A House Without Windows (30 page)

“I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO THINK,” HAKIMI SAID. HE WAS TRULY
baffled. The man before him was the fifth person to come in for the same reason. And since when did people feel it necessary to report a neighbor's crazy behavior? His own neighbor kept no fewer than twenty-five gray pigeons on his roof and had named each and every one. Hakimi had argued with him that it was impossible to tell one bird from another but the man insisted that he could recognize them just as well as Hakimi could recognize his children.

“It's the truth,” the man said, rubbing his hands together and shrugging his shoulders. “I didn't think anything of it at the time and I didn't want to intrude into a family's private life. But now . . .”

“Yes, what makes you come here now to tell me this?” Hakimi asked, leaning across his desk to hear the man's response.

“Well, now, it's that so many things have been said and I'm not sure what's true. I know the judge will want to know everything about her before he makes a decision, I suppose. Yes, and if he wants to make a decision, then he can only do that if he knows what I've seen.”

“Fine. Tell me what you've seen. I don't know how much the
qazi
is going to care, but you can start by telling me. We'll go from there.”

Hakimi pulled out a notebook and a ballpoint pen. He scribbled in the corner of the page, which produced only inkless depressions. He made an O with his lips and stuck the pen into the hollow of his
mouth. He huffed hot air onto its tip, then licked it with the tip of his tongue before touching it to the page again. This time his scribble was visible, a reluctant, incomplete twirl of blue.

He turned to a fresh page. He'd kept a file of the other reports he'd recorded. Whether the judge would consider them in Zeba's defense or toss them aside without reading was impossible to say. Hakimi didn't really care either way. It felt good to be doing this, as if he were gathering evidence of his authority in this town instead of evidence related to the case.

“Now, tell me what it is you saw.”

“I . . . er . . . I didn't know her name. We're not related to the family, of course. But they lived close enough that I'd seen the wife a few times. I can't recall what day it was, but there was a day when I was going to work and just as I stepped out into the street, I heard a noise. I turned around and there she was. Her head scarf had fallen away from her face so I could see who she was. As soon as she saw me she pulled it back over and looked away.”

“What was she doing?”

“She . . . she was digging behind the door of a neighbor's house—with her fingers. It was like . . . it was like something really important to her was buried there. She looked like she wanted to get to it really fast.”

“Bizarre. Did she say anything to you?”

“No, she didn't. She just . . . she just looked at me the way a stray dog looks at a gang of schoolboys. She looked ready to claw at me if I got close to her. I didn't.”

“Of course you didn't.” Hakimi nodded. “Did you stay to watch her or did you leave her there?”

“I stayed for a bit. I mean, I actually asked her what she was doing and if she was all right. She looked wild . . . not like a right person. She was digging at the earth with her fingers. When she didn't respond to me, I asked her if her husband knew where she was. I assumed she had a family.”

“What did she say?”

“She . . . uh . . . she didn't say much of anything. She just stuffed a handful of dirt into her mouth and ran off like she'd stolen something.”

“She stuffed dirt in her mouth?” Hakimi repeated incredulously. If only every day were like this. If only he could wake every morning to record crazy stories about people in his village, putting ink to the page to turn hearsay into official evidence. It was a powerful feeling, just as good as the glint of his badge or the weight of his pistol. “She didn't just wipe her mouth with a dirty hand?”

“No, no. She took a mouthful as if it were . . . as if it were rice.”

Hakimi eyes widened with interest.

“That is very concerning behavior. And you watched her run off?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Which direction did she run in?”

“I don't remember.”

Hakimi inhaled through pursed lips. He leaned back in his chair and tapped his pen against the page.

“Well, if you don't remember, then I don't know if I can . . .”

“Ah yes, she ran toward the shoemaker's shop and away from the school. I remember now because I was going to work and had to pass the school.”

“I see,” Hakimi said slowly, as if this detail changed everything. He added a line to the record, his penmanship meticulous. He hadn't quite graduated from high school but there were other ways, he'd realized, to feel like a learned man. He took pride in these details. One could tell by the way he shined his own shoes, not trusting his children to do a good enough job. It was a task beneath most men with any kind of position, but Hakimi believed the end result would more than make up for that.

“I'll be sharing this information with the judge,” he said. “Now, unless you have something else that you haven't yet mentioned . . .”

“No, that's all that I know. Just that she was definitely an afflicted
person in the mind. And that was at least a couple of weeks before the man was killed.”

“Understood. Well, thank you for coming in—” Hakimi said, ripping the page off the notepad and paper-clipping it to a stack of similar sheets.

“
Sahib,
if I could ask one question—out of curiosity. Have you had others comment about that woman's husband? I didn't know him really.”

“You mean the murdered man? God rest his soul. No, no one seems to have anything to say about him—not that I've been asking. If there's one thing that's clear in this case, it's that he was the victim.”

“Of course,” Timur mumbled and before he could second-guess himself, he went on talking. It was unplanned and risky, but he was like a shaken soda bottle. In a small way, this was the moment he was uncapped. “But I'm surprised you didn't hear the rumors about him.”

“Rumors? What rumors?” Hakimi said, with one eye squinted.

“I probably shouldn't say anything. I didn't witness it myself, but I heard from others. This was a few months ago, and it was so terrible that I didn't want to believe it myself.”

“Tell me what you heard. It's my job to sift truth from rumor.”

Timur said nothing, knowing Hakimi wasn't capable of sifting rubies from desert sand.

“It was an ugly thing that I heard, so terrible that it hurts me to even repeat it.”

“Out with it, brother. I do have other work to do.” Hakimi was growing impatient.

“Of course. It was pretty well known that he was a man of sin and that he had, in a rage, set a page of the Holy Qur'an on fire.”

Hakimi abruptly sat up in his chair, both palms pressing onto the desk. This was shocking news, even if it were only a rumor.

“Set it on fire? God forbid! Why would he do such a thing?”

Timur shook his head. His palms were moist. He rubbed them on his pantaloons out of Hakimi's view.

“I have no idea. As a man who loves the Qur'an with all his heart, I can't imagine what would bring a man to do something so ghastly. I told you it was bad.”

“Bad? This is well beyond bad. This is the highest form of blasphemy! And he's not even alive for us to inquire about this or to punish him. What am I supposed to do with this information? Who can confirm this?”

“I . . . I don't know who can confirm it. As I said, it was about four months ago in the market and I cannot recall who I heard this from, though I do believe it was more than one person who shared this story with me. I went home that day having forgotten what I'd gone to purchase—that's how upset I was by what I'd heard.”

“Who wouldn't be?” Hakimi had his elbows on the desk now. He was fidgeting, his arms and legs trying to find a position that made sense when the information didn't. A thought suddenly occurred to him. “Did his wife know about this?”

“His wife?” Timur shrugged weakly. “I don't know. I suppose she could have known. She might have even seen him do it. How disgraceful it must have been for her and her children. For their sake, I'm glad the whole town didn't hear about it.”

“This is bad. This is very bad.”

Such blasphemy was not tolerated in Afghanistan. Both men were thinking of the young woman who had, only eighteen months prior, been accused of setting aflame a page of the Qur'an in a Kabul mosque. A single accusing finger had ignited a frenzied mob of mostly men, who viciously attacked her with beams of wood, rocks the size of watermelons, and angry boots. They drove a car over her body before throwing her into a dry riverbed and torching her remains. Immediately after, an investigation was launched. The purpose of the investigation—to determine whether the woman had indeed burned a page of the holy book.

The accusation proved to be a false one and the men who were arrested and convicted of murder were, over months, quietly released or
had their sentences dramatically reduced. The results were clear. There was excusability for those who took on blasphemers and defended the Qur'an. Was it possible that Zeba had been angered by her husband's actions? Hakimi had heard much about Kamal's love for the drink. It wasn't that common in their town, but a few men had fallen for the bottle. It was a sin, no doubt, but one that paled in comparison to this new accusation. What kind of man had Kamal really been?

“This is terrible news. I understand your hesitation in coming forward with this. I don't think we should say a word about it to anyone else, though. It could make a lot of people angry, including the family of the deceased.”

Timur shifted in his chair.

“I wouldn't want to upset them further, but don't you think that the judge should know? It's possible his wife . . . I mean, I can't say for sure, but isn't it possible that she knew about this and . . .”

“Possible, yes. But let's leave her fate to the court.” This was more than Hakimi wanted to handle. He shook his head, reassuring himself that he was making the right decision. “We cannot risk the reaction to this rumor. And it is only a rumor, right?”

“I suppose it is only a rumor. Though I heard it from more than one person.”

“You said that already.”

“Of course I did,” Timur said through a parched mouth. “I'm sorry. I just find it hard to let something like this be—as a Muslim. I felt like I had a duty to say something. Someone who stands up against a crime so terrible should be respected in this life as well as the next, I think.”

Hakimi said nothing. He contemplated Timur's words. “I . . . I understand completely. I feel the same responsibility. I suppose I could get a message to the judge quietly.”

“I leave it to your judgment,” Timur said deferentially. “I'm thankful the responsibility for this doesn't rest on my shoulders.”

Hakimi let out a sigh and glanced around the small police station
under his watch. It was true, he thought, that no one in this town fully understood the burden of his position.

“I've taken enough of your time, Hakimi-
sahib
. But I do have a question if you don't mind. What about the woman . . . his wife. Have others mentioned noticing any odd behavior? I was just wondering if I was the only one who'd seen it.”

“Not at all,” Hakimi chuckled, relieved to have moved on to lighter details. “You're the fifth person to come forward in the last week. I suppose it all makes sense. The woman must have been a lunatic to drive a hatchet into her husband's head. The poor guy, Allah rest his soul. I wonder if he knew what kind of crazy his wife was or if she just snuck up on him. Women are odd creatures, you know. Awfully good at hiding things. You just never know what they've got tucked in the folds of their skirts. That's what my father told me.”

Timur smiled politely, relieved to hear others had come forward before him, just as Walid had promised.

“Yes,” he said, nodding in agreement as he pushed his chair back and pulled down the ends of his linen vest. This would be the first good piece of news to cross their threshold in a long time. That they'd survived this long after what had happened to Laylee was all because Zeba had kept Laylee's secret. Nargis reminded Timur each time he'd changed his mind about coming forward with this story about seeing Zeba eat dirt. “They certainly are surprising creatures.”

Timur's heart pounded as he walked home, unsure if there was wisdom in heeding the entreaties of a broken girl and her mother.

“ZEBA! ZEBA!”

It was a trick of slumber, she thought, to hear her mother calling her in this place. Her head felt lighter than it had the first few nights.

“I'm looking for my daughter!”

Zeba sat up with a gasp. She looked down and realized a small, round pillow had been tucked under her head. Had the mullah placed it there while she slept? She shuddered to think his hands had lifted her head to slide it beneath her. How could she not have waken to the touch of a stranger?

“Is there anyone here?”

Zeba crawled to the mouth of her cell no differently, she thought briefly, than the way Rima would crawl to her.

“Here! I'm here, Madar!” she shouted timidly. It was the first time she'd raised her voice above a whisper in this cell. She knew the others would be riled to hear her, a woman, but to answer her mother's call was an irresistible instinct.

“Zeba? Is that you?”

Zeba craned her neck past the lip of her cell. There were two men in the center yard looking curiously toward the shrine and the mullah's quarters. Local devotees would go directly to the shrine, steering clear of the valley of the insane.

Zeba waved her arm, squinting against the sunlight that stung her retinas.

“Here! Madar-
jan,
I'm here!”

By the shift in her mother's posture, she could see that she'd caught her attention. Her mother started toward her with a brisk pace. When the voices began to call out, Zeba's stomach reeled.

“Madar? Is that you, Madar?” shouted one wisp of a man. His voice cracked as he yelled toward Gulnaz. “Have you come for me after all this time?”

“She's not just your mother. She's here for all of us. She's come to take care of us,” cried another man in joy.

“Fools!” called a third morosely. “A desperate man can see the ocean in the desert.”

Gulnaz ignored them all and stayed clear of their cells, her face stern as she neared the last vault—the one that contained her daughter.

“Who are these women?” A chain rattled, but the moan remained faceless.

Zeba saw the mullah burst through the doors of his quarters with his son at his side. Though she couldn't make out the expression on his face, he looked flummoxed. He nudged the boy back into the building and watched without moving, as if an invisible chain tethered him to his house.

“Zeba, are you all right? What have they done to you? Dear Allah, look at this place!” Gulnaz had crawled into the cell without a second's thought. She threw her arms around her daughter then drew back, patting down the frazzled puffs of hair that hid her face.

“Madar . . . Madar . . .” Zeba sobbed. She buried her face in her mother's shoulder. When she came up for air, she pulled her mother's hands to her face and kissed her palms, closed her eyes, and held them against her cheeks. Gulnaz brushed her daughter's tears away with the pads of her thumbs.

“I'm not crazy, Madar-
jan,
” she whispered. “He says I'm crazy but I'm not!”

“You will be if they keep you in here,” Gulnaz said in an icy tone.

Zeba sniffled and nodded. She fidgeted with her hair, suddenly aware that in these days without a proper place to wash, she likely looked quite insane.

“You're right. I don't know why he kept me. I didn't say or do anything out of the ordinary. I . . . I . . .”

“Of course not. I know how these people work. It's God's work they claim to do but for a good price.” The words came out of her mouth like gunfire. “Someone must be paying him to keep you. Did the lawyers say anything about money when they brought you here?”

Zeba shook her head.

“Uff! I can't believe that Yusuf let this happen. What is wrong with that boy?” Gulnaz pressed the heels of her palms to her forehead as if to push her teeming thoughts back into her head. When she looked up, she'd regained her composure, looking more like the mother from Zeba's childhood. “I'm going to talk to the mullah myself.”

“Do you think he'll listen to you?”

Gulnaz reached into her handbag and pulled out a piece of soft flatbread folded in half and stuffed with
halwa
.

“Eat this,
janem,
” she whispered. “You've got to keep up your strength.”

Zeba's head fell to the side, and she exhaled deeply. She took the pocket from her mother's hands and brought it to her lips. The flour and sugar glistened with grease. Her mother had scooped parts from the bottom of the pot, a toasted deeper brown. Those had always been Zeba's favorite pieces. It shouldn't have surprised her that her mother remembered but it did.

She swallowed hard, her throat dry.

Gulnaz pulled a small bottle of orange soda from her bag as well and placed it on the ground next to Zeba.

“I didn't know what else to bring. Should I open it for you?” she asked.

Zeba nodded quickly.

Gulnaz gave the cap a quick twist and the bottle fizzed, a soft,
carbonated whistle rising from the lip. Zeba took a long sip, the bubbles sending a tingle to her nostrils as they passed through her mouth.

“Thank you, Madar,” she said breathlessly. Her stomach was more grateful than she could express. She'd refused the mullah's offer, but it hadn't been easy. “Basir was here two days ago. I thought I'd imagined him. Sometimes I still think I imagined him, actually.”

“He was?” Gulnaz felt her throat tighten at the thought of her grandson braving the journey to this distant place to see his mother. She wished she could have brought him here herself.

“What did he say?”

“He said they were well enough. I can only pray he wasn't hiding anything from me. He . . . he brought me food,” Zeba said, her voice cracking.

You are not your father,
Zeba had told him, immediately regretting her words. Basir's whole body had jerked in response as if the thought hadn't crossed his mind until his mother had said it. It had been her fear, not his.

How could you be sure?
he'd demanded
. You could have been wrong! Who are you to judge?

She'd floundered, searching for the right words and wondering if they even existed.

Gulnaz clucked her tongue and sighed.

“God save him.”

“Have you heard anything about the children, Madar? Has anyone sent word from Tamina's house?”

Gulnaz let her gaze fall to the ground.

“I've called my friend Fahima who lives not far from them, but she said she hasn't seen or spoken to Tamina since the
fateha,
when she went to pay her respects. She says Tamina's been holed up in mourning. I told her that we were . . . that we were very worried about the children. I asked her if she could walk past their home and listen for anything. She promised she would and I haven't heard from her. I think that means she hasn't seen anything to worry about. I'm sure they're all right.”

Zeba wasn't certain of anything and resented her mother's thin reassurances. The absence of screams was not evidence that all was well, but she lacked the energy to point that out. She'd finished the
halwa
and bread and decided against wiping the grease from her chapped lips.

“
Janem,
let me speak with the mullah. I'll see if I can reason with him to send you back. This is no place for a mother of four children. This is no place for anyone, actually.” Gulnaz put her hands and knees on the unforgiving earth. She pushed herself to stand, wincing.

Zeba wanted to pull her back and make her stay but she didn't. She merely watched as her mother set off to pull Zeba from the quicksand she'd fallen into. Gulnaz marched defiantly toward the figure standing on the hill. She clutched her handbag close at her side and snuck sidelong glances at the other cells. Seeing her coming, the mullah swiveled his head in either direction. He put one foot behind the other and retreated, halfheartedly, toward the house. Was he trying to avoid a conversation with Gulnaz? Zeba strained her eyes to see, staying mostly hidden behind the edge of the cell. She arched her back, her muscles stiff from sitting most of the day. She never imagined longing for Chil Mahtab this badly.

She could hear her mother's voice. She had started her appeal to the mullah before she'd even reached him. She waved one arm back in Zeba's direction. They were too far for Zeba to make out the conversation, but she could see her mother's gesticulations. The mullah's eyes were cast on the ground. Gulnaz was pointing to the heavens, summoning God into her plea.

This much was to be expected. It was the following moment that made Zeba's stomach lurch. The mullah looked up slowly. He was trying to speak, but Gulnaz would not allow it. She was not finished. He took a step toward her and put his hand on her arm. Gulnaz pulled back sharply then stood staring at him. Her hand rose to her mouth and her left foot slid behind her, then her right. The mullah moved in closer, his head tilted to the side. He put both hands on her
arms as if to keep her from running. Gulnaz's head drooped like an untended puppet.

Why was he touching her? Zeba dragged herself outside the cell. The shackle scraped at the paper-thin skin of her ankle and she winced. The mullah was motioning to the quarters he kept next to the shrine. Impossibly, the mullah reached up and touched Gulnaz's cheek. Gulnaz pulled away, but her feet were rooted.

Zeba wanted to shout. She wanted to run across the dry yard, climb that shallow hill, and claw at the mullah. She wanted to pull him off her mother who looked so uncomfortable under his touch. She pulled at the chain, but it yielded no more slack.

“Ayee!” she roared in frustration. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted. “Madar! Madar!”

Gulnaz turned at the sound of her voice, her fingertips over her lips. She slowly raised a hand to Zeba as if to say all was well. But all was obviously not well. What was he doing? The mullah led Gulnaz to the two-room structure with floor cushions and curtained windows Zeba could recall from her first day at the shrine. Her mother was walking with slumped shoulders. The mullah put a hand on the small of her back to lead her, and Gulnaz twitched, pulling away again but only enough that the mullah's fingers slipped to her elbow. She stopped walking again and stared at him. She was shaking her head. He was pointing at the door.

“Come back, Madar!”

Zeba's heart was pounding with the distinct feeling that her mother was in grave danger. What was this man demanding of her? They were in the middle of nowhere, essentially. No devotees had come to the shrine today, the heat driving them away. The only people who could hear Zeba's cries were chained to their cells just as she was.

“Madar . . . Madar! Don't go, Madar!” she shouted. Her cries exploded across the yard with enough force to ruffle the leaves of the acacia tree. Gulnaz turned once more to her daughter and nodded before disappearing behind the mullah's wooden door.