“Please don’t. . please don’t take me away. I’m waiting here for Judgment Day. I can’t go with you!”
While most of the nights were still and peaceful, there were occasional outbursts. The yelling, on top of the persistent gnawing of her stomach, made the drums in her head pound harder and harder.
“Please, Satan! Not me! Don’t take me to hell!”
“Shut up shut up shut up!” roared another patient, whose illness was of a different kind. Some patients were paranoid and carried on conversations with people that no one else could hear or see. Others were so depressed that they cried and slept most of the day. Zeba believed there were six men in total at the shrine with her, though she’d never spoken to them.
“If he comes for you, do us all a favor and go with him,” a man hollered. Wild laughter echoed in the dark.
She groaned and rolled onto her side, the carpet rough against her cheek. Every joint and every muscle felt stiff. She rubbed the long muscles of her neck. She’d lost enough weight in these eleven days that she could feel the ropy muscles and ligaments beneath her skin. Even her belly, which had softened with each pregnancy, had shrunken in on itself like a raisin. The satiny streaks she’d grown with each baby disappeared into the folds.
The mullah prayed over her just as he did the others. He’d warned her, as he’d fastened the chain to her ankle, to stay in her cell. The rest of the patients were men and she should not mingle with them.
“Judgment Day is coming. Allah help me, I’m ready for it. Send the winds, the hail, and the fires. I’m waiting for it! Just keep that devil away from me!”
“Imshab ba qisa-e dil-e-man goosh mekonee. .” Zeba sang softly, hoping to drown out the moaning of her neighbor and the angry shouts for him to keep quiet. “Farda, man-ra chu qisa feramoosh mekonee. .”
Tonight, you will listen to the sorrows of my soul, the lyrics went. Though tomorrow, you will forget all that has been told.
The slow melody sounded even more sorrowful against the backdrop of rattling chains and low sobbing.
Forty days, the mullah had declared. Forty days until her treatment was complete and she could be returned to the prison for whatever awaited her there. That she’d managed to survive eleven days gave her little hope for the remaining twenty-nine.
The mullah had peered into her cell earlier in the day, hands clasped together behind his back as he stared at her as if she were a new species of animal in his zoo.
“Dear girl, so troubled. Where does your mind take you?” he’d asked.
“Where can my mind take me?” she’d replied. “I am heavier than that mountain over your shoulder. My mind cannot move me.”
He’d considered her answer for a moment before asking another question.
“Zeba, are you miserable here? I’ve brought you food. I know the bread is not much to go on and you should keep up your strength. Here, take this bulanee. It is still warm.”
Zeba had chuckled, amused by the mullah’s sudden desire to make her comfortable. No, she decided, she would not take anything from this man — not when he’d been the one to lock the shackles on her legs.
“I will leave it here for you,” he’d said quietly so the others would not hear. He’d passed the stuffed flatbread into her cell inside a page of newspaper.
“Take it out of here!” Zeba had hissed, though the smell of the spiced potatoes and fried dough made her salivate.
“Why are you being so stubborn?” he’d asked, exasperated. “I know it is not the most comfortable place, but I’m doing this all for your own good. If you could see that, you’d be grateful.”
“I am grateful,” she said, “that someone had the great wisdom to divide time into days and days into hours and hours into minutes because without knowing that the seconds were passing I would likely die waiting for these forty days to pass.”
He’d left her after a moment of silence, whether it was because she had made perfect sense or none at all, Zeba did not care to guess. She’d said what was on her mind, which brought her some small peace.
The mullah moved on to his other wards, praying over each man and dispensing the daily dose of bread and pepper. He listened to their mental wanderings, to their weeping and to their angry rants. He spoke to them of peace, though he did not undo their shackles. He spent long days with them but returned to his home with his wife and children most evenings. It was then that the patients were left alone, with the mullah’s quarters empty and only the entombed patron of the shrine to watch over them.
Zeba drifted into a hum, her eyes growing heavy, and unable to remember the rest of the lyrics. The sting of black pepper lingered on her tongue. She would drink more water tomorrow, she decided. She’d not had enough today and regretted it. The night air was hot and stifling. Zeba felt the moisture in her armpits and her groin when she moved. She sat up with her back to the wall and stretched her legs out before her. A single bead of perspiration trickled down the nape of her neck and slid down her cotton dress.
“I saw him! I saw him! He’s coming for me!” The man was still crying out though his shouts were quieter. He sounded defeated. “Mullah-sahib, where are you? Help me!”
When Zeba was a young girl, her family would gather on festive nights — aunts and uncles, cousins and close friends. Her uncle had taught himself to play the harmonium. She could still feel the puff of air released from the holes on the back of the polished wooden box. Her uncle’s left hand would pull and release the bellows as the fingers of his right hand would tickle the forty-two black and white keys, coaxing songs out of those around him and filling in lyrics when they faltered. The synchrony of their voices disguised the truth that not one of them could carry a tune.
Zeba’s eldest cousin had learned to play the tabla, one stout drum and one taller drum, with bent fingers rapping against stretched goat skin. He would beat out rhythms that were thousands of years old. Zeba would watch his fingers fly, doing something she could not dream of doing. It excited her to see him thrum against the unblinking black eye on the tabla surface.
Zeba’s aunt played the daira, a tambourine twice as big as her head, with its tiny pairs of cymbals clapping along the round of the disc. The country was at war then, and the mujahideen had taken to the mountains to fight back the Russian soldiers and tanks. The soil of Afghanistan was slowly filling with martyrs. It made it all the more important to dance and laugh, knowing the war would touch them sometime soon. Her father smiled more on those nights than any other.
Sing, Zeba-jan! Don’t be as grim-faced as your mother. Sing from your heart!
I don’t know the words to the song, Zeba had whispered to her father.
You know how to clap, don’t you? he’d replied with a twinkle. You don’t need much to make music.
She’d sat next to him and clapped until her palms were red and stinging, swaying side to side as the others did in a movement not unlike prayer. There wasn’t enough music in her head to bring about that kind of peace.
If I make it back to the prison, I will make the women sing. I will sit them in a circle and we’ll find ourselves a daira, even if it means skinning a goat myself to do it.
Zeba paused. Was that the sound of footsteps in the yard? She listened carefully and heard the crunch of dirt beneath a leather sandal. Solitude had sharpened her senses and she didn’t need to see to perceive her surroundings. It wasn’t the mullah. His step was slower, heavy with righteousness and conviction. It wasn’t one of the other prisoners, either. Their steps were timid and unsure — and it didn’t seem likely that any of the men could unshackle themselves from the chains around their ankles.