‘Allah won’t mind what you are wearing,’ grumbles Akbar sleepily, hoping to get rid of him.

‘I must wash, and the water has been turned off in the hotel,’ Mansur whimpers. But there is no Leila to blame and Akbar sends him packing when he starts moaning. But water. A Muslim cannot pray without washing his face, hands and feet. Mansur moans again, ‘I won’t make it.’

‘There’s water by the mosque,’ says Akbar and closes his eyes once more.

Mansur runs out in his dirty travel clothes. How could he forget his tunic on a pilgrimage? Or the prayer cap? He curses his forgetfulness and runs out to the blue mosque to make it on time. By the entrance is a beggar with a club foot. The stiff leg is swollen and discoloured and lies across the path, infected. Mansur tears the prayer cap off him.

‘You’ll get it back,’ he calls and runs off with the grey-white cap. It has a thick yellow-brown sweatband round the edge.

He leaves his shoes by the entrance and walks barefoot over the marble flagstones. They have been polished smooth by thousands of naked feet. He washes hands and feet, pushes the cap down on his head and walks over to the row of men who lie facing Mecca. He made it. In many tens of rows with at least one hundred to a row, pilgrims sit, head bowed, in the huge space. Mansur sits down at the back and follows the prayers; after a while he is right in the midst of the crowd – several rows have been added as more people arrive. He is the only one wearing western clothes, but he pays attention, forehead to the ground, bottom in the air, fifteen times. He recites the prayers he knows and listens to Rabbani’s Friday prayer, a repetition from the day before.

Prayers take place by a barrier round the mosque behind which the helplessly sick sit and wait for healings. They have been confined behind high fences so as not to infect the healthy. Pale, consumptive old men with sunken cheeks pray that Ali will give them strength. Amongst them are also the mentally retarded. A teenage boy claps his hands frantically, while an older brother tries to calm him down. But the majority of them gaze dully out through the bars. Mansur has never seen so many terminally ill people. The group smells of sickness and death. Only the most ill have been allowed the honour to sit here and ask Ali for healing. Up against the tomb’s walls they sit cheek by jowl; the closer to the blue mosaic wall, the closer to healing.

In two weeks they will all be dead, thinks Mansur. He catches the eye of a man with piercing black eyes and deep, red scars. The long bony arms are full of rashes and sores, which have been scratched until they bleed, as are the legs that poke out of his tunic. But he has beautiful, thin, pale pink lips. Lips like petals from spring’s apricot flowers.

Mansur shivers and turns away. His gaze sweeps the next compound. There are the sick women and children. Faded blue burkas cradling children. A mother has fallen asleep, while her mongoloid child tries to say something. But it is like talking to a statue under a blue covering. Maybe the mother has been walking for days, barefoot, to get to the mosque and Ali’s grave in time for New Year’s Eve. Maybe she carried the child in her arms – to heal it. No doctor can help her, maybe Ali can.

Another child hits its head rhythmically with its hands. Some women sit apathetically, others sleep, some are lame or blind. But the majority of them have come with their children. They are waiting for Ali’s miracles.

It gives Mansur the creeps. Gripped by the powerful atmosphere he decides to become a new person. He will become a good person and a pious Muslim. He will respect the hour of prayer, give alms, he will fast, go to the mosque, not look at girls before he is married, he will grow a beard, and go to Mecca.

The moment prayers are over and Mansur has made his promises, it starts to rain. The sun is shining and it is raining. The holy building and the slippery flagstones sparkle. The raindrops shine. It pours down. Mansur runs, finds his shoes and the beggar who owns the prayer cap. He throws him some notes and runs over the square in the cooling rain. ‘I am blessed,’ he cries. ‘I have been forgiven! I have been cleansed!’

The water said to the dirty one, ‘come here.’

The dirty one said, ‘I am too ashamed.’

The water replied, ‘How will your shame be washed away

without me?’

Steam rises from damp bodies. Hands move in quick, rhythmic motions. The sun’s rays creep in through two peepholes in the roof, bathing bottoms, breasts and thighs in a picturesque light. Initially the bodies in the room can be seen only dimly through the steam, until one gets used to the magical light. The faces show concentration. This is not pleasure, but hard work.

In two large halls women scrub themselves, lying, sitting or standing. They scrub themselves, each other or their children. Some are Rubenesquely fat, others thin as rakes, with protruding ribs. With large homemade hemp gloves they scrub each other’s backs, arms, legs. Hard skin under the feet is scraped off with pumice. Mothers scrub their marriageable daughters whilst carefully scrutinising their bodies. There is not much time before young girls with birdlike chests become breast-feeding mothers. Thin teenage girls have broad stretch marks from births their bodies were not yet ready for. Nearly all the women’s bellies have cracked skin from giving birth too early and too frequently.

The children shout and squeal, from fear or joy. Those who are scrubbed and rinsed play with the washbowls. Others howl in pain and wriggle about like fish caught in a net. No one is given a rag to protect eyes from soap. Mothers scrub them with the hemp gloves until the dirty, dark-brown bodies are pink. Bathing and washing is a battle children are condemned to lose, in their mothers’ firm fists.

Leila rolls dirt and loose skin off her body. Black strips are rubbed off, into the hemp glove or down on to the floor. Several weeks have passed since Leila washed properly and many months since she visited the hammam. There is not often water at home and Leila does not see the need to wash too often – you only get dirty again anyway.

But today she has accompanied her mother and cousins to the hammam. As unmarried women she and her cousins are especially shy, and have kept their bras and pants on. The hemp glove avoids these places. But arms, thighs, legs, back and neck get rough treatment. Drops of perspiration and water blend on their faces, as they scrub, scrape and scour, the harder the cleaner.

Leila’s mother Bibi Gul, who must be nearing seventy, sits naked in a pool on the floor. Her long grey hair, which is normally hidden under a pale-blue shawl, flows down her back. She unties it only in the hammam. It is so long that the ends float around in the pool on the floor. She sits as in a trance, eyes closed, enjoying the heat. Now and again she makes a few lazy efforts at washing. She dips a facecloth in the bowl Leila has put out for her. But she soon gives up, she cannot reach round her tummy and her arms feel too heavy to lift. Her breasts rest heavily over her big stomach. She remains sitting in a trance, stock still, like a big, grey statue.

Leila looks over at her mother now and then to assure herself that she is OK, while she scrubs and prattles with her cousins. The nineteen-year-old has a childlike body, in between girl and woman. The whole Khan family are on the plump side, certainly compared to Afghan standards. The fat and the cooking-oil they pour over their food are manifested on their bodies. Deep-fried pancakes, pieces of potato dripping in fat, mutton in seasoned cooking-oil gravy. Leila’s skin is pale and immaculate, soft as a baby’s bottom. The facial colour changes between white, yellow and pale grey. The life she leads is reflected in her childlike skin that never sees the sun, and her hands – rough and worn like an old woman’s. For a long time, Leila felt dizzy and weak – when she eventually went to see the doctor, he said she needed sun and vitamin D.