Gulnaz had accompanied Yusuf in this visit to the judge. While Yusuf had dreaded telling her what the mullah and the judge had decided to do with Zeba, Gulnaz had taken the news better than he’d expected. They’d been in the interview room of the prison and she’d put both hands on her temples and lowered her head. When she finally looked up, Yusuf saw no tears — merely grim determination.
“God help her,” Gulnaz had hissed before leaving the room, implying surely that no one else had.
She was more talkative today.
“Qazi-sahib, what exactly did this. . this. . mullah say about my daughter’s condition?”
The judge turned his attention to Gulnaz. He wondered if she might have taken extra care to dress for this meeting. Had she thought of him as she slipped on her brassiere? Her brows drew close ever so slightly, so the judge cleared his throat and mind, worried she might have just read his thoughts.
“Since interviewing her that first day, he’s spent time observing her. What he explained to me, he’s also written in this report that was sent over here by a messenger.” By “report,” the judge meant a paragraph scrawled on a sheet of a schoolboy’s notebook and by “messenger,” he meant the mullah’s own son, the same boy who had served the lawyers tea. “In his professional opinion, she is suffering from a very deep mental illness and he thinks it’s unlikely she was in her right mind at the time her husband was killed. The good news is that he believes he can help her heal.”
Yusuf sat back down in his chair and breathed deeply. How could he get Zeba out of that dungeon without tossing the entire case into the prosecutor’s hands?
“With all due respect, Your Honor, he is not a physician and can’t really make that assessment. I wanted to get a person with a medical degree to evaluate her. The hospital is not that far away. If we can have her sent over there, they have two physicians on staff who are qualified and have been treating people suffering from all kinds of mental problems. They even have an inpatient unit where they keep people and provide recognized treatment—”
Gulnaz interrupted her daughter’s lawyer.
“Unlike this young lawyer, I don’t doubt Mullah-sahib’s qualifications.” Her voice was firm and unwavering. She looked directly at the judge. “In fact, I am so confident in his skills that I believe he will be able to manage her condition in less than forty days. You will please pass along my thoughts to him. I’ve heard she’s the only woman being held at the shrine right now and, as you can imagine, I’m concerned about her welfare there. Those are uneasy conditions for a female.”
“The conditions are designed to be what is necessary for the treatment of the patient,” the qazi explained gently. “It’s been a safe treatment for many, and he will keep a close eye on her.”
“So what does this mean for her case, then? We’ve already reviewed the penal code. If she’s been declared insane by a source you trust, then she cannot be convicted of this crime,” Yusuf insisted.
“For now,” corrected the prosecutor. “This is just as you said. Get her treatment and then she can be tried and convicted. And she will be despite this delay.”
“My friends, we are making history,” Qazi Najeeb said proudly. He looked around the room with the glow of a chemist who’d just synthesized a novel compound. “We are carrying out true justice as it has been delineated in the procedural code. This is a new age for the judicial system, young men. I never thought I would see it in my lifetime. We are leaders, we three!”
Gulnaz listened intently and thought back to the biscuits she’d brought in for their last meeting. The judge was a thin man, and she hadn’t expected him to eat so many. She’d come empty-handed today and wondered if that had been a wise decision.
“There’s something else we need to discuss,” the judge said, leaning forward in his chair. His elbows rested on his desk and he stroked his beard twice before continuing. “I’ve received a report from the chief of police in Khanum Zeba’s village. Several people have provided statements to the police chief, Hakimi, about Zeba.”
Yusuf felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand. Gulnaz’s left eye twitched once, which she took to be a good omen.
“What statements?” asked the prosecutor.
“There are quite a few, actually, but they are from various people who bear no relation to the defendant. They are comments about her behavior in the weeks before her husband was killed, and I must say, they are quite interesting.”
“What do they say?” Yusuf asked cautiously.
“I will read parts to you,” offered the judge, nudging his eyeglasses to the bridge of his nose as he pulled a handful of papers from a folder. “Here’s the first. It’s from a woman who lives not far from the defendant. She states, ‘I noticed this woman following me home several times. I paid attention since I am alone with my children in the home and my husband died a few years ago. She tried to see through a crack in my gate and I witnessed her doing the same to my neighbors’ homes. She looked to be speaking to herself, and when I asked her to leave, she did not seem to hear me.’”
Yusuf was baffled for a moment.
“Another reads, ‘I did not know this woman very well as she lived a few blocks from my home, but I had seen her from time to time in the market. More than once, I saw her whispering to cans of cooking oil and bags of flour in shops. She didn’t know I was watching and I didn’t mean to snoop but she has a daughter the same age as mine. I could not help but notice.’”
“This cannot seriously be considered part of the case,” the prosecutor lamented.
“But why not? If we are going to be part of a legitimate process, these must be included as evidence. This is part of the investigation. This is witness testimony. This is how things will be done in the Afghanistan of tomorrow and we will start it here, today!”
The judge felt years younger, as if he were at the beginning of a career instead of winding down the end of one. Gulnaz raised an eyebrow. Qazi Najeeb’s chest puffed a bit, interpreting her reaction optimistically.
“This one is most interesting. ‘I saw Khanum Zeba twice on my route selling things throughout the town. Both times it was just before her husband was killed. She was walking down our street, and after every few feet, she would stop and pick up a small rock or a handful of dirt and put it into her mouth. I asked her why she was doing that, but she only growled at me like a stray dog and hurried off before I could ask anything else. I could see the crazy in her eyes that day. You would have to be a blind man not to see it.’”
“So they’re all saying that she was insane?” Yusuf asked. What had happened in that village? He thought back to his conversations and wondered why so many people could be volunteering accounts of Zeba’s bizarre behavior.
Gulnaz took out a handkerchief and dabbed at her forehead. The air in the judge’s office was stifling. It was no wonder her daughter had shrieked her head off in here.
“That’s what a lot of people are saying. And the police chief, Hakimi, told me that each of these witnesses came to him on his own. Some were nervous, he said. Others said they felt badly that this woman should be in prison at all since it didn’t seem like she was in her right mind at all. And, what’s more, people didn’t have anything good to say about her husband, which is odd given that he was murdered. No one likes to speak ill of the dead, but some even called him a cheater, a liar, or a godless man.”
“That doesn’t mean she should have killed him,” the prosecutor insisted, more out of obligation than anything else.