The Honey Thief by Najaf Mazari & Robert Hillman

Author:Najaf Mazari & Robert Hillman [Mazari, Najaf & Hillman, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Cultural Heritage, Literary
ISBN: 9781101606223
Google: n4S8YJISyQwC
Amazon: 0670026484
Barnesnoble: 0670026484
Goodreads: 15811586
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2011-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

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The fig harvest was over within the week and Hameed was free to enjoy the book of Huckleberry Finn. His father found the time to hear the boy read the book aloud, against his better judgement, and discovered an enjoyment in hearing the story. He thought to himself, ‘Such a river, Mississippi! Would that we had a river like Mississippi in Hazarajat!’ When he began to understand the story of the black slave Jim, he thought of the many Hazara who had become slaves during the years of massacres. But at the same time, he worried about Hameed. No Hazara can make a life for himself by reading the books of America. And was it not possible that Hameed would take it into his head to travel the country, like the boy Huck? In America with so many cars and bridges and tall buildings, a boy might travel on a road or a river and find his fortune. Not in Hazarajat, not in Afghanistan.

He told his worries to his second wife Zainab, Hameed’s mother, and she listened with the attention for which she was known. She said, ‘He must marry.’

‘Do you think so?’ said Ahmed Behsudi. ‘Yes, perhaps you are right. With a wife and children, he will cease reading books, he will find some sense. But who would marry him?’

Ahmed Behsudi’s second wife said, ‘Najaf Khalaj has a daughter of twenty years. Her father wants her to marry.’

Ahmed Behsudi threw back his head and laughed until tears ran down his cheeks. ‘Najaf Khalaj’s daughter? Proud Nadia? That one? What, do you hate the boy so much? Better to marry him to a brown bear!’

It was true that Najaf Khalaj wanted a husband for his daughter and would probably accept Hameed with all his faults, but the daughter, Nadia, was no blessing. As beautiful as she was, with fine eyebrows, no man in the whole of Hazarajat would take her for his wife. Many had courted her through her mother and father but the girl’s temper had ruined every match. To one young man she had said, ‘If your nose did not resemble that of an anteater, it would be better for you.’ Another who came a great distance to drink tea with her was asked to turn sideways. When he did so, Nadia stared at the side of his head. ‘Yes, I thought so,’ she said. ‘I can see in this ear and out the other. Nothing between.’ Her mother said to her, ‘Do you think we will feed you forever? Your pride will go with you to your grave!’ But Nadia felt no caution: ‘If I am turned out into the world to live on crumbs like a sparrow, so much the worse for me. The men you bring are fools.’ Some may have been fools, but even those with wits revealed some flaw to Nadia. ‘He is too short. I would spend my life looking down at the top of his head . . . He is too tall.

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