Zeba proffered the tin, but Basir held up a hand. It was a polite gesture, too polite for an exchange between a mother and her son. It broke Zeba’s heart to see it, but she bit her tongue and put the lid back on the round tin.
“Are you going to tell me what happened to my father?” Basir said, his voice taut and dry.
In the months Zeba had been imprisoned, she had asked herself that question a thousand times and had come up with a thousand different answers. She would tell her children everything. She would tell them nothing. She would tell only Basir that his father had been a monster. She would tell only the girls. She would make up an explanation for what had happened that day. She would tell them that Kamal had tried to kill her or that he had slipped and fallen on the ax. This was all a horrible mistake, an accident, and that their father had been a good and decent man.
“Well?”
Zeba looked at the cloudless night sky. Where could she turn for answers?
“Bachem, our family has been torn apart. Never have I wanted to do anything that would hurt you or your sisters.”
If Basir was breathing, Zeba could not see it. He sat perfectly still, his gaze focused on the dark space between his crossed legs.
“That day. . that day was terrible for all of us. I don’t know why we’ve been struck like this, but we all know that fate is decided by God.”
“Are you going to answer my question or are you going to keep talking shit?”
“Basir!” Zeba shot back. He had never cursed in her presence before.
“I came here to ask you what happened. Are you going to tell me or not? Because if you’re not, then I’ll just have to guess for myself.”
“Basir. Janem, there are some things that are between adults and I don’t want to—”
“This wasn’t just between adults, Madar.”
Zeba’s back straightened sharply.
“What do you mean?”
“This wasn’t between adults. I saw him. I saw what. . what. . what had happened to him. He wasn’t some stranger. I washed the blood off his body and wrapped him in a white sheet. I buried my father, and now I listen to my sisters cry at night. Whatever happened, it happened to all of us, so please don’t tell me that this is between adults.”
He was right. He deserved to know, but Zeba had wrestled with what might happen to him if he heard the truth. Would he try to find out who the girl was? Would he think his mother was a liar and despise her even more? Would he be so ashamed of his father that he could never recover? Or would he slip and tell someone else about the shame that had been perpetrated in their own home? He had the anger of a man but not the understanding or judgment of one.
How much easier this would be if she were as starkly mad as her neighbors!
Her heart pounded. In a moment, she would either tell Basir everything or nothing. And in a moment he would either hate her or cry for her.
Had the mountain grown since she’d last looked at it? It seemed to stand taller in the backdrop, as if it were inching its way toward the moon.
The song returned.
Tonight, you will listen to the sorrows of my soul. Though tomorrow, you will forget all that has been told.
Zeba heard the faint roll of a tabla drum in the night, its unblinking eye gawking at her. The funereal whine of the harmonium followed, and a puff of stale air tickled Zeba’s face.
Then came the crash of the daira and a chorus of applause.
If she lost her son, her children, she would have nothing. Had she loved them enough to survive this? Her son sat poised, looking at her as if she were a scorpion about to strike. The babies she’d mourned told her they’d had enough of her tears. Her daughters’ hurt eyes bored into her, telling her that she’d built that house of sin, that she was just as vile as Kamal.
“Are you going to answer me?” Basir asked.
He deserved better. He was a good son.
Zeba filled her lungs with the hot, night air and made a decision she was certain she would regret.
CHAPTER 35
“I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO THINK,” HAKIMI SAID. HE WAS TRULY baffled. The man before him was the fifth person to come in for the same reason. And since when did people feel it necessary to report a neighbor’s crazy behavior? His own neighbor kept no fewer than twenty-five gray pigeons on his roof and had named each and every one. Hakimi had argued with him that it was impossible to tell one bird from another but the man insisted that he could recognize them just as well as Hakimi could recognize his children.
“It’s the truth,” the man said, rubbing his hands together and shrugging his shoulders. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time and I didn’t want to intrude into a family’s private life. But now. .”
“Yes, what makes you come here now to tell me this?” Hakimi asked, leaning across his desk to hear the man’s response.
“Well, now, it’s that so many things have been said and I’m not sure what’s true. I know the judge will want to know everything about her before he makes a decision, I suppose. Yes, and if he wants to make a decision, then he can only do that if he knows what I’ve seen.”
“Fine. Tell me what you’ve seen. I don’t know how much the qazi is going to care, but you can start by telling me. We’ll go from there.”
Hakimi pulled out a notebook and a ballpoint pen. He scribbled in the corner of the page, which produced only inkless depressions. He made an O with his lips and stuck the pen into the hollow of his mouth. He huffed hot air onto its tip, then licked it with the tip of his tongue before touching it to the page again. This time his scribble was visible, a reluctant, incomplete twirl of blue.
He turned to a fresh page. He’d kept a file of the other reports he’d recorded. Whether the judge would consider them in Zeba’s defense or toss them aside without reading was impossible to say. Hakimi didn’t really care either way. It felt good to be doing this, as if he were gathering evidence of his authority in this town instead of evidence related to the case.
“Now, tell me what it is you saw.”
“I. . er. . I didn’t know her name. We’re not related to the family, of course. But they lived close enough that I’d seen the wife a few times. I can’t recall what day it was, but there was a day when I was going to work and just as I stepped out into the street, I heard a noise. I turned around and there she was. Her head scarf had fallen away from her face so I could see who she was. As soon as she saw me she pulled it back over and looked away.”
“What was she doing?”
“She. . she was digging behind the door of a neighbor’s house — with her fingers. It was like. . it was like something really important to her was buried there. She looked like she wanted to get to it really fast.”
“Bizarre. Did she say anything to you?”
“No, she didn’t. She just. . she just looked at me the way a stray dog looks at a gang of schoolboys. She looked ready to claw at me if I got close to her. I didn’t.”
“Of course you didn’t.” Hakimi nodded. “Did you stay to watch her or did you leave her there?”
“I stayed for a bit. I mean, I actually asked her what she was doing and if she was all right. She looked wild. . not like a right person. She was digging at the earth with her fingers. When she didn’t respond to me, I asked her if her husband knew where she was. I assumed she had a family.”
“What did she say?”
“She. . uh. . she didn’t say much of anything. She just stuffed a handful of dirt into her mouth and ran off like she’d stolen something.”
“She stuffed dirt in her mouth?” Hakimi repeated incredulously. If only every day were like this. If only he could wake every morning to record crazy stories about people in his village, putting ink to the page to turn hearsay into official evidence. It was a powerful feeling, just as good as the glint of his badge or the weight of his pistol. “She didn’t just wipe her mouth with a dirty hand?”