Basir took a few more steps into the home. For years, he’d been told to stay within these walls, scolded for staying away too long in the afternoons. Now it felt wrong to stand here. He peered into the small room his parents had once shared. His father’s wool hat and scarf lay on the dresser that was missing one knob. Their sleeping cushions lay on the cold floor, their pillows marking their places like tombstones.
He stared at the space as if it were an old photograph. Why did they decide to live away from the rest of the family? Basir had heard his parents argue. He’d heard his father’s rage and seen the way his mother had reeled from his blows. Basir had believed his mother to be meek but devoted, exasperating but well-meaning. His father had a violent temper, but why couldn’t his mother, after all their years of marriage, avoid triggering his fury? Had his cowed mother finally had enough? Had she stood her ground in one grand gesture of defiance?
Basir hadn’t really known his parents all that well, he admitted to himself.
He stepped through the back door and into the yard, two meters away from where his father’s body had lain, the earth still darkened where his head had been. The neglected pot of peppermint stalks and the chili pepper plant had dried, leaves curled and browned and scattered in half circles at their bases. The dried red peppers looked like tiny, crinkled daggers. His mother’s rosebush, in the corner of the yard, was the sole survivor. It seemed oblivious to all that had transpired in its presence.
Cocking his ear to the sky, Basir strained to hear anything. There was only the distant sound of the neighbor’s television. He imagined them watching their favorite programs, drinking tea, snacking on almonds, and playing cards — as if nothing had happened. Had they heard anything that day? Did they know more about his family’s undoing than he did?
Basir moved toward the outhouse, careful the soles of his shoes did not tread where his father had fallen. Tucked behind the back wall of the outhouse was the small box. Basir removed the stone anchoring its lid. He lifted the box and listened for signs of life.
All was still.
He took the box to the center of the courtyard where the glow of a full moon fell upon it. He lifted the top and gasped.
The mother scorpion was very much alive, her back heavy with baby scorplings, two dozen pale beetle-ish creatures. Basir broke off a twig from the rosebush and poked at the mother. Her pincers snapped and she moved to the side of the box, her tail curled in readiness.
No, Basir thought, even the babies of scorpions could rest assured they had their mother’s love.
He should have destroyed the whole lot. There was no room for mercy when it came to creatures who could kill grown men with a twitch of the tail. Basir should have doused the mother and her babies with cooking oil and thrown a matchstick at them. It was an effective means of eliminating scorpions and provided decent entertainment for most children, listening to the pops and snaps of a scorpion’s shell cracking in the flames.
But Basir felt a bit of guilt. He’d kept her locked up and cornered for months only because he’d suspected that she just might go against all that seemed natural and consume her own young. He’d been wrong. Even scorpions knew how to mother.
He made the long walk back to Ama Tamina’s house with the box, hiding it in a grove behind the clay walls so that his cousins wouldn’t stumble upon it. It was riskier to keep it here. He would take the box to the edge of the village in the morning where there was nothing but rocky expanse and free them there.
Kaka Fareed was waiting for him in the courtyard. He’d made a habit of stopping by Ama Tamina’s house to ask for updates on Zeba’s case.
“Where have you been?”
Basir felt a heat rising in his chest. It took a great deal of strength not to run back out the front gate. He could still picture Kaka Fareed’s fingers around his mother’s neck.
“I was out for a walk,” he mumbled.
“Why didn’t your ama know where you were? You’re living in this house. You don’t come and go as you please.”
“I’ll apologize to her,” Basir said as he stepped toward the door. He wanted to leave before Kaka Fareed said anything more. This was the third time he’d dropped by since Basir and his sisters had come to their aunt’s home. Even she breathed a sigh of exasperation when he showed up.
Last time he was here, he’d called Zeba a thief and a murderer. Kamal had owed him money, he swore, and Zeba had probably killed him so she could pocket it all.
Basir didn’t need to do much investigating to know this was a lie.
When Kaka Fareed called his mother a cheat, Basir bit his lip. It was on the tip of his tongue to scream out that she was no such thing, but that’s not what came out. All he could do was shout for Kaka Fareed to stop talking about her.
“Where were you?” Kaka Fareed asked again. He sucked at his teeth and cocked his head.
“Nowhere, Kaka-jan. I was just walking. I wanted to get some air.”
“You’re as bad a liar as your mother,” he said snidely.
Basir bit his tongue so hard he tasted blood. Fareed began to rant, as if his anger had been mounting while he waited for Basir to return to the house.
“Just like your mother. Lies, lies, lies. Watch yourself or you’ll end up a criminal like her. That whore deserves to die. God help us with these judges and courts that sit on their asses all day instead of doing anything. We used to have real justice in this country. It’s gone now, and that bitch is getting fat in a prison while we look after orphans. She killed him. I should have killed her when I had the chance.”
Until now, Basir had done nothing more than leave the room when his father’s cousin went on tirades about his mother’s character. He and his sisters were dependent on their father’s family and Basir harbored a fear that they might be turned out onto the street if they spoke up on their mother’s behalf.
It was hard enough to hear Kaka Fareed call his mother a cheat or a murderer. It was quite another to hear her called a whore. Basir’s young pride rose up in defiance.
“Eat shit,” Basir said quietly but precisely, his body trembling. Kaka Fareed, without a second’s hesitation, landed a backhanded slap across Basir’s face.
“You son of a whore!”
Ama Tamina burst into the courtyard at the sound of her cousin’s booming voice. She saw Basir on the ground, his hands covering his face. She saw Fareed’s red-rimmed eyes glowering over him, ready to strike again. She stepped between them and flicked the end of her head scarf over her shoulder.
“Fareed, what’s happened?”
Kaka Fareed ignored her questions and kept his eyes trained on Basir.
“Both Kamal and his wife cheated me out of money. Now their freeloading kids are here, and this one has the nerve to talk back to me. I’ll teach you a lesson!”
Fareed lunged at Basir.
Ama Tamina stepped in front of him, her outstretched hands in protest.
“You will not touch him!” she shrieked.
Fareed was furious. Basir scrambled to get to his feet. His aunt was only half Fareed’s size.
“Cousin, move out of my way! This is between me and Kamal’s boy. Are you forgetting that they killed your brother?”
Ama Tamina’s voice shook, but she did not budge.
“You’re not here to defend Kamal’s honor. You hated him. The two of you couldn’t be in the same room together unless you were both too drunk to see straight.”