Najeeb watched, his head lowered just enough to appear deferential.
The murshid prayed with head bowed as well, and the words rolled off his tongue as if he’d said them a thousand times before.
Najeeb lifted his head an inch.
The murshid scratched his ear furiously and scowled. In a second, he was back to his graceful swaying.
It was nothing. Najeeb should not have seen it. But he had. His illustrious words had been interrupted by something as banal as an itch. How much could he revere a man who itched and scratched as the rest of the world did?
He followed his father out of the murshid’s sitting room, an obsequious back-stepping with lowered heads and shoulders and hands splayed across chests.
“Thank you for your time, Agha Safatullah. Your kindness is much appreciated.”
“I will continue to pray for your son. Inshallah, he will recover soon and grow to be as strong and healthy as the boy who has accompanied you today.”
They were escorted back to the front door and had nearly left when Najeeb realized he’d dropped his hat somewhere between the front door and Safatullah’s receiving room. He raced back into the compound while his father waited outside. As he turned the corner around one of the smaller houses, he nearly ran straight into a young woman. He’d been within an inch of her face before he backed up, startled.
Had her eyes not met his and rendered him speechless, he would have politely apologized for nearly knocking her over.
What color is that? So purely green, the very color of Islam, and yet something about them seems perilously unholy. What is it like to see the world through eyes like those?
This was Gulnaz, he knew, by the quickening in his heart. She took a step back but did not look away from him.
Najeeb drew a breath.
“You were here to pray for your brother,” she said softly.
He wanted so badly to answer her, but his tongue had suddenly been replaced by a brick. He nodded.
“I will pray for him, too. I always pray for the young and innocent. I will pray that he lives a long and fruitful life.”
Gulnaz slipped away without waiting for a response.
Najeeb left the compound without his hat. His brother recovered in three days, regaining his strength and appetite. His father praised the murshid’s prayers. Najeeb bit his tongue then and again six months later when his sisters brought news of Gulnaz’s engagement. He would not see Gulnaz again until a lifetime later, when she appeared in his office and he stood before her, a grayed but important man.
DOES SHE REMEMBER ME? WOULD IT BE TOO PRESUMPTIVE OF ME TO think she might?
“Thank you for agreeing to see me,” Gulnaz said. Her tone was perfunctory. There was no room for reminiscing or wistfulness.
“I don’t usually speak privately with mothers of the accused.” This was only partly true and came out sounding much more scandalous than Qazi Najeeb had meant it to. The judge took his seat as Gulnaz took hers. He poured a cup of tea and placed it on the nesting table before her. “I cannot offer you anything much. A judge’s quarters are not known for their lavishness.”
“That depends on the judge,” Gulnaz said, plopping a sugar cube into her cup and watching it sink to the bottom. Qazi Najeeb stared at her downcast eyes, the graceful arches of her cheekbones.
Dear God, he thought. Now, that’s how a woman should age.
“Very true,” he agreed. “You did not bring Yusuf with you. Why?”
“He had his turn to speak with you. This is mine.”
“I see,” the judge nodded.
“Qazi-sahib,” she began. “I am here because of my daughter. You are the judge presiding over her case. Since I’m the one who gave her her first breath, I thought it only fitting I should speak with the man who might sentence her to death. You and I share a connection, in that respect, that is undeniable. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Qazi Najeeb’s eyebrows pulled together in surprise.
“Well, indeed, though that is certainly an odd way of looking at the situation.”
“It’s an odd situation to look at.”
“Well, not as much as you would think. She’s not the only woman in Chil Mahtab to have killed her husband. Men have to watch their backs these days.”
“How awful,” Gulnaz said glibly.
The judge leaned back, preoccupied with thoughts of long ago.
Did you save my brother’s life? Because I think you did. Oh, I’ve been wanting to ask this question for years.
“Qazi-sahib.”
“Yes?” Najeeb cleared his throat and took a sip from his teacup. He heard she’d been widowed while her children were still young and wondered what had happened to her husband.
“As I was saying, my daughter is not a murderer. I’m asking that you show mercy on her. She is a pious woman and a devoted mother. Her children need her.”
“Did she kill him?”
Gulnaz blinked twice. Slow, deliberate blinks meant to give him time to regret his question.
“Okay, a simpler question. I notice that you said nothing about what kind of wife she was. Was she a good wife to him?”
A man would ask such a stupid question, thought Gulnaz.
“I’m her mother, Qazi-sahib. What makes you think my answer to that question would be at all useful to you? I was not there to see what happened. And if I had been, for the sake of this discussion, and I had seen Zeba kill her husband with her own hands, I’m only one woman. As far as I know, there isn’t another woman who will come forward and complete my testimony.”
It was true, and the judge nodded in agreement. A woman’s account carried only half the weight of that of a man’s. That was not his decision. It was how they’d always measured a woman’s word.
“A moot point, Khanum, as I know you were not there at the time her husband was killed.”
“Nor was anyone else, though the world is ready to condemn her.”
“We have to look at the situation. She was at the house with him and was found with blood on her hands and clothes.”
“He was her husband. She could have held him as he died.”
“Which still leaves the question of who killed him.”
“I can tell you one thing, Qazi Najeeb, since you are a God-fearing person. If you’d known the man, you might have killed him yourself.”
“Why?” Qazi Najeeb leaned forward. “Why do you say that?”
Gulnaz shook her head.
“My daughter had not been well in the months before her husband died. I’d been to see her a few times, but she would barely open the door for me.”
“For her own mother?”
“The truth is, Qazi Najeeb, that while tradition states a woman’s word is only worth half a man’s, a mother’s word is the full story. I am telling you that Zeba was deeply troubled, and that man had everything to do with it.”
“What do you think is wrong with her?”
“It is hard to say. But I am afraid that he may have caused her to be unwell in her mind.”
“I see,” the judge said, leaning back in his seat. “A deranged woman kills her husband? Is that what you think happened?”
“I don’t think she killed him, nor did I say that. I want for her situation to be investigated. I ask that you take into consideration what kind of husband he was to her. I can tell you I did not see her often, but when I did, I could tell she feared for her life.”