Abdul Khaliq and Badriya traveled to Kabul frequently. He hated it. She claimed to enjoy it but we could see that she didn’t. Abdul Khaliq was always tense before they left and even worse by the time they returned.
Badriya had won the election, mostly thanks to the women’s votes, according to local news. To me and my husband’s two other wives, it seemed unreal that something as important sounding as the parliament would let women vote. Khala Shaima had come by again. I asked her about my family and Bibi Shekiba. She asked me about Badriya and Abdul Khaliq. By this time, my naïveté had been washed away. I knew just what kind of man I was married to and I knew he had done terrible things to people. Jahangir, my son, was starting to look like his father, which frightened me. Sometimes I worried I might grow to dislike him if he did. I cringed when he became angry or frustrated, his shrieks taking on a familiar hostility. But his moods were nothing in comparison to his father’s and he was otherwise very loving and affectionate, pulling my face to his and patting my head as if I were the child and he the parent.
Khala Shaima’s breathing was more labored today. It could have been the dust in the air, her waning health or my own paranoia. She was the only family that I had left and I often worried about what I would do without her visits. I prayed for her health selfishly.
“He’s telling her exactly how to vote. She’s got no choice but to follow his orders.”
I nodded. “You should see how exhausted she looks every time they return from Kabul. She looks completely drained.”
“But there must be some way, some way for her to vote on her own. He doesn’t go into the parliament, you know. Once she’s in a session, he’s not there to sway her.”
“I’m sure he’s got ways of knowing or watching every little thing that happens behind those doors.” I pried Jahangir’s small hand open and took away the stone he had found. He had watched his older half brothers playing and now wanted to imitate them. His round eyes lit up when he saw them, his mouth broke into a wide grin and he would pull my face and point for me to look at what he was seeing.
“Yes, bachem, I see them. You’re going to grow up to be just as big and strong. Just wait.” Sometimes I tried to imagine what he would look like in ten years but my mind couldn’t envision him as anything but the sweet toddler he was. When I tried to picture myself in ten years it was frightening. My hands were already rough and knobby. My back ached at night, partly from carrying Jahangir for nine months and partly from being bent over to wash clothes and scrub floors most days. This home, this life, had aged me. Maybe that was what Parwin had seen, life in ten years. Maybe it was a sight too ugly to bear.
Everyone needs an escape.
“Maybe you can go to Kabul with her,” Khala Shaima suggested. She started to cough, a rough cough that rattled her whole body. I put my hand over hers and pushed a glass of water closer to her. “Thank you, dokhtar-jan. Bah! The dust is irritating me more than usual today.”
I hoped that was all it was.
“Anyway, what was I saying? Yes, why don’t you see if you can go to Kabul with her?”
“What am I going to do in Kabul, Khala-jan?”
“Who knows,” she said vaguely. “But in Kabul you’ll see different things. It’s an education of sorts. See how people live there, see the buildings and see what the parliament is doing. It’s an opportunity for you.”
The idea was tempting. I wouldn’t have minded seeing what the big city of Kabul looked like. I’d only heard about it through the story of Bibi Shekiba, which I hoped Khala Shaima would continue today. It was as if she read my mind.
“I know you enjoy hearing about your bibi Shekiba. She lived in Kabul, you know. It’s a different life there.”
“But you’ve never seen it, have you?”
“Look at me, Rahima! I’m thankful my ragged bones bring me this far. When I was younger, though . . .” Her voice softened. “I did dream of going to Kabul. I wished a carriage would come down the road, pick me up and take me to see the presidential palace and the shops and the streets and the airport. I wanted to see all the places I had read about.”
That was her escape, I realized. Where her body couldn’t take her, her mind went.
“Maybe you could go now?” I suggested. The yearning in her voice made me wish she could go.
“My time has passed. But think about it. Badriya is going back and forth between here and the city. It shouldn’t be a big deal for her to take you along. Offer to help her.”
“Help? The only help she needs of me is right here, washing, scrubbing, ironing, rubbing her back even . . .” The list went on and on.
“I know Badriya’s type. I doubt she can read. I wonder how she’s managing that with her role in the parliament. Let her know you can read and write. That would be a much better way for you to be useful to her.”
That was true. Badriya had never learned how to read. I’d once seen Hashmat reading her a letter from her family. She listened eagerly as he deciphered the scribble. She wasn’t alone. Most women in our village didn’t know how to read. My sisters and I had only learned thanks to Khala Shaima’s insistence. Rohila and Sitara may not have been getting the same opportunity, I thought, now that Madar-jan had retreated into herself and Khala Shaima’s health was not what it used to be.
“She can’t read. Neither can Shahnaz. Jameela can read a little bit, I think.”
“Well, there you go,” she said. She leaned forward and exhaled slowly, her lips pursed. “Talk to her, nicely. I think it would be good for you to see the places your bibi Shekiba saw.”
The idea excited me even more once she brought up Bibi Shekiba. I had already experienced her double life, living as a boy. I wanted to see the places she’d seen. But I wanted more than she had too. I didn’t want to be a pawn the way she had been, passed from one set of hands to another. I wanted to be bolder. I wanted to make my naseeb, not have it handed to me. But from what my mother had always said, I didn’t know if that was possible.
“Khala Shaima, do you think you can change your naseeb?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Tell me this, how do you know what your naseeb is?”
I didn’t have an answer for her. “I don’t know. Madar-jan said it was my naseeb to be married to Abdul Khaliq. And for Shahla to be married to Abdul Sharif and Parwin to be married to Abdul Haidar.”
“And what about this morning? What did you eat for breakfast?”
“I ate a piece of bread with tea.”
“Did someone bring you the bread?”
“No.” I nearly laughed at the thought of someone bringing something to me. “Of course not! I got it myself.”
“So maybe this morning it seemed it was your naseeb that you shouldn’t have any breakfast at all. And then what happened?”
“I changed it?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it was your naseeb all along that you should have the bread and tea. Maybe your naseeb is there but waiting for you to make it happen.”
“But wouldn’t people say that is blasphemous? To change the naseeb that Allah has for us?”
“Rahima, you know how deeply I love Allah. You know I bow before God five times a day with all my heart. But you tell me which of those people who say such a thing have spoken with Allah to know what the true naseeb is.”
That night I lay awake thinking of what Khala Shaima had said. Jahangir breathed softly, tucked in next to me, his small hand on my neck.
Was it Parwin’s naseeb to die that way, her skin a mess of melted flesh? Or had she missed an opportunity to change things? To realize her actual naseeb? Was it Madar-jan’s naseeb to lie dazed with opium while Rohila and Sitara fended for themselves? Dodged my father’s angry rages on their own?
It baffled me. I sighed and pulled the blanket over my son’s shoulders. I traced his pink lips with my finger. His face twitched in his sleep and the corners of his mouth turned up in a dreamy grin. I smiled.
I didn’t know what my naseeb was, much less that of my son. But I decided that night I would do whatever I could to make it the best naseeb possible. For both of us. I was not going to miss any opportunities.
From what Khala Shaima had told me about Bibi Shekiba, she looked for chances to make her own naseeb. I, her great-great-granddaughter, could do the same.