“So you think she’s now of sound mental condition at this point,” Yusuf summarized.
“I think much has changed for her in these few days. I think she has a better understanding of many things.” His eyes were still trained on Zeba, who did not flinch at his description of her progress. She looked up at the mullah, and her lips parted slightly, as if she were about to speak, but no words came out. She clasped her hands together on her lap.
“Zeba Khanum, if you’re ready, then we should be going. Asma and the others are outside waiting on us.”
Zeba nodded again and pressed her palm to the carpet to support herself as she stood. She looked underweight but not deathly so. There was color in her cheeks and light in her eyes, even if she did move like an ungreased joint.
“Do you need help?” Yusuf reached out a hand instinctively, but she shook her head. The mullah watched carefully before he rose from the ground to walk them out.
“Young man,” he said, putting a hand on Yusuf’s forearm. Yusuf turned abruptly. The physical touch had been unexpected. “Fight for her, please. Do your best to defend her, and Allah will reward you. She does not deserve to be punished. She’s a good woman. I wish I could have helped her more.”
Zeba turned around and looked at the mullah. There was a sadness in her posture, not the anger Yusuf had seen when he’d left her.
“You’ve done the best you could,” Zeba said softly. She fixed the head scarf on her head, flipping the loose end over her shoulder gracefully. “I was. . glad to meet you.”
“I will be praying for you,” he said to Zeba, standing just a foot from her. “Just as I prayed for you here, I will continue to pray for you when you leave. God is great. You know what He can do.”
Yusuf felt more like an interloper than Zeba’s counsel. Had Zeba become a believer in the mullah’s methods? Had his prayers affected her so profoundly in these few days? She’d been desperate, and it was quite possible that she grabbed onto his incantations as a drowning soul would reach for a life preserver. Yusuf noted a change in Zeba, a tranquility that hadn’t been there nineteen days ago. Could there be some unearthly potency in this shrine? He shook his head and wondered if he, too, were somehow falling under the mullah’s spell.
He walked out of the door and looked at Zeba expectantly.
“Mullah-sahib, thank you for all you’ve done,” Yusuf said because it was the right thing to say at that particular moment.
The mullah closed both eyes and nodded slightly, a tiny acknowledgment.
Zeba followed Yusuf with heavy steps.
They stood by the car until the guards, seeing them emerge from the house, began trudging back to the vehicle. The mullah leaned against the wooden door, his hands resting just above his belly, with fingers intertwined.
“Good-bye, Padar,” Zeba said softly, her eyes glistening in the sun.
Yusuf stopped short and looked at them both. His jaw went slack, and he cocked his head to the side.
“What did you say?” he asked Zeba, who stood at his side next to the car.
The mullah did not budge but kept his eyes on Zeba’s. With every second that the mullah and Zeba ignored him, Yusuf felt a burgeoning realization that these were not the same two people he’d seen three weeks prior.
“What did you call him, Khanum Zeba?” he asked again, his voice sharper.
“Father,” Zeba whispered, brushing a tear from her left cheek stoically. Any further explanation was cut short by the return of the guards. In a flash, they had all climbed into the silver Toyota, and its four doors were shut in succession.
Her father? Yusuf sat in the front seat, turning the words over in his mind. Did she mean her true father or had he completely brainwashed her into some kind of bizarre devotional relationship? Yusuf resisted the urge to swivel in his seat and press Zeba for an explanation. It was not a discussion he wanted to have with the current audience.
The engine turned over and they went back down the dirt road, the shrine and the mullah shrinking behind them.
CHAPTER 43
“SHE’S BACK! LADIES, LADIES, MALIKA ZEBA HAS COME BACK TO US!”
A prisoner in a black-and-green floral print dress stopped at the sight of Zeba and turned abruptly to shout down the hallway. They were just down the hall from the beauty salon.
Zeba blinked with surprise.
Three heads poked out of the doorway. One woman held a hairbrush, and another’s head was crowned with curlers. She yelped when she saw Yusuf and ducked back into the salon.
“Zeba-jan, you’re back! Malika Zeba, how are you?”
They were standing before her. More figures were appearing at the end of the hallway as news of Zeba’s return rushed like water flowing downstream. Two little girls were pointing from a distance.
“That’s the queen,” one whispered to the other. “That’s Malika Zeba. My mother told me about her.”
“I thought she’d look different. Where’s her crown?” the second girl said, giggling.
“What’s going on here?” Zeba’s words were breathy and low. She wasn’t exactly asking Yusuf. She was merely dumbfounded by the nickname she’d seemed to have been assigned and the energy around her return.
Yusuf leaned in and said sharply to Zeba, “I want to talk to you before you go back to your room.”
“Of course,” Zeba said, somewhat distracted by the commotion in the hallway. “I just. .”
“We’ve missed you so much! I need to tell you what’s happened while you were gone. So much has changed, and there’s only you to thank for it,” a young woman said.
Zeba smiled wanly, unsure what to make of this welcome. The girl took Zeba’s hands and turned her palms upward, pressing her lips against them. Zeba pulled her hands back, made uncomfortable by a gesture that should have been reserved for the gray haired.
“You saved me!”
“I saved you?” Zeba repeated. Slowly, she remembered sitting with this woman and watching her two young boys fidget as she told the terrible story of how they’d been conceived.
“Yes! This taweez you gave me,” she said, pointing to the small bundle safety-pinned to the sleeve of her dress. “I’ve worn it every moment since you put it in my hands.”
“What’s happened?” Zeba asked.
“The shelter the boys were supposed to go to is full. They have no room for anyone else, and my family does not want to take them. They would have had nowhere to go, Zeba-jan. They would have been on the street, so easy for anyone to snatch up and sell for body parts or turn into slaves. I’ve imagined a million horrible things. But just two days ago, the director of the prison said they would have permission to stay for another two years. Two more years!”
Zeba’s eyes widened.
“That’s. . that’s fantastic news!” she exclaimed softly.
“It is, and it is all thanks to you. So much has happened, Malika Zeba. We have been praying for your safe return so that we can thank you for everything you’ve done.” She snuck a bashful glance at Yusuf, whose curiosity had been piqued. “And just to show you that I will never forget your help. . this is what I’ve done.”
She slid the sleeve up her right forearm, wincing slightly as it rolled over a fresh scar. Raised green-black letters spelled out Zeba’s name. Zeba let out a gasp.
“What have you done?” she exclaimed. She touched the woman’s arm with one finger, grazing the letters with the pad of her fingertip and drawing back sharply to feel how real they were. She looked up, expecting to see the woman grimace, but she did not.