“And I’m asking for answers, not more questions.”

He exhales through his nose, the skin beneath his eyes is thin and violet-hued. The silver in his stubble catches the light from a sodium lamp.

“My orders were to stay at Arg that night, after the dead had been loaded onto a truck. Another soldier was given the keys. He was young, barely old enough to shave. I thought he might vomit into his boots. They didn’t give him driving orders until he left the grounds. They said nothing more about it to the rest of us.”

“Liar,” I accuse, my voice gravelly.

“Those who knew were sworn to secrecy. Threatened into secrecy. In those days, one unfortunate word could get a person thrown into Pol-e-charkhi prison. Or worse,” he says. “I pulled that kid aside and told him that he’d better lay the martyred to rest in a fitting way. I told him there were good people among the dead and that he alone could grant them their final dignity. It was the best I could do for them. When I next saw him, he told me he’d done what he could. He said he’d laid them to rest among giants with a view of Paradise. He wanted to tell me more, but I stopped him. My family was already waist-deep in risk.”

“Liar,” I repeat. But something tells me Shair is telling the truth.

Shair stares at the shadows we cast, the way they fall onto the ground but not on his son’s headstone.

“Your mother was a kind woman,” he says.

“After thirty years, are you still not capable of being honest? Tell me what you did to them. Have you no decency?”

“Decency,” he scoffs. “What will you do with this information? I am curious. If I were to tell you I did not kill them, would you hunt down the man who pulled the trigger? And if I said they died by my gun, would you claw my eyes out?”

“You want to believe I’m a vengeful monster? Go on. But that doesn’t absolve you,” I reply.

“Let me ask you, sweet girl, as our lives are like tangled chains hanging around a neck. Do you hear Kabul’s whispers in your ear? Does she call you too?” he asks, and I wonder if he’s losing his mind. But to me, he’s still the gruff soldier who silenced me with a hand over my mouth. “If she does, do not listen. It’s a siren’s call.”

I don’t want his advice. Poison gathers in my throat.

“Why won’t you say it?” I ask.

Shair stares at the empty space beside Kareem’s grave. He gazes into his cupped hands, either filling them with prayer or cursing their emptiness.