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A question
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“When I imagine that someone who is laughing is really in pain I don’t imagine any pain-behaviour, for I see just the opposite. So what do I imagine? ”k
HELPLESSNESS [3]
At last the waiter came back and looked at the Young Man questioningly. So many people had looked at the Young Man full in the face with pleading glowing in their eyes, so desperate to be saved that they forced themselves to believe in him; but the waiter expected only one thing: that in the space of a few months he must go with his family to the camps. His gaze of questioning was meant only to be courteous—“What else would you like to ask me? ” —but to the Young Man it seemed a different kind of question that filled him with fear and sadness.
“What is life like for you here? ” said the Young Man, striving instinctively to propitiate that soul that had not been wronged by him, could not be propitiated by him, could not be propitiated by anything that was likely to happen (for six years later, as I wrote this, nine years after the invasion, the Russians were still in Afghanistan, and the year after that there was only chaos).
“Refugee is very bad life, ” the waiter shrugged.
HAPPINESS [4]
“If you had a message for the Americans, what would it be? ”
“All the young boys from the camps, ” said the waiter, “they are fighting against the Roos. There is no difference between Mujahid and refugee; my father and I are refugee and Mujahid …l If Americans help us, we want to be helped as Mujahids. It is more important to give ammunition; then we will be able to fight bravely against the Russians. The second is food; food is very important, and medicine.”
“And no help specifically for the refugees? ”
“Many refugees in America, they have sponsorship and the rich people, ” the waiter said. “At the embassy in Islamabad they told me, ‘Have you a sponsor? ’ and I told them no. ‘Then you don’t have a chance, ’ they say. I asked them, ‘Why you help only special people? ’ ”
It did not seem to the Young Man that the waiter had answered his question. He sat waiting until for the second time the waiter looked him full in the face and said, “Nothing will help refugees. But send us just one atom bomb and we will be happy forever.” And he laughed.
