Translated from the Dari by Parwana Fayyaz
It is mid-October. The trees shimmer with the fruits they have nurtured through the storms of spring and summer. The autumn has come with its blessings, gifting, and granting. The people do their share, collecting the harvest in bags and boxes. Zahra, too, is becoming busier in the garden—her garden—day by day.
As she opens the gate at the back of the garden, its broken iron edges bite at her scarf and skirt. She pulls herself through, carrying her one torn plastic shoe in her hand. Something tied in a knot in a corner of her scarf swings like a pendulum, left to right to left.
What a life, she says to herself. I marry to be freed from the burden of poverty, and my condition only worsens. My husband’s old wife, Roshan Gul—her fortune is bright and mine is dark. They are right, those who say, “Happy is the bride that the sun shines on.” They are right when they say, “When fortune eats, the face cries.”
She twirls the torn shoe angrily above her head, then tosses it as far as her strength allows. She feels her misery fly into the air.
She begins walking. Her feet are bare but her heart is lighter.
“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet,” she mutters. “The day will come when I will buy a ruby ring from the goldsmith in the village, and wear it until Roshan Gul’s eyes burn with envy. She is only arrogant because of that ring, and she only has it because she inherited it from her mother.” Zahra remembers her own mother, who, like all women, wanted such a ring. She never got one, so she never had one to pass on.
As she says these words, she touches the knot in her scarf as if something sacred is bundled there. She smiles a smile of victory, of indestructible happiness.
Just a few more days, a few more almonds, and I’ll have the money for the ring.
She closes her eyes and imagines the weight of it on her finger. She holds her rough hand out, covered in cuts from gardening, and pictures the ruby ring shining red.
It has a warmth. She’s in the heart of the winter sun. It heats her body. Its purity takes her away from the reality she wants not to be part of. She walks onto the balcony of her imagination, a queen. She wears a green velvet dress with innumerable pleats, sewn by ten seamstresses from the village. Her hands are soft and young, and on one finger is the ruby ring, the stone set in gold plate. She worries suddenly that she might have come here wearing her old plastic shoes. She trembles with dread. What if Roshan Gul, who is standing at a distance, envious like the rest of the women, sees her in those shoes? She peeks down at her feet, relieved to see golden slippers like those she had once seen on the richest woman in the village, and at which she had sighed with covetous grief.
She suddenly feels a sharp pain at her waist. Too much standing, she thinks to herself. I should go and rest while the other women stand and wait for me. But the mischievous laughter of her stepson drags her back to bitter reality, and she sees the stone he has thrown at her.
“Crazy woman,” he says. “Are you roaming in your dream world again? Talking to yourself? Ha, how long have you been there? Come back to the real world,” he taunts, laughing.
She sends him away and tries to go back to her daydreaming. But the hellish voice of the boy has ruined her joy. Sami Jan is his father’s son—he kills birds, ties butterflies and bees up with string. And now that Zahra has married his father, Sami Jan has found another cruel new pastime.
Zahra starts walking and, after a while, reaches a half-collapsed building. She pushes open its heavy wooden gate and enters. There’s not a soul in its yard. She walks towards a barn filled with bales of straw. After some searching amid the piles, she is relieved to find the bag of almonds. She opens the knot in the corner of her chador and pours the almonds into the bag. She feels its weight, then returns it to its hiding place. She has been collecting these special soft-shell almonds that only her husband is allowed to eat in the winter.
Almost there, almost there. A few more knots in my scarf and soon I’ll be able to buy that ring.
A sudden feeling of being watched makes her uneasy. Through a vent in the barn she senses a pair of eyes. She stands up straight and searches for their owner, but nothing. A common delusion, she thinks, for people who do secret things.
She walks home. As she enters the house, she runs into Roshan Gul. She turns around to avoid her gaze.
“What were you doing in the garden for so long?” Roshan Gul says. “Were you daydreaming about a new lover? Hurry up and start cooking the dinner. Haji Jan will kill you if it’s late.”
Zahra has learned to ignore Roshan Gul. With an attempt at dignity, she leaves the room.
In the kitchen, which has become her refuge, she pours oil into a pan. A few minutes into heating it, she hears the loud noise of something falling. Her heart sinks. Fear grips her body. The sound, she is sure, is of an almond bag falling to the ground. He has found it; her secret is exposed. She doesn’t dare to raise her head and look at the bag, her dreams slumped on the floor.
No, she is determined not to look. She will just accept the beatings and the punishment that will result.
But no one says anything, so she eventually lifts her head and turns around. There is just the pile of firewood that her stepson had collected earlier. She laughs quietly to herself, thinking, I am so scared, and for nothing. I am my own enemy. I should just relax.
She washes away her worries and busies herself making dinner. She slices onions and throws them into the hot oil. Time passes as she washes, cuts, boils, cooks. And then someone gives her hair a strong pull and pushes her onto the ground. Her husband.
Zahra screams with pain.
“What is wrong with you?” she shouts.
“What is wrong with me? Ha!” she hears her husband say.
With a smirk he calls for his son to bring over the bag of almonds. He drags it next to her and pours the nuts on the ground.
“What do you have to say about these?” He pulls her hair violently. He slaps her across the face. The force of his hand makes her ears ring with a hundred bees feasting on her brain. “I want an answer!” he screams.
Roshan Gul appears, smiling. “Are you deaf? Haji wants an answer.”
“An answer! For what?” She repeatedly tries to get up from the ground, but her husband kicks her hard in her side. She gives in. “I want a ring—a ruby ring from the goldsmith, the same kind of ring that Roshan Gul has.”
Father, wife and son laugh loudly in chorus. Her husband grabs her neck, and tightens his grip until she begins to choke.
“She desires a ring! Ha. And from the same goldsmith in our village! Ha.”
Roshan Gul encourages him to press her neck harder.
“Don’t laugh at me,” Zahra implores, struggling to breathe. “My desire is not wrong.”
When the boy realizes that Zahra is on the way to being choked to death, he interrupts. “Be careful, Aba, or you might kill her. And then you will have to go to prison. There are other ways to punish a thief.” Heir to this violence, he looks at his father and, without saying a word, they come to an agreement. Zahra’s husband loosens his grip. Coughing, she pulls herself towards the door in the hope of getting away. But there is no hope. Roshan Gul and Sami Jan grab her and pass her into her husband’s clutches. He pulls her hand towards the burning oil.
“What point will there be in your desires now?” he says.