Najiba was quiet, considering my explanation. “Well, I’m glad I didn’t see him. I think I would have been scared.”
I might have said the same had I not been there to see his blue-gray eyes. His gentle voice had filled the darkness and left no room for fear. Still, Najiba made me feel brave.
KokoGul didn’t quite see it the same. She began to absorb my encounter as her own, vicarious experience. I heard her talking to two friends over tea one day.
“And then he disappeared? Just like that?”
“Did you expect a horse and carriage would come and carry him off?” KokoGul said in her trademark snappish way. Unless they were the target of the sarcasm, her friends were typically entertained by it.
“God must be watching over her to have sent an angel to her,” said one.
“You know, the poor thing, her mother’s spirit in heaven watches over her. Must have had something to do with it,” said the other sympathetically.
The reference to my mother inspired KokoGul’s imagination. “I asked Fereiba to go to the orchard that night. I rarely get such cravings for the mulberries, but something mysterious had come over me. My tongue began to tickle for those sweet berries. I tried to ignore it but I couldn’t help myself. As if something in those trees was beckoning me, I wanted to run out there. But I was busy helping the girls with their homework so I asked Fereiba to pick a few for me. She’s such a good daughter, she went off into the orchard for me. So I’m not sure who the angel was supposed to meet. Maybe that craving was his way of calling me. But I sent Fereiba-jan in my stead, so we’ll never know.”
The women didn’t seem too impressed with KokoGul’s theory, but they didn’t challenge her. I entered the room, carefully balancing a tray with three hot cups of tea in one hand and carrying a bowl of sugar in the other.
“Afghan carpets were made with Fereiba-jan in mind,” KokoGul announced. “Thanks to their red color, you would never know how much tea gets spilled on them.” There was light laughter, and my head stayed lowered. I smiled politely as I placed a cup before each woman and offered sugar cubes. I could feel myself being scrutinized.
“Afareen, dokhtar-jan,” KokoGul commended. Well done, dear daughter. I retreated to the kitchen with the empty metal tray. Today I was her daughter.
In truth, most days I was her daughter. Because I wasn’t attending school, I spent a lot of time at home with KokoGul. Indeed, the weight of the household fell mostly on my shoulders, and she reprimanded me severely when things weren’t done to her liking. But I was with her the most. We spent hours together preparing meals, cleaning the house, and tending to the animals. Her sharp tongue needed an audience — or a target. I loved going to the bazaar with her. Inspecting a pile of bruised tomatoes, she asked the vegetable vendor if his hefty wife had mistakenly sat on his produce. At the housewares shop, she asked if the overpriced dishware was from the king’s private collection. KokoGul’s wit either rubbed the wrong way or scored a chuckle and a discount.
We were allies when we bargained our way through the things we needed: the meats, the vegetables, the shoes. I mimicked KokoGul’s brazen demeanor and negotiated the best price I could. She would nod approvingly. In the market and the chores, my younger sisters could not do anything as well as I did.
“Najiba, look at this,” she would complain. “This shirt still turns the water brown. How can you think this is clean? Have you seen how your sister makes a good lather? How many times have I told you — you can’t expect a shirt to clean itself! Thank goodness I at least have one daughter who can actually help me around the house.”
These were moments when I felt connected to her, this woman who was my mother, without being my mother.
CHAPTER 3. Fereiba
EACH NIGHT MY BROTHER AND MY SISTERS WORKED ON THEIR school lessons, pencils in their right hands, erasers in their left. They sat with elbows propped up on the table, chins in their palms while they read, memorized, added and subtracted. At first, they stumbled over the letters, learning how each character was connected to its neighbor with curved strokes. The dots, the dashes carefully placed, bringing words to life. Then came phrases, short simple sentences describing the daily activities of obedient boys and girls. When they started to learn the complex Arabic of the Qur’an, I grew even more envious. I’d learned to recite these prayers under my grandfather’s tutelage, but I hadn’t been taught to read the text itself.
They played with numbers. In singsong chants, they learned multiplication tables. I listened. On paper, they manipulated numbers and symbols. They learned to calculate, to make sense of digits.
They learned stories. The history of our country. The rise of kings and their sons. How our country was carved from the mountains. My brother was first to learn the national anthem and would sing it, a hand up in salute. My sisters learned play songs from their classmates, the rhythm and lyrics putting a hop in their carefree gait as they walked hand in hand.
Coo coo coo, leaf of a plane tree
Girls seated in a row neatly
Plucking pomegranate seeds
If only a pidgeon I could be
In the skies my wings soaring free
Sifting through river sand slowly
And drinking of waters so holy
In the mornings, I watched my sisters put on their uniforms, steel gray and modest. They would hike their socks up and hastily buckle their shoes, afraid of being late but even more afraid of appearing unkempt. The teachers took both issues very seriously. Every day I resented seeing them rush off while I stayed home. I envied their bags full of papers, pencils, and stories. I knew I was just as smart as my sisters — maybe even smarter.
My brother had always done well, maybe not top of his class, but well enough that my father and grandfather did not complain. I’m sure he could have excelled if he’d tried, but he rushed through homework assignments to get on with other business — soccer with the neighborhood boys, climbing the orchard trees, and bicycling down the streets near our house. As a teenager, he endured his most awkward phase, with his spotty skin and unpredictable voice. Once on the other side of puberty, his voice was that of a confident man who wanted to be out in the world.
I had broached the topic of school with my father in the past. His tired answer was always that KokoGul needed my help at home with the younger children but now this excuse was wearing thin. Mariam, my youngest sister, was seven years old and in primary school herself. There were no babies in the house.
We’d cleared the dinner dishes when I approached my father again. I was thirteen years old and determined. I knew girls who hadn’t gone to school usually married earlier, and I did not want to be married. Every year put me further away from a chance at schooling and one step closer to becoming a wife.
“Padar-jan?” He looked up at me and smiled gently. He turned a dial and shut off the radio, his evening news program over. I placed a cup of hot green tea next to him, two sugar cubes quickly dissolving. He always took his evening tea sweet.
“Thank you, my dear. Just what I needed after such a good dinner,” he said, patting his stomach and exhaling deeply.
“Noosh-e-jan,” I replied, a wish his appetite be satisfied. “Padar-jan, I wanted to ask you something.” My father raised an eyebrow as he took a cautious sip of his tea.