A House Without Windows

by Nadia Hashimi

  There were stairs in the hallway. If she could get to the top of the building and jump off, she could end this ordeal now. Would they bury her next to Kamal? Husbands and wives were supposed to be reunited in the afterlife, she’d heard. But God couldn’t possibly be that cruel, could He?

  You’re mine forever, my husband would say

  But I’m certain we’ll be parted come Judgment Day.

  Zeba longed to be that bird of solitude she’d sung about just days ago. The melody replayed in her head and calmed her enough that she remembered to breathe. To be alone was to be free.

  KAMAL HAD TRIED TO SAY HER NAME, BUT HE HADN’T BEEN ABLE to get it out. He couldn’t even say her name one last time. There was something profoundly sad about that, Zeba thought.

  She’d seen the darkness very clearly that day, crisp and stark against the sun’s brilliance. Like steam, it seeped out of his pores, a thousand tiny clouds that merged into one, weaving around his twitching arms and legs. Slowly, the twitching stopped, and the dark cloud began to unravel. It uncoiled and traced a path along Kamal’s leg, around his hip, and up to his chest where it coaxed the last breath from Kamal’s lungs. It swarmed around his face. Zeba saw it, so clearly and vividly she could have grabbed it if she’d dared. Kamal’s face began to droop under the weight of it. As the seconds ticked by, the darkness slid along the ground and melted into the earth behind the outhouse.

  Would it come back for her? For her children?

  Rima was crying. Zeba could not rise to her feet. She could not face her daughter with the splotches of blood on her hands and face. And although he looked utterly lifeless, Zeba knew now that Kamal was not a person to be trusted, even in death. She needed to watch over him—to make sure he did not twitch his way back to life. Rima would have to wait. Zeba was doing the best she could for her. She could imagine Rima, alone in the kitchen, crawling around in search of her mother.

  Shhh, Zeba had whispered from behind the house. Sweet girl, don’t cry. Piece of my heart, don’t cry. Something terrible has happened but we cannot cry about it.

  Zeba watched for the darkness. She made sure it didn’t come back around the corner and slither back into their home where Rima bawled, uncomprehending.

  Basir’s voice rang through the courtyard. He was calling out to her. Her children were home. He would find her soon enough.

  Allah had ninety-nine names. He was the Merciful, the Beneficent, the Protector. He was also the Reckoner, the Forgiver, the Avenger. He was the All-Knowing and the Witness.

  Zeba bit her tongue. She wouldn’t pray to Him until she knew which of those names to choose from. But if she couldn’t pray, was she not already damned?

  “KHANUM? KHANUM! ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?”

  Zeba’s breaths shortened, sharpened. Her legs felt like lead, and the walls of the judge’s office seemed to bend inward as if they were being pushed from the outside. How was that possible?

  Something rose in her chest, clawing its way to the surface, hungry for air. She tightened every muscle and tried to push it back down, to bury it for just a little while longer, but it refused to be tamed.

  “Khanum, did you hear what I said? Have you anything to . . .”

  Zeba’s head lifted. Yusuf’s mouth slipped open in a dumbfounded stare reminiscent of Kamal’s last moments. The prosecutor put down his cup of tea and watched through narrowed eyes.

  A tingling sensation crept up from the tips of Zeba’s fingers to her hands. By the time it reached her shoulders, Zeba was no longer in control. She opened her mouth and a piercing howl erupted, quite indecorously, in the qazi’s office.

  CHAPTER 13

  ZEBA WAS FORCIBLY RESTRAINED AND LED BACK TO HER CELL AT the women’s prison. Nafisa had stuffed her cell phone into her pillowcase at the sound of the door opening, not wanting it to be confiscated again. Zeba’s cellmates gawked at the sight of the guards dragging her limp frame onto the bed, where she curled up on her side and faced the wall, shutting her eyes to their stares and falling into a deep slumber. She slept all afternoon, through the evening, and into morning. She did not waken for breakfast or lunch. Nafisa and Mezhgan sat on the edge of the bed and whispered about her. Latifa’s round face loomed just inches from Zeba’s, peering at her with irreverent curiosity.

  “What are you doing? Get away from her face!”

  “I want to see if she’s breathing. A dead cellmate will stink this place up really quickly,” Latifa whispered.

  “She’s sleeping, you goat,” Nafisa hissed. “Let her sleep as long as she wants. She’s not much different when she’s awake. The judge thinks she’s a little crazy. That’s what the guard said.”

  In the evening, just as her cellmates were finishing dinner, Zeba opened her eyes. Her limbs and neck felt stiff. Zeba sat up slowly, feeling her head spin.

  Latifa scoffed.

  “Our roommate has risen from the dead. A little late for dinner but I’m not complaining,” she declared and slid another ball of rice into her mouth. “You’re back just in time to hear the big news. Our darling Nafisa passed her test! Her purity has been confirmed!” Latifa threw a heavy arm around Nafisa’s shoulders while the poor girl’s face turned a splotchy red.

  “Latifa!” she protested, throwing the arm off her and turning away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Mezhgan shook her head.

  “You’re a bully, Latifa. Leave the girl alone. She’s been through enough, spreading her legs for that stupid doctor.”

  Latifa grinned but said nothing more.

  “I’m happy for you, Nafisa.” Zeba’s voice was somber.

  “Yes,” Mezhgan said sweetly. “You’ve got your honor. There’s hope for you now. And, Khanum Zeba, you will enjoy this. I even wrote a couplet for her!

  “Innocence is a word that can only be spoken

  If your womanly veil has yet to be broken.”

  Zeba felt her lips lift in smile. Her couplets had always been a solitary habit, a private escape. It was surprisingly enjoyable to hear someone else join in.

  “Well, don’t get too comfortable,” Latifa warned. “Who knows? The doctor might have taken your honor while he was in there.”

  Nafisa’s eyes watered. She would forever be the tramp who’d been imprisoned for premarital sex, regardless of the doctor’s final statement in her case file. Would the widower want her as a wife after a flashlight had been shone on the place only one man was meant to claim? She flopped onto her bed and buried her face in a balled-up blanket. The women listened to her cry, mourning along with her.

  YUSUF RETURNED THE NEXT DAY.

  Women and their hysterics, one of the guards had muttered as she checked him in. When Yusuf looked up at her with a distinctly unamused expression, she picked up a pen and turned away to adjust the belt on her olive jacket.

  Everyone knew about Zeba’s outburst. She had raged for nearly a half hour, her fingers digging into her scalp and tearing at her dress.

  Yusuf had jumped to his feet when Zeba had created that scene. He would have been more embarrassed had he not seen the qazi and the prosecutor look just as bewildered by his client’s explosion.

  Zeba could see a change in him. Yusuf’s voice was controlled. He chose his words carefully.

  “What are you not telling me?”

  Zeba brought her hand to her forehead and closed her eyes. She would scream her story for all to hear if she thought anything good would come of it.

  “Khanum, with all due respect, you have to tell me what happened that day. Tell me what kind of man your husband was. Did he beat you? Did he try to kill you? Did he beat the children? Was he a drug addict?”

  How hopeful you sound, thought Zeba.

  “Don’t look at me like a child. Don’t tell me I’m a foreigner. I was born in this country too. I come from the same land, the same people. I know how things go. For anyone, anyone to have come forward and said anything in your defense is some kind of miracle. Talk to me so I can defend you or tell me t
here’s nothing to defend so I can explain that to your brother and walk away.”

  Yusuf held his breath. The more time he spent around Zeba, the more bizarre her behavior, the more he believed that she was worth defending. And that, more than anything, was what made Zeba look on him as a child and a foreigner.

  “My brother?” Zeba said absently.

  “Yes, your brother, Rafi. He told me you were wronged. From what I can see, it’s hard to understand why he would say that. I’ve heard the description of the scene, and you offer no other explanation for being found next to your husband’s body. Maybe Rafi doesn’t want to see anything happen to his youngest sister, but it looks like he’s going to be very disappointed very soon.”

  Rafi was five years older than her. When their father had wandered off, Rafi became a father figure to his younger sister. Their mother came to rely on him for everything from putting food in their bellies to representing their family at funerals. Rafi went along with his grandfather Safatullah’s plan for Zeba to marry Kamal. He saw no real reason to object.

  “Was my mother there too?”

  “Who?”

  “My mother. Did she come with Rafi?”

  “No, why?”

  Zeba said nothing. She closed her eyes and pictured her mother’s soft face, her incredible golden-green eyes, and the way the corners of her mouth lifted just slightly when she spoke. Zeba felt a sudden yearning to be at her mother’s side, to fall at her feet and press her face against her mother’s hands.

  “Who came?” Zeba asked. “You said someone came from my village. Who was it?”

  “I don’t know. The qazi didn’t give me a name. He didn’t tell me if there was any connection to you either. It could be a neighbor, a friend, a family member. Maybe you have an idea who it might have been.”

  Zeba didn’t.

  “All the judge would tell me was that the person said you were innocent. That your husband met an unfortunate fate and that your children needed their mother returned to them.”

  Zeba winced at the mention of her children.

  “Have you heard anything about my children?”

  Yusuf shrugged and shook his head. At least she was talking.

  “Not much, unfortunately. I know they are with relatives. I wish I could tell you more.”

  Kamal’s sister. The family was undoubtedly plotting her death and turning her children against her. The prison didn’t allow any children over seven years of age. Regardless, Kamal’s family would have claimed the children, and she, even as mother, couldn’t contest their claim.

  “I want to see them.”

  “I don’t know if that’s possible. I have no way of reaching out to them.”

  Zeba knew just how impossible it was. Every day she became more certain it was useless to argue for her innocence. It would be better to relent and accept whatever punishment the qazi issued. Without her children, there was nothing left for her. Her husband’s family would surely kill her even if she were freed.

  “Why are you here? Do you really think there’s a way to defend me?” Zeba was oddly calm as she posed the question to Yusuf.

  “I’m here because the answer to that question is yes. We’ve got everything stacked against us to be very honest. But I still think there’s a chance if you’ll just talk to me about the day your husband died.”

  Zeba stared at the table; she shook her head.

  The day your husband died.

  Zeba noticed, as Yusuf hoped she would, that he had not assumed her guilt.

  “You come here with your briefcase, pieces of paper . . . forms filled out. You have a notebook you can’t seem to live without, eyeglasses that are from another country. Maybe you’ve seen things in your young life, something that makes you think all that can do something. Makes you think there’s something more than the qazi, more than the Qur’an, more than the people around us. There is nothing more. There is nothing in your bag that can change what happened. The village saw my husband with a hatchet to his head. They saw his blood on my hands, sir.”

  Yusuf stared at Zeba. Her shoulders had straightened. She was sitting upright on the edge of her chair. Her chin trembled slightly though her voice was steeled.

  Yusuf felt his designer-brand titanium frames pinch the bridge of his nose. He resisted the urge to take them off and rub away their imprint. He also kept his eyes off his notepad. For now, he would just listen.

  “I lost my children the day I was taken away, the day my husband . . . They are with his family now. They will be fed and clothed and told of their mother’s sins. Am I to tear them apart with my claims? Curious eyes are on them now. They are orphans. Orphans. Am I to turn them against the only people looking after them now? Am I to make my children targets just because I’m desperate for them? They deserve better from their mother. The only thing I can do for them now is to let them go. My son is strong and wise. God will lead him.”

  Zeba slumped back into her chair, exhausted. She’d spent moonlit hours twisting and turning the situation around in her mind, exploring every angle, every potential end to the tragic story of Zeba and Kamal and their children. Zeba prayed, not with the usual ritual of prostrations and cupped hands, but with a desperate stillness.

  Oh merciful Allah—their fates are in your hands. My fate is in your hands. Everything is in your hands, dear God, isn’t it? But then . . . are your hands not bloody, oh all-knowing Allah?

  Zeba shook her head. Was she stupid? Had she learned nothing from her years as Gulnaz’s daughter? As the granddaughter of the pious murshid?

  Yusuf watched her face. He saw her mind, saw her for the first time not as a client or a defendant. He’d been exasperated by her lack of fight, baffled by her submission, as if she was content to live her life in this prison or even be executed for the crime she probably did commit. But he saw now that she was fighting, probably harder than any client he’d ever had. Yusuf saw the flame in her eye. His mind churned.

  “You’re not going to help me defend you.”

  Zeba’s breathing was steady, resolute.

  If Yusuf was going to defend this woman, he was going to have to do it on his own.

  “I did not ask you here. You can tell Rafi that I did not cooperate. He can save his money.”

  Yusuf remembered his last conversation with Rafi. He didn’t have much money and knew that his sister’s case was dismal. Yusuf had reassured him. The legal aid organization would take on her defense. There was still hope.

  He leaned in.

  “Then why not make it simple? Why not plead guilty to the crime? Just one visit with the qazi and you’ll save us all a lot of trouble.”

  His tone was not antagonizing or patronizing, nor did he look ready to walk away. He was curious.

  Zeba met his stare. He was asking the question Zeba asked herself a thousand times over. Why not take the final step and declare herself guilty before the qazi did? Why prolong this misery?

  “Well?”

  Zeba looked at Yusuf, his bright eyes and thick hair. She saw decency in him. She saw an earnestness that she’d never seen in anyone before and didn’t understand. That was what felt so foreign about him, along with his thin framed lenses.

  She couldn’t answer that question. Was it because confessing to this crime felt wrong? Was it because she didn’t want her children to hear the words? Maybe it was because she secretly hoped Yusuf would find a way to help her. The questions were too much. She turned away.

  “You’re not ready to give up,” Yusuf concluded, nodding his head. He was digging his heels into this case when every attorney at the office was telling him not to waste his time. “I don’t know the reason. Maybe it’s a simple one. Or maybe it’s complicated. But you don’t want to say you’re guilty. And that’s all I need right now. I can work with this.”

  Yusuf’s mind raced. He would have to be creative. His foot pressed against the floor as if it were an accelerator.

  Zeba closed her eyes. What was she doing to this boy? Was
it wrong to pull him into this mess? He was so young, too young to share in this bloody mess. It would surely ruin him, and she would be the one to blame.

  CHAPTER 14

  GULNAZ KNEW HE’D SEEN HER COMING UP THE HILL. HIS CHAIR was positioned under the shade of the chinar tree, a position that put him right in the way of visitors to the shrine. The ziyarat, tall and majestic, loomed over his humble desk, a slab of wood on a crate. When she got close enough that he could be sure his eyes were not deceiving him, he put his teacup down, interested. He’d expected her to walk past his open-air studio without a pause in her step.

  Jawad watched her careful steps, her generous head scarf hiding her hair and delicate shoulders. The rest of the world could decay and crumble, and much of it had, but time dared not touch Gulnaz.

  Gulnaz was still a beautiful woman, even with her fifty-some years. Jawad’s chest tightened to think of her milk white complexion and bewitching green eyes. He shook his head and, for the thousandth time in his life, regretted that he lacked the power to make his own wishes come true.

  Jawad pulled three tiny squares of paper from his leather pouch. Just like the others, Gulnaz was seeking something.

  “Salaam-ulaikum,” she said, trying not to sound as breathless as she was. Her back was straight and confident, but her kohl-rimmed eyes darted behind her occasionally. No doubt, her son had no idea where she was.

  “Wa-alaikum al-salaam,” he replied. Gulnaz hadn’t called on his services in years. Jawad was curious what dilemma might have brought in the town’s most beguiling widow. The breeze teased wisps of jet black hair out from beneath her head scarf.

  It was midmorning, a time between prayers. A few people wandered through the arched porticoes and coiled pilasters. No one noticed Gulnaz, daughter of their beloved spiritual leader. Jawad knew the murshid well and was one of the few people in town not utterly devoted to him. He smiled to think what the great Safatullah would say to see his daughter calling on him.

  “What can I do for you, Khanum?”