Janan sheltered underneath his father’s stall, swatting the flies off
the meat. The earth was cool there. He hoped the caravan would come
soon. Would Mirzal’s voice have deepened in the past year, like his own?
Music blared from his father’s radio. It was the best
radio in the village; his father had been to Jalalabad to buy it.
Last night he thought he’d heard the clink of the camels’ harness and
the hushed voices of the tribesmen but the morning revealed no sign of them.
It must have been something else.
The approaching waves of dust made Janan sit up but it was just the
American trucks. The caravan was probably waiting for the soldiers to
pass, as the camels wouldn’t like the noise. The biggest one, the
one Mirzal called Genghis, would look down his nose at the clatter they made.
The camels had seen many travellers, many warring tribes, in their long
lives. Did not Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great pass this way?
Some said even the Buddha himself had travelled this road.
The trucks bounced towards the village, rolling through the potholes and
craters. “Hey, kid! Catch.” The soldier, walking ahead of the
trucks, threw him a bag of sweets. Janan wondered if Genghis would like
Yankee candy.
As the patrol disappeared over the hill the boy heard the sounds he’d
been waiting for. He ran up to his nomad friends, carrying some sweets in
his hand.
“Mirzal, welcome! I have something for Genghis. May I?”
“Hello, brother. Well, let us try one.”
The beast scooped the offering from Janan’s palm with his lips.
When the explosion erupted, darkening the sky, Genghis closed his eyes
against the dust. He continued chewing, his great jaw moving from side to
side in the fleeting silence.
.
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