CHAPTER 35. Fereiba
I WISH FOR NO MOTHER TO FACE THE CHOICE I HAD TO MAKE. Nothing could be harder.
I’m weighed by a guilt so heavy that it takes every ounce of strength I have to put one foot in front of the other and continue.
How Saleem found his way back to Intikal, I will not know until I see my son again. I never should have let him leave that hotel room. I should have been his mother and raised my voice and stood my ground. My skin prickled that day when he talked of going to the market. Can a mother commit a greater sin than ignoring her intuitions? I pushed it aside because I wanted to give him the space he wanted, the space his father believed he needed to become a man.
Mahmood was not always right. I can see that from here, clear as the brilliant blue sky. He made decisions with his mind. He stood for what he believed to be right and logical and good — all romantic notions that failed us. Kabul was no place for ideals. I knew that. I told him as much. Ideals and guardian angels are for children and times of peace. They have no place in this world. We should have left Kabul long ago, followed my siblings to safer places while we were still whole. I let him overturn my intuition, snubbing our noses at God’s warnings.
To hate him, though, would be another shade of blasphemy.
He is not here, and I cannot alter the path we decided on together. I cannot change the conversations we had. I stood by him because I loved him and trusted him and wanted to honor the choice we made. His goodness, the nectar he offered the world, attracted one, then two, then a swarm of bees. They circled him, humming, until that moment when they released their venom. Even after he was gone, I could still hear the sound of them, circling my family. But this was my own doing. I let Saleem, my firstborn, walk out the door and into an unforgiving world and now I cry that he has not returned. I am the mother I swore I would never be.
I have reasons for my choice. Aziz looks terrible. He has not gained weight and I see the strain in his sallow face, the tiny blue vein running across his temple, the bones of his back looking like beads on a string. I need to get him to help if he’s to live to see his brother again. He is so light in my arms. He is my last child, the one I will carry for as long as I can, because he makes me a mother for that much longer. When he is awake, I watch his movements. I see Saleem in him too. He is very much like his older brother, headstrong and resilient. Each struggles in his own way but Saleem can stand on his feet. His voice, coming from the safety of Hakan and Hayal’s home, told me he could find his own way.
I made a choice. We took the train from Athens. Could I have done things differently? I could have. But my intuition told me that Aziz could not. Forgive me, Saleem, but we could not wait for you. For your brother, the brother I know you resent and adore, I had to move on.
There could be nothing worse than choosing between two children. Ask me to choose between my right arm and my left and I will give you one. But ask me to choose between two of my children and my heart shatters into a thousand pieces. Children are touched by heaven — their every breath, every laugh, every touch a sip of water to the desert wanderer. I could not have known this as a child, but I know it as a mother, a truth I learned as my own heart grew, bent, danced, and broke for each of my children.
Samira watches me in silence. She is no longer a girl, her body assuming the delicate curves of a young woman. Thank God, she looks to be much wiser than I was at her age. I was naïve. I think of how I believed people — the boy in the orchard, KokoGul. I imagine my daughter holds her tongue because she knows words mean nothing, accomplish nothing. She’s shown the quiet strength of a woman since we left Kabul. She has done as much for her little brother as I have. She has rocked him through his sweaty fits, patiently fed him when he would push the food away, and shouldered our bags when I could not. All of this matters more than any words she could say, though I yearn to hear her voice again. More than anything, I want to hear her laughter.
She misses Saleem. She’s incomplete without him and will not speak until he returns — until something is given back to her by a world that just keeps taking away. Her heart mirrors my own, and it is for her that I hold back my tears. I’ve had enough. I’m tired of being trapped. Each morning when I wake and find that nothing has changed, I think I am finished.
Were it not for my children, I would be. For them, I cannot be finished yet.
I may find Saleem again. I may put my arms around him and hear his voice and have him returned to his family. Even if I am so fortunate, I will not be the same. I will always be the mother who left a son behind. It is the hell I live in now and will live in forever.
The train has pulled out of the station. We are on our way. People look at us but our tickets are not questioned, nor are our documents. Some would call that lucky but lucky is relative.
Samira stares out the window; Aziz’s head rests against her side. She is thinking of her brother, no doubt, and wondering if her mother has made the right choice. I cannot explain it to her. It is a thing that cannot be packaged into words.
CHAPTER 36. Saleem
SALEEM RUSHED HOME EVERY DAY TO SEE IF THE PASSPORT AND train ticket had made it to Intikal. A week after he’d returned, he had sheepishly approached Hakan and produced a few bills to compensate for his room and board. Hakan shook his head and told Saleem not to speak of money again. Saleem bit his lip and nodded, an ineloquent but understood gesture of thanks.
Ten days went by and still no envelope from his mother. Saleem’s mood was further fouled by Ekin’s interest in his return. She stood behind the farmhouse pretending to read or tend to the herb garden Polat’s wife kept behind their kitchen. She made an effort to stay visible, watching Saleem from the corner of her eye. She said things Saleem did not want or need to hear.
“Where did you go?” Ekin laughed. “My father cursed for two days when you didn’t come back. You’re lucky he let you work again.”
Polat, from time to time, would shoo her back into the house, but he seemed oblivious to her fascination with Saleem. Their conversations were unbalanced. She talked and Saleem listened, afraid to say anything that could be taken the wrong way. He bit his tongue as she droned on about school and radio and things he could not possibly know.
Sixteen days and still no passport in the mail. Saleem was having trouble sleeping. Hakan had tried calling the hotel again, but the owner said the family had left long ago. Saleem could only hope that meant that they’d boarded the train successfully and possibly with Roksana’s help. Maybe they’d even made it to England by now, though he wasn’t sure Madar-jan had a plan for getting from Italy to England.
The passport was a whole other matter. Saleem had no way of knowing if the documents had been mailed or if they’d made an error with the address. Maybe they’d been confiscated by the postal system. He would wait. That precious booklet with his grim-faced photograph and invented birthday was the only way he could avoid the death traps the Attiki boys spoke of. He remembered the dark figures who had transported them across the border into Iran. He’d heard the man push his mother for more money, and he’d heard worse stories from others. The underground world was one without laws or codes or safety nets. Some people were transported successfully. Others never made it. No one knew what really happened in the shadowy world of smuggling beyond the few stories that bubbled to the surface.
ON A MONDAY AFTERNOON, EKIN SAUNTERED BEHIND THE HOUSE where Saleem was tilling the soil for a new crop and wondering what he would do if the passport didn’t arrive by the end of the week.