Words in the Dust (8 page)

The conversation went on and on. Gulzoma, Jamila, Mariam, or one of the others would ask Farida or Tayereh questions. Answers would follow. Farida would ask something else. Someone would answer. Mixed into this would be the occasional family story, usually told by Gulzoma or Jamila. Several times I saw some of the Abdullahs staring at my mouth. Some of them even looked and then whispered to each other, looks of pity or disgust on their faces. I found myself wishing these people would leave.

Finally, a long car horn sounded outside the compound. Gulzoma put her hands on her hips and frowned. “Ah, that must be the men come to take us home.”

“Leave it to them to put a stop to all the fun,” said Jamila.

Gulzoma stood up. It was a signal to everyone else to do the same. She beamed at Malehkah. “Tashakor. Such a wonderful night!” Other women agreed and offered compliments, but Gulzoma didn’t seem to notice them. “Zulaikha, you poor little thing.” She took my face in her hands and peered at my mouth. I did my best to look as though it didn’t bother me. “Maybe the Americans
can
fix this. Maybe even in time for the wedding? Ooh.” She let go of me, shook her head, and wiped her hands on her dress. “I certainly hope so.” Chadris were passed around from where they were piled in the corner. “Zeynab, you are absolutely beautiful. Tahir is such a lucky man. Khuda hafiz!” Gulzoma led the party of chadri-covered women out of the compound, where cars waited to take them all home.

When Tahir’s family had all gone, I pressed my chador over my mouth hard, staring at the door after them so that Malehkah’s family wouldn’t see the tears welling up in my eyes.

“Hey,” Zeynab whispered. She stood behind me with her hand on my shoulder.

“Girls, make sure the dishes are done before you go to bed,” said Malehkah. I heard her talking with her mother and sister as they headed back to the house.

“Are you okay?” Zeynab asked.

Her touch comforted me. It helped me remember what was really important tonight. I smiled the best I could and turned to face my sister. “I’m fine.”

“But Gulzoma —”

“Is lucky she doesn’t have to do all these dishes.” I put my arm around Zeynab. “Come on.” We started the long task of cleaning up after the shirnee-khoree.

Early the next morning, after Malehkah’s family had driven back to Shindand, Zeynab and I went to work cleaning the sitting room before the day’s terrible heat set in. I would never have imagined that women could be so messy. They’d spilled a surprising amount of the spiced mutton sauce. Worse, cake crumbs and a few orange peels were starting to draw ants.

Zeynab dipped her rag in the bucket of soapy water and slopped it on the floor. “You always hear women say that engagement and marriage are supposed to be so magical, but for a while last night, everything felt pretty tense.”

“Well.” I doused my rag in the now-dirty soapy water and scrubbed at a spot of dried red spice sauce. I wished there was a way I could just forget the stares and Gulzoma’s thinly disguised cruelty. Even if I couldn’t, it was my job to make Zeynab happy. “It all worked out for the best.”

Zeynab wiped the sweat from her brow. “At least I’m not being matched to that horrible Anwar.” She laughed.

I frowned and shook my head. I could not join her in her little joke. Anwar was mean and scary, not funny.

Cold water splashed the back of my neck and I jumped up. “Zeynab!”

My sister giggled, shaking with laughter as she held the rag up to cover her big grin. “You deserve it, Little Miss Gloomy.”

“How could I be gloomy?” I said, trying to shove aside any unpleasant thoughts. “You’re getting married, and I may actually get my mouth fixed. What could be better?”

“I’ll miss you so much, and …” Her eyes were wild and I knew she was dreaming up a thousand possibilities. “And I wish maybe my husband will have a handsome hardworking cousin or someone. Isma was nice. Maybe she has a son. Or Baba-jan could match you up with someone else in my husband’s family.” She wrung out her rag and wiped her brow. “Then maybe you and I could live together. Raise our kids together.”

It was the old fantasy. I went and put my arm around my sister. Whenever Zeynab used to talk like this, I would always shake my head. After all, who would want to marry a girl with a mouth like mine? But now, I dared to dream along with my sister.

“It’s all incredible,” said Zeynab. “You’ll have your surgery and then you’ll be even more beautiful. You’ll be worn out cleaning and cooking for all the people who want you to marry their sons.” She took a deep breath, as if trying to calm herself. “Anyway,” she said, “we must have faith that life will all work out. Inshallah, Zulaikha.”

“Inshallah.” I smiled back. God willing.

For a long moment, it was very quiet in the hot sitting room.

Finally, Zeynab looked into the bucket. “This water is no good. Whatever soap was in it is dead now. We’re not doing anything but getting the dirt wet and stirring it around on the floor. I’ll get fresh water.”

“No,” I said. “I’ll get it.” I was surprised that the water was so dirty already. I had put in all the soap we had left. It was part of my plan to see Meena again.

Malehkah glared at me suspiciously when I said we were out of soap, but she finally handed over the money and sent me to the bazaar. After she’d given me her usual warnings to behave and to hurry, I headed down the street with a smile that I hoped wouldn’t be twisted for much longer.

“Ah, child, I was wondering when I would see you again,” Meena said in her worn leather voice as I entered her sewing shop. “I’m glad you’ve come. I was just about to take a break. Join me for a cup of tea?”

I helped her hang a bolt of fabric on a wooden rack before she led me back to her apartment. I felt as though I’d slipped back in time. Nothing had changed. The same small apartment. The same cup of tea. And Meena’s same warm smile.

Letting go of my chador, I took a sip of my tea, using the cup to cover my mouth. Somehow she’d steeped the tea at just the right temperature, so I could throw back my head to keep the tea in my mouth without burning myself. It tasted wonderful, spicy and sweet. She didn’t seem to even notice the strange way I had to drink.

“So your sister is engaged.” The teacher sat on her bed again, one hand to her back and the other carefully steadying her cup. “And the Americans want to operate on your mouth.”

I looked up from my tea. How could she have known all that? She shook with a soft laugh. “You don’t need to look so mystified, child. Gossip travels fast, especially among the women for whom I sew. You must be excited.”

I wasn’t quite used to open talk with anyone but my sister. “I am excited. It’s all so wonderful.” I took another sip. “I never knew that anyone could do anything for my mouth. Now the Americans come and tell me they will fix it. It is … I …”

I didn’t know what else to say. We both drank in silence.

Finally, Meena spoke. “Tell me, child, why do you want this surgery?”

“Why?” I nearly choked on my tea. I checked to make sure she wasn’t teasing me. “I want to be normal. I don’t want to look like a baby bird when I eat. I want —”

“To be like everyone else?”

“Yes! If I didn’t have this …” I motioned to my mouth with my free hand. “… then I wouldn’t talk wrong like I do. Then maybe Malehkah wouldn’t be so mean to me, and she and Baba wouldn’t have as much trouble finding me a husband one day. Maybe I wouldn’t be so much of a burden.” I thought of the way I’d felt last night when Gulzoma and everyone had paid so much attention to my split lip and crooked teeth. If I had looked normal, the party might have
been more fun. I wiped my eyes with my chador, surprised that I’d said so much. Surprised that I was crying.

Meena stood up and crossed the room. She took a cloth bundle down from a shelf on the wall. When she returned, she held the bundle in her lap like a baby. “Your mother never thought you were a burden.” Meena pulled back the old cloth. Inside was an ancient-looking book with a leather cover. She carefully opened the book, sliding her hands down the delicate pages. I watched the graceful swirls of letters between her fingers. “Your mother loved literature. But she loved you more. She wanted you to know both of her loves.”

“I remember,” I whispered.

She handed me a pencil and a small sheet of paper on a board. “Show me.” She spoke gently.

“I only know a few words,” I said. “But I’ve been practicing my letters.”

“Good!” She smiled. “That’s a start.”

“Bale, Muallem-sahib.” It felt right, somehow, to call her my teacher. She closed her eyes with a contented look on her face, gently placing her hand on my arm to encourage me.

I wrote my letters and the few small words I could remember.
Cow. Wall. Moon. Love. Zulaikha.
I tried to think of more.

“Good,” she said in a low, quiet voice. “That’s very good after so long. Your memory is excellent.” She showed me a page of the book. “Now, child, copy these words. Do not worry if you cannot understand it all. By copying the page again and again, you’ll make the link between the sounds
of the letters and the words they form. You’ll understand in time.”

She read the lines out loud, tracing her finger from right to left along the words as she read them, first slowly as I copied, then once more, faster, so that it all began to make sense. On her third reading, she asked me to say the words with her, keeping time with her finger. Then we read it together again, and I could tell we were both losing ourselves in the language:

“It’s sad,” I said, when we finished our last reading. “It’s about sadness and sorrow.”

Muallem nodded. “It is about endings and death. And yet, Firdawsi’s epic
Shahnameh
has lived for over a thousand years.”

I wanted to explain the way I felt when I heard her read the old poem, but I was not good with words the way Muallem was. “It’s sad,” I repeated. “But … the words have a pretty sadness.”

“Indeed, they do, child.”

“When I hear them … I feel an ache …” I put my hand over my heart. “… right here. But at the same time, I want to hear more.”

I looked down at the words I’d written on the paper. Words that were at once a thousand years old and yet completely new. I held them to my chest, but did not feel foolish for doing so. Somehow I felt Muallem would understand. My mother could write and read, this poem and more. I wanted to learn to do that too.

A car honked from a few streets away and I jumped. When I looked at my muallem, she looked startled as well. We both laughed.

“I need to go,” I said.

“You’ll be missed at home,” said Meena. “Practice copying the words. Think of the sounds of the letters and the words as you copy. Start on the back of the paper, then find a way to practice over and over. Use a rock on cement. Trace the words in the dust.”

I stuffed the paper and little pencil into the pocket of my dress. “Tashakor.”

Meena smiled, clapping her hands together once. “You were born to be a great student. It is your destiny.”

I rushed to buy the soap as quickly as I could, then I took the back roads home to avoid Anwar. When I scrambled, out of breath, into the central room of our house, my legs shook and my hands trembled. Malehkah was stroking Habib’s hair, trying to get the little one to lie down for a nap.

She looked up at me and scowled. “That took you a long time. Go help your sister. She’s in back, beating the dust from the toshaks.”

“Bale, Madar!” I hurried for the door.

In the back courtyard, Khalid was doing his best to help Zeynab in one of the only chores he would agree to do. She had hung the floppy red sitting-room cushions over the clothesline and was using the stick of our only broom to beat the dust out of them. Khalid made fighting noises as he tried to kick and punch the dirt from a toshak on the end.

“Let me help you,” I greeted my sister.

She took a few steps toward me. “What took you so long? Where did you go?”

“I just … the crowd. There were a lot of people there. And the bargaining took forever.” The words came out of my twisted mouth almost before I had decided to lie. It was the very first time I had ever truly lied to my sister.

I told myself that I couldn’t let her know the truth. She thought it was a waste of time for girls to go to school. Of course she would disapprove. She probably wouldn’t tell Baba. She certainly wouldn’t involve Malehkah. But I still wor
ried that if anyone else knew about my visits with Meena and about my lessons, I might lose my chance to learn. I didn’t want all of that taken away from me before I’d even really explored it. Meena and her lessons and the poetry were all mine.

Zeynab narrowed her eyes and frowned, handing me the broom and pulling a toshak off the rope. She didn’t say anything for a moment. She just looked at me. Then suddenly she laughed, whipped the toshak through the air, and beat me with it.

“Hey!” I waved the dust from my face. “You’re dewana.”

We worked the rest of the morning like nothing had changed for either of us, talking and laughing and doing our best to make our chores into games.

I was patching part of the front compound wall with Torran’s dung when Baba and Najib came home later that afternoon. They looked sweaty and tired, with black smears and dirt on their clothes, but Baba had a sparkle of happiness in his eyes. He and Najib stopped near me.

“Zulaikha,” said Baba. “I spoke with Hajji Abdullah this morning at the construction site. He says his brother Tahir talked to the Americans. They were so excited that they had Tahir call the hajji on his satellite telephone with the news. The Americans have arranged for a helicopter to fly you to Kandahar for your surgery in one week.”

Kandahar? In all this talk of my surgery, nobody had mentioned having to travel all the way to Kandahar. Certainly there had been no talk of flying there!

Baba must have seen the worry in my expression. He gently tilted my face up to look at him as he smiled big. “Hajji Abdullah himself has offered to oversee the job site here in An Daral while I am away. I will drive you to Farah and then go all the way to Kandahar with you! It will be a great adventure!”

“Bale, Baba.” I put one hand over my mouth and the other over my pounding chest. Did I hear him correctly? Just one week? That would mean I could have a normal mouth in time for Zeynab’s wedding. I could be done with my donkey face next week! Allahu Akbar! What could I say to my wonderful father for this miracle? I threw myself at him and wrapped my arms around him. “Tashakor.”