I used all my strength to stay focused, to keep my composure. I couldn’t let anyone know that I had overheard what I had. Beyond that, I didn’t know what to do or who to turn to. Frankly, I didn’t think I could turn to anyone.
I sat beside Badriya in the following day’s session, ignoring the debate on funding for a roads project when everyone knew the decision was really in the president’s hands. And that he’d already made up his mind.
Tonight, Ms. Franklin was going to let us work more on the Internet. It was as important as learning to read and write, she said. The Internet was our gateway to the world.
I could have used a gateway.
While the debate of no consequence went on around me, a more important debate raged in my head. Should I go with Hamida and Sufia to the training center or should I stay with Badriya and the guards?
My hands were clammy and my shoulders stiff. I dreaded the session ending, knowing I would have to make a decision.
What does it matter? I thought. He already thinks I’ve snuck away from the guards. How could it get any worse?
But I was afraid. Maybe he would believe me, take my word that the guards had let me go. That Badriya had said it was all right. That I did nothing inappropriate or shameful at the resource center.
Impossible.
We were outside. I was looking at the three western soldiers on the opposite side of the street. They were leaning against a wall, talking with a crowd of young boys. Jahangir would have been one of them, I thought, if I’d been allowed to bring him with me. I wondered what the soldiers would do if I ran to them. They were here to help us, weren’t they?
We were just past the security check when Hamida called out to me. My heart raced. What would Khala Shaima tell me to do?
“Aren’t you going to come with us? Ms. Franklin’s expecting you!”
I looked at Badriya. She raised her eyebrows, wondering why I thought she would care where I went. She walked toward the car, which was parked a few meters away. I saw Maroof mumble something to Hassan, who nodded and mumbled something back.
Figuring I was doomed anyway, I took a leap and decided to go with Hamida. I didn’t know what I expected to come of my decision.
“I’m going to . . . I’m going to go with them. I’ll have her driver drop me off before they go to her apartment. Okay?”
Badriya shrugged her shoulders without bothering to turn around. I knew she didn’t want to give a formal answer, an answer she might have to defend to our husband. She got in the car and they drove off, melting into Kabul’s congested streets. I was relieved and petrified.
While we walked, Hamida talked and I thought of my husband. Twice, I thought I might vomit on the street. Sufia joined us two blocks from the parliament building. The guards walked a few feet behind us while the drivers stayed with the cars. With the traffic, it would have taken longer to drive to the resource center.
“Rahima-jan, what’s going on? You’re awfully quiet today. Everything all right?” Sufia asked.
I never meant to share it. My story just flowed out. Like the water that once upon a time bubbled over stones in the Kabul River, I told them about my husband, Bibi Gulalai, Jahangir.
We walked slowly, not wanting to draw attention from the security guards who trailed us. This wasn’t a story to share with them.
I answered their next questions before they could ask them. I told them about my parents and how they’d given us sisters away, then cloaked themselves in clouds of opium. I told them how Parwin escaped her hell in a flash of flames and that with Rohila about to become a wife, Sitara would be left cowering in the corner of our home, afraid of what fate my father would choose for her. And Khala Shaima, the only family I’d kept over the years, her twisted spine was squeezing the life from her bit by bit.
But my son. That was the worst of it. I said it and then I left it alone. The sore was too raw to touch. Worse than losing the unborn.
While I tried to control the shaking of my voice, I told them about the conversation I’d overheard. About the wife my husband wanted to take without violating the laws he suddenly wanted to follow. I didn’t have to tell them what I was afraid he would do to me. They knew.
They listened, unsurprised. I was only confirming what they’d already suspected, that I was one of those stories. My story was not unheard of.
I was broken and battered and didn’t care anymore how much I told them or what they thought or even what Abdul Khaliq would do if he found out. I had had enough. I kept thinking of Khala Shaima’s face, her soured expression, her disappointment in what had become of her nieces. And then there was Bibi Shekiba, the man-woman whose story had woven its way through my own.
“Dear God, what a mess you’re in, Rahima-jan! I don’t even know what I can say . . . ,” Hamida said. We stood outside the door of the resource center. Ms. Franklin waved us in with a smile.
“There must be something . . . there has to be some way . . . ,” Hamida said unconvincingly.
“Let’s not stand out here too long,” Sufia whispered gravely. “We can chat about this inside. Come on, ladies.”
I let Sufia guide me with a hand on my back, thinking of something Khala Shaima had said when I shared the story of the girl from the shelter with her, how she’d escaped her husband only to be found again and beaten, punished for running away.
“Poor girl. She ran out from under a leaking roof and sat in the rain.”