after I drew its contour on canvas. And I was like ‘Hmmm, well I’ll
leave it in now’, but the drawing on it is so intricate I wasn’t really feeling
up to putting in the work to draw it. So I left it to figure out later, and
that’s actually the last thing I drew. If you look at the carvings on the cup,
it’s a whole scene, the detail on it is mind blowing, I was never gonna bother
with that. So I just mashed up some lines a la Monet, never figured the canvas
is gonna make it anywhere further than the rubbish bin anyway.’
‘It’s a beautiful tankard, babba’
‘I know, got it at this art fair eons ago. In a village
east, high in the Kashmir. Zebak or Ziak or something. Don’t think it was made
there though, looks like it must come from somewhere South.’
I knew Daoud and daddy are going to be sharing stories for
hours on end and I wasn’t really listening to them. I only remembered Daoud’s
story about the painting last week, when it got into my hands by a completely unexpected
and wonderful accident. I remembered Daoud was saying something about an
auction house that was gonna take it to Europe and how he was going to get good
money for it. Well, I paid 20 quid for it, though the guy in the flea market
was only asking for 10. Truth to be told, I could’ve probably talk him down to
5, but not in the state I was. I’d never really buy anything from the flea
market, but I’d go every week as it reminded me of… gosh, I don’t even know if ‘home’
is the right word. It reminded me of something that I felt was a part of me. I
was surprised when I spotted it. I remember akaa Daoud gave it to the art
museum for a while to be part of an exhibition of his paintings, but then got
it back as this dealer kept nagging him about how much money he could make off
of it. So naturally, I thought the museum made prints of it and somehow, one of
them made its way to this Afghan flea market. I grabbed it to look at it then I
saw the burn mark on the side from when Daoud’s flat burned down. I tried hard
not to cry, but Farid must’ve seen my tears as he asked me if I’m ok. I’m
looking at it now and I have no idea if I should put in on display somewhere
where I’d see it every day, or just hide it away just like all the horrible
memories I’ve carried with me over two continents.
I do remember that specific day well. I was always happy to about
visiting Daoud, as I know I’d see Farrah. And dad was all too happy to visit him
as it was the only place where he could have a drink without mum nagging him
about heaven and hell and The Prophet and Muslim values. So it was a win-win, and it was like our
little ritual. Dad would usually ask me if I want to go out, I’d always say
yes, then he’d pretend he had no idea where to go and call to see if Daoud is
free. He was always free, and he’d always ask us to come over and ‘take it from
there’. We didn’t really take it anywhere. In a household of five, mum would
always cook for about 20, so dad would grab the remains of last nights’ dinner
and Daoud – huge fan of mum’s cooking - was all too happy to accept that in
exchange for a few glasses of alcohol which, as a good Muslim, dad would never
buy. He did take care to stop by the market though, to get something for mum,
whose anger at the stink of whisky would be quelled by an incense, or a
necklace, or some robe. And once we got to Daoud’s studio, I’d be quick to make
an excuse to go out, and that was my day done. Sometimes, Farrah’s dad would
come over, in which case I didn’t need an excuse to go out at all, we’d be
messing about with the canvases and colours while they’d be putting the world
to rights over whisky.
‘Are you not worried at all, Daoud?’
‘Waseed, I’m a Christian, not a Communist. I couldn’t care
less who’s in power as long as they let me paint. As a matter of fact, I don’t
even care if I ever sell another painting again, I’ve been lucky enough to have
already made more money than I’ll ever need.’
‘But herein lies the problem, laalaa. Do you think the
mujahideens won’t come knocking to your door specifically because you’re a Christian?’
‘Bah, don’t think so. I’m not a threat, I’m an anomaly. Too
few Christians around to be any kind of critical mass in the revolution. And I’ve never said anything either for or
against Islam. To be honest, I think Islam is preferable to the Communists, but
not the kind that the mujahideens are hoping for.’
‘Communism is good, Daoud! Without the Soviet Union, we’d
still be herding goats instead of driving Ladas. No heating, no blocks of flats…’
‘No fucking individual opinion, either. You’ll see, it will
be much better with the Americans.’
‘Why would the Americans care?’
‘Oh, the mujahideens are
all American puppets. You see, they don’t like having the Soviets so close to
their oil.’
They were always going on like that. I wasn’t really listening
to their conversations; it’s surprising therefore how much I can remember after
all these years. Anyway, that afternoon I did not make any excuses. It was a
sunny day, probably just as sunny as the one that inspired the painting with
the tankard, so I went to the window to see if there is indeed any beauty to
the mill, as I knew it to be scary and noisy and dusty. And then I saw Farrah
playing jozbaazi. Now you see, that is beautiful, not the stupid mill! Oh, God,
it was indeed a scorching day, but she shone brighter than sun ever could! I
sat still the whole afternoon, just watching her and smiling like the idiot kid
I was, with the occasional bouts of jealousy when she’d be touching someone
else, quickly subdued by the sight of her smiling.
‘Ali, what’s the matter, mashwm? You ok? Do you wanna go
out?’
‘No, I’m good here plaar. Can I get an apple?’
I knew I loved her. I was looking forward to turning 13, the
first thing I’d do was ask dad to go to old Waseem and ask him to let Farrah
marry me. And then we would move in together and I’d be with her all the time.
What more can one ask?
And yet last I saw of Farrah was her big round blue eyes
devoid of life, with a mixture of caked dirt and blood covering her beautiful
face. I cried for days, and I think I punched dad pretty hard when he
forcefully dragged me away from her body. I kept crying the couple of weeks
that followed. Leaving Kabul and heading for the border were all a blur. Thinking
back, dad’s bravery makes me very proud and I wonder what I would have done
under the circumstances. But back then all I could see were Farrah’s beautiful
red lips biting the dirt. I was upset we left. I didn’t care about the fighting
and the shootings and the militias; all I wanted was to play another game of
jozbaazi with Farrah. On our way to the border, I heard dad telling mum old
Waseem and his wife stayed. He didn’t know, but they were probably killed
shortly after, as the whole neighborhood was razed to the ground. Couple of
guys from the mosque tried to help dad get Daoud out of his studio when the
building caught fire, but by the time they managed to get in, he was already
dead, apparently. I don’t remember seeing the body, even though I was there
when they carried him out, rolled in a carpet. Dad wanted to give him a
Christian funeral, but he couldn’t find a priest after two days of trying, so
in the end they took him to the mosque with the others, thinking that it was
better Daoud gets buried with Muslims than all of us staying and risking our
lives too. In all honesty, I don’t think he cared all that much. The folks from
the mosque also saved all they could from his flat, including some of his
paintings, the one with the tankard amongst them, a week before it was due to
be taken to an auction in France. Dad joked it will make it to France anyway,
though in completely different circumstances. He tried contacting Daoud’s
sister in Paris, but the phone lines were cut and it was near impossible to get
a message out of the country in those days. Turns out, it was impossible to get
Daoud’s paintings out of the country too. They were withheld by the Pakistani
police together with most of his and our possessions. So mum, dad and the three
of us had to cross the border and got into the tent camp with only one piece of
hand luggage each.
And that’s pretty much how we crossed two continents. Well,
the three of us did, Mum and Dad never made it to the Mediterranean. After
years and years of nightmares and bad news being the only things reaching me
from Afghanistan, akaa Daoud’s tankard painting was the symbol of a time when I
was a happy careless child in my parents’ house, just as any child should be.
How it ended up in my hands three decades later was a miracle that I didn’t
intend to inquire too much about. I decided to hang it in the hallway.
