“I’ve called my friend Fahima who lives not far from them, but she said she hasn’t seen or spoken to Tamina since the fateha, when she went to pay her respects. She says Tamina’s been holed up in mourning. I told her that we were. . that we were very worried about the children. I asked her if she could walk past their home and listen for anything. She promised she would and I haven’t heard from her. I think that means she hasn’t seen anything to worry about. I’m sure they’re all right.”
Zeba wasn’t certain of anything and resented her mother’s thin reassurances. The absence of screams was not evidence that all was well, but she lacked the energy to point that out. She’d finished the halwa and bread and decided against wiping the grease from her chapped lips.
“Janem, let me speak with the mullah. I’ll see if I can reason with him to send you back. This is no place for a mother of four children. This is no place for anyone, actually.” Gulnaz put her hands and knees on the unforgiving earth. She pushed herself to stand, wincing.
Zeba wanted to pull her back and make her stay but she didn’t. She merely watched as her mother set off to pull Zeba from the quicksand she’d fallen into. Gulnaz marched defiantly toward the figure standing on the hill. She clutched her handbag close at her side and snuck sidelong glances at the other cells. Seeing her coming, the mullah swiveled his head in either direction. He put one foot behind the other and retreated, halfheartedly, toward the house. Was he trying to avoid a conversation with Gulnaz? Zeba strained her eyes to see, staying mostly hidden behind the edge of the cell. She arched her back, her muscles stiff from sitting most of the day. She never imagined longing for Chil Mahtab this badly.
She could hear her mother’s voice. She had started her appeal to the mullah before she’d even reached him. She waved one arm back in Zeba’s direction. They were too far for Zeba to make out the conversation, but she could see her mother’s gesticulations. The mullah’s eyes were cast on the ground. Gulnaz was pointing to the heavens, summoning God into her plea.
This much was to be expected. It was the following moment that made Zeba’s stomach lurch. The mullah looked up slowly. He was trying to speak, but Gulnaz would not allow it. She was not finished. He took a step toward her and put his hand on her arm. Gulnaz pulled back sharply then stood staring at him. Her hand rose to her mouth and her left foot slid behind her, then her right. The mullah moved in closer, his head tilted to the side. He put both hands on her arms as if to keep her from running. Gulnaz’s head drooped like an untended puppet.
Why was he touching her? Zeba dragged herself outside the cell. The shackle scraped at the paper-thin skin of her ankle and she winced. The mullah was motioning to the quarters he kept next to the shrine. Impossibly, the mullah reached up and touched Gulnaz’s cheek. Gulnaz pulled away, but her feet were rooted.
Zeba wanted to shout. She wanted to run across the dry yard, climb that shallow hill, and claw at the mullah. She wanted to pull him off her mother who looked so uncomfortable under his touch. She pulled at the chain, but it yielded no more slack.
“Ayee!” she roared in frustration. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted. “Madar! Madar!”
Gulnaz turned at the sound of her voice, her fingertips over her lips. She slowly raised a hand to Zeba as if to say all was well. But all was obviously not well. What was he doing? The mullah led Gulnaz to the two-room structure with floor cushions and curtained windows Zeba could recall from her first day at the shrine. Her mother was walking with slumped shoulders. The mullah put a hand on the small of her back to lead her, and Gulnaz twitched, pulling away again but only enough that the mullah’s fingers slipped to her elbow. She stopped walking again and stared at him. She was shaking her head. He was pointing at the door.
“Come back, Madar!”
Zeba’s heart was pounding with the distinct feeling that her mother was in grave danger. What was this man demanding of her? They were in the middle of nowhere, essentially. No devotees had come to the shrine today, the heat driving them away. The only people who could hear Zeba’s cries were chained to their cells just as she was.
“Madar. . Madar! Don’t go, Madar!” she shouted. Her cries exploded across the yard with enough force to ruffle the leaves of the acacia tree. Gulnaz turned once more to her daughter and nodded before disappearing behind the mullah’s wooden door.
CHAPTER 37
“MY SON! YOUR LIFE WILL BE LONG, MY DEAR. I WAS JUST THINKING of you when the phone rang.”
Yusuf smiled. He doubted that old superstition had much truth to it, especially not in Afghanistan.
“If I know you,” he teased, “you were probably just thinking about what a terrible son I am not to have called you in so long.”
“Eh, you know your mother well.” She sighed. “Can I help it? If I hear your voice every day, it’s still not enough for me.”
“Do you not care about your other children at all?” Yusuf fell back on his bed. It felt good to joke with his mother. Her sense of humor surprised most people.
“Sadaf is having a love affair with her cell phone, and your brother doesn’t appreciate my cooking enough to come home even once a week. As for Sitara, she’s as self-absorbed as ever. Have you spoken to her, by the way? Have you heard that you’re going to be an uncle?”
“Am I?” Yusuf exclaimed. He couldn’t imagine his sister as a mother. She and her husband still lived liked teenagers though they were both two years older than Yusuf. “Wow, that’s exciting news!”
“It is a blessing. It’ll be a bigger blessing if the child doesn’t inherit his father’s laziness. That man thinks a full day of work is moving from the bedroom to the living room.”
“Oh, Madar. He’s not that bad. He’s got a good job at the bank.”
“Yes, a bank. For a man who’s surrounded by money all day long, it’s amazing how little of it he has. He wants to buy a used crib for the baby. If your sister would have listened to us and waited, she could have been married to a doctor. Imagine how useful it would be to have a doctor in the family. My cousin in California couldn’t be happier. Her daughter just married a heart doctor. Or was it a lung doctor?”
“Maybe a plastic surgeon?” Yusuf asked sarcastically.
“Don’t even start with me. Whatever he is, he won’t have to have a child on a credit card. Anyway, enough about them. Tell me how you’re doing? Have you found a way to help that woman yet?”
Yusuf pulled himself to sitting, positioning the pillow behind him and crossing his outstretched legs at the ankle. Two other lawyers had invited him to a local restaurant for dinner, but he’d turned them down, hoping a quiet evening at home would help him come up with a brilliant way to get Zeba out of that shrine.
“I’m working on it. I can’t believe the way this case has turned out. As if the prison wasn’t bad enough, they’ve sent that woman to a shrine to treat her insanity. They’ve got her chained up and barely surviving on bread and water.”
Yusuf’s mother clucked her tongue in dismay.
“Oh, don’t tell me that! That sounds like a myth. We used to go to the shrine in Kabul but only to pray. I’d never heard of one used for the insane. Is it real?”
“It’s very real, Madar. I think it’s the only one in the country, but it just happens to be here. And that’s where she is. Afghanistan of today would surprise most Afghans who left years ago. It’s a totally different place.”
“Your father and I have been watching the satellite television more and more just because you’re there, but when we listen, sometimes I feel like they’re talking about a country I don’t know. But you’re safe? Are you eating more than water and bread?”