“Not at all,” Hakimi chuckled, relieved to have moved on to lighter details. “You’re the fifth person to come forward in the last week. I suppose it all makes sense. The woman must have been a lunatic to drive a hatchet into her husband’s head. The poor guy, Allah rest his soul. I wonder if he knew what kind of crazy his wife was or if she just snuck up on him. Women are odd creatures, you know. Awfully good at hiding things. You just never know what they’ve got tucked in the folds of their skirts. That’s what my father told me.”
Timur smiled politely, relieved to hear others had come forward before him, just as Walid had promised.
“Yes,” he said, nodding in agreement as he pushed his chair back and pulled down the ends of his linen vest. This would be the first good piece of news to cross their threshold in a long time. That they’d survived this long after what had happened to Laylee was all because Zeba had kept Laylee’s secret. Nargis reminded Timur each time he’d changed his mind about coming forward with this story about seeing Zeba eat dirt. “They certainly are surprising creatures.”
Timur’s heart pounded as he walked home, unsure if there was wisdom in heeding the entreaties of a broken girl and her mother.
CHAPTER 36
“ZEBA! ZEBA!”
It was a trick of slumber, she thought, to hear her mother calling her in this place. Her head felt lighter than it had the first few nights.
“I’m looking for my daughter!”
Zeba sat up with a gasp. She looked down and realized a small, round pillow had been tucked under her head. Had the mullah placed it there while she slept? She shuddered to think his hands had lifted her head to slide it beneath her. How could she not have waken to the touch of a stranger?
“Is there anyone here?”
Zeba crawled to the mouth of her cell no differently, she thought briefly, than the way Rima would crawl to her.
“Here! I’m here, Madar!” she shouted timidly. It was the first time she’d raised her voice above a whisper in this cell. She knew the others would be riled to hear her, a woman, but to answer her mother’s call was an irresistible instinct.
“Zeba? Is that you?”
Zeba craned her neck past the lip of her cell. There were two men in the center yard looking curiously toward the shrine and the mullah’s quarters. Local devotees would go directly to the shrine, steering clear of the valley of the insane.
Zeba waved her arm, squinting against the sunlight that stung her retinas.
“Here! Madar-jan, I’m here!”
By the shift in her mother’s posture, she could see that she’d caught her attention. Her mother started toward her with a brisk pace. When the voices began to call out, Zeba’s stomach reeled.
“Madar? Is that you, Madar?” shouted one wisp of a man. His voice cracked as he yelled toward Gulnaz. “Have you come for me after all this time?”
“She’s not just your mother. She’s here for all of us. She’s come to take care of us,” cried another man in joy.
“Fools!” called a third morosely. “A desperate man can see the ocean in the desert.”
Gulnaz ignored them all and stayed clear of their cells, her face stern as she neared the last vault — the one that contained her daughter.
“Who are these women?” A chain rattled, but the moan remained faceless.
Zeba saw the mullah burst through the doors of his quarters with his son at his side. Though she couldn’t make out the expression on his face, he looked flummoxed. He nudged the boy back into the building and watched without moving, as if an invisible chain tethered him to his house.
“Zeba, are you all right? What have they done to you? Dear Allah, look at this place!” Gulnaz had crawled into the cell without a second’s thought. She threw her arms around her daughter then drew back, patting down the frazzled puffs of hair that hid her face.
“Madar. . Madar. .” Zeba sobbed. She buried her face in her mother’s shoulder. When she came up for air, she pulled her mother’s hands to her face and kissed her palms, closed her eyes, and held them against her cheeks. Gulnaz brushed her daughter’s tears away with the pads of her thumbs.
“I’m not crazy, Madar-jan,” she whispered. “He says I’m crazy but I’m not!”
“You will be if they keep you in here,” Gulnaz said in an icy tone.
Zeba sniffled and nodded. She fidgeted with her hair, suddenly aware that in these days without a proper place to wash, she likely looked quite insane.
“You’re right. I don’t know why he kept me. I didn’t say or do anything out of the ordinary. I. . I. .”
“Of course not. I know how these people work. It’s God’s work they claim to do but for a good price.” The words came out of her mouth like gunfire. “Someone must be paying him to keep you. Did the lawyers say anything about money when they brought you here?”
Zeba shook her head.
“Uff! I can’t believe that Yusuf let this happen. What is wrong with that boy?” Gulnaz pressed the heels of her palms to her forehead as if to push her teeming thoughts back into her head. When she looked up, she’d regained her composure, looking more like the mother from Zeba’s childhood. “I’m going to talk to the mullah myself.”
“Do you think he’ll listen to you?”
Gulnaz reached into her handbag and pulled out a piece of soft flatbread folded in half and stuffed with halwa.
“Eat this, janem,” she whispered. “You’ve got to keep up your strength.”
Zeba’s head fell to the side, and she exhaled deeply. She took the pocket from her mother’s hands and brought it to her lips. The flour and sugar glistened with grease. Her mother had scooped parts from the bottom of the pot, a toasted deeper brown. Those had always been Zeba’s favorite pieces. It shouldn’t have surprised her that her mother remembered but it did.
She swallowed hard, her throat dry.
Gulnaz pulled a small bottle of orange soda from her bag as well and placed it on the ground next to Zeba.
“I didn’t know what else to bring. Should I open it for you?” she asked.
Zeba nodded quickly.
Gulnaz gave the cap a quick twist and the bottle fizzed, a soft, carbonated whistle rising from the lip. Zeba took a long sip, the bubbles sending a tingle to her nostrils as they passed through her mouth.
“Thank you, Madar,” she said breathlessly. Her stomach was more grateful than she could express. She’d refused the mullah’s offer, but it hadn’t been easy. “Basir was here two days ago. I thought I’d imagined him. Sometimes I still think I imagined him, actually.”
“He was?” Gulnaz felt her throat tighten at the thought of her grandson braving the journey to this distant place to see his mother. She wished she could have brought him here herself.
“What did he say?”
“He said they were well enough. I can only pray he wasn’t hiding anything from me. He. . he brought me food,” Zeba said, her voice cracking.
You are not your father, Zeba had told him, immediately regretting her words. Basir’s whole body had jerked in response as if the thought hadn’t crossed his mind until his mother had said it. It had been her fear, not his.
How could you be sure? he’d demanded. You could have been wrong! Who are you to judge?
She’d floundered, searching for the right words and wondering if they even existed.
Gulnaz clucked her tongue and sighed.
“God save him.”
“Have you heard anything about the children, Madar? Has anyone sent word from Tamina’s house?”
Gulnaz let her gaze fall to the ground.