A House Without Windows (29 page)

DURING THE DAY, ZEBA WOULD WATCH THE THICK CLOUDS DRIFT
across the sky, like a flock being coaxed home by a shepherd with a
tula,
a wooden flute. For the first two nights, Zeba did not sleep. She would watch for the scorpion that walked past her cave, pausing to eye her with his tail curved in the air, as graceful as calligraphy. It distracted her from the meals of bread (which was often stale), black pepper, and water. The black pepper made her sneeze, five or six gunfire convulsions of her body in the span of seconds. They were like small exorcisms, each of them. The water was pumped from a well that, Zeba assumed, must have plunged deep into the ground because it was sweet with minerals, percolated through layers of rich earth. The water brought to mind her cousin.

He was her father's nephew, a good spread of years between them. Zeba remembered carrying him on her hip as a girl. As a young man, he traveled to the city and worked for a month digging wells. He died, just a foot from water, when the earth's gases overcame him. Zeba had cried for the boy, wondering how it must have felt to reach the core of the earth and tap into its life-giving fluid, only to realize he would never live to taste it.

At his funeral, women consoled his wailing mother with lofty promises.

“He died bringing water to people. There is
sawaab
in the work he was doing, and he will be rewarded in
janaat
.”

It was the kind thing to say, much better than saying he died for no good reason.

In the afternoons, Zeba listened to the mullah pray over each person. He sat at their cells and recited verses in a soft and gentle voice. He asked each man to speak of his troubles, to describe the visions or voices, to seek peace in the scripture. He brought cool water his son had drawn from the well to wash down their meals of dry bread and gritty black pepper.

I suppose the mullah, too, seeks
sawaab
for his work in this world,
Zeba thought
.

The first night had not been as difficult as it should have been. The cell was the length of two people but the roof was low, and the mullah had to crouch to pass through it. Zeba spent her time curled on a small rug Habibullah had brought her.

One man called out with a howl that reminded Zeba of a mullah's
azaan
ringing out from a minaret. As if it truly were a call to prayer, the others followed. Moans, sobs, and laughter mingled anonymously in the moonlit courtyard. Zeba couldn't guess at their numbers and presumed no other women were present. Hers was the last cell in the row, and the nearest patient was more than three empty cells away, an arrangement she preferred.

She was almost relieved to be out of Chil Mahtab, having grown wary that her
jadu
was a watered-down version of her mother's. Those women needed so much more than Zeba could give.

Her gnawing hunger pains reminded Zeba of Ramadan, the holy month she'd always welcomed with open arms. It was a chance for her to demonstrate her strength, to fast from sunrise to sunset without letting so much as a single drop of water cross her lips. She took pride in knowing she'd never once faltered, even as a teenager. The moments she spent in this cell were a different kind of Ramadan, but brought the same burning hollow in her stomach. She craved the feeling of real thirst and hunger, for it kept her mind from wandering into the dangerous realm of self-pity. Fasting felt holy and necessary and just.
She pressed her forehead to the cold earth and prayed her time at the shrine would sanctify her—if that were even possible.

Every day she'd tolerated his drink and heavy hand had been an admission that she'd been powerless.

That girl could have been her daughter. The truth was, when Zeba had walked into the courtyard, she'd seen her Little Girl. Her jade head scarf, her flailing legs, her balled-up fists—Zeba had believed them all to be parts of her own daughter. She was horrified, thinking she was seeing her Little Girl's honor ravaged by a man she'd fed, excused, and obeyed. She'd seen a scarlet trickle of shame run down the small, pale leg.

By the time Zeba had seen her face, it was too late. There was no going back. She and Kamal were finished the moment her fingers had wrapped around the wooden handle. Kamal had seen his wife anew in that moment, staring at the curl of her lips under the weight of the raised hatchet and realizing, for the first time, that Zeba had teeth, too.

The sound of urgent whispers shook Zeba from her thoughts.

“He's here! I saw him! Get away from me!”

She shook her head to think of her haunted neighbors.

“Please don't . . . please don't take me away. I'm waiting here for Judgment Day. I can't go with you!”

While most of the nights were still and peaceful, there were occasional outbursts. The yelling, on top of the persistent gnawing of her stomach, made the drums in her head pound harder and harder.

“Please, Satan! Not me! Don't take me to hell!”

“Shut up shut up shut up!” roared another patient, whose illness was of a different kind. Some patients were paranoid and carried on conversations with people that no one else could hear or see. Others were so depressed that they cried and slept most of the day. Zeba believed there were six men in total at the shrine with her, though she'd never spoken to them.

“If he comes for you, do us all a favor and go with him,” a man hollered. Wild laughter echoed in the dark.

She groaned and rolled onto her side, the carpet rough against her cheek. Every joint and every muscle felt stiff. She rubbed the long muscles of her neck. She'd lost enough weight in these eleven days that she could feel the ropy muscles and ligaments beneath her skin. Even her belly, which had softened with each pregnancy, had shrunken in on itself like a raisin. The satiny streaks she'd grown with each baby disappeared into the folds.

The mullah prayed over her just as he did the others. He'd warned her, as he'd fastened the chain to her ankle, to stay in her cell. The rest of the patients were men and she should not mingle with them.

“Judgment Day is coming. Allah help me, I'm ready for it. Send the winds, the hail, and the fires. I'm waiting for it! Just keep that devil away from me!”

“
Imshab ba qisa-e dil-e-man goosh mekonee . . .
” Zeba sang softly, hoping to drown out the moaning of her neighbor and the angry shouts for him to keep quiet. “
Farda, man-ra chu qisa feramoosh mekonee . . .
”

Tonight, you will listen to the sorrows of my soul,
the lyrics went.
Though tomorrow, you will forget all that has been told.

The slow melody sounded even more sorrowful against the backdrop of rattling chains and low sobbing.

Forty days, the mullah had declared. Forty days until her treatment was complete and she could be returned to the prison for whatever awaited her there. That she'd managed to survive eleven days gave her little hope for the remaining twenty-nine.

The mullah had peered into her cell earlier in the day, hands clasped together behind his back as he stared at her as if she were a new species of animal in his zoo.

“Dear girl, so troubled. Where does your mind take you?” he'd asked.

“Where can my mind take me?” she'd replied. “I am heavier than that mountain over your shoulder. My mind cannot move me.”

He'd considered her answer for a moment before asking another question.

“Zeba, are you miserable here? I've brought you food. I know the bread is not much to go on and you should keep up your strength. Here, take this
bulanee
. It is still warm.”

Zeba had chuckled, amused by the mullah's sudden desire to make her comfortable. No, she decided, she would not take anything from this man—not when he'd been the one to lock the shackles on her legs.

“I will leave it here for you,” he'd said quietly so the others would not hear. He'd passed the stuffed flatbread into her cell inside a page of newspaper.

“Take it out of here!” Zeba had hissed, though the smell of the spiced potatoes and fried dough made her salivate.

“Why are you being so stubborn?” he'd asked, exasperated. “I know it is not the most comfortable place, but I'm doing this all for your own good. If you could see that, you'd be grateful.”

“I am grateful,” she said, “that someone had the great wisdom to divide time into days and days into hours and hours into minutes because without knowing that the seconds were passing I would likely die waiting for these forty days to pass.”

He'd left her after a moment of silence, whether it was because she had made perfect sense or none at all, Zeba did not care to guess. She'd said what was on her mind, which brought her some small peace.

The mullah moved on to his other wards, praying over each man and dispensing the daily dose of bread and pepper. He listened to their mental wanderings, to their weeping and to their angry rants. He spoke to them of peace, though he did not undo their shackles. He spent long days with them but returned to his home with his wife and children most evenings. It was then that the patients were left alone, with the mullah's quarters empty and only the entombed patron of the shrine to watch over them.

Zeba drifted into a hum, her eyes growing heavy, and unable to remember the rest of the lyrics. The sting of black pepper lingered on her tongue. She would drink more water tomorrow, she decided.
She'd not had enough today and regretted it. The night air was hot and stifling. Zeba felt the moisture in her armpits and her groin when she moved. She sat up with her back to the wall and stretched her legs out before her. A single bead of perspiration trickled down the nape of her neck and slid down her cotton dress.

“I saw him! I saw him! He's coming for me!” The man was still crying out though his shouts were quieter. He sounded defeated. “Mullah-
sahib,
where are you? Help me!”

When Zeba was a young girl, her family would gather on festive nights—aunts and uncles, cousins and close friends. Her uncle had taught himself to play the harmonium. She could still feel the puff of air released from the holes on the back of the polished wooden box. Her uncle's left hand would pull and release the bellows as the fingers of his right hand would tickle the forty-two black and white keys, coaxing songs out of those around him and filling in lyrics when they faltered. The synchrony of their voices disguised the truth that not one of them could carry a tune.

Zeba's eldest cousin had learned to play the
tabla,
one stout drum and one taller drum, with bent fingers rapping against stretched goat skin. He would beat out rhythms that were thousands of years old. Zeba would watch his fingers fly, doing something she could not dream of doing. It excited her to see him thrum against the unblinking black eye on the tabla surface.

Zeba's aunt played the
daira,
a tambourine twice as big as her head, with its tiny pairs of cymbals clapping along the round of the disc. The country was at war then, and the mujahideen had taken to the mountains to fight back the Russian soldiers and tanks. The soil of Afghanistan was slowly filling with martyrs. It made it all the more important to dance and laugh, knowing the war would touch them sometime soon. Her father smiled more on those nights than any other.

Sing, Zeba-
jan
! Don't be as grim-faced as your mother. Sing from your heart!

I don't know the words to the song,
Zeba had whispered to her father.

You know how to clap, don't you?
he'd replied with a twinkle.
You don't need much to make music.

She'd sat next to him and clapped until her palms were red and stinging, swaying side to side as the others did in a movement not unlike prayer. There wasn't enough music in her head to bring about that kind of peace.

If I make it back to the prison, I will make the women sing. I will sit them in a circle and we'll find ourselves a
daira
, even if it means skinning a goat myself to do it.

Zeba paused. Was that the sound of footsteps in the yard? She listened carefully and heard the crunch of dirt beneath a leather sandal. Solitude had sharpened her senses and she didn't need to see to perceive her surroundings. It wasn't the mullah. His step was slower, heavy with righteousness and conviction. It wasn't one of the other prisoners, either. Their steps were timid and unsure—and it didn't seem likely that any of the men could unshackle themselves from the chains around their ankles.

Picking up the pail in the corner of her cell, Zeba gripped its handle in her hands.

Two more steps, closer this time. This foot was lighter even. Zeba wondered if it was a small animal. Perhaps one of the fanged deer had come down from the mountain to see what mysterious creatures disturbed the silence of the night with their shrieks and moans.

“Go and never come back, Satan!” screamed the man meters away. Zeba's heart pounded. His silence had been deceiving. He was still unnerved, probably because he hadn't slept in days.

The footsteps had stopped. Had the man scared him off? Zeba didn't know if she should be afraid or relieved.

She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, dragging hot, night air into her body and breathing it out even hotter. If only she could be alone again with her music, she thought wistfully.

When she opened her eyes, she gasped at the figure standing before
her. Wreathed in moonlight, she could not make out his face. Still, she knew his shape well enough that she needed no other confirmation.

How insane,
she thought,
for even a crazy man to think this was Satan.

“You! What are
you
doing here?” she whispered frantically into the darkness.

“I HAD TO SEE YOU,” BASIR WHISPERED. HE WAS AT THE OPENING
of her cell and, though there were no bars or doors between them, he looked hesitant to cross the invisible threshold.

“How did you get here?” Zeba asked. She inched closer to him, the clanging of her chains causing her to stop short. She hadn't seen her son in months. Being apart from her children had brought her so much pain, despite the lengths she'd gone to to numb herself. She knew how wretched she must look, her hair unkempt and unwashed, her clothes filthy. She could not have imagined a more humiliating reunion.

“I found my way,” Basir said with a shrug of his shoulders.

“But it's so late and so far from home!” Zeba lamented, thinking of what he must have done to travel from his aunt's house to the shrine. “Did someone drive you here? The buses don't come near this place . . .”

“I'm here, Madar. Just leave it.”

There was an edge to his voice that made Zeba inclined to do just that.

“I'm sorry you have to see me like this.”

“Me too,” Basir agreed quietly. He hunched his back and stepped into her cell as moonlight lit on his face. Zeba could even see the whispers of hair on his upper lip. She leaned forward, forgetting the condition she was in.

“I've missed you so much,” she cried softly. “You and your sisters. Are they all right? Has something happened to them? Is that why you're here?”

“Nothing's happened to them. They're fine.”

“Are you sure? You wouldn't lie to me, would you?”

Basir's face drew tight. Zeba winced to see him look at her in that way.

“What a thing to say, Madar.”

“I'm sorry.” Zeba shifted her legs. In eleven days, this was the most uncomfortable she'd been and it had nothing to do with the pebbly earth or the heat. Her son looked tired, but she had nothing to offer him. “My son, what a blessing to lay eyes on you.”

Basir looked away sharply.

When he looked up, his teary eyes glistened in the moonlight.

“We've missed you so much, Madar,” he said, his voice cracking. Basir fell into his mother's arms. Zeba cried out, her hand covering her mouth to muffle the sound. She didn't want the mullah coming out to find Basir with her, and her neighbors had already been restless tonight.

Basir's arms were wrapped around his mother's trunk, his head was buried in her stomach. Zeba touched his face with one hand and pressed her cheek so tightly against his back that she could feel the bones of his spine.

Zeba pulled his face up toward her and wiped his tears.

“This has been so hard on you, I know,” she murmured. She didn't know where to begin. Did he hate her? Had he forgiven her? She couldn't be sure, even as he clung to her in the night.

Basir pulled himself upright, sniffled, and cleared his throat. He looked away for a second to regroup then spoke in a very matter-of-fact tone. He'd shifted, Zeba observed.

“I've brought some food,” he said as he reached for a small plastic bag just outside her cell. “There's some rosewater cake, two tomatoes, and a tin of rice.”

“You brought food?”

Basir shrugged his shoulders awkwardly.

“I heard what they do here. I would have brought other food, but I couldn't find much that I could pack . . .” he explained.

“No, no, no,” Zeba said, shaking her head. “
Bachem,
I'm so grateful to you. Really. I just can't believe you came all this way and thought to bring food with you. You're just . . . you're just . . . I don't know what to tell you.”

Basir's lips tightened.

“I heard you weren't allowed any food here, but I didn't know if you wanted something.” He placed the bag in front of her and watched as she took out one tomato, turned it over in her palm, and smelled its earthy ripeness. She could almost taste its juice, feel it running down her chin without having taken a bite. Zeba put it back in the bag and took out the round tin. She twisted the top off the stainless-steel container and breathed in the scent of rice browned with caramelized sugar and generously seasoned with coriander, cinnamon, and cloves. The rice was cold but Zeba imagined it warm as she sank her fingers into the tin and spooned it into her mouth.

No, she decided, she did not believe in the powers of the shrine. Not when her own son had carried food all this way.

The rice was delicious. Tamina had always been gifted in the kitchen.

“Your ama's rice,” Zeba said, her head leaning back, “has always been better than anyone else's but this . . . this is the best it's ever tasted.”

“Too bad I can't pass along the compliments.”

Zeba swallowed hard.

“How are things with your ama? Is she treating you well?”

“She's been nothing but kind to us.”

Zeba wondered if Basir was lying. Surely the family was convinced that Zeba had killed Kamal. Could they possibly be so generous hearted to see that the children had no part in this mess?

“Has she . . . has she said anything about me?”

Basir shook his head.

“No, she doesn't talk about you at all.”

Zeba was surprised.

“Where do you sleep? They only have three rooms. Has she made space for you?”

“She keeps Rima in her room with her. Shabnam and Kareema sleep in a room with her girls—most of the time. Sometimes they want to stay close to me, but Ama Tamina doesn't like that. I sleep in the living room alone.”

“And she feeds you?”

“We eat with them. No more, no less than the others.”

Thank God,
Zeba thought, breathing a sigh of relief.

“I've been waiting for her to tell us to leave,” Basir said quietly. “I don't know why she hasn't.”

Zeba touched her son's forearm. It occurred to Zeba that she might have just crossed the line into complete madness, and the boy in front of her might be an invention of her mind. Somehow that seemed more likely than Basir leaving his aunt's generous arms to find his murderess mother in a shrine for the insane.

Basir pulled his arm away.

“You should eat more, Madar. You look terrible.”

Zeba attempted a light laugh.

“Appetite is a funny thing,” she said casually. “It comes and goes in this place. Are you hungry? You must be. You've traveled so far.”

Zeba proffered the tin, but Basir held up a hand. It was a polite gesture, too polite for an exchange between a mother and her son. It broke Zeba's heart to see it, but she bit her tongue and put the lid back on the round tin.

“Are you going to tell me what happened to my father?” Basir said, his voice taut and dry.

In the months Zeba had been imprisoned, she had asked herself that question a thousand times and had come up with a thousand
different answers. She would tell her children everything. She would tell them nothing. She would tell only Basir that his father had been a monster. She would tell only the girls. She would make up an explanation for what had happened that day. She would tell them that Kamal had tried to kill her or that he had slipped and fallen on the ax. This was all a horrible mistake, an accident, and that their father had been a good and decent man.

“Well?”

Zeba looked at the cloudless night sky. Where could she turn for answers?

“
Bachem,
our family has been torn apart. Never have I wanted to do anything that would hurt you or your sisters.”

If Basir was breathing, Zeba could not see it. He sat perfectly still, his gaze focused on the dark space between his crossed legs.

“That day . . . that day was terrible for all of us. I don't know why we've been struck like this, but we all know that fate is decided by God.”

“Are you going to answer my question or are you going to keep talking shit?”

“Basir!” Zeba shot back. He had never cursed in her presence before.

“I came here to ask you what happened. Are you going to tell me or not? Because if you're not, then I'll just have to guess for myself.”

“Basir.
Janem,
there are some things that are between adults and I don't want to—”

“This wasn't just between adults, Madar.”

Zeba's back straightened sharply.

“What do you mean?”

“This wasn't between adults. I saw him. I saw what . . . what . . . what had happened to him. He wasn't some stranger. I washed the blood off his body and wrapped him in a white sheet. I buried my father, and now I listen to my sisters cry at night. Whatever happened, it happened to all of us, so please don't tell me that this is between adults.”

He was right. He deserved to know, but Zeba had wrestled with what might happen to him if he heard the truth. Would he try to find out who the girl was? Would he think his mother was a liar and despise her even more? Would he be so ashamed of his father that he could never recover? Or would he slip and tell someone else about the shame that had been perpetrated in their own home? He had the anger of a man but not the understanding or judgment of one.

How much easier this would be if she were as starkly mad as her neighbors!

Her heart pounded. In a moment, she would either tell Basir everything or nothing. And in a moment he would either hate her or cry for her.

Had the mountain grown since she'd last looked at it? It seemed to stand taller in the backdrop, as if it were inching its way toward the moon.

The song returned.

Tonight, you will listen to the sorrows of my soul. Though tomorrow, you will forget all that has been told.

Zeba heard the faint roll of a tabla drum in the night, its unblinking eye gawking at her. The funereal whine of the harmonium followed, and a puff of stale air tickled Zeba's face.

Then came the crash of the
daira
and a chorus of applause.

If she lost her son, her children, she would have nothing. Had she loved them enough to survive this? Her son sat poised, looking at her as if she were a scorpion about to strike. The babies she'd mourned told her they'd had enough of her tears. Her daughters' hurt eyes bored into her, telling her that she'd built that house of sin, that she was just as vile as Kamal.

“Are you going to answer me?” Basir asked.

He deserved better. He was a good son.

Zeba filled her lungs with the hot, night air and made a decision she was certain she would regret.