The Pearl that Broke Its Shell (15 page)

Why do we keep the Qur’an all the way up there, Madar-
jan
? It is so hard to reach it there!

Because nothing is above the Qur’an. This is how we show our respect for the word of Allah.

Shekiba unfolded the cloth and opened the first page.

Tariq. Munis. Shekiba. Aqela.

Beside each name, Padar-
jan
had penciled in the month and year of their birth.

Shekiba flipped through the pages, the corners frayed. The book opened to the second
sura
. She recognized the line that her father often quoted. She traced the calligraphy with her finger and heard his voice.

It means that we treasure many things in this world, but there is even more awaiting us in paradise.

The paper fell into her hands. Yellowed parchment with two columns of ornate signatures. She recognized her grandfather’s name. This was the deed!

Shekiba’s senses heightened now that she had what she’d come looking for. She took a quick look around and tucked the deed back into the pages of the Qur’an. It was time to get back to the house before her escapade incited too much anger. She covered the Qur’an again with her mother’s
dismol
and tucked it irreverently under her shirt.

God, forgive me,
she thought.

As she exited her rusted front door, she could see Kaka Sheeragha across the field.

Lazy,
she thought, looking at her uncle.
The others would have come after me
.

Sheeragha met her at the door.

“What were you doing in that house?” he demanded.

“Praying.” Shekiba slipped past him and returned to the living room, hoping Azizullah was ready to leave.

“Where have you been? Bobo Shahgul said she had a pleasant but short visit with you.” Azizullah took one last sip from his teacup. “We should be going. We have taken up enough of your time.”

“Time with you is time well spent,” Zalmai said graciously while he eyed Shekiba with suspicion. Sheeragha nodded in tacit agreement. He was not blessed with the social graces of his brothers.

“You are very kind. Please pass my regards along to the rest of the family. I am sure I will see you in the
masjid
for Eid prayers next week.”

“Yes, of course you will.”

“Absolutely.”

Shekiba followed Azizullah through the courtyard and into the street. Her uncles watched them leave, mumbling to each other.

They put on a good show,
she thought, knowing they were wondering what spurred her return to the family home.

CHAPTER 14

“O
f course he hit her again! Why did you have to say something like that to him? You know how he is!” Shahla was folding the laundry in the courtyard, her eyes moving back and forth between the clothes and Sitara, who was drawing circles in the dirt with a rock.

“I didn’t mean for that to happen. I was just… I only meant to…”

“Well, you should think before you say something. She couldn’t even lift her arm this morning. God knows what he did to her.”

I bit my lip. I had gone to my grandmother’s as my father instructed. I was hoping he would have left Madar-
jan
alone, but he hadn’t. His toxic anger never went away, not without his medicine. I wanted Shahla to stop telling me how awful he had been to our mother. But I needed to hear. I needed to know what had happened.

“You’ve ruined everything for all of us. You don’t think. You’re so busy being a boy that you’ve forgotten what can happen to a girl. Now we all have to pay for your selfish mistakes.”

“It has nothing to do with you. He was angry at Madar-
jan
so stop worrying about yourself.”

Shahla was fighting back tears. “You think it was all about Madar-
jan
? You think everything stops there? Well, it doesn’t. What you do affects all of us.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what we all are? We’re all
dokhtar-ha-jawan
. We’re all young women. Me, Parwin. Even you,
Rahim
. Even you.”

She was angry. I’d never seen Shahla so upset. Sitara looked up, sensing the tension.

“He hit her again. Parwin and I, we were scared to look but we could hear it. He went on yelling and screaming about how it wasn’t bad enough that she had failed him as a wife. Now she was failing as a mother.”

I remembered how she’d looked, cowering under him. His face had been red with anger, his eyes bulging.

“She must have fallen to the floor. Her shoulder’s hurt badly. I don’t know. She tried to get him to calm down but he was… well, you know how he can get. And then she said something to him that made him stop.”

“What did she say?” I asked quietly.

“She said she was taking care of all of us. She said it was a house full of
dokhtar-ha-jawan
and it wasn’t easy. All of a sudden, he got quiet. Then he started pacing the floor, saying his house was full of young women and that it wasn’t right.”

“What’s not right?”

“Don’t you know what people say? They say it’s not right to keep a
dokhtar-e-jawan
in your home.”

“What are you supposed to do with them?” I sensed the ugly turn this was taking.

“What do you think you’re supposed to do? You’re supposed to marry them off. That’s what’s in his head now. And it’s all because you don’t know what to do with yourself. You think just because you’re wearing pants and you strap your breasts down every morning that no one will care what you do. But you’re not a kid anymore. People won’t pretend anymore. You’re no different than me and Parwin.”

“You think he wants us to get married?”

“I don’t know what he’s thinking. He left the house after that and he hasn’t come home yet. God knows where he is.”

Parwin came out of the house with the second load and started hanging sheets on the clothesline. She reached the twine with difficulty. Most of the sheets she tossed over and then pulled the corners from below. Shahla looked as if she were about to help her, then paused, deciding against it. When Parwin finished, she looked up at the sky, blocking the sun with her hand, and mumbled something under her breath.

I thought of a conversation I’d once overheard. Khala Shaima and my mother thought no one was awake but I was having a hard time sleeping.

“That’s why it’s important for these girls to go to school, Raisa. They’ll have nothing otherwise. Be wise about it. Look at me and think of what might happen to Parwin.”

“I know, I know. I worry about her more than the others.”

“As you should. I was passed over despite everything Madar-
jan
did. All the friends she talked to, all the special prayers. And look at me, wrinkled and alone. No children of my own. Sometimes I think it’s worked out best for me that your husband is away so much, that ass. At least it gives me more chances to come and spend time with your daughters.”

“They love having you around, Shaima. They hunger for your stories. You’re the best family they have.”

“They’re good girls. But be realistic. Before you know it, you’ll have to seriously consider the suitors. Except for Parwin. You’ll be lucky if anyone comes for her.”

“She’s a beautiful girl.”

“Bah. The porcupine feels velvet when she rubs her baby’s back. You’re her mother. Parwin
-e-lang
. That’s what she is. Allah as my witness, I love her as much as you do, but that’s what people call her and you have to be honest with yourself and realize it. Just like I’m Shaima
-e-koop
. I’ve always been Shaima the hunchback. As long as she goes to school, that at least gives her something. At least she’ll be able to pick up a book and read it. At least she’ll have a chance to know something other than these four walls and the smell of her father’s opium.”

“She would make a good wife. And mother. She’s a special girl. The way she draws, it’s as if God guides her hands. Sometimes I think she still talks to angels, the way she used to when she was a baby.”

“Men have little need for
special
girls. You should know that.”

I couldn’t imagine Parwin married any more than I could imagine the rest of us married. I drifted off to sleep after that. I dreamed of girls in green veils, hundreds of them, climbing up the mountain to the north of our town. A stream of emerald on the trail to the summit, where, one by one, they fell off the other side, their arms outstretched like wings that should have known how to fly.

In a three-room house, I couldn’t expect to avoid my mother for long. I saw her puffy lip, her long face, and hoped she saw the remorse in mine.

“Madar-
jan
. . . I… I’m sorry, Madar-
jan
.”

“It’s all right,
bachem
. It’s as much my fault as it is yours. Look at what I’ve done to you. I should have put a stop to this long ago.”

“But I don’t want you to—”

“Things will be changing soon, I’m sure. I’m afraid everything is out of my hands now. We will see what
naseeb,
what destiny, God has in store for us. Your father acts rashly and it doesn’t help to have your grandmother whispering things into his ear.”

“What do you think he’ll do?” I asked nervously. I was relieved my mother wasn’t angry with me. She lay on her side, my baby sister next to her. I resisted the urge to curl up with them.

“Men are unpredictable creatures,” she said, her voice tired and defeated. “God knows what he’ll do.”

CHAPTER 15

S
hekiba faced a new dilemma. She wanted to take the deed to the local
hakim
but she didn’t know if Azizullah would allow such an act. Maybe he would. Men were, after all, unpredictable creatures.

She decided against asking Azizullah for permission but that meant she needed to get herself to the town’s
hakim
. She had overheard his name in conversations between Azizullah and his brother, Hafizullah, but she had no inkling where she would find this man. Then there was the issue of getting to him. What possible excuse could she make this time?

“How was your visit with your family?” Marjan asked.

“It was pleasant,” Shekiba answered. She was elbow-deep in hot, sudsy water, washing the children’s clothes.

“And how was Bobo Shahgul? Is she in good health?”

“Yes,” said Shekiba.
Unfortunately,
she thought.

“And the rest of the family? Did you see everyone? All your uncles?”

“I saw Kaka Zalmai, Sheeragha and Freidun. My other two uncles are still away in the army.”

Marjan stood over her, a finger on her lip as she pondered something. Shekiba purposely avoided her gaze.

“You know, I ran into Zarmina-
jan,
your uncle’s wife, at the
hammam
last week. She told me that she was surprised that you wanted to visit your family for Eid.”

Shekiba’s neck muscles tightened.

“She said that you did not adjust well to Bobo Shahgul’s house after your father’s death.”

Khala Zarmina. What are you up to?

“Were you angry to be sent here?”

Shekiba shook her head.

“Well, I hope not. This was an arrangement that everybody agreed to so I hope that you are not intending to carry out the same kind of behaviors here in this home.”

Shekiba felt a fire burn in her belly. “This is a different place,” she said in a bitter voice.

“Good. Just be warned that we do not tolerate disrespectful behavior. I will not have my children learning… such things!”

Shekiba nodded.

But Marjan was uncomfortable with her. Maybe Khala Zarmina had said something more.

She prepared the family’s dinner and ate quietly in the kitchen. She liked to listen to the children bickering with each other. Amid the din, she heard Marjan tell Azizullah that she had something she needed to discuss with him later.

Shekiba knew it would be about her.

In the night she heard Marjan’s soft yelps and knew that Azizullah was taking his wife. This was something Shekiba had learned in her grandmother’s house. From where she slept in the kitchen, she could hear the same grunts and pants through the wall and would see Kaka Zalmai emerge from their room refreshed while Samina avoided Shekiba’s gaze and busied herself with her children. The women often joked about it when the children were out of earshot but they did not mind Shekiba hearing them.