Nearly half the prisoners of Chil Mahtab had gathered in the yard, where they sat in a semicircle around Malika Zeba. Word had spread that she would be sentenced to hang in the afternoon. The temperature had dropped quite suddenly so that the women could now sit outside without fanning themselves. A half dozen rolled-up sleeves revealed Zeba’s name inscribed on forearms. The mood was somber.
“And what do you believe now?” Latifa asked.
Bibi Shireen’s eyes closed tightly. She dabbed at the corners of her eyelids with the end of her head scarf. Her voice was thin and choked.
“Now I believe Judgment Day happens every day. Every day. Why, God, were so many of us created only to be sacrificed?” she lamented to the sky.
Zeba rested her hand on Bibi Shireen’s.
“She’s right.” Heads swiveled to look at a woman who’d been sentenced to twenty years for running away. It had not mattered to the judge presiding over her case that she’d had three broken bones and a stab wound to her leg at the time she’d fled her husband’s house. Her voice sang out:
“Our womanly blood men seem to revile
While the rest of our blood brings them a smile.”
“I have one, too,” called another, hesitantly. Zeba recognized her as a woman who’d been betrothed to a man who had never bothered to claim her. When her family arranged her marriage to another man, the family of her uninterested fiancé reported her for zina out of spite. She was young, her complexion still plagued with acne.
“If an accusing finger is aimed your way
You’ll never see the light of day.”
The couplets had become a way for the women of Chil Mahtab to pass time. Some were clever and some were stilted. They were all bits of freedom, though, in a world where most of the women did not know enough of letters to sign their names. This had been Zeba’s unwitting gift to them.
Zeba was prepared for the judge to make his announcement today. She’d been prepared, she realized, since the very moment she’d been alone with Kamal’s body. It was the reason that she’d slumped to the ground and sat motionless, waiting for her children to come home and the world to discover what had happened. Basir, her neighbors, Yusuf, her mother, and even her father had all made valiant attempts to change her fate, but it was not to be.
The women of Chil Mahtab had clung to her, wondering if they were witnessing the last days of Malika Zeba. If a woman could be imprisoned or lashed for being seen with a man, she would surely be hung for murder. It was as if the prison had already begun to mourn her.
Zeba had spent the past two days distilling her prayers down to what was truly important. She wanted only for her children to speak her name without shame or resentment. She wanted them to think of her and know that she’d nurtured them as best she could, that she’d watched over them while they slept and cried when they’d lived forty days, and that she’d winced when they’d stumbled and scraped a knee. Food had no taste if she did not see her children enjoy it. She’d not felt alive until the moment she felt Basir stir in her womb. That was when time began, when the eyelash began to move across the dial and measure seconds, days, and months.
She hoped they would know all this.
Latifa snapped her fingers.
“I’ve got one! I’ve got one!” she called out. “It goes like this:
“These hardheaded men from their pulpits won’t budge.
How the world would be different if a woman could judge!”
There was a trickle of applause and a chorus of praise. Latifa beamed for a moment until the weight of her words fell upon her own ears. She looked at Zeba.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “Maybe it wasn’t the right time.”
“Latifa, what better time could there be? It was wonderful,” Zeba said. A box of chocolates was making its way through the crowd, generously shared by one of the prisoners. The women used a spoon to cut each sweet square into quarters, so that everyone could have at least a taste. “For a house with no windows, Chil Mahtab is not that bad. Sometimes I breathe easier here than I ever did at home.”
“Exactly,” called another woman. Zeba couldn’t see her face. She was embedded among the others, only identifiable by the hand she raised into the air like a flagstaff. “Malika Zeba, they call this place Chil Mahtab, because that’s the time we spend here. Forty moons at least. But you, you’ve lit these halls with the light of forty moons. No matter what happens, your name will be painted on the walls of this jail, in our blood if that’s what it comes down to, for as long as each of us stays here.”
Zeba felt her throat knot. She’d given them so little and received so much in return. They could return to their petty squabbles over who’d gotten more than her fair share of food or who had pilfered laundry detergent from her cellmate another day. Today, they gave the bickering a rest.
“God is merciful,” called another voice, just as a northern breeze sent a quiet rustle through the leaves of the arghawan tree at the corner of the yard. Even the fence glinted in the sunlight, looking more like radiant silver than harsh metal. “Inshallah, He will hear our prayers. Have faith, sisters.”
Latifa broke the melancholy mood with one final couplet.
“If I’d known Chil Mahtab could bring me such joy
I would have happily let myself be used by a boy!”
A roar of laughter erupted, and hands clapped in delight. Zeba’s and Latifa’s eyes lit upon each other and they agreed, without breathing a word, that there was much to be thankful for, even on Judgment Day.
QAZI NAJEEB’S OFFICE WAS A TIGHT FIT FOR YUSUF, THE PROSECUTOR, Zeba, Gulnaz, and a guard. Mother and daughter squeezed into the floral armchair, Gulnaz’s hands wrapped around her daughter’s. She’d spoken with Tamina in the morning, she’d whispered to Zeba. They would be paying her a visit in the next day or so as the villagers had begun to cool their attacks on Tamina’s family.
The prosecutor twitched with nervous energy. He’d gone so far as to wear a tie for the occasion, even if it did remind him of a noose as he tightened the knot at his neck. He was eager to see this case come to a close. Yusuf sat opposite Zeba and Gulnaz, looking at his client from time to time to gauge her state of mind. She seemed more composed than he would have anticipated, but then again, she was a woman full of surprises. He tapped his foot and avoided looking at the prosecutor who sat to his right.
Qazi Najeeb had entered his office last, wanting to wait until everyone had taken their seats. Out of habit, he reached into his vest pocket as he moved behind his desk. His tasbeh was there, the beads rethreaded by his wife at his urgent request. He stole a glance at Gulnaz and decided to leave the string in his pocket. He coughed twice, the end of his turban bobbing with the movement of his head. He cleared his throat and looked at the papers on his desk as he began to speak.
“Today, I’ll announce the sentence of Khanum Zeba,” he said evenly and deliberately. “We’ve all spent our time working through this case, giving the victim the attention his death deserves. It is a tragic case. A husband is dead and a mother is in jail. Children are left without their parents. Sins have been committed and must be handled according to the law. There’s been much talk about mercy, but mercy is best left for Allah to manage.