It wasn’t easy to stay focused on the work this time. Halfway into a parliamentarian’s speech, I would realize I had no idea what he was talking about. My mind had drifted, remembering the last time I’d bathed my son. Or fed him halva, his favorite food.
Badriya noticed but her exasperation was tempered by sympathy. Most of the time. She was hardly paying attention herself. She spent most of the session pretending to look at papers in front of her when I could see she was watching the people in the room. For a woman who had spent the greater part of her life confined by the walls of her husband’s house, every session was a spectacle.
She was even more lax with me than before, which didn’t mean much except that I spent more time with Hamida and Sufia and less time with her or our security guard and driver. The ladies were kind to me. When Badriya had returned to Kabul without me, they’d asked about me several times. She’d made vague excuses until she finally told them about Jahangir.
Sufia’s arms around me were more comforting than I could have imagined. Hamida shook her head and told me of the three-year-old son she’d lost to some infection. She and her husband hadn’t had the money at the time to pay for medications.
I forced a smile and nodded, appreciative of their warmth but not wanting to talk about what had happened. There was too much there and I still felt a fresh guilt for leaving my dead son behind.
The home Abdul Khaliq was fixing had not yet been finished, so we continued to stay at the hotel. I floated through my daily routine in a perpetual state of misery, wondering from time to time why I bothered to do any of it at all. I think I was driven by fear of my husband. And because I didn’t know what else to do.
Badriya was dropping hints here and there about our husband’s new prospect. As much as she didn’t want to talk to me, there was no one else around and there were things that she could not bottle up.
“I’m not supposed to say anything. I only know because, of course, he thought it was right to share this information with me since I’m the first wife,” she said with one hand over her chest as she spoke of her own importance. “The girl’s name is Khatol. She’s very beautiful, they say. And Abdul Khaliq has known her brother for a long time. Her brother is a well-respected man. He fought alongside Abdul Khaliq but now he owes a lot of money to our husband. He showed him and his family much kindness. Even sent them food when he heard they didn’t even have bread.”
“But what will happen to . . . to the rest of us?” I didn’t want Badriya to know that I’d heard her conversation with Bibi Gulalai.
“The rest of us? Nothing! Why should anything happen to the rest of us?” she said, and busied herself cleaning a grease spot from her dress. “Aren’t you going to that silly class with your friends?”
She wouldn’t say anything more than that, nothing about my husband’s plans to keep in line with the hadith. It wasn’t in her interests to alert me.
I didn’t understand why my husband suddenly found it so important that he follow the hadith. He wasn’t a man who let rules dictate his decisions. If he wanted to have five wives, or twenty-five for that matter, he would.
Thick, industrial smoke from a million exhaust pipes blackened Kabul’s air. Badriya coughed violently. I would ask, only because she would bring it up later if I didn’t, if she wanted to join the ladies and me at the resource center. Each time she would wave me off.
“I’m not wasting my time with those busybodies.”
Maroof and our bodyguard stayed with her because she was the more important wife and because she always claimed to be considering going to visit her cousin across town. As far as I could tell, she never actually left our room. She knew better. She knew word would get back to our husband. Badriya’s survival instincts were strong.
I spent my evenings in the training center under Ms. Franklin’s tutelage. I was getting better at navigating my way through the computer programs. For practice, I would type letters to my sisters Shahla, Rohila, and Sitara—letters that were never sent. The woman from the shelter, Fakhria, came from time to time and brought with her stories of girls who had fled from home, hungry for a new chance. Their shelter functioned on money raised in the United States and it was becoming obvious that she was trying to garner Hamida and Sufia’s sympathy, hoping to secure some funding from the parliament. I wanted to tell her that she was wasting her breath. Even I, the lowly assistant to a parliamentarian, could have told her there was no chance of getting the jirga to allocate money to a shelter for women who had run away from their husbands. In fact, I’d heard several people say the shelters were nothing more than brothels. I didn’t think it was true, but others did.
Four weeks remained until the parliament’s winter break. Four weeks left for me to attend class at the training center, four weeks of Ms. Franklin patting my shoulder in praise, four weeks left of Hamida and Sufia, instead of cooking and cleaning.
I wondered how Khala Shaima was doing. She looked worse each time I saw her. Still, she had outlived both Parwin and Jahangir. Their deaths had taught me that anything was possible, and that death was closer than I wanted to believe.
“I’m an old woman,” Khala Shaima had told me before I left for Kabul. “I’ve cheated the angel Azrael more than once but he’ll come and claim my last breath soon enough.”
“Khala-jan, don’t say such a thing,” I said, protesting.
“Bah. I’ve wanted to be around only so I can look after you girls, to tell you the truth. Nothing else matters much. But I can’t slip through his fingers forever. It’s like the story of that man—did I tell you that one?”
“No, Khala-jan. You’ve only told us about Bibi Shekiba.”
“Ah, and I hope you’ve learned something from her story. You are her legacy, after all. Remember, your great-great-grandmother was Bibi Shekiba, guard to the king’s harem.
“Dokhtar-em, my dear, I’m not well. You are not a naïve girl anymore. It will give my heart peace if you can tell me that every story I’ve told, every mattal I’ve shared, that you’ve gotten some wisdom and courage from it. Remember where you come from. Bibi Shekiba is not a fairy tale. She is your great-great-grandmother. Her blood courses through your veins and gives strength to your spirit. Always walk with your head high. You are the descendant of a somebody, not a nobody.” She sighed heavily, which turned into a long, exasperated cough. She took a minute to catch her breath before she continued.
“I’ve tried to tell Rohila and Sitara the same. But Rohila is to be married soon and I think she’ll be better off. The family seems reasonable. Sitara will be alone with your parents, left to fend for herself. I can’t do much more for her. I wish I could tell you to watch out for her but you could do more for her if a mountain stood between you. These walls hold you tight. Focus on yourself. Everything you’ve endured in life should have taught you something, made you hungry for something. Remember, Allah has said, ‘Start moving, so I may start blessing.’ ”
I tried to find the words to reassure Khala Shaima, to tell her that I understood what she was telling me and that I was proud to know I was a descendant of Bibi Shekiba, the woman who had guarded the king’s harem, who had walked through the royal palace. I may have lived my entire life in a small village but I was connected to Afghanistan’s aristocracy.
But I’d never been able to find the right words. As I sat there, I had to admit I could see my aunt fading. She didn’t look like the person I remembered. She had spent her adult life trying to guide us, trying to look out for my sisters and me.
And she was right. As much as I might have wanted to do for my sisters, Abdul Khaliq’s walls were high and his leash short. I could only pray for them.
Badriya was lying on the bed. She’d spent the day griping about how long it was taking for Abdul Khaliq’s men to finish the home he’d bought in Kabul. She was tired of staying in a hotel and having the man in the lobby watch our comings and goings with interest. I wanted to go for a walk, tired of listening to her complaints.
I adjusted my head scarf and opened the door. Badriya looked up, shook her head and turned around to face the wall. I could tell she didn’t want me to leave since it would leave her without an audience but I was starting to feel the walls close in. I walked out of our room.
To my right was a staircase leading to the lobby. I could hear Maroof and Hassan on my left, about forty feet down the hall, talking. I could make out Maroof’s back, sitting on the chair. As much as I wanted to head directly down to the street level, I knew there would be hell to pay if I were to leave unchaperoned and unannounced.
I could make out their voices as I neared.
“You told him that?”
“I did. What the hell was I supposed to tell him?” Maroof asked.
“God help her. What did he say?”
“You’ve heard how he gets. He said a lot of things. I don’t know what he’s going to do to her but I had no choice. And it’s your fault anyway, Maroof. You’re the one who told him she was spending a lot of time with those two hags. You didn’t stop to think that he would get pissed we weren’t guarding her? Maybe you don’t think it’s your job since you’re the driver, but I’m their guard. Did you miss that?”
“What was I supposed to tell him? He called when she wasn’t around. He wanted to speak to Badriya too. If I hadn’t said she wasn’t here, she would have told him. He would have had my neck for sure if he thought I was keeping something from him.”
“Yeah, yeah. Well, I hope he got that she went without our knowing about it. I don’t want to get back to the house and find out it’s us he’s mad at.”
“Just stick to what we said. She snuck out without telling us and went to hang out with those godforsaken women. He’ll believe it. You know he doesn’t think much of her anyway. You’ve heard about his plans. He’s lost interest. She’s not as exciting to him as she was in the beginning. Remember that day he saw her in the market?”
Maroof let out a guffaw.
“He looked like he might pick her up right there. Send a note and a few afghanis to her parents!”
“Would’ve been a lot easier if he’d done it that way. What a pain her family was. Putting up a show like they come from royalty or something.”
“But I remember your face when he made us stop so he could watch her . . . you thought she was a real boy then, you idiot!”
“You did too!” Maroof said in self-defense. “She looked like a boy. How the hell should I have known there was something more interesting under those clothes?”
“You probably liked her better the other way!” Hassan chuckled. “What do you think of her new haircut, eh? Got your appetite going?”
I backed up slowly and as quietly as I could, my mind racing.
They had sold me out to my husband. I trembled at the way they talked about me.
My thoughts tumbled and turned until I finally realized what it was that I had just overheard.
I wasn’t safe.
I turned the doorknob, watching the hallway to see if the men had noticed my presence. They hadn’t. I closed the door behind me and went straight to the washroom. I couldn’t look at Badriya right now, knowing she would be of no help to me. It looked like she was asleep anyway.
My husband was a man of violence and I knew that I’d barely seen a tenth of what he was capable of. He was a man of war, of guns, of power. He demanded respect and obedience, and the guards had just told him that I was out of control. He must have been wild with rage.
I couldn’t help but remember he was looking to add a wife and that five was one more than he wanted. I knew what that meant for me.
I thought of the woman in the shelter. She’d disobeyed and her husband had sliced off her ear. I had no doubt Abdul Khaliq could be just as vicious. I leaned against the wall, my heart pounding in fear. I had to think fast.
We were due to return home in three days.