ON THE NIGHT OF THE KHATAM

Through no fault of our own (naturally), we were late. Our wives, you see, had decided to tag along.

- Jamil Jan Kochai

And although in general we didn’t bring our women to khatams, Hajji Hotak’s wife had sent each of our wives a personal invitation on Facebook, which they lorded over us, until, inevitably, we found ourselves waiting in empty living rooms or pacing back and forth on dreary porches, every few minutes shouting up the stairs or into the house, or quietly muttering to ourselves that we were late, goddammit, forever late, forever late and waiting, our wristwatches ticking as if time had no meaning, as if we weren't hurtling toward the oblivion we had seen in the gaping mouths of boys with guns, but our clever wives—plucking and pruning and painting themselves—paid us no mind, or else shouted back that when everyone is late no one is late, which is true, in a way, because if we had arrived at six in the evening, as instructed by Haijji Hotak, our host would have been horrified to see us standing at his front door an hour and a half before anyone else. And so, oddly enough, out of courtesy, yes, courtesy, we drove up late to Hajji Hotak’s house, in West Sacramento, double-parking in his cul-de-sac, behind his mailbox or beneath the basketball hoop, almost pulling up onto his immaculately manicured lawn—Hajji Hotak having worked for years as a professional landscaper—most of us filtering into the house between seven-twenty-five and seven-forty, our wives flocking into the living room, already chirping about nothing.