he approached the living-room doors his doubts grew and he reached for the doorknob with a shaking hand.
When he entered the room his father was standing at the window, looking through it with the kind of empty gaze that suggested he was not so much looking outside as inside at his own thoughts. To Abdul’s surprise, when his father turned to face him there was not a trace of anger in his expression. Instead, there was a deep concern and, unless Abdul was mistaken, a trace of fear.
Abdul’s father gave a strange kind of slight smile that unnerved Abdul further, although it disappeared as soon as the man sat down and bid his son to sit in the chair opposite. Abdul did not say a word, unable even to begin to guess what his father was about to say to him.
‘Abdul, my son,’ his father finally said. He was looking down at his hands at first but then he looked up into his son’s eyes. ‘Do you still refuse to go back to the military?’
Abdul could feel the heaviness of his father’s heart. But despite his inability to find a solution for his own plight during his past few days’ seclusion one thing he remained certain of was his future regarding the military. ‘I will not go back, Father. I cannot. They are animals. I—’
Abdul’s father put up a hand to stop his son from saying anything more.They sat in silence for a moment longer as the older man considered a deeper, much more troubling question. ‘It will only be a matter of time before they come to look for you. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Then I will leave . . . ’ Abdul began to say. But his father interrupted him once again, this time with a hint of anger in his eyes.
‘Let me talk,’ Abdul’s father said firmly. ‘It is not the army who will come here looking for you. It will be the secret police . . . And if they cannot find you they will take me away.’ There was no shortage of horror stories about the secret police and what they did to people in their custody, no matter how trivial the reason for their arrest, and Abdul knew the tales as well as anyone.
‘But . . . ’ Abdul began, and again his father stopped him.
‘You are a man now, not a boy. The world is a different place for men than it is for boys. There are different rules - rules of survival. It may seem to you, in the protection of this house, with me and your mother here, that there are more choices out there for men, that we have greater freedom than you. But in reality we have much less.There are far more rules for men and the punishments for breaking them are harsh. But I believe these rules to be important. Without them we cannot maintain our values and we will end up living by someone else’s rules.’
Abdul listened quietly as his father continued in some detail about the advantages and disadvantages of the decisions, many of them unavoidable, that we all have to make in life and then the consequences of making the wrong decisions, especially in the times in which they lived. It was all so very complicated, intimidating as well, and Abdul could only wish that he had convinced his father not to send him to the army in the first place. There were ways of avoiding conscription but it had to be taken care of well in advance of the call-up date. One solution was to pay a fee, around two thousand dollars, to a certain someone a friend knew in the military who would have annulled Abdul’s obligation. But his father would never have done that, partly because the man believed that Abdul would have enjoyed it once he had settled in but mostly because of what he was talking about now: the rules and the penalties for breaking them.
As Abdul watched his father wring his hands while he talked it became apparent that it was his duty, Abdul’s, to resolve this most serious dilemma that he had created for his father and the rest of his family. When the older man finally grew silent Abdul stood up, put his hand on his father’s shoulder, and with an uncommon resolve in his voice
When he entered the room his father was standing at the window, looking through it with the kind of empty gaze that suggested he was not so much looking outside as inside at his own thoughts. To Abdul’s surprise, when his father turned to face him there was not a trace of anger in his expression. Instead, there was a deep concern and, unless Abdul was mistaken, a trace of fear.
Abdul’s father gave a strange kind of slight smile that unnerved Abdul further, although it disappeared as soon as the man sat down and bid his son to sit in the chair opposite. Abdul did not say a word, unable even to begin to guess what his father was about to say to him.
‘Abdul, my son,’ his father finally said. He was looking down at his hands at first but then he looked up into his son’s eyes. ‘Do you still refuse to go back to the military?’
Abdul could feel the heaviness of his father’s heart. But despite his inability to find a solution for his own plight during his past few days’ seclusion one thing he remained certain of was his future regarding the military. ‘I will not go back, Father. I cannot. They are animals. I—’
Abdul’s father put up a hand to stop his son from saying anything more.They sat in silence for a moment longer as the older man considered a deeper, much more troubling question. ‘It will only be a matter of time before they come to look for you. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Then I will leave . . . ’ Abdul began to say. But his father interrupted him once again, this time with a hint of anger in his eyes.
‘Let me talk,’ Abdul’s father said firmly. ‘It is not the army who will come here looking for you. It will be the secret police . . . And if they cannot find you they will take me away.’ There was no shortage of horror stories about the secret police and what they did to people in their custody, no matter how trivial the reason for their arrest, and Abdul knew the tales as well as anyone.
‘But . . . ’ Abdul began, and again his father stopped him.
‘You are a man now, not a boy. The world is a different place for men than it is for boys. There are different rules - rules of survival. It may seem to you, in the protection of this house, with me and your mother here, that there are more choices out there for men, that we have greater freedom than you. But in reality we have much less.There are far more rules for men and the punishments for breaking them are harsh. But I believe these rules to be important. Without them we cannot maintain our values and we will end up living by someone else’s rules.’
Abdul listened quietly as his father continued in some detail about the advantages and disadvantages of the decisions, many of them unavoidable, that we all have to make in life and then the consequences of making the wrong decisions, especially in the times in which they lived. It was all so very complicated, intimidating as well, and Abdul could only wish that he had convinced his father not to send him to the army in the first place. There were ways of avoiding conscription but it had to be taken care of well in advance of the call-up date. One solution was to pay a fee, around two thousand dollars, to a certain someone a friend knew in the military who would have annulled Abdul’s obligation. But his father would never have done that, partly because the man believed that Abdul would have enjoyed it once he had settled in but mostly because of what he was talking about now: the rules and the penalties for breaking them.
As Abdul watched his father wring his hands while he talked it became apparent that it was his duty, Abdul’s, to resolve this most serious dilemma that he had created for his father and the rest of his family. When the older man finally grew silent Abdul stood up, put his hand on his father’s shoulder, and with an uncommon resolve in his voice
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