Los lugares verdes

What do you love when you love? I asked Ulema Samiullah. My friend Mansur died. The war swallowed him up, like my parents. Like so many others. Between the two of us we dreamed of changing the world, putting the laws at the service of the people, telling men that his gaze is worth no more than that of a woman. Without it, my pigeons never flew over the rooftops again. The skies of Kabul were deserted. Silence invaded the green places of Babur. Then Najimulah appeared. He was a stranger and, when he came to my house with the excuse of returning a pigeon, I could have sworn that I knew his voice, that his gestures were familiar to me, that his words were the same that I had heard from the mouth of my friend Mansur. I asked the ulema if that was possible, if people could be reborn in another body, die to live again. But before he could answer me I discovered that he was wrong. He discovered that love exists beyond the person, beyond our desire, and beyond our own condition.