The next few days passed by in a haze of eating and sleeping.
Shauzia hadn’t realized how tired she was. Inside this walled-in paradise there were birds and flowers and no piles of garbage to search through.
She ate three meals a day at the big table, plus the snacks that Barbara handed out between meals.
“Make yourself at home,” she told Shauzia. “We want you to be comfortable.”
“Why are you doing this?” Shauzia asked.
“Tom’s salary goes a long way over here,” Barbara told her. “We like to share what we have. Besides, us girls have to stick together!” She gave Shauzia another hug, and this time, Shauzia hugged her back.
Sometimes beggars would ring the bell outside in the street, and Tom or Barbara would open the door in the gate and hand out oranges or coins. The gate was high and made of thick steel, so Shauzia never saw the people who came to the door, but she was glad they were getting some help.
She kept intending to help out around the house, but she kept dozing off instead. She would sit down for a moment after breakfast or lunch, in the living room or on the porch, and wake up several hours later.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Barbara, after sleeping away the afternoon and not helping with dinner.
“You’ve been tired for a long time,” Barbara said, putting her arm around Shauzia’s shoulders. “You’ll get caught up on your rest soon, and then you’ll feel better.”
Shauzia liked it when Barbara smiled at her. She liked to watch her and Tom wrestling with their boys, or playing trucks with them, or reading to them at bedtime.
Tom and Barbara spoke Dari to her, but the boys knew only English. Shauzia turned over each new word she heard in her head, and whispered it to Jasper until she felt comfortable saying it out loud. Bit by bit, her English improved.
No one spoke about the future. Shauzia didn’t want to ask. Maybe they had forgotten that she was an outsider. Maybe they already thought of her as one of their own children. She didn’t want to remind them that she wasn’t.
One day, Shauzia woke up in the morning and felt really awake.
“I think I’ve caught up on my sleep,” she said to Jasper. Jasper looked good, too. He’d been eating well, and his coat was soft from lots of washing and brushing.
“You look bright-eyed this morning,” Tom said to her at breakfast.
“I’d like to start helping out,” Shauzia said, pleased to be noticed. “I’m very good at cleaning.”
“We already have a cleaning woman,” Jake said, his mouth full of scrambled eggs.
“Waheeda only comes twice a week, which is not enough to keep this place clean,” Barbara said. “If you two boys would only pitch in and pick up your toys now and then.”
“Talk to the hand,” Paul said, stretching his arm, palm out, to his mother.
“You know I don’t like that. He got it from a video,” Barbara told Shauzia.
“Maybe you shouldn’t watch videos for awhile,” Tom said. Paul slammed his fork onto the table, scattering bits of egg. He made the loud whining sound that hurt Shauzia’s ears.
Shauzia took advantage of the distraction to take more eggs from the platter, and to put them and some toast into her napkin. The pile of food under her bed was getting bigger every day. If Tom and Barbara ever asked her to leave, she’d have food to last for quite awhile. Maybe it would last until she got to the sea.
“I’d like to take the boys swimming this afternoon,” Barbara told Shauzia when they were doing the lunch dishes together. “We go to the American Club. I wish I could take you, but it’s only for ex-patriots. You know, foreigners? Would you be all right here on your own for a few hours?”
Shauzia found the question funny. After all, she had been looking after herself for a long time
“I will be all right,” she said.
She waved goodbye as they drove away and closed the gate after they left.
She was almost back in the house when the gate buzzer rang.
“Don’t answer the doorbell,” Barbara had said. “I have a key for the gate, so we’ll let ourselves in.”
Shauzia was going to do as Barbara said, but the buzzer sounded again. She couldn’t just leave someone out there.
She opened the door in the gate. An Afghan woman was holding a baby, her hand stretched out.
“Can you give me something for my children?”
“Yes, I can. Come into the garden.” Shauzia ran into the house and filled a plastic bag with fruit and biscuits from the cupboard. She handed it to the woman, who thanked her many times, then left.
“That was fun,” Shauzia said to Jasper. She went into the house and was just settled on the living-room floor, getting ready to play with the toys, when the bell rang again.
This time it was a group of children carrying junk sacks, looking for cardboard or cans to add to their collections.
Shauzia had an idea.
“Come in,” she said. “Come in and play.”
She got food for everyone and showed them the toys. The children looked like they didn’t know what to do with them. Shauzia closed a small hand around a toy car and made it move across the floor.
The bell rang a few times more. She brought a heavily pregnant woman into the house and took her up to one of the beds to sleep in a cool, dark room. An old man drank a glass of milk and fell asleep in the shade of the garden.
More women and children came to the door. Shauzia invited everyone in. “The people who live here like to share,” she said. Jasper greeted them and made everyone feel welcome.
Shauzia gave out food until the cupboards and the fridge were empty. When there was no more food to give away, she handed out toys, clothes, blankets – anything the beggars could use.
With everyone eating, the children playing with toys and with Jasper, the house felt like it was having a party.
“Here’s a pillow for your back,” she said to one woman, handing another a pair of Barbara’s sandals to replace the ripped ones she had come in with. She took people up to the bathroom so they could shower, and found a supply of bars of soap in a cupboard. She handed these out, too.
Shauzia was up in the bathroom, helping two little girls shower and wash their hair, when Barbara and the boys came home. The girls were giggling so much at the soap bubbles in their hair, Shauzia almost missed Barbara’s shriek. Then Barbara shrieked a second time, and Shauzia definitely heard that.
“What is going on here?” Barbara yelled. “Shauzia!”
Shauzia, her hands full of hair she was rinsing, called down to her. “I’m up here.”
Barbara was in the bathroom in seconds.
“Look how clean they are,” Shauzia said, wrapping the little girls in towels.
“Who are all these people? What have you been doing?”
Shauzia smiled up at her. “Sharing. Like you shared with me.”
“Sharing?”
“They came to the gate. They needed things.”
“And you just invited them in?”
Shauzia didn’t understand. “I thought you would be pleased. I thought this is what you like to do. You have so much.”
“Where are their clothes?” Barbara’s face was hard as she looked down at the little girls, dripping water on her bathroom floor.
Shauzia pointed to the sink. She had put the clothes in water to soak before washing them. She was planning to wrap the girls in sheets while the hot Peshawar sun dried their clothes.
Barbara wrung the excess water out of the clothes and handed them to Shauzia.
“Get the girls dressed,” she said, and then she went downstairs. Shauzia heard her telling the other people to get out.
“Mommy! There’s a lady sleeping on my bed!” Jake hollered, and soon the pregnant woman was out of the house, too.
Shauzia helped the little girls get dressed in the wet clothes, and she ushered them out the gate.
“I’m sorry,” she said to them.
“That was fun,” one girl said. “We smell good now.” Shauzia watched them walk down the lane, dragging their junk bags behind them.
“Look at this mess,” Barbara said, picking up the toys and dishes that littered the room.
“I’ll help,” Shauzia said, bending down to pick up a plate.
Barbara put a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve done enough. Please go and sit in the garden.” There was no warmth in Barbara’s voice or face.
Tom came home an hour later. Shauzia stayed outside, but she could still hear their voices, rising and falling.
“No food left in the house! Things missing – toys, clothes. Strangers in our beds!”
In a little while, Tom came out with the boys.
“We’re going to get pizza!” Jake said. “Can Jasper and Shauzia come with us?”
“No, we’ll be right back,” Tom said, and they drove away.
That evening, Shauzia finally got to taste pizza. She liked it very much, but the atmosphere at the table was too tense for her to really enjoy it.
After supper, Shauzia washed the dishes. Barbara and Tom took the boys upstairs to get them settled for the night. Shauzia heard another shriek, this one from one of the boys.
A moment later, Tom called down the stairs. “Shauzia, could you come up here?”
They were all in her room. A swarm of ants was moving on her floor and under her bed.
“Why were you hiding food?”
“So I’d have something to eat when... ” She stopped talking.
“When what?”
“When I didn’t have anything else to eat.”
“I’ll get the broom,” Tom said after an awkward silence. He swept up the rotten, ant-infested food. Barbara washed the floor. Shauzia stood in a corner, watching them and feeling small.
Breakfast was delayed the next morning while Tom went out to buy groceries. It was the middle of the morning by the time they ate.
“We’d like to get you some new clothes,” Barbara said when they were gathered around the table. “We’d like you to have something new to take with you to the refugee camp.”
Shauzia put her glass of milk back on the table. She made her face say nothing.
“It’s not that we haven’t enjoyed having you here,” Barbara said, “but we need to just be together as a family.”
“I went to see a friend of mine this morning who works for one of the aid agencies,” Tom said. “He told me about a special orphans and widows’ section of one of the refugee camps. The woman who runs it is used to taking in new children unexpectedly.”
“You’ll be able to go to school there,” Barbara said cheerfully. “Tom’s friend says they even have a nurse’s training program.”
“There are so many Afghan children like you,” Tom said. “We can’t possibly take care of everyone.”
Shauzia straightened her back and raised her chin. She didn’t need them to take care of her.
“The children love your dog,” Barbara said. “We’d be happy to give him a home here with us. After all, what sort of life will he have in the camp?”
Jasper moved closer to Shauzia and put his paws on her lap.
“Well,” said Barbara, stiffly. “Would you like girl clothes or boy clothes?”
“Boy clothes, please,” Shauzia replied. She then proceeded to eat everything in sight. Food was food. And she was still a long way from the sea.
She kept her arm around Jasper in the van all the way to the refugee camp. She could still smell the laundry soap on her clothes. In her lap was a bag with a new boy’s shalwar kameez, some candies, a toy car with only two wheels that Jake had given her and a small bar of the good-smelling soap.
Barbara and the boys stayed behind at their house while Tom drove Shauzia back along the road that had first brought her to the city. Tom kept his eyes on the traffic and did not speak to her.
I could push him out of the driver’s seat, she thought, picturing Tom bouncing and rolling along the highway. She could take his place behind the wheel and drive the van to the sea. How hard could it be to drive? There were a lot of bad drivers in Peshawar. She’d just be one more.
She didn’t do it, though. She didn’t push Tom out onto the highway, and she was still in the van when it passed through the main gates of the refugee camp and into its maze of mud-walled streets.
“You’ll be fine here,” Tom said after stopping the van in front of the entrance to the Widows’ Compound. “There are lots of other children here, and I’m told that the woman in charge will be happy to have you.”
Shauzia and Jasper got out of the van.
“Would you like me to go in with you?” Tom asked.
Shauzia shook her head. It was right to thank Tom, so she said thank you, and she meant it.
But as she watched his van drive away, she couldn’t help thinking that all he’d done was take her out of one prison and put her into another.
“Shauzia’s back!” Children streamed out of the compound and threw their arms around her and Jasper. Jasper kissed everyone hello, and wagged his tail so fast it was almost a blur.
Shauzia was surrounded by the stinky camp smell again. She could no longer smell the laundry soap on her clothes, and the flowery scent had already left her skin.
She opened the bag and gave away the candies, the car and the shalwar kameez. She kept the little bar of soap.
She’d use it to give Jasper a bath.
When they got to the sea.