I froze when he took my hand and showed me how to position my fingers, tucking my pinky under so it wouldn’t get in the way. I still wondered what my mother would say if she were to see us. Was this okay too?
Abdullah was right. Once I started looking in the direction I wanted the marble to roll, my shots were better. Marbles tapped against each other and rolled out of the circle. I would have won against Abdullah today. Well, maybe not Abdullah but definitely against Ashraf. My aim was improving.
“It’s just a question, Shahla. You don’t have to get so upset about it!”
Shahla shot Rohila a chastising look.
“It’s not just a question. If it were just a question, I’d like to see you go and ask it in front of Padar-jan. Anyway, Kaka Jamaal always looks like he’s mad. Even when he’s laughing. Have you noticed the way his eyebrows move?” She cocked her head to the side and turned both her eyebrows inward, leaning toward Rohila, who burst into laughter.
“You can’t ask for another father,” Parwin interjected. Rohila’s chuckles quieted as she turned to hear what Parwin was thinking. “It would throw everything off.”
I sat up. My left side had gotten stiff from leaning in one position.
“What are you talking about, Parwin?” I asked.
“You can’t just have Kaka Jamaal as your father without making a lot of other changes. That means Khala Rohgul would be your mother and then Saboor and Muneer would be your brothers.”
Parwin was Padar-jan’s favorite — if he had to pick one, that is. Maybe he’d already suffered enough disappointment by the time she was born that her being a girl hadn’t stung him as the other two’s had. But more than that, there was something about her temperament and drawings that calmed him. Maybe that’s why she was more forgiving of him. Or it could have been the other way around.
“Anyway, you’d better stop before someone hears you,” Shahla warned Rohila. Sitara had started to whine and wriggle in her blanket. Shahla bounced her over her shoulder expertly. She was about to enter adolescence, her body no longer an androgynous shape. Rohila, strangely enough, seemed to be two steps ahead of her. Madar-jan had started her wearing a bra a year and a half ago when her breasts began to poke through her dresses impertinently.
I had tried her bra on once. Just out of curiosity. Rohila had left it behind in the washroom by accident again. Madar-jan had slapped her once for being so indecent. Still, she had forgotten. I laid it out in front of me and tried to make sense of the straps. I stuck my arms through the loops and tried to fasten it in the back, my arms reaching awkwardly, blindly for the clasp. After a few minutes I gave up and looked down at the lumps of cloth hanging loosely over my square chest.
I stuck my chest out, trying to see if I could fill the miniature cups and realizing I didn’t want to. Instead, I sat on the ground, cross-legged and comfortable, while my sisters became women.
Later that night, I answered a knock at the door. Padar-jan lay in the living room, his loud snores rumbling through his chest. Sometimes he snorted so loudly that Rohila giggled and Shahla’s hand instinctively clamped over her sister’s mouth to stifle the sound. Parwin would shake her head, disappointed in her sister’s behavior. Madar-jan shot both girls a warning look; Shahla’s eyes widened in a declaration of innocence.
There was a man at the front gate. I recognized him as one of my father’s friends. He was gruff and had skin the texture of our plaster walls.
“Salaam, Kaka-jan.”
“Go and call your father,” he said simply.
I nodded and ran back into the house, taking a deep breath before I nudged Padar-jan’s shoulder. I called out to him, louder and louder, before his snoring rhythm broke and he fumbled to rub his bloodshot eyes.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Excuse me, Padar-jan. Kaka-jan is at the gate.”
His eyes began to focus. He sat up and scratched his nose.
“Fine, bachem. Go and bring me my sandals.” I was his son and allowed to wake him up for important matters. I saw Shahla’s eyebrows draw upward. She noted the difference too.
I went to the courtyard to listen in on their conversation. I sat away from the gate where they were talking, out of the man’s view.
“Abdul Khaliq has summoned everyone. We’ll meet in the morning and then head out. They’re bombarding an area north of here and it looks like they’ll gain some ground if we don’t fend them off. There’s a lot of talk about that area. Seems the Americans are going to be sending us some weapons or something.”
“The Americans? How do you know that?” Padar-jan asked, his back against the gate. His guest had declined his invitation to come in.
“Abdul Khaliq met with one of their men last week. They want those people out of there. They’re still looking for that Arab. Whatever the reason, at least they’ll be helping out.”
“When are we leaving?”
“Sunrise. By the boulder on the road going east.”
Padar-jan was gone for two months that time but it felt different to me. I felt proud to know my father was fighting alongside a giant like America. My grandfather wasn’t so sure it was a good idea. He seemed more suspicious of these Americans but I didn’t see why.
Khala Shaima was sitting in our living room when I came home that afternoon. Since my transformation, I had only seen her once, and that was before school had started.
“There you are! I’ve been aging waiting for you, Rahim-jan,” she said, emphasizing the new twist on my name.
“Salaam, Khala Shaima!” I was happy to see her but nervous to hear what she would say about my progress.
“Come sit next to me and tell me exactly what you’ve been doing. Your mother has obviously failed in getting your sisters to school, despite the fact that we came up with a plan to make everyone, even your intoxicated father, satisfied.” She shot Madar-jan a look from the corner of her eye. Madar-jan sighed and moved Sitara to her left breast to nurse. She looked as if she’d already tired of this conversation.
“I’ve been going to class and Moallim-sahib is giving me good marks, right, Madar-jan?” I wanted Khala Shaima to approve, especially since it had been her who had won me these new freedoms.
“Yes, he’s been doing well.” A small smile. Shahla and Parwin were sitting in the living room, their fingers nimbly sifting through lentils and removing stones. Shahla had done twice as much as Parwin, who had arranged her lentils into piles of different shapes. Rohila had come down with a cold and was sleeping in the next room.
“Well, I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner to check up on you all. My health hasn’t been very good. I hate that it keeps me from doing what I want.”
“Are you feeling better now, Khala-jan?” Shahla asked politely.
“Yes, bachem, but for how long? My bones are tired and achy and the dust was so bad last month that each breath threw me into a hacking fit. Sometimes I coughed so hard I thought my intestines would fall right out of my body!”
That was Khala Shaima’s way of explaining things.
“But anyway, enough talk about old people. You know your sisters aren’t as lucky as you, Rahim.”
“Shaima! I told you, once things have settled down, I’ll be able to send the girls back to school.”