Then he’d met Elena — beautiful and irresistible Elena who had immigrated to the United States with her family at a very young age from Peru. She had chocolate brown hair and her cheeks dimpled when she smiled, which she did often. She was a friend of a colleague and stopped when she spotted them drinking beers at a sidewalk café. She was making her way home from her job at an accounting firm, wearing a white peplum top and smartly creased, navy blue pencil pants.
She was sweet and smart and, importantly, did not flinch when Yusuf told her his family had come from Afghanistan. On their first date, they went to see a free Peruvian music concert in Central Park. On their second date, they ate artisanal ice cream in the East Village. Yusuf couldn’t resist slipping his arms around Elena’s waist and pulling her close when he was with her. She was five inches shorter than him, and when they embraced, Yusuf breathed in the sweet, tropical scent of her shampoo. She clung to him just enough that he felt adored and not so much that he felt trapped. She could talk about the implications of a trade agreement and the latest One Direction song in the same breath. Yusuf’s friends raised their eyebrows and beer mugs in approval. Elena was a catch.
When Yusuf met her, he’d already made plans to move to Washington, D.C., to work with a nonprofit that focused on crimes against humanity. He convinced himself they both understood things would come to an end once he left. Elena didn’t fit into his plans. And yet, Yusuf found immense happiness in a hundred quiet things: the way her nose crinkled when she laughed, the way she slipped a playful finger into his collar, the urge he felt to call or text her a moment after they’d kissed good night.
The fact that they had so little in common seemed to draw them to each other. Language, religion, professional fields — they studied each other with almost academic interest.
Elena listened to Yusuf talk about the headlines that pulled his attention: the unearthing of thousands of Muslim corpses, men and boys who’d been executed in the Bosnian genocide, the flogging of a dissident journalist in Saudi Arabia, the disappearance of a Malaysian passenger plane. Elbows propped on the table and eyes focused, she filled in with details she’d read in online news reports. She made Yusuf question his plan. Maybe he shouldn’t limit himself to women from his own background. Maybe a common culture and language wasn’t everything.
Maybe Elena was everything.
They were on their way to the subway station after a dinner with friends when Elena and Yusuf paused at a crosswalk. He turned to her and adjusted the paisley scarf knotted around her neck. It was fall and the evenings were brisk.
My niece’s baptism is this weekend. You’ll come with me, right?
The red hand turned into a white stick figure, prompting them to move forward. Yusuf didn’t immediately obey. Elena had to tug at his elbow.
Maybe, he had said. Let me see how much I get done with work this week.
They’d settled into two empty seats on the 7 train, New York’s version of the Silk Road. Elena would get off soon after they entered Queens, before the neighborhoods turned distinctly Asian. Yusuf had another nine stops to go before he got to Flushing.
You know, I already miss you, baby, Elena had said to him as the torque of the subway car nudged them closer together. I’m going to want to visit you every weekend in D.C.
Yusuf had kissed her squarely on the lips, long enough that Elena interpreted it to mean he would miss her equally. But something in Yusuf was rattled by the expectation that he would go to something as alien as a baptism, and, as their lips parted, Yusuf withdrew. When the conductor announced her stop, Elena smiled at him and walked off the train. He was already sorry for what he would have to do, but it could be no other way. Yusuf no longer saw all that Elena was — he only saw what she was not.
A REMORSEFUL YUSUF TRAVELED TO WASHINGTON, D.C., AND spent a year with a team of lawyers putting together a case against militia officers accused of genocide in Africa. He did his best not to think about Elena. When he missed her, as he often did, he busied himself with research or called his mother, which reminded him how Elena would not fit in with his family. Conversations with his mother were, by this point, fairly predictable. She would fill him in on the latest happenings with his siblings and gossip from his cousins. Inevitably, her attention would circle back to Yusuf.
You’ve finished school, you have a job. It’s time to get married. Are you waiting for all the good girls to be taken by boys that don’t even have a quarter of your looks or smarts?
Yusuf ducked out of the conversations. He missed having someone at his side, but he could not imagine taking a wife now. He could not imagine someone waiting for him to come home each night, asking him why he worked so late. He could not be bothered with a second set of parents and cousins and uncles. He had no desire to become a father. He made false promises to his parents that he would be better prepared for commitment next year.
But Yusuf had other plans. He would sacrifice, he believed, so that he could follow the path he was meant to follow. And he’d had no choice but to walk away from Elena.
Turning away from Elena would have been harder had he not felt a strange twinge in his chest.
It came from the land of clay and mountains. It was as if a siren had appeared in his dreams, begging him to save her from herself. He heard her name on the talk radio stations; he saw her face on magazine covers. The Internet screamed her sorrows, telling the story of the unjust blood shed on her land, the imprisoned and the persecuted. Each injustice called to him as if he were the only hope.
Afghanistan.
Yusuf picked up the phone. He sent painstakingly constructed e-mails. If he did not answer her call, who would? His resolve hardened.
On a bustling sidewalk, Yusuf realized he could not remember the last time he’d woken in a cold sweat. He smiled to himself, growing stronger just by thinking about her. Hurt and beautiful, she was home.
CHAPTER 3
“HER HUSBAND’S BEEN MURDERED! THIS IS NO TIME TO ASK RIDICULOUS questions! Where’s your honor? This man needs to be washed and prepared for burial. His parents, his family — has anyone spoken to them?”
Zeba clenched her hands together. If only they would stop shaking, maybe then she could understand what had happened. Maybe then she could explain. Her head was in a vise. There was too much talking. Kamal’s body was still by the outhouse. Certainly the flies must have noticed by now.
“This man was killed in his own home! We need to know what happened here!”
Basir and the girls were in the second bedroom. Kareema and Shabnam, eight and nine years old, were trying to be brave. They’d run to their mother when she finally came into the house, but the look in her eyes and the way her knotted hands trembled had unnerved them. They retreated, turning back to Basir who had tasked them with looking after Rima.
“Please, everyone, dear neighbors and friends, please understand that my mother, my family has suffered today. I have to get word to my uncles, the rest of the family.”
“But the police, they have to be called.”
“They’ve been sent for already.”
“Who called?”
“It doesn’t matter. The chief will be here shortly and he can decide what will be done.”