“I am so happy for her,” she said. “She’s going to be married soon to her sweetheart. I do miss her, though.”
Latifa threw a queen of hearts onto Nafisa’s nine of hearts.
“Killed that one, too,” she said smugly before slapping a jack of diamonds in front of her frustrated cellmate. “Don’t bother missing her. I doubt she’s wasted a second thinking about us.”
“What a spiteful thing to say!” Nafisa snapped.
“But it’s true! What would you do if you were released today? I’ll tell you what you would do,” Latifa said with the conviction of a politician. “You would turn your back on this place and everyone in it. You would never let the name Chil Mahtab cross your lips again. You would deny you’d ever been here, just as you deny what got you sent here in the first place.”
“I would not!” Nafisa huffed, with equal conviction. “I would never turn my back on you, Latifa. And if you were a nice person, I would write to you and visit you, maybe even bring you chocolates from my shirnee whenever that happens. I wouldn’t want to forget you, even if you do cheat like a thief.”
Latifa scoffed and shifted her hips on the ground. She kept her eyes on her cards, but her face had softened.
This early game of cards was not as relaxing as Latifa had promised it would be — not when there was still a prison full of women looking to Zeba for help she couldn’t provide. If she were all that powerful, she should have been able to do some good for herself. The women of Chil Mahtab were not bothered by that small point, though. Their need to believe in Zeba loomed so large that it eclipsed all skepticism. Zeba thought, again, of her name carved on Mezhgan’s young forearm like a blood tribute.
When Asma, the guard, came rapping at their door, Zeba was not at all disappointed.
“Zeba, come. Your lawyer’s here to meet with you.”
Zeba wasn’t expecting Yusuf back so soon, less than a week since he’d last been to see her. Each time they met, he left appearing frustrated but determined. She did not know what he did in the intervals between their visits and wasn’t sure if she wanted to ask.
“My lawyer? Are you sure?”
Asma laughed.
“Get up, Zeba. No reason to keep the handsome gentleman waiting.”
YUSUF WAS PACING THE ROOM WHEN ZEBA ENTERED. HIS BAG hung from the back of the chair, and there was his yellow notepad with his indecipherable scribbling. The top page looked softly crinkled and Zeba would have bet anything at that moment that Yusuf had fallen asleep with his face pressed to it.
He looked at her, grim-faced.
“We’ve got to talk, Khanum Zeba. We’ve got to talk.”
Zeba slid into the chair across from Yusuf’s bag. Asma lingered at the door until Yusuf sharply thanked her for bringing Zeba in for the meeting.
Asma’s ears perked at the tone of his voice, but she closed the door behind her and took a few steps down the hall. Zeba watched her walk away from the glass-enclosed interview room and turned her attention back to Yusuf. He had shadows under his eyes.
“What’s going on? Has something happened?”
Yusuf shot her a look of annoyance.
“I’ve asked only that you be open with me. I told you from the beginning that if you let me in, if you shared everything with me, I might be able to help you. You could have saved us both a lot of trouble if you would’ve just trusted me from the beginning. That’s the only way this”—he waved a finger back and forth between him and Zeba—“can work.”
“Say what you want to say.”
Yusuf stopped short. Zeba breathed a little easier. His pacing always made her nervous. Yusuf pulled the chair back quickly, its legs scraping against the floor tiles. His bag slipped off the back, but he didn’t bother to pick it up.
“I went to your village,” he said, looking straight at her.
Zeba felt a knot in her stomach. She waited.
“I went to your town and I went to your house. I knocked on your neighbors’ doors. There’s a lovely woman down the street from you who’s watched you walk past her house while she tends to her plants.”
Zeba knew precisely who Yusuf had spoken to. On two occasions, Zeba had herded her children out of the house rather abruptly. Those were days when Kamal had come home with red-rimmed eyes and heavy feet. He’d been violent but in a directionless way that made Zeba frightened for the children. The drink gave Kamal bursts of energy followed by bouts of exhaustion. Knowing he would not bother to chase after them, she’d thrown a head scarf on and scurried past that woman’s house, tears streaming down her face as she anxiously looked over her shoulder. She’d seen the woman looking out into the street as if she’d been waiting for just such a curious sight to come by.
“There’s more,” Yusuf said. “I talked to a man who was outside your house the day Kamal was killed. He was just outside your door that afternoon. He says he knows what happened.”
A man. Zeba thought back to that day. What could a man have seen or heard from outside their walls? He couldn’t have seen the hatchet go into Kamal’s head.
“What man? Is he saying I killed Kamal?” Zeba was on the brink of rage, a sudden boiling anger at the thought that a man would step forward to further condemn her. “I don’t know who he is, but he’s a liar!”
“The man saw something. He saw someone go into your home, Khanum Zeba.”
Zeba remained in her seat, her lips pressed together into a thin, pink line. Had a man really seen her? Had he told anyone else? All the days she’d spent away from her children and all the days ahead that she would fester here without them — all this could not be for nothing. She could not let Yusuf or this man, whoever he was, render her sacrifice meaningless.
By the severe look on Zeba’s face, Yusuf felt any doubt he’d harbored in Walid’s story melt away.
“I don’t really feel like talking now,” Zeba said with quiet resolve. She crossed her legs at the ankle and kept her fingers tightly intertwined, an effort to prevent any part of her body from revealing more than had already been revealed. If only Yusuf could understand how badly she wanted to tell him. But it seemed the truth would be of little benefit — not to people who deemed her testimony worth only a fraction of a man’s. In a flicker of despondency, the lines came to her:
“What good is a woman’s telling of truth
When nothing she says will be taken as proof?”
Yusuf looked at her quizzically.
“Where did you hear that?”
“The words are mine,” she said, emboldened. “But every woman knows them.”
She was right, he admitted to himself. A woman’s word held little value here. Women themselves seemed to hold little value here. But Yusuf couldn’t stop now. He would press her because he wanted to get to the heart of the story. This would be the moment that redefined the case. Zeba would break down and be completely honest with him and he would put together a magnificent defense, the likes of which had never been seen in this town, maybe in this country.
“Listen, this is a whole new case now. I’ve got—”
Zeba’s head lifted suddenly. Urgently.
“Did you see him?”
“Who?”
“My son, Basir. Did you see him?” She was leaning across the table, her palms pressing onto its wooden surface.
“No, I didn’t see him. Did you hear what I said?”
“Did you hear anything about him? Are they all right? Did anyone tell you about him and the girls? You said you talked to people. People must know how they’re doing.”
Yusuf took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly. She was entitled to inquire about her children, even if that meant diverting his questions.
“I’m sorry, but I think Kamal’s family is keeping them at home. I didn’t get much information from anyone, but no one said anything worrisome either. I’m sure they’re as well as they possibly could be given the circumstances.”