A Sister to Honor (29 page)

Khalid half rose from his seat.
Maybe she'd rather be dead.
At last, they were getting to the heart of the matter. When Gus had stepped down, the court declared a recess. As he followed the rest out of the room, Afia was led away, somewhere else. The Gus guy was not in sight.

He was short on sleep. At the Boston flat he had found nothing useful to do, other than stay up late with the six others crowding the flat, smoking hash and hatching absurd plans for jihad. Now he shut his eyes as he sat on the curved bench rounding the atrium. What did he want, from these curious proceedings? Could they order Afia, as a
jirga
might, to take her own life? He had never heard of such an order in the West. But if they could—or if, as he had heard was possible, they condemned her to execution by the state for the killing of Shahid—would he then be satisfied?

His heart filled with dread. No, he would not. No honor came from such a death, no wiping clean of Afia's shame, no absolution for what she had done, drawing Khalid's fire like that until it hit Shahid. No. He must bring it about himself, this death. And so he must hope for them to let her go, to deliver her up to him.

From a bench outside the courtroom he had been staring at the floor, following the pattern of the tiles, when he felt a body sink next to his and heard a long sigh. He tipped his head sideways. The woman coach, Felicity Hayes. A surge of panic rose within him, but he tamped it down. Up close, with her clean jaw and small mouth, she looked more like a woman, even a beautiful woman. She looked curiously at him. “Long trial, huh?”

He didn't know. What was long, in the West? In the tribal belt, a decision would have been reached in an hour. “Yes,” he said.

“Do I know you?”

He widened his eyes. There could be no disguising the accent. “I go to school,” he said, “with Shahid.”

She frowned. “Enright?” When he nodded her frown went deeper. He thought of the time he had followed her Toyota out of the town to the highway, hoping she would lead him to Afia. “You don't play a sport,” she said.

“No, I”—he reached for the easiest lie—“I study engineering.”

“But we don't have an engineering school.”

“No.” He tried to chuckle. It came out as a small yelp. “I am applying elsewhere.”

“But you—you were friendly with Shahid. You're Pakistani?”

He straightened up. He needed to get away from this woman. “From Karachi,” he said quickly. “I don't know his family. I am only sorry she had killed him. I want justice.”

“Well, so do we all, but surely you don't think Afia—”

“Excuse me,” he said. He rose and headed for the men's room. She had been with Afia, that night. If the device had gone off properly, she would be dead as well, and her eyes could not bore holes in his back, as they did now while he crossed the atrium, trying to appear—what had this Gus called it?—
normal
.

A
fter the verdict, released into the round atrium, Afia looked in vain for Gus. The aunties from the Price Chopper surrounded her, and Sue Glasgow, who had testified as a character witness. And Shahid's friend Afran, his hair cropped close and his eyes full of sadness. A few yards away, gesturing emphatically with her hands, Sara Desfani was giving the news to a reporter. Coach Hayes stood on the other side of the atrium, with a loose-shouldered man Afia recognized from the photos on the wall at that cabin. His cabin, his family's cabin.

“Of course it was self-defense. Poor honey,” Esmerelda from the Price Chopper kept saying. “To go through all that and then have them treat you like a criminal. You brave, brave girl.”

“Shouldn't never have gone to trial,” added Carlotta.

“At least you're out,” said Sue Glasgow. And then, after a glance at the security officer who still stood next to Afia, handcuffs dangling from his pocket, “Are you coming back to Smith?”

“I—I don't know.”

How had she not thought past this moment? Over and over, Sara Desfani had told her she would be acquitted, and yet somehow she had held on to the illusion that the court would believe her story, that they would find a way to punish her so Khalid would not have to. She had glimpsed him, leaving the courtroom, his hair hennaed and his face strangely naked. Fear had injected her like a hypodermic. Khalid would bide his time, strike when he chose.

“Course she's going back,” Esmerelda said. “Can't stop her, can they?”

“But I have missed classes—”

“You can make those up, I'm sure you can,” Professor Glasgow said warmly. “But I don't know if the dorms are open. Spring break, now.”

“Spring break,” Afia repeated. Of course. Outside the jail, the snow had been steadily melting. On the Smith campus, there would be crocus. She glanced toward the courtroom. It had emptied. The reporter—a bald man with bulging eyes and a recording device in his small hand—had turned from Sara and was approaching Coach Hayes. She looked down the corridor that led to the front of the courtroom. No Gus. She willed her heart to stay afloat.

“You can stay with me,” Afran said. He looked older, in street clothes; she had only seen him dressed for squash. “The other guys in my house're in Florida. Plenty of beds.”

“You are kind,” she said. “But after . . . after what has happened, I don't think—”

“You mean your brother.” He waited a beat. “My best friend.”

She gaped. She felt the women, clustered around her, begin to close tighter.

“Don't get me wrong. I'm not mad at you,” Afran went on—and he didn't sound angry, only nervous, blustering. “But it's messed up, that honor thing. It is totally fucked up. If the dude had just talked to me. . . . Well.” He looked around at the other women. “I'm just saying,” he finished, meaning there was more to say. “I can be, like, you know. Your other brother. If you need to crash.”

“She'll be fine,” Carlotta said quickly. “Won't you, honey? You'll be fine.”

“Yes,” Afia breathed. It dizzied her, being with these people who believed in a lie. She could not go home with Sue Glasgow or the aunties—or, Allah forbid, her brother's friend. “Excuse me,” she said.

She made her way past her well-wishers, to the staircase where Coach Hayes's husband stood while his wife gave the reporter tight-lipped responses. “Dr. Hayes,” she said.

“It's Springer,” he said. “Ethan Springer.” He put out his hand, and she let him shake hers. His hand was warm, like his voice. “Glad your ordeal's over,” he said. “I am sorry about your brother.”

“Thank you.” Her throat felt dry. Gus must have gone out a back way, she thought. Avoiding her: what she should have expected. No matter. All she wanted was to go home. Not to a dorm room or the aunties. Home. “I am sorry,” she said. “Very sorry. What I do to you.”

“Careful, there.” Only when his arm went to her elbow did she feel the sinking in her knees. “Let's sit down,” he said.

He got her to a bench. He wore thick glasses, like hers, which enlarged his brown eyes, made him look curious or worried, she couldn't tell. Quickly he fetched her water in a paper cone. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked when she had drunk it dry.

She shook her head. “Only to say, it was not Coach Hayes's fault.”

“That's between Lissy and me.” After an awkward beat, he added, “I imagine you were panicked.”

She nodded, mute. The others drifted over. One by one, they said good-bye. Carlotta leaned down, pecked Afia on the cheek. Behind her, the reporter was pushing in. Coach's husband stood up and shooed him away. Suddenly the atrium was empty. Even Sara Desfani had disappeared into an office. Only Coach, lingering behind her husband, and the security officer waiting for some sort of formal discharge. With a glance at her, Coach's husband sat back down, next to Afia.

“I understand,” he said gently, “you can go back to school.”

“It is spring break,” she said. She did not say she could no longer imagine Smith, her classes, the labs.

“Is there anywhere you can stay? Where you feel safe?”

She couldn't help it. As she lifted her head, her gaze slid past him, to Coach Hayes. Coach looked better than when she'd come to visit Afia. Her eyes still thirsted for an answer, but she had said her piece at the trial.
I don't think she shot her brother at all.

Her husband sighed, as if something he'd known all along was coming to light. “I tell you what,” he said. “Why don't you come back with us for a few days? Till you get your bearings.”

Coach's hand crept onto his shoulder, and he reached back to touch her fingers.

•   •   •

I
t was strange to leave Glens Falls in a car, to hear the radio; as they pulled away from the courthouse, to pass ordinary people on ordinary sidewalks. As they merged onto the interstate, Afia kept looking into the side mirror, to see if a car might be following them. The light was fading, headlights coming on, and twin beams passed them one after the other. She couldn't keep track. Khalid was out there, she knew, but he would find ways to circle wide of her and pin her down at the moment she failed to look. Best, after all, not to have seen Gus. To see Gus was to put Gus in danger.

As they crossed the Hudson River, the river that had run by the cabin farther north, Coach shifted in her seat and said there was a Muslim cemetery nearby, in the town of Troy. She understood that Shahid had been laid to rest in it. When Afia was ready, she said, they could go there.

Afia strained to look out the window, but night was falling, and all she made out were lights and billboards. “Did you—did you see him?” she asked.

“I did.” This was Coach's husband, who had told her to call him Ethan. “I don't think he suffered, Afia. If that's any comfort.”

“Comfort,” Afia repeated. The word felt alien, like a cloud of gas. “No, I don't think so. But thank you.”

It was full dark when they got to the little house by the lake. The last place, Afia thought, where Coach had seen Shahid. Toys and books lay scattered, just as before, over the living room floor. Chloe was asleep, reported the babysitter—a squash player, Afia recognized her. While Ethan drove the girl home, Coach took Afia downstairs, to a sort of TV den on the ground floor, with its own exit toward the lake. There she unfolded a couch, laid out sheets and a blanket. There was only a half bath, Coach said, but she could rustle up a clean toothbrush for Afia, and paste, a set of towels, a nightgown that would be absurdly long but would have to do for now.

“You are very kind,” Afia said when Coach returned with these things. She removed her glasses. Fatigue spread across her back, over her shoulders, down her torso to her hips.

“You want something to eat?”

“No, thank you, Coach. I cannot. Your husband . . . he is no more angry?”

“Not with you. And I blame myself more than he ever can. So don't worry about it.”

“But I must worry.”

“Worry later, then. Get some sleep. Tomorrow we can drive over to Smith, try to fetch your own clothes.”

Then Coach did an odd thing. She stepped over to Afia and wrapped her long arms around Afia's back. Pressing Afia to her, she kissed her hair where the scarf had fallen back. “You're safe, now,” she said. “That's the main thing.”

The nightgown was midnight blue, like water flowing over Afia's body. In the bathroom, she removed the hijab, and her hair caressed her shoulders, her collarbone. The mirror shocked her with her own nakedness, the shadow of breast diving into the silk, the soft delta of skin at her exposed underarm. She lifted the hem to regard her bare feet, the missing toe on the left a nick in the foot's taper, the next toe strangely long and exposed. Sometimes she thought of the vanished toe as the part of her soul that went with Shahid, that would never grow back. Shutting off the light, she brushed her teeth in the dark.

As soon as she had settled in the makeshift bed, sleep pulled her under. But she woke, alert and restless, with the sky paling. She peeked through the Venetian blinds on the outside door. Was Khalid nearby? From the lake came a chorus of spring peepers. The moon rode high, its reflection a shattered plate on the water. For four weeks, she had slept in a locked room and ventured outside only under guard.
Here I am, Khalid
, she thought. Silently, she opened the door and stepped out.

The night air pricked her skin. Against the soles of her feet pressed a wet nubble of grass and weeds, the snow here entirely melted. She scanned all directions—the other houses perched by the shore, their night-lights glinting through the windows; the distant rasp of cars on the state highway; the gray birch branches arching away from the papery white of their trunks. Where ice had vanished from the lake, dwindling stars salted its dark surface. Across the water, movement—her heart listed—but it was only a doe and her fawn, drinking at the edge. From the trees came the lonely hoot of an owl, a flutter of smaller wings. Nothing else stirred. She crouched, hugging her knees around the thin silk. She needed to see, to hear, to taste all this—not for herself, but for Shahid, who never would. Shahid, who with his big strong body would dive into this water, would churn across to the other side and back and emerge, exultant.
Run
, he had ordered her.
Run.
He wanted her to live. But at what price, Shahid lala? What price should be paid, for her little life?

She stretched out on the cold grass. Above, the sky was slate, then taupe. Inside slept a little family—not her family, but a family at least. The doe and fawn a family, the birds quick with their nesting. No one lived long without a family; you were like one of those patients missing kidneys or intestines, you could be kept going with various machines but soon enough you expired. You breathed while you could. You shut your eyes. You felt the world tilt toward the sun.

And then there was Coach's daughter, Chloe, shaking her on the wet grass, shouting, “Mommy! I found her! She's sleeping outside!”

•   •   •

A
s it turned out, the dorms at Smith were open. Coach brought Afia there the next day. Patty's Hello Kitty clock still rested on the shelf, her iPod in its dock by the leaded windows looking over the walkway where Gus had stood two months ago, begging to be let in. But the room felt achingly lonely. She had heard nothing from Patty or Taylor while in the jail. She imagined their wide eyes, their whispering behind her back:
She, like, shot her own brother. That's wacked, right?
She packed up her books and a few clothes, her Qur'an.

That she would return here after the break, that she would ever be a student again, seemed impossible. What she wanted was to go to the Price Chopper, to see her aunties, even to pick up where she had left off, placing customers' cans and wrapped cold cuts into bags, listening to Carlotta complain of her pothead sons. But she couldn't ask Coach to drive her around all day.

Coach shrugged at this statement. “Why not?” she said. “It's not like I have a job to go to.”

“Even now? Now that this trial is finished? Coach, I will go to the boss at Enright, I will explain to him—”

Coach laughed for the first time since that fateful Sunday in February. “Afia, I'll make you a deal,” she said. “When you start talking to me about what's still got you so scared, I'll talk to you about my job.”

In the driveway by the lake, a blue police car sat waiting. Afia shrank back into her seat. But when Coach Hayes went to talk to the officers who emerged, it seemed they didn't want anything from either of them. The case of the explosion at Gus's garage, one of them explained, was closed. In the back of their car they had the things they had confiscated from Shahid's locker and dorm room—his books, clothes, computer, the sports bag with his wallet in it. The Honda, they said, was still in New York State, but as Shahid's next of kin Afia could reclaim it. They were sorry, they said, for her loss.