Zeba rubbed at her eyes. The stories were too much for her. There was no way her jadu would free a prison full of condemned women. No spell would change the fact that a woman’s worth was measured, with scientific diligence, in blood. A woman was only as good as the drops that fell on her wedding night, the ounces she bled with the turns of the moon, and the small river she shed giving her husband children. Some women were judged most ultimately, having their veins emptied to atone for their sins or for the sins of others.
“You’ve said nothing about wanting to be released,” Zeba remarked. “You just want the boys to stay with you?”
“Released?” She laughed lightly and shook her head. “Not at all. I don’t know what I would do if I were turned out. My family will not take me back. I have no friends to take me in. I have two boys and a story no one wants to hear or believe. The boys will be sent out when they’re seven, and even though they are what they are, I can’t. . I can’t imagine being in here without them.”
The boys flinched. Their mother’s lower lip quivered.
Latifa was flipping the channels again. Nafisa pretended to turn a page but was looking past the magazine at the woman with her two boys. She looked relieved not to be in her place. Zeba hated sending every woman away with nothing but a promise, so she undid the taweez she had safety-pinned to the breast pocket of her dress. The needle pricked her finger and drew a spot of blood. Zeba wiped it on her own skirt and pinned the taweez her mother had gotten from Jawad to the inside of the young mother’s collar.
“Take this for now. I will think very carefully about what can be done,” Zeba promised. Even as she spoke the words, she could hear how hollow they sounded.
THE NEXT TWO DAYS BROUGHT MORE OF THE SAME. THE STREAM of women grew steadier. They followed Zeba into her cell or found her in the yard or approached her in the hallways. Zeba was not accustomed to so much attention. They clasped her hands between their own. They brought her small hand mirrors or tubes of lipstick. They offered to wash her hair or to allow her to use their contraband mobile phones, which wouldn’t have done her any good. Kamal’s sister did not have a phone and, even if she had, likely would not have answered her call. Zeba tried to refuse the gifts and favors though some were left anonymously on her bed or done before she could protest. If bribery was practiced in the outside world, it was perfected in the prison.
“I HAVE A SIMILAR PROBLEM, BUT IT INVOLVES MY HUSBAND AND his new bride. He had me locked up in here so he could get married without me in the way. Tonight’s their wedding, and I want to do something to make him limp as a noodle.”
Another woman was elbowing her way into the room.
“I’m not trying to ruin anyone’s life. I have a simple request. My hair’s been falling out in clumps since I’ve been here. Look here, sister. Just look at this!”
She lowered her head before Zeba and let her head scarf slip down to her neck. She raked her fingers through her hair, showing large patches of white scalp.
“I’ve tried washing it with red mud. I’ve tried rubbing raw eggs on my head. My sister even brought me a bottle of hair oil from India, but nothing’s worked. You must know something that will help my hair — please!”
Zeba turned to Latifa and sighed heavily.
Latifa had become Zeba’s agent. She would sit at her side and appoint each visitor a turn. When Zeba grew too fatigued to even listen to their requests, she had only to look at Latifa. With a nod, Latifa would shepherd the women out of the cell.
“Time to go!” Latifa announced with a clap of her thick hands. She turned the television off and guided the woman to the door with a hand on her back. “God created head scarves for situations like yours. How wise of Him, no? Khanum Zeba’s not a doctor or a pharmacy. If you ask me, I’d say you should really stop gossiping so much. The things you said about your own cellmates — shame on you. Someone’s probably cast a spell on your hair. Did you ever think about that?”
The woman scowled at Latifa and pushed her hand away.
Zeba wanted to help them all, but there were so many pleas and not even Gulnaz’s jadu worked all the time. Sometimes it was overpowered by another spell, Gulnaz had explained, and sometimes it was struck down by God. Zeba also knew that she was not Gulnaz. Zeba’s eyes were a dull brown, her skin showed its age, her convictions were weakened by doubt. She was an apprentice when what these women really needed was the master.
Latifa closed the door to the cell.
“Thank you,” Zeba said gently.
Latifa shrugged her shoulders. She was quite content with the informal position she’d been given. Zeba knew that Latifa had also been showered with gifts by women hoping to have Zeba’s ear. Prison guards, police officers, and judges had their palms greased all the time. For Latifa, having her turn at it meant she was rising in the ranks.
“I need to get out of this room for a bit,” Zeba said, fanning herself with a rumpled magazine. The electric fan in their cell had stopped working a week ago. “I need some air.”
“Sure,” Latifa said. “I’m going to go down to the beauty parlor and see what the women are up to.”
She was probably trying to drum up more business for tomorrow, Zeba realized with a sinking feeling as soon as she stepped out of the cell. She didn’t have the energy to fight it.
She wanted so much to help each and every one, to open the doors and set them free or promise them that their children would stay with them forever. But Zeba was neither a lawyer nor a judge. She could do nothing with the bribes she’d been given, nor could she even know if her own children would ever see her again. This prison, with its beauty salon and televisions and crayon-scribbled walls, was a dungeon. The injustice inside it leached all the energy from her body. Zeba ran her hand along the red oily scrawl left by a child just learning the alphabet. The children here made her most sad.
“Madar-jan!”
Zeba spun around. Shabnam? Kareema?
“Madar!”
The echo of a child’s voice through the cold hallway made Zeba weak, even when it belonged to another woman’s child. She turned each and every time, though it had been so long since anyone had called to her.
A six-year-old girl with plastic sandals and a brightly colored dress came racing down the hallway. The hems of her hand-me-down pantaloons looked like they would catch between her feet.
“Slowly, slowly!” Zeba cautioned.
The little girl slowed her step and looked at Zeba curiously. The roundness of her eyes, the drift of her bangs, the dimple in her chin called to mind Kareema. Zeba’s eyes watered.
“You sweet thing. Why are you calling your mother? Do you miss her?”
“No, I. . uh. . I just needed her.”
Zeba’s head spun slightly. She’d not had a chance to eat lunch with all the women coming to see her. Latifa had brought her water, but she’d left it untouched.
“Your dress is so pretty.”
Kareema had been wearing a dress just like this little girl’s dress on the day Kamal had died. It had been Shabnam’s until just a few months ago. The girls would have grown since she’d been away. Rima must have learned a few more words by now. Maybe she was running.
There were thoughts that Zeba couldn’t push out of her head. Did Tamina really look after them? If Rima cried at night, did anyone soothe her? Were the girls being used as house servants or would they be married off as revenge for their father’s murder? They were only children. She prayed, with the fervor of the most devout believer, that Kamal’s family was not blaming them for Kamal’s death.
She remembered the faces of the twin boys, the way they’d flinched on hearing the crime committed against their mother. Tiny shoulders bore a lot of blame.