“I HAD TO SEE YOU,” BASIR WHISPERED. HE WAS AT THE OPENING of her cell and, though there were no bars or doors between them, he looked hesitant to cross the invisible threshold.
“How did you get here?” Zeba asked. She inched closer to him, the clanging of her chains causing her to stop short. She hadn’t seen her son in months. Being apart from her children had brought her so much pain, despite the lengths she’d gone to to numb herself. She knew how wretched she must look, her hair unkempt and unwashed, her clothes filthy. She could not have imagined a more humiliating reunion.
“I found my way,” Basir said with a shrug of his shoulders.
“But it’s so late and so far from home!” Zeba lamented, thinking of what he must have done to travel from his aunt’s house to the shrine. “Did someone drive you here? The buses don’t come near this place . . .”
“I’m here, Madar. Just leave it.”
There was an edge to his voice that made Zeba inclined to do just that.
“I’m sorry you have to see me like this.”
“Me too,” Basir agreed quietly. He hunched his back and stepped into her cell as moonlight lit on his face. Zeba could even see the whispers of hair on his upper lip. She leaned forward, forgetting the condition she was in.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she cried softly. “You and your sisters. Are they all right? Has something happened to them? Is that why you’re here?”
“Nothing’s happened to them. They’re fine.”
“Are you sure? You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”
Basir’s face drew tight. Zeba winced to see him look at her in that way.
“What a thing to say, Madar.”
“I’m sorry.” Zeba shifted her legs. In eleven days, this was the most uncomfortable she’d been and it had nothing to do with the pebbly earth or the heat. Her son looked tired, but she had nothing to offer him. “My son, what a blessing to lay eyes on you.”
Basir looked away sharply.
When he looked up, his teary eyes glistened in the moonlight.
“We’ve missed you so much, Madar,” he said, his voice cracking. Basir fell into his mother’s arms. Zeba cried out, her hand covering her mouth to muffle the sound. She didn’t want the mullah coming out to find Basir with her, and her neighbors had already been restless tonight.
Basir’s arms were wrapped around his mother’s trunk, his head was buried in her stomach. Zeba touched his face with one hand and pressed her cheek so tightly against his back that she could feel the bones of his spine.
Zeba pulled his face up toward her and wiped his tears.
“This has been so hard on you, I know,” she murmured. She didn’t know where to begin. Did he hate her? Had he forgiven her? She couldn’t be sure, even as he clung to her in the night.
Basir pulled himself upright, sniffled, and cleared his throat. He looked away for a second to regroup then spoke in a very matter-of-fact tone. He’d shifted, Zeba observed.
“I’ve brought some food,” he said as he reached for a small plastic bag just outside her cell. “There’s some rosewater cake, two tomatoes, and a tin of rice.”
“You brought food?”
Basir shrugged his shoulders awkwardly.
“I heard what they do here. I would have brought other food, but I couldn’t find much that I could pack . . .” he explained.
“No, no, no,” Zeba said, shaking her head. “Bachem, I’m so grateful to you. Really. I just can’t believe you came all this way and thought to bring food with you. You’re just . . . you’re just . . . I don’t know what to tell you.”
Basir’s lips tightened.
“I heard you weren’t allowed any food here, but I didn’t know if you wanted something.” He placed the bag in front of her and watched as she took out one tomato, turned it over in her palm, and smelled its earthy ripeness. She could almost taste its juice, feel it running down her chin without having taken a bite. Zeba put it back in the bag and took out the round tin. She twisted the top off the stainless-steel container and breathed in the scent of rice browned with caramelized sugar and generously seasoned with coriander, cinnamon, and cloves. The rice was cold but Zeba imagined it warm as she sank her fingers into the tin and spooned it into her mouth.
No, she decided, she did not believe in the powers of the shrine. Not when her own son had carried food all this way.
The rice was delicious. Tamina had always been gifted in the kitchen.
“Your ama’s rice,” Zeba said, her head leaning back, “has always been better than anyone else’s but this . . . this is the best it’s ever tasted.”
“Too bad I can’t pass along the compliments.”
Zeba swallowed hard.
“How are things with your ama? Is she treating you well?”
“She’s been nothing but kind to us.”
Zeba wondered if Basir was lying. Surely the family was convinced that Zeba had killed Kamal. Could they possibly be so generous hearted to see that the children had no part in this mess?
“Has she . . . has she said anything about me?”
Basir shook his head.
“No, she doesn’t talk about you at all.”
Zeba was surprised.
“Where do you sleep? They only have three rooms. Has she made space for you?”
“She keeps Rima in her room with her. Shabnam and Kareema sleep in a room with her girls—most of the time. Sometimes they want to stay close to me, but Ama Tamina doesn’t like that. I sleep in the living room alone.”
“And she feeds you?”
“We eat with them. No more, no less than the others.”
Thank God, Zeba thought, breathing a sigh of relief.
“I’ve been waiting for her to tell us to leave,” Basir said quietly. “I don’t know why she hasn’t.”
Zeba touched her son’s forearm. It occurred to Zeba that she might have just crossed the line into complete madness, and the boy in front of her might be an invention of her mind. Somehow that seemed more likely than Basir leaving his aunt’s generous arms to find his murderess mother in a shrine for the insane.
Basir pulled his arm away.
“You should eat more, Madar. You look terrible.”
Zeba attempted a light laugh.
“Appetite is a funny thing,” she said casually. “It comes and goes in this place. Are you hungry? You must be. You’ve traveled so far.”
Zeba proffered the tin, but Basir held up a hand. It was a polite gesture, too polite for an exchange between a mother and her son. It broke Zeba’s heart to see it, but she bit her tongue and put the lid back on the round tin.
“Are you going to tell me what happened to my father?” Basir said, his voice taut and dry.
In the months Zeba had been imprisoned, she had asked herself that question a thousand times and had come up with a thousand different answers. She would tell her children everything. She would tell them nothing. She would tell only Basir that his father had been a monster. She would tell only the girls. She would make up an explanation for what had happened that day. She would tell them that Kamal had tried to kill her or that he had slipped and fallen on the ax. This was all a horrible mistake, an accident, and that their father had been a good and decent man.
“Well?”
Zeba looked at the cloudless night sky. Where could she turn for answers?
“Bachem, our family has been torn apart. Never have I wanted to do anything that would hurt you or your sisters.”
If Basir was breathing, Zeba could not see it. He sat perfectly still, his gaze focused on the dark space between his crossed legs.
“That day . . . that day was terrible for all of us. I don’t know why we’ve been struck like this, but we all know that fate is decided by God.”
“Are you going to answer my question or are you going to keep talking shit?”
“Basir!” Zeba shot back. He had never cursed in her presence before.
“I came here to ask you what happened. Are you going to tell me or not? Because if you’re not, then I’ll just have to guess for myself.”
“Basir. Janem, there are some things that are between adults and I don’t want to—”
“This wasn’t just between adults, Madar.”
Zeba’s back straightened sharply.
“What do you mean?”
“This wasn’t between adults. I saw him. I saw what . . . what . . . what had happened to him. He wasn’t some stranger. I washed the blood off his body and wrapped him in a white sheet. I buried my father, and now I listen to my sisters cry at night. Whatever happened, it happened to all of us, so please don’t tell me that this is between adults.”
He was right. He deserved to know, but Zeba had wrestled with what might happen to him if he heard the truth. Would he try to find out who the girl was? Would he think his mother was a liar and despise her even more? Would he be so ashamed of his father that he could never recover? Or would he slip and tell someone else about the shame that had been perpetrated in their own home? He had the anger of a man but not the understanding or judgment of one.
How much easier this would be if she were as starkly mad as her neighbors!
Her heart pounded. In a moment, she would either tell Basir everything or nothing. And in a moment he would either hate her or cry for her.
Had the mountain grown since she’d last looked at it? It seemed to stand taller in the backdrop, as if it were inching its way toward the moon.
The song returned.
Tonight, you will listen to the sorrows of my soul. Though tomorrow, you will forget all that has been told.
Zeba heard the faint roll of a tabla drum in the night, its unblinking eye gawking at her. The funereal whine of the harmonium followed, and a puff of stale air tickled Zeba’s face.
Then came the crash of the daira and a chorus of applause.
If she lost her son, her children, she would have nothing. Had she loved them enough to survive this? Her son sat poised, looking at her as if she were a scorpion about to strike. The babies she’d mourned told her they’d had enough of her tears. Her daughters’ hurt eyes bored into her, telling her that she’d built that house of sin, that she was just as vile as Kamal.
“Are you going to answer me?” Basir asked.
He deserved better. He was a good son.
Zeba filled her lungs with the hot, night air and made a decision she was certain she would regret.