“Read this one to me.”
Badriya had unfolded Kabul’s weekly newspaper on the table. She pointed from one column to the next. She stopped me one paragraph into a story about drought conditions in a province to the south.
“Forget it. Who needs to know about that? I want to know what’s happening here. Try this one,” she said, picking out a column on the following page. I sighed and got ready to read about a new bank opening next month when I was interrupted.
A knock on our door.
“There’s a phone call from home. Come down to the lobby to take the call.” It was Hassan, our bodyguard.
“Now?” she huffed. “As if we haven’t had a long enough day!”
Badriya and I had just gotten plates of food sent up from the hotel kitchen. I loved the food there. Maybe it was that I had no part in cooking it or cleaning up after it. Maybe it was the pretty floral pattern of the plates. My mouth watered at the smell of the cumin-infused potato stew. I tore off a piece of bread as she resentfully left the room. I dipped a piece of bread into the stew and brought it to my mouth. The grease felt good on my lips. No reason for us both to eat cold meals, I figured.
Badriya returned a few moments later.
“The qorma is really good,” I announced as she walked in. I looked up and saw that her face was drained of color.
“Are you . . . are you all right?”
She looked at me, her mouth open slightly. Her eyes searched.
“Badriya-jan, what is it? Who was on the phone?”
Her hand covered her mouth. Something wasn’t right.
“Badriya-jan, are you all right?”
Suddenly, something in her shifted. She straightened her shoulders and pulled her lips together tightly.
“It was Abdul Khaliq on the phone. He called about Jahangir.”
My stomach fell at the sound of his name.
“He’s not well,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “He’s not well. Seems he’s been very sick since we left.”
“Since we left? Why didn’t he call sooner?”
“I don’t know, Rahima-jan. I don’t . . . he’s going to have Maroof take us back.”
“I want to go back now!”
“We are. Maroof is bringing the car around.”
I wanted to be there already. I wanted to see my son. The last time he had been ill, he’d spent two days in my arms. Whispering every prayer I could remember, I stroked the moist hairs from his sweaty forehead and watched his cherry lips tremble until the fever released him. I knew he must have cried for me and I hated that I wasn’t there.
We packed our belongings in a matter of minutes. Badriya moved surprisingly quickly. Forty minutes later, Abdul Khaliq’s SUV was on the main road leaving Kabul, whizzing past tanks and western soldiers, their curious eyes shielded by sunglasses. Maroof grunted something to Hassan in the passenger seat.
There was something peculiar about Badriya’s behavior. Jahangir, like all the other children in the compound, had survived fever and illness. I looked over at her. Badriya busied herself folding papers neatly and putting them away in her purse. Papers she couldn’t read.
“What did he say, Badriya? Do they want to take him to a doctor? Has he been eating anything?”
“I don’t know, dear girl. The connection was lousy and you know Abdul Khaliq. He doesn’t explain much.”
The hours dragged on. I tried to fall asleep, hoping I would open my eyes and find myself back at the compound, Jahangir coming to the gate to welcome me. It would be midnight before we got back. I hoped Jameela had made him a cup of the herbal tea she had given him last time. I hoped the other children were not disturbing him.
Just as I was beginning to drift off, it occurred to me that there was something odd about my conversation with Badriya. Something other than Jahangir being ill.
The way she had looked at me. What was that look?
Concern? Annoyance? Fatigue?
Pity.
I don’t know, dear girl.
Never before had she addressed me with endearments.
My mouth went dry. I started to pray.