One of the men walked toward me, but Mahmood intervened.
“Please!” he said sharply, before turning to me. His fingers were on my shoulders, holding me up, as he looked through the mesh of my burqa. “Fereiba-jan, I beg you, let me speak with these men. I’m sure we can clear up this misunderstanding. You are needed here.”
When we were first married, I knew nothing about my husband. Time taught me that he was patient, nurturing, and principled. I was too bashful to look directly at him in the first month or so but in the warmth of his friendship, my guard melted. He undid all that this world had done to me. I realized, not long after our wedding, when I caught myself laughing at a joke he’d already told me twice, that I loved this man.
Fereiba, do you know what the most beautiful word for spouse is in our language?
What is it?
Hamsar. Think of it. “Of the same mind.” That’s what we are, isn’t it?
That’s what Mahmood did. He took rusted, tired words — things people could say to one another without feeling a thing — and turned them over in the palm of his hand. He would blow the dust off and make them shine with meaning so moving you were ashamed to have overlooked it.
He asked me questions and listened for my answers. He had his mother’s generous heart and his father’s wit. He did not live in fear of God because, he reasoned, a merciful God would not create us only to punish us for trivial earthly matters. Mahmood was logical and determined. He loved his children. He would discipline them and later chuckle at their mischief. He would stroke my forehead before we went to sleep, a touch light enough to make my eyes heavy but ardent enough to make me want to be awake. He wanted his work to be his footprint in Afghanistan, something his children would be proud of.
With no children to distract us in the early years of our marriage, I learned my husband well. I could hear Mahmood’s thoughts when I looked into his eyes.
He was my hamsar.
With the men barking at him to follow, I turned to Mahmood’s face — the blue grid of my burqa invading the most precious, private moment of our married lives. There was so much to say. His eyes whispered to me in a way only a hamsar could.
Take care of our children, janem. I will do what I can to make this right. I’m sorry I’ve brought this upon us. I would give anything to stay at your side.
My husband was escorted out of our home and into the blackest night of our lives. The men slammed the door behind them. Two porcelain teacups rattled off the shelf and smashed to the floor, leaving shards of white and pastel in their wake.
I heard frantic footsteps upstairs and knew Saleem had run over to the window. I never asked him what he saw. If I know my husband, he was conscious of his children watching him being led away. He would do nothing to make that night any uglier than it forever would be in their minds.
CHAPTER 15. Fereiba
SALEEM TIPTOED TO ME. I HAD SLIPPED THE BURQA OFF MY HEAD and slumped to the floor. I’d heard the car’s engine hum into the distance. They’d taken Mahmood with them. My son sat beside me, and Samira watched from a safe distance. When Saleem could bear the quiet no longer, he broke the silence.
“Madar-jan. .” he whispered.
I stopped him before he could say anything else. I had no answers.
“My son, go on back upstairs with your sister and sleep. I’ll wait for your father.”
I knew he was scared. I knew he wanted to be useful. He wanted to do things that would make Mahmood proud.
Samira was just nine years old on that night. She was an extension of me. Her moods ebbed and flowed in response to my own, just as the tides respond to the moon. If I brooded, Samira quieted, blowing her dark bangs away from her crinkled forehead. If I was happy, my daughter walked with a skip in her step. On that night, Samira became silent and trembled. With her hands drawn into tight, little fists, tears darkened her pillowcase.
SALEEM WOKE AT DAWN AND FOUND ME ON THE LIVING ROOM couch. I sat with my head against the wall. I cannot imagine what I must have looked like to him.
“Madar-jan?”
He had to call out to me twice.
“Yes, Saleem,” I said. My throat was dry and raw.
Saleem hadn’t known what to say. He simply felt obligated to break the silence and gauge the situation.
“Did you sleep, Madar-jan?”
I sat with my hands wrapped around the round of my belly; my swollen feet barely reached the floor.
“Yes, my son.”
He looked doubtful and offered to bring me tea. I looked at Saleem, his hands wringing behind his back, his face knotted with fear. It was time for me to be a mother again.
“It is early still,” I’d said. “It would be good to pray for your father.”
We didn’t bother to heat the water for the ablutions.
“In the name of God. .” I whispered and began to wash my hands, mouth, and nose. I steeled myself against the icy touch of the water. I would not show weakness. I washed my face, behind my ears, my hands and feet.
With a rehearsed rhythm, Saleem and I stood, kneeled, and bowed as we mouthed the phrases we’d both memorized very early in our lives. I could feel my eyes glaze as I thought of the previous night.
I didn’t know if my husband would ever be returned.
Our home froze in time, waiting for a sign.
Saleem helped with some chores and, though he was young, with going to the market for our basic needs. I was isolated. My siblings had fled Afghanistan along with KokoGul. My father stayed behind to look after his orchard, an hour from where Mahmood and I had settled. Mahmood’s family was similarly dispersed, his sisters living in Australia. All we had left were distant cousins who were struggling, as we were, to feed their families and survive Kabul’s new order. I sent word to our families. They were distraught, but not in any position to help. Mahmood’s sisters begged me to keep them informed if I heard from their brother.
RAISA, ABDUL RAHIM’S WIFE, CAME BY FREQUENTLY AFTER HEARING the news of Mahmood’s disappearance. Some days, she sent a plate of butter or a small pot of rice. Raisa had always been a dear friend, but I dreaded her visits after his disappearance. Her eyes, moist with pity, were brutal reminders of everything that was wrong.
She had a matronly softness, a bosom that offered to pull you in and rock you to sleep as if you were one of her many children. On those bleak days, Raisa would stop by for short visits. Without a pause in conversation, she would tidy the kitchen and make a quick dish with whatever she could find in our cupboards.
“Fereiba-jan, any word?” she would ask vaguely.
“Not yet, but I’m sure any day now,” I would say and I believed it. Mahmood was a marvel. I had no reason to expect anything less from him.
“Well, if there’s anything that you and the children need. .”
I steeled myself. I tried to keep the house in order, to give my children a way to sleep easy in the night. Samira mirrored my composure during the day but at night, her dark bangs clung to the cold sweat of her forehead. She whimpered and wailed in her sleep, a language I understood but refused to speak.
I FOUND SALEEM’S NOTEBOOK. THERE WERE HASH MARKS ON THE back cover. He was counting the days since that night. There were forty-seven marks.
We were a home without a patriarch, the type of creature Kabul’s beasts devoured on sight. On the day I was struck with sharp pains, I realized just how isolated we were without a man in the home. For hours, I’d turned my face to the wall when the pressure overwhelmed me. The children said nothing. We each played our part in the charade of normalcy.