“I wish things could have gone differently. I’m an old man now and I’m looking back at my family and wondering if I made the right choices for my children. I’m still not sure.”
“My children,” Zeba whispered, speaking more to the night than the mullah. “My daughter Rima should be taking her first steps with my hand to hold her up.”
“She might be running.” Habibullah sighed. “Children have a way of moving on even after they lose a parent.”
That, Zeba thought to herself, was the kind of foolishness only a man would speak.
“Your boy looks content. He follows you. He respects you and, more important, he does not fear you. That’s why I thought you to be a decent man before you dared put your hands on my mother.”
The mullah went quiet. The three-quarter moon cast pillars of light high into the sky. The mullah was crouched at the mouth of her cell, pressing his eyes with his thumb and pointer finger.
“I am old,” he said finally. “I am too old and too tired to be anything but this. Your mother looks like she could be your sister. She’s the only one time hasn’t touched in this entire country. I am not surprised. She is so unyielding, she puts the mountains to shame.”
“You dare to speak as if you know her.”
“Once upon a time, I knew her very well. Once upon a time, I took her as my bride.”
Zeba sat straight up. If this were a dream, she would have to shake herself from its grip before it went further.
“What are you saying?” she demanded, her voice uneven.
The mullah nodded solemnly. Zeba stared at him and traced time backward, undoing his beard and the grays of his hair. She looked into his eyes and followed the shape of his nose and shoulders.
“You. . you are not dead?”
“Not yet, janem,” he answered flatly. Zeba’s heart skipped. She fought the urge to let out a cry, to put her hands on his face. She focused on her breathing, closing her eyes as she whispered the question she’d asked so many, many times.
“Where were you?”
Zeba wondered if he would name a single place, as if a geographic location would do anything to explain a lifetime of absence.
“I went everywhere. I became a nomad.”
“I prayed for you.”
Zeba thought of the many times she’d gazed fearfully at the mountains to the east and thought of the four hundred twenty-three rickety wooden steps that linked their province to the next. Many had died there, she’d learned even as a child, losing their foothold or frozen with fright. She’d prayed to God that her father not be at the bottom of a ravine.
“I had to leave, Zeba. It was the best thing I could do — to free us both.”
“The boy. . you have a family now?”
The mullah shrugged.
“I did what any man would have done. I married and began again.”
Zeba blinked rapidly. It sounded so easy, like putting one book down and opening another. But it made sense to her, too, because she was not completely unlike this man. She, too, had turned her back on Gulnaz.
There was a new, spectacular lightness in her chest. Zeba sighed. It seemed she was only as crazy as her parents had made her.
“Sing to me,” she said to the man who’d left her so long ago. It seemed like a small request to make while she sorted out whether to love or hate him.
His voice, thick with nostalgia and with a rasp that showed his years, broke the silence of the heartbreaking night. They were two forlorn beings, the distance between them dissolving under the twinkling of the stars. They did not look at each other.
“Tonight, you will listen to the sorrows of my soul,” he croaked. “Though tomorrow, you will forget all that has been told.”
Zeba’s father touched the top of her head. His thumb rested on her widow’s peak, the very center of her forehead, and she felt like he was reaching into her soul.
His song floated into the night. It was a confession. It was a prayer. Zeba raised her voice with his even as the tears slid down her cheeks.
CHAPTER 42
YUSUF HAD JUST GOTTEN OFF THE PHONE WITH RAFI, ZEBA’S brother. He was pleased to hear that his sister would be returned to Chil Mahtab after spending nearly three weeks at the mullah’s. He’d wanted to visit her there, Rafi swore to Yusuf, but couldn’t leave his wife when their fourth child was due to arrive at any moment. Yusuf could hear the guilt in his voice but wasn’t sure if it was his place to reassure Rafi. Every man had his choices to make.
He was sitting in the interview room at Chil Mahtab waiting for Asma, the guard who would be accompanying him to the shrine to bring back Zeba. He was toying with his cell phone when he saw Latifa standing idly in the hallway. He recognized Zeba’s cellmate and, seeing that she was staring directly at him, greeted her with a slight nod. At the acknowledgment, she opened the door and poked her head inside.
“You’re Zeba’s lawyer,” she blurted.
“I am,” he said cautiously. “Did you need something?”
“When is she coming back? We know they took her to some shrine for crazies, which is stupid. Do you know why that was stupid?” Latifa did not wait for Yusuf to answer. “Because she’s not crazy. She’s powerful and we need her back here. When is she coming back?”
“Soon,” Yusuf said, hesitant to get into the details. “The judge has approved her return.”
“The judge has!” Latifa grew angry, something red and hot rising in her, the kind of swelling that had created the dent in the door of their cell. “Well, I suppose you think that’s good news, but that only means he’s done playing around. Two other women were charged with murder and sentenced to decades. It’s just a matter of time before he sentences one to death.”
“Have faith. Things could change,” Yusuf said carefully.
“As long as men are the judges, nothing will change.”
Yusuf suddenly felt a bit defensive on behalf of all men.
“There was a woman nominated to serve on the Supreme Court last week. Things may change.”
“Did you not hear the rest?” Latifa shot back. “She was rejected because she dares bleed once a month.”
Yusuf had heard that news, actually. A Supreme Court justice would have to touch the Qur’an every day, one parliamentarian had argued. How could a woman be a judge when she could not touch the Qur’an one whole week out of the month? The reasoning had made Yusuf groan. Aneesa had hurled a book across the office when she’d read about it online. She was still ranting when Yusuf slipped away to get to Chil Mahtab.
“Actually,” Yusuf said, putting his phone down on the table and turning his full attention to Latifa. “I’m going today to bring her back. But what makes you say that she’s powerful? I’m curious.”
Latifa’s hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail. She reached both hands back, parted the swath in two, and tugged to tighten it. Yusuf, who had spent his life sharing a room with two sisters, felt a twinge of homesickness at the familiar gesture.
“You don’t know what she’s done for the women here,” Latifa said, her eyebrows raised for emphasis. “The problems that keep women up at night — she’s made them go away. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s like her mother or maybe even better. I didn’t believe it at first. I don’t buy into that jadu stuff usually, but this is the first time I’ve seen it myself. Are you really going to bring her back today?”
“That’s the plan.” Yusuf was still considering Latifa’s revelations. Had the prisoners ranked the black magic of the two women? “But what do you mean better than her mother?”
“Better than her mother the jadugar,” Latifa said, drawing the words out. Believing that she knew something Zeba’s lawyer did not know, she gained confidence and stepped into the interview room. “You know her mother’s a jadugar, right? Don’t tell me you didn’t know that.”