Kaka Mateen claimed he’d gone to fight in the war, but he’d actually run off to Iran. Khala Shokria swore she’d made fried potato flatbreads just for him, but he knew she’d bought them from the street vendor. His mother claimed to love all her children equally, but Basir could see that Shabnam claimed more of her heart than the rest of them.
Basir didn’t point out the lies. He knew better than to contradict his relatives. He simply nodded and tightened his lips so nothing disrespectful would slip out.
This decision to distrust complicated Basir’s life. Everything that was told to him had to be tested. Sometimes he wished he could be more accepting, but when he sensed holes in a story, he could not rest until he’d put his eye to each tiny opening and made sure he saw all that there was to see. Truth became an obsession, and vetting became a compulsion. That compulsion was what brought him to keep a secret box within the grove of trees in Ama Tamina and Kaka Fareed’s small yard.
Months before he’d walked into his house to find his father’s head cracked open, Basir had heard from a friend that scorpion mothers ate their young. For Basir, who had seen dogs nuzzle their pups and mother hens coddling newborn chicks, this seemed unnatural. Scorpions were admittedly nasty creatures but that didn’t quite explain why they would disrupt the God-ordained order of things. Mothers spent their energy creating and caring for babies. Even scorpion mothers shouldn’t consume their offspring. It was backward and couldn’t be true.
Basir set out to unearth the truth for himself.
After nine days of turning over rocks, he found a pregnant, tawny-colored scorpion and nudged her into a box. Her tail curled up as she darted left and right, but there was nowhere to go. Basir had put a heavy rock over the top of the box so she wouldn’t be able to escape and kept it behind the outhouse of his home, where no one in his family would dare to look. It was dangerous, he knew, but his curiosity demanded he take the risk.
He threw scraps of food into the box every couple of days and used a long stick to poke at the scorpion from a safe distance. She hated him for keeping her captive. Basir could see it in the poise of her tail, the vindictive posture she assumed when he lifted the box cover.
She would kill him if he gave her the slightest chance. But her own babies? Basir was still skeptical.
Day after day, he would check on his captive. Every time he was done with his observations, he would shut the lid of the box and replace the heavy stone that kept the scorpion trapped within. The box itself lay well out of sight, in an ignored corner of the lot. Still, its presence made him nervous and he wished the insect would hurry her babies along so he could bring his experiment to a close.
When he’d walked into their courtyard that day, Basir had thought for the shortest of seconds that his scorpion might have been responsible for the gory scene. It was as if he’d half expected that his need to test something as dangerous as a scorpion would, one day, cost him the life of someone in his family. Basir walked into his home and smelled death and destruction that day. He’d nearly fallen to his knees with the weight of it, believing it to be his own doing—until he’d seen the hatchet.
When Basir and his sisters had been sent to live with Ama Tamina, Basir’s scorpion was still in her box.
Basir walked out of Ama Tamina’s house one evening and without explicitly planning to, his feet plodded their way back to his family’s home. It was nearly dark, and no one noticed the slight young boy slip through his front gate.
He stood in the front yard, motionless. He half expected his mother or father to emerge from the doorway of the house, sipping tea and chastising him for being out after dark. No one came out. Basir stepped over the threshold and was met with the pungent smell of rotting onions. It felt oddly comforting to a boy who was likely expecting to detect something far worse. His mother’s brass mortar and pestle lay on a square of newspaper, a small mound of cardamom beside it. Rima’s pink knit blanket lay crumpled by the wall.
Basir took a few more steps into the home. For years, he’d been told to stay within these walls, scolded for staying away too long in the afternoons. Now it felt wrong to stand here. He peered into the small room his parents had once shared. His father’s wool hat and scarf lay on the dresser that was missing one knob. Their sleeping cushions lay on the cold floor, their pillows marking their places like tombstones.
He stared at the space as if it were an old photograph. Why did they decide to live away from the rest of the family? Basir had heard his parents argue. He’d heard his father’s rage and seen the way his mother had reeled from his blows. Basir had believed his mother to be meek but devoted, exasperating but well-meaning. His father had a violent temper, but why couldn’t his mother, after all their years of marriage, avoid triggering his fury? Had his cowed mother finally had enough? Had she stood her ground in one grand gesture of defiance?
Basir hadn’t really known his parents all that well, he admitted to himself.
He stepped through the back door and into the yard, two meters away from where his father’s body had lain, the earth still darkened where his head had been. The neglected pot of peppermint stalks and the chili pepper plant had dried, leaves curled and browned and scattered in half circles at their bases. The dried red peppers looked like tiny, crinkled daggers. His mother’s rosebush, in the corner of the yard, was the sole survivor. It seemed oblivious to all that had transpired in its presence.
Cocking his ear to the sky, Basir strained to hear anything. There was only the distant sound of the neighbor’s television. He imagined them watching their favorite programs, drinking tea, snacking on almonds, and playing cards—as if nothing had happened. Had they heard anything that day? Did they know more about his family’s undoing than he did?
Basir moved toward the outhouse, careful the soles of his shoes did not tread where his father had fallen. Tucked behind the back wall of the outhouse was the small box. Basir removed the stone anchoring its lid. He lifted the box and listened for signs of life.
All was still.
He took the box to the center of the courtyard where the glow of a full moon fell upon it. He lifted the top and gasped.
The mother scorpion was very much alive, her back heavy with baby scorplings, two dozen pale beetle-ish creatures. Basir broke off a twig from the rosebush and poked at the mother. Her pincers snapped and she moved to the side of the box, her tail curled in readiness.
No, Basir thought, even the babies of scorpions could rest assured they had their mother’s love.
He should have destroyed the whole lot. There was no room for mercy when it came to creatures who could kill grown men with a twitch of the tail. Basir should have doused the mother and her babies with cooking oil and thrown a matchstick at them. It was an effective means of eliminating scorpions and provided decent entertainment for most children, listening to the pops and snaps of a scorpion’s shell cracking in the flames.
But Basir felt a bit of guilt. He’d kept her locked up and cornered for months only because he’d suspected that she just might go against all that seemed natural and consume her own young. He’d been wrong. Even scorpions knew how to mother.
He made the long walk back to Ama Tamina’s house with the box, hiding it in a grove behind the clay walls so that his cousins wouldn’t stumble upon it. It was riskier to keep it here. He would take the box to the edge of the village in the morning where there was nothing but rocky expanse and free them there.
Kaka Fareed was waiting for him in the courtyard. He’d made a habit of stopping by Ama Tamina’s house to ask for updates on Zeba’s case.
“Where have you been?”
Basir felt a heat rising in his chest. It took a great deal of strength not to run back out the front gate. He could still picture Kaka Fareed’s fingers around his mother’s neck.
“I was out for a walk,” he mumbled.
“Why didn’t your ama know where you were? You’re living in this house. You don’t come and go as you please.”
“I’ll apologize to her,” Basir said as he stepped toward the door. He wanted to leave before Kaka Fareed said anything more. This was the third time he’d dropped by since Basir and his sisters had come to their aunt’s home. Even she breathed a sigh of exasperation when he showed up.
Last time he was here, he’d called Zeba a thief and a murderer. Kamal had owed him money, he swore, and Zeba had probably killed him so she could pocket it all.
Basir didn’t need to do much investigating to know this was a lie.
When Kaka Fareed called his mother a cheat, Basir bit his lip. It was on the tip of his tongue to scream out that she was no such thing, but that’s not what came out. All he could do was shout for Kaka Fareed to stop talking about her.
“Where were you?” Kaka Fareed asked again. He sucked at his teeth and cocked his head.
“Nowhere, Kaka-jan. I was just walking. I wanted to get some air.”
“You’re as bad a liar as your mother,” he said snidely.
Basir bit his tongue so hard he tasted blood. Fareed began to rant, as if his anger had been mounting while he waited for Basir to return to the house.
“Just like your mother. Lies, lies, lies. Watch yourself or you’ll end up a criminal like her. That whore deserves to die. God help us with these judges and courts that sit on their asses all day instead of doing anything. We used to have real justice in this country. It’s gone now, and that bitch is getting fat in a prison while we look after orphans. She killed him. I should have killed her when I had the chance.”
Until now, Basir had done nothing more than leave the room when his father’s cousin went on tirades about his mother’s character. He and his sisters were dependent on their father’s family and Basir harbored a fear that they might be turned out onto the street if they spoke up on their mother’s behalf.
It was hard enough to hear Kaka Fareed call his mother a cheat or a murderer. It was quite another to hear her called a whore. Basir’s young pride rose up in defiance.
“Eat shit,” Basir said quietly but precisely, his body trembling. Kaka Fareed, without a second’s hesitation, landed a backhanded slap across Basir’s face.
“You son of a whore!”
Ama Tamina burst into the courtyard at the sound of her cousin’s booming voice. She saw Basir on the ground, his hands covering his face. She saw Fareed’s red-rimmed eyes glowering over him, ready to strike again. She stepped between them and flicked the end of her head scarf over her shoulder.
“Fareed, what’s happened?”
Kaka Fareed ignored her questions and kept his eyes trained on Basir.
“Both Kamal and his wife cheated me out of money. Now their freeloading kids are here, and this one has the nerve to talk back to me. I’ll teach you a lesson!”
Fareed lunged at Basir.
Ama Tamina stepped in front of him, her outstretched hands in protest.
“You will not touch him!” she shrieked.
Fareed was furious. Basir scrambled to get to his feet. His aunt was only half Fareed’s size.
“Cousin, move out of my way! This is between me and Kamal’s boy. Are you forgetting that they killed your brother?”
Ama Tamina’s voice shook, but she did not budge.
“You’re not here to defend Kamal’s honor. You hated him. The two of you couldn’t be in the same room together unless you were both too drunk to see straight.”
“Shut up!”
“It’s the truth. You come here now and want to recover some century-old debt from his children? Get out of my house. I don’t care if you are my cousin. I’m not going to let a drunk torture my nephew!”
Fareed brought himself within an inch of Ama Tamina’s face. It took every ounce of resolve she could muster not to step back.
“You crazy woman,” he said slowly. “You can’t talk to me like that!”
Basir stood next to his aunt. All this felt too familiar. It was the same tension he’d experienced in his own home on a thousand occasions.
“It’s my home and I’ll talk as I please!” Tamina responded.
What Fareed would have done next would remain unknown, for at that precise moment, Kaka Mateen emerged from the house. He’d heard the shouting and seen the way Fareed towered threateningly over his wife’s slight frame. He grabbed Fareed by the back of the neck and shoved him toward the door.
“What are you—” Fareed blurted.
“Get out of our house!” Mateen roared. Fareed threw his hands up in defeat.
“You deserve these children of dogs.”
Basir had never missed his mother as much as he did in that moment, in his aunt’s dark courtyard, the air thick with resentment and anger.
Fareed was gone. The girls were peering out the door, half faces looking out to see what had happened.
Ama Tamina cleared her throat.
“Girls, get back inside. It’s late and you should have been in bed already. Let’s go.” She shooed them back into the house. “There’s nothing more out here.”
“I . . . I’m sorry, Ama-jan,” Basir said hesitantly.
His father’s sister turned to face him, her lips drawn tight in anger. She had every reason to hate them. Kaka Fareed was right. She had lost her brother and their mother had been locked up for his murder. How could she not resent Zeba’s children?
“Stop,” she groaned. “That’s enough for tonight.”
Kaka Mateen put his hands on his hips.
“What was he so worked up about anyway?”
“This boy,” Tamina said quietly. “Coming in at this time of night and not saying where he’s been.”
“I . . . I just wanted to go for a walk,” he mumbled. “I should have told you, but I didn’t want to disturb anyone.”
“Fareed hated Kamal, and he’s taking out his anger on the rest of us now.” Tamina sighed. Her voice had steadied some.
Basir felt the urge to say something. His aunt had stepped forward on his behalf and he needed her to know that he appreciated that. If she decided to see him and his sisters as Zeba’s children and not her nieces and nephew, they would be in dire straits. He could not provide for his siblings. “Ama Tamina-jan, I . . . I just wanted to say sorry. I’m sorry this happened because of me. I know you’re upset with my mother but . . .”
“You don’t know anything,” Ama Tamina blurted in frustration. “You think it’s that simple but it’s not!”
Basir took a step back. It was exactly as he feared. Ama Tamina was the only person who’d offered to take them in, but even her kindness would have limits.
Kaka Mateen put a hand on his wife’s shoulder.
“Don’t get so worked up about it, Tamina. I’m going inside.”
The girls in the doorway parted so that he could pass. He barely looked at Shabnam and Kareema, touching only his daughters’ heads before telling them all to go to bed.
“You don’t understand,” Ama Tamina said in a voice that Basir heard only because the courtyard was stone silent. “You couldn’t possibly understand what your mother has done.”
Basir waited. Even when Ama Tamina had disappeared into the house, he stood unmoved. She would return, he anticipated, and tell them all to leave. Or maybe she was waiting for him inside the house. Maybe she was bundling their two sets of clothes by the light of a lantern so that she could rid herself of their presence by morning.
Basir sat on one of two plastic chairs.
What was Madar-jan doing now? Was she thinking of him and the girls? Did she have any idea how tenuous their situation was?
Why didn’t you tell everyone what happened, Madar-jan? There has to be a truth that will explain all this.
Truth. Basir knew more truths about his father than he cared to admit.
They tried to save each other, mother and son, but their mutinous efforts were rewarded with broader bruises, louder shouts, and harsher curses. Recalling the futility of it, Basir sometimes chose to shrink away when he felt the chilling wind of his father’s presence enterin
g their home. It may not have felt like the most honorable action to take, but it did minimize the damage.
In the year before his father had been killed, Basir had tried new tactics. Instead of allying himself with his mother, he began to reach out to his father. If his mother couldn’t figure out how not to rile his father’s anger, perhaps he could show her. Basir took it upon himself to dust off his father’s shoes in the morning, as if he were going to a city office instead of a blacksmith’s shop. He would bring his father a cup of tea and scrounge up whatever he could from the kitchen to place before Kamal as soon as he came home.
And Basir’s plan worked. Though he was barely an adolescent, he celebrated each peaceful day as a general would celebrate a strategic victory. He would smile at his mother and could not understand why she did not mirror his cheer. She looked wary. They did not talk about the delicate balance of power in their small home. It was the same in so many other homes dominated by heavy-handed fathers. Periods of peace were calms between storms.
It never lasted very long. Kamal was one of those men who needed to exert his strength to reassure himself he was capable of something. He needed to see his wife and children react to his presence to confirm he was in command. A man’s might was right because no one had ever told him otherwise. And Kamal had secrets, filthy shameful secrets. When he was inebriated or angry or preoccupied, he was quite able to forgive his sins. But there were rare moments, small awakenings of a deeper conscience he didn’t much care to face. In those moments, Kamal’s face would flush with shame, his spine would hunch with horror. It was unbearable. Kamal could not tolerate anyone pointing out even the smallest of his shortcomings because he sensed that it would undo him completely, in the way that pulling on a stray piece of yarn just so can turn a sweater back into a pile of string.
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