The Pearl that Broke Its Shell (30 page)

Through tears, she told me that God was great and that the whole family was praying for Parwin and that she was on her way to the hospital, so they really were very hopeful.

I wanted to believe her. I wanted to believe that my sister would be okay.

Tuba’s eyes told me it wasn’t in her
naseeb
.

CHAPTER 31

P
arwin had stopped pretending.

After ten agonizing days, her peace finally came.

Her body was brought back and buried in the local cemetery. My father attended the burial, as did a few of my uncles and my grandfather.

At the
fateha,
I saw my mother again. The first time since my wedding day. Had I had a life more ordinary, I would not have been able to believe what she’d become.

“Rahima! Rahima, my daughter, oh God! Can you believe this? Allah has taken my daughter, my precious Parwin! So young! Oh, Rahima-
jan,
thank God she at least had you nearby!”

My mother’s hair was thin and stringy. Her words came out wet and lisped. She was missing a few teeth. Her skin sagged and she looked much older.

“Madar-
jan
!” I hugged her tightly, surprised at how much like Khala Shaima she felt. “Madar-
jan,
I’ve missed you so much!”

“I’ve missed you too, my daughter! I’ve missed all of you! This is your son? God bless my grandchild!”

“His name is Jahangir, Madar-
jan
. I wish… I wish you could have come to see him. He’s a sweet child.”

My son smiled, showing off his two bottom teeth. I waited for my mother to reach out to hold him. She didn’t. She touched his cheek with her trembling hand and then looked away. Jahangir looked as disappointed as I felt in her lack of interest.

“Oh, I’ve wanted to come and see you, Rahima-
jan
. Especially when I heard about my grandchild, but it’s not easy for me to get away from home, you know that. And your husband’s home is not very close. With two kids at home, it just hasn’t been possible.”

I bit my tongue, wondering why the distance wasn’t too much for Khala Shaima and knowing that she could have brought my sisters or left them with one of my uncles’ wives if she’d wanted to. My mother was weaker than I’d ever realized.

We women in mourning sat in a row, a wall of misery and tears. Women from our village came to pay their respects, whispering the same words of condolence to each of us one by one. Some even cried. I wondered why. So many of them had laughed to see my sister try to keep up with the other children, had called her Parwin
-e-lang
and had thanked God out loud that their own children weren’t similarly deformed. They had made her feel small and wrong. Today they pretended to share our pain. I despised the insincerity.

We prayed. The women sat in rows before us, rocking to the rhythm of the prayer, the gray haired in the group blowing their noses into handkerchiefs and shaking their heads. They cried for us, their hearts softened with age and they themselves one step closer to the grave than most others. In the last ten days, my eyes had dried up. I sat still, blankly watching the faces in front of me. Madar-
jan
reached over and held my hand.

Rohila and Sitara sat on my right. I shook my head. How wrong I was to think I wouldn’t have recognized my sisters! They had grown taller, more mature, but their faces were unchanged. They spoke sweetly and I hurt to think what home was like for them. Rohila grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.

“Rahima, is it true? Is Parwin really dead? That’s what Madar-
jan
told us but I can’t believe it!”

“I wish it weren’t true.” Nothing good came of pretending, I’d decided. “How are you, Rohila? How are things at home?”

“Can’t you come back home sometimes? It’s been so lonely since you all left!”

I believed her. I’d felt the same loneliness. I bet we all had, each in her corner of the world, separated by so many walls.

“Are you taking care of Sitara?”

“Yes.” Rohila nodded. It occurred to me that she was now the same age I’d been when I was married off. I looked at her and wondered if I’d looked just as young. I could see that her breasts were just starting to bud. Her shoulders were hunched forward, her chest pulled in. I recognized her posture. She was uncomfortable with her changing body. I wondered if Madar-
jan
had given her a bra yet.

Sitara was now almost nine years old and clung to Rohila more than she did to Madar-
jan
. She looked unsure around me, as if she didn’t trust anyone but Rohila.

“How’s Madar-
jan
been, Rohila?” I whispered. I knew I would draw looks for talking, even in a hushed voice, during the
fateha
but this was my only opportunity to see my sisters. What I saw worried me.

Rohila shrugged her shoulders and glanced over at Madar-
jan
. “She just lies around most of the time, just like Padar-
jan
. She cries a lot, especially when Khala Shaima comes over. That just makes Khala Shaima angrier.”

At the mention of her name, Khala Shaima looked in our direction. I expected her to give us a chastising look but she didn’t. She didn’t give a damn about decorum.

“Are you going to school?”

“Sometimes. Depends on what Padar-
jan
says. Sometimes, when she’s taken Padar-
jan
’s medicine, I have to stay home to clean up and get Madar-
jan
up and dressed. If Bibi-
jan
sees her the way she is, there’s always a big fight.”

Sitara stared at the ground but I could tell she was listening to our hushed conversation. She looked so timid, so different from the inquisitive little girl I’d left behind. I looked back to see Madar-
jan
wiping tears away, muttering angrily and fidgeting in her chair. I stared at her cheekbones, the lost look in her eyes. She was every emotion and blank at once. She was as badly addicted as my father.

Madar-
jan,
what’s become of you?

My stomach sank when I thought of what might happen to my sisters. I prayed for God to keep Khala Shaima alive and present in their lives. I pushed away the thought that they would be addicts soon too.

Things were worse than I’d let myself believe, even with Khala Shaima’s dismal updates.

“Rahima, why isn’t Shahla here?”

Shahla hadn’t been allowed to come. She had just delivered her second child and it wasn’t proper for her to be out of the home in her condition. I wondered how she had taken the news, alone and so far from the rest of us.

Respects had been paid. The prayers were complete. The women repeated the procession, again wishing for Allah to ease our suffering, praying for Parwin’s place among the angels in heaven and to themselves thinking it was in her best interests that she put herself out of her handicapped and childless misery. I wanted them all to disappear so I could spend this precious time with my mother and sisters.

The
fateha
passed quickly. I was back at the compound, but even more miserable. Madar-
jan
was in bad shape. Rohila had taken over as matriarch. How had this happened to us? I was the only one of my sisters who’d had a chance to live any kind of childhood at all, and that was only because I’d been a
bacha posh
. I looked at my son and thanked God for making him a boy. His lips turned up in a cheerful smile, his eyelashes so long they looked like they could get tangled. At least he had a chance.

I wanted to be alone but there was little possibility of that at the compound. With the
fateha
over, so was my period of mourning. I was expected to resume my duties. Bibi Gulalai treated me just as she always had, if not worse. I think she had convinced herself that Parwin’s suicide had been a purposeful attack on her family. With Parwin gone, I took the fall for the tragedy she’d brought to her extended family.

I ignored everything and everyone. I carried out my duties, often with Jahangir a few feet away, playing or napping. I watched him wistfully, vowing to be better to him than my mother was being to my sisters. Thankfully, Abdul Khaliq had no trouble clothing and feeding his family. Jahangir was his son, as much as the other boys in the house. He would go to school and enjoy the privileges that came with being a warlord’s son.

And his father loved him in a way that surprised and relieved me. Abdul Khaliq kept his daughters at arm’s length but his sons stayed at his side. The older boys even joined their father in some of his meetings. The younger ones nervously scattered when Abdul Khaliq came home, afraid of getting yelled at for spending too much time playing. He didn’t have much patience for crying babies but he would watch them while they slept. Except for my son. Often, I caught him gently stroking Jahangir’s cheek or whispering something into his ear. He held him with the same adoration I did. He chuckled when Jahangir spilled things and his chest swelled with pride to hear him say “
baba,
” as if he were hearing the word for the first time. The rhythmic breathing of his sleeping son calmed even his foulest of moods. I was happy Jahangir was a favorite, knowing I never would be. At least my son was safe.

The older boys, my son’s brothers, both feared and adored their father. They vied for his attention and looked for ways to make him happy—or at least not angry. The older boys stood tall when they recited
suras
from the Qur’an and the younger ones would bring him his sandals when he asked. He was proud to have boys. He smiled for them, and for little else.

My husband was spending more and more time with foreigners and the men he kept around as close advisers. Plans were brewing. The wives were on edge, though only Badriya knew why. If things were not going well for Abdul Khaliq, then things would not be going well for us. When we asked Badriya, she brushed us off dismissively.

“Don’t bother yourselves worrying about it. He’s worked up because he’s renegotiating the arrangement he has with some of these people. It’s too complicated to explain to you,” she would say, not wanting to divulge the knowledge that set her apart from the rest of us. As his first wife, he discussed these matters with her. It was really the only interaction he had with her since he rarely called her to his bed. Everyone had a role in the house. That was hers.

But walls were thin and I spent most of my time at the main part of the house. I started to hear things when Abdul Khaliq and his men sat in the living room.

“They’ve got five more open seats for the province. The seat from our region needs to be filled. There are a few other powerful men who will be looking to step in and challenge you, Abdul Khaliq, but a woman candidate would be a sure thing. She would take the seat without question because of these stupid rules they’ve created.”

“I don’t like this idea. Why should we put a woman in a man’s place? And even worse, you’re asking me to put
my wife
in my place? Since when do we have a woman do a man’s job?”

“I understand that,
sahib,
truly. And, believe me, I don’t like it any more than you do, but these are the rules. I’m simply suggesting we find a way to work around the system so that we don’t lose all control over this area. The elections are coming up soon. We must plan for this.”

“Damn whoever decided on these shameful rules! Telling us we have to have women representatives? They have no business there! Who do they think is going to look after the children then?”

His advisers were silent. I could hear my husband pacing, grunting. I was surprised at what I was hearing. It sounded like they were suggesting that one of Abdul Khaliq’s wives run in the upcoming parliamentary election! Would he really even consider such a move? We wives rarely left the compound. How could he possibly send us out to interact with strangers?

I looked at the clock on the wall. Jahangir had been sleeping for forty minutes. He would be waking up soon. And Khala Shaima had promised to come over today. Tomorrow would mark forty days since Parwin’s death.

“I’m simply presenting an option,
sahib
. I know it’s not an attractive one but it may be our only one. I just don’t want you to lose the opportunity to have some influence in the government. You’re already in good position with the contracts you’ve secured.”

Smoke wafted from under the doorway, the acrid, thick smell of opium. My mind drifted home, to my father asleep in the living room and my mother sewing our clothes.

“It’s true,” another voice chimed in. “There’s no one else who can guarantee the same security—especially over the bridge. Those foreigners, they certainly don’t want to send their own soldiers to guard it. They depend on us. This pipeline is not a small project. They’ve been talking about it for years and this time it looks like it’s actually going to happen.”

“It’s true. There’s a lot of money in that pipe. And this area belongs to you,
sahib
. It would be a shame to lose even part of that control.” The voice was measured and cautious.